Motor News

Hyundai has released more information on the 2021 Santa Fe hybrid.It costs between $34,835 and $41,135 and offers up to 34 mpg.Blue, SEL Premium, and Limited trim levels are offered for the hybrid model.The new hybrid version of the 2021 Hyundai Santa Fe costs more than the nonhybrid version but offers a considerable improvement in fuel efficiency. Rated at up to 34 mpg combined by the EPA, the hybrid model comes standard with all-wheel drive and costs $34,835 to start.

Although all Santa Fe hybrids are powered by the same turbocharged 1.6-liter gas engine and electric motor, the base model, called Blue, is the most efficient version. The better-equipped SEL Premium ($38,785) and Limited ($41,135) versions are rated at a slightly lower 32 mpg combined. By comparison, nonhybrid AWD Santa Fe models are rated at 24 mpg combined regardless if you choose the 191-hp naturally aspirated 2.5-liter inline-four or the more powerful 277-hp turbocharged 2.5-liter engine. The hybrid model’s total power output of 225 horsepower slots in neatly between the two gasoline engines.

Hyundai

A plug-in-hybrid version of the Santa Fe is also on its way. It will feature a larger battery pack that will provide an estimated electric driving range of 30 miles. Hyundai hasn’t yet announced a price for the plug-in model but says it will start around $35,000.The conventional hybrid will arrive first, hitting dealerships this spring, while the plug-in-hybrid will arrive later for the 2022 model year.
This content is imported from {embed-name}. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site.

This content is created and maintained by a third party, and imported onto this page to help users provide their email addresses. You may be able to find more information about this and similar content at piano.io More

The 2021 Ford Mustang Mach-E GT starts at $61,000, and the quicker GT Performance Edition model will cost $66,000, Ford has announced.The GT Performance Edition produces 214 pound-feet of additional torque and is equipped with larger brakes, Pirelli summer tires, and magnetorheological dampers.Orders open on April 28, and the GT models will arrive at dealers in the fall. The Ford Mustang Mach-E’s higher-performance GT and GT Performance Edition models will arrive in the fall with 480 horsepower and a new track driving mode. Orders will open on Wednesday, April 28, starting at $61,000 for the GT and $66,000 for the GT Performance. That’s $23,685 more than the 460-hp V-8–powered Mustang GT and $1190 cheaper than the Tesla Model Y Performance.
Mustang Mach-E GTs are equipped with an 88.0-kWh battery pack and two electric motors, one on each axle, sending power to all four wheels. However, their front motor is more powerful than the lesser Mustang Mach-E’s. Total output is 480 horsepower and 600 pound-feet of torque, but 643 pound-feet of torque in the GT Performance Edition. Ford says the GT will reach 60 mph in 3.8 seconds and the GT Performance Edition in 3.5 seconds. In our test, the Premium AWD model with the larger battery hit that mark in 5.1 seconds, trailing the 330-hp Mustang 2.3L High Performance by 0.1 second.

Both get an additional setting for their Unbridled drive mode—Whisper and Engage are the other modes—called Unbridle Extend that’s for track use only. It’s toggled through a tab under the drive-mode settings. Ford says the new setting balances power output for ideal use on track as well as adjusts the traction and stability control settings in addition to flooding the cabin with a louder propulsion sound. Ford estimates that the GT model will be rated at 250 miles of range, while the GT Performance Edition will reach 235 miles. The highest-rated Mustang Mach-E is the California Route 1 model, which is EPA-estimated at 305 miles of range. Ford’s BlueCruise hands-free driving system will also be available on both GT models.
Cyber Orange and Grabber Blue (previously exclusive to the First Edition model) have a special color palette. They have a carbonized gray grille, red Brembo brakes, 20-inch black wheels, and GT badging. The Performance Edition is distinguished by special badging, unique 20-inch wheels wrapped in Pirelli summer tires (Continental all-season rubber is standard on the GT), Ford Performance seats with metallic stitching (standard GTs get copper stitching), an aluminum instrument panel, and standard magnetorheological dampers.
This content is imported from {embed-name}. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site.

