Motor News

Ford is no longer taking online reservations for the new Bronco SUV after receiving 190,000 refundable $100 deposits. The temporary move is because of high demand and production issues with the hardtop model’s roof. Ford’s Said Deep told Car and Driver that the reservation system will be back in October. The Ford Bronco can’t catch a break. Ford has stopped taking customer reservations for the new SUV because of increased demand and production issues, as first reported by the Detroit Free Press. Through July, about 3200 Broncos have been sold, Ford communications chief Said Deep told Car and Driver. To date, Ford has received more than 125,000 orders for the Bronco, which debuted as a 2021 model, with 190,000 people having put down $100 refundable deposits. The reservation system will be back in October. Ford’s website now directs customers interested in the Bronco to contact their local dealership for details on options and timing. “They have a better line of sight in what’s coming in,” Deep explained.

We contacted our local dealership, Varsity Ford in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Brian House, a Varsity sales manager, said the dealership is telling customers they’ll have to wait six months or for the 2023 model year, depending on what Bronco configuration they choose. Ford suggested that would-be Bronco buyers have the possibility of securing an incoming softtop model if someone else cancels an existing order. That’s because the softtop model is not affected by the supplier quality issue plaguing the two- and four-door hardtop models. A customer could also change their own spec. For instance, they could forgo the Sasquatch package and wait to add the beefier tires later if they are set on getting into a Bronco earlier. But House said lots of customers are already calling Varsity Ford and trying to switch their build to speed up the process. Unfortunately, there’s nothing coming in. Every Bronco Varsity has received has gone straight to the customer who ordered it, according to House.Production of the 2022 Bronco will begin in December. For 2022, changes include new colors, including Eruption Green, and the addition of manual-equipped models with the off-road-focused Sasquatch package. Ford is aiming to begin replacing every hardtop model’s roof in October.
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The city of New Orleans suspended a ban on parking on “neutral ground,” a term New Orleanians use to refer to grassy medians, during Hurricane Ida.The city sometimes lifts the parking ban during heavy rain events to help drivers keep their cars safe from potential floods. It’s never safe to drive through flood waters. Many cars will stall in six inches of water or less and can be carried away by two feet of water.

As New Orleans prepared for Hurricane Ida, which was a Category 4 storm when it made landfall in Louisiana on Sunday before being downgraded to a tropical storm, city officials made one surprising move: They lifted a parking ban that usually makes it illegal for drivers to park on grassy medians, known as “neutral ground” in New Orleans. The medians are raised by several inches compared to the street, so parking there pre-emptively gives vehicle owners some protection against flood damage. Hurricanes and the flooding they cause can damage huge numbers of cars; in 2018, flooding from Hurricane Harvey may have destroyed as many as a million cars in the Houston area.
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This wasn’t the first time the New Orleans city government had suspended the neutral-ground parking ban. It’s a technique employed regularly to limit damage from flooding in the city, which sits around eight feet below sea level. But even in emergencies, it’s still not a parking free-for-all (at least according to the authorities). Drivers are allowed to park cars on neutral ground while the ban is lifted, but they still can’t park in ways that would impede the flow of traffic, block intersections, or block the travel of streetcars, which in some places run through the middle of the grassy dividers.

Some people in other flood-prone cities are calling on their governments to adopt a similar strategy during heavy rains. In Houston, which has had seven flooding events since 2014, the streets are designed to channel water during heavy rain, which can make street-parked cars vulnerable to damage. Drivers there may find themselves driving or pushing their cars onto medians or raised lawns for lack of better options once flood waters start rising, but it’s not currently an officially sanctioned practice.Whether your municipal government allows you to park your car out of harm’s way pre-emptively or not, it’s never safe to drive your car through flood waters. Many cars can stall in as little as six inches of water, float in a foot of water, or be carried away by two feet of water. Flood water may carry debris (including snakes, according to the National Weather Service) that can damage cars or injure people. And even shallow running water can sweep you off your feet. It may be hard—and expensive—but if you discover too late that your car is parked in the way of a flood, it’s best to leave it be. If you’re driving and come across flood water, turn around and head to higher ground. And if flood waters begin to rise around your car, abandon the car and seek safety.
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Ford is recalling 16,430 of its 2021 F-150 SuperCab pickup trucks over a seatbelt issue.Ford urges owners of the affected vehicles not to drive their trucks until the issue is resolved due to safety concerns.Vehicles that were manufactured between January 2 and May 27, 2021, are affected by this recall.Ford is recalling 16,430 F-150 SuperCab trucks from the 2021 model year over an issue with seatbelt installation. The webbing of the seatbelt may have been incorrectly routed through a rubber trim sleeve instead of an anchor as it should have been, and in the instance of a crash, the seatbelt may be unable to properly restrain the driver and passenger, increasing chances of injury.

