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The coupe may be gone, but the 11th-gen Civic lineup still has plenty of variants to go around. More

It’s now Honda’s entry-level car, but you would not guess that from the sophisticated exterior with its Accord-style design elements. More

The 2022 Civic prototype, revealed today, doesn’t grow larger but will offer more performance, safety, and standard features.
New features include a larger 9.0-inch touchscreen, wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto capability, a digital gauge cluster, and a higher count of airbags.
The 11th-generation Civic sedan will arrive late next spring, with hatchback, Si, and Type R versions to follow.
Honda has just revealed the prototype of its 11th-generation Honda Civic. The 2022 Civic will feature a more formal exterior with fewer curves, cues borrowed from the larger Accord, and an interior with a modern, minimalistic aesthetic. Sales of the sedan will start late next spring, and the compact’s lineup will eventually again include a hatchback, a hotter Si variant, and a high-performance Type R. Dead at the end of the 2020 model year, the coupe will not rise from the ashes.

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The Civic has been an important part of Honda’s lineup since 1973, but the 11th generation has massive shoes to fill. Its predecessor is arguably the most successful Civic ever. It has dominated its class since its introduction in 2016, consistently exceeding a 20 percent market share, and so far has racked up sales of 1.5 million units. For the past four years, Honda says it has been the best-selling car in America with millennials, Gen Z, and first-time car buyers, outperforming rivals including the Toyota Corolla, the Hyundai Elantra, the Mazda3, and the Volkswagen Jetta.

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Honda

Further complicating the new Civic’s job description is the discontinuation of the Fit following the 2020 model year. It once again makes the Civic the brand’s most affordable entry point. According to Honda spokesperson Carl Pulley, its pricing will reflect that new role. “The 2022 Civic will also get more standard feature content,” he says, also claiming it will perform “even better than its predecessor” in handling, engine performance, overall dynamics, and crash protection.
Honda will reveal the final 2022 Civic sedan closer to its on-sale date next spring. The prototype shown here is visually accurate, but it’s a roller without any interior, suspension, or powertrain. It’s also a mishmash of elements that will be eventually be seen on its many variants, but not necessarily the production sedan. These include its Solar Flare Pearl paint and its black mirrors, pillars, and trim. It also features two oval exhaust tips and a set of 10-spoke matte black 19-inch wheels, both of which are probably Si or Type R hardware. Here they wear a beefy set of Michelin Pilot Super Sport tires sized 235/35ZR-19.
The 10th generation, out in 2016, was the largest Civic yet and the first to use a global platform. The new car gets an evolution of that current chassis, which probably means it won’t return to a control-arm front suspension as in the new Acura TLX and MDX. Bummer. Instead we expect broader use of the clever dual-axis strut front suspension from the current Type R, which eliminates torque steer by mechanically separating the steering and suspension functions.

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It also means the Civic, which is already the stretch limousine of the compact class, ain’t gettin’ any bigger. Although it appears longer, lower, and wider than its incredibly popular predecessor, Honda hasn’t messed much with its dimensions. Its height and width are the same as before, and it’s only about an inch longer. Its wheelbase has been stretched a little more than an inch, but interior space is unchanged. “Rear legroom remains the same,” says Dan Calhoun, Honda senior planner for the Civic four-door and Si. “But the longer wheelbase allowed us to increase the rake of the rear seat slightly for more comfort.” Trunk space is also about the same.
Moving its A-pillar back two inches not only elongates its nose, it has given the Civic an almost rear-wheel-drive-style appearance, although it will be a front-wheel-drive car, of course. Honda has also widened its rear track by about half an inch. Previously with Mazda, where he was responsible for the execution of the current CX-5, the brand’s top seller, Calhoun has only been with Honda for three years. When we bring up the possible availability of all-wheel drive, he pauses longer than he should and says, “There will be no all-wheel drive at launch.” That’s practically a yes.
The Civic’s nose also looks longer because it is. Its front overhang has increased about an inch, while its rear overhang is shorter by about the same amount. LED headlamps and taillights are production units and connected by a hard, crisp line that runs the length of the car. The only chrome on the prototype is found on the two Honda badges and the Civic badge on its decklid.
Calhoun also points out the prototype’s built-in rear spoiler, which eliminates a cutline he feels is an eyesore on the current car, and the black trim that visually slims its A-pillars. It’s a cool detail. Its side mirrors have also been moved down to the doors.
More important, Pulley confirms that the Si and Type R will retain their clutch pedals. He also does not rule out an optional dual-clutch automatic, which is now available in the Hyundai Veloster N. We still assume the Type R will be available only as a hatchback and the Si will be offered as a sedan, although it’s possible Honda will introduce a Civic Si hatchback.

