To put it mildly, the TTAC crew has been less than enthusiastic about the 2018 Ford EcoSport ever since Ford Motor Company announced the overseas subcompact crossover would come to America, filling a gap at the bottom of Ford’s utility lineup. Having not driven one, we’ll hold off on any assumptions about the model’s abilities or quality.

But it’s interesting to note, as EcoSports arrive on dealer lots across the U.S., that Ford’s giving the model a helping hand right out of the gate. Read More >

The alliance consisting of Nissan, Renault, and Mitsubishi Motors is currently searching for partners for a plunge into the robo-taxi business. While chairman Carlos Ghosn claims mobility will never replace traditional ownership, he acknowledges the need to explore other avenues to remain competitive.

“A lot of people think this is substitution. It’s not — it’s addition,” Ghosn said in November. “The traditional business of building cars and selling cars and owning cars is going to continue.”

However, the supplemental businesses aren’t going off half-cocked. Ogi Redzic, Alliance senior vice president, has said he’s personally overseeing about 1,000 employees tasked with developing connectivity services for the automotive group and intends to announce the partners for the new autonomous cab service in the coming months.  Read More >

Swelling to alarming levels roughly a year ago, General Motors’ vehicle inventory was still hovering around recession-era levels in the middle of 2017. In May, GM had a 100-day supply of light trucks and a 97-day supply of passenger cars. While that’s not a serious problem when factories are running full tilt to satisfy demand, the cooling automotive market brought reason for concern.

General Motors said there was no reason for anyone to become unsettled over the surplus. With several assembly plants undergoing retooling in the fall, executives claimed inventories would fall to normal levels before 2018. As it turned out, those production gaps played out exactly as the automaker hoped.  Read More >

Making good on a statement made a year ago, Bentley will show a plug-in hybrid variant of its cross-eyed uniquely styled Bentayga at March’s Geneva Motor Show. This continues its expansion of a model that is already built with a 6.0-liter W12 and, in some markets, a 4.0-litre diesel V8. A gasoline-fuelled V8 is apparently on tap, too.

This will mark the first electrified vehicle for the luxury brand, one better known for bespoke interiors than batteries and kilowatts. Going forward, though, there’s an increasingly excellent chance that electrons will spread like wild kudzu across the model range.

Read More >

Alfa Romeo “outperformed all others in U.S. sales last year,” posting astronomical year-over-year gains. At least, that’s how Bloomberg frames it in a recent news article. By that logic, infants everywhere outperformed long-distance runners by taking their first steps last year.

As Fiat Chrysler’s sexiest brand, Alfa has only recently made its return to the North American market. Therefore, referencing a large improvement in overall sales isn’t quite so impressive, considering the borderline mainstream Giulia has only just been added to the product lineup. Prior to 2017, the brand’s singular offering in the United States was the mid-engined 4C sports car.

Read More >

While it’s definitely not the same doom and gloom vibe felt around the domestic auto industry as it was financially circling the drain in 2008, headlines in the new year seem to forecast storm clouds on the horizon.

After nearly a decade of sales growth, the American market for passenger cars and light trucks flattened out in 2017. Actually, sales didn’t just flatten in the U.S., they dropped 1.75 percent for the year. Not only has the overall U.S. market shrunk, we’re seeing predictions of the death of an entire segment of that market, the sedan — a segment that has pretty much defined the American automotive world for a century. It’s one thing for an iconoclastic website like TTAC to be talking about a sedan deathwatch, but when that prediction is on the front page of the Detroit News, with reports that Ford may very well stop building sedans in America and that Buick sedan sales have been cut in half over the past year, people will take notice.

I’m not here to depress you, though. Despite the gloomy cast to things, in reality the automotive industry as a whole is doing very well. Read More >

Last week I asked the B&B about the worst L they ever took on a car or bike deal. To my surprise, a lot of readers were forthcoming about not always being steely-eyed cash-purchase Vanguard Funds billionaires who always make salespeople cry and who get loans that are so good the bank actually pays them interest. To those of you who responded with a story or a description: THANK YOU for putting just a tiny little pebble in the way of the Internet Tough Guy steamroller.

This week we’re going to let the braggarts and the Dave Ramsey disciples and the Rich-Dad-Poor-Dad types have a word. Of course, it would also be nice to hear real things from real people. The subject is: What’s the best deal you ever made on a car (or motorcycle, or both)? I’ll kick it off.

Read More >

Volkswagen’s pre-dieselgate “take over the world” scheme appears to have returned in a smaller, more manageable form. Now, VW’s plan is simply to plunder the compact crossover segment — not an easy task, given the fierce competition.

The automaker’s strategy involves spanning the segment with two vehicles carrying the name badge. The old, criticised-for-its-size Tiguan continues on as the Tiguan Limited, while the new-for-2018 next-generation model ferries three rows of passengers on a nearly 11-inch longer wheelbase. Now, we learn of Phase 2 of VW’s plan. Chop the price. Read More >

Actually, I don’t feel fine. Far from it, in fact. Ever since I can remember, there has been a three-box sedan in my family’s driveway — both before and after I was old enough to buy by own vehicles. Midsize sedans used to be the default choice for most families in my hardscrabble hometown, parked cheek-to-jowl with rusty pickups at the local grocery store.

Now, our inky-black Charger is the exception rather than the rule in the school drop-off queue. Save for a CTS next door and a Mazda 3 down the street, we’re about the only household around with a sedan in the drive. The midsize four-door is in a bad way.

Read More >

Felix writes:

Got a Mazda 3 hatch to replace my 29-year-old MR2, and while it’s no MR2, it has its own benefits. But I detest Hill Launch Assist, and the power steering is the biggest reminder that it’s no MR2.

The Mazda power steering is better than I expected, but it’s still the first thing I notice when I start it up and always makes me want the MR2 back, three years later. I tried turning the engine off on a private road with just enough slope to keep moving, and it’s kind of scary to imagine that happening on a freeway, it’s so stiff and jerky. Is there any way to disable it and having just plain manual steering, to see what it’s like?

As for Hill Assist, what annoys me the most is not knowing if a slope is enough to trigger it or not; if I expect it, and it didn’t engage, there’s a tire chirp for no reason, and if I don’t expect it but it did engage, I sometimes kill the engine unless I’m paying attention. I can understand its attraction for weenies who are just learning stick, but I don’t need it and don’t want it. Read More >

Despite the inherent challenges with using hydrogen as a fuel source, Hyundai is plowing ahead with a new generation of fuel cell vehicle as a follow up to the Tucson Fuel Cell it currently offers in limited markets.

Difference is, the current hydrogen-powered Tucson shares a lot of sheetmetal with the traditionally fuelled Tucson. The new, as yet unnamed, hydrogen crossover doesn’t look like anything in Hyundai’s portfolio … at least not yet.

Read More >

Wanting to remind the world that it’s not as far behind in the race toward autonomy as some have claimed, the Toyota Research Institute intends to bring a Lexus LS 600hL equipped with its 3.0 autonomous research platform to CES next week. Toyota introduced the platform 2.0 last March — the first autonomous testing platform developed entirely by TRI.

Since then, the automaker has focused heavily on machine vision and machine learning, leaning on all the popular sensing equipment currently synonymous with autonomous technologies. As the system was designed specifically to improve over time, version 3.0 uses a Luminar LIDAR system with a 200-meter sensor range that covers a 360-degree perimeter of the vehicle. The testbed Lexus is also equipped with shorter-range sensors, which are placed low on all four sides of the vehicle and are meant to spot low-level and smaller objects. Read More >

There’s been a lot of buzz around the 2019 Mercedes-Benz G-Class, details of which “leaked” earlier this week. However, as the vast majority of those tidbits came straight from the manufacturer, Benz is really just whetting appetites for its updated SUV ahead of its official debut at the Detroit Auto Show in two weeks.

The good news is that Mercedes doesn’t seem to have muddled the G-Class’ iconic design; the bad news is that the company feels compelled to address concerns that the SUV won’t be a genuine off-road vehicle. Considering that I’ve never seen anyone but automotive journalists take the ultra-lux behemoth through the dirt, this didn’t seem like a problem that needed to be confronted.

Still, Benz does intend for the G-Class to journey across treacherous terrain, and there’s evidence to back up its claims.  Read More >

The small car-based truck market was an interesting place in the early 1980s. Chevrolet had a hit on its hands with the El Camino, and it caught other manufacturers empty handed. By then, Ford had lost its LTD-based Ranchero pickup, and in its grief turned to a short-lived experiment called the Durango, based on the Fairmont Futura.

Dodge tried this one. The Rampage.

Read More >

America’s love affair with the pickup truck is about as well kept a secret as the styling of the next Mercedes G-Wagen. Steph talked about mid-sizers this morning, alluding to VW’s new trademark and pontificating if it’s worth the OEM taking a plunge into that segment.

Full-size trucks have no such concerns, of course, with their sales success seemingly as reliable as the sunrise.

Read More >