Tag Archives: Reports

post

Florida Could Suspend Carvana’s Dealer License For Not Submitting Title Applications

Posted on by

Florida could suspend Carvana’s dealer license after it has failed to transfer the titles of some vehicles sold.

Carvana was reportedly notified of the issues in an email sent by Florida authorities last week. This email is said to have included a spreadsheet that showed 300 Carvana vehicle sales dating back to 2019 that had not had their titles transferred. More than 100 of these vehicle sales occurred in Florida.

Read Also: Carvana Banned From Selling Used Cars In North Carolina Area Until 2022

State law in Florida requires retailers to apply for a title within 30 days of completing a sale. Speaking with Auto News, a spokesperson for the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles said Carvana has until January 31 to submit title applications for all the vehicles it sold in 2021 before December 1.

“The department has been proactively working with Carvana to identify and assist Florida customers who have not received their title in a timely manner, and in accordance with state law,” the spokesperson added. “Florida law allows for the suspension of the dealer’s license if they fail to apply for a transfer of title in a timely manner.”

This isn’t the first time Carvana has been scrutinized for not delivering titles in time. Earlier this year it settled with Florida regulators and agreed to pay $500 each to 12 customers who had to wait three to eight months to receive titles on vehicles they purchased. In August, Carvana had its dealer license suspended for 180 days in Wake County, North Carolina for not producing titles fast enough, among other issues.

Carvana sold 244,111 vehicles in the U.S. last year, making it the country’s second-largest retailer of used vehicles. A spokeswoman from the company says Carvana has applied for around 23,500 titles in Florida over the past 12 months.

For GREAT deals on a new or used Chevy truck check out Sierra Truck Center TODAY!

post

BMW M Rumored To Be Readying Special M4 For 50th Ann. With Manual Gearbox

Posted on by

Next year is gearing up to be a special one for BMW’s M division. BMW M GmbH will mark its 50th anniversary in May, 2022, and new rumors suggest that there’s a special, limited production M4 on the horizon.

The lead comes from an alleged BMW insider on g80.bimmerpost. The user, who apparently has a good track record for new car info, suggests that the unnamed M4 special will be “configured like the CSL, but with a manual transmission.”

The forum member goes on to say that several options will be deleted, including comfort access, parking sensors, and electric seats. The absence of such would result in an M4 that’s even lighter than the already lightweight CSL, provided this special model is based on the upcoming CSL in the first place.

Although the production M4 CSL hasn’t yet been revealed to the public, our spies have spotted prototypes undergoing testing. These cars feature revised air intakes and grilles, as well as lightweight wheels, a more prominent lip spoiler, and a new diffuser.

Read: BMW Teases Next-Generation M4 GT4 Customer Race Car

A BMW M4 CSL prototype caught testing at the Nurburgring

As yet, powertrain details for the CSL have not been confirmed, although there have been reports that BMW may not offer a manual transmission. If that were the case, a limited, manual-equipped take on the CSL could prove to be the holy grail of BMW’s M4 line-up. The source also remarks that the new variant will be only produced for a few months, starting in November 2022, implying that production numbers will be kept low.

We already know that BMW M GmbH has big plans on the horizon for the upcoming year. Their 750hp plug-in hybrid SUV, the XM, is set to be in production before the end of 2022, and from January, customers will be able to order their cars with a roundel that harks back to the Motorsport division’s classic logo. If that weren’t enough, the new BMW M3 Touring would finally fulfill our M wagon dreams, and a series of 50 new M paint finishes will be made available. A special, ultra-limited edition of the M4 could just be the icing on the cake.

For GREAT deals on a new or used Chevrolet check out Express Chevrolet TODAY!

post

Buick Trademarks The Electra Name, Does It Hint At Upcoming Electric Crossover?

Posted on by

Buick’s range in North America comprises exclusively of SUVs including the Envision, Encore and Enclave, but none of them is fully electric. This could change in the near future as the automaker filed a trademark for the Electra name in Canada, a move that could hint at a production version of last years’ fully electric crossover concept bearing the iconic name.

General Motor’s trademark filing from December 20 for the Buick Electra name was posted at the Rivian Owners Forum. Of course, this doesn’t necessarily mean that Buick will use the Electra name on a production vehicle, nor that this will be a fully electric crossover, however both of those assumptions sound plausible given the timing.

