Motor News

Luxury RV brand Bowlus announced a new, all-electric addition to its lineup, the Volterra, which claims to be the world’s first production EV RV.With satellite internet, 480W solar panels, a 50-gallon fresh water tank, and a 17 kWh battery system, the Volterra is ready to take you on a lengthy, allegedly indefinite, journey.The Volterra, which sleeps four and is just over 27 feet long, starts at a whopping $310,000, making it Bowlus’s most expensive RV by a large margin. When the apocalypse comes, why shouldn’t you hunker down in the height of American-engineered, minimalist luxury? After a long day of fighting zombies and maniacal Guzzoline-obsessed warlords, you deserve to enjoy satellite internet from a memory foam king bed cloaked in sustainable linen after padding around on heated floors. Really, it’s the bare minimum you should ask for when society crumbles and you have to haul your travel trailer into the depths of the wilderness, never to return to the comforts of Suburbia again.

Bowlus

That’s why luxury RV company Bowlus designed their newest model: The Volterra. Bowlus claims the Volterra is the first production all-electric RV in the world, and with its solar panel–battery setup, Bowlus CEO Geneva Long says the Volterra lets you “live off-grid indefinitely.”

Now, that’s a bold claim, and it comes courtesy of two built-in 240W solar panels and two optional 240W solar panels, totaling 480W of AeroSolar power, along with an MPPT solar controller (the most efficient type of controller). This directly charges a 17-kWh battery, the largest in the Bowlus family. Using some quick math and a handful of assumptions, that means that the solar panels would take around 46 peak-sun hours to charge the battery from 0% to 100%.

Bowlus

While this doesn’t account for passive charging while in use, nighttime, or pesky acid rain clouds blowing in, it does give the sense that to live off-grid indefinitely, you would need to limit your power consumption—especially the A/C—which Bowlus concedes. A small price to pay for microwave privileges as the world ends. So maybe the Volterra isn’t quite up for the trials and tribulations of an apocalypse. I mean, who among us? However, the Volterra does offer the opportunity for the luxe off-grid living of many people’s vanlife fantasies and, at its core, a compelling zero-emissions adventure.

Bowlus

Bowlus

Though there is an optional propane backup, the Volterra is meant to be experienced electrically. Not only is the RV itself a contained ecosystem, but it can be recharged by an EV while you drive, and it can give your electric car up to 60 miles of emergency recharge using a 20A outlet.

It also takes advantage of Starlink, Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s satellite internet venture, to give owners 250 mbps of remote download speeds anywhere in the U.S. or Canada, with an LTE SIM card available as a backup. Meanwhile, the Volterra’s kitchen features an induction cooktop, an electric stove that, in addition to being safer than normal stovetops, also creates significantly less ambient heat, reducing your need to crank the A/C in a tight space.

Bowlus

Bowlus

Other features of the Volterra include a backup camera, over-air software updates, built-in pet features, and increased water capacity, amounting to 50 gallons of fresh water and 31 gallons of grey water. Otherwise, the rest of the Volterra is pure Bowlus. The aluminum monocoque body is nearly indistinguishable from the brand’s Endless Highways and Terra Firma models, and the interior follows the same floorplan, including a convertible king bed, a large bathroom, a galley, and generous seating. The Volterra, though, comes with a new, lush finish dubbed La Cumbre, which brings linen duvets (plus throw pillows, drapes, you name it), vegan upholstery, and a California sunset-inspired color palette to the table.

Bowlus

So how much will a pampered trip into the great outdoors cost you? Well, the Volterra starts at $310,000, making it the most expensive Bowlus by $25,000, and putting it on the pricer end of travel trailers as a whole. However, it represents the ways that RVing can be improved by EV technology and shows some of the innovations making off-grid life more comfortable, fun, and sustainable. While it will hopefully be a long time before we all retreat into the wilderness to escape evil robot overlords, in the meantime, as Bowlus’s CEO says, the Volterra is a great way to “preserve the great outdoors while you enjoy its splendor.”
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The Lamborghini Urus has set the production-SUV record at Pikes Peak with a 10:32.064 time.That beats the previous record of 10:49.902 set by a 2018 Bentley Bentayga.The record-breaking Urus, disguised in camouflage, is a new model that Lamborghini will reveal on August 19.When it comes to production SUVs racing up Pikes Peak, there’s a new king of the mountain. It’s the supercar-bred Lamborghini Urus that recently posted a 10:32.064 time. That’s almost 18 seconds quicker than the 2018 Bentley Bentayga that previously held the production-SUV record with a time of 10:49.902. While the Lambo didn’t compete in the official event that was held at the end of June, its time was recorded by Pikes Peak’s official timekeepers.

