Motor News

Bowler’s Land Rover Defender Challenge series is one of the coolest one-make championships on the planet. And with the new 2022 Land Rover Defender on the scene, that means a newly revamped spec racing truck. The Bowler Defender Challenge will use identically prepared vehicles based on the 2022 Defender 90 for the 2022 season forward, and they look like an absolute blast to drive.

Like previous Defender Challenge trucks, each new model gets its interior stripped out and replaced by a full FIA-standard roll cage paired with racing buckets, harnesses, a fire suppression system, cut-off switches, and a host of other safety gear. There are column-mounted shifter paddles specially developed by Bowler, and a repositioned shifter for quick driver access.On the outside, Defender Challenge trucks get Bowler-designed 18-inch wheels and a modified front end to improve airflow to the 295-hp turbocharged inline-four. Underneath, there are underbody protection panels as well as modified subframes and bracing for the bespoke Fox Racing suspension setup, which increases the ride by just under an inch. Bowler is planning to run seven Defender Challenge events in the United Kingdom next year, with 12 entry spots available to customers. Each truck will cost the equivalent of around $138,000, and that includes entry fees for the season as well as full technical support at each race. If you’ve ever done a full season of stage rally before, you’ll know just how reasonable that is. You’ll be able to see the new Defender Challenge in action during its public debut at the 400-km Iceland Hill Rally, happening August 6–8, 2021.
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Certain 2022 Volvo models will add new 48-volt hybrid powertrains, badged B5 and B6.EPA ratings for the 2022 S60, XC60, S90, and V90 Cross Country show a boost in city fuel economy estimates.All models still use a 2.0-liter inline-four engine with either a turbocharger or a turbocharger and a supercharger.Volvo is aiming to boost fuel efficiency by bringing its 48-volt hybrid system to certain U.S. models for 2022. EPA ratings for the 2022 Volvo S60, S90, XC60, and V90 Cross Country show new B5 and B6 designations with slightly higher city fuel economy ratings than the nonhybrid T5 and T6 predecessors. the S60, for instance, rises from 23 mpg city to 26 mpg city, while the V90 Cross Country goes from 20 mpg city to 22 mpg city.These B5 and B6 powertrains already exist in other markets, and they use the same 2.0-liter inline-four found in all Volvo models in the U.S. The S60 and XC60 are offered as standard with the B5 powertrain, which has a turbocharged version of the 2.0-liter four, while there’s a more powerful B6 turbocharged and supercharged version of the engine available as an option on the XC60 and as standard in the larger S90 sedan and V90 Cross Country wagon.

Volvo has yet to release detailed U.S. specs for this new powertrain, but the horsepower ratings for the hybridized versions of these engines may change compared with the current models. Going by European specs, the B5 could have 247 horsepower and the B6 could have 295 horsepower, compared with 250 horsepower and 316 horsepower for the existing T5 and T6 models.Look for more info to come as Volvo releases U.S.-specific details for these new B5 and B6 designations. For now, it appears that the XC40 and XC90 SUVs and the V60 Cross Country wagon won’t receive the 48-volt system yet.
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Trevor Milton, who founded and then served as executive chairman at EV startup Nikola, was indicted Thursday morning by the U.S. Department of Justice on three counts of criminal fraud.Prosecutors allege that Milton made false and misleading statements to investors about the abilities and technology of the company’s products, allegedly cheating investors out of hundreds of thousands of dollars.Nikola distanced itself from the indictment, which is only directed at Milton, and said that it is still aiming to start production of its Tre cab-over electric truck this year.The founder and former executive chairman of electric truck startup Nikola, Trevor Milton, has been indicted by the U.S. Department of Justice on three counts of criminal fraud for making false and misleading statements to investors. The charges, brought by the Manhattan U.S. attorney’s office, follow a year of turmoil for Milton, who resigned from the company in September 2020.A year ago, things were looking good for Nikola. The company was drumming up hype about its Badger pickup (pictured above), which was to be sold with electric and hydrogen fuel-cell powertrains, and was about to announce a partnership with General Motors, with GM engineering and assembling the Badger and taking a stake in Nikola. Soon after, however, a short seller called Hindenburg Research released a report accusing Nikola of fraud and specifically accusing Milton of lying about the technology and capabilities of Nikola’s vehicles. The fallout from the report saw Milton resign and GM back partly out of the deal, saying in November that it would only supply the fuel cells for the Badger.

According to the indictment, from November 2019 until his resignation in September 2020, Milton allegedly deceived investors into buying Nikola shares by making untruthful statements regarding the company’s products and underlying technology. Following the indictment, Nikola released a statement clarifying that “today’s government actions are against Mr. Milton individually, and not against the company” and that “Nikola has cooperated with the government throughout the course of its inquiry.”

