-Volkswagen’s upmarket strategy lives on. VW calls this car a “design concept,” but we know that the C Coupe GTE concept, unveiled at the Shanghai auto show, is a thinly disguised upscale “four-door coupe” that will come to market next year. At 199.7 inches long, 76.0 inches wide, and 56.9 inches tall, it will be the largest Volkswagen this side of the Phaeton. And it will be available only in
– If it looks like a Buick Verano, smells like a Buick Verano, and walks like a Buick Verano, is it a Buick Verano? If we’re talking about the Chinese-market Buick Excelle sedan, the answer is probably yes. The current Excelle, the Verano, and the Opel Astra are all siblings under the skin, so the new Excelle GT sedan that debuted at the 2015 Shanghai auto show provides a good
-McLaren took the wraps off the second model in its Sports Series, the 540C (a.k.a. the 540 Club), at the Shanghai auto show this weekend. And the good news is that this most-affordable McLaren will be offered globally, so we should get it in the United States. (At the New York show, McLaren said it would homologate the model but that it would probably be special-order only. We expect that to
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-Ashlee Vance’s upcoming book Elon Musk: Tesla, Space X, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future seems like it could be a fascinating read. – In an excerpt published by Bloomberg Business, we learn that in early 2013, when things were going decidedly not well for Elon Musk’s startup automaker, he arrived at a deal with Larry Page to sell the company to Google for billions, with assurances that the tech giant would
– We admire confidence, especially when it comes to car design. So we tip our hats to Lexus, which has gone all-in with the grille. Controversial though it may be, the brand’s “spindle grille” doesn’t seem to have turned off enough buyers to prevent it from spreading—literally—across all members of the Lexus lineup. Now it has reached the innocuous ES midsize sedan. READ MORE ›› –
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– So either the 2016 Cadillac CT6 is going to get absolutely terrible fuel economy or the plug-in-hybrid version of the same car is going to get outstanding fuel economy. We say this because, while official fuel-economy estimates for the regular CT6 aren’t yet available, Cadillac is claiming that the plug-in-hybrid variant that just debuted at the 2015 Shanghai auto show will “achieve fuel economy more than double that of
– There’s much hemming and hawing in automaker and supplier circles about the future of infotainment. Proof of that is the unending stream of press releases we receive from app developers, OEMs, mobile carriers, aspiring technology consultants, and various conferences all relating to in-cabin technology. But the fact of the matter is, unless it works easily, intuitively, and consistently on the go, it’s next to worthless to you as a
-Mercedes-Benz is calling the Concept GLC Coupe a “near-production standard study,” but you can call it the GLC Coupe with snazzy wheels. Just as Mercedes debuted the fastback “coupe” version of the bigger GLE-class before the square-back SUV model, Mercedes is previewing its GLK-class replacement in a sexier body style before showing us the SUV model. And as with the GLE Coupe, which translated nearly verbatim from concept to production,