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The U.S. Postal Service announced last spring that it would buy around 150,000 new mail trucks from Oshkosh Defense, and that they would be gas-powered instead of electric.The EPA is now asking the USPS to pause the contract and take a more serious look at EVs for these daily work trucks that follow a known route and return to a centralized location each night.The USPS is independent of the executive branch and so doesn’t have to follow the EPA’s request, but it looks like this messy fight isn’t quite finished.

U.S. Postal Service

Robert Alexander/Getty Images

Upgrading the U.S. Postal Service’s truck fleet has been a long and controversial process, and we’re not done yet. As a quick recap, the USPS started looking for replacements for 150,000 or so Grumman Long Life Vehicles (LLVs) in around 2015. For a while, it looked like the new fleet might be made up of mostly electric vehicles, but when the contract for the new mail trucks was awarded to Oshkosh Defense in the spring of 2021, the USPS said only 10 percent of the new mail trucks might be electric. One of the contenders for an electric truck, Workhorse, sued the USPS last summer over the deal.Now the government is asking the USPS to pause on the $11.3 billion contract and reconsider the gas-powered truck purchases in the face of climate damage.

U.S. Postal Service

The Biden administration and the EPA told the USPS, which operates independent of the executive branch, that the new Oshkosh trucks are just 0.4 mile per gallon more efficient compared to the outgoing LLVs—8.6 mpg versus 8.2 mpg for the older vehicles. It also said that the Environmental Impact Statements (EIS) the USPS conducted as it decided where to award the contract were not conducted correctly. The EPA sent a letter to the USPS yesterday that said that the whole reason to buy new mail trucks was to make them cleaner, better, and safer. The EPA said last fall that it had a problem with how the USPS conducted an earlier EIS about the truck purchase and that “the final EIS remains seriously deficient.”

“Specifically,” it went on, “the final EIS does not disclose essential information underlying the key analysis of Total Cost of Ownership, underestimates greenhouse-gas emissions, fails to consider more environmentally protective feasible alternatives, and inadequately considers impacts on communities with environmental justice concerns,” the EPA letter said. The EPA or the Biden Administration could also sue the USPS to reconsider the truck purchases, something that Adrian Martinez, an attorney for the environmental law firm Earthjustice, thinks could work. “It is hard to predict what courts will do, but the Postal Service’s work here is just so embarrassingly flimsy,” Martinez told the Washington Post. “They don’t reveal the source of the information for many of their conclusions, instead dismissing electrification outright.”Powering the USPS’s standard mail delivery trucks with electrons instead of gasoline would go a long way to hitting President Biden’s January 2021 executive order that would replace the federal government’s current fleet of vehicles with EVs as part of an expanded Buy American act. The federal government had more than 645,000 vehicles in its fleet in 2019, about a quarter of which would be replaced by the 165,000 new trucks the USPS is looking to buy over the next decade.

Oshkosh Defense

Too Expensive, Says USPSThe USPS’s defense is that it would simply be too expensive to buy tens of thousands of electric vehicles.”While we can understand why some who are not responsible for the financial sustainability of the Postal Service might prefer that the Postal Service acquire more electric vehicles, the law requires the Postal Service to be self-sufficient,” a USPS spokesperson told the Post in a statement.President Biden’s social spending package proposal unveiled last year included $6 billion for the USPS to purchase new vehicles, but that proposal is still being debated in Congress. In late January, the California Air Resources Board asked the USPS to hold a public hearing about its vehicle purchase plans, and the EPA joined that call in its letter yesterday. EPA officials told the Post that even if the USPS goes ahead with the gas-powered vehicles this year, there may still be time to shift the bulk of the purchases to electric in the coming years.
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Gran Turismo 7 releases on March 4, 2022 with over 400 cars and 34 locations with more than 90 different layouts.Music Rally and Music Replay are new modes that bring driving and music together in a fun and relaxing gameplay experience.A new Cafe location will feature conversations with car designers of some of our favorite cars from automotive history. As its March 4, 2022, release date draws nearer, Sony is spilling more information about the highly anticipated Gran Turismo 7 racing game coming to PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 consoles. Polyphony Digital CEO and Gran Turismo producer Kazunori Yamauchi says the 25th anniversary of the GT Series is the biggest yet, and GT7 will be a return home for longtime fans of the driving simulator that debuted in 1997 on the original PlayStation.