See Also: 2023 Cadillac Lyriq Electric SUV Unveiled In Production Form

The pictured Buick Electra concept was unveiled last year in Shangai. The prototype brought back an iconic name used in full-size luxury sedans from 1959 to 1990. Unlike its predecessors, the new Electra adopted a sleek crossover-style silhouette previewing Buick’s future design language.

Like the Cadillac Lyric that was unveiled in production form earlier this year, the Buick Electra concept was based on GM’s Ultium architecture with a fully electric powertrain. In the concept, the dual electric motors produced 583 hp (435 kW / 589 PS), while the Ultium battery allowed a range of more than 410 miles (660 km). The production version could use the Lyriq’s 100 kWh lithium-ion battery pack which is good for a more down-to-earth 300 mile (483 km) electric range.

See Also: Buick Smart Pod Is A Futuristic Luxury Minivan Concept

A Buick Electra SUV could be a competitor for the rumored Chrysler Airflow and the Ford Mustang Mach-E, or move upmarket to rival more premium electric SUV proposals from BMW (iX), Audi (e-tron), and Mercedes-Benz (EQE). In any case, the design of the concept would have to be toned down for production, including a more conventional design for the greenhouse and the doors while retaining elements like the overall crossover shape, the Matrix LED lighting units, and the large-diameter wheels.

Buick hasn’t made any announcements for the future product strategy so we don’t know if and when they are planning to introduce their first fully electric SUV. Outside North America, the automaker is steadily increasing its sales in China, where it is also offering a wide range of sedans, SUVs, and luxury MPVs.

post

Hyundai Expects Flying Urban Taxis To Take Off Before 2030

Posted on by

Hyundai is very optimistic about the future of urban air mobility and has suggested the industry will really take off towards the end of the decade.

There are already a couple of flying cars already on the market but no major automaker has introduced one so far. Among the car manufacturers venturing into the market is Hyundai, although it is developing a vertical take-off and landing flying vehicle, rather than a flying car that can also be driven on the street.

Read More: Hyundai Bringing Autonomous, Electric Flying Vehicles To The Skies In 2028

The South Korean automaker first introduced its S-A1 flying vehicle concept co-developed with Uber back in early 2020. Work on the vehicle is progressing well and Hyundai plans to launch its first commercial flight in 2028.

“There’s some time before we can really get this off the ground,” the chief executive of Hyundai’s European operating, Michael Cole, told The Guardian. “We think that by the latter part of this decade certainly, urban air mobility will offer great opportunity to free up congestion in cities, to help with emissions, whether that’s intra-city mobility in the air or whether it’s even between cities.”

Hyundai is so serious about the future of flying mobility that in November, it formed a new company dubbed Supernal that serves as an evolution of its Urban Air Mobility Division and will be responsible for bringing the S-A1 concept to the market. The VTOL aircraft has been designed for cruising speeds of up to 180 mph (290 km/h) with a cruising altitude of 1,000-2,000 feet (300-600 meters) and will be powered exclusively by electricity.

For GREAT deals on a new or used Chevrolet check out Martin Chevrolet TODAY!

post

Mary Barra Says GM Can Catch Tesla In EV Sales By 2025

Posted on by

General Motors chief executive Mary Barra says the car manufacturer can catch Tesla in U.S. sales of electric vehicles by 2025.

GM intends on launching no less than 30 electric vehicles by 2025 and while recently speaking during CNBC’s Squawk Box, Barra expressed confidence in her belief that the company will establish itself as the EV leader.

Read Also: GM To Install Up To 40,000 New Chargers In The U.S. And Canada

“I am very comfortable, because when people get into these vehicles, they are just wowed,” she said. “So we will be rolling them out and we’re going to just keep working until we have No. 1 market share in EVs.”

Tesla currently dominates the electric vehicle space in the United States. In fact, the automaker accounted for 79 percent of all EVs sold in the U.S. throughout 2020. However, research and forecasting company HIS Markit says Tesla’s U.S. share of EV sales will drop to 56 percent throughout 2021 and fall to approximately 20 percent in 2025.

Speaking with CNBC, LMC Automotive added that sales of EVs, including plug-in hybrids, will account for less than 4 percent of vehicle sales across the country this year. The research firm suggests that EVs will make up 34.2 percent of new U.S. vehicle sales by 2030, with 4.1 percent of those sales being for plug-in hybrids.

A key pillar in GM’s EV expansion goals is their plans to install up to 40,000 Level 2 EV chargers across the United States and Canada as part of a $750 million investment.

