Motor News

For the past few months, the rumor in the sports-car racing world was that the next iteration of Corvette C8.R would be getting a high-profile crosstown rival in 2024. Today, Ford has confirmed it: The Mustang is joining both GT3 racing and IMSA’s GTD Pro class in two years.Ford will partner with Multimatic to both build and race the cars. If that name sounds familiar, you may recognize it from its part in building both the current Ford GT road car and the GTE-class race car that ran from 2016 to 2019. Multimatic is most famous as a constructor of racing cars, like the upcoming Porsche and Audi LMDh racers that will fight for overall wins at Le Mans, but it has also run full racing programs like the European Ford GT and American Mazda DPi operations. Its latest venture will be a two-car factory GT program for Ford, something like the Mustang’s answer to the famous yellow-and-black factory cars of Corvette Racing.

Starting with tomorrow’s Rolex 24, IMSA has replaced its longtime GTLM category with a GT3-based class called GTD Pro. Any team hoping to compete in it has to conform to a global GT3 rule set, one that traditionally requires companies to build at least 30 total cars and offer many of those for sale to private customers. Ford will be no exception, with customer Mustang GT3s available when the car debuts with its factory operation in 2024.Joey Hand, a Le Mans class winner as a Ford factory driver during its 2016–2019 GT program, has been signed to the program as a test driver. In addition to that role, he will continue on as an internal development driver for Ford’s entire racing program. That side of the job will see him run the road course races in the NASCAR Cup Series this year.The new Mustang racers will be powered by a variant of the 5.0-liter Coyote V-8 built by M-Sport, the company that builds and races the Ford Puma in the World Rally Championship. In addition to the GT3 version, Ford also plans to build and sell a successor to its current Mustang GT4 racer, also built with Multimatic and available to customers since 2016.While no mention was made of what Mustang this new racing car would actually represent, the two-year window before the program rolls out leaves plenty of time for Ford to debut the newest generation of a car that has been in production since 2015.

This content is created and maintained by a third party, and imported onto this page to help users provide their email addresses. You may be able to find more information about this and similar content at piano.io More

Lotus has revealed a sketch of a future electric sports car with a wedge-like design reminiscent of the iconic Esprit.The sports car will utilize batteries developed in a new partnership with Britishvolt, a U.K.-based battery cell specialist.Before this EV sports car arrives, Lotus will begin deliveries of the electric Evija hypercar and will unveil an electric SUV, called Type 132.British automaker Lotus, purveyor of lightweight sports cars, has already begun its transition to electric vehicles with the 1972-horsepower Evija, a hypercar with a claimed top speed of over 200 mph. Now Lotus has announced plans for another battery-powered sports car, which will be the result of a collaboration with Britishvolt, a company specializing in battery-cell development.

Lotus Esprit S1
Lotus

Lotus revealed a sketch of the future sports car, which features sharp, angular lines reminiscent of early versions of the Lotus Esprit from the late 1970s and early 1980s. The iconic wedge shape of the Esprit—which famously featured in the James Bond flick The Spy Who Loved Me as a submarine—is elongated in the sketch, and features a Union Jack motif over the rear haunch. It’s unclear whether the production sports car will mimic the Esprit as closely, but Lotus says it provides the “first clues.”

The partnership between Lotus and Britishvolt will center around the co-development of a new battery cell which will provide the juice for the next generation of sporty Lotus EVs. The primary focus will be boosting energy density, reducing battery weight, and decreasing charging times. Before this new sports car arrives, Lotus will unveil the Type 132, a new all-electric SUV, at some point this year. Deliveries of the Lotus Evija should also begin in 2022, after delays caused by the global pandemic and resulting supply shortages.
This content is imported from {embed-name}. 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.

This content is created and maintained by a third party, and imported onto this page to help users provide their email addresses. You may be able to find more information about this and similar content at piano.io More

Jeep has announced pricing for the 2022 Grand Cherokee’s 4xe plug-in-hybrid model.It starts at $59,495 and ranges up to $76,095 for the loaded Summit Reserve trim.Jeep says that 4xe models will start arriving at dealerships this spring.Jeep’s second 4xe hybrid SUV is based on the new two-row Grand Cherokee, and this plug-in hybrid will be the most expensive model in the lineup. It starts at $59,495 and offers five trim levels ranging up to $76,095 for the top Summit Reserve, making for a premium of between $8250 and $9980 compared with the nonhybrid Grand Cherokee.

