Chevrolet probably isn’t expecting customers to take their Spark ACTIVs down a fire road or out for a day of rock crawling. However, it is leveraging the outdoorsy concept to say the ACTIV will somehow be better at those things than a standard Spark to encourage sales and rationalize a higher price tag.
America’s love-affair with crossovers is bigger than ever and General Motors is hoping there’s room for this extra-small entry into the very popular segment.
Barring those pesky instances where automakers were forced to hand cash to buyers as a make-nice gesture, the Environmental Protection Agency fuel economy labels found on window stickers are actually pretty accurate.
That’s the verdict from Consumer Reports’ just-released study on the real-world mileage of 2009-2016 model year vehicles, but it comes with an asterisk. Don’t break out the champagne just yet, EPA. Read More >
Alfa Romeo, the company that has had repeated difficulties getting the Giulia into North America, is planning to launch nine new models over the next five years.
How it actually plans to do this is anybody’s guess.
Tranquility returns to North America as FCA’s ill-fated minivan assembly plant prepares itself for a return to active duty.
That, the used car rulebook is getting an update, an autoworkers’ union puts its hand out for government cash, and Porsche shrinks the price-tag and stretches the length of the Panamera … after the break!
If you are looking for a budget pickup to haul around the occasional armoire or stack of plywood, look no further than the Nissan Frontier. However, if you want the biggest and meanest off-road hauler America has to offer, you’re going to have to fork over some extra dough.
Dodge has announced pricing for the 2017 Ram Power Wagon and informed us that automotive savagery isn’t gratis.
No, you aren’t losing your mind. This isn’t a completely new form of transportation or an abstract piece of rolling art. What you are seeing is Volkswagen’s venerable hatchback after its mid-cycle update.
This mutilated Golf may be confusing at first, but the more you look at it, the more familiar it begins to appear. The cabin, however, has a surprise in store.
It’s an all-new version of a car that generally finds 140,000 U.S. buyers per year. But the Toyota Prius is quickly fading from the American mainstream.
There’s no doubt that hybrids, in a general sense, are struggling. Combined sales of hybrids and plug-in hybrids are down 6 percent in the United States this year, according to HybridCars.com.
But the Toyota Prius — the all-new, fourth-generation version of the sector’s progenitor — is fading at double speed. Despite its newness and its vast objective improvements, Prius sales are down 12 percent this year.
And October was way, way, way worse than that. Much worse. Read More >
Bound for its North American production reveal at the Los Angeles Auto Show next week, production of the Toyota C-HR began today in Sakarya, Turkey.
The C-HR becomes the eighth vehicle built by Toyota in Europe and the third model built by Toyota Motor Manufacturing Turkey. The C-HR also joins a booming subcompact crossover segment that’s grown nearly 30 percent in the United States this year.
It’s a segment that now produces 3 percent of the U.S. auto industry’s volume, triple its share from just two years ago. Read More >
There’s no denying the strategy behind Hyundai’s Genesis Motors luxury brand is unusual. By its very nature, the contrived launch of a new Korean luxury marque — more than a century after the dawn of America’s favourite luxury brand, Mercedes-Benz — is going to differ in a multitude of ways.
Genesis intends to maximize the possibility for consumers to shop for their cars online, for instance. And Genesis owners won’t need to take cars to dealers for servicing — valets will provide pickup and delivery.
Yet one aspect of a new brand’s U.S. launch is nevertheless set in stone: dealers.
Genesis Motors has 350 dealers inside Hyundai’s U.S. showrooms, Wards Auto reports. Genesis Motors’ general manager Erwin Raphael wants a different number.
A smaller number. Read More >
Compared with Audi’s new, fifth-generation 2017 Audi A4 sedan, the 2017 Audi A4 Allroad is nine-tenths of an inch higher. Ground clearance grows from 5.2 inches to 6.5.
It’s not exactly Rubicon ready.
But wait. Audi added four inches of black cladding above the front wheel arches; four-and-a-half above the rear wheels. Jeep Jamboree, here we come. Read More >
The unloved Honda Crosstour was last sold in 2015 and heavily criticized for its awkward, ungainly styling. After only 2 years, Honda has brought back a car with nearly identical styling in the 2017 Honda Gienia.
Available only in the Chinese market, the Honda Gienia is based on the Honda City, a sedan version of the Honda Fit. Dimension wise, the compact crossover Gienia is significantly smaller than the defunct Crosstour.
Nissan has created a strange new backwards working hybrid powerplant that includes an internal combustion engine but doesn’t use it to drive the wheels at all.
It’s called e-Power, it’s going to be in the Japanese-market Note first, and it’s essentially a Nissan Leaf that you don’t ever plug in. It also keeps the oil companies somewhat happy. Allow me to explain…
The Atlas, Volkswagen’s entry into the hotly contested three-row crossover segment, is here — and it has the company’s future fortunes resting on its shoulders.
Volkswagen has not been doing well in the United States. Since 2012, its best sales year this millennia, VW has shed 30 percent of its sales volume. The brand that invented the compact car in the eyes of many Americans now finds itself in 14th place on the brand leaderboard with a 1.6 percent market share.
Dieselgate didn’t help, but its unbalanced product range may be the more nagging culprit. This is VW’s first mainstream, three-row crossover.
Everyone assumed that the next incarnation of the Mazda CX-5 wouldn’t make an appearance until next year, so it was a bit of a surprise to see Mazda showing off carefully lit photos of its next-generation compact crossover today.
It’s definitely not an unwelcome surprise, as this 2017 model has one hell of a good-looking profile.
Updated with pricing more reflective of the U.S. market for this M-B Canada press car.
There’s no replacement for displacement. Or so I was taught during my formative years, a period in which I read multiple buff books per month and listened to old men attempt to define torque.
But Audi USA announced last week it would slot the engine from its smallest sedan, the A3, under the hood of Audi’s largest utility vehicle, the Q7.
This week, I’m driving a 4,045-pound, $70,465 Mercedes-Benz E-Class sedan. Labelled the E300, this heavily optioned E-Class is equipped with a 2.0-liter, four-cylinder engine related to the 2.0-liter in the company’s front-wheel drive, entry-level sedan, the CLA.
4,000 pounds. $70,465. 2.0-liter inline-four. Y’alright with that? Read More >
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