Ford will be mailing owners information that will advise and instruct them to check their front-row seatbelts. If the passenger seatbelt does not pass the test, then they should avoid driving with a passenger. If the driver’s seat has the issue, then they are advised not t0 drive the truck until repairs are performed. All repairs will be performed free of charge.This recall is only for the F-150 SuperCab trucks; regular-cab and crew-cab vehicles are not affected. Owners are asked to contact their dealership and have the truck towed to receive repairs or call the Ford toll-free number (866–436–7332) for assistance.If you are unsure if your vehicle has been recalled, use the VIN (vehicle identification number) lookup tool on the Ford website or on the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) recalls site.

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As the battery-related recall expands to include every Bolt EV and Bolt EUV Chevrolet has sold in the U.S., the automaker and NHTSA have offered updated suggestions to Bolt owners to minimize the risk of fires. One temporary remedy for the defective battery is that Bolt EVs should not be charged indoors, overnight, or to more than a 90 percent state of charge. They should also not be driven so that the battery shows less than 70 miles left in the pack. But Recurrent, which can monitor battery usage from its subscribers, says that up to 30 percent of Bolt drivers are not following these rules.The already large Chevy Bolt EV recall grew this week to include every unit that Chevrolet has sold in the U.S., even the new Bolt EUVs that use the same battery pack. The problem, as we’ve known since General Motors announced the initial recall in the fall of 2020, is that in rare circumstances the battery could ignite due to “defective battery modules.” The recall now involves 110,000 EVs, and their owners have been given specific guidance about how to take care of their vehicle while waiting for a full replacement to happen. The problem, according to battery-monitoring service Recurrent: about 30 percent of Bolt drivers aren’t following that guidance correctly.

Chevrolet

As we’ve noted, GM and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) have offered different fixes for this problem since it first announced a recall for 2017-2019 model year Chevrolet Bolt EVs in November 2020. At the time, GM said Bolt owners should not park indoors and also limit charging to at most 90 percent full (the setting can be adjusted using the Bolt’s Hilltop Reserve mode in 2017–2018 vehicles and Target Charge Level mode in later models). Then, in July, owners were told not to recharge their EVs overnight and to not drive so much on one charge that the battery drops to below 70 miles of remaining range. This month, the recall was expanded to include 2019 model Bolt EV and all 2020–2022 Bolt EV and Bolt EUV models. The total cost to GM is now estimated to be $1.8 billion.

The overall number of Bolt EV fires suspected to be caused by this defect is quite low. NHTSA started investigating the issue due to three fires and later said it was aware of four fires that started despite drivers following the suggested remedies. However, despite the potential seriousness of the problem, it appears not all Bolt drivers are listening to the company or NHTSA. This insight comes to us from Recurrent, which monitors battery information from electric=vehicle drivers who subscribe to the service in order to analyze battery health. Recurrent has been watching 1000 Chevy Bolt subscribers since early August, and this week said its real-world numbers show that up to 30 percent of these Bolt owners are not following GM’s new charging guidelines to keep the pack below 90 percent full and above 70 miles of remaining range, which the NHTSA calls “deep discharge mode.””Our data is showing that a lot of Chevy Bolt owners are going to have to change their behavior,” said Recurrent CEO Scott Case in a statement. “For some, this could be a hardship if they have long commutes and require more range than the new guidelines allow, especially during the summer when hot temperatures and extra A/C usage affect battery performance.”