This content is created and maintained by a third party, and imported onto this page to help users provide their email addresses. You may be able to find more information about this and similar content at piano.io More

This content is imported from YouTube. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site.

Every year, nominees in the top categories at the Academy Awards get goody bags full of pricey luxuries, with this year’s swag bag valued at more than $200,000.In among the lotions and vacation vouchers is a little hammer that the celebs are invited to use to free overheated pets from inside other people’s cars. It’s courtesy of the animal-rights group PETA.The hammer sits on a keychain that says: “The car is insured—the dog is irreplaceable.” At tonight’s Academy Awards broadcast, you won’t get to see the gift bags that are handed out to nominees in the top categories—but they’re the stuff of legend anyway. This year’s collection of over-the-top luxury items is valued at more than $200,000, the New York Times reports. One of the less expensive products it contains, however, is a small but sturdy hammer meant to smash car windows.

The hammer Oscar nominees will get tonight.
PETA

The gift hammers are labeled with a keychain that reads, “The car is insured—the dog is irreplaceable,” and the idea is that if, say, Frances McDormand or Gary Oldman were to spot a dog sweltering in a locked car, they should use it to smash the window and get the animal free. PETA already sells hammers for this purpose, albeit in a clunkier, less streamlined design.

Stars beware: at least one would-be dog saver has been cited for just such an act of Good Samaritanism. In 2018, Richard Hill of Parma, Ohio, was leaving a Wal-mart store when he saw a commotion around a parked Audi and heard people saying two dogs were trapped inside a hot car. “I decided to grab a hammer and went ahead and broke the window,” Hill told Fox 8. Police and the car’s owner, who claimed to have been gone only a few minutes, disagreed that the window needed breaking.

Lifehammer Brand Safety Hammer – The Original Emergency Escape and Rescue Tool with Seatbelt Cutter, Made in The Netherlands

Lifehammer
amazon.com

$24.95

$14.95 (40% off)

So maybe before you pull out a hammer and break a car window, check out your state’s regulations about rescuing dogs on this handy list from Michigan State University. It lists the 31 states where it’s illegal to leave an animal in a vehicle under dangerous conditions—including warm weather. It also names the states where a person trying to save an endangered animal from a vehicle is likely to be immune from prosecution for it.Good news for the Oscar-nominated: California is one such state.
This content is created and maintained by a third party, and imported onto this page to help users provide their email addresses. You may be able to find more information about this and similar content at piano.io More

The pandemic hit the rental-car industry hard last year, and many companies sold off excess vehicles.Now, with vaccines available and travelers returning to places like Hawaii, rental-car lots are pretty empty, which means surprisingly high prices. A Toyota Camry cost $700 a day on Maui last month, and even now, it’s difficult to find any rental car for under $200 a day in Honolulu.The solution, some travelers have discovered, is U-Haul, which will rent you a pickup truck for under $20 a day plus mileage.COVID-19 has changed our idea of what’s normal beyond what pretty much anyone could have imagined a year ago. One of the more unexpected repercussions of this invisible disease can be found in Hawaii, where a shortage of rental cars is giving tourists the idea that the best way to see its islands is from behind the wheel of a U-Haul moving truck.That’s the word from Hawaii News Now and also reported by Carscoops. The Hawaii news site said that demand for the limited supply of rental cars on Maui drove the price of a Toyota Camry to over $700 a day in March. The situation hasn’t improved in April, and prices are still high compared to pre-pandemic prices, so the next best thing, for some, is a rented moving van.HNN reported on the trend on Maui, but it’s possible on other islands as well since a little bit of Internet searching proves that the economics pan out. Rental-car options in Honolulu are indeed limited right now. We were able to find one—yes, just one—vehicle available for pickup this weekend at Honolulu International Airport from Budget. The single choice? A “GMC Yukon Denali or similar” for the low, low price of $171.99 a day. Using a broader search tool, in this case Expedia, returned a total of 29 cars, with the lowest price for a one-day rental pegged at $238. But when we looked into renting a U-Haul from a location just a few blocks from the airport, we found out you can get a pickup with an eight-foot bed for $19.95 a day, plus 89 cents a mile.

