Geneva Motor Show
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Ahead of the Geneva auto show, Volvo’s Polestar electrified performance-car brand has revealed its first all-electric model and first volume-production model, the Polestar 2. The Polestar could prove to be the strongest alternative yet to the Tesla Model 3, with pricing, range, performance, and even the way that you buy it all comparable to the California automaker’s volume model. Described as “a premium five-door fastback,” the Polestar 2 has a bit more tall-crossover influence than the Model 3 and appears to land more in Model Y territory. It’s a surprisingly...
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Honda e Prototype is a production-bound Urban EV for Europe
One of Honda’s best-received concepts of recent memory was the car that it brought to the Frankfurt auto show in 2017—the Urban EV Concept, a model that reincarnated the automaker’s old City hatchback, with elements of retro Civic thrown in, all built as a modern electric car...
Bengt Halvorson -
Volkswagen confirms electric dune buggy concept for Geneva auto show
A VW beach buggy made for blasting over the sand may ride again. Volkswagen confirmed Wednesday that it will show a concept electric dune buggy at the Geneva auto show in March. Rumors circulated in December that the brand was considering such a move. READ MORE: Fun revival: Electric dune buggy...
Eric C. Evarts -
All-electric BMW i4 to be production version of i Vision Dynamics concept
Very few automakers these days build concept cars just for fun, and only occasionally are they pure styling concepts intended to showcase future design language. So when the BMW i Vision Dynamics Concept emerged onto the auto-show circuit last fall, it seemed obvious it previewed a future...
John Voelcker -
Porsche execs on 2020 Mission E, more electric cars to follow
Auto journalists often relish interviews and roundtable sessions with German executives and engineers. They usually haven't been beaten into submission and forced to stick to scripted talking points, as have too many of their U.S. counterparts. Most German auto executives also speak excellent...
John Voelcker -
Mercedes-Benz EQ electric car Geneva debut was...a rebranded Smart car
Unveilings for several key new electric cars were expected during the media days for last week's Geneva auto show. The Jaguar I-Pace made its formal debut, and the Audi e-tron appeared in camouflage as a sort of full-size teaser display. But there had been word from Mercedes-Benz that it would...
John Voelcker -
Remember hatchbacks? Actually, come to think of it ... remember passenger cars? You know, the sedans and wagons and hatchbacks that don't have all-wheel drive and aren't jacked up 6 to 9 inches off the ground? They used to roam this fair land of ours, but lately, they seem to have been routed by crossover utility vehicles and SUVs and trucks of every size, shape, and segment. DON'T MISS: 2016 Scion iM: First Drive Of New Compact Hatchback (Sep 2015) That means that the 2019 Toyota Corolla Hatchback that debuted in Geneva on Tuesday may not make an appearance in the U.S. But maybe it will;...
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Audi e-tron electric SUV appears in camouflage at Geneva show, on city roads
The Geneva auto show was expected to offer the first head-to-head comparison between the first two all-electric SUVs models from European luxury brands, both starting deliveries later this year. It didn't quite work out that way. The 2019 Jaguar I-Pace did indeed debut last Friday, before media...
John Voelcker -
Mixed messages on future of diesel at Geneva auto show
You can smell the diesel exhaust in any city in Europe, sometimes even before you hear the clatter from under the hood of every other passing vehicle. The Volkswagen diesel scandal that broke in September 2015 brought a laser focus to the software used in all diesel engines, and their inability to...
John Voelcker -
2019 Jaguar I-Pace electric crossover priced from $70,495 in U.S.
The 2019 Jaguar I-Pace, the brand's first-ever production electric car, made its debut last Thursday before the Geneva auto show. At that time, only U.K. pricing was given—but on Tuesday, Jaguar released the U.S. price for the electric crossover utility vehicle that goes on sale sometime this...
John Voelcker -
Aston Martin Lagonda Vision Concept shows electric car future for luxury sedan
The storied British brand Lagonda has been owned for half a century by the tiny maker Aston Martin, best known globally for its connection to James Bond, Agent 007. It's had a number of iterations, including a startling low, sleek, square-edged sedan designed by William Towns in the 1970s and a...
John Voelcker -
Volkswagen ID Vizzion concept for all-electric sedan by 2022 debuts in Geneva
What's known as Volkswagen Group Night is always a major event at European auto shows. One of the marquee attractions at Monday night's event, held before Geneva auto show media days start Tuesday, was the Volkswagen ID Vizzion concept for a large, all-electric sedan. It will be the largest car in...
