Designers don’t always get the credit they deserve, nor the recognition they usually shun. But without a steady, inspired hand forming the shape of an automaker’s offerings, all the business acumen of the C-suite class adds up to not much.

Jaguar can credit its post-Ford identity to one man, Ian Callum, who moved the company away from unconvincing, reheated ’60s design templates and into a new era for the British marque. Callum, who served as Jag’s director of design for two decades, is now leaving his post. Read More >

The downside of liking something is the fact that other people like it, too. You don’t have to be a friendless, shut-in misanthrope to prefer the company of a select type of person, and quite often too many of that other type of person loiters around the thing you love.

There’s that band you like but would never see live because of the crowd it draws. You know it’ll sour the experience. There’s the team you quietly root for, all the time wishing their fans weren’t such obnoxious jerkoffs.

It’s the same with automotive brands and particular car models — if you’re a car owner (or aspiring owner), your name might be unavoidably connected with a population of owners who give the thing a bad name.  Read More >

Running a car company is hard, in case you haven’t noticed. It gets even more difficult when various and sundry world events conspire to create a jittery public or wonky cost structures. Toss in a pinch of interest rate paranoia and you’ve the perfect recipe for a very challenging industry.

Last month, sales of light vehicles in America was roughly flat compared to the same time period one year ago. This would normally not be cause for much celebration but, against a backdrop of a disastrous April, it is almost worth breaking out a case of the good stuff.

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Lotus hasn’t delivered an entirely new model since the Evora debuted over ten years ago. The clock will reset come July 16th, when the company unveils the Type 130 in central London. Approved by Chinese-parent Geely and shrouded in secrecy, the 130 will represent a major change for Lotus as the brand’s first all-electric hypercar.

However, the baby is reportedly not being thrown out with the bathwater. The automaker has confirmed that the model will still be manufactured at its longstanding headquarters in Hethel, Norfolk, and remain hand-built by Britain’s finest.  Read More >

We, like everyone else, bemoaned Cadillac’s new V-Series models for seeming underpowered. And yet the company now suggests that putting a lid on power was part of the plan all along. Apparently, GM claims, shoppers were being scared off by the CTS-V’s big numbers.

“There was, frankly, some people who were intimidated by the cars,” GM President Mark Reuss elaborated last week, according to Automotive News. “When we did a [V-Series], they were hammers … There’s some intimidation there.”

While undoubtedly true of some customers, is Cadillac certain that’s the message they want to impart? No matter how you slice this cadaver, the fact remains that the brand is still delivering two V-Series entrants that fail to impress on paper the way their predecessors did. We’ll happily admit that horsepower isn’t everything, but you cannot lead with how the CT4-V’s improved efficiency and lighter curb weight will make it a better car than the ATS-V its replaces when all anyone can notice is a glaring horsepower disparity.  Read More >

It doesn’t come as a surprise, but it still hurts to learn that Ford’s modern-day take on the ’60s family performance sedan will die with the 2019 model year.

While the automaker’s doomed Fusion nameplate will live on for 2020, the brawny, all-wheel drive Sport variant will not. The automaker confirmed the model’s discontinuation on Monday, meaning performance-minded Blue Oval breeders must now turn their attention (and lust) to the brand’s ST-badged crossovers. Read More >

A Tesla Model S suffered a total meltdown after being connected to one of the company’s proprietary Supercharger stations in Antwerp, Belgium. While details are scant, local reports state the driver simply went to charge his automobile and returned to a burning wreck a short time later.

Considering the fire department had to totally submerge the ruined vehicle in a pool of water to ensure the car didn’t reignite, the odds of uncovering exactly what went wrong appear slim. But it wasn’t all that long ago that Tesla was pushing over-the-air updates to  mitigate a rash of fires that cropped up in the United States and Asia over the past few months. Surely, the manufacturer has some idea of what might have gone wrong.  Read More >

A half-decade after General Motors recalled 1,339,355 full-size crossovers due to a risk of seat belt failure, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has launched an investigation into the models.