Nikola

Last November, Nikola confirmed that it had received grand jury subpoenas from the Department of Justice regarding the fraud allegations, and in February, after an external review by a law firm, the company admitted that both it and Milton had made partially or completely inaccurate statements. Prosecutors in the indictment claim these false statements caused individual investors in Nikola to lose hundreds of thousands of dollars. Milton had previously tweeted that he would stand up against “false allegations” before deleting his Twitter account in September of last year and vanishing from the public eye. In its statement, Nikola said it is “focused on delivering Nikola Tre battery-electric trucks later this year.” The Tre is a cab-over semi truck that Nikola claims will have a 753.0-kWh battery and 350 miles of range, with production to begin this year and a hydrogen fuel-cell powertrain joining the lineup in 2023. Nikola’s stock prices dropped 10 percent in pre-market trading today following news of the indictment.
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The 2022 Land Rover Defender Trophy Edition is limited to 220 units, and buyers get the chance to enter in an off-road competition in North Carolina this fall. It’s based on the Defender 110 P400 X-Dynamic SE, and comes with all kinds of off-road goodies such as all-terrain tires, air springs, a roof rack, and a deployable ladder. Orders open next month starting at $91,350. Land Rover is hosting an off-road competition event at the Biltmore Estate in Asheville, North Carolina on October 11, and if you buy one of these Defender Trophy Editions you get to chance to participate. The winner even gets to go on to an event in the U.K next year.

Land Rover

The Trophy Edition is limited to only 220 units and has similar looks to the 399-hp V-8–powered Defender Works V8 Trophy that Land Rover unveiled earlier this year. The Defender’s optional expedition roof rack, deployable ladder, skid plates, and integrated air compressor all come with it along with more black exterior trim. A winch can be included as a dealer-installed accessory.

It’s based off a 2022 Defender 110 P400 X-Dynamic SE model, which comes with four-wheel drive and a 3.0-liter inline-six with an electric supercharger and 48-volt hybrid system generating a total of 396 horsepower and 406 pound-feet of torque. The limited-edition trucks come equipped with all sorts of off-road equipment including all-terrain tires, air springs, an electronically controlled rear differential, off-road drive modes including, and 360-degree cameras that act as digital trail spotters.

Land Rover

Land Rover

The Land Rover U.S. Trophy Competition in North Carolina has room for up to 90 two-person teams, and it’s first come first serve, so we feel for those 130 buyers of the special-edition Defender who get left out. Owners will compete in on- and off-road challenges with the help of professional coaches, and the winning team, determined by a panel of judges, will get invited to the the Land Rover Trophy Competition at Eastnor Castle in England early next year. Orders for the Land Rover Defender Trophy Edition will open next month starting at $91,350.
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The new Mitsubishi Outlander will again have a plug-in-hybrid version.Unlike the current Outlander PHEV, the new model will have a third-row seat.The Outlander PHEV will arrive in the U.S. in the second half of calendar-year 2022, likely as a 2023 model.Mitsubishi is currently selling the previous-generation Outlander plug-in hybrid alongside the redesigned nonhybrid 2022 Outlander, but that will change next year when a PHEV version based on the new model arrives in the U.S. Mitsubishi shared two photos of the new hybrid and shared a few tidbits of information about this new model, saying that it will go on sale in the U.S. in the second half of 2022.

Mitsubishi

The new Outlander hybrid’s gas-electric powertrain will have a more powerful electric motor and a larger battery capacity, which should give it more electric driving range than the current car’s EPA rating of 24 miles on battery power. Mitsubishi also says that the packaging of the new platform allows for a third-row seat in the hybrid model, which gives it the same seven-passenger seating capacity as the nonhybrid.

It’s unclear if the Outlander’s corporate cousin, the Nissan Rogue, will also gain a plug-in-hybrid variant. The two models currently share a platform and a powertrain, but Nissan has not announced any plans for a Rogue hybrid. Other compact-crossover rivals have added plug-in-hybrid models recently including the Toyota RAV4 and Ford Escape.
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After production of the R1T begins at Rivian’s Normal, Illinois, late this summer, Rivian will break ground on a new facility, according to company documents obtained by Reuters.The proposal calls for an initial investment of $5 billion and a 10,000-acre plot that would dwarf most factories, such as BMW’s 1200-acre Spartanburg, South Carolina, plant.Rivian is currently considering building on land to the east of Mesa, Arizona, and CEO R.J. Scaringe has already held talks with the governor of Arizona, according to Reuters.Earlier this month, we reported that deliveries of the Rivian R1T electric pickup would be delayed until September after originally being scheduled to start in July. Rivian has said that the R1T, as well as the related R1S electric SUV, will be built in Rivian’s factory in Normal, Illinois, when sales finally get underway. According to a report from Reuters, the Amazon-backed startup is already planning a second vehicle assembly plant, with a company document revealing that Rivian will invest $5 billion in the new facility. Rivian is also building electric commercial vans for Amazon.Although an early document obtained by Reuters did not directly identify Rivian and said the plant would sit on a 2000-acre plot, the revised proposal divulges plans for a plant on a vast 10,000-acre property, which Rivian calls Project Tera, Reuters said. Officials allegedly said that finding a plot of land that big would be a tricky endeavor, and if the factory was built to that size it would be more than eight times larger than BMW’s 1200-acre plant in Spartanburg, South Carolina, where the German automaker built more than 400,000 SUVs in 2019.

