Motor News

Mazda has announced pricing for the 2023 CX-50, which starts at $28,025.It’s a bit more expensive than the CX-5 but offers the same engine choices: a naturally aspirated 2.5-liter inline-four and a turbocharged 2.5-liter inline-four.A rugged-looking Meridian Edition is coming later on, as is a CX-50 hybrid with a Toyota-sourced powertrain.Mazda will soon have two entries in the popular compact-crossover segment with similar price points. The 2023 CX-50 is the newer of the two, and we now know it will be more expensive than the existing CX-5 that’s just received small updates for 2022. The CX-50 starts at $28,025 and ranges up to over $42,000 in its fully loaded turbocharged trim level. That starting price is $900 more than the CX-5’s base price, while the loaded CX-50 is $2900 more than a CX-5 Signature.

The CX-50 has a similar trim structure as the CX-5, with 2.5 S models coming with the same naturally aspirated 187-hp 2.5-liter inline-four engine that we’re familiar with from other Mazda models. Select ($29,425), Preferred ($30,725), Preferred Plus ($33,165), Premium ($35,625) and Premium Plus ($37,625) packages will be available with varying levels of equipment. A more powerful 256-hp turbocharged version of the 2.5-liter engine is offered on the CX-50 2.5 Turbo models, starting at $37,625.Unlike the CX-5, the CX-50 won’t call its top trim level Signature, instead going with the Premium Plus moniker for the fully loaded 2.5 Turbo model that costs $42,775. All-wheel drive and a six-speed automatic transmission are standard across the board, and a hybrid model is coming later on with a powertrain sourced from Toyota.Mazda also says it will eventually launch a Meridian Edition version of the CX-50 with a more rugged look that includes 18-inch wheels with all-terrain tires, hood graphics, and a few other outdoorsy accessories. We assume this is the version of the CX-50 that Mazda showed in the initial press pictures (pictured below). Pricing isn’t available yet but we reckon it will also be more than $40,000.
Mazda says production of the CX-50 has already begun at its new plant in Alabama that’s a joint venture with Toyota. We don’t yet have a specific on-sale date for the CX-50 but it should start arriving at dealerships within the next month or so.
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Our Bring a Trailer pick of the day is this 1989 Volkswagen Vanagon GL Syncro Camper conversion.This rare beast features a pop-top roof for extra sleeping space and an all-wheel-drive system to make easier work of navigating to off-grid camping spots.The seller has replaced several key items, including tires and the air conditioning compressor, so this adventure mobile comes ready to hit the open road.Like many other auto enthusiasts, we can easily find ourselves lost for hours in the car-auction dreamland that is Bring a Trailer. This weekend we found this 1989 Volkswagen Vanagon GL Syncro camper conversion that got our car-nerd juices flowing and also gave us a serious case of wanderlust. It’s up for auction on the Bring a Trailer auction site—which, like Car and Driver, is part of Hearst Autos—with bidding open until Saturday, February 26.

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The Vanagon was sold in North America from 1980 to 1991, and those models are becoming increasingly rare these days due to their age. This 1989 model is rarer still, in that it comes with Volkswagen’s Syncro all-wheel-drive system and has been converted for camper use. Given the explosion in interest in camping and overlanding in recent years, this gem seems like a perfect way to get into the hobby. Of all the Vanagon trim levels, the GL was the most luxurious, although that word is relative since we’re talking about a late-1980s van. According to the enthusiast site Vanagons.org, the GL added features such as front-seat armrests and a padded steering wheel rim. How fancy. The owner of this one splurged, not only on the optional Syncro system, but also on 14-inch five-spoke alloy wheels and air conditioning.

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While Volkswagen sold a factory-built pop-top camper version of the Vanagon in 1989, this particular one was actually converted and had its pop-top roof installed by Country Home Campers of Santa Cruz, California. The company is still in business, too, which means if you need replacement parts or want to further customize this Vanagon you can.

