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Long before we were recording Window Shop videos and working at C/D, before we even had driver’s licenses, we spent hours and hours in the family car. Presuming those vehicles played some role in our future love of cars and the people we became, we thought we’d tap into our childhood memories and find nice examples of the vehicles we grew up in.
You might suspect that our editors were exposed to fun and interesting autos at a young age, but the reality is closer to the 1984 Toyota Tercel that senior editor Joey Capparella’s father owned for more than 10 years. Actually, this explains a lot about Capparella’s love of normcore cars.
Like many children of the 1960s, contributor John Pearley Huffman grew up with a station wagon in the garage. Although the Huffman family’s ’65 Ford Country Squire looks incredibly cool today, it was decidedly uncool by the time Pearley got his license.Deputy testing director K.C Colwell’s parents had a long string of terrible vehicles that somehow didn’t taint young Colwell’s view of cars. When he was old enough to influence their choices, he suggested they buy a 1991 Ford Explorer. Clean, rust-free examples of early Explorers are hard to find, but Colwell locates a decent one for sale in Colorado, and it even has a manual transmission like the one his folks bought back in 1990.Having only glossed the challenge, contributor Jonathon Ramsey goes on and on about his first car, a Ford Festiva. After we discuss the tire sizes of the diminutive Mazda-based car, Ramsey eventually gets around to telling us about his mother’s second-gen Volkswagen Jetta, which he occasionally borrowed to avoid the embarrassment of driving around in the little Ford.
Finally, deputy editor Tony Quiroga shows us the 18.5-foot-long front-drive convertible behemoth that made a mere 215 horsepower from 500 cubic feet of displacement. We’d say it’s safe to assume that the cars your parents owned have little effect on car enthusiasm, and we’re thankful for that.
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Utah could soon become the seventh state where it is illegal for dogs to ride in the beds of pickup trucks. A viral video of a four-legged Utahn riding unrestrained on an open-sided truck bed inspired the bill, which is supported by the Utah Humane Society. No word if the bill was also inspired by the long-ago antics of Utah Sen. Mitt Romney.
This Week in Sheetmetal

Volvo

Volvo unveiled the electric C40 Recharge fastback crossover, which it estimates will have 210 miles of range. The C40’s electric powertrain will make 402 horsepower and should manage a 4.7-second zero-to-60-mph time. Also this week, Volvo announced its plan to stop selling cars with internal-combustion engines by 2030.
Porsche showed the electric Taycan’s wagon variant, the Taycan Cross Turismo. Intended to compete with Mercedes-Benz’s E-class wagon and Audi’s A6 wagon, the Taycan wagon will come in four strengths. The top-dog Turbo S will give you 750 horsepower and an estimated 2.7-second sprint to 60 mph, if you can afford it. Here’s how we’d spec it.
Not to be outdone, Mercedes-AMG confirmed this week that it will build an ultra-high-performance version of the four-door GT. The GT 73 will be a hybrid and could make more than 800 horsepower, but the powertrain will still be based on a twin-turbo V-8, so don’t expect to save money on gas.

Mercedes-AMG

Butterfly Effect
You’ve heard about the semiconductor shortage, but what about the foam padding shortage? The winter storms that hit Texas late last month shut down oil refineries, which make the chemicals necessary for the production of the polyurethane foam that’s used in automotive seat cushions. One anonymous auto executive told Automotive News that the problem is “bigger and closer” than the aforementioned chip shortage, while another called foam-related production shutdowns “a threat, not a given.” We’ll find out who was right in a few weeks, and in the meantime let this serve as a reminder of how far away we really are from a zero-emissions auto industry.

