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Because of problems with some engines in 1.6 million Hyundai and Kia vehicles from a decade or so ago, NHTSA issued a consent order with the car companies last fall. One part of the deal was that Hyundai would have to spend $25 million on a safety lab.Hyundai announced today that it will spend twice that much on a new Safety Test and Investigation Laboratory (STIL) next to its existing tech center in Michigan. Only $25 million counts toward the total $140 million the company must spend under NHTSA’s rules.Hyundai also has to spend $15 million on a new safety data analytics team to spot potential safety issues earlier in the process.Last fall, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and Hyundai and Kia agreed to two consent orders (one for each automaker) over what NHTSA called “untimely recalls” of 1.6 million 2011–2014 model year vehicles that used Hyundai’s Theta II engines, including the Santa Fe Sport and Sonata. The two consent orders required the companies to pay a combined $210 million in fines, with Hyundai to pay $140 million and Kia for the other $70 million.

At the Chicago auto show today, Hyundai announced that, to fulfill and go beyond its obligations under the consent order, it will build a Safety Test and Investigation Laboratory (STIL) with an investment of at least $50 million. The new lab will be part of the Hyundai America Technical Center (HATCI) in Superior Township, Michigan, near Ann Arbor, and will open in fall 2023. The consent order defines how Hyundai must spend some of the $140 million by creating “Performance Obligation Amounts.” Hyundai’s POA required the automaker to spend $25 million on a test and inspection laboratory and another $15 million on a “Safety Data Analytics infrastructure.” NHTSA also required Hyundai to pay $54 million when the consent order was announced and “an additional $46 million deferred penalty that may become payable if specified conditions are not satisfied.The $50 million investment in STIL is double the $25 million the automaker had to spend on the facility, something that Hyundai Motor North America’s chief safety officer, Brian Latouf, said was the natural result of the automaker looking at what it needed to build safer vehicles. Currently, Hyundai Motor North America benefits from safety research done at the automaker’s global headquarters in South Korea.”We looked at what we needed [for the consent order] and also what makes sense for us in the future of HATCI as well as our regional needs as we grow,” he told Car and Driver. “This is the plan that made sense to us, as a company.”

Hyundai America Technical Center in Michigan.
Hyundai

The STIL will be housed in a new building with a forensics lab, a high-voltage battery lab, and a Vehicle Dynamics Area (VDA) pad. There will also be a 500-meter “high speed” track and an outdoor crash facility at the site. With these tools, Hyundai engineers will be able to take cars from the field and tear them down at the STIL, Latouf said, in order to respond more quickly to problems that might happen in the U.S. “It’s hard to ship crashed vehicles,” he said.Getting Out in Front of Safety IssuesThe $15 million to be spent on safety data analytics could end up preventing major problems like the recall of the Theta II engines. Hyundai’s U.S. safety group, which is currently based in California, features a team of data scientists that form both an emerging-issues group and a safety forensics group.”OEMs are data rich,” Latouf said, pulling in information about the real-world problems with their vehicles from warranty data, customer complaints, people writing in to NHTSA, and field reports from dealers and other sources. Somewhere in there you might be able to spot a problem before it grows, he said.”This group is really focusing on the early buds of the issue and then we focus on it and go through an investigation process,” he said. “The faster we can respond to a field issue, the less safety risk, less chance for injuries and we minimized the scope.”And less chance for future consent orders, of course. “We don’t ever want that to happen again,” he said. “We are building things differently now. We’re all about being best in class for safety.”

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The top bid for this Rod Millen-inspired 1984 Mazda RX-7 rally car is currently $13,777 on Bring a Trailer, with bidding open until Sunday, February 13. Despite a clean Carfax record, this RX-7 has been raced, bumped, rolled, and refurbished. It has lived most of its life as a rally car with stages completed at rally events including the Missouri Show Me Rally, 100 Acre Wood, and a six-hour NASA Enduro race.In addition to the obvious rally-car modifications, a few of the car’s original GSL-SE options, such as electronic fuel injection and power windows, have been removed.

The most attention-grabbing stuff at auction is typically a low-mileage this or a one-of-one uber-rare celebrity-owned that. If the photo of it upside down wasn’t obvious enough, this 1984 Mazda RX-7 GSL-SE rally car fits in neither category. It’s been flipped on its lid. Bodyslammed by a tree. And, later, had its engine’s electronic fuel injection removed in favor of a carburetor.