At launch, GT7 will have more than 400 cars; 34 locations with over 90 different layouts; and completely new modes and features that highlight historically significant cars, details, and people from automotive culture. On certain tracks, GT7 uses meteorological data from NASA to produce beautiful starry-night skies as you’d see them from that location in person. Moons and other planets will be visible. More cars and tracks will arrive after launch, though details on an additional content schedule haven’t been released yet.

Sony Interactive Entertainment

Remember the kickass intros from previous GT games? The computer-generated look inside a combustion chamber followed by Lenny Kravitz from GT3? Or the emotionally charged orchestral ‘Moon over the Castle’ introduction to GT4? We do, and music is the theme of two new modes in GT7. Music Rally and Music Replay. Music Rally is a relaxed gameplay experience where players drive to the beat, instead of their limits. It’s just you versus the music, in a harmonious battle to make it to the very end of the song. Yamauchi hopes this lighthearted mode will pull some of the seriousness out of the simulation and get new players interested in driving cars.

Music Replay creates camera positions, video cuts, and movement influenced by music rather than using predetermined cameras following car positions. This means the cinematic replay from your most intense races will have several different compositions depending on which song you’ve chosen.Haptic feedback and adaptive triggers while using the PlayStation 5 DualSense controller will give extra input while driving to simulate the real thing. Yamauchi said players will be able to feel the different racing surfaces, curbing, tire slippage, and effects of tire wear and weather. In previous GTs, ABS was just a light that would flash in the interface under braking; now it’s a sensation felt through the controller, and players can also experience simulated locked-up brakes through the adaptive triggers. We hope this mode is more than just loud vibrations and delayed input, but it sounds promising—especially for people playing without a steering wheel and force feedback.

Sony Interactive Entertainment

It’s Educational! The academic side of GT is now expanded in a new Café location. Players will learn more about the cultural significance of cars and hear automotive designers talk about their creations, like the Audi TT’s Freeman Thomas, original Miata designer Tom Montano, and others. These instances are earned through completing challenges and collecting cars.If you’re a person who plays games just to remove the wing from cars like the Honda Civic Type R, you’re in luck. There are more than 60 types of performance parts per car, including wings, widebody kits, roll cages, wheels, and of course an exhaustive number of paint-color choices. To the relief of folks who have made amazing re-creations of racing liveries in GT Sport, Yamauchi said that stickers and liveries created there can be migrated to Gran Turismo 7. That means we won’t have to wait long for the epic GEAR Racing Lamborghini Huracán GT3 livery that someone has already made in GT Sport.

Sony Interactive Entertainment

Tuning Is a Game within a GameYamauchi described the mechanical tuning capability as a “mini-game within a game.” The goal is that it will become a learning tool for people curious about how changing or adjusting specific parts of a car immediately affects things like acceleration, weight, horsepower, grip, and top speed. GT7 uses a new Measure feature, which will allow you to make adjustments, and the game will quickly simulate the areas in which the car’s performance has either improved or decreased. We spotted a few interesting tuning options in the preview trailer that include nitrous oxide, an exhaust silencer, and an anti-lag system.The more than 300-person team at Polyphony Digital, once just a group of 15 at the start of the series, are eager to show off the 3D spatial audio they’ve cooked up for GT7. Experienced best with headphones, 3D audio better imitates how the sound we hear in reality bounces off various objects before reaching our brains. It’s more than just making the exhaust louder in tunnels: the sound will react differently depending on the surface it hits, such as raindrops hitting glass versus puddles or tires over grass versus curbing. 3D audio makes it possible for you to identify where the noise is coming from instead of just flooding your ears with raw audio.

Sony Interactive Entertainment

The World Map, teased earlier, brings back some of our favorite GT modes that were otherwise skipped in GT Sport. License, Used Cars, and the Tuning Shop have returned. Yes, that means the gang of yellow-polo-shirted garage crew members is back to clean your car, change your oil, and, in one cute animation, pull at either side of a car to illustrate the installation of a widebody kit.The hyperrealistic photo mode, Scapes, will have more than 2500 locations where you can photograph cars. Yamauchi explained that replay and photo mode are the only two areas with ray tracing capability, to preserve performance while racing. The reflection of headlights off plastic rear bumpers, individual rain droplets running down the window glass, and tiny etches and imperfections around the gauges of the historic cars look stunning in this preview. It has become somewhat difficult to quickly tell a real photograph and a rendering from GT7’s Scapes mode apart. Just make sure you have a 4K or HDR TV display to support these promised visuals.

