Industry News

The highly anticipated arrival of the Ford Bronco is officially scheduled for July 13, and while we already know that Ford is revealing three models of the Bronco — the two-door, four-door, and the Bronco Sport compact crossover - we didn’t expect the Bronco to be more than just a model within Ford’s SUV lineup.

That’s not the case because “Bronco” will be more than that; it will be its own comprehensive sub-brand under the Ford umbrella, complete with its own unique “Built Wild” tag line. While this comes as surprising news for a lot of people, it’s not that surprising if you think about the heritage of the “Bronco” name as far as Ford is concerned. The Blue Oval’s trying to milk that heritage for what it’s worth, which brings us to where we are now.

FCA announced that Dodge will end production of the Grand Caravan after the 2020 model year. The iconic minivan traces its roots back to 1983 when the Caravan made its debut and started the whole minivan craze in the United States. The Grand Caravan goes into the history books as the best-selling minivan in the U.S., with almost 123,000 units sold in 2019. The decision, which seems a bit weird, comes as Dodge decided to focus on performance models.

BMW is taking a page out of service-based pricing by turning a lot of traditional car options into software services that can be enabled (and disabled) at any point in them.

The German automaker made the announcement in a VR presentation that was streamed live from company headquarters in Germany. BMW tackled a series of digital updates to a lot of its models, but the most significant part of the presentation involved plans to turn a lot of its options into software services that that can be enabled through the new MY BMW app.

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic left a big mark on the automotive industry. Most factories were shutdown for more than a month starting March 2020, but new car sales also dropped due to unemployment generated by temporary layoffs and fears of an upcoming financial crisis.

Sales in the first quarter of 2020 went down due to March being a slow month, but numbers for the second quarter are in and deliveries have gone under rather dramatically. Every big automotive group has reported sales drops of at least 26 percent in the U.S., but some brands have gone under by more than 50 percent.

Lincoln revived the iconic Continental nameplate for the 2017 model year, a full 15 years after it sent it into the history books with the ninth-generation model. The new Continental was supposed to put Lincoln back on track as a solid premium brand against Cadillac, Mercedes-Benz, BMW, and Audi. But things didn’t go as planned despite the new Continental featuring a nicely appointed interior, powerful engines, and even a special-edition model with rear-hinged passenger doors.

Sales dropped from 12,000 units in 2017 to less than 7,000 in 2019, so Ford decided to halt production of the tenth-generation sedan after four years. 2020 is the final year for the Continental in the United States.

There is no dearth of hypercar manufacturers today. While most of the startups take the electric route these days, here’s a rare example that’s developing an ‘ultra car’ based on an internal combustion engine.

Called the ‘Chaos’, it comes from the house of a Greek startup called Spyros Panopoulos Automotive. The company terms it as an ‘ultra car’ and it came under the spotlight a few months back when the company announced that the Chaos will churn out 3,000 horses! This time, it has released pictures of the 3D-printed titanium wheels that the Chaos will ride on. The closest thing to 3D-printed wheels that we’ve heard of are found on the 2021 BAC Mono.

Ford’s iconic pushrod V-8 engine, the Windsor, was discontinued in 2000 after almost 40 years on the market, leaving the Modular engine as the main mill across the entire lineup. From the Mustang to the F-Series trucks, this engine has powered almost every vehicle with a Ford or Lincoln badge since 1990.

The Blue Oval then revived the pushrod engine in 2019 in the form of a 7.3-liter V-8 dubbed Godzilla. Originally offered in the fourth-generation F-250 truck, the mill is now available as a crate engine. And it’s Ford’s long-awaited answer to General Motor’s LS crate engine, also a cam-in-block pushrod design.

Order books for the 2021 Ford Mach-E have finally opened, and it’s being offered with a number of financing options – including an 84-month “deal.” That sounds intriguing, right? After all, that has to make for a much smaller payment than, say, 48 month financing. There’s a big catch, here, though, and it’s almost worthy of being called a scam. That 84-month financing deal, isn’t actually a deal at all, and will end up costing you ridiculous amounts of money.

Jaguar cares about its long and storied past and wants to take care of the people that keep its history on the road. To that end, the British automaker created its very own Classic division that does everything from restoring old models to building, from scratch, legendary ’Continuation’ models such as the Jaguar XKSS.

Another thing the Jaguar Classic division does is provide customers with period-correct parts for their cars and now the list of parts has been enriched by the addition of one of Jag’s truly emblematic powerplants, the 3.8-liter XK engine that’s powered anything from the XK150 to the S-Type.

An article on Business Insider has hit the surface suggesting that when Tesla rolled out the Model S from its Fremont factory back in 2012, it knew about a potential design flaw that could lead to battery packs catching fire.

The author hasn’t provided evidence for the same, but if true, this is a serious issue that could bring Tesla under scrutiny and hurt its credibility to a large extent.

Production of the Bentley Mulsanne has finally ended, closing the chapter on the model’s 11-year run as the British automaker’s flagship model. Over 7,300 units of the Mulsanne were handbuilt at Bentley’s home in Crewe, Cheshire in the U.K., including the final production model, which also happens to be the final example of the limited-run Mulsanne 6.75 Edition by Mulliner. With the Mulsanne now set for retirement, the Flying Spur takes its place atop Bentley’s model hierarchy as the brand’s new flagship model. The Mulsanne occupied that spot for more than a decade, but now that the model is headed for the sunset, it’s high time to clear that spot for the next-in-line Flying Spur. The Mulsanne had a great run, but like all great runs, there’s always a finish line ahead, and the Mulsanne has finally crossed it.

Jaguar launched the XE back in 2015 as a groundbreaking compact to compete with the popular BMW 3 Series, Mercedes-Benz C-Class, and Audi A4. But even though it arrived with state-of-the-art technology and a segment-first aluminum structure, the XE failed to meet expectations. As a result, Jaguar is now looking for a way to replace it with a more appealing vehicle. What’s more, the XF midsize isn’t doing great either, and word has it that Jaguar might merge the slow-selling sedans into a single model.

We’ve seen countless videos where new owners complain about the built quality of their new Tesla cars.

Besides the now-fixed Model 3 braking problems acknowledged by Elon Musk back in 2018, there have been recent reports (mostly captured on video, too) of poorly assembled bits and bobs for the Model 3, Model X, and Model Y.

In this regard, J.D. Power’s 2020 U.S. Initial Quality Study comes to confirm what we already knew.

When Musk announced that the next-gen Roadster will be offered a SpaceX option package that includes rocket thrusters, it took many people by surprise. Although he said that the Roadster pack will “definitely enable it to fly short hops.”, it also meant it will be much faster than the 1.9-second claim. J

Jason Fenske of Engineering Explained worked out the math and concluded that the next-gen Roadster with rocket thrusters will do the sprint in just 1.1 seconds.

Based on this figure, a CGI artist has created a video that depicts what that specific run could look like. Check out the video in the tweet below.