What made the 1984 RX-7 GSL-SE special was its bigger, better, electronically fuel-injected 135-hp 1.3-liter rotary engine. The 13B had 34 more horsepower than the engine originally in previous RX-7s. Among other improvements, the GSL-SE trim had bigger brakes, an updated suspension, and larger wheels.
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The current owner, who has filmed several parts of the car’s restoration process on his YouTube channel, admits the freshened-up engine doesn’t have much run time. It starts and drives fine but hasn’t been given a proper flogging in any sanctioned event since the resto. The car shows roughly 127,000 miles on the odometer, but its little rotary engine recently went under the knife for fresh apex and coolant seals. Other engine mods include a larger radiator and a higher-output alternator from a second-generation RX-7, likely to help power the big light pods mounted to the nose. The livery is especially eye-catching. The design was inspired by the four-wheel-drive prototype RX-7 driven by Pikes Peak Hill Climb champ Rod Millen throughout the early 1980s SCCA Pro Rally Series. Among the giant striping and Tokico Gas Shocks logos are 2WD stickers that parody the ones found on the winning 4WD prototype car.

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The interior is also a tribute to rallying. The carpets and accessory wiring harnesses have been gutted in favor of simplicity and a six-point roll cage that has been welded to the chassis. The original red dashboard and keyed ignition are still intact. The radio and doors have been recovered with aluminum panels, and bright-red Sparco bucket seats have been installed. There are also new LED interior service lights for the cabin and another service light under the hood that you can move around should you need it. If you’re someone who really likes RX-7s and really wants to compete in rallycross, most of the work is done for you.

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Under the chassis sit extra bracing and supports to help protect the shocks, front control arms, and rear axle. The cat-less exhaust is pure race car with plenty of brap out back thanks to a custom-built setup with mandrel-bent tubing.There’s plenty of well-placed skepticism when buying someone else’s project car, but why chop, gut, paint an otherwise clean low-mile first-generation RX-7? This one’s already hit trees. Now it’s back and ready for more trees, er, racing. And good luck shopping for a race car if buying something barn-engineered makes you flinch.
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Mercedes-Benz has confirmed that the A-class sedan will depart the U.S. lineup.The AMG A35 had already been dropped, and now the A220 model will no longer be available after the 2022 model year.The GLA-class crossover will now be the cheapest Mercedes, and the CLA-class sedan will stick around for now.The entry-level Benz is no more. The A-class sedan will depart the U.S. market after the 2022 model year, as first reported by Automotive News and confirmed to C/D by a Mercedes spokesperson. Starting at $35,000, the A220 four-door served as the price leader in the lineup, but the GLA-class crossover will soon take over this spot with its $37,450 entry cost.

Mercedes had already killed off the A-class sedan’s more powerful AMG variant, the A35, and sales have slipped in recent years. It achieved 17,641 sales in 2019, its first year on the market, but dropped to just 8108 units sold in 2021. The GLA, meanwhile, sold 14,322 units last year. Upon its introduction, the A-class took over the entry-level spot from the CLA-class, a slightly swoopier small sedan best remembered for its 2013 Super Bowl ad proclaiming a starting price under $30,000.The current CLA will stick around for the time being, and Mercedes says the decision to drop the A-class is “consistent with our ongoing effort to streamline our product offering strategy.” The CLA competes in the same segment as the A-class did and we would guess that it earns better profit margins for the company considering its higher pricing. Rival automaker BMW also has two entries in this segment, the two-door 2-series coupe and four-door 2-series Gran Coupe that ride on different platforms, while Audi only has one, the A3 sedan.2022 A-class inventory will likely remain at dealers throughout the year, as Mercedes has not announced when production ends for the U.S.
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The 2022 Ford Bronco Everglades will arrive this summer, and it builds on the already capable Sasquatch off-road package. It includes a snorkel air intake, Warn winch, and 17-inch wheels on 35-inch mud-terrain tires. Pricing starts at $54,495, and it’s only available as a four-door hardtop model with the 300-hp turbocharged four-cylinder engine. Two new Ford Bronco models will arrive this summer: the recently revealed high-performance Bronco Raptor, and this new Everglades model that adds a few more bits of off-road hardware to the already capable Sasquatch package. Both come only as a four-door model with a hardtop and are more hardcore options for off-roaders—or mall crawlers.
That aforementioned Sasquatch package already includes things like 35-inch tires, a lifted suspension, front and rear locking differentials, and a shorter final drive ratio. Everglades models add mud-terrain tires mounted on 17-inch wheels and a factory snorkel mounted to the A-pillar. The front and rear axles, transfer case, and transmission cooling vents are also raised to allow for a maximum of 36.4 inches of water fording depth, 2.9 inches higher than the regular Bronco Sasquatch.