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Infrastructure Week
The American Society of Civil Engineers gave U.S. infrastructure a C- in a report published this week and said the government will need to spend $2.6 trillion on infrastructure repairs in the next decade. That’s actually the best grade the group has given our infrastructure in 20 years; the last report in 2017 rated the country’s infrastructure at a D+. The report may have served as fodder at an Oval Office meeting led by President Biden and attended by a bipartisan group of lawmakers. On the campaign trail, Biden promised to spend $2 trillion on infrastructure projects, including high-speed rail and electric-vehicle infrastructure, but Republican congressman Sam Graves said after the meeting that members of his party would reject a “multi-trillion-dollar catchall bill.”

Honda

I, Honda
Honda leapfrogged Tesla to become the first automaker to sell (well, lease) a production car with Level 3 autonomous capability when it made 100 copies of its Legend sedan equipped with a Honda Sensing Elite package available to customers in Japan. The package allows the cars to accelerate, steer, and stop without input or constant monitoring from the driver. Honda even goes so far as to suggest that drivers could watch TV on the car’s infotainment screen when the system is engaged. So far, the system’s use is limited to traffic jams or similar low-speed, high congestion scenarios, and there are no plans to bring the Legend or its self-driving capabilities to the United States. But progress is progress, right?
Further Reading
Read in the New York Times about a German town that is pursuing zero emissions in part by encouraging its residents to give up their cars, particularly the ones that run on gas or diesel.
Also in the Times, a suggestion that the United States use currency manipulation to hold on to manufacturing jobs.
If you’re looking for a dose of schadenfreude, take in the extradition to Japan of two men who helped former Nissan chairman Carlos Ghosn flee justice after being charged with various financial crimes.
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The refreshed 2022 Genesis G70 will have a Launch Edition model in the U.S.
Limited to 500 units, it has white or grey matte exterior paint and a red interior.
The updated G70 will go on sale in the spring with carryover 2.0T and 3.3T engines.
Genesis is trying to up the 2022 G70’s exclusivity factor with a Launch Edition model that features special color combinations. It will be limited to 500 units and comes only with the G70’s upgrade engine, a twin-turbo 3.3-liter V-6 with 365 horsepower that’s available either with rear- or all-wheel drive.

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The Launch Edition is available in either Verbier White or Melbourne Grey matte exterior paint. It comes with 19-inch black wheels and a red leather interior. All 2022 Genesis G70 models feature updated styling that introduces the newer design language first shown on the GV80 SUV and G80 sedan. Inside, there’s a larger touchscreen infotainment system and a few new features.

View Photos

Genesis

Pricing isn’t yet available but we would expect a small uptick from the current model, which starts at $37,025 and ranges up to $49,225 for a 3.3T AWD model. Genesis is now accepting reservations for the 2022 G70 on its website, including the Launch Edition, and says that the cars will arrive in the U.S. this spring.
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At an event detailing goals for electrification and future technologies, VW revealed that it has a new electric sedan in the works that it plans to launch for 2026.
The sedan, known as Trinity, will set “set new standards” for charging times, battery range, and other technology, VW said.
At the event, the automaker also unveiled its Accelerate plan, whereby it plans to have 50 percent of its sales in the U.S. be electric by 2030.
Volkswagen is going all in on electric vehicles, and at an event detailing its even more aggressive future plans, the German automaker said that it has an electric sedan planned with a 2026 launch, dubbed Project Trinity. VW says that the Trinity sedan will set “new standards” with its charging speed, battery range, and in other technology.

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VW released a sketch of the Trinity, showing a sweeping roofline that resembles that of the Audi A7. Nonetheless, VW didn’t go so far as to release any specifics on the forthcoming sedan beyond that it will have a “Level 2+” autonomous system and “be technically ready for Level 4.” There is no formal definition of Level 2+, but if the sedan is equipped with the right hardware, upgrading it to a Level 4 system could be done with over-the-air updates.
The production process for the Trinity will also be different from the practice for current vehicles. Among the differences are that it will have fewer variants and the hardware will be standardized, the automaker said. In January, German newspaper Welt reported that the new sedan will have a starting price of around $42,000, which would make it slightly more expensive than the Tesla Model 3.
At the event, VW also outlined its Accelerate plan, a strategy whereby the automaker will streamline its electric business model to make it more profitable and efficient. Part of the plan is the goal of having 70 percent of sales in Europe, and 50 percent of sales in the U.S. and China, be of fully electric vehicles by 2030. VW said that to reach this goal, it will release at least one new electric vehicle each year.

