On Tuesday, Stellantis announced a plan to cultivate €20 billion ($23 billion USD) per year by 2030 via “software-enabled product offerings and subscriptions.” However, the automaker will first need to increase the number of connected vehicles it has sold from 12 million (today) to 34 million by the specified date.

This is something we’ve seen most major manufacturers explore, with some brands firmly committing themselves to monetizing vehicular connectivity through over-the-air (OTA) updates, data mining, and subscription services. Though much of this looks decidedly unappetizing, often representing a clever way for companies to repeatedly charge customers for equipment that’s already been installed.   Read More >

These days, it’s hard to imagine a company better positioned to take on Tesla than Geely-owned Volvo and Polestar. Volvo made headlines back in 2015 when it promised that all new Volvos would be electrified starting in 2019 and ruffled more feathers when it spun off its successful motorsports brand, Polestar, into a purely electrified performance car line. Parent company Geely’s Chinese heritage allows Volvo nearly unfettered access to the all-important Chinese market and allows the company to benefit from economies of scale – through the Geely, Lynk & Co., and Zeekr car lines – that it simply wouldn’t be able to realize on its own.

Over the past 10-or-so years, the Swedish company – once on the verge of extinction – has flourished, going from strength to strength. Ford looks absolutely ridiculous for having sold Volvo, now valued at more than $20 billion, to Geely for “just” $1.5 billion (with Polestar going for another $20 billion, all on its own) back in 2010.

Sure, Ford wanted to fire-sale Volvo – but Ford wasn’t the only troubled American car company holding on to a respected Swedish car brand looking to make some fast cash. With a push here and a nudge there, Geely could have bought Saab, instead.

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Lucid Group Inc. has been subpoenaed by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) which is on the prowl for any documentation relating to its merging with a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC). Known colloquially as “blank-check firms,” these organizations literally exist to be combined with existing companies as a way to pump the stock and spur investments.

But they’ve gotten a lot of negative attention following a glut of EV startups garnering impressively high valuations based on little more than a business proposal. Those seeking an example need look no further than Nikola Corp, which was outed as having grossly overpromised on its technological capabilities and production acumen after raking it in on the stock market. As a result, financial regulators have become increasingly skeptical of SPACs and want to make sure everything going on with Lucid is above board.  Read More >

The snow is coming, at least for a good portion of the North American continent. This means that you might want to consider winter tires for your ride, in order to navigate snowy and icy conditions.

Problem is, a set of snowshoes for your car can be expensive.

Well, if you have a tight budget and a few minutes of time, we might be able to help.

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We continue our Rare Rides Icons series on Imperial today. Starting in 1957, Chrysler’s then-separate luxury arm spent more and more time on bold styling, and less on the hand-built quality for which the company’s first cars in 1955 and 1956 were known.

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When the pandemic convinced practically every industry to press pause in 2020, supply chains became so crippled that just getting sectors of commerce rebooted became a challenge in itself. It was the business equivalent of a twenty-car pileup, with the automotive industry being hit particularly hard due to the complexity of its own supply lines. While the following year represented an improvement, production failed to stabilize to pre-pandemic levels.

The solution for automakers and dealerships was to begin demanding more money for cars. With vehicles in short supply, the value of new and used models blew through the roof. This move kept automakers largely in the black for 2021, despite a general inability (or unwillingness) to manufacture products at the normal pace. However, it didn’t help suppliers, who are haven’t been able to tack on the same premiums to individual components while still having to cope with rising economic hurdles. Read More >

Ever since I began my effort to document some of the interesting machinery that shows up in car graveyards, the quantity of discarded Volvo 240s has remained steady. Back in the late 2000s, I’d had an idea that just about every 240 owner would make the transition from safe and sensible Swedish bricks to green and sensible Japanese hybrids, and that the transition would be wrapped up by the dawn of the 2020s. Such has not been the case, although the 1970s 240s are getting harder to find. Here’s a high-mile 245 in a mile-high junkyard. Read More >

Today’s Corona is the third to appear in the Rare Rides series. We started in early 2020 with a 1968 Corona Coupe and followed up that October with a Mark II wagon. Today’s entrant is from the last time North Americans could buy one.

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America’s love affair with the pickup truck is long from being over, and for good reason. 

Modern full-size pickup trucks are more capable, efficient, comfortable, and technologically advanced than ever before. They really have become the jack-of-all-trades choice amongst the automotive world. So when an all-new pick-up debuts, it’s a big deal.