All Grand Cherokee 4xe models have the same powertrain that consists of a turbocharged 2.0-liter inline-four gasoline engine and two electric motors. It produces a total of 375 horsepower and 470 pound-feet of torque and is said to provide an electric driving range of 25 miles on a full charge. That’s notably more power than even the Grand Cherokee’s optional 357-hp 5.7-liter V-8, and considerably more than the base 3.6-liter V-6’s 293 horsepower. But the hybrid will also likely weigh more than the nonhybrid model owing to its battery pack and other extra hardware.The 4xe’s trim lineup largely mirrors the standard Grand Cherokee’s. All hybrids come standard with four-wheel drive, and the base 4xe appears to be roughly equivalent to the Limited 4×4. It’s also available in the off-road-oriented Trailhawk trim ($64,280) and the more luxurious Overland ($67,555), Summit ($71,515), and Summit Reserve ($76,095) configurations.While the standard 2022 Grand Cherokee is on sale now, there will be a bit more of a wait for the 4xe, as Jeep says it won’t start arriving at dealerships until sometime this spring.
This content is imported from {embed-name}. 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.

This content is created and maintained by a third party, and imported onto this page to help users provide their email addresses. You may be able to find more information about this and similar content at piano.io More

Nissan will recall 688,946 of its 2014–2016 Rogue SUVs to fix a problem with the electrical connector for the under-dashboard harness.Corrosion from water and salt coming in through the driver’s footwell could cause the harness to corrode, causing issues up to and including a risk of fire.Owners will be notified starting March 2, and Nissan said its fix for the issue is “under development.”Nissan announced it will recall nearly 700,000 of its 2014–2016 Rogue SUVs to fix a problem with the dashboard harness connector. Over time, salt and water getting in through the driver’s-side footwell could “wick up the dash-side harness tape and enter the connector,” Nissan said. This could lead to a number of problems, according to a report filed with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). Among them could be failure of the driver’s-side power window or power seat controls, illumination of the all-wheel-drive system warning light, battery discharge, “a burning odor,” smoke under the dash on the driver’s side, and, potentially, fire.

Interior of 2015 Nissan Rogue.
Nissan

According to the chronology of the issue that Nissan has filed with NHTSA, there have been three “unconfirmed incidents” in U.S. vehicles and no injuries, as well as two “thermal incidents” and two “incidents with localized thermal damage” in Rogue vehicles in Canada.Nissan said the problem is likely to occur in only about 1 percent of the recalled vehicles. They include 305,220 Rogues built at the Renault Samsung Motors plant in South Korea and 383,726 built at Smyrna, Tennessee, for a total of 688,946 2014 through 2016 models. Nissan said it changed the manufacturing process at the end of the 2016 model year, so newer Rogues will not experience the issue, and the NHTSA report said no other Nissan or Infiniti vehicles used the same harness layout and tape as on these earlier Rogues.Owners will be notified beginning March 2. Nissan is still figuring out a remedy for the issue but said it expects a repair to be available in the spring. The automaker also said it will contact owners about reimbursement for fixes that happened before the recall notification, since the vehicles in the recall are no longer under warranty.In the meantime, Rogue owners who want to find out if their vehicle is affected can check the NHTSA recalls site.

This content is created and maintained by a third party, and imported onto this page to help users provide their email addresses. You may be able to find more information about this and similar content at piano.io More

During an earnings call tonight, Elon Musk said Tesla will not introduce any new models in 2022, meaning the Cybertruck, Semi, and Roadster are yet again delayed.CEO Musk also revealed that the company is not currently working on the $25,000 EV he announced in 2020.Musk emphasized that the company’s focus is on its Full Self-Driving package and said he expects to “achieve Full Self-Driving safer than a human this year.”Tesla churned out nearly a million electric vehicles worldwide last year, but don’t hold your breath waiting for new models from the pioneering EV company. In an investor relations webcast today, Tesla CEO Elon Musk revealed that reservation holders for the Cybertruck, Roadster, and Semi—all of which have missed their scheduled production dates—will have to wait even longer before they can get their hands on the long-awaited vehicles.

