That headline comes with an asterisk, as the fuel economy gains expected from the 2020 Nissan Frontier are only applicable if you planned on buying a V6 model. The four-cylinder Frontier is dead for ’20, as is the manual transmission.
While the Environmental Protection Agency hasn’t yet bestowed MPG figures on the “new” truck (same body, new powertrain), Nissan has come clean with estimates. Read More >
It won’t be a swift return to production for Fiat Chrysler and Honda. Truth be told, the same can likely be said for Ford, GM, and most other automakers with assembly operations in North America.
On Tuesday, we received the latest word on when FCA and Honda plan to restart vehicle assembly. Read More >
Auto loan terms have been creeping up for as long as anyone can remember. Back in 1997, the average financing period on a new car was somewhere around 54 months. That crept up to over 60 months by 2004 and has only continued to climb. Over the past decade, the typical automotive loan term has ballooned by almost 30 percent. According to an analysis by Edmunds, the average financing period on a new vehicle sold in the United States surpassed 70 months in March of 2020.
While automakers’ recent introduction of loans extending up to 7 years (especially now that COVID-19 is hampering sales) has exacerbated the issue, we were already sitting on a 69-month average in October of 2019. Why would someone voluntarily agree to such a lengthy agreement? They may not have much of an alternative due to similar growth in vehicle transaction prices. Read More >
There’s no shortage of people choosing to signal their offbeat, nonconformist nature via their daily driver. As build configurations shrink and niche products dry up, this is becoming increasingly hard; still, it’s a thing, and if it means reaching into the past for a defunct nameplate, many are up for the challenge.
A buddy of mine did it with a certain low-volume Isuzu. Car Twitter is littered with childless Millennials who advocate the purchase of impractical, less-loved models as their preferred transportation choice. More power to them; just don’t react with confused horror when people with a mortgage and growing brood opt for a GMC Acadia or Toyota Highlander as their main driveway denizen.
With oddball vehicles now more numerous in our past then our present, which unlikely model do you harbor a secret desire for? Read More >
Like most legacy automakers, Volkswagen is casually walking back promises of electrification. As with self-driving cars, the technology behind new-energy vehicles is taking longer to mature than the industry would like. Meanwhile, the market — skewed as it is toward larger models — has been about as cooperative as a sugared-up child come bedtime.
Despite governments around the world incentivizing the sale of EVs, they’re still but a fraction of whole.
With the pandemic undoubtedly discouraging consumers from purchasing big-ticket items, electric vehicle sales aren’t presumed to make a lot of headway in 2020, either. We recently learned that some of the promises made by Ford and General Motors in regard to electrification were overblown by corporate messaging. In truth, they both plan on remaining heavily dependent upon truck and crossover sales for several more years.
However, Volkswagen seemed to be betting everything it had on battery technology. In the wake of its 2015 diesel emission scandal, VW was one of the first companies to promise widespread electrification by suggesting it would build one million EVs by 2023 — with 70 new green models introduced by 2029. The past year has seen the automaker issue qualifying remarks that leave us feeling dubious about its end goal. Read More >
With the coronavirus pandemic providing little in the way of silver linings (even rock-bottom gas prices aren’t much of a bonus if you’re living under lockdown orders), Allstate has provided one of its own.
Given the vastly reduced number of vehicles on the road and the anticipated cratering in insurance claims, the provider is giving customers a temporary break. Read More >
A weekend blaze cut short the lifespans of more than 3,500 vehicles packed tightly into a single massive overflow lot near Southwest Florida International Airport in Fort Myers, Florida.
While the cause of the vehicular firestorm has not yet been determined, the resulting carnage is something to see. Despite dozens of water drops by local sheriff’s office helicopters, the overflow lot, ringed with acres of dry grass, proved the perfect econobox tinderbox. Read More >
Today’s Rare Ride is a little off-road truck that hails from the era when a single SUV could be small, light, cheap, and capable. It’s an oft-forgotten Daihatsu Rocky, from 1990.
With some analysts now estimating the coronavirus outbreak’s cost to the automotive industry at as much as $100 billion, there’s not much reason to hope for any vehicle segment to trend in any direction but downward. However, domestic pickup sales have surprised us.
Despite the industry taking it on the chin overall, domestic truck sales are actually improving in the United States — at least by the measure with which we gauge domestic sales performance. Seeing the writing on the wall last month, domestic nameplates began incentivizing product like wild. Apparently, bargains ride two-up with the lead horseman of Pestilence. That, in combination with southern states being slower to enact social distancing measures, helped prop up truck sales. While that may result in the region having a longer recovery, it seems to have padded the market’s fall ever so slightly. Read More >
Before most of us were aware of the existence of coronavirus, Fiat Chrysler was idling its Jeep Cherokee plant to align production with falling sales. It certainly wasn’t the first time in recent memory. As the model grew in age, sales fell — to the tune of 20 percent in 2019.
Cherokee production, like that of all other vehicles assembled in the United States, is now offline, but there’ll be a proposition awaiting Jeep buyers when things return to normal (or whatever passes for normal in the months ahead). Read More >
With assembly plants shut down in North America and overseas, supply chains thrown into disarray, and workers and salaried employees either furloughed or working from home, it’s only natural to question the timing of future products.
When it comes to Nissan’s bread and butter, you needn’t bother. The automaker says virus or no, the next-generation Rogue will land in the fall as planned. Read More >
At the risk of sounding like any number of insufferable site fully staffed with dough heads who spend way too much time extolling the virtues of kale (is kale still a thing?), our question today is about driving and car-related apps.
While backing up his phone this weekend (I can’t bear to lose those all important notes about used cars that have been long sold, don’tcha know), your author was struck by the amount of space on his phone being consumed by items relating to cars.
Hey all. Big plans this weekend? Lots of stuff going on?
Yours truly plans to finally swap his car’s cheap winter rubber for equally cheap, corner-carving summer slicks (55 series — OH YEAH) in order to drive…. nowhere. Absolutely nowhere. Then, if there’s time, maybe I’ll take a nighttime run in the only place where physical distancing isn’t likely to be an issue: the spooky graveyard on top of the hill. If there’s time, mind you.
Yes, with warmer weather upon us, the list of carefree pursuits knows no bounds! But tell us, what strictly automotive things are you doing this weekend to mentally distance yourself from, you know, issues? Read More >
On Thursday, NASCAR announced the planned debut of the next-generation stock car is being pushed back until 2022. The new breed was originally expected to take the field at next year’s Daytona 500, but the COVID-19 pandemic has reportedly made that impossible.
“Due to challenges related to the coronavirus pandemic, the debut of the Next Gen car will be delayed until 2022,” John Probst, NASCAR Senior Vice President of Racing Innovation, said in a statement. “The decision was made in collaboration with the OEMs and team owners. We will continue to develop the Next Gen car, and a revised testing timeline will be shared when more information is available.” Read More >
While buying a new car has recently fallen in popularity in the Western world, taking a backseat to things like experimenting with rice in the kitchen, watching your neighbor’s dog through a sealed window, and repairing that antique pencil sharpener you bought 8 years ago, the business of selling cars continues.
In Japan, where social distancing measures (and the coronavirus itself) have thus far proven not as severe as in the U.S., there’s a lineup of special editions incoming from Mazda. U.S. customers, however, will have to wait in their homes for updates. Read More >
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