Autos

If you have been counting the years until the U.S. gets the Volkswagen ID Buzz, the all-new, fully electric microbus redux, sit down and fret because your wait has gotten longer. The U.S. was supposed to get the ID Buzz next year, but the bus’s launch is being delayed until 2023. The update came from Scott Keogh, CEO of Volkswagen of America, during a panel discussion as part of an Automotive News panel discussion in conjunction with CES 2021. See all 33 photos The modern take on the retro hippie-era van will be built in Hanover, Germany, for export globally. The plant is being retooled for production next year of the low-volume lifestyle vehicle. But the microbus must share capacity with a small electric commercial cargo van for Europe and that has been deemed a priority. (With...

Smile, you’re on candid camera when you’re in a modern car with sophisticated driver-assist systems. And in the near future, those cameras will be joined by lidar VCSEL and radar sensors, as well. Yes, the same gadgets that vehicles must use to perceive the environment sufficiently to drive themselves will soon be keeping tabs on you and your passengers inside, too. Ah, progress …   See all 13 photos GazeSense Lidar VCSEL Driver Monitoring You may have seen those unflattering black-and-white images showing how a computer “sees” you when it’s trying to figure out what you’re looking at. Most of these are shot with infrared cameras, but Switzerland-based Eyeware has teamed up with Belgium-based semiconductor supplier Melexis to develop the GazeSe...

A Shelby Cobra is a Shelby Cobra is a Shelby Cobra—except when it isn’t. Shelby managed to complete just over 1,000 original Cobras between 1961 and 1968; add another zero and triple, maybe quadruple, that to account for all the Cobra replicas shaking windows and terrorizing tire shops around the world. Carroll Shelby’s drawn-out fight with RepliCobra peddlers was perhaps his toughest and highest-profile battle since he brought the fight to Ferrari at Le Mans back in the mid-1960s. Finally, after numerous lawsuits and chest-high columns of cease-and-desist letters, Shelby acquiesced and reached an agreement with a dossier of manufacturers including Superformance, Factory 5, Kirkham Motorsports, and even AC Cars, who held the rights to the AC Ace and AC Cobra shape to begin...

There will be repercussions. Stellantis will start life with seven FCA brands and another four from PSA. That seems unmanageable. Every merger creates duplication and results in the death of products, brands, positions, plants, and plans. PSA Group CEO Carlos Tavares, who becomes CEO of Stellantis, has a history of turning brands and companies around with tough cost targets and the discipline to axe where necessary. See all 5 photos Fate of FCA Brands On the FCA side, Jeep and Ram are the profitable powerhouses and, quite frankly, the reason the automaker was an attractive dance partner in the first place. Jeep will only grow in stature with a greater international presence. Ram will remain mostly centered on the North American market but could increase its market reach, especially with co...

Two companies that are both defined by the relentless pursuit to do away with any and all unnecessary weight in their sports cars will soon be working together with nickel, cobalt, and lithium and taking a shot at electrification. That’s right, Lotus and Alpine are collaborating on an electric sports car, and believe it or not, this is great news for the EV world. At the moment, one of the main problems with electric vehicles is they weigh significantly more than their internal combustion engine counterparts. Lotus and Alpine, both experts in lightweight sports cars of old, could very well change that calculus. You see, power and torque can make up for extra vehicle heft in a straight line, but in every other performance aspect—so, turning and braking—weight can be a real d...

Sure, you could always buy a prefab skateboard from Element or Zero, but the cool kids pick their ideal size deck and then select custom trucks and wheels to suit. Tel-Aviv-based REE Automotive reckons it should be just as easy to build your electric mobility as a service (MaaS) shuttle or delivery van. At CES 2021, the company showed off its electric skateboard chassis concept comprised of its patented REEboards and REEcorners. See all 13 photos REEboards—Backbone of the Electric Skateboard Chassis REEboards are way larger but only slightly more complicated than the bent plywood of an analog skateboard. In addition to providing the structural basis for the finished vehicle, the board houses a battery sized for its intended duty cycle, along with most power electronics and the wiring neede...

See all 4 photos We drove it around the block and were impressed with its tight feel and ride quality. The throttle-body-injected (TBI) 454 definitely makes more torque and accelerates with more aplomb than Project Jake, the in-house, small-block-powered OBS (old body style) 1993 GMC C1500 from our sister publication HOT ROD. Still, an 8:1 compression big-block with peanut-port cylinder heads, a tiny cam, and hard-to-tune, airflow-limited induction and fuel-delivery systems doesn’t compare very favorably with even the standard engines in today’s pickups. Say what you will about taking out the big-block in a 454 SS and replacing it with an LS or (in this case) LT engine, it’s hard to argue with the logic. Lucky told us he and Dax discussed several options on how to build t...

We’ve seen Kia’s new logo, and now we’ve learned a more about the brand’s future plans, including seven all-electric models and three battery-powered concepts by 2027. Kia’s intent is to stake out a leading position in the EV market, and it teased five of those future production models in silhouette. The models will be known as EV1 through EV9, part of a model-name reorganization we’ll touch on in a bit. We don’t know which models get which numbers, so we’ll use Kia’s own descriptions (and please don’t accuse of egregious use of marketing-speak; we’re just parroting here). First up is what Kia calls “a powerful and dynamic crossover”: See all 11 photos A “fun and practical commuter”: See all 11 photos...

Rarely do mid-cycle updates of existing models accomplish so much change as Honda’s 2021 refresh for the Ridgeline midsize pickup. The only unibody, car-based pickup truck on the market, the Ridgeline has long delivered admirable handling, ride comfort, and clever packaging thanks to its lack of a cumbersome separate frame. Thing is, while it’s among the best midsize trucks you can buy, the pre-update Ridgeline resembled a Honda minivan with a pickup bed grafted on. For 2021, the Ridgeline finally adopts tougher, truckier styling. And, as if Honda is trying to drive the point home that it wants customers to take the pickup more seriously, it’s abandoning the Ridgeline’s standard front-wheel-drive configuration. By making all-wheel drive standard across the Ridgeline...

While much of the emphasis at CES 2021 was focused on autonomy (and related sensors), artificial intelligence, and bigger-picture tech, there were still plenty of little gizmos on virtual display promising a brighter driving tomorrow. Gadgets that solve little problems, like why your phone sometimes doesn’t juice up properly in a Qi wireless charger, and how a WiFi camera can help you monitor precious trailer cargo or reverse a long rig into a tight spot, and even how to pay for gas or parking remotely. Here are five hot gizmos from this year’s non-show. See all 6 photos Sweet-Spot Qi Wireless Charger Ever notice how sometimes when you toss your phone onto your car’s Qi wireless charger, it doesn’t always start charging (or maybe it gets hot but charges slowly)? Tha...

ZL1, COPO, L88, SS, RS, Z/28, Z06—without context, Chevy’s mid-century order codes are about as evocative as reading the back of a once-a-day vitamin bottle. Unsurprisingly, the docket of Mecum Auction’s upcoming sale of Rick Treworgy’s sprawling Muscle Car City is loaded to the air cleaners with these alphanumeric codes, and while it’s tempting to fixate on the incredible COPO Camaros and SS variants filling up the show floor of the former grocery store, we can’t tear our eyes from the rare and semi-obscure 1965 Chevrolet Chevelle Z16 that’s up for grabs. See all 7 photos As demand for high-performance muscle car variants rose in the mid-1960s, Chevrolet realized the relatively staid Chevelle was at risk of falling behind its contemporaries as the big-b...