“We’re not introducing any new models this year,” said Musk in the earnings call. “We will, however, do a lot of engineering and tooling to create those vehicles: Cybertruck, Semi, Roadster, Optimus [which is actually a robot], and be ready to bring those to production hopefully next year.”

Tesla Semi won’t come out in 2022, but this image was part of the investor presentation on Jan. 26 anyway.
Tesla

It appears there is still a lot of work to be done on the Cybertruck, despite Musk tweeting yesterday that he has been driving a prototype around the Gigafactory site in Texas. “There’s a lot of new technology in the Cybertruck that will take some time to work through,” Musk explained. “There’s a question of what’s the average cost of a Cybertruck and to what degree is that affordable.”Speaking of affordability, Musk also shed light on the $25,000 car, rumored to be called Model 2, that was announced on Tesla’s Battery Day in 2020. “We are not currently working on the $25,000 car,” Musk revealed. “We have too much on our plate now, frankly, but at some point there will be [time].”It’s sort of the wrong question,” he continued. “The thing that overwhelmingly matters is, when is the car autonomous.” Throughout the call, Musk reinforced the idea that Tesla’s priorities lie in introducing self-driving technology rather than expanding the model lineup, and that Full Self-Driving will be the major profit driver for the company.”Everything pales in comparison to the value of robotaxi or full self-driving,” he summed up. “I would be shocked if we do not achieve full self-driving safer than a human this year.”
This content is imported from {embed-name}. 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.

This content is created and maintained by a third party, and imported onto this page to help users provide their email addresses. You may be able to find more information about this and similar content at piano.io More

Subaru will launch a WRX wagon in Australia soon with the same 271-hp engine as the sedan.Unfortunately it’s available only with a CVT automatic and not with a manual transmission.We don’t expect to see a WRX wagon like this in the U.S. anytime soon.Subaru hasn’t sold the WRX in wagon form on our shores for quite some time, but the bodystyle is making its return—at least in Australia. The new 2022 WRX will offer a Sportswagon model and is set to go on sale down under within the next few months. It’s based on the Levorg wagon sold elsewhere but swaps out that model’s less powerful turbo 1.8-liter flat-four for the same 271-hp 2.4-liter engine found in the WRX sedan, meaning it’s a true WRX. Interestingly, the wagon version also does without much the sedan’s black plastic cladding, making for a cleaner look.But there’s a catch.While the sedan offers a six-speed manual transmission as standard equipment, the Sportswagon will only be offered with a continuously variable automatic transmission. Subaru does say it has improved the CVT’s responsiveness with this new generation, but it definitely wouldn’t be our first transmission choice for this all-wheel-drive performance machine.

Subaru

We won’t pine after the Australia-market WRX too much for now, but we can still look back fondly on previous versions of the WRX wagon that did offer manual transmissions. There was even a wagon version of the higher-performance WRX STI at one point. But sadly we don’t expect Subaru to change its ways and offer a WRX wagon in the States anytime soon. Maybe if we ask nicely enough?
This content is imported from {embed-name}. 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.

This content is created and maintained by a third party, and imported onto this page to help users provide their email addresses. You may be able to find more information about this and similar content at piano.io More

Bentley follows through on previously announced plans to go electric by saying it will launch its first all-electric model in 2025.The statement today is in line with a commitment made in 2019 to build Bentley’s final internal-combustion engine in 2030.With five new models coming—one per year until 2030—we expect four will replace the existing Bentayga, Flying Spur, and Continental GT coupe and convertible, while the fifth will be an all-new model.Bentley affirmed its promise to go electric in a press conference today, but the plan to pivot to EVs is not brand-new. The British luxury brand first detailed its electrification plan in 2019 and said it would build its final combustion engine as soon as 2030. Now the company has moved forward on that schedule, saying it’s planning to launch a pure EV in 2025 and will then another electric model to the portofolio for each of the following four years.

Bentley

We will need to wait for further details on the new products, but Bentley head of engineering Matthias Rabe told an online press conference today that each will be “a complete new car, a complete new model.” Considering that the company currently only has four models—the Bentayga SUV, the Flying Spur sedan, and the Continental GT coupe and convertible—basic math suggests the entire family will effectively be replaced by full EVs sooner rather than later, and that an additional model will be added to the range.

