Motor News

Mini’s Hardtop and Convertible lineups get a range of updates for 2022.
The new look includes revised front and rear ends, and there are new standard features.
Pricing starts at $23,750 and the updated Minis will be available this spring.
Mini’s Hardtop and Convertible models will look better and offer more goodies thanks to a freshening for 2022. With sharper styling and newly standard and optional features, the two- and four-door Cooper, Cooper S, JCW, and Electric models will go on sale this spring in the U.S. with slightly higher starting prices.

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The front end benefits from a body-color insert in the grille to replace the previous black insert, getting rid of the awkward open-mouth look. The rear fascia is also revised, with S and JCW models getting an aggressive-looking diffuser. As is befitting a Mini, there are plenty of new customization options including new colors and an option for a multicolor roof treatment. LED headlights are now standard across the board.

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Mini

Inside, a digital gauge cluster and 8.8-inch touchscreen infotainment system are newly standard, and the dashboard layout has been subtly revised with new air vents. Satellite radio is also standard, and Apple CarPlay is available if you select the option for navigation (Android Auto is still not offered). Lane-departure warning is a newly standard driver-assist feature, while others, including adaptive cruise control, remain optional.
Engines and transmissions remain the same, with the base Cooper coming with a 134-hp turbocharged 1.5-liter three-cylinder, the S coming with a 189-hp turbo 2.0-liter four, and the JCW having a more powerful 228-hp 2.0-liter turbo-four. The Mini Cooper SE has a 181-hp electric motor and an EPA-estimated 110 miles of range. A six-speed manual transmission is standard on most models, with either a seven-speed dual-clutch automatic or an eight-speed automatic transmission optional, depending on configuration.

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Mini

Base prices rise by $500, with the Cooper Hardtop starting at $23,750, the Cooper S at $27,750, and the JCW at $33,750. The Cooper Convertible starts at $28,750 and the electric Mini holds the line on price, starting at $30,750. The updated 2022 models start production in March and should arrive at U.S. dealerships shortly after that.
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It’s a workplace comedy set in the executive suites of a U.S. carmaker.
The producer has solid credentials, so we’re looking forward to it.
A new TV comedy series about the Detroit auto industry will debut this fall when American Auto arrives on NBC.
A new comedy TV show called American Auto arrives this fall on NBC.
Hollywood has tried to depict the car industry before, with semi-disastrous results. Consider the 1986 movie Gung Ho about the relationship between American union auto workers and Japanese carmakers. That flick has a 33 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Roger Ebert called it “a disappointment” and gave it two stars. Consequently, Tim Allen set his highly successful TV show Home Improvement, which featured a hot rod, at least, in Detroit. Ed Asner’s Thunder Alley was peripherally about the car industry and lasted two whole seasons. Many a History Channel documentary has approached the topic of the U.S. car industry on a more serious, historical basis. And there are myriad shows depicting small hot rod shops with angry mechanics hitting each other over the head with wrenches.
But this new show promises to be a mainstream, prime-time, major-network comedy deal.
The official description from NBC says it’s “set at the headquarters of a major American automotive company in Detroit where a floundering group of executives try to rediscover the company identity amidst a rapidly changing industry.”

The show stars “Saturday Night Live” alum Ana Gasteyer, best known on SNL for her Martha Stewart sketches.
NBC

Does that mean they’re making the change from internal combustion to electric cars? To autonomous cars? Or, worse, to hydrogen fuel cells? We don’t know yet.
The show stars Saturday Night Live alum Ana Gasteyer, best known on SNL for her Martha Stewart impressions. On this new show she plays Katherine Hastings, the CEO of the troubled Payne Motors (is that a joke?). Harriet Dyer plays the head of PR, Humphrey Ker as head of sales, Michael B. Washington plays the designer, Tye White is an assembly worker, and comedian X Mayo is Gasteyer’s executive assistant.
The show is the brainchild of writer/producer Justin Spitzer, who was also a writer/producer on The Office, as well as writing episodes of Scrubs and Courting Alice. Most recently Spitzer brought us the popular NBC comedy Superstore, now in its sixth season. So that bodes well for the Spitzer-made “American Auto,” we can hope.

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The pilot for the new series was greenlit a year ago and shot soon after, but the COVID-19 pandemic interrupted production. Then the series itself got the go-ahead earlier this week. No specific dates have been released except that it will be part of the 2021-2022 season, which means we’ll see it in fall sometime.
And before you start drawing conclusions, the casting of a woman as the head of a major American automaker actually happened when the story was sold to NBC back in 2013, a year before Mary Barra took over as General Motors’ CEO. So there goes that line of thinking.
Here’s hoping it’s hilarious. We are trying to track down a viewing of the pilot, which has already been shot. We’ll let you know how we liked it when we see it.
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Rugged, off-road-capable vehicles are having a renaissance and Nissan dealers reportedly want to have their own adventurous offering. More

The 2021 Ford Mustang Mach-E California Route 1 has an EPA-estimated 305 miles of driving range on a full charge.
The Mach-E California Route 1 is equipped with an 88.0-kWh battery pack and rear-wheel-drive.
It starts at $50,900 and is available to order now.
The 2021 Mustang Mach-E California Route 1 is Ford’s longest-range electric vehicle yet, and the EPA estimates that it will travel 305 miles on a single charge. That’s five more miles than rear-wheel-drive Mustang Mach-E models equipped with the 88.0-kWh extended-range battery. The $50,900 California Route 1 model does, however, fall 21 miles short of the Tesla Model Y Long Range electric crossover, which starts at $51,190.

