Motor News

The 2021 Ford Mustang configurator is now live, so you can build out your own car, including a GT500 or a Mach 1, the new variant in the Mustang lineup this year.
The GT500 can now be had with a new carbon-fiber handling package as well as several new colors.
The Mach 1, which comes standard with a manual transmission, offers a $3500 handling package.
Ford’s updated 2021 Mustang, including the Shelby GT500 and the new Mach 1, will soon be reaching dealers. While you wait, you can decide what your perfect spec would be on the live online configurator. You can now build out the GT500 with the new carbon-fiber handling package or spec the new Mach 1, which comes standard with a manual transmission and a 480-hp 5.0-liter V-8.

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That carbon-fiber handling package on the GT500 includes 20-inch painted carbon-fiber wheels along with adjustable strut top mounts, an oil catch can, a Gurney flap, and splitter wickers. The 2021 GT500 and other Mustangs come in three new colors: Grabber Yellow, Antimatter Blue, and Carbonized Gray Metallic. The Mach 1 will also be offered in an exclusive Fighter Jet Gray, shown in the photo above.
The Mach 1 comes with a manual transmission as standard but can also be had with a 10-speed automatic transmission as well as a $3500 handling package. The Mach 1 starts at $52,915, while the high-performance GT500, which maintains its 760-hp supercharged 5.2-liter V-8, starts at $74,095.
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This spring with the release of iOS 4.5, iPhone users will be able to use Siri and Apple Maps to report road incidents at precise locations using their voice.
The feature is currently rolling out to iOS beta users.
It will work both in the Apple Maps app on the iPhone and with Apple CarPlay in a vehicle.

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Coming this spring in iOS 4.5 and rolling out to beta users of iOS right now is a new feature in Apple Maps that allows drivers to tell Siri about road conditions without taking their hands or eyes off the road. Once the report has been logged, the information will be shared with other drivers along that same stretch of road. After an incident has been cleared, Siri can also be used to inform Apple Maps that it’s no longer an issue.
The new feature will work in both the Apple Maps application on the phone and via CarPlay. Drivers can say “Hey Siri” and share incidents using any of the following phrases:
Report an accident / hazard / speed check / speed trap / incidentThere’s an accident / hazard / speed check / speed trap / incidentThere’s a crash up aheadThere’s something on the roadThere’s a speed trap hereClear the accident / hazard / incidentThe hazard is goneThe incident is no longer hereThere’s an accident that’s still here
For users of the Waze navigation app, these types of alerts along their routes are old hat. What Apple is doing is integrating it directly into its own app so that the incidents can be shared via Siri without the need to interact with the application with anything beyond their voice.
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In a call with media earlier today, Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares all but confirmed that there are no longer plans to bring Peugeot back to the U.S.
Back in 2016, the PSA Group said that it would bring the Peugeot back to the U.S. in the next ten years. Tavares said a lot has changed since then.
Tavares also suggested that, despite speculation, Chrysler will likely not be cut from the Stellantis brand lineup.
Since the merger of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA) and the PSA Group, which includes the Peugeot, Citroën, DS, Opel and Vauxhall brands, speculation has abounded on whether PSA’s plans to bring Peugeot back to the U.S. would remain in place. In a call with media today, Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares all but confirmed that the French brand doesn’t have a future in the U.S.

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“For the time being, I don’t think that is part of the things that we want to prioritize for the next time window,” Tavares said. “I think it’s better that we funnel the talent, the capital, and the engineering capability of our Stellantis company to the existing brands to improve what needs to be improved and to accelerate where we need to accelerate because we already have a very strong presence in this market.”
Stellantis already has a strong market share in the U.S., as Tavares pointed out, and is prioritizing increasing the market share of Jeep, Dodge, Ram, and Chrysler, among others that are already here. This is particularly the case for Chrysler, a struggling brand that currently has only the 300 and the Pacifica and Voyager minivans.
Chrysler’s sales have declined in recent years, from 300,000 sales five years ago down to around 110,000 vehicles in 2020. Such results, combined with the change in ownership, have led to speculation that Chrysler is nearing its end in the U.S., but Tavares suggested that Chrysler was here to stay and will instead be reinvented.
“We consider that this brand is one of the three historical pillars of Stellantis [Fiat and Peugeot are the other two], and of course we are eager, and I am eager, to give this brand a future,” Tavares said. What that future is, the Stellantis CEO said, depends on what is proposed for the brand.
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Toyota announced today that it will unveil two new EVs this year and will bring them both to the U.S. market in 2022.
The automaker will also unveil a plug-in hybrid this year that will be available next year.
The two EVs will be part of a global goal to bring 10 new EVs to market sometime in the early 2020s.
Today Toyota announced that will be unveiling two EVs for the U.S. market as 2022 models. One of the vehicles will be a crossover, while details of the other are still unknown. Toyota did say that the vehicles are part of a plan to introduce 10 new EVs worldwide in the “early 2020s.” In addition to the EVs, the automaker also plans to unveil a new plug-in hybrid this year that will come to market in 2022.

