Ford shares best peek yet at Bronco Raptor
Ford Motor Co. is starting to unwrap its newest Raptor.
The automaker late Monday teased photos of the 2022 Bronco Raptor through The Bronco Nation enthusiast website, giving the best look yet at what's expected to be a taller, wider, more powerful off-roader than the base model.
Photos showed the four-door vehicle in light camouflage, featuring the Raptor's trademark black grille stamped with "FORD" in the center.
It is shown with a hardtop roof, much wider fender flares and what appear to be different taillights than the base model.
It's unclear what engine will power the Bronco Raptor, although some have speculated it could be an EcoBoost V-6.
The Raptor is among three new variants that will expand the Bronco family next year.
The automaker plans to introduce an Everglades trim, with a factory-installed winch and snorkel, as well as a hyper-limited, $250,000 Bronco DR model featuring a …
Toyota arm to spend $30 million studying human interactions with mobility, autonomous vehicles
Toyota says it will spend at least $30 million over the next five years, through its Collaborative Safety Research Center, studying how to make future mobility safer for children, the elderly, pedestrians and others inside and outside the vehicle.
"Humans are at the center of Toyota's technology development strategy, so we are designing our new safety research in pursuit of safety for all," Danil Prokhorov, director of Toyota's Future Research Department and the automaker's Collaborative Safety Research Center, said in a written statement. "As part of this, our projects will explore the diversity of safety needs and analyze safe mobility options that accommodate different applications, physical characteristics and levels of accessibility for people and society."
The research being funded will focus on several areas, including helping users and nonusers understand and interact with future mobility technologies. It also will study traffic environments for human d…
2022 Volvo C40 Recharge: Green, stylish and sporty
Volvo's march to an all-electric future is just getting underway, and its newest soldier is the C40 Recharge, the brand's second electric vehicle, but the first designed to be an EV from the ground up.
It also heralds the online-only sales strategy Volvo plans for its expanding EV portfolio.
The 2022 C40 Recharge, a sporty version of the XC40 compact crossover, will start at $59,845, including shipping but before tax credits. The first vehicles are rolling off a Belgium assembly line this fall. As is the case these days with many new vehicles, buyers can preorder the C40 Recharge.
It fills some small white space by blending the ride height of an SUV and crossover with the cargo space of a hatchback, with the trade-offs made for sportier styling.
It is the first Volvo engineered without a conventional grille and introduces a front fascia design that includes headlights with pixel technology.
The C40 is equipp…
Sizing up dealership job applicants: How fast do they message back?
The pandemic accelerated dealerships' use of technology to interact with customers, sell vehicles — and interview employees.
What started by circumstance to avoid in-person meetings at the height of the pandemic last year has evolved into a preference for some dealership hiring managers, who want to evaluate job candidates' ability to navigate the increasingly digital demands of the position they're seeking.
To recruit the best applicants, dealerships need to show that they're as tech-savvy as the candidates they want to interview, Anil Harjani, senior vice president of product and growth for dealership technology recruitment company Hireology, told me. That, he says, has become even more important now that dealerships are competing with companies outside of auto retail for the pool of available workers.
Some dealership managers told me they look for how quickly candidates respond to messages during the hiring process as a proxy for how fast they might r…
Lyft and Motional pick Las Vegas for commercial robotaxi launch in 2023
Driverless tech-maker Motional and U.S. ride-hailing firm Lyft Inc. will launch a fully driverless public ride-hailing service in Las Vegas starting 2023, the companies said on Tuesday.
The driverless vehicles will be provided by Motional, a joint venture between Korean automaker Hyundai Motor Co. and auto supplier Aptiv, and will be based on a Hyundai platform. The vehicles will be deployed in Lyft's ride-sharing network.
The companies had announced last year they would launch a multi-city U.S. robotaxi service in 2023.
While the Lyft-Motional partnership is non-exclusive, the companies have been working together for over three years on a pilot program in Las Vegas.
The service would initially be made available to the wider public in the second half of 2022 for rider feedback, the companies said, before its commercial launch in 2023.
Earlier in September, Motional said it was expanding its footprint in Las Vegas by tripling the size of its…
Lucid Air: Supercar performance, innovative interior
DETROIT — After testing a third new electric vehicle in as many weeks, I am more convinced than ever that EV adoption has the potential to happen much faster than skeptics and analysts believe.
This week I spent about an hour driving the Lucid Air, which is essentially a supercar wrapped in svelte sedan bodywork.
The Air's twin electric motors are rated at 1,111 hp. They propel the car from 0 to 60 mph in 2.5 seconds and on to a top speed of 235 mph on the track. The street version is limited to a top speed of 168 mph.
Launching in Swift mode on a quiet country road north of Detroit reminded me of the opening sequence of one of the "Star Trek" series, when the Enterprise accelerates and the stars get blurry and the spaceship disappears into the horizon. I didn't hit triple-digit speeds, of course, but I stayed on the accelerator long enough to feel the powerful elasticity of the electric powertrain. The rush of being pressed back into the seat upon acc…
DAILY DRIVE PODCAST: November 8, 2021 | Keys to employee satisfaction from a winning dealer group
Brothers Alex and Matthew Casebeer share some of the practices that have made the Capitol Auto Group a 10-time Best Dealerships To Work For honoree.
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Workhorse discloses federal probes related to failed Postal contract bid
Ohio van producer Workhorse Group said on Monday it was being investigated by the U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission related to trading in the company's securities leading up to the award of a U.S. Postal Service contract.
While Workhorse was orally informed of the Justice Department investigation on Nov. 5, the company had received SEC's letters in mid-October and earlier this month seeking information related to the issue.
The SEC investigation was first reported by The Wall Street Journal in September.
Workhorse disclosed the investigations in a regulatory filing, adding that it has not received any subpoena or request for documents from the Justice Department.
In June, Workhorse had challenged a decision by the U.S. Postal Service earlier this year to award a multibillion-dollar, 10-year contract to Oshkosh Defense to manufacture a new generation of postal delivery vehicles.
The company is also am…