Ford

Tesla’s Model Y Long Range has all-wheel drive, although a rear-wheel-drive Standard Range model is now available with an EPA-estimated 244 miles of range. The Mustang Mach-E California Route 1 is equipped with rear-wheel drive. All-wheel-drive Mach-Es are available, but offer less range because the secondary drive unit has “associated parasitic losses,” Ford told C/D at launch. The California Route 1 is equipped with an 88.0-kWh battery pack paired with a permanent-magnet synchronous electric motor on the rear axle. Total output is 290 horsepower and 317 lb-ft of torque, and Ford claims that that the California Route 1 gets to 60 mph in 6.1 seconds.

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Ford says that the Mustang Mach-E California Route 1 is lighter than the rear-wheel-drive Extended Range model, which has a 300-mile EPA-estimated range. It also has tweaks to improve aerodynamics including a set of 18-inch wheels with black aero covers wrapped in Michelin all-season rubber.
The 2021 Ford Mustang Mach-E starts at $43,995 for the rear-wheel-drive Select model with an EPA-estimated 230 miles of range. The 305-mile California Route 1 starts at $50,900 and is available to order now.
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As part of a press conference about an executive order regarding the expansion of the “Buy American” act of 1933, President Biden said that the federal government’s fleet of vehicles will be replaced with clean electric vehicles.
The fleet replacement portion of the news conference is part of a campaign promise Biden made while running for president.
As of 2019, the federal government has over 645,000 vehicles in its fleet, so it’s likely going to take years for a full replacement to happen.

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As part of his campaign, President Joe Biden announced a plan to replace the gas-powered federal fleet of vehicles with EVs. Today he announced that the pledge will become a reality during a press conference regarding an executive order to expand the “Buy American” act.
At the announcement of the executive order, he noted that “the federal government also owns an enormous fleet of vehicles, which we’re going to replace with clean electric vehicles made right here in America, by American workers.” For U.S. automakers that have invested heavily in electrification, as GM has, this is great news.
Biden said the electrification of the fleet would create jobs for autoworkers and that it would be “the largest mobilization of public investment in procurement infrastructure and R&D since World War Two.”
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The actual executive order itself makes no mention of the fleet replacement. Instead, it’s meant to increase the number of components a product is made up of in order to qualify to be a domestic good. It’s currently set at 50 percent. Biden hasn’t set a new percentage threshold. What Biden and the order do say is that the value of the individual components need to be such that they contribute to the U.S. economy. Stating that the components will be “measured by things like a number of American jobs created and or supported.”
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The United Auto Workers issued a statement following the press conference about the executive order stating, “with the stroke of a pen, President Joe Biden today sent a strong message to American workers that our government will do all it can to support buying American products, made here by American workers, recommitting to the men and women of working America. Through today’s order, the Biden Administration commits the vast power of the U.S. government to U.S. citizen made products.”
GM said that it “is encouraged by President Biden’s commitment to supporting American manufacturing.” Ford said, “President Biden’s early focus on investing in American manufacturing is critical to the continued success of the U.S. auto industry.
How long the transition from gasoline-powered vehicles to EVs will take is unknown, although it’s likely to take a few years. According to the General Services Administration, as of 2019, the government fleet has over 645,000 vehicles on the road. That’s a lot vehicles to be replaced by clean-running counterparts.
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Hyundai Motor Group has created a four-foot-tall AI-powered robot named DAL-e, which will be a pilot project in one of its dealerships in South Korea.
The robot, equipped with facial recognition tech, is intended to help customers in showrooms by providing information about products and services.
DAL-e will go through improvements while it’s being piloted, but if all goes well, other Hyundai and Kia dealers could get their own DAL-e.
One Hyundai dealership in South Korea is gaining a new employee: DAL-e, a four-foot-tall artificial-intelligence-powered robot. If all goes well in the pilot program, the Hyundai Motor Group—which includes Kia—could send another DAL-e, which stands for “Drive you, Assist you, Link with you-experience,” to the Hyundai or Kia dealership nearest you.

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Currently there is no timeline for when more DAL-e robots could appear, and before they do, Hyundai says, it will be updated and improved through the pilot program. The purpose of DAL-e is to provide information on products and services. So for now, at least, it doesn’t look like DAL-e will try to sell you a car, but perhaps that’ll change once it learns about commissions.

Hyundai Motor Group

AI technology gives DAL-e the ability to recognize faces and communicate. If a customer comes into a showroom without a mask on, DAL-e will recognize that and will be able to remind the person to put on a mask. DAL-e, with its four omnidirectional wheels, will also be able to move freely throughout a showroom, escorting customers to wherever they need to go.
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The 2022 Mitsubishi Outlander will debut February 16.
The redesigned crossover will likely share components with the Nissan Rogue.
Expect it to go on sale later this year.
Mitsubishi’s first new product in a long time, the redesigned 2022 Outlander, will officially arrive February 16. Of course, we’ve already seen much of the new model thanks to leaked photos of its new exterior styling, but we’ll learn more about its mechanical details and see its interior in a few weeks.

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The new Outlander will look more modern than the current generation, which has been around since 2014. It’s expected to share components with the recently redesigned 2021 Nissan Rogue, including possibly its underpinnings and its 2.5-liter inline-four engine. The plug-in-hybrid version of the Outlander will also return for this generation.
Mitsubishi released a video showing a prototype of the Outlander driving off-road and says that it will offer a new version of the company’s Super All-Wheel Control all-wheel-drive system. The company also says that the new Outlander will be larger than before, which means its optional third-row seat is likely to remain.
The car will debut via live stream on February 16 at 6 p.m. EST, and the 2022 Outlander will go on sale in the U.S. sometime later in 2021.
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