For GREAT deals on a new or used Nissan check out O’Neil Nissan TODAY!

post

Battery Maker CATL Planning $5 Billion Recycling Facility

Posted on by

Battery giant Contemporary Amperex Technology Co Ltd (CATL) is looking to establish a $5 billion battery material recycling facility in the Chinese province of Hubei.

The company has confirmed that it will establish a joint venture with Hubei Yihua Chemical Industry Co Ltd and invest up to 32 billion yuan ($4.96 billion) in the construction of the factory. The facility will have a focus on recycling precious earth materials such as cobalt and lithium.

Reuters reports this announcement comes on the back of China setting standards and policies to promote battery recycling across the industry.

Read Also: Ford And BMW To Begin Testing Solid State Battery Cells In 2022

CATL supplies companies such as Tesla, NIO, and Volkswagen with battery cells. In fact, most of the Tesla models produced at its Gigafactory in Shanghai use CATL cells.

The battery giant is continuing to grow its battery cell production capacity and recently announced plans to raise 58.2 billion yuan ($9 billion) through private investments to support its expansion. It is thought that most of it will be used to increase capacity at three of its Chinese factories. CATL wants to ramp up production capacity to 1,200 GWh by 2025. Moreover, Electrek notes that CATL is also investing in new technologies, such as sodium-ion batteries.

Battery recycling is emerging to be an especially vital part of the automotive industry’s push towards electric vehicles. In September, Ford revealed it is partnering with Redwood Materials, the largest lithium-ion battery recycler in the United States. Redwood Materials claims it can recover 95 per cent of elements such as nickel, cobalt, lithium, and copper from old batteries. These materials can then be reused in batteries.

For GREAT deals on a new or used Toyota check out Toyota of Glendora TODAY!

post

Stellantis To Split Two Of Opel’s Biggest German Plants, Unions Fear Closure

Posted on by

Stellantis is considering splitting two of Opel’s German plants, in Russelsheim and Eisenach, as it faces accusations from unions of using chip shortage-related furloughs there to break an agreement it had previously struck with the brand’s workers.

A Stellantis spokesperson told Reuters that the plants, one of which, the one in Russelsheim, is the carmaker’s largest, would no longer be part of Opel Automobile GmbH but would remain linked to Stellantis, saying that talks were underway with unions about the plan.

“The advantages associated with this more efficient and flexible organization should contribute to securing jobs in the long-term,” the spokesperson said.

Read Also: The Chip Shortage Could Cost The Auto Industry $210 Billion This Year

The news comes after unions expressed concerns that Stellantis would shut down the Eisenach plant permanently after announcing a three-month-long temporary shut down, which it blamed on the global chip shortage.

To be sure, the chip shortage has affected plants around the world, but workers accused Stellantis of exploiting Germany’s furlough rules to move production out of the plants. Already, the company has moved production of the Opel Grandland X out of Eisenach to its facility in Sochaux, France.

Although that move is officially temporary, workers fear that it will become permanent. Stellantis is bound by an agreement it struck last year not to lay any workers off at Opel‘s German plants until 2025, but workers worry that it might be using the excuse of the chip shortage to circumvent that agreement. Analysts say that it has an overcapacity problem that could lead to plant shutdowns.

Stellantis, meanwhile, argues that it is simply reacting to the global supply shortage.

“The global automotive industry is in an exceptional situation due to the ongoing pandemic and a global shortage of semiconductors,” the company told Reuters in a statement. “Production in Eisenach is scheduled to start again at the beginning of 2022, provided the supply chain situation allows.”

For GREAT deals on a new or used Chevrolet check out Allen Gwynn Chevrolet TODAY!

post

Ram Teams Up With Wolverine To Create Truck-Inspired Work Boots

Posted on by

Fancy pants supercar manufacturers aren’t the only ones that can partner with apparel-makers to create exclusive footwear. Ram announced that it is working with Wolverine to create a series of boots for skilled workers.

The collaboration will lead to the creation of three pairs of special edition boots inspired by Ram trucks, as well as some socks, too.

The Wolverine x Ram Tradesman Safety Toe is available in two colors (white and tan) and features the Ram logo on the tongue. It costs $229. The Wolverine x Ram Rebel Safety Toe, adds another $10 to the price tag and features signature Rebel Red details and all-day comfort. It’s available in black with red detailing or in red with black and white detailing.