The document also said that Rivian aims to break ground on the factory in the fall of this year, with production beginning at the plant in the second quarter of 2023. Unsurprisingly, Reuters cited sources with knowledge of the proposal as saying the plans are likely pushed back by up to six months due to the pandemic. The factory location has yet to be confirmed, but Reuters’ sources mentioned land near Gold Canyon, east of Mesa, Arizona, and said that Rivian CEO R.J. Scaringe has discussed the proposal with Arizona Governor Doug Ducey. The company already has a presence in the area, with a small engineering and test center in Wittmann, just north of Phoenix and about an hour’s drive from Mesa.
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There’s a new full-length trailer for the forthcoming Ghostbusters movie, and it features a reborn Ecto-1.The movie, called Ghostbusters: Afterlife, features a multigenerational cast of phantom fighters and will include appearances from original cast members Dan Aykroyd, Bill Murray, Annie Potts, and Sigourney Weaver. The movie’s release was originally scheduled for summer 2020 but was delayed due to the coronavirus pandemic. It is now scheduled for a November 11, 2021, release.

IMDB

In a perfect world, the third installment in the Ghostbusters franchise (or fourth, if you count the Leslie Jones–Melissa McCarthy–Kate McKinnon–Kristen Wiig movie from 2016—Sony appears not to) would have come out in July 2020. But we do not live in a perfect world. So instead of being on our third rewatch of the newest Ghostbusters movie, we’re only now watching the second official trailer for Ghostbusters: Afterlife, which features a cast of proton-pack-wielding kids and cameos from beloved members of the original cast.
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A new full-length trailer for the film was released yesterday, and there’s a lot for fans of the original movies to love. The best news for us is that it appears the Ecto-1 will feature heavily in Afterlife. If you’re not up on Ghostbusters lore, that’s the 1959 Cadillac Futura Duplex with an ambulance/hearse conversion that helped the original Ghostbusters save New York (and the world), but which did not make an appearance in the 2016 film.

The trailer casts the Ecto-1 as a barn find. The barn is on the Oklahoma homestead of now deceased Egon Spengler, a member of the original Ghostbusters crew. The finder is Spengler’s teenage grandson, Trevor, played by Finn Wolfhard of Stranger Things fame. In the trailer, Trevor is shown whipping a revived Ecto-1 around a wheat field, and when the story takes its inevitable paranormal turn, the car swerves through the streets of the plains-state ghost town where the movie takes place, proton streams blasting. The Ecto-1 is revealed to have a pop-out jump seat ideal for hunting ghosts on the fly. There’s also a shot of what looks like an RC car dropping out of the floor of the Ecto-1, perhaps for a paranormal reconnaissance mission or to serve as a capture drone. Ghostbusters: Afterlife is scheduled to be released in theaters on November 11.
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Jeep is adding Gecko as a paint option for the Gladiator, with the color available for special order until early October for an additional $245.The color was initially offered on the Wrangler starting in the spring, with the order books for Gecko Wranglers closing in August.Jeep is also adding a Gorilla Glass windshield across the Wrangler and Gladiator ranges, with the more durable windshield costing an extra $95.The Jeep Wrangler is one of the best-selling vehicles in the United States—nearly 120,000 units found homes during the first half of 2021, along with almost 50,000 examples of the Wrangler-based Gladiator pickup. So new Wrangler and Gladiator owners might want to make their 4x4s stand out from the herd even more, and Jeep is now extending the special-run Gecko paint color from the Wrangler lineup to the Gladiator pickup.Gecko, a vibrant shade of green, has been available on the Wrangler since the spring of this year, with the order books for Gecko-painted Wranglers closing in August. Now the paint option can be had on the Gladiator as well, with customers able to order the special hue on the pickup truck until early October. The paint costs an additional $245 and joins other special-run colors like Chief Blue and Nacho for the 2021 model year.

Along with the Gecko paint, Jeep is expanding another recent option across the Wrangler and Gladiator lineups. Both models can now be ordered with a factory-installed windshield made of Corning Gorilla Glass, which utilizes the same technology as cellphone screens with a special inner layer chemically treated to increase its surface density over typical laminates. This makes the glass, according to Jeep, more lightweight while also being up to three times more resistant to chips, cracks, and fractures that might occur when taking a Jeep into its natural, off-road environment. Gorilla Glass windshields have been available for previous-generation Wrangler JK models since 2018, and can now be added to the current Wrangler JL and Gladiator JT for $95 extra.
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