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Honda

For the first time, the Civic will have a digital gauge cluster, which we expect to be configurable. We also spot two cupholders, three knobs for the climate controls, and a larger, 9.0-inch touchscreen that is mounted higher. Today, the largest Civic screen is 7.0 inches. The Civic will also get the faster infotainment system now in the Accord and Odyssey, which has better graphics and wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto capability. There will be more airbags than there are in the current car and Honda says it will introduce multiple new airbag designs as well as multiple new active and passive safety systems, including an upgraded suite of Honda Sensing safety and driver-assist technologies.
We’ll learn more about the 2022 Honda Civic’s powertrains and other details closer to the on-sale date in late spring 2021.
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After over a year of teases, Infiniti has finally debuted the all-new QX55 SUV.
It shares mechanical parts and an interior design with the QX50, but offers a more coupelike exterior style reminiscent of the brand’s storied FX SUV that debuted for the 2003 model year.
Interested buyers won’t have to wait long, as the 2022 QX55 is expected in North American Infiniti dealers in spring 2021.
Coming soon to an Infiniti dealer near you is the 2022 QX55, the brand’s fastback compact SUV which will battle it out for crossover-coupe supremacy with the BMW X4 and the Mercedes-Benz GLC-class coupe. Infiniti’s designers were tasked with adapting the squareback QX50’s platform to create the QX55, but they didn’t have to look far for inspiration. The brand’s athletic-looking FX SUV served as their muse, the evidence of which you can see in the QX55’s curved roofline and muscular rear fenders.

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Infiniti

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Other styling differences set the QX55 further apart from the QX50, including a larger front grille with an origami-inspired mesh inlay. The lower front bumper is also unique to the QX55 and piano-key lighting elements in the taillights tie it to the brand’s redesigned QX60 crossover.
The QX55 is powered by the brand’s 268-hp variable-compression turbocharged four-cylinder engine but, unlike the QX50, offers all-wheel drive as standard. We haven’t tested the QX55 yet, but a similarly equipped QX50 model set a 6.4-second zero-to-60-mph run at our test track. The 20-inch wheels shown in these photos will be standard and their design is specific to the QX55.

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Infiniti

While the QX55’s dashboard and center console design is essentially identical to that of the QX50, designers have chosen to use bolder color combinations and have passed over the QX50’s optional quilted leather upholstery for a two-tone look. Base Luxe models will come with faux leather but genuine leather and semi-aniline leather will both be offered in mid-range Essential and top-spec Sensory trims.
Black-colored open-pore wood trim accents the door panels and dashboard in Sensory models—a tasteful alternative to carbon-fiber trim that prevails among sporty SUVs; Luxe and Essential trims get a dark aluminum trim. For better or worse, Infiniti’s dual-screen infotainment system carries over unchanged to the QX55, but wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto capability are now standard.

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Infiniti

The dramatically sloped roofline has a predictable downside in the form of pinched rear-seat headroom and a smaller cargo area. Behind the second row seats—which slide fore and aft for some level of adjustment—buyers will find a slightly smaller 26.9-cubic-foot cargo area, down from 31.4 cubic feet in the QX50.
Infiniti hasn’t released pricing for the QX55 yet, but we expect it will start slightly above similarly equipped QX50 models when it goes on sale. That would mean a starting price for the base Luxe model of around $43,000, with pricing moving up to around $45,000 for the Essential and over $50,000 for the Sensory trims.
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Building on VW’s technology that lets its vehicles park into different kinds of parking spaces with one-button control, the Touareg can now do the same trick even if you’re outside the vehicle.
Instead of pushing the “drive” button in the car, the Touareg will now respond to someone holding the button down in a connected smartphone with the VW Remote Park Assist Plus app.
VW says the technology will be rolled out in the U.S., starting in 2022 with the ID.4.
Automakers have apparently come to the conclusion that people really don’t like parking. What used to be a mundane part of driving is now talked about like it’s a burden on our busy lives. Whatever your personal take on parking is, Volkswagen is about to make it easier.
All 2019 and newer Volkswagen models sold in the U.S. are available with a feature called Park Assist as part of some packages. Park Assist is a semi-automatic technology that allows a VW to maneuver in and out of parking spaces by controlling the steering wheel. Someone still needs to be in the driver seat to manipulate the pedals. The Touareg now ups the ante, becoming the first (and so far only) VW capable of assisted maneuvering without a driver on board. The Touareg is also capable of parking itself with a person in the driver’s seat. VW calls the upgraded tech Park Assist with remote control assist system. As the name implies, VW manages the “look mom, no hands” trick by connecting the Touareg to your smartphone.
The overall process is similar whether you’re inside or outside the vehicle. First, when you’re close to a parking space, you push the P button on the infotainment screen. Then, you let the SUV use its four cameras and twelve ultrasound sensors to identify available spaces and then you choose where you want the car to go. From there, whether you’re sitting in the car or outside looking at the VW Remote Park Assist Plus app, you push the Drive button and that tells the car to do its thing. If you remove your finger from the Drive button, the Touareg will stop moving. Otherwise, you keep holding it until the vehicle settles in for a rest.
The Touareg can also exit its space when it’s time to leave, with one minor difference to the process. Through the app, you first start the car and then choose one of six space exiting maneuvers (straight backwards, for example, or forward left). Then, you hold down the Drive button until the car has squeezed itself into position, get in and drive away.VW says the Touareg can now use they remote control system to park in “all types of parking spaces,” which shows how far the technology has come in the last few years.
In 2018, the Volkswagen Group said it was testing autonomous parking in Volkswagen, Audi, and Porsche vehicles at the Hamburg airport in Germany. The vehicles could only maneuver in and out of spaces that had “simple pictorial markers” installed to give the vehicles a way to orient themselves. Everything is moving according to plan, as VW said then that it would offer autonomous parking in production vehicles in 2020.