Ford also fits the optional heavy-duty modular front bumper and safari bar on the Everglades with an integrated Warn Zeon 10-S winch. Ford says it tested the winch at its chassis test facility and claims that it can pull up to 10,000 pounds with its 100-foot line. The Everglades also comes with rock rails and steel skid plates protecting the underbody. A new Desert Sand exterior color is exclusive to the Everglades, and the other color choices are some of the Bronco’s best: Eruption Green, Cactus Gray, Area 51, and Shadow Black. It gets a carbonized grey grille with gloss-black Bronco lettering and an Everglades topography graphic stamped on the front fender. Everglades come standard with the 12.0-inch touchscreen and vinyl seats, washout floor mats, and green stitching.
You’ll have to settle for the Bronco’s turbocharged 2.3-liter four-cylinder that produces 300 horsepower and 325 pound-feet of torque and pairs with a 10-speed automatic. That’s the only powertrain choice for the Everglades, even though other Bronco models offer a seven-speed manual with the four-cylinder and a 330-hp twin-turbocharged 2.7-liter V-6 as an option. Ford says there are no plans to add any other powertrain options to the Everglades. The 2022 Bronco Everglades will arrive this summer starting at $54,495, which is $3525 more than a four-door Wildtrak, and reservations will open in March. The new model is exclusive to current Bronco reservation holders, and those who haven’t received a build date can switch their order to an Everglades—or to the 400-plus-hp Raptor, which will arrive in the same timeframe.
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The U.S. Department of Transportation announced today that it will distribute $5 billion to U.S. states over the next five years so they can build out an electric-vehicle charging infrastructure along the U.S. interstate highway system. By 2030, the government is aiming to have a network of half a million charging stations, with EV drivers able to gain access to a charging port at least every 50 miles across the U.S.A. A new Joint Office of Energy and Transportation will oversee the states’ efforts—and will deal with details such as making charging available in rural and low-income areas.It may not be quite as momentous as the creation of the U.S. interstate highway system by President Eisenhower in the 1950s, but the ambition is similar: the Department of Transportation wants to see half a million EV charging ports in operation across the United States by the end of this decade. The intention is to use the interstate highway system as the “spine” of the network. When fully implemented, the goal is for EV owners to be able to find at least one charging port within 50 miles anywhere in the 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico. To get there, a new government agency called the Joint Office of Energy and Transportation—bringing together, as its name indicates, the DOT and the Department of Energy—plans to distribute $5 billion to the states over five years, plus another $2.5 billion in “discretionary” grants to come later. The creation of the joint office was first announced in December 2021, and the funds will come from the new National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) Formula Program, established by the bipartisan infrastructure act signed into law by President Biden in November. For starters, $615 million will be available during fiscal 2022, with states required to submit an EV Infrastructure Deployment Plan by August 1 and get it approved before they can start using the funds. That approval is targeted to come by September 30, DOT officials said. The new Joint Office will provide technical support to states to smooth the process as they plot out their plans. All that money is to build charging infrastructure for battery-electric vehicles only—not for hydrogen or other alternative-energy vehicles, the DOT clarified. The DOT also said it expects many of the states to look to the private sector to build and maintain the charging stations. The goal is to make electric vehicle charging accessible to all Americans and to alleviate the range anxiety that is still holding many Americans back from purchasing their first EV. “Even with the newer higher range EVs going 200, 300, 400 miles, range anxiety is an issue,” DOT Secretary Pete Buttigieg acknowledged in a conversation with Car and Driver on Wednesday. “It’s sometimes the top barrier to somebody acquiring an electric vehicle that could already stand to save them and their family a lot of gas money.”State Plans Already in Progress Over the past six years, 40 states have already created designated Alternative Fuel Corridors, much of which follows the interstate highway system, and that will be “the spine of the new national EV charging network,” the DOT said. Below as an example is the state of planning in the Lower Peninsula of Michigan. Once these corridors are filled in, states will be asked to plan more “community based” charging that could reach more rural and underserved areas away from major highway systems.

Michigan’s charging station plan.
U.S. Department of Transportation

The government agency released a state-by-state list showing how it intends to distribute that initial $615 million in fiscal 2022. California can expect $56.7 million; Texas, $60.3 million; while Kansas gets $5.8 million and Wyoming gets $3.9 million. The feds want to emphasize that getting the charging stations from domestic suppliers is a priority in this program. For instance, the DOT noted, President Biden met this week with a charging station manufacturer, Tritium, that plans to break ground on a facility in Tennessee with six production lines producing 30,000 DC fast chargers per year. Bigger names are also getting in on the process—the White House said Siemens will expand its U.S. operations and plans to produce a million EV charging units by 2025. The DOT also said it intends for 40 percent of the funding to “flow” to underserved and rural areas to make sure they get their fair share of charging stations, without giving details. Back to that 50-mile required distance: a DOT official said during a media call on Wednesday that in some remote areas, a distance of 60 or more miles between chargers might be permitted on logistical grounds.This spending program is certainly ambitious—and paying for hundreds of thousands of charging stations won’t be every taxpayer’s cup of tea—but at least the plan appears to be on a scale that will make a difference. If successful, this program should make it a lot easier to contemplate owning an electric vehicle in the coming years.
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U.S. Department of Transportation

