Luxury Cars
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Ford's premium brand, Lincoln, has started to take on a new confidence, with far more luxurious vehicles and high-end trim levels and vehicles that are more than just restyled mass-market products. On Wednesday, it will draw back the veil from one of the several new SUVs that it hopes will power its growth not only in North America but more importantly, in China. That country may be the driving force behind the entirely rethought Lincoln, a brand that sold a mere 111,000 vehicles last year in a U.S. market of 17.5 million. DON'T MISS: Ford to electrify most SUVs, promises to pass Toyota in...
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Tesla sales: how much do rebates matter to buyers in Canada?The government of Ontario amended its plug-in electric vehicle incentive program in March, eliminating incentives for vehicles with a recommended price of $75,000 or more. What effect will this have on demand for Tesla’s Model S and X? Two years ago, this site analyzed the impacts on...
Matthew Klippenstein -
2019 Lexus UX small SUV emerges in US trim, hybrid included, at NY auto showAfter a gestation period of 18 months, the 2019 Lexus UX small crossover utility vehicle is emerging in its U.S. form at this week's New York auto show. One full size smaller than the Lexus RX that launched the luxury crossover segment 20 years ago, the UX gives Toyota's luxury brand an entry in...
John Voelcker -
Porsche execs on 2020 Mission E, more electric cars to followAuto 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 -
2018 Tesla Model 3 Long Range: first drive review of 310-mile electric car“The Tesla Model S was a moment. The Model 3 is a product.” That pair of sentences perfectly summarized the several hours we spent last month with the 2018 Tesla Model 3 kindly loaned to us by reader Jeff Southern of Atlanta. We’d covered more than 100 miles on a variety of...
John Voelcker -
Audi e-tron GT electric "super sedan" to challenge Tesla Model SFirst came the Tesla Model S, followed by the Model X. Then Audi, Jaguar, and Mercedes-Benz rolled out their plans for single long-range electric luxury models to compete with Tesla. Now, the Germans are teasing their plans for further electric cars aimed at Tesla, with the Audi Sport e-tron GT the...
John Voelcker -
Lots of automakers wish they could get a bite of Tesla’s business. Ford first said more than a year ago that it would launch a long-range battery-electric vehicle, describing it as an SUV with 300 miles of range. But the company is late to the game. Longer-range compact hatchbacks from established players like Chevrolet and Nissan are already in showrooms. DON'T MISS: Ford to electrify most SUVs, promises to pass Toyota in hybrids Though critics and auto-industry analysts may harp about Tesla's lack of profitability and slow production, all recall that when the Model S was launched, it...
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Tesla employees say Model 3 parts need substantial rework after productionElectric-car maker Tesla is known for troubled launches, at least for the four products it's offered since the first Roadster in 2008. But the launch of the Tesla Model 3, its lower-priced electric sedan, may be the most challenging yet—and it may be the Tesla with the highest expectations...
John Voelcker -
Electric car sales in Germany finally start to soar: Tesla leadsIt's starting to look like China will lead the world in adoption of plug-in electric cars, but which carmaking nations will follow it? While electric cars were launched simultaneously in Japan and the United States, Europe lagged somewhat behind. Now, however, Germany—home to the largest...
John Voelcker -
Tesla Model 3 quality is terrible, but will it matter to buyers?So we've finally had the chance to spend time with a 2018 Tesla Model 3, courtesy of a generous and devoted Green Car Reports reader. We'll have our first-drive report and a full review of the car within a day or two—but that's not what this article is about. The build quality of the early...
John Voelcker -
2018 BMW i3s first drive review: sportier and nearly as efficientBMW's Test Fest in Palm Springs, California, at The Thermal Club attracts a broad range of cars. The star of the show is the 600-horsepower 2018 BMW M5. But before I can test that wild sport sedan on the track, I’ll do my best to balance my carbon footprint in the new 2018 BMW i3s. BMW has...