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Tesla will be added to the S&P 500 stock index on December 21, the S&P Dow Jones Indices announced on Monday.
Tesla will be the largest company to ever be added to the index, and will likely land among the top ten largest companies in the index once it is added.
The news has spurred a jump of nearly 10 percent in Tesla’s stock price the morning following the announcement.
Tesla is on its way to being included in the S&P 500, one of the most closely followed stock indices in the U.S., S&P Dow Jones Indices announced on Monday. The news follows months of speculation as to whether Tesla would be added to the index once it cleared the hurdle of the S&P 500’s rules for inclusion with its second-quarter earnings report. Its ticker, TSLA, will appear in the S&P 500 beginning Monday, December 21.
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The decision by the S&P committee comes as a sort of vindication for Tesla and its CEO, Elon Musk. It further dignifies the electric-vehicle maker in the automotive space and shows that however unorthodox Musk’s tactics may be at times—which include tweeting that he thinks Tesla’s stock price is “too high”—they work.

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Tesla’s stock shot up nearly 10 percent the morning after the announcement, which is partly due to investors buying the stock in anticipation of a further jump once Tesla starts trading on the index. When it does, according to some Tesla investors, it’ll be opened up to a whole new investor base as there are many funds, including exchange-traded funds, mutual funds, and others that track the performance of the S&P 500. Those funds will have to buy Tesla stock in order to balance their portfolios.
And they’ll have to buy a significant share of Tesla stock in order for their portfolios to be properly weighted; Tesla will likely fall in the top 10 largest companies listed in the S&P 500, somewhere near Johnson & Johnson and Procter & Gamble. Nonetheless, others say that after a few days of elevated trading, Tesla will settle back down.

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After recording a net profit for the second quarter, the sum of Tesla four previous quarters’ earnings was positive, which was the last hurdle Tesla needed to clear to gain entry into the S&P 500. Nonetheless, the committee passed over Tesla back in September, and some speculate that it was due to Tesla’s reliance on regulatory credits for its quarterly profits.
Now, Tesla has five consecutive quarters of profits behind it, the first time in its history to achieve that. Once the electric automaker gains entry to the S&P 500, it’ll be the most valuable automaker in the index, far ahead of Ford and General Motors, the other two automotive stocks traded on the index.
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BMW’s Mini brand revealed an autonomy-focused concept called the Urbanaut as part of a forward-looking online conference this week.
The Urbanaut is electric and has at least some self-driving capability, although Mini gave few specifications.
There’s an octagonal grille and the obligatory swiveling seats, but no production plan announced for the imaginative concept.
Mini unveiled its Urbanaut concept today, on the heels of a week of future-minded reveals from the BMW Group. Like all current Minis, this one has a small footprint, a minimalist design, and a high cuteness quotient. But unlike current Minis, this one would be able to drive itself.

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Mini provided scant details on the Urbanaut’s powertrain, chassis, or autonomous technology. We know that it’s electric and can drive itself in at least some circumstances, though it can also be driven in the conventional sense—the steering wheel retracts into the dashboard when not in use. But either those details haven’t yet been fleshed out or Mini would simply rather keep them secret for now. Instead, plenty of attention has been paid to the loungelike interior, which can be configured in three different ways to suit different moods and uses.

