Motor News

Audi has released the new version of the RS3, based on the new 2022 A3 sedan.It has a turbo 2.5-liter inline-five engine with 401 horsepower and 369 pound-feet of torque.The all-wheel-drive system has a new torque-vectoring setup.Audi’s new A3 lineup is now complete with the official debut of the top-dog RS3 performance version. With a 401-horsepower turbo five-cylinder engine, standard all-wheel drive with torque vectoring, and meaner looks than its predecessor, the 2022 RS3 will again be coming to the U.S. market in sedan form. (An RS3 Sportback hatch is also available in Europe, but we won’t be getting that version.)

The same turbocharged 2.5-liter inline-five we liked so much in the previous RS3 continues on, but with a few tweaks that result in more power and torque. The new RS3 now has 401 horsepower and 369 pound-feet of torque, increases of 7 hp and 15 pound-feet over the previous U.S.-spec 2020 RS3. Audi claims it will sprint to 62 mph in 3.8 seconds, but we think it will be quicker than that given that we got a previous-gen RS3 to 60 mph in 3.4 seconds. A seven-speed dual-clutch automatic is again standard across the board, and a variable exhaust should create a distinctive five-cylinder soundtrack.The RS3’s upgraded all-wheel-drive system features torque vectoring for the rear axle. It redirects power differently depending on which driving mode is selected, and there’s a drift mode called RS Torque Rear that can direct torque to a single rear wheel for sliding around on a track.

The new RS3’s track is slightly wider than before, and it’s 0.4 inch lower than the S3. Adaptive dampers will be optional, along with carbon-ceramic rotors for the front brakes. 19-inch wheels are standard.
Looks-wise, the RS3 sets itself apart with a black front grille, a lip spoiler and diffuser in the rear, and special lighting elements in the daytime running lights meant to look like a checkered flag. A black roof is optional, as are matching color inserts for the interior. There’s also plenty of carbon-fiber trim found inside, and the digital gauge cluster is configured to show an interesting runway-style tachometer.Audi has yet to announce pricing for the new RS3, but we reckon it will be a few thousand dollars more expensive than the outgoing 2020 model, which started at $57,195.
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Ford is recalling more than 676,152 Explorer SUVs in North America to fix a problem with the rear suspension.The automaker said the problem is a seized cross-axis ball joint, which could cause a fractured rear suspension toe link and potential reduction of steering control.Ford said there have been six claims of related injuries in North America, and most affected vehicles are located in Salt Belt states. Ford announced today that it will recall 676,152 Explorer SUVs from 2013 through 2017 model years over a ball joint problem. The problem affects vehicles mostly in high-corrosion states—those with cold winters and high road-salt usage. The problem could lead to a loss of steering control, and the automaker said there have been six injury claims in North America because of the issue.Ford explained that the problem is a seized cross-axis ball joint that could cause a fractured rear suspension toe link and said drivers could notice “a clunk noise, unusual handling, or a misaligned rear wheel” as well as reduction of steering control, which could lead to a crash. Ford will notify owners starting August 23. Dealers will inspect the cross-axis ball joint and replace it and the knuckle if needed, as well as replace the toe links with a different design. In the meantime, owners can check the NHTSA recall site or Ford to see if their vehicle is affected.

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If you keep a list of the most unusual product placements, ready your pencils: Ford announced this week that it has partnered with Nabisco to print a limited-run pack of Oreo Thins cookies labeled as if they were the owner’s manual of a Ford Maverick, ostensibly to camouflage them so the cookies will not be eaten by anyone but the intended snacker. The concept is tortured and relies on anecdotes about the Maverick design team’s love of Oreos. But everyone knows you only need a hiding place if they’re Double Stuf.This Week in Sheetmetal

Formula 1

We’ve had our first look at the 2022 F1 race cars, which will use ground effects—tunnels on the underside of the car used to generate downforce—for the first time in decades, along with other changes intended to minimize the vortex of turbulent air that follows in the wake of the current models. The car that began its life as the Aston Martin Valkyrie concept in 2019 has now reached production in the form of the Valhalla. It’ll be powered by a 937-hp 4.0-liter AMG-sourced twin-turbo V-8 instead of the hybrid V-6 that was hinted at in the concept, and it’s expected to cost $800,000 instead of the initial $1.3 million estimate. But don’t get too excited—deliveries are still at least two years off.Hyundai has confirmed some details about the Elantra N, which we expect in the U.S. next year. It’ll be powered by the same turbocharged 2.0-liter found in the Veloster N and Kona N. The Elantra N will have 286 horsepower and an aggressive, angular design. Also this week, Hyundai announced it will discontinue non-N variants of the Veloster for 2022, which is what we’ve been pretending they did ever since the N launched, anyway.Start It UpAs EV sales start to tick upward, the EV-startup market is producing a seemingly endless stream of strange-looking, high-horsepower concepts. This week, a Detroit-based startup called Hercules showed a 1000-hp EV pickup concept designed by Pininfarina, which it says will be available next year. Vietnam’s first car company, VinFast—another Pininfarina partner—announced plans to enter the U.S. market selling electric crossovers by March 2022. And Pininfarina showed an EV concept of its own in the bizarre, missile-like Teorema, though unless another company signs on to build and sell the car, the Teorema likely won’t ever make it to production.But a sleek design and a big vision do not a car company make, as the folks at Lordstown Motors seem to learn anew every day. Today the company disclosed that it is being investigated by the U.S. Department of Justice over matters relating to the merger that took the company public last year and the orders it once claimed to have, which it now admits were not binding. The company had already said it is being investigated by the Securities and Exchange Commission over similar issues. EV truckmaker Rivian hit a much smaller snag this week when it announced it will delay deliveries of its R1T truck until September. They had previously been scheduled to begin shipping this month. Global Supply Chain Disruption, Continued