As seen in the photos, the record-breaking Urus was wrapped in orange camouflage with the phrase “Keep Raising the Bar” on its flanks. It’s Lamborghini’s thinly veiled attempt to disguise the fact that it wasn’t just any old 641-hp Urus that broke the record. Rather, it’s a new model that will be revealed on August 19. Although major details about the upcoming Urus remain under wraps until then, Lamborghini does reveal a few things about the machine that conquered the storied hill-climb course.

Lamborghini

Apart from the required safety equipment, which primarily includes a roll cage and a racing seat with a six-point harness, the Urus is essentially what folks will get with the production version. That includes the standard twin-turbo 4.0-liter V-8 as well as Pirelli P Zero Trofeo R tires, size 285/40R-22 front and 325/235R-22 rear. Lamborghini says it was involved in the development of that specific rubber, which is said to be the first time Pirelli has offered semi-slick tires designed for an SUV.

Lamborghini

The man responsible for the setting the Pikes Peak record in the Lambo is driver Simone Faggioli. Along with being a Pirelli test driver, he’s also a hill-climb champion who still holds the rear-wheel-drive record that he set during the 2018 Pikes Peak International Hill Climb.
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Bentley’s next bespoke show car, the Mulliner Batur, is set to debut at 2022’s Monterey Car Week in California later this month.The Batur follows 2020’s Bacalar Speedster, which was offered in a very limited production run of 12 cars.This time around, though, Bentley says the Batur’s styling is a hint at the brand’s design direction for future EV models.Ultra-luxury automaker Bentley will debut its latest coachbuilt creation, the Mulliner Batur, at this year’s Monterey Car Week event in Monterey, California. The Mulliner Batur is a follow-up to the gorgeous Bacalar Speedster, a limited-edition model based on the Continental GT convertible.We can see only a few details from the teaser image above, including red grille details and a more pronounced spear dividing the right and left sides of the car’s grille. It’s hard to say if the Batur will be based on an existing Bentley model or whether it will be rendered as a sedan, a coupe, or an SUV.

Handcrafted styling and a ritzy interior aren’t all that the Batur will share with the Bacalar: both are named for bodies of water located in far-flung locales. Lake Batur is an 88-meter deep crater lake located in the Kintamani district of Bali, Indonesia, while Laguna Bacalar is a pristine lake in the Mexican state of Quintana Roo, located in the Yucatán Peninsula.Unlike the Bacalar, of which only 12 will be made, the Mulliner Batur can be interpreted as a preview of Bentley’s future styling as it moves into its EV era. As such, we expect the show car to be powered by an electric powertrain, probably with two motors and all-wheel drive. We’ll know more on August 20, when Bentley rolls out the Mulliner Batur to a crowd of onlookers one day ahead of the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance.If the Mulliner Batur is offered as a limited-production model, expect a price at least equal to the Bacalar’s $1.9 million. And if you want one, act fast, because they’re likely to sell out quickly.
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Honda has just released a faraway photo of the 2023 Pilot TrailSport shown clustered among large boulders, marking the first news we’re getting of the next-gen Pilot.We don’t have any clear details yet, but we expect the TrailSport to start around $47,000 and to get a full reveal later this fall.Sales are expected to start in early 2023.Honda provided the first teaser image of the 2023 Pilot TrailSport this morning (above) with a faraway shot of the three-row SUV clustered among a backdrop of boulders. The release and photo were light on specifics but we expect a full reveal later this fall, with the car going on sale early next year. We expect the base Pilot to start around $40,000 with the TrailSport coming in closer to the $47,000 mark, though official pricing figures have not been released yet. No interior photos were offered, though it is likely the new Pilot will feature the same design cues offered in other new Hondas.
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We’re fully in speculation territory here, with no official details announced, but we hope the new TrailSport comes with added performance rather than as a styling package. The Pilot is already available with all-wheel drive and an elevated seating position. We think giving it a few inches of lift, while adding skid plates for protection, will likely add to the price over the 2022 version, but added performance could be worth it. The 2022 model produces 280 horsepower from its V-6, and the new version could get a detuned version of the turbo V-6 currently available in the MDX, but we may just be getting our hopes up.
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If you were an automotive enthusiast during the mid-2000s, you are certainly familiar with the crew at West Coast Customs. The shop was the home of MTV’s iconic TV show Pimp My Ride, which ran for 73 episodes here in the States. The show proved so popular that a number of international versions quickly hit global airways. After more than a decade since it last aired, the United Kingdom is finally about to get another crack at the Pimp My Ride universe thanks to a little help from a team at eBay. Pimp My Ride UK initially debuted in June 2005 and ran for just three seasons before ultimately being pulled. English DJ Tim Westwood was the original host, while the modification and restoration work was completed by the team at Carisma Automotive. Now, though, British rapper Lady Leshurr, who is best known for her Queen’s Speech series of freestyles, is going to take a crack at reviving the project. Hosted on the MTV YouTube channel and bankrolled by eBay, the show will return as an internet property on August 19.