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Because the stock water-cooled flat-four is only rated at 90 horsepower, a lot of these older Vanagons have had their engines swapped out for more powerful and more modern Subaru flat-fours, but this example has been preserved with the original engine. We also love that it has a five-speed manual transmission. When we tested an example back in 1980, it needed 17.9 seconds to reach 60 mph, and that one didn’t have all the camper accoutrements that this one has. So yeah, it’s probably extremely slow, but this is the kind of vehicle that encourages you to enjoy the journey as much as the destination. Speaking of the journey, to prepare the Vanagon for sale, the seller apparently put new tires on it last year and also made several other repairs, including replacing the air conditioning compressor. Summer fun, here we come! Bidding is already up to $27,000 with five days to go before the auction closes.
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An image circulating on social media purports to show the new Ferrari SUV.Called the Purosangue, this new model is slated to begin production later this year.We’re expecting a turbocharged V-8 engine to be standard, with a possible hybrid setup.Just the idea of Ferrari producing an SUV has created plenty of controversy on its own, and this first glimpse of the upcoming Purosangue is sure to get people talking all over again. A few leaked images making the rounds on social media purport to show the new Ferrari SUV from the front and rear angles on the factory floor. Whether it’s the camera angle, the poor image quality, or some combination therein, they don’t paint the most flattering portrait of the Purosangue’s proportions.
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The overall shape seen here lines up with what we’ve seen in spy photos of the Purosangue. It appears to have a long nose, four doors, and a sloping roofline not entirely unlike the GTC4Lusso shooting brake’s. A sharp cutline runs from the hood and creates a scooped-out portion of the front door, while black plastic body cladding around the wheel well ensures that it will look the part of an SUV. The rear appears to have a full-width light bar connecting two sets of taillights.

A turbocharged V-8 engine, possibly with assistance from an electric motor, is the most likely choice for the Purosangue’s powertrain. But it’s possible that Ferrari could stuff a hybrid V-12 setup under the hood, or a V-6 hybrid powertrain for the base model. We should learn more later this year when the Purosangue makes its official debut. Ferrari has confirmed that production will begin in 2022, with customer deliveries starting next year.
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A massive number of Ford Broncos have been spotted parked up outside of Ford’s Michigan Assembly Plant. The build-up of SUVs is directly tied to the global semiconductor shortage, Automotive News is reporting this week.Bronco fanatics may actually recall this parking lot, as it gained a bit of notoriety during last year’s hardtop-related delays. Back then it garnered the nickname Dirt Mountain, though Michigan’s winter weather has made it harder to see the large earth pile for which the lot is named. As such, some members of the various Bronco forums have begun referring to the area as Ice Mountain. Regardless of what you call it, recent videos uploaded to the Bronco6G forum confirm that Ford has once again packed the lot full of completed trucks.

Thankfully for the frustrated Bronco fans out there, one dealership owner was more willing to speak on the matter. According to Ford dealer council chairman Tim Hovik, who owns San Tan Ford in Gilbert, Arizona, the production issues are related to ongoing chip shortages. Hovik told Automotive News that these issues are not exclusive to Ford or the Bronco, but that certain semiconductor chips have become more difficult to acquire from suppliers. Without official confirmation from Ford, there is no way for us to be entirely certain about the situation at hand outside MAP. That said, the act of parking completed vehicles while waiting for chips isn’t new in the pandemic era.
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While the auto industry as a whole continues to struggle with production and supply chain constraints, the visuals of this parking lot are tough to see. That is especially true when you consider the markup prices that have arrived as a result. Road & Track has reached out to Ford for comment and will update this story if we hear back.

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The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration announced this week it has opened an investigation into over 400,000 Teslas—all 2021 and 2022 model year Tesla Model 3 and Model Y electric vehicles—for problems with their automated emergency braking systems.This isn’t the first time Tesla has had to deal with NHTSA about its potentially faulty AEB technology. In October, Tesla recalled almost 12,000 of its EVs because an over-the-air update caused communication problems between two chips that help run the AEB systems.Other automakers, including Nissan and autonomous shuttle company EasyMile, have also had problems with their AEB systems.New technologies can lead to new problems, for which we sometimes have to invent new terminologies. In the automotive world, the growing number of cars with automated emergency brake capability has led to something called “phantom braking,” which is when the AEB system thinks it needs to brake in order to prevent a collision, but there’s actually nothing there to hit.

