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The White House via YouTube

Images of the Ford F-150 Lightning have leaked out as part of President Biden’s visit to Michigan.It looks much like the gas truck but with a few key differences that make it look more futuristic.The full truck will be revealed tomorrow, May 19, on Ford’s website.Ford’s new F-150 Lightning has appeared ahead of its official debut as part of President Biden’s visit to the Ford Rouge electric-vehicle facility in Michigan. The new electric pickup is visible behind Biden alongside the gas F-150 and several historic Ford pickup trucks.
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The Lightning appears to have the same body as the standard F-150 but its headlights and wheels are different. It’s a crew-cab model which means it’s likely to offer the shorter 5.5-foot bed offered on the F-150. Other photos posted on Twitter show its six-spoke wheels are likely to be exclusive to the Lightning.
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We’re expecting the F-150 Lightning to come standard with two electric motors providing all-wheel-drive capability. Ford has claimed it will be more powerful and quicker than any of the gas-powered F-150 models. It will have a large battery pack that should provide at least 300 miles of range. A video from Ford’s proving grounds shows Biden driving a prototype version of the Lightning and mentioning a 60 mph acceleration time in the 4.3 to 4.4 second range.
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More details are coming tomorrow, May 19, as part of Ford’s official debut of the Lightning on its YouTube channel.
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The full Lamborghini road-car range will be plug-in hybrids by 2024, CEO Stephan Winkelmann announced at an event today. After that, an all-electric fourth model is planned to follow. The Aventador replacement will use a hybridized V-12. Lamborghini has announced it is set to fully electrify its range, first with an all-plug-in-hybrid lineup, and then with the planned launch of a fourth model that will be a pure EV.

The Direzione Cor Tauri plan—named after a star in the Taurus constellation—was unveiled by Lamborghini CEO Stephan Winkelmann at an event in Italy this morning. Car and Driver got the chance to talk to him about it in more depth. The plan means that the last Lamborghini road car to be powered exclusively with a combustion engine will be made before the end of 2024. “This is a big challenge for the company, but it’s also good news for all of us,” Winkelmann said when we interviewed him by video link, “we want to keep the DNA of the brand unchanged, but we want to reduce the emissions by at least 50 percent starting from 2025 onward.”This new plan isn’t going to diminish the sound and fury that Lamborghini models are most famous for, in the short term at least. Winkelmann confirmed our earlier reports that the Aventador replacement will use a version of the current car’s characterful powerplant in addition to hybrid assistance.

Lamborghini Aventador.
Lamborghini

“The follow-up to the Aventador will still be a V-12, so the sound issue is not going to be something we need to take care of because the engine will still be there, and it will have the right sound,” he said.

Lamborghini Huracán.
Lamborghini

HuracánCompany insiders have indicated that the Huracán’s replacement will lose that car’s V-10 – which is shared with the soon-to-die Audi R8 – and will instead get a twin-turbocharged V-8. Which, we’d imagine, will also sound pretty good once Lamborghini’s engineers have finished with it. Based on conversations with senior engineers we believe that both cars will have electrically powered front axles in addition to blended hybrid assistance for their IC engines at the rear.

Lamborghini Sián.
Lamborghini

Sián Sadly, neither seems set to use the supercapacitor system that Lamborghini developed for the limited-run Aventador-based Sián.”That is fast charging, but also fast discharging,” Winkelmann said. “If you need to enlarge range and reduce emissions, you need a battery to hold the power. So this is something we cannot continue.”UrusThe Urus will also gain a plug-in hybrid powertrain, and although we haven’t been given further details we presume it will be a version of the V8 powertrain that Porsche uses in the Cayenne Turbo S E-Hybrid. But beyond that, Lamborghini is planning for a fourth model which will become the brand’s first EV.”We want to have a new model line in the second half of this decade,” Winkelmann said. “It cannot cannibalize what we have today, but my dream is to have the best of two worlds, to try to have a car which is a four-seater two-door like the GT cars of the Fifties and Sixties.”Pure electric supercars are further away. Winkelmann said there is still limited demand for them. But we’re told there are no plans to continue with combustion-only models alongside the next generation of PHEVs. One thing is very clear: Lamborghini’s future is electric.

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The V-12 version of the latest Maybach S-class is here. It’s now called the S680.Like the previous S650, it has a twin-turbo 6.0-liter V-12 engine with 621 horsepower.The S680 will go on sale in 2022 and should cost over $200,000 to start.The auto industry’s epochs don’t shift like gears so much as blend like sump oil. Manufacturers are both burnishing their green credentials and laying out plans for the electric future while also rushing out some of the last and greatest products of the combustion era—such as this, the Mercedes-Maybach S680.Given the existence of the V-8–powered Maybach S580, it is fair to say that nobody truly needs the V-12–powered S680. But Mercedes obviously thinks there are enough ultra-rich buyers who actively want more cylinders, more power, and a bigger number on the trunklid; hence, the mighty engine has made the transition to the new W223 generation of the S-class. Bentley and Rolls-Royce both still offer V-12s in this space, so why shouldn’t Mercedes?

