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For 2022, the Jeep Grand Cherokee L adds an optional 10.3-inch infotainment screen for the front passenger, similar to the one in the larger Wagoneer. Rear passengers each gain an optional 10.1-inch screen, which has built-in Amazon Fire TV capability and nine gigabytes of storage apiece.Three new colors join the lineup: Ember, Hydro Blue, and Midnight Sky.Introduced for 2021, the long-wheelbase, three-row Jeep Grand Cherokee L brought handsome styling, a rich and tech-filled interior, and immense capability on- and off-road. Still, Jeep saw fit to upgrade the Grand Cherokee L for the 2022 model year and is adding even more technological goodies, appearance packages, and paint options to the mid-size SUV.

Stellantis

The most obvious change will be the addition of an optional 10.3-inch front passenger screen, similar to the secondary display found in the Grand Cherokee L’s big brother, the Wagoneer. This screen can show navigation, camera views, and visual entertainment for the passenger and will come standard on the top-of-the-line Summit Reserve. It will also be available on the Limited, Overland, and Summit trims.

There are also new screens for the rear passengers, with a pair of optional 10.1-inch high-definition displays mounted on the back of the front seats. Available on Limited, Overland, and Summit models, the system has built-in Amazon Fire TV, which can be linked to a an in-vehicle Wi-Fi hotspot or a hotspot from a mobile device. Each display also features nine gigabytes of storage for downloaded Prime Video content, an HDMI port, and two voice remotes with Alexa. Content can be viewed on each screen individually or mirrored across both, and the front-seat passenger can monitor and control the content on the rear displays. Also for 2022, there are new Limited Black and Summit High Altitude packages, which include gloss-black exterior accents and badges, roof rails, and a tweaked grille design. The Limited Black package rides on 20-inch gloss black aluminum wheels, with 21-inch wheels on the Summit High Altitude. There are also three new paint options: Ember, Hydro Blue, and Midnight Sky. All three are available on Overland, Summit, and Summit Reserve trims, while Ember and Midnight Sky can also be had on the Limited. Orders are now open for the 2022 Grand Cherokee L, which should arrive at dealerships in the near future.
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Rivian, the startup EV maker, has revealed that its second plant will be located in Morgan and Walton Counties in Georgia, east of Atlanta.The new factory will create 7500 jobs and be able to assemble 400,000 vehicles per year when fully operational, the company said.The plant will cost $5 billion to build, with construction slated to begin next summer and the site opening in 2024. Back in July, electric startup Rivian began plotting the construction of a second factory, with rumors of a $5 billion initial investment and a colossal 10,000-acre plot, possibly in Arizona. Since then, Rivian has started production on its R1T pickup truck and debuted on the stock market, achieving the largest IPO for an American company since Facebook’s. Now, the ascendent automaker has announced that it will start building its second factory in the summer of 2022 in Georgia, just east of Atlanta.

Rivian/Amazon

Rivian says that the “carbon-conscious campus” will employ more than 7500 people when fully operational. The site won’t be even close to the 10,000 acres previously reported, but the still sizable plot will measure nearly 2000 acres with “abundant natural space.” Rivian also says it will form community engagement and workforce training programs for the region. There are also plans for a series of town hall events in the area in 2022 to interact with the surrounding community.

Rivian will spend $5 billion to create the plant, which will be capable of churning out up to 400,000 vehicles per year. Production is supposed to start at the new Georgia factory in 2024. Rivian is also upgrading its original plant in Normal, Illinois, recently getting approval for a 623,000-square-foot expansion. This brings the Normal factory to a total of 4 million square feet, or almost 92 acres. Rivian will hire 800 to 1000 employees at the Normal plant by the second quarter of next year as the company continues its rapid growth.
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BrightDrop’s EV600 electric van has reached its first customer, FedEx, which received the first five out of a total order of 500 vans.The EV600 uses GM’s Ultium batteries for a claimed 250-mile range and has 600 cubic feet of storage space.The BrightDrop purchase is part of FedEx’s goal to become carbon neutral by 2040, which also includes reservations for 20 Tesla Semi trucks.General Motors’ Ultium battery platform isn’t just underpinning the 1000-hp GMC Hummer EV and the upcoming Chevrolet Silverado EV with its available 24-inch wheels, it’s also serving as the basis for something far more utilitarian: the BrightDrop EV600. First revealed last January, General Motors’ electric commercial van has now officially arrived, with BrightDrop’s first customer, FedEx, receiving five EV600s out of a total order of 500 late last week.

BrightDrop

General Motors says that this makes the EV600 the “fastest built vehicles, from concept to market, in General Motors history.” As the name suggests, the electric van has more than 600 cubic feet of cargo space, and the Ultium batteries can provide a claimed range of up to 250 miles.

