Aurelia Butler

Starting in 1957, engineer-turned-executive Lloyd Reuss was tied to General Motors for decades and served as its president from 1990 to 1992. His son, Mark, is the current president of GM. During his time at GM, Reuss helped develop GM’s passenger-car models and supported the company’s early electric vehicle project that eventually released the EV1.After leaving GM in 1993, Reuss spent a second career as a champion for various charities, including Focus: Hope in Detroit, which helps local students earn associate and bachelor of engineering degrees. We once called him a visionary. He was “the man who saved the Riviera from oblivion.” He planned to turn Buick from a company that made cushy “doctors’ cars” into a more youthful and exciting brand in the early 1980s. He used money from the then-nascent C5 Corvette development program on a full-size sedan platform that birthed the Pontiac Bonneville, Buick LeSabre, and Oldsmobile 88 in the 1990s. Lloyd Reuss died this weekend at 86. He was the president of General Motors from 1990–1992. Reuss as VisionaryReuss saw something happening in the company back then that made him an early champion of electric vehicles. He supported the GM Impact, the famously poorly named all-electric concept car that debuted at the 1990 Los Angeles Auto Show and later became the GM EV1.Reuss started work at GM in 1957 and became chief engineer at both Buick and Chevrolet before moving up to the role of Buick general manager in 1980. He kept moving up the ranks: becoming head of GM’s passenger-car groups in North America, then the leader of GM’s North American operations and worldwide automotive components. After his short stint as GM president, Reuss retired from GM in 1993.After leaving the auto industry, Reuss focused on charity work, including Focus: Hope in Detroit, which works to overcome racism, poverty, and injustice. He was inducted into the Automotive Hall of Fame, which notes that Reuss helped establish the Center for Advanced Technologies (CAT) at Focus: Hope in 1993 and volunteered there for over 20 years. Then and now, CAT’s mission is to teach local students so they can get a college degree in manufacturing engineering tuition-free. In part because of Reuss’s work there, Focus: Hope said GM had given the group over $14 million since 1986. The GM Foundation and the SAE gave the CAT a $500,000 grant. The CAT has awarded more than 300 associate and bachelor of engineering degrees.This content is imported from twitter. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site.We are saddened to share the passing of longtime Focus: HOPE Advisory Board Chairman and former Dean of Workforce Development program Lloyd Reuss. pic.twitter.com/CaeBjO8CYq— Focus: HOPE (@Focus_HOPE) April 24, 2023Reuss was married to his wife, Maurcine, for 63 years before her death in 2020. They had two children, Charlene and Mark, who is the current GM president. Funeral service information has not been announced. The funeral home suggests donating to groups Reuss supported in lieu of flowers.Contributing EditorSebastian Blanco has been writing about electric vehicles, hybrids, and hydrogen cars since 2006. His articles and car reviews have appeared in the New York Times, Automotive News, Reuters, SAE, Autoblog, InsideEVs, Trucks.com, Car Talk, and other outlets. His first green-car media event was the launch of the Tesla Roadster, and since then he has been tracking the shift away from gasoline-powered vehicles and discovering the new technology’s importance not just for the auto industry, but for the world as a whole. Throw in the recent shift to autonomous vehicles, and there are more interesting changes happening now than most people can wrap their heads around. You can find him on Twitter or, on good days, behind the wheel of a new EV.  More

From the May 2023 Issue of Car and Driver.WHAT IT ISReports of the Maxima’s death are greatly exaggerated. While the internal-combustion Maxima is set to conclude this year, we won’t have to wait long for its electric successor. We expect it to carry some of the sharp styling from the 2019 IMs concept, a car Nissan referred to as an “elevated sports sedan.” To our ears, that sounds pretty close to “Toyota Crown.”WHY IT MATTERSNissan remains dedicated to sedans even as automakers are abandoning the segment in favor of SUV-ing everything. Putting a genuinely futuristic electric sedan at the top of its lineup would help solidify the notion that sedans are here to stay.PLATFORMThe Maxima EV will ride on Nissan’s CMF-EV platform, which underpins the Ariya electric SUV and is shared with partners Renault and Mitsubishi. It’ll serve as the base for more than a dozen EVs by 2030.POWERTRAINThe base Ariya makes 214 horsepower and 221 pound-feet of torque, and an entry-level Maxima wouldn’t be unsurprising with a similar setup. In keeping with the Maxima’s sporting intent, it’d be nice to see the IMs concept’s figures—483 horsepower and 590 poundfeet—make an appearance.COMPETITIONBMW i4, Hyundai Ioniq 6, Sony/Honda Afeela EV sedan, Tesla Model 3. WHAT MIGHT GO WRONGIt could very well end up a watered-down Bud Light, like the last three generations of gas-powered Maximas.ESTIMATED ARRIVAL AND PRICEProduction is due to kick off in Canton, Mississippi, in 2025. Pricing should be close to that of the Ariya, which starts in the mid-$40,000s.More in 2024Senior EditorCars are Andrew Krok’s jam, along with boysenberry. After graduating with a degree in English from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2009, Andrew cut his teeth writing freelance magazine features, and now he has a decade of full-time review experience under his belt. A Chicagoan by birth, he has been a Detroit resident since 2015. Maybe one day he’ll do something about that half-finished engineering degree. More