Mercedes-Maybach

The mighty twin-turbocharged 6.0-liter V-12 has been carried over directly from the previous-generation Maybach S650. Peak power and torque—621 horsepower and 738 pound-feet—are unchanged, but like its V-8 sibling the S680 now has standard 4Matic all-wheel drive to help deliver that to the road without drama (the last V-12 S-class was rear-drive-only). Unlike the S580, the S680 doesn’t have any 48-volt hybrid assistance, and although Mercedes’s official 4.4-second zero-to-60-mph claim is two-tenths quicker than the number the company claims for the S580, any attempt to verify that figure is likely to earn the driver a stern rebuke from the back seat, or a prod from a gold-tipped cane.Like the V-8 model, the S680 gets standard rear-wheel steering to improve agility and reduce the turning circle, with the rear axle able to add up to either 4.5 degrees or 10 degrees. (Having experienced the 10-degree system on a non-Maybach S-class in Germany, we can confirm it makes the car feel much smaller and more maneuverable at low speeds.)Buyers will be able to specify a two-tone paint finish to distinguish the S680 from the common S-class, with 10 contrasting color finishes available. Other distinctions include the unique grille and stainless steel trim covering the lower intake, side sills, and rear bumper. The overall effect seems designed to help billionaires make millionaires jealous.

Mercedes-Maybach

The cabin is correspondingly special. Ultra-soft nappa leather is found throughout, including for the dashboard, the headliner, and even the sun visors. The rear compartment owes more to private jets than regular sedans, with reclining seats with leg rests. Pretty much everything that can be moved is power operated, and the panoramic sliding sunroof and rear sunshades can be deployed by simply waving a hand in the right way. Any surface that can be heated, cooled, or used to give massages can also deliver those functions. Buyers with lazy chauffeurs can even specify electrically operated rear doors, which can be opened or closed from the driver’s seat. And yes to the most important question: it is possible to specify silver-plated champagne flutes and a fridge.The Mercedes-Maybach S680 will go on sale in the first half of 2022 and will almost certainly be the last new car launched by Mercedes to use a V-12 engine. We will have to wait to discover how much of a supplement it will carry over the S580, but we can safely presume the base price will be over $200,000.
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We can’t rely on gas taxes forever, but there’s no simple, obvious way to integrate electric vehicles and other alternative-fuel vehicles into the funding structure.Texas state senators are discussing a bill that would charge EV drivers between $200 and $250 for their car each year, plus another $190 or more if they drive over 9000 miles.Other states have looked at fees for EVs, as well as road usage charge programs, which would charge every vehicle owner a fee based on miles driven and the weight of their vehicle.America’s current system where roads and other vehicle infrastructure projects are paid for, in part, from gas taxes obviously can’t survive in a world where everyone drives an electric vehicle. There is no single, obviously best solution to modernize the situation, but in Texas the issue has resulted in some Republicans coming out in favor of tax hikes.The bill being discussed in the Texas state senate—Senate Bill 1728—would raise fees on electric vehicle (EV) owners as a way to make up for the gas tax they’re not paying. The legislation would require an annual EV fee of between $190 and $240, an additional fee of over $150 for anyone who drives their EV more than 9000 miles a year, and an annual surcharge of $10 to fund a charging infrastructure advisory council.The state, which couches the fees in “equalization for road use consumption for alternatively fueled vehicles” terminology, said these fees would apply to approximately 300,000 vehicles and raise around $37.8 million for the State Highway Fund (SHF) in fiscal year 2022, climbing to $135,594,000 in fiscal year 2026. If passed, the bill would take effect on September 1, 2021.

Texas is not the first state to look at charging electric vehicle drivers a fee as a replacement for gas taxes, but its numbers appear out of line with the gas tax most people pay. Electric-vehicle advocacy group Plug In America noted in a white paper published in August 2020 that the national average in annual gas taxes for a light-duty vehicle is $73. PIA also found 20 states that have some sort of EV registration fee, with prices ranging from $50 to $200. In other words, in many cases, EV drivers would be asked to pay more to support vehicle infrastructure than drivers of fossil-fuel vehicles. The group’s stance is that “Policymakers need to realize that until EVs reach a certain threshold of all light-duty vehicles on the road in a state, they shouldn’t be incentivized on the one hand and punished on the other.” The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality did have an incentive program for people to buy or lease clean-air vehicles (including EVs, hydrogen, and CNG/LPG), but that program has ended. During the 16 months between September 2019 and January 2021, the state gave out incentives for 1371 EVs and 10 CNG/LPG vehicles. Some local incentives remain available, including an EV charging program in Austin. Tesla, of course, is building a large factory near Austin called Gigafactory Texas that is scheduled to start operating by the end of 2021. Local Tesla and EV fans in the state are decrying the fees that SB 1728 would introduce and have sent out a call to action asking people to ask their state senators to vote no on SB 1728 as a way to vote “FOR thriving jobs and clean trucks and cars made in Texas!”Instead of annual EV fees, which don’t take actual road usage into account, Plug In America and other EV advocates support what are called road usage charge programs, or ways to charge people for the actual miles they drive each year, often factoring in the weight of the vehicle. Seven states are conducting road usage charge tests with help from the U.S. Department of Transportation. Another group, called Road Use Charge West, is made up of 17 western states that have either enacted RUC policy, have pilot programs in place, or are researching if an RUC will work for them.
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