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You finally did it, didn’t you? You beautiful disaster, you did it! You spent nearly $30,000 US American dollars on thirty-seven-year-old Toyota Corolla because of a comic book, and you aren’t even mad about it. Hell, you paid a little extra for the “authentic” Fujiwara Tofu Shop decals on the doors. You. Kick. Rear. And now, after you didn’t think it could be possible to feel better about your automotive purchase, I’m going to make you feel better about your automotive purchase – because you can now buy factory-fresh parts for your Corolla AE86, straight from Toyota.

That’s right kids, through its captive motorsport brand, Gazoo Racing, Toyota is reproducing spare parts for the Corolla Levin Sprinter Trueno “AE86” as part of the GR Heritage Parts Project. The project reproduces new original parts that have been discontinued and sells them as genuine parts with a standard new part warranty, “in order to support customers who wish to continue driving older vehicles that are full of memories and that they truly love.”

All kidding aside, you have to admit that the concept of a Heritage Parts program is great, even if the Initial D AE86 isn’t exactly your cuppa – but it sort of begs the question, what other new-age classics might be worthy of a heritage program? I’m glad you asked!

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Starting in 2022, Mercedes-Benz will be launching new services allowing customers to use fingerprint scans to verify purchases from inside their vehicle. While this makes it sound as though the feature will be limited to feeding the meter, fast food, gasoline, and the occasional tech-savvy prostitute, parent company Daimler said it was an important step forward for its MBUX multimedia interface and the general trajectory for luxury vehicles as a whole.  Read More >

Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares has said that the growing pressures being placed on automakers to shift toward electric-vehicle production are unsustainable and run the risk of the public getting subpar products at decidedly higher price tags. While we’ve seen automotive executives lambast new energy vehicles before, it’s grown rarer as governments around the world have continued incentivizing their existence and investors have been pouring money on startups delivering literally nothing more than the mere suggestion of more electrification.

Tavares’s words come from the Reuters Next conference, running counter to the event’s prevailing narrative of encouraging technological progress and social change. Attendees tend to be political officials, heads of finance, NGO leaders, and business executives sympathetic to the cause. But the Stellantis CEO definitely went off-script when he listed some of the shortcomings of electrification, adding that he felt the costs were “beyond the limits” of what was realistically feasible. It’s his belief that pursuing electrification at the current pace doesn’t take into account the larger financial picture.  Read More >

Power, luxury, exclusivity, and grand touring driving enjoyment. The Bugatti EB112 promised all those adjectives in spades were it ever actually produced. But it was born at a very difficult time in the company’s history, and the super sedan never made it beyond the concept stage.

However, due to some interesting timing at the company level, the EB112 was not just a one-off concept. In fact, there are three in existence.

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Back when the Tesla Model S was new, it achieved something almost unthinkable for an upstart carmaker. I’m not talking about bringing a full-size electric sedan to market, and I’m not talking about building a seven-passenger sedan capable of Ferrari-baiting acceleration, either. What I’m talking about is the Tesla Model S’ outstanding 5.4 safety rating from the NHTSA – a score that was so high, it effectively “broke” the organization’s five-star scale.

The question of Tesla safety in the lab seemed to be settled, but – nearly 10 years on – we finally have some real-world data to look at, and the results are not quite what you’d expect from a car with “the highest safety rating of any car ever tested”.

I mean, unless you expected the Model S to have nearly 160x the fatality rate of a Chevy Bolt, anyway.

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Despite the semiconductor shortage having encouraged the automotive sector to repeatedly idle factories, word on the ground is that things are becoming more stable. Companies are seeing less production downtime overall and workers are reporting more reliable working conditions across the board. However, several automakers have continued to express concerns (e.g. Volvo), alleging that chip shortages could stretch deep into 2022, while the U.S. government ponders how to advance chip production in-country and become less dependent on Asian suppliers.

Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo has been touring Michigan, meeting with union members and industry heads, and plans to urge Congress to move on a $52 billion in funding bill aimed at boosting domestic production. We’ve questioned the efficacy of the CHIPS Act before, primarily in relation to how the subsidies would be allocated. But there are new concerns that the plan will mimic the Biden administration’s EV subsidies by spending heaps of taxpayer money and giving union-backed organizations a larger cut.  Read More >