Wishing your Ford Mustang EcoBoost boasted a little more top end? Get ready to trade it in. In the lead-up to the New York Auto Show, Ford has unveiled a new pony car that draws inspiration — and power — from a fondly remembered hot hatch.

Buyers of the 2020 Mustang 2.3L High Performance Package get more than a nifty badge to announce their status; they also gain 20 horsepower and bits borrowed from the Mustang GT Performance Package. Buyers of 88-horsepower, Fox-bodied four-cylinders could only dream of this stuff. (Read More…)

Not everyone’s attention is on New York City this week. Half a world away, Auto Shanghai presents another stage for automakers to show off their upcoming models.

For Mercedes-Benz, Shanghai serves as the venue for a new concept that appears almost ready to enter production: the Concept GLB. A quick perusal of MB’s naming strategy points to this vehicle slotting between the entry-level GLC crossover and the popular GLC. Looking at its measurements, it seems the GLB sits just a few microns below its larger sibling, with room for more passengers, to boot. (Read More…)

The ever busy Geely Auto Group unveiled both a car and a brand on Thursday, lifting the sheets off the first model sold under the Chinese auto giant’s Geometry brand — the Geometry A. Efficiency in naming seems to be part of Geely’s MO.

Positioned to capture low-priced electric vehicle buyers in China, Europe, and elsewhere, the all-electric brand’s first offering strives for “minimalistic elegance” … and big, big sales. Oh, and it comes in Standard Range and Long Range versions. Now, why does that sound familiar? (Read More…)

Subjected to more spy photography than Princess Diana, the Chevrolet Corvette C8 is very much real. For the first time, General Motors has released official images of the next-generation car, adding a debut date for good measure.

Still cloaked in camouflage, the mid-engined C8 prototype crawled along the streets of New York City Thursday, piloted by Corvette chief engineer Tadge Juechter. GM CEO Mary Barra rode shotgun for the trip, which culminated at the Stephen Siller Tunnel to Towers Foundation’s annual Footsteps to the Future Gala.

There, GM announced that the final C7 Vette will be auctioned off to the charity’s benefit. (Read More…)

In launching its next-generation Sierra half-ton last summer, GMC focused a lot of its attention on the brand-exclusive MultiPro tailgate, a bit of door-within-door wizardry that makes bed access a breeze. It also provides the necessary hookups for tailgate party tunes.

In short, to butcher a quote from Toronto mayor John Tory, the MultiPro has more positions that Masters and Johnson. But the bed behind the gate was also singled out for some attention. GMC told the public that a carbon fiber bed — CarbonPro, in GMC parlance — would join the 2019 model as a late availability option.

That’s still the plan. With production now two months off, GMC wants to rekindle some of that early interest in its seemingly indestructible bed. (Read More…)

Even with affordable electric vehicles cropping up on the global market, their budgetary nature is relative. While the industry promises that EVs will offer the world an affordable, mechanically simple and green alternative to traditional internal combustion models, they’ve yet to deliver. That’s not to suggest e-cars are failures, just that the technologies involved are still maturing.

Battery prices will continue to decline and eventually governments won’t always need to incentivize EV purchases through tax credits. But we’ve yet to reach the point where it makes just as much financial sense to buy a small EV as it would a gasoline-powered econobox. That could soon change. (Read More…)

Hyundai hopes the answer to that question, for a good number of young or otherwise cash-strapped buyers, is “yes.”

As it performs a slow leak of its upcoming small Venue crossover ahead of the New York Auto Show, the Korean automaker wants would-be buyers to know the subcompact Kona won’t be the cheapest Hyundai crossover for long. Nor the smallest.

But how small is too small for America? (Read More…)

Not content with releasing a high contrast, nearly blacked-out photo or rendering of its upcoming fourth-generation Highlander, Toyota decided to go all artsy-fartsy. In place of a single image, Toyota commissioned an artist to create a 3D art installation made up of 200 individual panels.

