#FutureModels

As Hyundai, following a years-long deliberation process, prepares to put the Santa Cruz into production in Alabama, spy photos have emerged of a prototype undergoing cold-weather testing.

Maybe it was just playing in the snow. Regardless, the camouflaged vehicle is our best look yet at the brand’s long-awaited personal pickup.

General Motors, like every other automaker, is busy working on its electric future. The most exciting EV model yet to emerge from The General will fall under the GMC nameplate. It’ll be a pickup. And it’ll be badged as a Hummer. A 1,000 horsepower Hummer.

The automaker plans to tease the GMC Hummer EV during this year’s Super Bowl with a series of commercials touting the truck’s performance. Each of the commercials is silent, highlighting the fact that the new truck won’t make the traditional noises a performance vehicle does.

In addition to the model’s 1,000 horsepower, GMC claims the Hummer EV will make 11,500 lb-ft of torque. That should be good for a 0-60 mph time of around 3 seconds.

Given that Nissan finds itself in dire financial straits, an updated utility vehicle line seems like the best way to boost sales and revenue. Having already finished revamping the bulk of its passenger car lineup and its Titan and Titan XD full-size trucks, the automaker’s attention is now turning to its CUVs.

A report out of Britain casts some light on a seldom-mentioned Nissan crossover while also calling into question changes planned for another model.

Alright, stop yer squawking. Different people see different things in a vehicle’s styling and it all amounts to a pile of nothing, but it’s hard to look at these leaked shots of the 2021 Kia Sorento and not think about the folks in Dearborn.

The upscale, off-road-minded version of the refreshed GMC Canyon can’t hold a candle to the midsize excess offered by the Toyota Tacoma TRD Pro, or even the ZR2 Bison variant of its Chevrolet Colorado twin, but General Motors’ truck division seems intent on giving customers a way to further boost their truck cred.

A package will reportedly offer a roster of things the stock Canyon AT4 leaves off.

With just days left before the last Cadillac CT6 and Chevrolet Impala sedans roll off the assembly line at General Motors’ Detroit-Hamtramck plant, the automaker has put up funding for the facility’s future.

For the once endangered plant, it will be a future free of gas-powered cars and trucks. Instead, the sprawling facility will be home to a range of electric SUVs and trucks, one of them bearing the Hummer name, and a rolling box with no driver.

Whether you or I like it or want it, the industry is changing — pivoting towards things that cause many readers’ blood to run cold and their soul to wither and die. Futuristic things like electrification and mobility and autonomous driving. Soulless things, to some.

For most — if not all — industry players, this pivot is Plan B (Plan A being the traditional selling of internal combustion automobiles to customers who walk into dealerships). For Kia, it falls under the official title of Plan S. This week, the automaker dived into what it means for loyal customers.

A new Jaguar flagship is on the way, and the latest evidence of this shadowy cat is a series of spy photos snapped of a camo-clad sedan sitting atop a trailer. While the sedan itself is quite familiar, what’s underneath seems all-new.

Certainly, old-timey Jag aficionados won’t recognize what’s under the hood when the new range-topper arrives.

A near-future of rapidly rising sales is a vision Genesis brand chief William Lee wants to see come true. It has to, if Hyundai’s premium marque wants to stick around.

With its American dealer strategy now up and running and the public debut of the brand’s first crossover vehicle just days away, Lee claims he’s confident great things lie ahead. Is it bad luck for a fledgling marque to issue sales predictions? If it is, Lee isn’t aware.

The much-rumored return of Hummer to the General Motors fold is apparently a go.

According to sources who spoke to The Wall Street Journal, GM has purchased hyper-expensive ad time during next month’s Super Bowl game, during which it plans to reveal its intent to resurrect the name of once loved (and equally derided) brand. It won’t be a brand, however.

The dawn of a new decade brings a new chapter for the fledgling Genesis brand.

After four years spent slowly growing its lineup to three sedans and crafting a standalone dealer network aimed at instilling some prestige to the brand, Hyundai’s premium division will greet its long-awaited GV80 crossover on January 16th. About time.

The mighty Jeep brand is hitting the Consumer Electronics Show next week, and it’s got a new badge in tow. No, Jeep isn’t messing with its namesake script; rather, there’s a new signifier on the way.

As it prepares to tout a trio of upcoming plug-in hybrids at the Las Vegas trade show, Jeep’s electrification effort will see the “4xe” badge filter through the lineup in the coming years.

A fairly stylish electric concept car revealed this past year by Kia will become a reality in 2021, the automaker’s European chief operating officer claims. The Kia Imagine, a high-riding, fastback C-segment offering, will be put into production on a dedicated platform not only because the company feels it’s a potentially successful vehicle, but because it has little choice in the matter.

Come 2020, the European Union plan to level punitive fines on any automaker caught breaking its increasingly stringent fleetwide emissions standards. It’s a case of go electric, or pay up.

Toyota has hinted in the past that perhaps fielding one vehicle per segment is foolish, old-timey thinking. At the same time, automakers have fallen in love with the idea of splitting segments, shoehorning tweener models into any narrow wedge of daylight that appears in their already crowded lineups. General Motors is especially preoccupied with this.

It’s against this backdrop that a new U.S. trademark application filed by Toyota emerges, and the name provided only bolsters speculation that the company’s light truck stable is due for a new member.

In the binding merger agreement signed Wednesday, Fiat Chrysler and PSA Group claim platform and technology sharing will account for 40 percent of the combined entity’s annual cost savings.

While the agreement made passing mention of two pieces of PSA architecture — platforms that will one day make up a full two-thirds of the merged company’s volume — nothing more was said of that particular plan. Still, it’s something worth talking about.