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The 2014 Mercedes-Benz S550 4Matic comes closer to autonomous driving than any other vehicle you can buy, thanks to a suite of sensors that can accelerate, brake and — in limited circumstances — steer the big luxury sedan.
Maestro CEO Sergio Marchionne has orchestrated a brilliant first act for FCA, but there's more to do. This is at most the intermission. The second act is yet to come. It'll be years 'til we know if the performance succeeded.
The Tremor uses the chassis of Ford's F-150 full-size pickup, but its body style means it's only about five inches longer than midsize pickups like the Canyon, Colorado and Toyota Tacoma.
The labs and research centers near Knoxville, Tenn., have worked with the auto industry since the energy crises of the 1970s and 1980s. Oak Ridge helped develop materials, fuels and systems used by millions of vehicles.
It's the last gasp of the Wild West era of claims about pickups' towing capacity. Towing capacity is a vital statistic for pickup and SUV shoppers, not unlike what bench pressing is for body builders.
Virgil Exner, the king of the tailfin, will get his due next Sunday, when the Concours d'Elegance of America honors some of his finest works.
Fifty miles a gallon. It was an unattainable goal for years, but two new small cars pave the road for many vehicles to hit that magic number.
'It's potentially a huge deal,' Jay Baron, president of the Center for Automotive Research said. 'They're going after manufacturing flexibility, low vehicle weight and reducing tooling costs. It would be a disruptive technology that could be the launching pad for other technologies and more consumer choice.'
The recall cast a shadow over my experience with the otherwise excellent SUV. I'm sure my reaction doesn't compare to how an owner would feel after shelling out $47,895 to $62,000 – the price range for the four-wheel-drive Tahoes that can randomly shift into neutral and roll away from their parking spot or lose power on the highway, as the recall warned.
Automakers await J.D. Power's Initial Quality Study reports with anticipation and dread.
The Rogue competes with midsize SUVs like the Chevrolet Equinox, Ford Escape, Honda CR-V, Hyundai Santa Fe Sport, Kia Sportage, Toyota RAV4 and Volkswagen Tiguan.
For the sake of GM's customers, dealers, employees and the company's future, the automaker must convince the American public it knows what it's doing before the string of safety recall pulls it under.
As the summer driving season begins in earnest, keeping an eye on your fuel economy can put dollars in your pocket.
The SS is a roomy rear-wheel-drive sport sedan. Despite the Chevy bow-tie badge, it's a fit competitor not just for big American performance sedans but for luxurious German sport sedans, too.
For incoming Ford CEO Mark Fields, the goal is to make Ford a global leader. Tasks at hand are Lincoln, quality, new vehicle launches, and sales in Asia and Europe.
The Golf is new from the ground up. It's one of the first cars to benefit from Volkswagen Group's highly touted MQB architecture, which will underpin many cars and crossovers VW will build around the world.
Mulally made a fortune as Ford CEO, earning every penny by changing the company's famously dysfunctional culture and keeping Ford out of bankruptcy. Mulally will undoubtedly earn far more as companies bid for his services after he leaves his Dearborn office on June 30.
Heavy-duty pickups get beefed-up versions of virtually every structural part and mechanical component of regular pickups, which are called 'light duty' despite being able to tow up to 12,000 pounds.
Founded by GM, Ford, DaimlerChrysler, Renault and others, