Electrified transportation isn’t catching fire in the new vehicle market, but sales are positively scorching at used car lots.
The top three fastest-selling one- to three-year-old vehicles in the U.S. today aren’t pickups or SUVs, but a low-volume plug-in hybrid and two EVs, according to automotive data and research company iSeeCars.com. Read More >
“I can’t quite believe it, but it actually looks different to the last one. In a wild change of tack…,” CAR Magazine’s CJ Hubbard writes, “…Audi has built a new car that doesn’t look nearly indistinguishable from its predecessor.”
Er, sure.
To be fair, Hubbard is among an early group of drivers who spent a fair chunk of time with the new Audi A5 in Portugal, and with time comes familiarity, and with familiarity comes an ability to more easily distinguish the new car from the old. We’ll get there, too.
Moreover, while reviews in Top Gear and The Telegraph were more direct in regards to the new A5’s, “same-again bodywork,” and the idea that, “designers phones in the changes,” Hubbard simply said the new A5 does not look nearly indistinguishable from the old A5, which could be translated to mean that it does look somewhat indistinguishable.
Of course the new Audi A5 looks entirely like the old Audi A5. That’s how Audi does things, particularly when the predecessor was a home run. Why mess with success? Read More >
At this moment, according to AutoTrader and Cars.com, there are fewer than three dozen new Ram 1500 EcoDiesel Tradesman 4×4 Regular Cab pickup trucks available in the United States.
That’s right, of the roughly 8,000 Ram EcoDiesels and nearly 80,000 Ram 1500s available in the United States, there are approximately 30 available in a traditional working pickup truck format: diesel power, two doors, long box, base trim, four-wheel drive.
This is no slight on Ram or Fiat Chrysler Automobiles’ dealers. They’re simply responding to the market’s demands.
You, by which we mean the truck buying collective, don’t want real trucks. So you can’t have one. Because it’s highly unlikely you can find one, because dealers know you don’t want one. Read More >
Hybrid fans looking to harvest free solar power as they drive (or park) won’t get that ability when the Toyota Prius Prime arrives in the U.S. this fall.
The automaker announced that European and Japanese buyers will get a solar roof version of the plug-in sedan, but Stateside customers will have to wait, Automotive News reports. Toyota faces an engineering and regulatory hurdle in the U.S. — America has stricter crash regulations, and its engineers haven’t been able to create a solar panel mount that doesn’t shatter during rollovers. Read More >
When Tesla updated the front end styling of its Model S earlier this year, existing owners must have groaned, knowing that their ecologically sensitive status symbol would now look dated.
Well, an aftermarket parts company that specializes solely in Tesla add-ons has a solution. Unplugged Performance is offering an updated front fascia that can be mated to any 2012–2016 Model S, allowing older models to adopt the Model 3-esque looks of the current offering.
It’s literally plastic surgery for your car. Read More >
Chevrolet just announced pricing for the 2017 Cruze hatchback due out this fall, and the extra cargo volume tacks on about $4,700 to the price of a base sedan.
Buyers looking for an extra 32.4 cubic feet of cargo space (with rear seats folded) will pay an MSRP of $22,190 — a price that includes a destination freight charge, but not taxes, fees and other monetary hassles. Read More >
Last week’s General Motors announcement in Oshawa, Ontario felt like an olive branch being extended to the worried community, but workers and the city itself are now asking for the full meal.
The threatened Oshawa Car Assembly plant has no mandate to produce vehicles beyond 2017, and the announcement of 700 high-tech engineering jobs scattered around southern Ontario (and some in the north) didn’t do anything to calm fears of its impending closure. Read More >
A vehicle that hasn’t changed in years won’t get a price change for 2017, which shouldn’t impact sales figures that also haven’t changed in years.
Got that? Nissan just released details on the 2017 370Z, and you have to dig deep before finding anything that’s new on the automaker’s rear-drive sport coupe. Read More >
The thing about really old car companies is that they seem to enjoy taking the gulf of time they’ve been in existence and projecting it into the future.