Various car companies and industry analysts have predicted that the microchip shortage that has upset production schedules for months would begin to ease in the second half of the year. But now that the second half of the year is here, we’re beginning to understand that there’s a difference between “begin to ease” and “resolve entirely.” Volkswagen said this week that it still thinks the chip shortage will improve by the end of the year, but GM has announced new downtime related to the chip shortage for five plants, Nissan has extended downtime at the plant that builds its Altima sedan, and Ford is reportedly considering shipping vehicles with missing microchips to dealers, who would finish and sell the vehicles once chips become available. The plan is not final, but it’s one strategy Ford has in mind to empty its own storage lots, which are currently clogged with tens of thousands of unfinished cars and trucks. Further ReadingOk, so it’s not reading, but we think you should watch the trailer for Stuntman, a documentary from Disney about Eddie Braun, a stuntman chasing his last big feat. The movie will be streaming on July 23.Read about the zipper merge and the fools who oppose it in the New York Times.Or, if you’re partial to the rich-person-on-the-run-from-justice genre, check out Carlos Ghosn’s interview with the BBC, in which he details how he fled from Japan to Lebanon inside a box that was inside a private jet.

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Ford is reportedly considering a plan to ship vehicles to dealerships without the crucial semiconductor chips installed, with the dealers completing the vehicles when new chips arrive.Ford would provide training for service technicians to install the chips and would compensate dealerships for the extra labor.Ford has been storing unfinished vehicles at lots in several states but is apparently low on space and wants to keep factories running.Ford is considering a new plan to alleviate the buildup of unfinished vehicles sitting in lots across the country as a result of the global semiconductor chip shortage. According to Automotive News, Ford is currently debating a proposal to ship vehicles that are still missing the chips to dealerships, shifting the onus for installing the chips—once supplies are replenished—onto the dealers. Ford has been manufacturing vehicles without the semiconductors and storing them in lots in several states, only sending them to dealerships once fresh stock arrived. However, the lots are filling up and Ford needs to make room so it can keep its factories running.

Unfinished vehicles would only be sent to dealerships that opt into the plan, and service technicians at these locations would receive training for installing the chips, AN reported. The plan would also involve compensating dealers for just under an hour’s worth of labor per vehicle. It is not known whether the dealers would be accountable for the vehicles while they are parked in their lots awaiting the parts, or whether they would still be Ford’s responsibility. Automotive News said it spoke to four people with knowledge of the plan who wished to remain anonymous. The publication also talked to dealerships, with some expressing apprehension over taking on the responsibility, and possible liability, of the unfinished cars, while others approved of the idea since the vehicles will help fill their barren lots. In a statement to Car and Driver, a Ford spokesperson called the reports premature and said, “We are exploring a number of different options as we work to get our customers and dealers their new vehicles as quickly as possible.”

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Rivian has delayed deliveries of the R1T pickup until September 2021.The Launch Edition version will arrive first, with other models set to be delivered in January 2022.The related Rivian R1S SUV model will also launch in 2022, the company says.Customers who ordered the Rivian R1T Launch Edition will have to wait a bit longer than planned. The first deliveries of this new electric pickup truck were initially scheduled for July but will now take place in September 2021, as first reported by Automotive News and confirmed to C/D by a Rivian spokesperson.

