Earlier this year, Ford Motor Company claimed 100 miles of electric range was just fine, then turned on a dime and said no, no, that’s not right at all. 

The about-face on EV range came from CEO Mark Fields, who couldn’t have helped but notice the insane demand for Tesla’s Model 3 after it launched at the end of March. Now, the automaker wants to get serious about electrics with a two-car Model E line, Autocar reports. (Read More…)

Lawyers representing U.S. Volkswagen owners claim European auto parts supplier Bosch was a willing accomplice in the scheme to deceive diesel buyers and regulators.

The scandal forced the automaker into a $15.3 billion settlement in the U.S., but its corporate partners escaped relatively unscathed. That might not be the case anymore, Bloomberg reports. (Read More…)

Volvo is partnering with ride-hailing service Uber, a $300 million deal expected to spawn a fleet of self-driving vehicles on U.S. roads.

Both companies plan to develop their own autonomous technology using a Volvo “base” vehicle, but Pittsburgh will see a crop of self-driving Swedes by the end of the year, Automotive News reports. (Read More…)

A paranoid person, or maybe just a very cynical one, might have suspected the man of being a covert OEM plant. “Is that a Bentley?” asked a well-to-do looking gentleman outside our Kelowna, British Columbia hotel, where a line of Genesis G90s rested after our drive up from Vancouver. Had they been within earshot, the […]

Uber claims it conducts lengthy background checks for all of its would-be drivers, but an investigation conducted in the wake of an alleged Boston-area rape says otherwise.

Darnell Booth, 34, of Dorchester, Massachusetts stands accused of sexually assaulting a 16-year-old girl while working for the company. The crime, allegedly committed  in early July, gives anti-Uber foes another weapon, and calls the company’s vetting process into question. (Read More…)

Infiniti has a revolutionary new engine in the works that’s both a high-compression mileage-maker and a low-compression pavement burner, giving drivers the option of being lean or mean at any given time.

The world’s first variable compression engine, dubbed the VC-T, ate up 20 years of design work before Infiniti went public with its achievement. The automaker plans to unveil the revolutionary engine next month, at the Paris Auto Show. (Read More…)

Whether it’s a poorly tied-down college mattress taking flight like a ungraceful, soiled bird, or scrap metal launching itself out of a pickup bed after hitting a pothole, debris is piling up on U.S. roads, and drivers are dying because of it.

According to a study by the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety, crashes caused by road debris rose 40 percent in the past 15 years. America’s loads have never been looser. (Read More…)

The powers that be at Volkswagen aren’t big fans of the Pokémon Go app. While most people think of it as a fun and nerdy augmented reality game, the automaker’s executives see it as a one-way ticket to industrial espionage.

Because of this, Volkswagen’s 70,000 employees are forbidden from installing the app on their company phones, according to the German publication Bild (via Carscoops). (Read More…)

R.I.P. victory lap burnouts? It sure looks that way.

NASCAR seems to have reached a tipping point in its tolerance of post-race victory burnouts, some of which damage the vehicle enough to interfere with the post-race inspection process. After an incident last weekend, the organization says it might have to lay down rules, Autoblog reports. (Read More…)

Apple loves it when people buy its toys, but doesn’t appreciate it when other companies try to muscle into its technology playpen.

Whether the tech giant likes it or not, the Volkswagen-owned Seat brand just became the first automaker to design and market an app that is compatible with Apple CarPlay. (Read More…)

Two decades’ worth of Volkswagen Group vehicles are vulnerable to a simple, cheap hack that can unlock their doors.

A research paper released this week (first reported by Wired) describes how multiple Volkswagen, Audi, Seat and Skoda models built since 1995 can be unlocked using a handmade radio that copies key fob signals.  (Read More…)

Michigan doesn’t want its residents to order a Tesla, but it sees no problem in owning $72 million in stock to bolster its state retirement fund.

According to The Detroit News, the Michigan Department of Treasury bought a further $48 million in Tesla shares in the second quarter of this year, boosting its stake to 339,623 shares — more than triple the amount it owned in March. Meanwhile, Michigan won’t budge on laws that prevent Tesla from selling vehicles in the state. (Read More…)

General Motors hopes to avoid paying up to $10 billion in liabilities by challenging last month’s appeals court ruling in the faulty ignition switch saga.

The automaker wants a rehearing after the court ruled that it couldn’t use its 2009 bankruptcy to block hundreds of crash-related lawsuits, according to the Wall Street Journal. (Read More…)

Hydrogen fuel cell vehicles have been in development for as long as hybrids, but while one of those technologies can be found in any Walgreens parking lot, the other still occupies a tiny micro-niche in the marketplace.

Besides the lack of refueling infrastructure, hydrogen-powered driving is hindered by the high cost of fuel cells. After receiving $6 million from the feds, Ford Motor Company and the Los Alamos National Laboratory hope to change that, the Detroit Free Press reports. (Read More…)

Last week, we told you how Mercedes-Benz planned to go the BMW route and turn its looming roster of electric vehicles into a sub-brand.

All the automaker needed was a name to slap on its gas-free offerings. Well, according to UK trademark application filings first reported by Autocar, the new sub-brand’s name is… (Read More…)