#FutureVehicles

It’s nice to write about a vehicle with an honest-to-goodness name, especially one that replaces a vehicle with an alphanumeric name. As it slowly relegates past three-letter combinations to the dustbin of history, Lincoln Motor Company is busy putting the finishing touches on the next product in its utility vehicle offensive: the Corsair, formerly the MKC.

The smallest vehicle in Lincoln’s renewed stable, the Corsair debuts for the 2020 model year. While the model’s new name is meant to conjure up images of a small sailing boat, most will associate it with a brawny WWII American warbird. This, if it needs to be said, is not a bad thing.

A 2020 model year VIN decoder document sent from Ford to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration spells out your powertrain options. Interested in a plug-in hybrid?

Amid the hoopla surrounding last week’s Chicago Auto Show and its many new and refreshed trucks and crossovers, Mazda teased a butt shot of a mysterious new crossover bound for a Geneva reveal next month.

Mazda’s crossovers, especially the CX-5, garner more enthusiast attention than, say, a Hyundai or Toyota CUV, due to the zoom-zoom brand’s focus on driving dynamics and attention to style. The model seen last week will one day appear in U.S. Mazda dealerships, the company’s North American CEO claims.

Audi plans to make a green new deal with premium-minded buyers of limited means. With the brand’s Volkswagen Group parent going all-in on electric vehicles, Audi has access to whatever it needs from mama’s parts bin. This will come in handy.

It seems a cheaper, smaller EV is Audi’s next big reveal, with the Golf-sized I.D. Neo hatch serving as a starting point for a new entry-level electric.

Between last month’s Detroit show and the ongoing Chicago vehicle extravaganza, pickups trucks currently occupy about 93.7 percent of the average American’s mind. While your author can easily visualize himself in a 2020 Subaru Legacy, that AWD sedan is certainly not the buzz generator in anyone’s social circle.

Mike Manley knows trucks, as his company owes its profitability to the vehicle type. Speaking this week during a fourth-quarter earnings call, the Fiat Chrysler CEO said his team learned its lesson on how to launch the things, with the botched roll-out of the 2019 Ram 1500 providing a valuable lesson on what not to do with the 2019 Ram HD.

Manley had plenty to say about those lessons, as well as the upcoming Jeep Gladiator and a yet-unrealized vehicle he’s pushing to build.

It’s a rumor that’s existed since the debut of Hyundai’s performance N division — the evential debut of a much hotter Tucson compact crossover to pair with N-badged compacts already heading to customers on both sides of the Atlantic.

Now, a report claims to have the inside scoop on the existence of just such a model. A Tucson boasting at least 340 horsepower is on the way, sources say.

It’s already half here. The Toyota Yaris sedan, formerly the Scion iA, is the rebadged twin of the subcompact Mazda launched in Montreal in 2015. You’ll note that Mazda does not sell a second-generation 2 in North America, making that launch a relatively pointless endeavor for the automaker.

Now that Toyota has gone ahead and killed off the Toyota Yaris hatch (the Yaris that’s actually a Toyota), a space has opened up. Chances are good that the little hatch we didn’t get in 2015 will finally arrive in 2020, bearing another brand’s logo.

This May sees Toyota mark the 20th anniversary of the start of Tundra production. When that happy date arrives, there’s be two full generations of full-size truck memories to look back on. Yes, the Tundra is old, with the current generation bowing for the 2007 model year. A significant refresh came in 2014, with minor tweaks occuring ever since.

While testing a loaded 2018 crew cab variant a while back, this writer couldn’t help noticing the Tundra’s advancing age, despite the addition of new creature comforts and tech. The rig I piloted also weighed nearly 900 pounds more than a comparable Ford F-150.

Well, there’s good news for that uniquely loyal crop of Toyota truck owners. A new Tundra is on the way, but it won’t entirely break from the past. You’ll certainly recognize the cab.