The Launch Edition model (pictured here) starts at $73,000, comes in a special green paint color, and has its own badging. Rivian’s website says that reservations for this model are full. All Launch Edition models have an estimated 300-mile driving range; a larger battery pack with a claimed 400 miles of range is coming later and will cost $10,000 extra.Other versions of the R1T include the $67,500 Explore and the $73,000 Adventure, both of which are said to begin deliveries in January 2022. The R1S SUV will follow later in 2022, and will also be offered in Launch Edition, Explore, and Adventure variants.Both Rivian models will be produced at a plant in Normal, Illinois, that was formerly a Mitsubishi manufacturing facility. Rivian is also planning to build its electric delivery van there.
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F1 is introducing new aerodynamic regulations for 2022, with the aim of reducing the “dirty air” produced by the current cars which makes passing difficult.The new F1 car features a simpler front wing and a rear wing designed to push the aerodynamic wake up and over the car following behind.For the first time since the 1980s, F1 cars will use ground effects to generate downforce, with the 2022 cars featuring deep tunnels in the floor to suck the car to the track.The increasing complexity of Formula 1 cars’ aerodynamic add-ons have negatively impact the quality of racing recently. All of the intricate winglets poking out of the bodywork creates a stream of “dirty air” coming off of the car, causing cars behind to lose downforce—making it harder to execute a pass. For the 2022 season F1 is introducing new aerodynamic regulations with the goal of reducing this dirty air, and the series has now presented a life-size model of what the next generation of F1 cars will look like.

Formula 1

F1 says that the current cars lose 35 percent of their downforce when they are around three car lengths behind another car, with the loss increasing to 47 percent when they are about one car length behind. The new rules promise to lessen those downforce losses to 4 percent and 18 percent. A redesigned front wing is simpler than before and has wing flaps that now stretch all the way to the nose. This eliminates the inner wingtips found on the current cars, which created a vortex that produced much of the “dirty” aerodynamic wake. Another big change comes underneath the car. While current F1 cars have a fairly flat floor with a stepped design, the 2022 version will feature deep underfloor tunnels to produce downforce through a ground effect, because simpler wings will yield less downforce. This is said to allow for sleeker bodywork, create less dirty air, and be less impacted by the dirty air when following another car. The bargeboards protruding from the floors of the current cars have also been scrapped.

Formula 1

The new 18-inch wheels with low-profile tires are strikingly different, as the current cars use 13-inch wheels. F1 is also reintroducing wheel covers and adding small winglets over the wheels to control airflow; the 2022 regulations aim to steer the wake tightly along the sides of the car, rather than forcing it outwards as the current front-end design does. The rear wing also gets an overhaul, with rounded edges compared to the boxy wings on the 2021 cars. This new design is meant to direct the aerodynamic wake coming off the back of a car upward and over any following cars so that drivers have less disturbed air to contend with when setting up a pass.

The 2022 cars will be about 5 percent heavier than the current models thanks to the larger wheels, redesigned tires, and increased safety regulations. The design revealed by F1 today is just a template, of course, with teams free to come up with their own solutions within the letter of the law. But the new design looks promising and will hopefully create closer racing next season.
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The Aston Martin Valhalla started out quite different from the car we see here today, in part because of company changes including the arrival of former AMG head Tobias Moers as Aston’s new CEO.Instead of the expected V-6, the mid-engine Valhalla will get a 4.0-liter twin-turbo V-8 sourced from AMG.The first customers should get the Valhalla in late 2023, and they’ll pay around $800,000 for it, which is much less than the seven-figure prices that were expected when the car was first discussed.Aston Martin first confirmed it was planning to produce two other mid-engine supercars to follow the Adrian Newey–designed Valkyrie back in 2019, releasing rendered images of what would become known as the Valhalla at the same point. But the change in the company’s senior management last year, when a consortium led by Lawrence Stroll took control of the English company and former AMG boss Tobias Moers arrived as CEO, has led to a bold new direction for the car.

The Valhalla name remains, and some of the original design concept lives on, but almost everything else has changed. Red Bull Racing’s connection with the car has been unsurprisingly broken now that Aston has its own Formula 1 team, and the Valhalla will now use an AMG-sourced V-8 in place of the hybridized V-6 engine that Aston had previously committed to building itself. It will also be a plug-in hybrid with an electrically powered front axle, production won’t be limited to 500 cars, and the outline pricing has fallen considerably from the $1.3 million we were originally told to expect.

Aston Martin

Back in May, Moers told Car and Driver that work on the new V-6 had barely started when he arrived at Aston, making the swap to AMG power an obvious decision. We are told that the mid-mounted 4.0-liter twin-turbo V-8 will be based on the flat-plane-crank engine produced for the AMG GT Black Series and will be capable of revving to 7200 rpm and of making 740 horsepower. Company insiders have also indicated that engines will be hand-built from AMG-supplied components in the U.K.The V-8 will send drive to the rear axle through a new eight-speed dual-clutch gearbox from Italian supplier Graziano. It will be supplemented by two electric motors, one powering the front axle and the other blending assistance with the combustion engine at the rear through the transmission. Together Aston says these can add up to 200 horsepower, making for a peak combined output of 937 horsepower. The company is promising a 2.5-second zero-to-62-mph time and a 217-mph top speed and says the car is on track to deliver a 6:30 lap time of the 12.9-mile Nürburgring Nordschleife. (The current production-car record there is the 6:43.3 recently set by the Porsche 911 GT2 RS.)