Timeline of EV Plans Automakers Have Announced

VW said that it plans to reduce the number of variations in each of its vehicles, and in turn, personalization of a vehicle won’t happen through changes in the hardware, but rather through the software on every vehicle. Customers will be able to add functions to their vehicles at any point during ownership. VW also said it plans to make “autonomous driving widely available” by the end of the decade.

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In total, Volkswagen is investing $19 billion into electrification and other advanced technologies through 2025. That investment isn’t quite what other automakers such as GM ($27 billion) and Ford ($29 billion) have earmarked toward those technologies.
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Silicon Valley startup Ample is testing out a few battery swapping stations in California’s Bay Area for fleet drivers.
The company says that its stations can swap out a vehicle’s specially built battery modules and packs in 10 minutes.
Ample says that it’s working with five automakers, without saying which ones, to build vehicles with battery structures that work with the company’s battery-swapping stations.
One of the roadblocks to EV adoption is that charging an electric vehicle takes longer than refueling a vehicle with gasoline. Silicon Valley startup Ample believes it has figured out how to reclaim those lost moments: with its modular battery-swapping system that permits drivers to get fresh range in only a few minutes. The twist compared to many previous battery-swapping ideas is that instead of replacing one large single battery, the system instead replaces multiple smaller battery packs during a swap. It’s hoping the ability to recharge an EV in just 10 minutes will appeal to fleets, and its first customers will be Uber drivers.

At its facility in San Francisco, a beta tester driving a Nissan Leaf pulls into one of several Ample battery-swapping stations peppered throughout the Bay Area. The station is roughly the size of two parking spots and tall enough to handle large SUVs and the coming wave of electric trucks. The Leaf driver gets out and, using Ample’s smartphone app, initiates the swap procedure. Metal plates under the wheels lift up the Nissan from the floor, and an automated sled slides out from the front of the station. The sled removes a series of battery packs from under the vehicle. Within each container is a series of battery modules roughly the size of a bread box. After being detached from the Leaf, each container is whisked back into the hidden portion of the station where the modules are removed and placed on a shelf to begin charging. The system then places charged modules into the container. The sled then slides itself back under the Nissan Leaf, and replaces the packs that were removed.

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The entire demonstration of the process took roughly 15 minutes, a beta-testing speed that Ample said is slower than it’s capable of. As the beta progresses, that time will be shortened to 10 minutes, with a target to complete the entire procedure in five minutes by the end of the year.
This system is intended for fleet vehicles. While the average personal EV is likely to be charged at home overnight and is on the road for less than 100 miles a day, delivery vehicles, taxis, and vehicles used for ride-hailing services such as Uber need to be constantly on the road, and DC fast charging that takes upward of 45 minutes to replenish an EV’s battery is lost revenue.
But creating a battery swap infrastructure requires partners in the automotive world. Ample’s not in the business of swapping out factory-installed battery packs with their own system. The company will need to have automakers build special-purpose fleet vehicles set up to accept Ample’s battery packs and be ready to start using the startup’s system from day one. CEO Khaled Hassounah told Car and Driver that the startup is already working with “five of the 10 largest [automakers] in the world,” without giving names.

Ample

Currently, the company is focusing on fleet vehicles and deploying its stations in additional Bay Area locations. Long term, it’s investigating offering its service to the general public. If it catches on with automakers, the time spent waiting at a charging station to top up a vehicle’s battery may come to an end as we replace cables with tiny robotic sleds whizzing around under our vehicles to get us back on the road.
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