Recurrent says its subscribers represent “highly engaged and attentive owners,” and that, in general, they did respond to the new charge level guidance from GM, but there are still people who either don’t know about the safety suggestions or have decided not to follow them. The recall’s expansion to include 2019–2022 Bolt vehicles means it’s likely it will take even longer for GM to provide permanent fixes. “Newer Chevy Bolt owners need to pay attention to this recall now,” Case said. “One hundred thousand batteries can’t get replaced overnight given supply-chain woes and high demand for new EVs so this will take some time.”
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For a variety of reasons, from emissions to safety to cost, carmakers don’t bother bringing certain vehicles stateside. While many of these cars are pretty undesirable, some are reportedly amazing. So a viewer asked us what forbidden fruit we would import if we had a shady car-smuggling friend who could bring over anything from the world beyond our borders. If you’re worried about how we might register such a vehicle, this friend also has the connections and ability to make it street legal. We set a budget of $50,000, set Google to translate, and started searching foreign websites.To answer the Window Shop challenge, we asked deputy testing director K.C. Colwell, senior editor Joey Capparella, contributor Jonathon Ramsey, deputy editor Tony Quiroga, and, of course, Road & Track senior editor John Pearley Huffman to scour the internet for contenders. Most of the crew makes smart choices. Two of the contestants pick hot performance cars from Down Under, another selects a very special Toyota Yaris that deserves to be imported, someone else champions a Renault that breaks the budget, and Pearley presents a car that he could legally import and register in the U.S. today, no shady friend necessary. (If you’ve watched this show before, you already know that Pearley isn’t a careful reader of the challenges.)There are plenty of laughs, a few Britishisms, some valuable information, a couple of trivialities, and of course a winner—sort of.

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Hyundai will host “Hydrogen Wave,” a virtual event where the company will discuss its plans for hydrogen fuel cells and show off some new hydrogen-powered vehicles.A teaser video shows a hydrogen-powered sports sedan speeding around a racetrack, but Hyundai did not provide any more details on this potential new model.Another teaser shows a long-distance freight truck, with a design that shares some similarities with the HDC-6 Neptune concept from 2019.Most automakers have been pledging to convert their lineups to battery-powered electric vehicles, touting gains in charging times and range, but a few companies have continued developing hydrogen fuel-cell technology, which promises sustainability and quick five-minute refills. Hyundai was one of these companies. It has offered the Nexo, a hydrogen-powered crossover, in California since 2019. While the Nexo is a niche vehicle finding only a couple hundred buyers each year, Hyundai is doubling down on hydrogen technology, announcing yesterday that it will host a virtual forum called “Hydrogen Wave,” during which the Korean automaker will reveal its vision for a hydrogen-fuel-cell future.
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Along with outlining its plans for hydrogen fuel-cell development, Hyundai says that it will unveil “state-of-the-art future fuel-cell electric vehicles” at the event, although it did not specify how many or what they might be. However, a few short teaser videos provide some hints. In the first video, we catch a few glimpses of a hydrogen-powered sedan decked out in blue, black, and white camouflage as it tears up a racetrack. The vehicle appears to be an athletic sports sedan, and Hyundai has said before that its N performance subbrand will include hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles as well as traditional EVs. The vehicle looks roughly similar in size to the Sonata, but it’s not yet clear whether Hyundai’s first performance hydrogen car will be based on an existing model or new from the ground up.

In one of the other videos, we get a brief look at a hydrogen-fuel-cell truck as the camera pans along the side of a vehicle with HTWO logos, Hyundai’s nascent hydrogen fuel cell sub-brand. Although it’s not a perfect match, some of the vehicle we see looks similar to the design of the HDC-6 Neptune semi-truck concept Hyundai showed off in 2019. The virtual forum will take place on September 7 on the Hyundai Motor Group Youtube channel before the company hosts a physical exhibition, presumably of the new vehicles, in Goyang, South Korea, from September 8 to 11.
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The GMC Canyon AT4 Ovrlandx concept takes the company’s mid-size pickup truck to the extreme, fitting a bed cap, tent, and rear awning for those seeking to live off the grid.The Ovrlandx gains a lift kit, Multimatic dampers, and 33-inch BFGoodrich KM3 Mud-Terrain tires, as well as custom bumpers front and rear and unique extended wheel arches.The bed cap comes with an integrated kitchenette and cooler, as well as jerry cans for extra water or gas should you run out while out exploring nature.Overlanding, a mashup of off-roading and camping, has seen a surge of popularity in the U.S. recently. Along with custom builds from creative off-road enthusiasts, automakers themselves have jumped on the trend. Last year both Toyota and Ford showed vehicles prepped for overlanding duty, and now GMC is joining the party with the Canyon AT4 Ovrlandx concept, revealed today at the Overland Expo Mountain West 2021 in Loveland, Colorado.
Starting with a Canyon AT4, GMC added a heavy-duty front bumper with a winch and recovery points, an AEV rear bumper, increased underbody protection, and rocker-panel protectors. A lift kit and 33-inch BFGoodrich KM3 Mud-Terrain tires on 17-inch AEV Crestone wheels provide 10 inches of ground clearance and a 27.7-degree approach angle. The snorkel helps the Ovrlandx travel through up to 32.1 inches of water and guy lines running between the roof and hooks on the front fenders shield the windshield from branches along the trail.