One of the first vehicles the team is slated to work on is a Mitsubishi GT, which Top Gear reports will wear some Fast and Furious–inspired tweaks. That’s only fitting considering the two franchises have similar career timelines. The work is slated to take place at the Wrench Studios, which is a high-performance tuning shop located in Ashford, England. Based on the high-horsepower builds that have been featured on the shop’s own YouTube page, the pairing seems perfect for this sort of endeavor.

eBay

Pimp My Ride has had an interesting cultural history. The show took a lot of flak for the sheer amount of “TV magic” taking place during production, but it has managed to cement itself as a genuine part of car culture from its era. And while there may not be a ton of tribute vehicles running around, it will be interesting to see what this British crew is able to come up with. Hopefully we get to see some builds that you wouldn’t see come out of the oh-so-American West Coast Customs.
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The National Insurance Crime Bureau (NICB) has released its car theft data from 2021, showing that the rate of stolen cars was up 8 percent from 2020.Full-size pickup trucks were the most commonly stolen vehicles, with Chevrolet ousting Ford for the top spot in thefts for 2021, while economy sedans like Honda’s Civic and Toyota’s Camry trailed close behind.Recovering stolen cars can be a difficult process, but thefts reported within the first 24 hours have a 34 percent chance of recovery.With record demand and strained supply chains, the automotive market is in a period of severe fluctuation. Manufacturers can’t produce enough cars to meet the demand from dealerships, with cars being sold before they even reach the dealer. With new cars sparsely produced and often sold above sticker prices, consumers fled to the used-vehicle market, where things haven’t been much better in terms of options or price. This has led to a scarcity of choices for car buyers, but not necessarily for car thieves.Thanks to data collected by the National Insurance Crime Bureau (NICB), we can see how this lack of supply has affected the world of automotive thieving. The results were a modest increase in theft, rising 8 percent year over year for 2021. However, the theft trends from 2021 included a major change to the cast of usual targets. Ranking at the top of the list were Chevrolet full-size pickup trucks, with 48,206 trucks stolen last year. Ford came in number two, a major change from two years of being on top, with 47,999 full-size trucks stolen in 2021. Trucks are particularly popular with thieves, in part because of their roadgoing ubiquity. NICB data notes that the most commonly stolen year of Chevrolet and Ford trucks were 2004 and 2007, respectively.

National Insurance Crime Bureau

Model year seems to play a big role in the kinds of cars stolen. Honda products from the late 1990s and early 2000s were notorious for being stolen, and the trend continues two decades later. Honda’s Civic and Accord took third and fourth places on the list, with the most commonly stolen Civic being from the 2000 model year. The Accord falls even further behind, with 1997 being the most common model year stolen. Around 61,000 of these family sedans were stolen in total last year.

Other predictable models were included in the list, including the Toyota Camry and Corolla as well as the Nissan Altima and Honda CR-V. Beyond the usual suspects, there is a new addition to the list, an SUV that was stolen at high rates in 2021: Jeep’s Cherokee and Grand Cherokee models. The rugged SUV was stolen 13,210 times across the nation.