Kirk Bell -
Audi e-tron electric SUV appears in camouflage at Geneva show, on city roadsThe 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 -
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 fall. The price will start at $70,495, including a mandatory $995 delivery fee. DON'T MISS: 2019 Jaguar I-Pace electric debuts in production trim; estimated 240-mile range That puts the I-Pace into Tesla territory, although the British utility vehicle has only two rows and five seats against the...
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Aston Martin Lagonda Vision Concept shows electric car future for luxury sedanThe 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 -
Porsche Mission E Cross Turismo concept: second electric model previewedA design study for the second version of the Porsche Mission E electric sport sedan broke cover Tuesday at the Geneva auto show. The closely guarded concept car is effectively a shooting brake version of the low-slung Mission E sedan that debuted at the 2015 Frankfurt show and will go on sale by...
John Voelcker -
Jaguar I-Pace beats Tesla Model X in electric car drag-race videoThe 2019 Jaguar I-Pace SUV that debuted Thursday beat all the German luxury makes to the punch in launching a viable competitor to the looks and capabilities of electric cars offered by Tesla. The 14-year-old Silicon Valley startup has attracted huge attention for the stunning acceleration of its...
John Voelcker -
2019 Jaguar I-Pace electric crossover debuts in production trim; estimated 240-mile rangeTotal 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...
John Voelcker -
Lexus lowers hybrid prices to reduce premium over gasoline substantiallyGas is cheap in the U.S. and has been for years. Hybrids are no longer a cutting-edge or cool technology; they're just another powertrain. The result is that hybrids have been quietly ebbing as a proportion of total vehicle sales. DON'T MISS: 2018 Lexus RX 450hL hybrid three-row SUV priced from...
John Voelcker -
Today, most people charge their electric cars at home, overnight. That's much harder for residents of multiple dwellings or those without dedicated off-street parking, increasing numbers of whom instead recharge during the day while parked at their workplace. Now Tesla plans to make it easier for owners of its cars—and only them—to charge at work. DON'T MISS: Why Electric-Car Charging At Work Matters: Explaining The 'Duck Curve' (Apr 2014) Workplace charging gets less attention than home charging and the need for DC fast charging along highways for longer road trips, but it's a...
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Porsche kills off its diesels, because customers no longer want themOf the three brands caught up in the Volkswagen diesel emission scandal in the U.S., Porsche was by far the least affected. It had sold only one diesel model, a version of its Cayenne performance SUV fitted with a 3.0-liter turbodiesel developed by its VW Group sibling Audi. Regulators approved...
John Voelcker -
Will Tesla Model S be a "collector car"? Tuckers are, but Kaisers aren't: why?Startup carmaker Tesla is just coming up on the 10th anniversary of its first delivery, the first of the 2,500 Roadster two-seat electric sports cars that launched it into world awareness. The company recently delivered its 300,000th car, putting it well ahead of all but one other startup carmaker...
John Voelcker -
Tesla now makes almost 1,000 Model 3s a week, Bloomberg tracker estimatesProduction numbers for Tesla electric cars have always been slightly murky. The company announces deliveries only quarterly and refuses to break them down by country, meaning there are no sales figures that directly compare with those routinely issued by other makers. The Tesla Model 3 has endured...
John Voelcker -
Faraday Future promised $1.5 billion, says FF 91 will arrive by end of this yearStarting a car company is not only very, very hard—as Tesla, Fisker, and many others testify—but requires breathtaking sums of money. Now struggling Faraday Future, the electric-car startup firm whose entrepreneurial Chinese backer is facing legal action in his home country, appears to...
John Voelcker -
Self-driving Tesla to make LA to NYC trip this year, Musk says, without lidarIn June 2013, Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced he would drive a Tesla Model S electric car across the U.S. to show off the company's new Supercharger fast-charging network. Indeed, two Tesla Model S sedans successfully completed the run from Los Angeles to New York City in February 2014. Last year...
John Voelcker