Cadillac is at a crossroads. While the brand has enjoyed growth in Asia, domestic volume never fully recovered from the Great Recession. It’s come back a bit, with sales dipping and rising between years, but hasn’t managed to keep pace with the overall market. As of 2018, Cadillac possesses the lowest share of the U.S. market in the brand’s recorded history. Fortunately, the fourth-quarter arrival of the XT4 helped to Cadillac stabilize sales as the year drew to an end.

However, General Motors wants the luxury arm to become a legitimate success and prove the automaker’s effort to develop advanced powertrains and new technologies weren’t in vain. Cadillac is positioned to become manufacturer’s leading electric brand and GM’s newly appointed president, Mark Reuss, has acknowledged this is sort of its last chance at greatness.

Numerous observers walked away from the North American Auto Show, and more specifically Cadillac’s NAIAS Eve unveiling event, wondering whether electric crossovers are even more homogenous looking than their internal combustion brethren.

So, when Ford’s North American president, Kumar Galhotra, claims a Lincoln vehicle born of the Ford Mach E (or some similar name) will carry on the brand’s tradition of “quiet luxury,” one wonders how a vehicle without the need for a traditional grille will avoid getting lost in a sea of anonymity.

Everyone else is doing it. And, if lawmakers on this side of the Atlantic start going the way of their European counterparts, traditional American luxury will need a shot of cleanliness. Even if they don’t, a fickle U.S. public might suddenly fall in love with the green lifestyle and give a big middle finger to internal combustion road cruisers.

Not wanting to be left without a savior in this future scenario, and needing some electric American prestige to sell to discerning Chinese buyers, Cadillac unveiled this piece of emissions-free hardware on the eve of the North American International Auto Show. It’s not vaporware, General Motors insists.

Late last year, Toyota Motor North America CEO Jim Lentz suggested the automaker, after taking stock of its inventory, might cut some struggling product from its store shelves. It now seems on the verge of adding a new one.

Bound for a Detroit debut, the company’s Lexus LC Convertible Concept is not a way-out pipe dream unveiled by an automaker hoping to generate buzz with an inch-deep piece of vaporware. Instead, it is simply the division’s high-zoot LC coupe, sans roof. And all of the wording surrounding the car screams that production is nearly inevitable — so long as the public responds favorably.

Remember the Cadillac ELR? Your author saw a single, solitary unit in the wild once, and there’s a good chance a journalist was behind the wheel. Not long for this world, the plug-in hybrid Caddy coupe gave way to the stately (but equally low-volume) CT6 Plug-in, whose death was revealed shortly before that of the sedan itself.

Not to be deterred from its goal of advancing electrification, or at least competing against glitzy foreign rivals, General Motors has announced the brand will once again pick up the green torch.

The sky’s apparently the limit when it comes to the variety of vehicles that might emerge from Volkswagen’s dedicated MEB electric architecture. While the automaker’s looming EV onslaught already contains a hatchback, crossover, microbus, panel van, and possible luxury sedan, VW feels something’s missing: a tough, off-road ute.

One VW exec is pushing hard to give electric vehicles a brawnier image.

Once the Fiesta drains from North American Ford lots following its May 2019 discontinuation, it’s up to the company’s subcompact EcoSport crossover to draw entry-level buyers into the Blue Oval fold.

Imported from India, the second-generation EcoSport, which first arrived on these shores at the dawn of 2018, kicked off for the 2013 model year overseas, making the EcoSport anything but all-new. Luckily, there’s a replacement in the works.

Someone at General Motors has been studying the company history books again. Fresh news earlier this year taught us the company is bringing back the storied Blazer nameplate, appending it to a FWD-based crossover in a move that disappointed some fans but will surely delight GM beancounters as they’ll probably sell every one they can make to a crossover-thirsty public, the majority of whom care not one whit about the old body-on-frame machine.

A trademark application uncovered by a GM Inside News forum poster suggests GM could be poised to bring back another well-known badge. This time, it is GMC’s turn to plumb their collective memory for a popular name. The lead image above gives you all the clues you need as to which one it may be.