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Toyota has revealed an image of the 2022 Tundra’s interior. It shows a large center mounted touchscreen, which will help it compete against the Ford F-150 and Ram 1500, which both have available 12.0-inch screens. Toyota showed an image of a TRD Pro model last week, and the full truck will debut in the coming months. If Toyota wants its new Tundra full-size pickup to compete with trucks from Ford and Ram it’ll need to have a significantly improved interior. A large central touchscreen is crucial, and Toyota is showing from this teaser photo of the new truck’s interior that it’s serious about making it stand out.
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This teaser photo shows the top of the new Tundra’s dash, and it seems to be the same TRD Pro model that Toyota revealed last week. Two JBL speakers are mounted inside the A pillars, and the steering wheel has a red stripe atop the steering wheel, likely exclusive to the TRD Pro model. The main attraction is the large center-mounted touchscreen, which has Apple CarPlay displayed in this photo.

The current Tundra comes standard with a 7.0-inch touchscreen, though an 8.0-inch unit is available. The new truck’s will be much larger so it can compete with the Ford F-150 and Ram 1500’s available 12.0-inch screens. A smaller screen will likely be standard on the new Tundra. Look for more information on the 2022 Tundra in the coming months, and Toyota could drop a few more bits of information before its official debut this year.
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Lexus has previewed the new LX, which will again be closely related to the Toyota Land Cruiser.The company has filed for a trademark in the U.S. for the name LX600.We expect the LX600 to have a twin-turbo 3.5-liter V-6 with upwards of 400 horsepower.Now that the new Toyota Land Cruiser is here, the focus turns to the Lexus version. A new Lexus LX is taking shape thanks to a thinly veiled preview—literally—during the online reveal video for the new 2022 NX. Unlike the new Land Cruiser, which won’t make its way stateside, the LX is expected to be sold in America, and Lexus has trademarked the LX600 name in the U.S.

Unlike the current LX570 model, which has a 5.7-liter V-8 engine, the new LX’s nomenclature won’t correspond with its engine displacement. We think the LX600 will have the same twin-turbo 3.5-liter V-6 as the Land Cruiser, which makes 409 horsepower and 479 pound-feet of torque in global versions of the SUV. A 10-speed automatic transmission and four-wheel drive will be standard. A hybrid version may arrive later on with the same iForce Max powertrain as the 2022 Toyota Tundra.As for the LX’s new look, we can see in the teaser that it has L-shaped lighting accents and the Lexus spindle grille—no surprises there. It will again be visually differentiated from the Land Cruiser with lots of extra chrome trim and ritzier trimmings inside.The price difference was small between the previous Toyota and Lexus versions of this luxury SUV, with the Toyota starting at $87,030 and the Lexus at $88,550. The LX outsold its slightly downmarket stablemate in the U.S., which explains why Toyota only saw fit to offer a single version of this model for its new generation. We expect to hear more about the new LX within the next few months, and it should go on sale in early 2022.
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Kia has announced a few changes for the 2022 Soul, including the company’s new logo.The base LX model is no longer available with a six-speed manual transmission.Pricing starts at $20,635 and ranges up to $28,965 for the Turbo model.Kia is dropping the cheapest version of the Soul from the lineup for 2022, as there’s no more manual transmission available. The base LX model previously came standard with a six-speed manual transmission and carried a starting price of $18,765, but for the new model year the 2022 Soul LX now comes only with a CVT automatic and starts at $20,635.

Other updates for the 2022 Soul include the company’s new logo that’s propagating across the lineup. It appears on the hood, the tailgate, the wheels, and on the steering wheel. There aren’t any other obvious visual changes, but there is more standard equipment on hand. The LX gets a larger 8.0-inch touchscreen, while the S, X-Line, and GT-Line now have a 10.3-inch touchscreen as standard with built-in navigation. These trim levels also now come standard with dual-zone automatic climate-control, push-button start, a wireless charging pad, and additional USB ports; these features were previously available only on the EX and Turbo trims.