This week, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) said it has received 354 complaints from Tesla drivers concerning these unexpected automatic braking incidents over the past nine months. NHTSA said that Tesla drivers have reported “that the rapid deceleration can occur without warning, at random, and often repeatedly in a single drive cycle.” The issue potentially affects around 416,000 vehicles, all 2021 and 2022 Tesla Model 3 and Model Y electric vehicles, and the rise in complaints broadly tracks Tesla’s shift away from multi-sensor perception systems that use both radar and cameras to the new Tesla Vision system that relies solely on cameras. Since May 2021, Tesla has not installed radar sensors in its Model 3 and Model Y cars built for the North American market. Tesla CEO Elon Musk still champions the camera-only system, tweeting last December that “Whereas radar has trouble seeing small pedestrians, they’re obvious to Tesla Vision.” NHTSA’s Office of Defects Investigation has opened a Preliminary Evaluation into the issue and said it is not aware of any crashes or injuries related to the issue.
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This isn’t the first time that NHTSA has looked into Tesla’s phantom braking problem. Last October, NHTSA announced Tesla would recall some 2017–2021 Model S, Model 3, Model X, and 2020–2021 Model Y vehicles (a total of 11,728 units) because a “communication error may cause false forward-collision warning (FCW) or unexpected activation of the automatic emergency brake (AEB) system.”NHTSA said at the time that the problem was an over-the-air software update that introduced a communication problem between two onboard chips when the vehicle would come out of Sentry mode or Summon Standby mode. At these times, one of the chips could remain in a low-power “sleep” state, NHTSA said, with the effect that the video neural networks that operate on one of the chips then wouldn’t correctly communicate with the other chip and then “run less consistently than expected.” When this happened, an affected vehicle could incorrectly identify objects around it, and this happened enough times that Tesla drivers soon reported a noticeable increase in the number of problems with forward-collision warnings and AEB events. Tesla told NHTSA it resolved the issue with a follow-up OTA update. Tesla isn’t the only automaker facing questions over phantom braking problems. In 2020, autonomous shuttle operator EasyMile was forced to suspend operations when one of its vehicles injured a passenger in an abrupt stop. In 2019, NHTSA looked into phantom braking problems in 2017–2018 Nissan Rogue SUVs following driver complaints. NHTSA announced in late 2020 that it was working with 20 automakers on a voluntary basis to make low-speed AEB and forward-collision-warning systems standard on “almost all new passenger vehicles” by August 31, 2023.
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The ship that caught fire Wednesday with around 4000 vehicles on board is still ablaze and adrift in the Atlantic Ocean today.Firefighters are on their way to the ship, which might—repeat, might—be challenging to put out because of some electric vehicles on board. We have no idea yet what caused the fire.Whatever caused the blaze, the kinds of roll-on-roll-off (RORO) ferries that can transport thousands of cars at once are at high risk for total loss once a fire starts on board.The Felicity Ace, the cargo ship that is still on fire in the Atlantic Ocean, does have thousands of new vehicles from the Volkswagen Group on board, but the impact of any electric vehicles is not yet known.To recap, the car carrier was on the way from Europe to the U.S. with a load of new vehicles on board when it caught fire Wednesday near the Azores. All 22 crew members were rescued, and the ship was left adrift and burning. There were reports that the ship would be towed to the Azores, but the 650-foot-long ship is too big for the port of Horta there. The ship is likely to be towed back to Europe or to the Bahamas, Captain Joao Mendes Cabecas from Port of Horta told Reuters.
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Firefighting crews and salvage teams are on their way to deal with the massive fire, which could be more difficult to get under control with EV batteries on board. There is no confirmation yet that this is the case, but it is likely that EVs were part of the cargo. Both Porsche and VW import some vehicles from Europe to the U.S., but as VW only imports the GTI, Golf R, and ID.4 from Europe, the automaker most likely to be affected is Porsche, which imports the Taycan from the plant in Zuffenhausen, Germany. A Porsche spokesperson told Car and Driver, “It is too early to speculate on the cause of the incident.”Lamborghini declined to give a comment to C/D, but a VW spokesperson told us that the U.S. arm doesn’t know much more about the situation on the ship other than what’s available in media reports. Bloomberg, which managed to get access to an internal email from Volkswagen AG’s U.S. operations, reported there were 3965 vehicles on board. Around 100 of the vehicles are apparently VW models destined for the U.S.Porsche spokesperson Luke Vandezande told Bloomberg that the automaker estimates it had around 1100 vehicles on the Felicity Ace, and 189 Bentleys have also been confirmed as being part of the cargo list.The software company Skytek issued a short report today that claims the estimated market value of the Felicity Ace is $24.5 million, while the total value of the 3965 vehicles could be over $500 million.Cargo vessel fires were the number three cause of shipping losses over the past decade, and there were 10 “total loss” cargo ship fires in 2020, according to Reinsurance News. While, overall, the shipping industry has improved its safety record in the past 10 years, roll-on-roll-off (RORO) ferries are at high risk for fire.”To facilitate carriage of automobiles the internal spaces are not divided into separate sections like other cargo ships,” said Rahul Khanna, global head of marine risk consulting at Allianz Global Corporate & Specialty, told Reinsurance News. “The lack of internal bulkheads can have an adverse impact on fire safety and a small fire on one vehicle or battery can grow out of control very quickly. Vehicles are not easily accessible once loading has been completed.”