Read Also: Bugatti Teams Up With High-Tech Italian Apparel-Maker UYN

[embedded content]

The Wolverine x Ram Limited 1000 Mile Boot, finally, is handcrafted in America and features Horween leather inspired by the Limited’s ultra-premium interior. As for pricing, at $400 it is the most expensive of the three.

“We are proud to partner with Ram Truck, an industry leading brand, to honor essential workers and the excellent career opportunities the skilled trades offer,” said Tom Kennedy, global brand president for Wolverine Footwear and Apparel. “Since 2017, Wolverine has donated more than $2 million toward supporting the next generation of skilled workers, and we’re excited to be working with another brand who is equally passionate about investing in the future of the American workforce.”

Ready just in time for Labor Day, for every pre-order the boots receive Wolverine and Ram will donate an unspecified amount to SkillsUSA, a non-profit organization that works to support the next generation of skilled tradespeople. Together, the teams also created an ad honoring tradespeople.

“The unrivaled elements of the Ram Truck brand meet the style and timelessness of a classic American boot brand through the launch of our licensing collaboration with Wolverine,” said Marissa Hunter, vice president of marketing – North America for Ram. “The collection seamlessly merges the worlds of automotive and fashion, drawing inspiration from the Ram truck interior while staying true to Wolverine’s staple design elements and unwavering reliability.”

PHOTO GALLERY

more photos…

post

Mercedes Sued In Australia For Allegedly Downplaying Risks Of Takata Airbags

Posted on by

Mercedes is in hot water in Australia as the country’s consumer watchdog, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), has filed a lawsuit against it.

The automaker is accused of having downplayed the risks of driving with defective Takata airbags. The ACCC alleges that Mercedes staff told customers it was “okay” to continue using vehicles that were more than six years old and that the recall was precautionary.

The ACCC asserts that consumers were exposed to potentially serious injury or death as a result of the actions Mercedes is claimed to have taken.

Read Also: South Carolina Driver Killed By Exploding Takata Airbag In Honda Accord

“These alleged representations used language which was inconsistent with the requirements of the compulsory recall notice,” the ACCC said, per Reuters.

Takata airbags are part of the world’s largest recall, affecting 100 million vehicles of numerous brands around the world. The parts were found to be defective and could send deadly shrapnel flying through the cabin.

Mercedes, though, claims that its vehicles only used so-called “Beta” airbags, not the Alpha ones that were associated with the highest risk by the ACCC.

The “recall process overseen by the ACCC did not require affected Mercedes-Benz vehicles to be off the road or owners to cease driving them until the repair was undertaken,” said the company.

The ACCC counters, though, that its recall notice included both the Alpha and the Beta airbags, citing a death in Sydney that was attributed to the lower-risk part.

Daimler, Mercedes’ parent company, says it has replaced 97.7 percent of affected airbags to date and that it has cooperated with the ACCC through its investigation.

 

post

Volvo Bringing Its 48-Volt Mild-Hybrid Tech To 2022 U.S. Models

Posted on by

A plethora of Volvo’s 2022 models will be offered with 48-volt mild-hybrid powertrains in the U.S.

These models will feature B5 and B6 badges and be used by the 2022 S60, S90, XC60 and V90 Cross Country and will replace the non-hybrid T5 and T6 powertrains. Data from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) confirms that the 2022 S60 B5, for example, returns 26 MPG city, 35 MPG highway, and 30 MPG combined, compared to the 23 city, 34 highway, and 27 combined of the outgoing 2021 model.

Read Also: Volvo’s First EV-Only Plant Will Be In America

Volvo already sells its B5 and B6 powertrains in other markets. Both use a 2.0-liter four-cylinder that is turbocharged in B5 guise while the B6 variant is both turbocharged and supercharged. The B6 powertrain will be available as an option on the XC60, Car and Driver reports, and standard in the S90 sedan and V90 Cross Country wagon.

Details for the U.S.-spec models haven’t yet been confirmed, but the B5 model sold in Europe has 247 hp, slightly less than the T5 powertrain with its 250 hp. Similarly, the B6 is rated at 295 hp in Europe compared to the 316 hp of the T6.

For the XC60, fuel consumption data reveals that the B5 model provides a 1 MPG increase over the city cycle compared to the T5. Similarly, the higher-powered B6 is 1 MPG better in the city and 1 MPG more efficient over the combined cycle compared to the 2021 XC60 T6.