The fact that we’ve come to this odd stage of the pandemic could have been foreseen. As they dealt with the pandemic early last year, rental-car companies Hertz and Advantage filed for bankruptcy, and many companies got rid of excess supply at a time when few people were traveling and demand dropped. Local resident David Morrell of Kihei told Hawaii News Now he worries anyone who actually needs to rent a truck to move something could be out of luck right now. “I think it’s kind of weird because there were so many of them about six to eight months ago, they couldn’t find places to park all the rental cars,” he said.It’s unlikely that rental cars will return to two-digit prices in the near future. The supply of new cars remains limited by lower auto production caused by the worldwide semiconductor shortage. Locally, Hawaii residents are preparing for tourism numbers to return to normal, or at least to increase, in the near future, with state rules for coronavirus testing and vaccinated travelers are about to ease up a bit. Put all this together, and deciding to rent a U-Haul instead of a $700-a-day Camry ends up being some sort of logical move.
This content is imported from {embed-name}. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site.

This content is created and maintained by a third party, and imported onto this page to help users provide their email addresses. You may be able to find more information about this and similar content at piano.io More

Right now, used-car prices are up an average of 14 percent compared to the spring of 2020, with pickups up the most—27 percent. The average price of a used-car purchase is now nearly $24,000.That’s not as bad as new cars, which are going for an average of more than $40,000, and the selection on dealer lots is reduced because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the current semiconductor shortage, and high demand for vehicles.Higher-mileage vehicles may be the answer for buyers looking for a good deal on a vehicle, considering the durability of many vehicles on the used market.A year ago, as this bad trip known as the coronavirus pandemic did a Freeze Dance number on the economy, the auto world became a breeding ground of unknowns. Used cars emerged as one of the greatest unknowns, having what Automotive News called a “strange moment.” Wholesale and trade-in values had plummeted. But while no one was buying new cars, retail prices were off by just 1 percent in April 2020, leaving dealers unsure of how they should even value used cars.