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The cool factor of this 1986 Mercedes-Benz 190E 2.3-16, currently up for auction on Bring a Trailer, cannot be denied.The car, built to satisfy the DTM touring-car homologation requirement, has a 167-hp 2.3-liter inline-four and a five-speed manual transmission.Bidding is up to $8100 so far on the 130,000-mile Mercedes, with the auction scheduled to end on Tuesday, February 22.Performance cars from the ’80s and ’90s are very hip these days, and while I am not immune to trends, I like to think that my fondness for sporty cars of this era was formed in my youth. Interestingly though, there are very few Mercedes from this era that I pine after. Sure, there are late-20th-century Mercs that I want, but the two at the top of the list from my youth are the Porsche-engineered and -built 500E and this car, the Mercedes-Benz 190E 2.3-16. Mercedes manufactured it so that it could compete in the DTM championship, and homologation cars have a cool factor that can’t be replicated. This example is for sale now on the Bring a Trailer auction site—which, like Car and Driver, is part of Hearst Autos.

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When the 2.3-16 came out in the mid-’80s, it was unlike any other Mercedes sedan that preceded it. As its name suggests, it had a high-strung 2.3-liter engine fitted with 16 valves. Mind you, this was a time when four valves per cylinder was practically exotic. Mercedes leveraged the expertise of engine giant Cosworth to supply the DOHC head design for the M102 engine. It was crazy expensive at the time, costing more than double what a Merkur XR4Ti cost. But it got you class-leading performance in every metric, save fuel economy, according to our March 1986 road test.

This example is a U.S.-spec car, which means it has a 167-hp tune, whereas the European models have 185-hp engines. Not a big deal for me as this car is more about the experience. Plus, it isn’t perfect. The taillamps aren’t original, the rear parcel shelf is missing some trim, and the sunroof doesn’t work. It has an aftermarket Blaupunkt stereo that is meant to look old but can’t replicate the coolness of the Becker Grand Prix head unit that came from the factory.

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The videos posted by the seller indicate that this one appears to be mechanically sound with just enough wrong that it won’t set a record price. This is ideal for me as it would keep me busy searching for period-correct parts. And it isn’t so nice that I would be nervous or have regret driving it. The first thing I would do is replace all the rubber in the suspension—make it feel new even if it doesn’t quite look new. Whoever wins it will enjoy it, that much I know.

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Leaked images purport to show the new Dodge Hornet small crossover.It will be closely related to the Alfa Romeo Tonale and will also offer a plug-in-hybrid powertrain.The Dodge Hornet is expected to debut sometime in 2022 and could go on sale as soon as 2023.The first new product from Dodge in some time is rumored to be a new compact SUV called the Hornet, and we now have a better idea of what it might look like. Leaked screenshots from a Facebook video posted on Italian forum site Autopareri confirm previous reports that the Hornet would be closely related to the recently revealed Alfa Romeo Tonale.The original video, which looks to be taken on the factory floor, has since been taken down. But images circulating on forums and social media show a front end and interior design that are nearly identical to the Alfa’s. The key changes include a Dodge badge on the steering wheel, reshaped headlights, and extra vents and scoops suggesting that this red example could be a performance-oriented R/T model.
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The Dodge and Alfa Romeo siblings are expected to be built alongside each other in Italy, meaning they will likely share powertrain options. The Alfa will offer a 256-hp turbo 2.0-liter inline-four as the base engine and a 272-hp plug-in-hybrid setup with a turbo 1.3-liter gasoline engine. It’s possible the Dodge version will offer a lower-powered base engine as a cheaper option to compete with mainstream crossovers rather than the Alfa Romeo’s more upscale targets.We should learn more about the Hornet later this year, as previous reports said it would debut in 2022. The Tonale is scheduled to go on sale in early 2023, so the Dodge could hit U.S. dealerships a few months later than that.
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