Tesla deserves credit for building useable, long-range electric cars, but shares a good deal of the blame for causing the public to associate EV driving with the expenditure of one’s retirement savings. Fledgling technologies carry a steep price in the early days, and other automakers weren’t immune from this reality. A base 2011 Nissan Leaf cost $32,780 before destination and federal incentives and offered 73 miles of range. A 2018 model retails for $29,990 and offers 151 miles.

Volkswagen, currently planning a massive electric vehicle assault on the Western world, knows the price gap between ICE cars and EVs is a major impediment to adoption. That’s why it’s couching its pricing strategy in terms buyers will understand. Read More >

If you’re like this writer, seeing “may contain up to 10 percent ethanol” at the gas pump leaves you frowning, then reaching for the premium nozzle. It’s not just that 91 octane helps my tiny turbo run better — I don’t like paying through the nose (as I do for all grades) for slightly less energy by volume.

Should President Donald Trump move forward with reported changes to U.S. ethanol laws, you can expect to see more corn alcohol at your local gas station. And I don’t mean Jim Beam. Read More >

Perusing the responses to Matthew Guy’s QOTD post about the ideal $40,000 vehicle, three sedans kept surfacing in the comments. All three were compact, all of them had engines of identical displacement, and all of them were restrained by a price ceiling — meaning no optional extras.

Today we’ll narrow the $40,000 field to these three, and see which one you’d buy with your own bank’s money.

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As I shuffled, exhausted, into the airport bathroom, a whistle-shaped fan was attempting to dry its freshly mopped floors — picking up the scent of the urine-soaked tiles and wafting it directly into my nostrils. It was not shaping up to be a good week and I had another 2,000 miles to go before I arrived in Utah to sample the 2019 Ford Edge ST and Edge Titanium.

Ford’s Edge has been a guilty pleasure of mine ever since I used one to follow the PGA tour almost four years ago. That experience ended with me feeling worse about golf but much better about a vehicle I had previously written off as uninteresting. The Edge Titanium I basically lived out of during that period didn’t become more exciting. But every time I had to park it and traverse eighteen holes of nearly consistent boredom under the hot summer sun, I’d look back at its fresh red paint and whisper “take me away from all of this.” And that’s exactly what it did when my time with the tour ended.

I loaded up the massive rear compartment, shuttled a few locals home, and drove it back to New York City under budget on fuel, where I found that it was actually small enough to park on the street. I was damned pleased with it, but thrilling performance wasn’t part of the overall appeal. That’s why I was legitimately excited to try Ford’s new Edge ST — a model that replaces the Sport trim for the 2019 model year and was dubbed by its creators as the quickest ST ever made.  Read More >

Like faces in the community, the passing of each year bring the appearances of new car models and the disappearance of old, familiar ones. Product changeover is constant. Picking up a just-released model ensures you’ll be seen driving a “new” car until refresh time rolls around, or, if you’re something of an oddball, until the unpopular vehicle that tickled your automotive fancy gets prematurely chopped from the lineup.

It’s nice getting into a model that’s destined to look relatively fresh for three or four years, but it’s also nice getting a deal and saving yourself some coin when dealers want that old (and possibly executed) model gone. Would it bother you to find yourself in the second camp? Read More >

Streamlining rarely comes without a reduction in personnel, and it appears Ford’s $11 billion restructuring plan will indeed bring about a loss of employees in North America. While the automaker previously hinted at steep job losses in its troubled European operation, a recent report shows employees need to be worried on several continents.

According to the Detroit Free Press, Ford’s plan will leave many unemployed white-collar, salaried workers in its wake. Read More >

There’s a raft of changes coming to Jeep’s Renegade for the 2019 model year, but the brand’s run-down of the various alterations for the U.S. market didn’t include the possibility of a gas-electric variant. That’s what’s coming to the model, however, as Fiat Chrysler looks to ditch its overseas diesel powerplants by 2021 and curry favor with green governments (and buyers).

On Monday, Jeep announced it had begun preparations for the production of a plug-in hybrid variant of its smallest model. Read More >

The long-suffering Elio Motors, whose ambition to launch a low-cost, high-MPG three-wheeler was recently revived by the launch of a weird cryptocurrency, is no longer seeking a custom engine for its novel automobile.

Early Elio prototypes carried a transplanted three-cylinder engine sourced from the illustrious Geo Metro, with the fledgling automaker claiming it had a 900cc triple of 55 horsepower in its sights. Well, plans change. The company, which hopes to start production in Louisiana next year, says it has secured a deal with an existing automaker for the car’s powerplant. Read More >

You may recall news from earlier this year of All Pro Nissan and its associated dealers, most of whom starred in Episode #4391 of the seemingly never-ending series titled “Dealers Behaving Badly.”

At the time, the entities – owned in part by a consortium of former NFL players – were being taken to task by the captive finance arms of Nissan and Hyundai over allegations that parts of the dealer group sold hundreds of vehicles, worth more than $10 million, out of trust and also failed to repay floorplan loans.

So what’s the punishment for these alleged misdeeds? Why, another brand new dealership, of course!

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Fifteen years. That’s how long I’ve gone without a license.

Never again.

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Last year, Mercedes-Benz committed to a Tuscaloosa treat in the form of a billion-dollar upgrade to its existing Deep South facility. Details have surfaced on how that cheddar will be spent, including the construction of a new battery factory for the company’s future EV endeavors.

Mercedes has been entrenched into Alabama for about 20 years now, making SUVs and crossovers that are both sold here and exported to other markets. With this investment in electrification, there’s every chance they’ll be in the area for another two decades.

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The deadliest U.S. transportation accident in the last decade occurred in upstate New York this weekend, but it didn’t involve a airliner, train, or bus. The vehicle in question was a modified 2001 Ford Excursion. All 18 occupants of the aging limo died after the vehicle failed to stop at an intersection, with two pedestrians struck and killed in the parking lot where the runaway vehicle ultimately came to rest.

In the vehicle was a group of young people, including many couples and relatives, who were headed to a birthday celebration. While limo operators are already subjected to federal oversight, the National Transportation Safety Board plans to probe existing regulations as part of its investigation. Read More >

PSA Group surely wishes it had a crystal ball. As the French automaker prepares to make a series of key decisions for its planned North American return, the future trade landscape between the United States and Europe couldn’t be murkier. Will U.S. President Donald Trump levy steep tariffs on imported European cars, or will existing and proposed tariffs crumble like the Berlin Wall?

That’s just one consideration company brass needs to weigh. Other hard choices involve selecting the types of vehicles Americans might want to drive. Read More >

With average transaction prices marching steadily northwards, thanks to the outsized Monroneys of pickup trucks and large SUVs, the internet is awash with digital ink bemoaning that the “average” American can’t afford a new car anymore.

We’ll leave that particular fulmination for another day. Now, however, we’ll put a question to you: with ATPs in the mid-$30k range, let’s round it up to an even $40,000. What single car, truck, or SUV would you buy for that sum?

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BMW has decided to take the polarizing 3 Series Gran Turismo behind the factory to be shot, ending its short and tragic life. Introduced in 2013, the GT hasn’t been the model’s most-coveted variant. Perhaps this explains why the German’s are so averse to taking design risks.

Defined as an “expanded take on the original sports sedan” by the automaker, the Grand Turismo is a higher-riding, long-wheelbase covert hatchback. But its uniqueness won’t carry over into the 3 Series’ next generation. BMW doesn’t see a need for it in today’s car climate and isn’t particularly worried about an uprising from its fans — which it believes will be happier in a crossover, anyway.  Read More >