By July, used-car values found their legs. And by October, used-car prices had made record-breaking leaps. Now, six months later, prices still hover at altitudes that require supplemental oxygen. CarGurus’ tool for tracking used-car price trends shows the average price of a used car is $23,723, up almost 14 percent compared to this time last year. That’s more than 10 times the 2020 rate of inflation. Every vehicle segment has seen gains, the smallest bump being about 5 percent for hatchbacks and wagons. Pickup values rose a whopping 27 percent, and vans—that’s right, vans—are up more than 20 percent.Remember when Reddit took its talents to GameStop stock? The Manheim Used Vehicle Value Index looks like the GameStop stock chart. If you have a trade-in or used car to sell, now is the time. If you’re a used car bargain hunter, your hunt will take longer and lead you farther afield. So, why are values stuck in the mesosphere, when will the market get back to normal, and where is the best place to look for a steal? Values remain high because the used market continues to endure same issues that caused the price run. New car production isn’t at full strength thanks to shortages of materials as varied as steel, semiconductor chips, and seating foam. “Combine this with manufacturers and dealers looking to ‘right size’ their inventories, sales lots are less crowded than before the pandemic and offering buyers a more limited selection of new vehicles,” Sam Fiorani, an AutoForecast Solutions, said. Without such resupply, Cox Automotive said new-car inventory at the end of March was 59 days, 41 percent lower than March 2020. Limited stock, as well as an increasing number of standard features and higher materials costs, have supercharged new-car prices. In July 2020, Kelley Blue Book pegged the average price of a new car at $38,378. In December 2020, that number crested $40,000 for the first time ever. Last month, the figure had risen further, to $40,472, a 4.3 percent increase over one year ago. Furthermore, as automakers give up on subcompacts, hatchbacks, and sedans here, there are fewer new vehicles available below $30,000. All of this continues to drive car buyers to the used market. At the top tier of the pre-owned market, CPO sales are up 14 percent in the first quarter of this year compared to the same time in 2020. However, fewer new car purchases mean fewer used cars to choose from. The National Automobile Dealer’s Association’s 2020 report said that nearly 42 percent of a dealer’s used inventory comes from trade-ins on a new vehicle. On a cheerless note, moratoriums on repossession have been another constraint on the wholesale market, shrinking stock that goes to auction. Dealers scouring new sources of used inventory have flocked to auctions already grinding through decreased supply, and dealers are competing with one another and with online sellers like Carvana and Vroom.This has left a lot more people chasing a smaller herd of used cars as the economy reopens, and people are ready to spend stimulus checks and savings from postponed big-ticket vacations. Also, spring traditionally uncorks the annual car-buying season, adding traditional price pressure to these new factors. Cox Automotive said used vehicle sales in March were up 117 percent compared to last year, sending used car inventory to 29 days at the end of March, 15 days below normal. Even the search term “Buy a used car” is hot. Last June it maxed out on the Google Trends chart, a measure of a term’s popularity as a percentage of all searches in every U.S. state. The phrase has done so again three times since June, most recently last month. These are the only such instances in the past five years. There are still bargains out there, lurking in a corner of the market many used car buyers typically avoid: vehicles with more than 100,000 miles. Both the novice and the savvy enthusiast used to view 50,000 miles as the bright line separating jewels from junk. But with vehicles having gotten so much better over the last 15 years, and absurd demand, dealers report that used cars with six figures on the odometer are finding good homes. “The quality of vehicles has improved so much that a 150,000-mile Toyota Camry brings serious money,” Fiorani said. And then there is the ridiculous rise in residual values on trucks, where a 10-year-old Ram pickup with 100,000 miles can still cost $20,000.”When will prices come back down? What an Edmunds analyst called “an unprecedented historical shift in the used vehicle market” is likely to continue. Cox Automotive predicts the used market will be short millions of vehicles through 2023, with elevated prices to match. J.D. Power believes. “We can expect these trends to continue for the foreseeable future, as even after the pandemic has passed, used car prices are likely to continue rising.” Fiorani isn’t quite that pessimistic—or optimistic. Depending on your point of view. “In the window beyond the next six months, production should stabilize, inventories of new vehicles will rise, and demand will fall to a more normal rate,” he said. “When that happens, used car prices will normalize.”

This content is created and maintained by a third party, and imported onto this page to help users provide their email addresses. You may be able to find more information about this and similar content at piano.io More

With warmer weather on the horizon, the Window Shoppers take a look at some summer favorites: convertibles. We set a healthy budget of $20,000 to ensure the panel finds interesting examples, and in that, they didn’t disappoint.First up is contributor John Pearley Huffman, who stretches the definition of “convertible” to its breaking point by picking a Meyers Manx. The crew points out that without a top, the Manx doesn’t fit the bill. Besides, he’s way over budget. Editorial director Joe Brown makes his Window Shop debut this week and puts up a rare convertible pickup for consideration. He claims it’s connected to McLaren in a weird six-degrees-of-Kevin-Bacon way. The truck’s 125-hp V-6 puts some people off, but a few of us like the idea of getting a nice tan while driving to Home Depot. It won’t be so easy for contributor Jonathon Ramsey to catch some rays in his pick. Though the Ford Bronco has a removable top, the jury rightly takes issue with this. Ramsey presents an Alfa Romeo Spider as an alternative. Before you get too excited, know that this Spider isn’t like the one Dustin Hoffman drove in The Graduate. Ramsey’s is a 2007 model—an achingly beautiful but front-drive diesel-powered two-seater that isn’t legal in the U.S. for another 11 years.Deputy testing director K.C. Colwell makes an uncharacteristic choice: a 1965 Chevrolet Corvair convertible. The Bill Mitchell–designed rear-engine sports car elicits a few oohs and aahs before we jump into the rear suspension revisions of the ’65 model and marvel at its air-cooled flat-six engine. Lastly, deputy editor Tony Quiroga makes a somewhat sensible bet on a 2010 Audi S4 Cabriolet. But who would vote for that when they can have a real oddball? Watch to find out.