The five BrightDrop EV600s are part of FedEx’s effort to become carbon neutral by 2040, and subsidiary FedEx Express is aiming for 50 percent of its fleet purchases to be electric by 2025, before hitting 100 percent by 2030. This isn’t FedEx’s first foray into electric powertrains, however. The company says it first used an EV—powered by a lead-acid battery—in California in 1994 and introduced hybrid vehicles in its fleet in 2003. FedEx also took delivery of several of the short-lived Navistar eStar electric delivery trucks back in 2010. The delivery company also has a reservation for 20 Tesla Semis and is purchasing 120 electric trucks from a company called Xos.
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The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) finalized new emissions standards on Monday, December 20, that will go into effect with the 2023 model year and run through model year 2026. The EPA will set other standards for 2027 and later vehicles.The EPA said these stricter greenhouse gas emissions rules will provide $190 billion in net benefits to Americans, including lowering the price it costs to drive and creating health benefits from a cleaner environment.There’s general agreement that these are the strictest fuel-economy standards ever proposed, even higher than what President Obama asked for before President Trump rolled those rules back. Today, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) finalized its new rules for what it is calling the “most ambitious federal greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions standards for passenger cars and light trucks ever.” The new standards, which will go into effect for model year 2023 through 2026 vehicles, are a precursor to the next set of standards, which will affect 2027 model year and later vehicles.

While the EPA technically sets tailpipe emissions limits, not fuel-economy standards (those are set by the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, or NHTSA), these new regulations will of course impact the miles-per-gallon ratings of new cars and trucks. The new rules will mean that the fleet average will climb to around 40 mpg in 2026, compared to the 38-mpg average that appeared in earlier proposals. The most recent was from this past August, when the Biden administration said it would work to roll back Trump-era rules that loosened the emissions standards and would have resulted in more greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere and a fleet average of just 32 mpg. The new rules are even more stringent than those proposed by President Obama and are expected to prevent 3.1 billion tons of CO2 emissions from getting into the air through 2050.”Collectively, these standards are the strongest vehicle emission standards ever established for the passenger vehicle sector in the U.S.,” the pro-environment Climate Group said in a statement in response to today’s EPA’s announcement. NHTSA said in August that it would propose higher mpg requirements that would increase fuel efficiency by 8 percent a year for model years 2024 through 2026, resulting in an increase in the fleetwide average of 12 miles per gallon for model year 2026 vehicles, using model year 2021 as a baseline. The EPA isn’t only highlighting these improved fuel economy numbers, though. Instead the agency is talking about how lower GHG emissions will result in $190 billion in “net benefits” for Americans by reducing the amount of pollution in the air, improving public health and reducing the amount people have to spend on gasoline and diesel fuel by making their cars go further on each gallon. The new rules also deliver “more net benefits to consumers than the proposed rule showcasing how zero-emission vehicles are more affordable and more efficient for consumers,” the EPA said.

Ford

Chevrolet

The EPA’s new, higher standards don’t mean automakers can’t build low-mpg vehicles, so gas-guzzling models like the Ford F-150 Raptor and the Chevrolet Silverado, which can drop as low as a measly 15 combined mpg in some configurations, can remain a part of Ford and GM’s plans. The trick is that the average needs to increase, which gives automakers more reason to offer high-mpg models and all-electric vehicles as well as models that get some of the EPA’s highest ratings, like the 2022 Hyundai Elantra Hybrid Blue (54 mpg) and the 2022 Toyota Corolla Hybrid (52 mpg).

Drew Phillips/Hyundai

The new rules could push new electric-vehicle and plug-in-hybrid sales to make up 17 percent of the U.S. market by 2026, the EPA said, adding that the new rules give automakers “adequate lead time for manufacturers to comply at reasonable costs.” The rules themselves, the EPA declares, are “based on sound science and grounded in a rigorous assessment of current and future technologies with supporting analysis that shows the standards are achievable and affordable.”Outside groups pressured the Biden administration to enact the higher GHG standards that were announced today. The Sierra Club said more than 200,000 people submitted comments to the EPA to strengthen the rules in September. Attorneys general from 21 states, the District of Columbia, and six cities also recommended to the EPA that it strengthen the rules.”We applaud the EPA for listening to the public and the climate science and acting swiftly to strengthen the federal clean car standards, our nation’s most powerful tool to slash emissions,” said Sierra Club president Ramón Cruz in a statement. “We urge the agency to get moving on the strongest possible long-term standards that rapidly accelerate the transition to zero-emission vehicles to protect the well-being of our communities by addressing the nation’s top source of pollution.”
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The EV startup Canoo has shown off three podlike vehicles—a pickup truck, a delivery van, and a minivan—and said it will now build them in the United States starting next year.Canoo has canceled its original plan for contracting production to VDL Nedcar in the Netherlands, in part to avoid supply-chain issues.The electric pods will instead be built at a factory in Arkansas in 2022 before an Oklahoma facility begins production in 2023.American electric-vehicle startup Canoo has shown off three radically styled vehicles over the past few years and is now solidifying plans to put its podlike designs into production. Although Canoo had originally planned to outsource production of its vehicles to VDL Nedcar, a Dutch contract manufacturer, those plans have been scrapped. Instead, Canoo aims to build its first vehicles next year at a new plant in Arkansas—where it recently moved its headquarters—before a factory in Pryor, Oklahoma, goes online in late 2023.Canoo said the decision to switch manufacturing facilities from the Netherlands to the U.S. will help avoid major supply-chain complications and reduce shipping and tariff costs. The Arkansas plant was initially meant to build the company’s electric delivery vans, but it will now also produce the Lifestyle Vehicle, a seven-seat compact minivan.

