#FutureModels

Steve Carlisle, whose job title was recently upgraded to president of GM’s North American operations, knows you can’t market emissions-free driving on novelty alone. The former Cadillac brand boss offered a hint about the window sticker affixed to the upcoming Cadillac Lyriq electric SUV on Wednesday, citing a need for competitive pricing.

The Lyriq, which this writer can’t seem to spell correctly the first time, is Caddy’s first EV. The first of many, too. Entering production in late 2022 as a 2023 model, the midsize Lyriq’s price won’t be stratospheric, Carlisle claims.

The next time you don your best wool and tweed garb and grab the Holland & Holland for a day of upland game hunting on the moors, you might want to leave the largest of Rolls-Royces in your heated garage. That’s because the next-generation Ghost, the most affordable of Rolls’ cars, will send power to all four wheels.

Retailing for a mere $314,400 (2020 model), the now decade-old Ghost is a suicide-doored alternative to the gauche, look-at-me Phantom, Wraith, and Dawn, to say nothing of the Cullinan SUV. Due for a full revamp this fall, the Ghost stands to gain some of the features modern drivers can’t do without.

Ram has issued a succinct press release on the status of its answer to the Ford Raptor. The 2021 Ram 1500 TRX is now officially set to debut next Monday, ready to dazzle you with the volume of dirt it can kick up when asked.

Sadly, that’s about all we can tell you. Despite the concept (pictured) coming equipped with a healthy 6.2-liter V8 belching out nearly 600 horsepower way back in 2016, everyone and their mother now claims the production TRX will come with a Hellcat motor to ensure Ford is shamed into submission. While that’s hardly the only metric one could use to measure the total value of an off-road pickup, most seem to think it’s a good place to start.

Frankly, who isn’t thinking about size? We could all use some more.

We’re talking about generous passenger and cargo volume, right? Surely. In that area, Jeep suggests it has your future size needs covered.

The recipe stays pretty much the same, though the dish stands to see some new ingredients.

Following years of tepid sales and speculation about the Toyota 86/Subaru BRZ twins’ market viability, word eventually came that neither automaker was willing to cede this niche segment. A successor was a go. Now, physical proof of the upcoming next-generation cars has appeared on social media.

The Lucid Air, an unabashed luxury electric expected to roll out of an Arizona factory early next year, just got the PR boost it needed.

Working with FEV North America at the firm’s Auburn Hills, Michigan test center, Lucid and its partner put the Air to the test, applying standard EPA testing procedures to wring out the vehicle’s maximum driving range. The resulting number was impressive, to say the least.

Maybe established automakers can impress investors with electric promises, after all. Following Hyundai’s announcement that it will turn the Ioniq nameplate into an electric vehicle brand encompassing several models, the company’s stock lit the afterburners, achieving its best share price showing since 2017.

Lofty electric ambitions aren’t a sure-fire way to juice a stock, as Ford has shown year after painful year, but they can achieve results.

Low-end electric cars don’t get a lot of press these days, not with Silicon Valley upstarts and established OEMs rolling out mega-torque, high-zoot green vehicles at a steady clip. Yet the Hyundai Ioniq Electric has provided an alternative to the base Nissan Leaf since 2016, combining a usable-but-not-class-leading driving range with a relatively bargain basement price tag.

Joined by a super-efficient hybrid as well as a plug-in variant, the Ioniq lived in the shadow of competing nameplates its entire life. It’s bound to get more attention now, given that Cadillac Hyundai is turning the model into a brand.

The Cadillac Lyriq’s final production form remains unknown, but the “show car” revealed late Thursday is said to be a fairly close representation of the real thing. That show car is also not far removed from a conceptual rendering released in January 2019, previewing a vehicle that will enter production in late 2022 as a 2023 model.

A lot can happen in the span of more than three and a half years: Buzz can wear off, unreleased products can grow outdated, rivals can catch up. Imagine if Chrysler’s “Suddenly, it’s 1960” collection of 1957 creations were first teased in early 1953.

Cadillac’s betting that the Lyriq’s attributes will remain fresh come roll-out time, and that could very well prove true.

With the upcoming QX55, Infiniti is tearing a page from the Volkswagen Atlas’ playbook. That German manufacturer saw that it had a good thing in its midsize crossover, so it decided to get more bang for its buck by shaving a little length and height from the three-row model, creating a mildly upscale, slightly restyled two-row variant to widen the model’s net.

The QX55 is the same recipe applied to Infiniti’s QX50 crossover — a model that landed with a resounding thud in late 2018, but one whose sales have proven interesting in the grim year of 2020. Why is that, you ask?

Nissan’s future will not see it become everything to everyone, and certainly not in all markets. The 2010s, and the market share-chasing, globe-straddling expansionism that characterized that decade’s car-buying orgy, are violently over.

Also soon to be over, apparently, is the Nissan Maxima’s gasoline-powered powertrain.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk was on top of his game during an interview with Automotive News last week. By that, we mean his ego and various personality quirks came through like a shaft of sunlight parting a fog bank.

Musk announced during the talk that his company performed no customer research before designing and revealing the polarizing and still-not-clearly-legal Cybertruck to would-be buyers, laughing at the idea. If folks don’t like it, he said, there’s a plan.

The question of how fledgling EV maker Lordstown Motors plans to fund production of the Endurance pickup has been answered. On Monday, the owner of GM’s former Lordstown Assembly plant announced a merger with a blank-check company, with a cash-raising NASDAQ listing as its goal.

Lordstown Motors plans to finalize the merger with DiamondPeak Holdings Corp., which is already listed on the NASDAQ, by the fourth quarter of this year — after which the combined entity will carry the symbol “RIDE.”

Quite suddenly, large electric pickups have become the hottest thing you can’t yet buy. But they’re out there, looming, just waiting to see whether demand for this embyonic segment materializes.

Ford, General Motors, Rivian, Tesla, and Lordstown Motors all have a stake in the game, with the next two years promising to reveal exactly how much pent-up thirst exists for these battery-bound behemoths. Watching from the sidelines is Fiat Chrysler, an automaker whose historical aversion to EVs is a matter of record.

Not surprisingly, FCA plans to take a wait-and-see approach.

Cadillac debuts its electric Lyriq crossover on August 6th, just a few short… well, at least a year or more before it goes into production as either a 2022 or 2023 model.

Hoping to generate Bronco-worthy levels of buzz that won’t materialize, the automaker released a couple of teasers of the upcoming vehicle, revealing a feature that causes this Canadian to tug his collar in an aggressive manner.