Sony Interactive Entertainment

Used-Car and Legendary DealershipsThe Used Car Dealership also makes a return. The dealership features cars with mileage, used oil, and vehicles that would otherwise be inappropriate to see for sale in the new car dealership GT7 calls Brand Central. These vehicles are more affordable, and the variety will change daily. A Legendary dealership will feature the most expensive cars. To buy something in the Legendary dealership is to obtain a piece of significance to car history.For us, GT7 sounds like the biggest excuse to grab a Sony PlayStation 5, even if they’re still somewhat difficult to source. We look forward to getting more hands-on with GT7 before its release on March 4.

Gran Turismo 7 25th Anniversary Edition – PS5 Disc & PS4 Entitlement

PlayStation
amazon.com

$89.99

Standard Editions are available for pre-order on PlayStation 4 for $59.99 and PlayStation 5 for $69.99. Preorder bonuses include extra in-game credits, a free car pack that includes the Mazda RX-Vision GT3 concept, the Porsche 917 Living Legend concept, and the Japanese Grand Touring Championship Castrol Tom’s Toyota Supra GT500 race car. An $89.99 Digital Deluxe Edition is also available for preorder and includes extra in-game credits, PS4 and PS5 dual entitlement, and a special Toyota GR Yaris painted in your country’s special livery, as well as the game’s official soundtrack.
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Mercedes confirmed that it will reopen orders for several V-8 models after previously suspending these models’ U.S. availability for the 2022 model year.Orders are now open for the G550, AMG G63, GLE580, AMG GLE63, GLS580, and Maybach GLS600, as reported by Motor Authority.A few models are still missing, including the AMG E63, the AMG GT63 4-Door, and the AMG GLS63.Several V-8–powered models will soon rejoin Mercedes’ U.S. lineup after being dropped for the 2022 model year. A Mercedes-Benz spokesperson confirmed to C/D that the company is reopening orders for certain versions of the 2022 G-class, GLE-class, and GLS-class SUVs powered by the twin-turbo 4.0-liter V-8 engine.

In addition to the Mercedes-Benz G550, GLE580, and GLS580, AMG 63 versions of the G-class and GLE-class—plus the Maybach GLS600—will be available again. But not the AMG GLS63, which is still missing from the lineup. The AMG E63 and AMG GT63 4-Door will also remain absent for the time being, and Mercedes said it could not provide any details regarding the availability of these models. The S-class sedan and new AMG SL-class convertible also use this same V-8 engine but did not appear to be affected by the same production issues.We assume that the easing of supply-chain issues is the main reason that these models are returning, although Mercedes has been relatively quiet throughout this ordeal. The suspension of these models was initially blamed on “various global, external and internal requirements, as well as several other factors, including but not limited to challenges in the supply chain,” which could also include emissions regulations.

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The Chevrolet Spark will be discontinued later this year, with production lasting through August, a GM spokesperson confirmed.The Spark is currently the cheapest new car on sale in the United States, starting at $14,595.Chevy will not offer a direct replacement for the Spark, instead directing customers to its Trax and Trailblazer subcompact crossovers, both of which start over $20,000.If you want a brand-new Chevrolet Spark, you’d better act fast. Chevy’s diminutive hatchback—currently the cheapest new car on sale in the United States—will be discontinued later this year, a General Motors spokesperson confirmed to Car and Driver today.

Chevrolet

Production of the Spark will continue through August, at which point it will depart from the Chevy lineup after a 10-year run. The Spark is not expected to get a direct replacement, with the GM spokesperson saying that customers looking for a ride at “an approachable price still have strong options within Chevrolet’s family of compact SUVs.”