Canoo

The new plans come with revised production targets. For 2022, Canoo is aiming to build between 3000 and 6000 units, up from its previous goal of 1000 cars. 2023 sees those targets rise to up to 17,000 units, versus the originally planned 15,000 vehicles. By 2024, Canoo aims to make at least 40,000 EVs and is targeting production of at least 70,000 Canoos in 2025.

Canoo and VDL Groep (the parent company of VDL Nedcar) are still discussing a partnership in the future for the European market. VDL Nedcar is returning Canoo’s prepayment of $30.4 million from the prior production plans, but VDL Groep will also now buy $8.4 million in Canoo stock. The move to produce Canoos in the United States will help Canoo bring its vehicles to market more quickly while investing in high-tech manufacturing jobs for Americans, and still allows for the possibility of European production at a later date.
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Nikola, an American electric-truck startup, has delivered its first two vehicles to a customer operating at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach.The Tre BEV is an electric semi with a claimed 350 miles of range via a 753.0-kWh battery.If the pilot program goes well, Nikola plans to deliver 30 Tre BEVs and 70 Tre hydrogen fuel-cell trucks to the same company in the next two years.Electric-truck startup Nikola has had a bumpy ride. Last year, founder and executive chairman Trevor Milton stepped down amid fraud investigations by the government, prompting General Motors to scale back a deal with the nascent automaker. Milton was charged with fraud earlier this year, and Nikola switched its focus from its Badger pickup (originally intended to be built by GM) to its planned electric semi trucks. Late last week Nikola announced that it delivered the first examples of its Tre battery-electric trucks as part of a pilot program with one of its customers.

Nikola

The two Tre BEV trucks went to Total Transportation Services Inc. (TTSI), a trucking company operating at the Los Angeles and Long Beach ports. The Tre BEV has a claimed range of 350 miles thanks to a 753.0-kWh battery, and a total of 645 horsepower allows for a claimed top speed of 75 mph. Nikola says that the truck can charge from 10 to 80 percent in two hours at up to 240 kW, and it has a gross combined vehicle weight rating of 82,000 pounds. Nikola is also planning a Tre FCEV with a hydrogen fuel-cell powertrain that it claims can travel up to 500 miles.

TTSI has a letter of intent from Nikola for 100 trucks following a trial program of two Tre BEVs and two Tre FCEVs. Nikola hasn’t said when TTSI will receive its Tre FCEV pilot trucks, but after the program ends, Nikola aims to deliver 30 Tre BEVs to the company in 2022 and 70 Tre FCEVs in 2023. Nikola and European partner Iveco also have a deal with the Hamburg Port Authority in Germany for the delivery of 25 Tre BEVs in 2022.
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A new NBC sitcom called American Auto looks at the struggles of 100-year-old Payne Motors as it tries to navigate the world of self-driving cars and other 2021 industry challenges.The producers and actors have ties to The Office, Superstore, and Saturday Night Live, so rest assured that they’re not as bumbling as the characters they play.Two episodes are out now on Hulu and iTunes, with NBC’s official start of the series coming on January 4.Workplace television comedies can be genius, as The Office and 30 Rock proved. They can also fall flat and disappear before anyone can pay attention enough to remember them (if you can name the early-1990s doctor’s-office sitcom that featured a young Ellen DeGeneres without Google’s help, you’re in the minority). With two episodes already out ahead of the January 4 debut, you can be the judge as to which category the new NBC sitcom called American Auto belongs in.