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While Toyota has been and continues to be bullish about its hybrid, plug-in hybrid (PHEV), and hydrogen fuel-cell powertrains, it’s also jumping into the EV world with these new vehicles. Toyota North America executive vice president of sales Bob Carter said on a call announcing the news that the automaker wants “to be the Macy’s department store of powertrains.”
In late December, Toyota announced that it is bringing an electric crossover to the European market, showing the sketch pictured above, and said that it will eventually be available in the U.S. With today’s news, we have a bit more of an idea of the timetable for the release of that vehicle. The automaker is also working on bringing a solid-state-battery-powered vehicle in the early 2020s.
Toyota’s strategy to continue to bring an assortment of electrified vehicles includes the goal to have 40 percent of all new vehicles be electrified by 2025 and 70 percent of all new vehicles be electrified by 2030.
While Toyota has been slower than other automakers to embrace EVs on a mass scale, the automaker points to its decades of hybrid vehicles as proof that it has been a champion of reducing emissions for years.
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Eccentric German tuner Mansory gave the car world a shock back in June 2020 when it unveiled the Le Mansory, a questionable-looking custom supercar based on the Ford GT. Well, the company built a second example, and it’s just as, well, interesting.

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Mansory revealed on Friday the second iteration of its Le Mansory supercar, sporting all of the same design changes found on the first car revealed last year. There’s a full carbon-fiber body in place of the factory panels and an entirely new fascia with weird eyebrow-like headlights. There’s also a big wing out back, a neat tri-exit exhaust setup, and dual roof scoops. Instead of blue, Le Mansory #2 has been finished in black with red accents. Different? Yes. Better? We’re not so sure.

Mansory

The interior is just as customized, with retrimmed panels and seats to match the exterior color palette. Behind the cabin sits a modified version of the GT’s 3.5-liter twin-turbo V-6, making a claimed 700 horsepower and 620 lb-ft of torque. Mansory says top speed is 220 mph, a slight bump from the stock GT’s 216 mph.

Mansory

If you want a Le Mansory of your own, you’re in luck. Back when the car was first unveiled, Mansory said it would make a total of three examples. While it’s not clear if this second one is up for grabs, we’re sure the third build slot is wide open for anyone with enough dough. But if you’d rather not wait for the company to build it, the first example is for sale right now.

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Now that the 14th running of our Lightning Lap track test at Virginia International Raceway (VIR) is behind us, we’ve had time to sit back and reflect on our annual stress test of some of the quickest sheetmetal available today.

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A Mini John Cooper Works GP set the quickest lap we’ve recorded by any front-wheel-drive car. The Porsche Taycan Turbo S is the first EV to have made it the 4.1 miles without overheating. The mid-engine Corvette proves why putting engines behind the seats is great for lap times. We also learned that a 760-hp Ford Mustang is scarier on the street than on the track.
And, not surprisingly, another Porsche 911 cracked the all-time top 10.
Join us as deputy editor for reviews and seasoned Lightning Lap pilot Tony Quiroga sits down with print director Eric Tingwall to talk about the Supra 2.0’s brakes–or lack thereof–and testing director Dave VanderWerp’s high-speed tank slapper in the Mercedes-AMG CLA45 exiting Turn 11.
Deputy testing director K.C. Colwell fills us in on why reading the McLaren 765LT’s owner’s manual is a must, while technical editor David Beard talks about what it’s like to wrangle the most powerful factory Mustang to ever roll off the production line.
Okay, we know it’s an hour long. But once we start talking about the best work week of the year, it’s hard to shut us up.
Swing By Our Lightning Lap Hub
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Kia has updated its recently announced plans and now says it will have 11 EVs by 2026. Seven of them will be built on the Hyundai Motor Group’s E-GMP architecture.
Just last month the automaker said it would achieve this goal in 2027.
The automaker is also planning on launching its own subscription service globally later this year.
After announcing to the world on Monday that it is no longer working with Apple on an autonomous electric car, Kia Motors president and CEO Ho Sung Song announced that the company would be accelerating its electrification roadmap. Speaking today during the automaker’s investor day event, the CEO announced that 11 EV models will be available by 2026. Of those, seven will be built on the Hyundai Motor Group’s E-GMP (electric vehicle platform) architecture. That’s a year earlier than what the automaker announced just last month.

