Author: News Room
The powersports industry is going through it right now. First, it was KTM teetering on the edge of bankruptcy in early December, and now, Arctic Cat is feeling the hurt. The manufacturer’s parent company Textron is “exploring strategic alternatives” for its future in the recreational off-road space according to a letter sent to dealers Wednesday. More tangibly, once planned production is completed in the first half of 2025, Arctic Cat will suspend manufacturing at two U.S. plants indefinitely. The dealer letter making rounds online identifies the Thief River Falls and St. Cloud, Minnesota, facilities as destined for shutdown. It also…
Porsche is having a hard time translating the 718 Boxster and Cayman formula to an electric platform, a report from the German Automotive News (sub req’d) sister publication Automobilwoche suggests. And if the issues don’t get worked out soon, Porsche may have to delay its introduction. While the report offers little in the way of detail, the issue stems from the 718’s fundamentally defining characteristic: its mid-mounted internal combustion engine. Replicating that spirit in an EV has forced Porsche’s engineers back to the drawing board on more than one occasion, the report says, and each return trip has resulted in…
Manual gearboxes are pretty simple. I remember my high school physics teacher diagramming one on the chalkboard: power goes in on one shaft, goes through a couple of wheelie-looking things, and boom, comes out on another. Easy-peasy. Things get a little murkier with an automatic. There’s still power going in via a big metal stick, but it must first navigate a marble maze to find the proper exit before getting strained through a magical garbage disposal that somehow turns it all back to power going through a shaft again. Wee, science! CVTs sort of split the difference. A typical automotive…
Many of the pictures Dodge published to promote the now-departed Challenger showed the big coupe surrounded by the smoke of its own rear tires. Its replacement, the Charger, is available with electric and piston power, but the EV mysteriously lacks the ability to rip a big ol’ burnout. The burnout, an ode to V8 mayhem and rear-wheel-drive mischief, is inextricably linked to the muscle car. So when Dodge announced “the world’s first and only electric muscle car,” enthusiasts assumed it would be capable of roasting its rear tires. All-wheel drive isn’t a deal-breaker: Dodge assigned a motor to each axle,…
Starting on September 1, 2027, every new car and light truck sold in the United States will feature an additional chime by law. The Department of Transportation announced on Monday that rear seatbelt reminder systems, which have been mandatory in Europe since 2019, will be required in our market, too. The late-2027 timeline suggests that carmakers have until the 2028 model year to comply with the new regulation, though it wouldn’t surprise us if some companies roll out this feature across their range well before the deadline. While the industry has a proven track record of resisting change, adding a…
Market debut of new platform set to also underpin Q6 Sportback, A6 sedan Audi SQ6 E-Tron does 0-60 mph in 4.1 seconds, from 509-hp dual-motor system Gets an EPA-rated 275 miles in SQ6 E-Tron, up to 321 miles for base Q6 E-Tron Audi has always leaned into performance. Its vehicles have always been at their best with the magic that a little bit of extra tuning from Ingolstadt can bring out. And so I found it immensely reassuring when, after a drive in a Q6 E-Tron quattro that offered up some impressive range and charging numbers of its own, I…
Armada Pro-4X comes with an air suspension, a locking rear differential, skid plates, and all-terrain tires That gear might not be enough get the full-size SUV through the muckiest Midwestern mud The twin-turbo V-6 that replaces the V-8 is a solid engine The mud could swallow the boot off of your foot. Two days of cold winter rain turned the shallows of a hilly forest into a bog. Add in a floor of decomposing oak and maple leaves and there was more grip to be had up the trees than on the ground. Deep in the woods outside of Nissan…
Scientists at the SLAC-Stanford Battery Center have released results of a new study which suggests current tests for EV battery range and degradation are all wrong. Although not really a huge surprise since, well, BEVs and ICEs are different species, one notable remark of the study, which was published in Nature, shines a light on the importance and influence of pedal pushing. “We’ve not been testing EV batteries the right way,” Simona Onori, an associate professor and one of three lead authors of the study, told the Stanford Report. Batteries are tested not unlike engines. In labs, life cycles are…
The 2026 Mercedes CLA EV gets 2-speed gearbox It also sports a one-pedal drive mode Set to debut in 2025, the CLA EV has no price yet In the middle of a swirl of blowing snow in the Austrian Alps, I grabbed the door handle of the CLA EV prototype. It clicked and felt solid in my hand. Instant positive impression secured. As I slid into the camo-covered 2026 Mercedes-Benz CLA EV prototype I met my handlers for the next 40 minutes: Timo Stegmaier, senior manager of electric drive systems for Mercedes, and Tom Steller, a spokesperson for the automaker.…
The incoming Trump administration may move to eliminate a provision that requires automakers to report crashes involving their self-driving cars. This will be one of several components of the transition team’s 100-day strategy for automotive policy, Reuters reported Friday, citing a document the news agency had seen. The administration is said to be eliminating the requirement as part of an effort to trim what it calls “excessive” data collection. But excessive for whom, exactly? If you’ve been off-planet for the past month, you may not be aware that Tesla CEO Elon Musk is (yet again) a member of President-Elect Donald…