NBC

As the name might give away, American Auto is about a car company, in this case the fictional 100-year-old company Payne Motors. While the setting is a Detroit-based automaker (and there’s a joke about a former CEO being anti-Semitic that more than hints at Henry Ford), it’s still a relatively standard Hollywood workplace comedy. The cold open to the first episode is pretty damn funny, though, if you’ve ever wondered if the Chevy Nova naming debacle might repeat itself today.

Cyrus (Michael Benjamin Washington) presents plans for the Ponderosa, the company’s first completely autonomous vehicle.
NBC

The show has a strong production pedigree. Its creator, Justin Spitzer, previously worked as a writer on The Office and also created the sitcom Superstore, which followed a group of workers at a Walmart-like big box store. The cast is led by former Saturday Night Live star Ana Gasteyer, who plays the new CEO of Payne Motors, and Jon Barinholtz as the grandson of the retired Payne Motors CEO. Barinholtz was also in Superstore.Spitzer has been working on American Auto on and off since 2013, before Superstore. While that show was about the workers, American Auto is more about the executives. Early in the development work, he said, it didn’t even matter which industry the executives worked for.”The fact that it’s the auto industry came later,” Spitzer told Deadline. “I just wanted it to be about a big multibillion-dollar American industry.”

Barinholtz said this focus on the higher-ups gives American Auto a different vibe than Superstore, even if the creators and actors tried to put some of the same quirky heart into the new show.”Just because [the execs are the] decision makers doesn’t make them any more capable than the workers whose decisions they’re affecting,” he told the Detroit Free Press. “So we see how these decisions are made, and it’s not with as much thought as you would hope it is, if you’re a worker. It’s sometimes kind of just flying by the seat of their pants.”Be that as it may, based on the pilot episode, American Auto is up to date with issues in the modern auto industry. The episode features development and testing of a self-driving car called the Payne Ponderosa that has no brake pedal, with dangerous results. The second episode explores the idea of whether all publicity is good publicity after a serial killer makes another of the company’s vehicles, the Payne Magellan, famous after using it in a crime. You know, just feel-good family fun.The first two episodes of American Auto aired on NBC this past week, before the season kicks off for real on January 4. You can watch the already released episodes on Hulu or on iTunes or Apple TV with a season pass to the show or a subscription.
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French automaker Citroën has revealed this beach-buggy version of its electric Ami city car.The Ami is not just for Europe, though, despite its diminutive size. It will be coming to the U.S. in the car-sharing fleet of startup Free2Move, which is part of Citroën parent company PSA.Citroën said its My Ami Buggy concept is “one of the many faces that could be developed for Ami,” meaning it may not be ruled out for production someday.Citroën answers a question we never knew to ask with its recently revealed My Ami Buggy concept. As its name implies, the My Ami Buggy is, well, a theoretical beach-buggy variant of the brand’s Ami electric city car, a model that’s due to arrive in the United States as part of the fleet of vehicles used by the car-sharing service Free2Move.

Although Citroën is mum on the My Ami Buggy’s powertrain details, the French brand likely carries over the run-of-the-mill Ami’s lone 8-hp electric motor and 5.5-kWh battery pack to this tough but tiny safari-style Ami. Given its knobby tires and additional kit, such as its roof-mounted light bar and spare tire, we wager the My Ami Buggy is even slower than its stock sibling, which leisurely accelerates to a top speed of 28 mph. Same goes for the My Ami Buggy’s driving range, which we imagine falls a bit short of the Ami’s estimated 43-mile figure.Even so, the My Ami Buggy concept makes up for its likely acceleration- and range-related shortcomings by looking so damn cool. Credit the car’s safari-style treatment that makes this little electric vehicle look ready to take on the world’s toughest terrain (whether it’s capable of successfully doing so is a different story).
It also helps that the My Ami Buggy ditches the Ami’s doors to make way for chic tubular decor along the sills. Don’t worry, Citroën fits the My Ami Buggy with a set of deployable transparent canvas covers to keep occupants dry in the event of a rainstorm. Both driver and passenger, meanwhile, ought to find the My Ami Buggy a more comfortable place to while away miles relative to the standard Ami. Credit its seats’ 2.8-inch-thick seat padding, which is nearly 1.4 inches thicker than those of the Ami. Other noteworthy features of the My Ami Buggy concept include its removable exterior mirrors and various integrated clamps for a variety of personal devices, such as cellphones and speakers. Unfortunately, Citroën makes no mention of plans to offer a production variant of the My Ami Buggy concept other than to state that it “illustrates one of the many faces that could be developed for Ami, the atypical vehicle developed by Citroën, ready to explore new horizons.”Well, we think it ought to. After all, just imagine picking up a My Ami Buggy through Free2Move to stylishly cruise the streets of Miami (or is that My Ami?) Beach with neither a pair of doors nor a worry to ruin the vibe.
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