Rolls-Royce, the 110-year-old purveyor of rolling boutique enclaves for the horses and mahogany set, just looked ahead and saw something…intergalactic? Read More >
Volkswagen Group wants to give its operation a top-to-bottom shakeup, which means ditching the bureaucratic, centralized ways of the past and positioning itself as a lean, nimble player in a rapidly evolving marketplace.
Oh, and there will be tons of electric vehicles. Piles and piles of them.
In its announcement of the TOGETHER – Strategy 2025 plan, the automaker came off sounding more like a tech startup, touting a newfound “entrepreneurial mindset and approach” that will bring the company out of the long shadow of the emissions scandal. Read More >
This weekend is the 84th 24 Hours of Le Mans. There are many storylines to follow this year, not the least of which is the return of the Ford GT, marking the 50th anniversary of beating Ferrari and placing 1-2-3 in 1966.
After watching General Motors drop 825 pounds of rock into the beds of a Chevrolet Silverado and a Ford F-150, I wasn’t caught up in fairness or relevance or with the advertisement’s status as a marketing stunt. Some observers asked whether GM crossed an unwritten line shared by Detroit’s cross-town truck rivals, as if in a year when presidential candidates toss deeply personal insults around like water balloons at a summer picnic a pickup truck critique would be over the line.
To me, it simply seemed clear from the moment of the ad’s YouTube launch that the Chevrolet Silverado’s apparent toughness advantage would be more frequently viewed than a traditional truck commercial. As of this writing, Chevrolet’s YouTube channel has racked up 4.4 million views with “Silverado Strong: Steel Bed Outperforms Aluminum Bed,” ten times more views than the channel’s 22 previous ads have generated in the last month, combined.
The Silverado could use the increased attention. U.S. sales of GM’s best-selling model line are flat despite a six-percent sales increase in the truck market so far this year. Read More >
2016 will be the final model year for the extraordinarily slow-selling Honda CR-Z in Canada. Honda Canada spokesperson Maki Inoue confirmed that the CR-Z is done, indirectly supplanted in Honda Canada’s lineup by the reborn Honda Accord Hybrid.
“As Honda aligns its product portfolio to best take advantage of growth opportunities in the marketplace, it will add a new Accord Hybrid, and discontinue CR-Z this year,” Inoue told GoodCarBadCar earlier this afternoon.
Of course, we knew the CR-Z was done for. Separate articles on TTAC earlier today made mention of an American Honda spokesperson’s impression that the CR-Z was already dead and the glut of CR-Z inventory of which Honda dealers must now rid themselves. Read More >
TTAC parent company VerticalScope is implementing some security changes related to forum password strength and password expiration policies. These are in response to increased Internet awareness of security-related incidents on outside major social media websites with which we share many common users. In addition, we recently became aware of potential risks to community accounts (username, userid, encrypted password and email address) on many Forum online communities, including the forum associated with this site.
Our internal security team is investigating information we have received about potential risks to communities and collecting and recording the findings for Law Enforcement agencies. Unfortunately, password-sharing between sites is also compounding the issue as various social-media sites have reported breaches in recent months. We take our users and data very seriously, and are always working to provide both a safe (and fun!) environment for our users.
If you are a user of one of our forum communities, you will receive an email shortly to change your password.
We also encourage you to proactively update your password on this site. (Either through the WordPress blog comments section or through the forum).
Like every online service, we strongly recommend that you always use a unique, strong password (10 character, 1+ uppercase, 1+ number, 1+ special character) to better protect your online security.
Sometimes, a consumer just wants to know what electric vehicle pairs well with their wrinkle-free straight leg Chinos.
Nordstrom shoppers at The Grove shopping mall in Los Angeles can breathe a sigh of relief come Saturday, when Tesla Motors plans to open a ‘gallery’ retail location inside the upscale store.
Let’s hope they swap the Model S P90D for a 60 kWh model on discount days. Read More >
Recent Comments