Scheduled to make its official debut at the 2018 LA Auto Show later this week, Audi decided to unwrap the e-tron GT Concept early — bringing in  celebrity and friend of the brand Robert Downey Jr. to help do the honors.

While photos of the event were off limits, Audi was kind enough to provide a few media-approved renderings of what appears to be an A7 — sans grille — wearing the company’s signature EV camouflage. This is the e-tron GT, ready to do battle with Tesla’s Model S once Audi puts it into production. According to German outlet Bild am Sonntag, an uncamouflaged version of the concept should appear in Los Angeles on Wednesday — giving the manufacturer an opportunity to parse out the important details. However, we already have some of the pertinent specs.  Read More >

During Fiat Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne’s final days, he said his company would begin prioritizing Jeep production in Europe. This of course comes at the expense of the Fiat brand, which lost a sizable hunk of the European market after 2009 and appears to be outright failing in the United States.

While the brand gained back some of that lost ground east of the Atlantic over the past two years, Fiat’s Jeep stablemate took off like a rocket after 2013 — effectively tripling its share of the European market. Eager to cater to the ever-changing tastes of consumers, FCA is going to stick with Jeep and make some money. As a byproduct, the company thinks it may be able to revitalize Italy’s manufacturing industry, bolster overall volume, and get some laid-off employees back onto the factory floor.

However, it’s not just Jeep that’s getting special treatment. FCA intends to do the same for Alfa Romeo and Maserati, as their products boast higher margins than anything Fiat builds. Read More >

Mitsubishi Motors, which joined the Renault-Nissan Alliance in 2016, voted unanimously to drop Carlos Ghosn as its chairman Monday, just a week after the executive’s arrest on suspicion of financial misdealings.

According to CEO Osamu Masuko, who now dons the title of interim chairman, it was an “agonizing decision.” For Ghosn, the agony has just begun. Currently housed in a Tokyo jail awaiting formal charges, the industry titan ended last week by seeing the company he ran for 15 years, Nissan, oust him as chairman. Renault hasn’t made a decision as to the fate of its CEO.

While Ghosn is accused of underreporting his income in the early part of the decade, a Japanese newspaper has shed light on another alleged misdeed. Read More >

We’d love to create our own reality, but it’s not achievable. Not while other people exist. I’d prefer a vehicular landscape populated with vinyl-topped sedans and formal personal luxury coupes and regular cab pickups, but alas, the personal buying choices of millions of consumers have stymied those childhood dreams.

With a few rare exceptions, coupes are now the domain of ballsy muscle cars, not front-drive compacts. Sedans were vanishing even before GM’s Monday decision to cull half-a-dozen four-door models. Fiat Chrysler said goodbye to the compact and midsize field a couple of years ago. Meanwhile, Ford has no plans to populate the roadways with anything other than the Mustang and a bevy of light trucks in the near future.

Sad times for lovers of the traditional car, for sure. Still, General Motors’ decision to shutter underperforming plants in pursuit of higher-margin light trucks (and whatever EV or AV action the future holds) shouldn’t come as a surprise. One look at historical sales figures shows the writing was on the wall for General Motors’ crop of soon-to-be-discontinued sedans. Read More >

The big news this week is General Motors’ decision to cull its lineup, closing plants and sacking about 15 percent of its North American workforce in the process. According to Chief Executive Officer Mary Barra, GM’s official reasons for doing so are all part of its grand plan to transition to a company focused on electric vehicles and self-driving cars.

While we harbor a vague suspicion that the automaker is actually trying to prepare itself for an incoming economic downturn, leaving itself with plenty of financial wiggle room, GM currently enjoys relatively healthy profits (thank you, truck sales) and a lofty share price. In fact, GM shares rose nearly 5 percent after it announced the shuttering of several plants in the U.S. and Canada, cutting as many as 14,800 jobs.

Unfortunately, GM’s investors seem to be the only group that’s pleased with the decision. Everyone else appears to be absolutely furious.  Read More >

What do you get when you combine the sporty personality of Porsche with all the comfort and luxury of a Mercedes-Benz sedan?

The answer is this E500.

Read More >

Representing a good value among the premium full-size sedan set, the Genesis G90 remains thin on the ground — and not just because of America’s fondness for crossovers and SUVs. As it begins its roll-out of standalone Genesis stores, the fledgling brand planned to kick off the new dealer strategy by fielding only 2019 model-year vehicles. That meant a sell-down of existing stock throughout the summer and fall.