Pete Buttigieg, the U.S. Secretary of Transportation, clearly has a strong vision of an EV-friendly America, but he is well aware there’s a bit of mental adjustment people will need to do first. Buttigieg told Car and Driver on Wednesday how much he liked the Ford Mustang Mach-E EV his security detail was just issued, and noted that, along with the keys, they were handed a gas card—standard issue for a government vehicle. “I love the fact that we’re never going to have to use that gas card,” he said. “Unlike with gas, we can fill it up right here in the basement at DOT headquarters.”
We spoke with Buttigieg in conjunction with the Department of Transportation’s announcement today that it will make available nearly $5 billion to states to expand the EV charging network along the country’s interstate highways. Buttigieg answered some of our questions, adding important details to the DOT announcement of the program. For instance, will all that money go just to build out charging stations, or will some be earmarked to ensure reliable operation of those stations once they’re in place? The Secretary clarified that states can use some of these funds for maintenance and operations and added, “Clearly the trajectory here has to be toward a very high standard of reliability.”

U.S. Department of Transportation

The feds are looking to ensure that all 50 states, plus the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, are made up of “corridors fully connected to each other where you have all of the alternative fueling that you need,” as Buttigieg described it to C/D. “Right now it’s patchy—some places where you wouldn’t have a problem, other places where you would. We need to make [EV charging] universal.” The goal, he said, is to have enough charging stations that range anxiety becomes a thing of the past. “Success looks like a world where you never have to think twice about whether you’ll be able to get to where you’re going based on whether there are chargers there,” as Buttigieg described it. We had a few questions: What kind of charging technology is envisioned, and will they work for every EV? Buttigieg stated a preference to have such a network, mainly set up along major highways, to have “efficient fast chargers” but was light on details, saying “We’re going to look at all of this. I think we’re more interested in the standard than we are in picking and choosing technologies . . . It feels a bit like we’re living through the days when you still have VHS and Beta out there, and obviously over time that needs to be resolved.” How about Flexibility for EVs + a Trailer? With a slew of electric pickup trucks due to hit the market, we inquired if there were plans to create pull-through chargers that could accommodate trailers. We had found in our recent test of the Rivian R1T that the current nature of most chargers, situated at the edge of parking lots, requires decoupling the trailer before plugging in. “These are the kinds of questions that I think [a newly formed Joint Office of Energy and Transportation] will take up,” Buttigieg responded. “I think we’re still as a country maybe a little bit too likely to assume [EV charging stations] are all the same as gas stations—just electrons instead of gas. The truth is that the profile for charging may look quite different.” That would seem to leave open the possibility that areas that see more commercial or recreational vehicles may get charging stations better suited for them to use.

Secretary Buttigieg also stressed that outreach still needs to be made to make sure consumers understand what life will be like with an EV. “If you’ve never needed to charge up an EV, you don’t think about or notice all of the EV infrastructure out there,” he said. “There’s a lot more out there now than people realize, but we need to raise the visibility of it.” How about a Single Payment Method?We pointed out that one issue is the payment structure with EVs. C/D editors tend to have five or six EV charging apps on their phones to make sure that when we find a charging station, it will accept one. “We’re taking a good look at this,” Buttigieg acknowledged. “Part of this program is going to be a shared standard. If we’re going to use taxpayers’ dollars to help private actors put in charging stations, then of course we need to make sure the citizen is getting good value out of it. There may be any number of network benefits through loyalty programs. That’s fine,” he said, “but we’ve got to make sure . . . everybody can benefit.” Plug It in to the Wall: It’s a StartButtigieg was also keen to point out that despite all this spending on public charging stations, charging an electric vehicle at home is still a thing, and it will continue to be a thing. In fact, pointing that out will be a major part of the push to expand rural charging, Buttigieg explained, saying that “the very areas where people stand to gain a lot from EVs because they’re spending a lot on gas because they drive more” are also the areas with more single-family homes where they can plug in their car using household current. This may presume that people in those homes are very, very patient, since charging from a wall outlet takes a lot longer, but as the DOT explained in its announcement today, spending plans include a strong focus on underserved and rural areas. So public charging is coming to the countryside, albeit perhaps a bit more slowly. Meanwhile, “The biggest thing [people] don’t know about charging infrastructure is they already have it: it’s the outlet on your wall.”

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