Following reports sent in from owners, the federal agency is concerned that the 2014 recall did not fix the problem of detached front seat belt cables in 2009-2014 vehicles. Read More >

The proliferation of hybrid vehicles has relegated the venerable, once-dominant Toyota Prius to a lesser plane of influence. This isn’t breaking news, as Toyota has seen the volume of its Prius family slide since 2012, falling below the six-figure mark last year for the first time in 14 years. Volume in 2018 was less than half of the number sold just six years earlier.

Still, the model’s decline stings. As May sales numbers roll in, the former darling of the green crowd finds itself outpaced even by a Ford sedan with no future. Read More >

Fiat Chrysler’s desire to merge with Renault has the French government, which holds a 15 percent stake in the French automaker, more than a bit worried. The government has already issued a list of guarantees it wishes to see before giving its blessing to the potential tie-up.

Now, a report claims FCA is working hard to win France’s trust, promising board representation and a French headquarters for the proposed entity. Read More >

One of the many joys in finding a good program on television is discovering that a vehicle of some sort plays an integral role in the story. Sometimes, if we’re lucky, the car — or truck, or SUV — is such a perfect fit that it’s as much of a character as the human actors themselves.

What’s the best one, though? As you’d expect, we’ve an opinion or two on that.

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After claiming, via official channels, that its Nevada Gigafactory would likely become the site of Model Y production, Tesla seems to have changed its mind on where to build its upcoming crossover.

During a weekend podcast, Tesla CEO Elon Musk said production of the vehicle will likely take place where all other Teslas are built. It might not even require a tent. Read More >

Cadillac seems to have realized that it screwed up with the new V-Series models it debuted late last week. When the CT4-V and CT5-V were revealed on Thursday, both came with specs that made us wonder why General Motors thought these should be the cars replacing the V-Series variants of the CTS and ATS sedan. Fans of the brand noticed and most automotive outlets were forced to write head-scratching articles about why the twin-turbo 3.0-liter V6 will be a suitable replacement for the CTS-V’s big, Corvette-sourced 6.2-liter motor — which makes oodles more power and torque.

Part of this cannot be helped. Environmentalism and an increasingly global marketplace are encouraging automakers to scale down displacement sizes and pair internal-combustion engines with more hybrid tech and forced induction. But it hasn’t changed Cadillac’s problem of delivering a pair of vehicles that appear much weaker on paper than the automobiles they’re essentially replacing. As a result, the company is attempting to reassure customers that these won’t be the only V-Series models on offer.  Read More >

The profit-focused appeal of building vehicles in low-cost jurisdictions propelled many automakers to boost manufacturing capacity in America’s southern neighbor — a decision that now haunts them.

After President Donald Trump issued a Thursday statement declaring his administration would levy a 5 percent tariff on all Mexican-made goods starting June 10th, some $17 billion in market value evaporated from top automakers the following day. Ford, General Motors, and Fiat Chrysler all saw their share prices tumble. Should Trump follow through on his promise of an escalating tariff (a threat designed to stem illegal migration into the U.S.), the pain felt by both companies and their customers will be extreme.

Naturally, the industry is pushing back the best it can. Read More >

I’m a casual racing fan, at best. That may sound weird coming from a car guy, but I’ve come to learn over the years that being into cars doesn’t obligate you to be into racing.

I’ve had stints of deeper fandom in the past. Teenage me talked my dad into taking me to Indianapolis for the Brickyard 400 NASCAR race way back in the ‘90s, and I used to risk ridicule (particularly the R-word, indicating a crimson-hued neck) from my suburban peers by wearing NASCAR t-shirts to high school.

But times and interests change. The NASCAR and IndyCar drivers I grew up watching got old and retired. NASCAR kept messing with the rules while Tony George damn near killed Indy car racing with the CART/IRL split. Furthermore, I’ve always gravitated towards baseball, football, basketball, and hockey even more so than racing, and there’s only so much time on any given Sunday. Sometimes other sports took precedence.

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