Chevrolet Announces $30,000 Electric Equinox at CES 2022

General Motors CEO Mary Barra made a slew of product announcements during CES 2022, with the biggest being an update on the Silverado EV. However, Chevrolet will need to fill out its ranks if it’s to become a totally electrified brand as planned, resulting in the confirmation of electric variants of the Equinox and Blazer.

With modestly sized crossovers and SUVs still gaining ground in North America, Barra believes it makes good sense to electrify a couple in the assumption that the segment will have a larger pool of customers to draw from. But there’s precious little detail about either model, minus GM’s promise to launch both models by 2023 and sell the Equinox EV for around $30,000.

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Ford Repurchasing $5 Billion in Debt, Tapping Into ESG & Green Bonds

Ford Motor Co. has announced a cash tender offer to repurchase up to $5 billion of the company’s high-yield debt in the hopes of rebalancing its budget after needing to borrow so much during the back-to-back-to-back production shutdowns incurred since the start of 2020. The automaker is retiring as much of the $8 billion in bonds the company issued at the start the coronavirus pandemic as it can and will be doing the same for some older bonds issued at similarly high rates (over 8 percent annually).

However this will be used to make room for environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) initiatives and establish a “sustainable financing framework” the automaker said would be a first for North America. Ford clearly believes social governance investments will become increasingly routine and is attempting to showcase itself as one of the kinder, more forward thinking, and environmentally responsible multinational industrial concerns. Sort of like a fully armed M1 Abrams tank painted with peace symbols and hippie daises.

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Elon Musk Now Suggesting Tesla Roadster Will Fly With SpaceX Package

When Elon Musk announced Tesla was developing a new Roadster, he promised us the moon. When released, the car is supposed to yield a 0-to-60 time of just 1.9 seconds and possess an all-electric range over 620 miles, thanks to its sizable, 200-kWh battery pack. As if that wasn’t ambitious enough, he spent last week outlining an optional SpaceX package that includes “cold-air thrusters” that might allow the vehicle to fly.

Then he said he was serious.

As you know, flying cars are bullshit. The closest we’ve come after decades of work are road-going airplanes. But Musk asserted over Twitter that some variants of the Roaster would fly or, at the very least, be able to hover. This has to be a joke, right?

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Musk Is Right About the Media, Rocket-powered Roadsters and Tesla Version 9 Edition

Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk is correct in asserting just how poorly the media covers his company. We know that because, after he tweeted that Version 9 of the company’s software would allow the firm to begin enabling “fully self-driving features,” numerous outlets started claiming complete driving autonomy was just around the corner. We hate to be the bearer of bad news, but that isn’t what’s happening.

To be fair, much of the confusion came via headlines suggesting Musk had explicitly promised a fully self-driving vehicle. While that’s not even close to what he did, we understand that it’s a heading too tempting for many to refuse. We’re betting Elon grasps this concept as well, which is why he chose his wording so carefully. Frankly, the CEO probably comprehends the media far better than the media understands his company, and he regularly uses this to his advantage.

While several outlets clarified that Tesla was actually implementing a software update (with unclear ramifications in the body of their text), plenty glossed over that aspect of the story. Instead, they decided to tack on Musk’s earlier promise that the Tesla Roadster would be offered with a SpaceX package — 10 small rocket thrusters to improve the vehicle’s dynamics.

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Faraday Future Puts Out Sizzle Reel, Possibly to Entice Potential Investors

We’re not going to recap all of Faraday Future’s staffing issues, financial hurdles, or uncouth business practices. If you’ve visited this website within the last year, you already know the company has some serious problems to overcome.

Despite these hardships, Faraday remains convinced it’ll resume construction at its stalled factory site in Nevada and someday bring the FF91 to market. However, we haven’t seen much of the EV since the debut of the beta version at CES in January — and it was beginning to look like we never would.

Then, without much fanfare, a video of the electric crossover surfaced on the company’s YouTube page on Monday. The new video shows a decidedly less beta-looking vehicle than Faraday has previewed in the past. That doesn’t mean this is a production car, but it does seem to show what one might look like if FF can weather the storm.

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Dodge's Challenger SRT Demon Is an Infuriatingly Marketed From-the-Factory Dragster

Dodge has been parsing out minor details on the Demon, slowly shaping its identity, for what seems like decades, when it has actually only been about a month. In today’s publicity sprig, Fiat Chrysler indicated that — unlike the Hellcat — the Demon will be strip-focused with a suspension setup specifically designed exclusively for straight-ahead speed.

With Dodge claiming that the Hellcat is the “ultimate do everything muscle car” with an intention “to strike that perfect balance between drag strip brute force, road course competence and street car civility,” I am left wondering just how streetable the Demon could possibly be. Like most purpose-built cars, dragsters are wonderful at doing exactly one thing and absolutely terrible at everything else. For Dodge’s new hype machine, the added forward momentum might come at the expense of hanging a right.

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Faraday Future's Ghost CEO Abandons Company Days Before Key Unveiling

Faraday Future continues to dispense epoch-making levels of hype as the company seemingly implodes. Last week, Faraday’s chief brand and commercial officer and its vice president for product marketing both abandoned the company. This week, they were followed by elusive Chinese overseer and “unofficial” CEO, Ding Lei. Of course, Faraday Future has already spent the last two years without a CEO — much in the same way it has functioned without sufficient capital, a clear business plan, or a tangible product.

Meanwhile, the company’s Twitter feed is excitedly counting down the days until it unveils something at the Consumer Electronics Show — making use of slogans such as, “When electricity could travel further, so could ideas.” At this point, I’m wagering ideas are just about all Faraday has left to offer.

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QOTD: What Is The Biggest Case Of Misplaced Hype For A New Car?

In the now-infamous article on the Scion FR-S and the relentless hype campaign leading up to its launch, I invoked the Chevrolet Camaro as an example of how a new car can be praised as the Second Coming of Christ during its debut, only to have cooler heads prevailed down the line, when the novelty wears off and its flaws become apparent.

Thanks to reader and contributor Jeff Jablansky, I was able to dig up perhaps the most egregious example of this phenomenon.

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Toyobaru Hype: We've Hit Peak Bullshit

As if the absurdly hyperbolic headline “ The day the world changed” wasn’t enough of a tip-off , the hype machine for the Toyobaru twins has officially reached its zenith, with Wheels magazine’s Peter Robinson declaring the Japanese-spec Toyota 86 to be superior to the Porsche Cayman.

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The Scion FR-S And The Problem With Hype

A few weeks ago, I took a Scion FR-S out for a spin. It was an automatic dealer demo, so I decided to withhold judgement until I drove the manual transmission car.

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J.D.Power: EVs Are Hype

In a former life, I had worked a bit with J.D. Power. I knew them intimately. We had our issues. This is one of the few times I wholeheartedly agree with them. “Future global market demand for hybrid and battery electric vehicles may be over-hyped” is the conclusion of a new J.D.Power study, titled “Drive Green 2020: More Hope than Reality.”

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