If you want to get your hands on a new Spark before it goes the way of the dodo, you’ll have to cough up just $14,595 for the base LS model, around a third of the average cost of a new car, which has skyrocketed to $47,077. All Sparks use a 98-horsepower inline-four, crawling to 60 mph in 10.8 seconds but returning an EPA-rated 33 mpg combined. After the Spark departs, customers looking for a cheap Chevrolet will have to turn to the aging Trax, starting at $22,595, or the Trailblazer, starting at $22,795. Both subcompact crossovers cost substantially more than the Spark, which will leave customers seeking a sub-$20,000 car to consider other brands. The title of cheapest car in the U.S. will migrate to the Nissan Versa, starting at $16,105, with the $16,125 Mitsubishi Mirage close behind.
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Polestar has built a special version of its 2 hatchback called the Arctic Circle, outfitted for driving in snowy and icy conditions.The Arctic Circle gets extra power and torque as well as studded tires, softer springs, and a prototype launch control system.LED rally-style lights are attached up front and Recaro bucket seats are found inside, but the Polestar 2 Article Circle will remain a one-off.Electric vehicle maker Polestar—spun off from parent company Volvo back in 2017—hails from snowy Sweden, and the company has used its familiarity with wintry conditions to create the one-off Polestar 2 Arctic Circle. Developed by Polestar’s chief chassis engineer Joakim Rydholm, who races rally cars in his spare time, the Arctic Circle turns up the wick on the Polestar 2 to help it better tackle icy roads at high speeds.
Starting with a Polestar 2 Long Range dual-motor model with the Performance package, the car was raised by 1.2 inches and fitted with custom studded 245/35R-19 winter tires, with each tire bearing 490 0.16-inch metal studs. Polestar also increased power and torque, with the Arctic Circle putting out 469 horsepower and 502 pound-feet of torque. This is up from 408 hp and 487 pound-feet in the standard Polestar 2, although an over-the-air update for 2022 will see 476 hp and 502 pound-feet available for customers of the Long Range dual-motor.

The springs in the Arctic Circle are 30 percent softer than those on the production Polestar 2, and the three-way performance Öhlins dampers were also retuned. Strut braces were added at the front and rear for better torsional rigidity and steering responsiveness. Polestar also introduced a prototype launch control system, activated via steering-wheel-mounted paddles.
The Arctic Circle plays rally-car dress-up with white 19-inch OZ Racing wheels, four Stedi Quad Pro LED lights fitted up front, a carbon-fiber skid plate, and gold recovery straps front and rear. The interior features Recaro front bucket seats and a carbon-fiber snow shovel in the trunk for emergency situations. The Arctic Circle is wrapped in a slick-looking matte gray and white livery. Polestar noted that the Arctic Circle will not be put into production, describing it as a “unique showpiece.” Perhaps a determined Polestar 2 owner could re-create the electric rally car look with enough elbow grease.
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Kia has announced the recall of more than 410,000 Forte, Sedona, and Soul vehicles to fix airbags that may not deploy in a crash.The recall includes the 2017–2018 Forte, the 2017 Forte Koup, and the 2017–2019 Sedona, Soul, and Soul EV.Kia said there have been no accidents or injuries as a result of the issue, and owners will be notified in March to bring in their vehicles for airbag replacement. Kia will recall more than 410,000 of its vehicles in the U.S. to replace airbags that may not deploy in case of a crash. The problem, first spotted late last year by Kia service team members in South Korea and detailed in the NHTSA recall report, involves a faulty airbag control unit (ACU). The ACU’s cover could come into contact with other components on the circuit board and damage soldering joints, potentially leading to non-deployment of airbags in a crash. A warning sign is that the airbag warning light may come on and trigger a diagnostic code.

2018 Kia Soul EV.
Kia

The vehicles recalled are 253,281 2017–2019 Kia Soul and 953 Soul EV models, with 47,690 Kia Sedona minivans from 2017–2019 and 108,693 2017–2018 Kia Forte cars also included. Kia will send out notifications to owners starting in March.

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Swedish hypercar maker Koenigsegg has long been a home for novel engineering, and that’s evident in its new electric motor. Developed for the Gemera four-seater, this electric motor, dubbed the Quark, is a tiny powerhouse. In a package that weighs just 63 pounds, the Quark develops 335 horsepower and 443 pound-feet of torque. For scale, that’s a 330-mL (11 ounce) energy drink in the pictures seen throughout.