Hyundai sold just under 4 million vehicles in 2022, but big changes are looming as the parent company aims high in the EV world.Hyundai wants to be a “top three EV manufacturer” in 2030, but exactly how the company is defining that list is vague.What we can say is that if the Hyundai Motor Group wants to sell 3.6 million EVs in 2030, it’s going to have to put in the work. The competition will not be resting.The Hyundai Motor Group wants to move on up in the world. The Korean company is objectively winning the “How ’bout these cool electric vehicles?” challenge all the automakers are playing these days, but it wants more. Hyundai Motor Group (HMG) announced earlier this month that it wants to be a “Top 3 EV manufacturer” by 2030. Exactly what that means is a bit difficult to define, and even Hyundai isn’t willing to say publicly which companies it is targeting. Tesla is obviously the world’s number-one EV company, but they’re not alone. Will Hyundai include China-only domestic brands, especially companies like the Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation (SAIC Motors) that sell their fair share of city EVs? Or does Hyundai want to be considered in the top three, no matter which companies you look at? Who Even Are the Top Three?We asked whom Hyundai considers its competition here, but HMG spokesperson Seoyong Choi told Car and Driver, “We do not comment on other automakers.” Choi did say that the company will measure the “global top three” EV sales company goal as including both passenger cars and commercial vehicles from HMG’s three brands: Hyundai, Kia, and Genesis. HMG will offer more than 30 EV models in 2030.So, instead, let’s look at the overall EV sales numbers. To put them in perspective and appreciate the magnitude of Hyundai’s plans, let’s take stock of where things are today. Globally, sales of plug-in vehicles dramatically increased in 2021, with total sales of EVs and PHEVs roughly doubling from their 2020 numbers. Despite the start of the pandemic, annual EV sales in 2020 were relatively stable compared with the preceding years, according to International Energy Agency data. Roughly 2.7 million EVs were sold in China in 2021, almost half a million in the U.S., and 1.2 million in Europe. Choi said that HMG plans to produce and sell 3.6 million EVs around the world in 2030. The Hyundai brand sold 3.9 million vehicles, of all powertrain types, in 2022 and expects to sell 4.3 million vehicles in 2023.2023 Tesla Model 3.TeslaTesla Is Still on TopWhat about Hyundai’s competition? The global EV leader, Tesla, sold 1.3 million vehicles in 2022, and despite the continued news surrounding CEO Elon Musk’s actions over at Twitter, Tesla sales remain strong. Given Musk’s behaviors, we won’t predict where things will stand in 2030, but no one should expect Tesla to fade away. Ford, GM, and Volkswagen have all made big strides in their EV game in recent years, with VW saying it wants half of its sales to be electric by 2030. VW sold 4.5 million vehicles in 2022. We’re also still waiting to see where Chinese companies with international ambitions like BYD might land between now and the end of the decade. 2023 Kia Niro EV.Marc Urbano|Car and DriverMade in Korea—and in U.S.Selling more EVs will require building new EV plants or expanding those operating today, but Choi wouldn’t say how many new plants could still be announced and constructed in time for the 2030 deadline. HMG did say it will spend $18 billion to expand the EV sector in Korea, including money for new plants, and that it expects 1.5 million of the 3.6 million EVs HMG will build and sell in 2030 will be made in Korea. In 2022, HMG announced a new plant dedicated to building purpose-built EVs like the Niro Plus, an electric model that will be used as both a general model and a zero-emission taxi in Korea.Gearing UpIn the U.S., Hyundai broke ground on a new EV plant in Georgia last October and said it would be able to produce up to 500,000 EVs a year. It seems like HMG will need to expand capacity somewhere to hit the “Top 3” target, but all Choi would say is, “We are reviewing various scenarios to respond flexibly to the market situation.” Hyundai will also be a bit more flexible when it comes to vehicle design thanks to a next-generation, dedicated passenger EV platform called eM, which will be introduced in 2025, that fits inside Hyundai’s Integrated Modular Architecture (IMA) system. Vehicles built on platforms that use IMA will be able to use standardized batteries and motors “to increase product development speed and efficiency,” Hyundai said.This content is imported from poll. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site.Contributing EditorSebastian Blanco has been writing about electric vehicles, hybrids, and hydrogen cars since 2006. His articles and car reviews have appeared in the New York Times, Automotive News, Reuters, SAE, Autoblog, InsideEVs, Trucks.com, Car Talk, and other outlets. His first green-car media event was the launch of the Tesla Roadster, and since then he has been tracking the shift away from gasoline-powered vehicles and discovering the new technology’s importance not just for the auto industry, but for the world as a whole. Throw in the recent shift to autonomous vehicles, and there are more interesting changes happening now than most people can wrap their heads around. You can find him on Twitter or, on good days, behind the wheel of a new EV.  More