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Kia currently offers two electric versions of gasoline-powered vehicles, the Soul EV and the Niro EV, and now plans to add four more vehicles derived from its existing lineup. Each will be a dedicated EVs using E-GMP as the underpinning. The first of these new dedicated electric vehicles (teased above) is code-named CV, and the automaker is targeting 300 miles of range and a partial recharge time of 20 minutes. More details will be revealed next month, Kia said.
Kia’s goal is that by 2030, EVs, hybrids, and plug-in hybrids will make up 40 percent of all its sales, with a target of 1.6 million vehicles sold. The company said it is hoping that 880,000 of those will be EVs.

Kia

Kia is also looking to increase its purpose-built-vehicle (PBV) business by expanding into autonomous delivery vehicles. Kia’s first electric PBV will be unveiled in 2022, and it hopes to sell one million of these types of vehicles by 2030 by working with other companies to develop platforms for them.
Finally, Kia announced that the Kia Flex subscription service, which has been out in Korea since 2019, will go global later this year. It will be renamed Kia Subscription and will be run by the Hyundai Motor Group’s Sixt Leasing division. It’s likely that insurance, maintenance, and the vehicle will be included in monthly payments, it’s unknown if the service that comes to the United States will allow monthly car swapping as Kia Flex does in Korea.
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A small pod with four wheels on extendable legs, the TIGER X-1 comes from Hyundai’s forward-thinking New Horizons Studio and could be used as a science or rescue vehicle someday.
The TIGER is based on Hyundai’s concept vehicle from CES 2019, which was a walking “ultimate mobility vehicle” that could carry people.
It’s just an outlandish concept today, but Hyundai could start building beta prototypes for partners to test as early as 2023.
Hyundai’s latest effort in its work to become less of a car company and more of a “smart mobility solution provider” has four legs, four wheels, and a friendly flying companion. Say hello to the TIGER X-1.

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TIGER stands for Transforming Intelligent Ground Excursion Robot, and the X-1 denotes its experimental status. This is without a doubt a conceptual experiment, for now, and if parts of the design look familiar, that’s because the TIGER’s modular platform has more than a few elements in common with Hyundai’s Elevate walking car concept from CES 2019. While Elevate was an “ultimate mobility vehicle” that was meant to be operated by a person inside the pod, the TIGER is smaller, self-driving, and can’t carry people. Like Elevate, the TIGER can extend its four legs and rotate its wheels to give it the ability to move in any direction and walk over complex terrain. This capability “[exceeds] the limits of even the most capable off-road vehicles,” said John Suh, vice president and founding director of New Horizons Studio.

Hyundai

New Horizons Studio started in 2020 as a way for Hyundai to explore unusual mobility efforts with a focus on providing options for customers who need to move in “unconventional and off-road terrain, including places where vehicles have never roamed before,” Hyundai said. Suh said the New Horizons Studio team, working in partnership with Autodesk and the Detroit-based studio Sundberg-Ferar, took the Elevate and adapted it to be used autonomously for carrying goods or sensors.
The potential uses for a vehicle like TIGER fit the New Horizons name incredibly well. Suh said a vehicle like this could be used on the moon or to explore other planets. On Earth, a vehicle like Tiger could be used to deliver products to people in cities, medicine, or food to people in remote areas after a disaster or simply as a mobile science platform in places that are difficult for humans to reach. If TIGER’s wheeled legs can’t get it all the way to its destination, the robot can be deployed from an unmanned aerial vehicle. This flying drone can even recharge TIGER’s batteries, or vice versa, depending upon what’s needed in any given situation.
While TIGER is wildly different from today’s vehicles and intended to be used on difficult terrain, Suh told Car and Driver that his team is thinking about ways to make TIGER a reliable, real vehicle. This starts by making the complex components as simple as possible. The non-pneumatic tires can’t get flat, for example, and the vehicle’s design is symmetric on two axes, meaning the four corners are repeated. Without a front or a back, manufacturing TIGER would mean building the same parts over and over, which will help with reliability and possible repairs.

Hyundai

“Obviously, this vehicle is more complicated than a regular four-wheel-drive car,” Suh said. “Our ideal, and I don’t know if it’s possible, is to use a single type of electric motor so that every motor in the leg will be identical so we can minimize the complexities of engineering different types and we can really hone in on getting a robust and reliable actuator.”
Eye on a Production TIGER?
Planning for reliability shows Hyundai may actually build a TIGER-like vehicle in the future. Suh wouldn’t say exactly when that might happen but did say his team will spend the next two years working on solving some of the concept’s core technical problems, and Hyundai could build beta vehicles for partners to test in the real world in 2023 and 2024. An actual production version could follow in about five years, he said.
“Our vision and goal is to produce product, and therefore it’s much more than a science project,” Suh said. “I would not be offended if people call it that right now because, in fact, we are trying something new. It has the flavor of a science project, but our great desire right now is to make it a product one day.”
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