TorqueNews Hot Topics (Page 112)

While Tesla and Electrify America sweep themselves across America’s interstates upgrading the supercharger networks, other networks with their superchargers elsewhere, incompatibilities between PHEVs and BEVs that may have been initially overlooked, are starting to become clear: PHEVs are incompatible with superchargers, and while the UK looks to ban them from superchargers, US car makers may already be taking care of the PHEV problem by just outright getting rid of them.

OPINION AND ANALYSIS: Nobody is taking these Russians seriously about the specs and their one year warranty to their recently proposed Russian Mustang BEV, but I tell you one thing: at least they got a spec sheet. They got renders. They got ideas. They even got a warranty for a car they haven’t built yet. They’re eager for publicity and/or to build. I say, where’s the people who invented the damn car to begin with? Do they even know what electricity is beyond a cigarette plug in the dash?

Porsche has recalled 75,000 2017-2018 Panamera models to fix a software glitch that knocks out the power steering. The resulting failure increases the steering effort of the Panamera which might lead to crashes. So far, no crashes have been reported.

For decades Chinese car companies have all tried to enter the US car market to meet some kind of failure. Learning from the lessons of Chinese car companies past, one car maker known as Qiantu Motors (Dragonfly logo, means “freedom”), is teaming up with a California based electric car and energy startup to make its first foray into the US market with a battery electric sports car to take on Tesla’s portfolio. Qiantu starts the competition against the Roadster II, with the 2020 Qiantu K50.

ANALYSIS AND OPINION: Attention military, law enforcement, security, and/or hunters who validly possess a firearm, or anyone else with the gall to carry a firearm illegally: the chances of your battery electric vehicle catching fire from a purposeful or accidental firearms discharge through the battery pack are much greater than if pierced through a gas tank. Read this story now coming to light about a 2014 Tesla S to find out why.

OPINION AND ANALYSIS: Inasmuch as we are fooling ourselves into believing that gasoline new car purchases will be a viable option even in some parts of the world past 2030, we are also fooling ourselves into believing that we’ll be able to drive our present and near future classic cars around twenty plus years from now. This is a tail pipe dream. Well, like Jaguar Land Rover, Aston Martin has also found a solution to anticipate this issue.

OPINION AND ANALYSIS: With VW Group’s accelerated plans to cease gas car production sooner, Bentley needs to ask itself what kind of car company does it want to be? If Aston Martin stuffed battery packs inside the seats and boot spare tire wells and fenders of a Rapide, why there isn’t something similar done inside a Spur or a Mulsanne? Bentley isn’t doing that; they’re running counterculture to their heritage, and risk losing what they worked hard to get after leaving Rolls Royce: not becoming another Cadillac.

“To lease or not to lease… that is the question.” This same question stumped Hamlet, and it’s still puzzling car buyers today. Learn about the benefits of car leasing vs car buying.

OPINION ANALYSIS: Rivian Automotive, the once Clandestine now Maverick Electric Pickup Truck Maker added another BEV to its portfolio, a full sized three rower SUV called R1S. I’m so glad they made it nice and boxy and conservative and all BEV. All they need to do now is stretch that battery tray and back seat room, bespoke it out, make it LWB, send it upmarket past Bentley and Rolls, and let it sit next to Rover SVAutobiography, to let their brand take off, and let the doe roll in.

OPINION ANALYSIS: America’s first plug in hybrid, a segment opening PHEV was put to death recently, the Chevrolet Volt was a cutting edge trailblazing vehicle that bridged the gap between siphoning off gas and waiting for battery technology to improve before pushing on to an all electric car world. So cancelling it seems counterintuitive. It is not. Actually Volt was a great accidental/incidental transition vehicle who’s time came and was way gone.

Traditional and conventional engineering wisdom dictated for years that the purpose of a Mercedes Benz was to enable you to withstand a crash, so that you can survive to buy another Mercedes. Perhaps that conventional thinking now also applies to a Tesla. Five kids driving and riding in a high speed Tesla crash their Model X into a tree and creek. The car was destroyed. Fatalities: 0. The hero: the Tesla.

Unveil Review: Rivian Automotive, the Michigan based startup that for ten years carefully, but secretly planned to find the right vehicle, at the right time, and at the right moment, to launch an all BEV the world hasn’t seen, seemed to find the right recipe to unveil that vehicle NOW, as they launched something that Tesla had expectations of doing first: to launch the first all electric pickup truck in the world. And Rivian did it. Not Ford. Not Tesla. This is a game changer . . .

It was around this time twenty years ago that the now legendary Cadillac Escalade started hauling the ruling class and celebritydom on the streets of the big American cities as if they were elegant stage coaches of the Victorian or Edwardian Eras over 100 years ago. So after reading a story about the disastrous 2009 hybrid I decided to do a flashback ode to the iconic 20th century truck that lives on today.

D Day Reversed! As Tesla prepares for Cheap Model 3 “Production Hell,” the competition takes a Last Stand: Hyundai is ready to unleash a manufacturing fury of a “Production Hell,” with Kona to invade America via the Pacific. While VW and Ford sign a war pact treaty to enact their diabolical anti-Tesla master plan to unleash triple flanking fury coming soon from Dearborn, Chattanooga, and from the North Atlantic shores.