John Voelcker -
Total sales by Jaguar Land Rover are a fraction of those by its rivals Audi, BMW, and Mercedes-Benz. Arguably, that has required the British luxury maker to be more agile and more creative to compete. While Audi has discussed its plans for an all-electric crossover utility version for more than two years now, Jaguar's electric-car plans only broke cover in November 2016. DON'T MISS: 2019 Jaguar I-Pace cold-weather testing video released Yet the 2019 Jaguar I-Pace was unveiled in production form on Thursday, a few days before the 2019 Audi e-tron appears at the Geneva auto show—and far...
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Lexus UX smaller crossover peeks out before Geneva auto show
The global new-vehicle market is moving toward crossover utility vehicles and SUVs, along with vehicles that look like them. Now the production version of another crossover, shown in concept form more than a year ago, will launch at the Geneva auto show—and Lexus has released one photo and a...
John Voelcker -
Hyundai Kona Electric debuts before Geneva show; 292-mile range from top model
The lack of plug-in electric crossover utility vehicles with all-wheel drive is a growing and obvious gap in the market. And where there's a gap, aggressive South Korean carmaker Hyundai may try to fill it. The company has now released many of the details of the Hyundai Kona Electric small SUV that...
John Voelcker -
2019 Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV updates for Europe to debut in Geneva
The Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV has been a huge success in Europe, selling more than 100,000 copies there over several years. As the first and least expensive plug-in hybrid SUV, it received many incentives in different European countries and provided the first taste of plug-in electric driving for...
John Voelcker -
Volkswagen ID Vizzion large all-electric sedan teased before Geneva debut
Volkswagen's first dedicated battery-electric vehicle will roll off the production lines in 21 months, but we won't see the compact hatchback ID model in North America. Instead, the first dedicated VW plug-in electric vehicle will be the production version of the ID Cross compact crossover that's...
John Voelcker -
Geneva auto show green car preview: concepts, electric cars, new models
Media days at the huge and influential Geneva show are March 6 and March 7, and this year it looks like the show will offer a lot of news for plug-in electric car fans. Several significant new production cars powered entirely by batteries are expected to make their debuts. They'll be supplemented...
John Voelcker -
The long, strange, sad saga of the now-defunct Volkswagen Phaeton will likely go down as an asterisk in VW's long history. The pet project of now-departed VW Group chairman Ferdinand Piech, a member of the Porsche family that controls the carmaker, it was a $70,000-and-up luxury sedan from the German makers of the People's Car. It shared underpinnings with not only the Audi A8 but the Bentley Continental GT—and VW even built a new factory just to produce the Phaeton. DON'T MISS: VW says it needs '40 gigafactories' for electric-car batteries by 2025 That factory is now building...
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Hybrid Kinetic electric luxury car, with turbine range extender, to be built in China
Several Chinese or Chinese-backed automotive startups are currently trying to replicate the success of Tesla by designing and selling their own luxury electric cars. But Hybrid Kinetic likely predates most of them. Started by the founder of Chinese automaker Brilliance, the company made headlines...
Stephen Edelstein -
Audi A5 is third model to run on natural gas, for Europe only
New natural-gas passenger cars from major carmakers have disappeared from the U.S. Natural-gas options are available for large pickup trucks and vans but only exist for cars through aftermarket conversions offered by specialty firms. In Europe, though, the German luxury maker Audi remains committed...
Stephen Edelstein -
Hyundai FE Fuel Cell Concept previews hydrogen-powered SUV coming in 2018
The Hyundai Tucson Fuel Cell was actually the first hydrogen fuel-cell vehicle offered to U.S. drivers in recent years. The 2016 Toyota Mirai that followed it has now outsold Hyundai's hydrogen-powered SUV, but it's been known for a couple of years that the Korean maker will replace that model. At...
John Voelcker -
All-electric Bentley convertible concept shown at Geneva
The Volkswagen Group can't seem to get enough luxury electric cars. The Audi e-tron SUV and Porsche Mission E sedan will go into production over the next few years, with an electric version of the VW Phaeton sedan expected as well. Following that up, at the 2017 Geneva Motor Show Volkswagen...
Stephen Edelstein -
Honda: hybrids, plug-ins, fuel cells to be two-thirds of Europe sales by 2025
Honda's green-car strategy for the next decade or so appears to be coming into greater focus. In place of its previous mild hybrids, the Japanese automaker is planning to produce much higher volumes of its two-motor hybrid powertrain, as seen first in the Accord Hybrid mid-size sedan. It also...
Stephen Edelstein