This content is created and maintained by a third party, and imported onto this page to help users provide their email addresses. You may be able to find more information about this and similar content at piano.io More

In China, the 718 is Porsche’s best-selling sports car. Frank-Steffen Walliser, head of sports cars at Porsche, once told Road & Track that without China, the 718 likely wouldn’t exist at all. A big reason for the 718’s popularity is its base 2.0-liter flat-four. Cars in China are taxed by engine displacement, and it’s far more expensive to own a car with an engine larger than 2.0 liters, which is why Porsche is now offering the 718 Spyder with its smallest four-cylinder for the China market.

Revealed at this week’s Auto Shanghai 2021, the 718 Spyder ditches the glorious 4.0-liter flat-six it gets in other markets for a 300-hp 2.0-liter turbo flat-four paired with a seven-speed PDK. There’s also a bit more standard equipment, but the bodywork is identical to the 718 Spyder sold elsewhere, except for the bumpers, which come from the GTS models.

Porsche

The chassis is standard Boxster—not the Motorsport-designed setup you get with the Spyder elsewhere . It also has the finicky manual-folding roof, however, which resides under the double-bubble rear decklid. This particular car also has a particularly lurid exterior color, Frozen Berry Metallic, which was introduced with the Taycan and is now available in U.S.-market 718 models if you’re feeling brave.What’s funny about the China-market 718 Spyder is that with a 2.0-liter flat-four, it’s now has even more common with its Fifties race-car namesake. The original 718 RSK had Porsche’s famous twin-cam flat-four “Carrera” engine.

Porsche

And don’t think this is really an alternative to the six-cylinder 718 Spyder with all the looks and less of the cost. It’ll start at the equivalent of around $113,000 at today’s exchange rates. In the U.S., the 718 Spyder starts at a comparatively reasonable $99,650.

This content is created and maintained by a third party, and imported onto this page to help users provide their email addresses. You may be able to find more information about this and similar content at piano.io More

Honda says it will sell only battery-electric and fuel-cell vehicles by 2040.The company will gradually increase the percentage of electric vehicles it sells over the coming decades.Honda and Acura EV crossovers will arrive in the U.S. for the 2024 model year.Honda is the latest automaker to make an ambitious commitment to electric vehicles. Toshihiro Mibe, the company’s new CEO, announced that Honda will exclusively sell battery-electric and hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles by 2040. The company also set a timeline for its phasing out of gasoline engines, which will gradually disappear from the lineup over the next two decades.

For North America specifically, the goal is to for EVs and fuel-cell vehicles to make up 40 percent of Honda’s new-vehicle sales by 2030, 80 percent by 2035, and 100 percent by 2040. The first two of Honda’s new EV models will arrive for the 2024 model year using GM’s Ultium battery platform. Both will be crossovers, with one wearing a Honda badge and the other falling under the Acura luxury division. We might expect the Honda version to look somewhat like the Honda e SUV prototype recently shown for the Chinese market (pictured above).After the Ultium-powered EVs arrive, Honda will introduce its own electric-vehicle platform called e:Architecture. The company says these models will arrive in the “second half of the 2020s” and that they’ll go on sale in North America before they reach other global markets. Honda is less specific about its U.S. plans for hydrogen-powered fuel-cell vehicles. It currently sells the Clarity in California but has not announced any additional fuel-cell models for the near future.
This content is imported from {embed-name}. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site.

This content is created and maintained by a third party, and imported onto this page to help users provide their email addresses. You may be able to find more information about this and similar content at piano.io More