Kia

All 2022 Soul models besides the Turbo still come with a 147-hp 2.0-liter inline-four, while the Turbo has a 201-hp turbocharged 1.6-liter inline-four and a seven-speed dual-clutch automatic transmission.
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Usually, if you sell a stock for $24 before it drops to $10, that’s a good thing (well, not for the buyer). But if you’re an executive at an electric-vehicle startup with perhaps some inside information and you do that, well, that’s potentially suspicious.That’s what happened at Lordstown Motors, the company preparing to build the Endurance electric pickup (pictured). It turns out, five executives sold off shares in early February, just as news of a mid-January prototype fire was breaking.Lordstown president Rich Schmidt sold 39 percent of his shares for $4.6 million, and the startup’s propulsion head, Chuan “John” Vo, sold almost all of his shares for $2.5 million.Members of the leadership team at Lordstown Motors appear to have sold large amounts of company stock just before reports of various troubles at the company became public. Five top Lordstown executives—including president Rich Schmidt, now former chief financial officer Julio Rodriguez, and propulsion head Chuan “John” Vo—sold some of their shares worth a total of more than $8 million in early February when the stock was worth around $24 a share. Today, it’s worth around $10.

Chuan “John” Vo (L) and Rich Schmidt of Lordstown Motors.
Lordstown Motors

The reason this is all news, other than the fact that Lordstown is dealing with the departure of its founder and CEO, among other issues, is that something else was happening in early February: news was getting out that one of the prototype for the company’s all-electric pickup truck, the Endurance, caught fire in early January. Lordstown began trading shares after a splashy NASDAQ debut in October 2020 as part of a reverse merger with DiamondPeak Holdings Corp., a special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC. Lordstown reaffirmed to the media last week that it will indeed start building the Endurance in September and deliver the first units to customers in early 2022.

On June 14, Lordstown issued a press release responding to a report issued by Hindenburg Research that called some of the automaker’s claims into question. While most of that release dealt with the company’s production issues, the board special committee that issued the release also dealt with the share sales and said they were sold for reasons that didn’t have to do with how well Lordstown was doing. It said, in part: “As described in various Form 4 filings in the months following the DiamondPeak transaction, certain Lordstown Motors directors and executives have sold or transferred shares in the Company. Each of those transactions were made for reasons unrelated to the performance of the company or viability of the Endurance, and each such director and executive retained substantial Lordstown Motors equity holdings in the form of shares and options following the sales and transfers described in the Company’s public filings.”That claim does not appear to be completely true. Both CNN and the Wall Street Journal report that Vo sold 99.3 percent of his vested shares for a cool $2.5 million on February 2. He held on to just 717 shares. Schmidt sold 39 percent of his vested equity for $4.6 million. The other three executives sold shares worth between $250,000 and $400,000. Lordstown did not respond to Car and Driver’s request for clarification on this point but there does not seem to have been any laws broken, and the Journal says most other companies—98 percent—have blackout days where company insiders are not allowed to sell shares just before quarterly disclosures. The Securities and Exchange Commission has issued two subpoenas to Lordstown about the SPAC merger and surrounding public statements. Lordstown said it is cooperating with the investigation.
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The EPA has announced that the 2022 Jeep Grand Wagoneer is rated at 15 mpg combined, less than the Cadillac Escalade and Lincoln Navigator. It’s powered by a 6.4-liter V-8 and comes standard with four-wheel drive. The Grand Wagoneer will be on sale this summer starting at $88,995.The Jeep Grand Wagoneer is returning this summer as a massive three-row SUV, and the EPA is estimating that it is good for 15 mpg combined. There’s also a cheaper and less luxurious Wagoneer, but its fuel economy estimates have not yet been announced. The Grand Wagoneer’s EPA estimated fuel economy makes the big Jeep less efficient than other American luxury SUVs such as the Cadillac Escalade and Lincoln Navigator.
All Grand Wagoneers use a naturally aspirated 6.4-liter V-8 engine that produces 471 horsepower and 455 pound-feet of torque, and four-wheel drive is standard. The V-8 has cylinder deactivation and is paired with an eight-speed automatic transmission. The EPA estimates that the Grand Wagoneer will get 13 mpg in the city and 18 mpg on the highway. The Wagoneer will likely be more efficient, as it’s powered by a 5.7-liter V-8 with a 48-volt belt-driven motor/generator system called eTorque. The Ram 1500 with eTorque is rated 2 mpg higher than the model without the hybrid system.

Cadillac Escalades with four-wheel drive and the standard 6.2-liter V-8 engine are rated at 16 mpg combined, 13 mpg in the city and 19 mpg on the highway. The Lincoln Navigator, which uses a twin-turbocharged V-6 engine, is rated at 17 mpg combined, 16 mpg city, and 20 mpg highway. German luxury SUVs such as the BMW X7 and Mercedes-Benz GLS-class are EPA-rated at 21 mpg combined with their respective turbocharged six-cylinder engines. Jeep says that both a hybrid model and hands-free driving will be available eventually. The 2022 Grand Wagoneer will arrive this summer starting at $88,995.
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