Buyers, however, will be more interested in the actual, physical vehicle, which makes its debut on April 17th at the New York Auto Show. A sales stud, Toyota’s three-row midsizer promises a new platform and slightly sexier flanks. (Read More…)

What is it with all of this pickup news today? Where are all the new sedans?

Oh right.

Anyway, in a burst of efficiency-minded thinking, Toyota is reportedly developing a single truck platform to replace those found beneath the midsize Tacoma and ancient, full-size Tundra. Sources at the automaker say it’s close to completion, and will make its debut beneath the larger of the two vehicles. (Read More…)

“Change is the only constant in life,” said the Greek philosopher Heraclitus, who probably didn’t envision the remarkable lifespan of the second-generation Nissan Frontier.

Debuting in 2004 as a 2005 model, the second-gen Frontier soldiers on as a rugged and more affordable option in the growing midsize field. But it’s this growing field that belatedly spurred Nissan into action. A new Frontier is on the way, sources claim, bearing improvements demanded of it by a populace that now has access to things like the Ford Ranger. (Read More…)

With the recent loss of the Chevrolet Volt, the term “range-extended electric vehicle” risks going the way of the passenger pigeon, closing the door on the era in which automakers tried to lure nervous buyers into an *almost* electric car that contained a gasoline engine only for sporadic electricity generation. The Volt had this system, the BMW i3 REx still does (but not in Europe), and the glitzy Fisker Karma popularized the term among the Hollywood elite.

The Karma met a swift end, yet lives on under a slightly altered name, all thanks to Chinese dollars. A new version of the exact same car — the Revero, sold by Karma Automotive — appeared in 2016. The California-based, Wanxiang Group-owned Karma is a low-production automaker, flinging out a few hundred examples of the Revero each year for the tidy sum of $130,000. The current car kept its GM-sourced 2.0-liter four-cylinder generator, which feeds two powerful rear-mounted electric motors. Combined power is 403 horsepower and a stump-pulling 981 lb-ft of torque.

As it prepares to debut a revamped Revero at Auto Shanghai 2019, Karma has detailed some changes to its ultra-lux green car. For starters, GM got the boot in favor of BMW. (Read More…)

Amsterdam, home to green medicinal plants and red lights, was the site of a Ford product extravaganza on Tuesday, with the automaker announcing a number of hybrid or electric models for the highly regulated European market.

A total of sixteen electrified models made their (future) existence known, with most falling under the automaker’s new Ford Hybrid banner. Some, like the Fiesta EcoBoost Hybrid and Focus EcoBoost Hybrid, are products thrifty American greenies can only dream of. There’ll be no more Fiestas or Focuses for you, sorry. Another is one Americans with loftier lifestyles might desire, and one Ford could sell here, but won’t: a plug-in Explorer. (Read More…)

We subjected you to yet another mention of Ford’s upcoming electric crossover this morning, but there’s now a new tidbit of information to share about the green machine that’s due out in 2020, likely carrying the Mach-E (or Mach E) name.

While the automaker stated in the past that it wants a 300-mile range for the vehicle, Ford now suggest owners will be able to drive further than that. (Read More…)

While much of the hype surrounding Ford’s electrified future involves the brand’s upcoming “Mustang inspired” crossover EV, due in 2020, there are other models that stand to gain an (albeit milder) electric boost. The F-150 and Mustang, to name a couple.

Ford’s long-running pony car is expected to gain a hybrid variant sometime in 2020, and a new trademark filing sheds light on what name we might expect to see adorning the Stang’s flanks.  (Read More…)

As Volkswagen Group embarks on its quest to build and disseminate The People’s Propulsion across the globe, rumblings of an ultra-cheap electric car from the automaker have come into focus.

We began hearing of such a vehicle last year, when reports emerged that VW was planning an EV with an MSRP below 20,000 euros (roughly $22,400 USD). That’s below the expected price floor of even the lowliest MEB-platform I.D. model — the I.D. Neo, which starts production in Europe late this year.

Now, the automaker has revealed where it sees this vehicle fitting into VW Group’s vast lineup, and when it might appear. (Read More…)