Bentley CEO Adrian Hallmark described this new model as a “game changer” without a direct relationship to an existing model; our bet is a sub-Bentayga crossover. Existing models will then be replaced by EV models as they reach the end of their lives, the promised launch cadence (and age of the existing lineup) suggesting these will be a new Bentayga in 2026, a Continental coupe in 2027, a Continental convertible in 2028, and a new Flying Spur in 2029. Bentley’s place within Volkswagen Group means we can safely predict these new electric models will share core technology with other high-end models in the family; we believe that the next-generation Porsche Cayenne will have an EV variant, which would be an obvious basis for a Bentley sister. The pace of Lamborghini’s move toward electrification also seems to closely match Bentley’s, suggesting some other obvious synergies. But Bentley has also confirmed that all the new cars will be both engineered and built at the company’s existing factory in Crewe, England, with a $3.4 billion investment to both modernize and carbon-neutralize the plant. (Bentley also stated its intention to call the redone historic facility the “Dream Factory.”)

Sign up for our weekly EV newsletter, State of Charge. SIGN UP

While the full EVs are likely to win most of the attention, Bentley has also dropped hints that we could see more powerful plug-in hybrids before it gives up on combustion altogether. We know that a hybridized version of the Continental is approaching, but Rabe also promised “much more powerful” PHEVs in the medium term. Given that Bentley’s two plug-ins use V-6 power from elsewhere in the group, this suggests a possible addition of the brawnier V-8 system from the Cayenne Turbo S E-Hybrid, an engine Lamborghini insiders have told us will be used in the next Urus.
This content is imported from {embed-name}. 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.

This content is created and maintained by a third party, and imported onto this page to help users provide their email addresses. You may be able to find more information about this and similar content at piano.io More

BMW has given the 8-series and M8 a refresh for 2023, with an updated grille that now comes illuminated as standard.New colors are available across the lineup, and all 8-series and M8 models have a 12.3-inch center screen, up from 10.3 inches.The M8 can now be optioned with M Carbon bucket seats and adds a new interior color scheme of black and Sakhir Orange.After laying dormant since the 1999, BMW revived the 8-series nameplate in 2019 for a dashing coupe, convertible, and four-door “Gran Coupe” to sit atop the lineup. Now BMW has revealed a minor refresh for the 2023 8-series, with design updates to the front end, new colors, a few interior upgrades.
The major change to the 8-series’ exterior is a standard illuminated grille, which also features wider slats. Two new 20-inch wheel designs are available and five new colors are offered: Skyscraper Grey, San Remo Green, Portimao Blue, BMW Individual Frozen Tanzanite Blue, and Frozen Pure Grey.The M850i xDrive models gain the aerodynamic sideview mirrors from the M8 and now sports an M badge in the grille. A new optional M Sport Package Professional for the coupe adds dark M Shadowline trim to the grille and headlights, as well as black brake calipers and a black rear spoiler.
On the M8, which is now available only in 617-hp Competition form, those M Shadowline accents in the headlights come as standard. The M8 is also available with five new colors, but instead of Portimao Blue and San Remo Green it adds Brooklyn Grey and Isle of Man Green. Inside, the M8 can be specced with M Carbon bucket seats (first seen on the M3 and M4), which are heated and electronically adjustable, with a light-up M8 badge in the headrest and a memory function for the driver’s chair. The Merino leather and Alcanatara interior can also be had in a new black and Sakhir Orange color combo.

All 8-series models, including the M8, get a new center infotainment display that grows from 10.25 to 12.3 inches. The M850i xDrive and M8 can also be had with the old-school BMW Motorsport logo in place of the standard BMW badge to honor the 50th anniversary of BMW M. BMW has also announced a special 8 X Jeff Koons edition, which will feature a vivid paint scheme consisting of eleven colors crafted by the American artist. It will be revealed February 17.The base price for the 840i is unchanged for 2023, but BMW has yet to reveal pricing for the rest of the lineup. Production of the 2023 8-series and M8 begins in March.
This content is imported from {embed-name}. 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.

This content is created and maintained by a third party, and imported onto this page to help users provide their email addresses. You may be able to find more information about this and similar content at piano.io More