Aston Martin

The new gearbox will also use an electric reverse and incorporate an electronically controlled limited-slip differential at the rear axle. While the full battery specs haven’t been released yet, it appears to be same actively cooled 400-volt, 6.1-kWh unit that AMG has developed for the next-generation four cylinder C63 (a project that Moers led while at Daimler).Like the Ferrari SF90 Stradale, the Valhalla will be able to operate in pure electric mode, although only for short distances and with drive delivered exclusively through the front axle. This EV mode will have a top speed of 80 mph and a range of around nine miles under the EU’s WLTP testing protocol. The car will also support recharge speeds of up to 150 kW.The Valhalla’s structure is based around a central carbon-fiber tub with subframes for suspension and engine mounted to this. Aston says it is targeting a dry weight of less than 3418 pounds. The front suspension uses pushrods, and the rear axle has a multi-link design. Adaptive dampers and two-stage springs from Canadian supplier Multimatic will allow an ultra-low track mode to help increase downforce; the combination of active elements at the front, the huge adjustable rear wing, and the underbody Venturi tunnels will allow the Valhalla to produce up to 1322 pounds of this. The roof “snorkel” incorporates separate intakes, the one in the center feeds the engine’s induction system, those on either side channel cooling air. Carbon-ceramic brakes will be standard and will work with an e-booster. Aston also confirms the Valhalla will use electric power steering and it will also get a suite of active safety systems including adaptive cruise control, automated emergency braking, and blind-spot monitoring. It will also get conventional side mirrors, supplemented by a camera-based rearview screen in the cockpit; it would be impossible to see through the carbon-fiber engine cover with its twin upturned exhausts. The interior will feature fixed seats with a movable pedal box, Aston’s forthcoming new UI system—the first to support a touchscreen interface—and the all-important supercar dihedral doors.Pricing hasn’t been finalized, but we’re told to expect it will be somewhere around the $800,000 mark, with the first customer deliveries due in the second half of 2023. That’s a huge amount of money, but a substantial saving from the seven-figure price that the Valhalla was originally proposed to have. Which must mean it qualifies as a bargain.

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Ford designed a special F-150 pickup for the video game Rocket League, in which rocket-powered cars playing soccer.Now Ford has built a full-size version, the F-150 Rocket League Edition, which it revealed at the Chicago auto show—but just for fun, since it’s not going to be produced for customers.The vehicle is recognizable as a F-150 but features highlighter green accents, redesigned fascias, and, of course, a rocket launcher in the bed.In February, Ford announced a partnership with video game maker Psyonix to design a version of the F-150 pickup for the game Rocket League, which is effectively soccer but with rocket-powered cars. Today, at the 2021 Chicago auto show, Ford revealed a full-size version of the F-150 Rocket League Edition, the first time a vehicle from the game has been brought to life. [editoriallinks id=’67cd8259-e736-413c-ba91-4ae4daf10706′ align=’left’][/editoriallinks]The Rocket League Edition is clearly based on the production F-150—retaining the body shape, thick round wheel arches, and drop-down windows—but it takes the details to another level. The traditional grille has been replaced with an indented section with chunky “Ford” lettering reminiscent of the grille on the Raptor. Highlighter green accents adorn the truck’s bumpers, and trim pieces link the rear wheel arch to the top of the bed and run up the A-pillar to the roof-mounted lights.[image id=’280392a5-915d-464e-a4fe-06eb2dba55f4′ mediaId=’d0495917-b508-45d9-bd1e-61f3d964d71f’ align=’center’ size=’medium’ share=’false’ caption=” expand=” crop=’18×11′][/image]The F-150 Rocket League Edition rides on 37-inch tires and features a stance wider that than of the Raptor. “F-150” is emblazoned across the tailgate, while a (definitely not real) rocket launcher sits in the bed with vents exiting through the taillights, allowing the F-150 to perform epic jumps and score goals in the Rocket League virtual world. Both the headlights and taillights preserve the C-shaped LED signature from the production F-150 but do away with the rest of the light units for a more futuristic look.[editoriallinks id=’11cfd95e-4bf1-4a17-ba5e-bd9baa2fee26′ align=’left’][/editoriallinks]The F-150 Rocket League Edition was originally available as an in-game purchase in February, when Ford also sponsored the Rocket League Championship Series Winter Majors tournament and the Ford + Rocket League Freestyle Invitational, a style-based driving competition that saw the winner receive a free 2021 F-150.[poll id=’571c2544-b6e4-44c5-9019-038208f2adaf_ec53e58c08397′ type=’text’ question=’Would you buy a Rocket League Edition F-150 in real life?’ answer1=’Yes, it’s so cool!’ answer2=’No, it’s gimmicky.’][/poll]

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