For the 2020 model year, the second model launched by Hyundai’s luxury division, the G90, undergoes a significant refresh, though the marque’s future hinges on a trio of yet-to-be-seen crossovers. Read More >

We’re going to be sick of this thing by the time it shows up. Volkswagen’s latter-day electric Microbus, which goes by the name I.D. Buzz, stands to sprout a panel van variant when it appears early next decade.

Riding atop VW’s dedicated MEB architecture, the I.D. Buzz Cargo is envisioned as a single-motor, rear-drive vehicle — unlike the twin-motor, AWD vehicle it’s derived from. While the cargo variant isn’t expected to grace a curb near you until 2022, a three-wheeled electric bike built by VW will apparently see the light of day next year.

Who’s excited for micro-mobility? Read More >

Having already revealed the updated European version, Fiat is unveiling North America’s take on the facelifted 500X. While the subcompact crossover’s official LA Auto Show debut isn’t for another day or so, FCA decided not to sit on it. Likely a wise move, as the model will assuredly be overshadowed by higher profile vehicles appearing later this week.

As with its European counterpart, the North American changes are barely noticeable. While Fiat says the exterior has been updated, with new fascias incorporating LED running lights, the tweaks aren’t immediately apparent to onlookers. In fact, most are unlikely to notice any significant changes to the model before climbing into the driver’s seat or spending some time with a corporate dossier outlining all the alterations.

Fortunately, we can give you the abridged version — a list that includes standard all-wheel drive and a new engine.  Read More >

Of course you are, and that will be your mission for today.

Monday’s jarring news of GM plant closures and sedan scrapping came as a shock, despite it being a move many of us anticipated (feared?) for some time. GM went and pulled a Ford. Naturally, the Twitterati took to social media to blame (or gloat) that the closures and discontinuations were 100 percent the fault of the politician they hate the most, while others, harboring bad feelings about that GM car they owned two decades ago, blamed the move on the shittiness of the 1995 Pontiac Grand Am and Chevrolet Cavalier.

Maybe make a car that’s not so awful and bad and stupid, they tweeted, ignoring the prevailing light truck-focused attitude of American consumers and the legions of buyers lining up for the Silverado, Sierra, Equinox, Terrain, Yukon, Tahoe, Suburban, Escalade, XT5, Acadia, Enclave, Encore, Trax, Colorado, Canyon, and Traverse. Maybe stop being such a bloated maker of dinosaur cars, they added, ignoring the fact that, with this plan, GM is effectively attempting to do exactly that.

What would we do without such commentary? Read More >

According to Tesla CEO Elon Musk, the automaker was teetering on the edge of disaster earlier this year. “Tesla faced a really severe threat of death due to the Model 3 production ramp,” Musk told Axios during a video interview on HBO. “Essentially the company was bleeding money like crazy and just if we didn’t solve these problems in a very short period of time, we would die. And it was extremely difficult to solve them.”

Musk said Tesla was within “single-digit weeks” of an unrecoverable catastrophe. While we appreciate his present candor, the assertion doesn’t mesh with comments made earlier.

In fact, Elon was down on the automotive firm needing more funds every since it posted its 2011 financial results. “Tesla does not need to ever raise another funding round,” he said in response to a question on the company’s cash position back in February of 2012. “We may want to do so, but we are in a strong cash position, and we don’t need to.”  Read More >

But first, some Cyber Monday deals…!

Just kidding. Hopefully we’ve seen the last of that, God willing.

It didn’t take long for the usual suspects north of the border to respond to General Motors’ looming plant closures with ridiculous “solutions” — nationalizing GM Canada, for example, no doubt with the goal of repeating the successes of British Leyland in the late 70s and early 80s. Who could doubt the profit-generating prowess of the public sector?

Elsewhere, fiery rhetoric from autoworkers’ unions greeted news of GM’s plan to shutter five plants in the U.S. and Canada. But without new product allocations, and with demand for traditional sedans sinking fast, there’s little hope of seeing these facilities return to their golden days. Read More >

We’ve been on Amazon all morning to find the best Cyber Monday Deals on TVs, tools, toys, home furnishings and more.

Here they all are—up to 70% OFF. Read More >

Despite being in existence for nearly a decade, Rivian has operated in relative obscurity. However the company has finally decided to break cover by debuting its R1T electric pickup slightly ahead of the Los Angeles Auto Show. The American startup is attempting to best other EV manufacturers by filling unoccupied space on the market. While electric pickups do exist, only the Ohio-based Workhorse has a clear production plan and that’s intended to primarily serve commercial fleets.

Meanwhile, the R1T is being designed with the consumer market in mind and boasts some seriously impressive specifications.  Read More >