#FutureModels

Y’all excited about Bronco? Seems a few of you are, rushing rapturously to the computer every time a Blue Oval patent appears for an innovative removable top. The Bronco is indeed on the way, and with it a wide range of configurations and trims.

Joining it is a model born of a galaxy-brain moment at the Glass House: an Escape that’s not an Escape (but is). Yes, next year is shaping up to be a big one for the automaker, so let’s look at what we know about product timing and what words you’ll see emblazoned on fenders and liftgates/tailgates.

A video sourced from an internal communications platform shows the soon-to-be-revealed Ford electric crossover, presumably named the Mach E.

Well, it actually shows small snippets of a clay model in the process of being sculpted, along with other aspects of the design process, but we do end up with a clear side sketch of the upcoming EV. We also know that the big reveal comes on the eve of the L.A. Auto Show.

The Nissan Ariya Concept seen Wednesday at the Tokyo Motor Show will likely become a reality with little change in outward appearance, but you don’t need a sit-down with a group of Nissan engineers to figure that out. While the company admits an EV crossover is in the cards for the coming year (probably 2021 for the U.S.), the vehicle’s internals remain something of a mystery.

Shedding some light on the vehicle’s underbody bits, the Nissan engineers also opened up on a potentially revolutionary battery technology — as well as a detail that could help hesitant American drivers get behind the wheel of a (mostly) electric vehicle.

A photo supposedly taken on a BMW factory floor and uploaded to BimmerPost appears to show a production-ready passenger car with a face only a mother could love.

It’s no secret that BMW’s signature kidney grille has expanded in recent years, first touching in the middle before heading downward for extra acreage. It’s part of the automaker’s attempt at simple yet bold vehicle design, and it seems to be working. For better or worse, they’re getting noticed. And it will certainly be difficult not to notice this Bimmer’s snout when it rolls into a dealer or driveway near you.

Just over two years ago, a tentative product name discovered deep within Jaguar Land Rover’s internal communications captured the eye — and stimulated the fertile imaginations — of auto journos everywhere. “Road Rover” was a name JLR was using to describe a possible future vehicle; a year later, the automaker moved to trademark the name for safekeeping.

Since then, JLR has grappled with financial pain born of the decline of both diesel propulsion and the sedan bodystyle, choosing to fight market trends by shoring up its Land Rover division with new or updated utility vehicles, returning the Defender nameplate to the top of the line, and cutting build configurations of its Jaguar passenger cars. Parent company Tata Motors wants results, and it wants them in a hurry.

One thing not lost to the automaker’s evolving product strategy is Road Rover. There’s more news on that front.

If the realm of bad — or at least confusing — model naming, no one hits it out of the park quite like Cadillac and Audi. Both automakers, already fond of foisting alphanumeric nameplates on their respective lineups, recently introduced new naming schemes drawn from a model’s individual power output.

Cadillac’s gambit sees a rounded-up three-figure number sourced from a model’s torque figure (in Newton-Meters, amazingly) placed after the model name. Audi, on the other hand, will use double-digit figures pertaining to the range of horsepower output. In other Audi name news, the brand opted to place the “e-tron” label only on fully electric cars, scrapping their use on plug-in hybrids.

And so it became that the new plug-in hybrid A6 does not carry the e-tron name. Instead, people will know it as the Audi A6 55 TFSI e quattro — just not here.

No one predicted this! Scratch that — everyone and their mother predicted this, because to craft a brand’s first electric vehicle as anything other than a family-friendly crossover would seem foolish in today’s market. Sorry, Lexus.

In the lead-up to this week’s Tokyo Motor Show debut, Mazda has given us our best glimpse yet of its new EV.

You read yesterday that the so-called “Mustang-inspired” electric utility vehicle Ford has planned for the coming year will be able to juice up all over the nation. What you didn’t read was that the model, presumably named the Mach E, might be capable of doing a nice brakestand.

That’s because you weren’t supposed to read a detail Ford’s charging partner, Electrify America, placed in its press release, then quickly erased.

As the UAW-GM strike closes out its fifth week, workers now hold the power of determining when it will end. Late Thursday, the UAW National General Motors Council recommended ratification of the tentative agreement forged a day earlier, tossing the ball into the workers’ court.

While the strike continues, some members claim they’ll reject the contract unless GM reopens mothballed assembly plants — an unlikely scenario, given that the suddenly thrifty automaker has already reversed course on the closure of Detroit-Hamtramck. That plant is now tapped for GM’s Ford-fighting electric pickup.

In the Lexus lineup, no vehicle is larger — or older ⁠— than the LX 570, a true luxo barge if there ever was one. Riding atop a platform shared with the Toyota Land Cruiser and Tundra, the current body-on-frame LX 570 appeared in the spring of 2007, going on sale later that year as a 2008 model.

A redesign isn’t expected for another few years, making this model generation longer-lived than most marriages. And yet a clue exists of a new LX to come — one that scraps the LX 570 name for a loftier number.

Mazda’s upcoming electric vehicle sheds its cloaking in Tokyo on October 23rd, becoming the first mass-market EV from the gas-loving brand. While the automaker hasn’t provided much in the way of details on the model’s layout, the fact that it chose a CX-30 crossover as a test mule for the brand’s in-house-developed powertrain suggests a crossover is on the way.

On Tuesday, the automaker afforded viewers a peek inside the upcoming vehicle.

With two decades of hybrid technology development under its belt, Toyota and its premium division, Lexus, plan to spread the electrified goodness to every model in the stable — a goal it’s already made considerable headway towards. And yet, while hybrids will remain the backbone of Toyota’s green fleet, it can no longer avoid keeping its lineup EV-free.

With the unveiling of a new Lexus electric planned for the upcoming Tokyo Motor Show, it now seems that model will be the first of three.

No longer the gaudy marque seen in countless hip hop videos in the early 2000s, Maybach is now joined at the hip to Mercedes-Benz, offering lux-ified variants of the S-Class sedan under the Mercedes-Maybach sub-brand. Soon, that super sedan will have a higher-riding sibling, as even fabulously wealthy people sometimes need venture off the beaten track.

Fact is, those buyers have more choice than ever in choosing a more capable steed. Maserati has the Levante, Bentley has the Bentayga, and Rolls-Royce now has the Cullinan (truly a diamond in the rough). It’s time for a Mercedes-Maybach GLS.

After taking a look around the loftiest of automotive landscapes and reading a few tea leaves, Lamborghini seems close to signing off on a model that won’t have reviewers searching for exhaust note adjectives. There won’t be any use for them.

As European luxury marques — especially those under the Volkswagen Group umbrella — tiptoe tentatively into the EV realm, Lambo is poised to make its next introduction an eco warrior. This, of course, after the recent introduction of the Urus SUV.

Compared to the original BMC Mini from back in the Sixties, the modern Mini launched at the dawn of the 21st century was a portly affair, expanded in all directions to accommodate modern people with modern lives. And, compared to that first “new” Mini, the most recent generation of the three-door hatch looks positively ginormous. Somewhere along the way, Mini became not all that small.

Mini wants to correct the bloat, but only to a degree.