The Canyon AT4 Ovrlandx also gains Multimatic DSSV dampers, front and rear electronic locking differentials, and cast-iron control arms. Visual changes include black wheel flares with integrated lighting units, custom grille and headlight finishes, unique AT4 badges, a special leather interior, and a spare tire on a swivel mount. Most importantly for overlanding enthusiasts, there is a stainless steel bed cap with a tent perched on top and an awning that extend outwards to provide shade while you cook on the built-in kitchenette. The bed cap also includes plenty of storage, traction boards for if you get stuck, an off-road jack, and jerry cans for gas and water.GMC said the truck still uses the 3.6-liter V-6 engine and eight-speed automatic from the stock AT4. The Canyon AT4 Ovrlandx is simply a concept for now, but the company did say it is “exploring GMC’s vision for its growing lineup of premium yet capable trucks and SUVs,” suggesting that a more hard-core Canyon could potentially be in the cards.
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Earlier this month, we all got to watch as racer and professional hooligan Ken Block pit his Subaru WRX STI rally car against his Baja-bound trophy truck. The unlikely competitors duked it out on a timed rally stage, with a predictable victory ensuing for the Subaru. Not satisfied with this single bout of automotive shenanigans, Block is back with another video in which his Ford Escort RS “Cossie V2” and his wife’s Ford Fiesta R2 join to compete in a 2000-hp shootout. Block and his crew decided to make things simpler this time around. Instead of sending all four cars down a rally stage, a basic out and back course was devised. All four vehicles would start from a dead stop in a box of cones before accelerating to a marked hairpin. After completing the turn, the driver simply would to accelerate back down the straightaway and get stopped in the box. Fastest time wins.
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Like the Subaru WRX STI featured in the last clip, the Cossie V2 is a serious rally-prepped machine. The Ford features a 2.0-liter Escort WRC engine, which produces around 375 hp. That is about 45 more than Subaru, but the Cossie V2 is also slightly heavier at around 3400 pounds. Both cars utilize a six-speed sequential gearbox and all-wheel drive, so the two appear evenly matched on paper. The same can’t be said for Lucy Block’s Fiesta R2, which only makes 197 hp from its 1.0-liter turbocharged three-cylinder. The R2 is a lightweight, tipping the scales at just 2240 pounds. That’s three times lighter than the 6450-pound Geiser Bros G6 Trophy Truck, but the truck packs 1100 hp under the hood. Each vehicle brings its own set of strengths to the competition, which proved closer than one might think. Block drove his trophy truck and the WRX STI, while Jax Redline was tasked with piloting the Cossie V2. Despite taking a two year hiatus from the driver’s seat, Lucy Block was responsible for taking her R2 through the course. Less of a controlled test than last time, but perhaps even more fun as a result.

Unsurprisingly, Ken and his Subaru dominated the show, dropping a 13.7 second run through the course. The Escort RS secured second place with a best time of 14.9 seconds. The trophy truck struggled to do any better than a 15.7 second pass, rearing the front end the whole time. The plucky little R2 had significantly worse road conditions to deal with than the others, and as such a slight time deduction was made in the name of fairness. The R2’s best adjusted time was 18 seconds. While we’re not sure that this test proves anything, it does make one wonder how to get their hands on four rally-ready machines. This sort of challenge seems like it would be great fun among friends, regardless of which vehicle you’re stuck with.

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