Koenigsegg

The Quark, announced Monday, combines both radial- and axial-flux constructions to offer a good balance between power and torque. Rather than explain the difference between the two, I’ll turn you toward this article from EV trade publication Charged. All you really need to know is that this is a best-of-both-worlds solution—Koenigsegg claims the Quark has an industry-leading torque-power-weight ratio. Those peak power and torque figures are only available for 20 seconds, which is common among EV motors. After 20 seconds, the figures drop to 134 hp and 184 pound-feet of torque. That’s fine for the Gemera, which has three electric motors and a 592-hp three-cylinder.

“The Quark is designed to bolster the low-speed range of the Gemera, where you need it, for brutal acceleration,” said Koengisegg electric-motor design lead Dragos-Mihai Postariu in a statement. “The ICE then focuses on the high-speed range. What this means in terms of performance for the Gemera is a big power surge followed by a continuous record-speed push to 400 km/h [248.5 mph] without any torque or power losses.”

Koenigsegg

Naturally, Koenigsegg uses all sorts of interesting materials for the construction of the Quark, including aerospace/motorsport-grade steel and hollow carbon fiber—Koenigsegg’s Aircore technology—for the rotor. The company hopes the Quark will find a home in more than just the Gemera, as it was also designed for aerospace and marine applications.”The Quark is unique in its high efficiency in combination with its class-leading torque-to-power-to-rpm-to-weight matrix,” said CEO Christian von Koenigsegg in a statement. “This means, when using the Quark in applications such as marine, aircraft or VTOL, there is no need for a step-down transmission, instead direct drive can be achieved, as the rpm of the motor is right from the get-go. Small high-revving motors can have higher peak power-to-weight ratio, but they need transmissions in most applications in order to get to the desired output rpm and torque, causing energy loss and adding weight and complexity to do the same job. So any benefit in size is lost.”

Koenigsegg

Koenigsegg is also marketing an EV drive unit made up of two Quark motors, plus its small but powerful inverter, and small low-ratio planetary gearsets at each output shaft. The unit is called the Terrier, and it serves up 670 hp and 811 pound-feet in a package that weighs just 187 pounds, and which offers torque vectoring across an axle. A Terrier can be bolted directly to a car’s monocoque as well.More information on the Terrier unit is forthcoming, and presumably, it will be featured on future Koenigsegg products. As ever, the numbers are deeply impressive and entirely unsurprising from the innovative Swedish firm.

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Tesla will issue an over-the-air software update to disable the “rolling stop” feature in the Full Self-Driving Beta as part of a National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) recall.The feature allows Teslas equipped with the FSD Beta to travel through a four-way-stop intersection at up to 5.6 mph without coming to a complete stop.Tesla says it is not aware of any incidents caused by the feature, and the update will be released in early February.Tesla will recall 53,822 vehicles by issuing an over-the-air software update disabling a feature called “rolling stop” found in the Full Self-Driving Beta software, documents on the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) recalls site said today. The recall affects nearly every Model S, X, 3, and Y with the Full Self-Driving Beta running firmware release 2020.40.4.10 or newer.The feature in question, “rolling stop,” permits the vehicle, when operating in the Full Self-Driving Beta, to drive through a four-way-stop intersection at up to 5.6 mph if a list of criteria are met. NHTSA points out that “entering an all-way-stop intersection without coming to a complete stop may increase the risk of collision.”

Tesla

The conditions that must be met for the “rolling stop” feature to activate include it being enabled in the FSD Beta Profile settings and that the vehicle is approaching a four-way stop at under 5.6 mph. Other criteria include that “no relevant moving cars are detected near the intersection” as well as “no relevant pedestrians or bicyclists” and that there is “sufficient visibility for the vehicle while approaching the intersection.” Lastly, all of the intersecting roads need to have a speed limit of 30 mph or less. If these conditions are met, the vehicle will drive through the intersection at a speed between 0.1 and 5.6 mph without coming to a complete stop first; if not, the vehicle will come to a full stop. The firmware including the “rolling stop” feature was released via an over-the-air update to vehicles with the FSD Beta on October 20, 2020. Tesla and the NHSTA met this year on January 10 and January 19, with a recall determination made on January 20 to shut down the feature starting with firmware release 2021.44.30.15, which is expected to be released over the air to affected vehicles in early February. Tesla said it “is not aware of any collisions, injuries or fatalities related to this condition.” The update will be free for owners, who can check NHTSA’s recalls website for updates.

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