Mini

When driving (or being driven), the Urbanaut is laid out much like any other vehicle, though its unusual dimensions make it unlike any Mini currently on the road. At 14 feet eight inches long, the Urbanaut is roughly seven inches longer than a Mini Clubman, but it’s significantly taller, with room for occupants to stretch out and even move around when the car is not in motion. Certain elements of the exterior design will be familiar, like the short front and rear overhangs and the minimalist design approach, but others are new. The grille is octagonal for the first time, as opposed to hexagonal, and the headlights are only visible when illuminated.

Mini

Mini

If you’re in more of a festival mood, the Vibe configuration may suit better. In this mode, the Urbanaut’s single side door slides open, and the circular infotainment display shows an animated soundwave graphic to match the music you’re listening to. The same animation will project onto the Urbanaut’s four wheels, perhaps helping to attract like-minded festival goers who want to talk about your sweet ride or maybe share some medicinals.

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If it’s not clear enough that this is a concept in the truest we-will-probably-never-build-anything-like-this sense, Mini doesn’t even hint at a production timeline for the Urbanaut. But it’s probable that at least some design elements showcased here will make their way into roadgoing Minis in the next few years. Our money’s on the octagonal grille, but we wouldn’t mind if it turned out to be the swivel chairs.
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Jeep has announced that the Wrangler Rubicon 392 is headed to production, and it’ll go on sale early next year.
It’s powered by a 6.4-liter V-8 that produces 470 horsepower and 470 lb-ft of torque, and Jeep claims it’ll do 60 mph in 4.5 seconds.
Available only as a four-door Rubicon model, it’s equipped with 33-inch all-terrain tires, Fox shocks, Dana 44 axles, and it’s an inch taller than the standard Rubicon.
Jeep touted that it had been driving around Wranglers with V-8s under the hood in secrecy for some time and that we’d missed them. We knew it wasn’t a secret. We’d like to think we know Fiat Chrysler, Jeep’s parent company, pretty well by now, and the automaker loves to stuff powerful V-8s (most notably the 700-plus-hp Hellcat supercharged V-8) into practically everything in its lineup. The latest to get eight-cylinder injection is the popular Wrangler, originally seen in concept form, which is getting a 470-hp 6.4-liter V-8 under the hood. And it’s a Rubicon on 33-inch tires.

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Jeep

Three ninety two. Those three numbers denote FCA’s 6.4-liter (392 cubic inch) V-8 that’s found in 392 versions of the Dodge Challenger, Charger, and Durango as well as the Jeep Grand Cherokee SRT. In the Wrangler Rubicon 392, the naturally aspirated eight cylinder produces 470 horsepower and 470 lb-ft of torque that’s sent to all four wheels through an eight-speed automatic transmission with steering wheel-mounted paddle shifters. Jeep claims that it’ll reach 60 mph in 4.5 seconds and run through the quarter-mile in 13.0 seconds.

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Jeep

The burly V-8 is only available on the top-of-the-line four-door Rubicon model, which is the most off-road-capable Wrangler available from the factory. It’s equipped with a full-time two-speed transfer case, Dana 44 axles with electronic locking differentials, Fox shocks, an electronic front sway-bar disconnect for max articulation, and a 3.73 final-drive ratio. A set of 17-inch beadlock-capable wheels are standard, and they’re wrapped with standard 33-inch BFGoodrich K02 all-terrain tires.

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You’ll be able to tell the Wrangler has V-8 power by its functional hood scoop, borrowed from the desert-rated Gladiator Mojave, with “392” badging and a quad-tip exhaust system. A two-inch lift over the standard Wrangler (an inch taller than the standard Rubicon) provides 10.3 inches of ground clearance, and it can clear 32.5 inches of water. To account for the added power of the V-8, Jeep strengthened the chassis with additional steel, upgraded front upper control arms, and cast iron steering knuckles.

The Rubicon 392 is equipped with leather seats with bronze stitching to match the exterior’s bronze accents, and it comes standard with an 8.4-inch touchscreen with Jeep’s Off-Road Pages, which display information including pitch and roll, GPS coordinates, and power distribution. And, like the other Wranglers in Jeep’s lineup, a host of accessories, such as LED lights, rock rails, and winches, will be available from Mopar so customers can further customize their SUVs.
The 2021 Jeep Wrangler Rubicon 392 will go on sale in the U.S. early next year and should cost around $50,000.
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