I find it pathetically sad that we are now in year 6 of the electric car revolution and Ford has yet to come out with not one of their own non-compliance full mass production BEV car. Not one. Thank God for startups, because the new British based company called Charge Automotive will make you pay just a little dearly, but you can even have a classic Mustang the way Ford would never have given it to you.

We’re now about a few days away from the launch of Rivian’s new mystery trucks, and instead of debunking myths, conjecture, theories, legends, and rumors, Rivian, purveyor of “electric adventure vehicles” only heightens them and with mystique. This time Rivian publishes a second teaser video showing their truck wading through 3 feet of water with 3 seconds of footage.

SHOCKING!! It seems Cadillac and electricity mix like oil and water. Never mind the gas versions are crap, plagued with electrical problems, they can’t even make reliable ones that partly run on electricity either! While GM’s CEO Mary Barra has a “zero crashes, zero emissions and zero congestion” ten year plan for GM’s future, Cadillac certainly isn’t helping with the failures they’ve had with each electric they tried to sell. CT6 was strike 3. Here’s why and what they can do about it:

Ford contemplates a four-door fastback Mustang being put into production. This comes just months after a massive passenger car cancellation for the USA market starting next year, particularly cancelling a Lincoln that could’ve helped Ford with this project, that ires Ford’s loyal passenger car customers, Ford investors who must be sick and tired of Ford with their shenanigans by now, and me, frankly, because you really don’t want to piss me off about cars!

BMW recently announced in a cost cutting measure that it will move all Mini stores from stand alone brick and mortar locations into BMW house branded retailers. But the reasoning behind the move signifies what’s wrong with the car industry. Mini isn’t selling not just because of crossovermania, but because BMW missed opportunities to electrify the brand earlier that could’ve turned Mini fans and potential EV consumers on sooner to car electrification. Now Americans don't want them at all, or like they used to.

As Tesla Corporation completes its plans to corner the BEV market with a nearly complete vehicle portfolio, VW Group launches Operation Polaris, a plan to beat Tesla at the same game VW invented before Tesla uses that same VW book to saturate it. While Tesla uses VW’s rulebook to reduce the cost of a cheaper Model 3, VW tries to outflank Tesla by throwing that same book back at them to launch production on such a massive D Day scale for their first ID electric car to try to drown out Tesla.

There are two powerful entities on Earth, VW Group and Ford, that are now looking to (ahem) “work more closely together” in areas where they can help each other most. Daimler and FCA, the two divorcées of another kind of Germanic-Americano relationship long ago, are mutual friends of both the Fords and VWs, and they send their regards to wish them both well. I explain why.

In my frustrating effort to keep pushing the movement toward full electric cars, I often get frustrated by the lack of enthusiasm and missed steps the legacy car makers have taken. If they really were enthused and eager to adapt to electric cars, they would have an all electric option for both their halo sports and pony cars. They don’t. Still. With lackluster Camaro sales, Chevy needs a “comeback kid” car. The eCOPO Camaro is it.

While Tesla takes care of the other high end of the electric vehicle market with Models S, 3, X, and soon Y and U, Uniti, the Swedish electric car startup maker is trying to find an angle on the opposite end by soon shortly putting an unorthodox 2 seat high tech and feature rich micro BEV into production. This car will be a hit in the EU, India, and Brazil no doubt, but in NA? Hmm. Well I hope so.

Tesla always seems to have side distractions they can never shake off, mostly originating from their mercurial CEO. But with both record profits and productivity, Tesla mustn’t destroy momentum to seize the moment and not be distracted by FBI investigations or stock fluctuations. They have four upcoming vehicles that will help them corner the electric car market at least for a while, and they need to capitalize on that.

After looking things over closely, Torque News can say that it has been a lousy year for Lambo Huracan Spyders and fires. One of them could be related to an earlier recall, but that is speculation, the others (three that we could count in total) were just bad luck.

Yesterday, Volkswagen introduced its long-anticipated small SUV, the T-Cross, at simultaneous intros in Amsterdam, Shanghai, and Sao Paolo. Aside from being a standard new-car intro, we did learn that it will be sold in every major market, but the U.S. Torque News tells you why.

One of the most frustrating things about owning an electric car is missing the easy dynamic once had by going to a gas station to refuel. As electric cars proliferate and investment money is spent, however, more and newer options, either now or coming on the horizon, will make public charging easier, and in a few cases, even for free.

In a strategy to keep them viable in what definitely will be an intensely competitive pickup truck market with the addition of several electrics by several makers, Bollinger Motors adds a sole purposed dedicated 1 ton Pickup truck based on its SUT it plans to put into production late next year, early 2020.

As the Takata airbag recall, keeps on keeping on, thieves are targeting something new, the airbags themselves. For a frustrated car owner who has been waiting and waiting for a replacement airbag, this type of airbag may be just what the doctor ordered, though, admittedly there are ethical questions.

Once again, the Dieselgate scandal reared its smoking head as VW was hit with another near-billion-euro fine in Germany. Though it is nearly over in the U.S., the emissions scandal is alive, well, and living in Europe where at least three jurisdictions are studying more fines. Plus, VW faces a near-$10 billion euro stockholders suit.