Jeep

A deeper dive into the NICB database of common vehicle thefts by state reveals some telling trends. True to home, the top 10 most stolen vehicles in Michigan were all domestically made, with the Dodge Charger topping the list at 1148 units sold. Oregon stayed true to its granola roots, with the average year of the most stolen vehicles being 1998 and three of the 10 most stolen cars listed as aging Subarus. Smaller, less populous states like Vermont and New Hampshire had significantly fewer grand theft autos, with the most stolen vehicles being 16 Subaru Foresters and 44 Ford trucks, respectively.The NICB does have some recommendations to help rightful car owners keep their vehicles. Reporting the vehicle as stolen right away is the most important part, and even then your chances are somewhat slim. Data from 2021 shows a 34% recovery rate if the stolen vehicle was reported in the first 24 hours. Other common-sense recommendations include parking in well-lit areas and removing valuables from plain sight.If you own one of the cars listed, don’t panic. It’s not a coincidence that the most commonly stolen vehicles are also the most sold. Ford sold 726,004 F-series pickup trucks last year, while Honda sold 263,787 Civics. More than 10.5 million Honda Accords have been produced since the model’s inception. All of that is to say common sense practices and an extra layer of protection (steering wheel club, immobilizer, etc.) for the more susceptible models should keep your car wherever you park it.

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• They don’t make them like this anymore, but I remember driving one of these back when they did, sometime in the mid-’90s.• The one shown here shows only 1200 miles on the odometer and is up for online auction with Bring a Trailer.• With the auction scheduled to end on Friday, August 12, bidding is just over $14,000.Sometime around the mid-’90s, when I was rolling around in my 1985 Chevrolet Camaro IROC-Z, I stopped by a local car dealer to ogle the then-new Impala SS. I asked if I could take it for a test drive, and a sales guy who looked like a Sopranos extra glanced up from his folding chair near the front door and said, “If everybody drives it, nobody buys it.” He threw me the keys to a Monte Carlo SS, though. One much like this one, our Bring a Trailer Pick of the Day.

Bring a Trailer

With the IROC lending me some form of credibility, or at least collateral, I motored off down Route 1 to see what this Monte Carlo was all about. Because honestly, I didn’t get it: It looked fast, it had that NASCAR connection, but Chevy clearly hamstrung it on performance. Probably this was a GM internal thing, protecting the supremacy of the Buick Grand National, but it resulted in the curious machine you see here: all rakish go-fast attitude, but packing a carbureted 181-hp 5.0-liter V-8 under the hood. The same engine in my IROC, same year, with tuned-port fuel injection, made 215 horsepower. With a lot less car wrapped around it.

Bring a Trailer

But as I got a few miles behind me on my test drive, I started to understand the deal with the Monte Carlo SS. This isn’t a car about winning pink slips at the drag strip or shredding corners on some mountain road. It’s about rolling around and feeling badass in a big American coupe, V-8 burbling through dual exhaust, surrounded by burgundy velour. This car was on the tail end of the rear-drive GM coupe’s run of dominance, soon to be supplanted by the front-drive V-6 cars that never recaptured this brand of confidence, even if they eclipsed its performance. It’s not just that there aren’t cars like this anymore—there haven’t been cars like this for at least three decades. This one, with 1200 miles, is about the closest thing to new you’ll likely ever find. It looks better than the one I drove circa 1994, for sure. And while some people might describe the color as plum, I’d say it’s mighty cherry.

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Lucid is adding a new option to the Air, an appearance package called the Stealth Look.It will cost $6000 extra and includes dark exterior trim and either 20- or 21-inch black wheels.Lucid says it will be available starting in the first quarter of 2023.The Lucid Air is hardly a cheap proposition to start with, but $6000 still strikes us as a lot for its new appearance package. Called the Stealth Look, this new option is effectively the same as the blacked-out trim packages offered on so many vehicles these days.

The option essentially swaps out all of the standard car’s platinum-colored exterior trim for darker trim pieces. That means the roof, C-pillar, mirror caps, headlight surrounds, lower-door trim, are all finished in either gloss black or satin graphite. The wheels are also black and feature a different design, with either 20-inch or 21-inch sizes available. Lucid doesn’t mention any design changes for the interior.

Lucid

The Stealth Look will be offered with any of the Air’s five exterior color options, which include Stellar White, Infinite Black, Cosmos Silver, Quantum Grey, and Zenith Red.The Stealth Look will be offered on all models except for the base Air Pure, meaning you can spec it for the 1050-hp Grand Touring Performance, the 819-hp Grand Touring, or the 620-hp Touring. But Lucid says that vehicles equipped with the Stealth Look won’t be available until the first quarter of 2023.
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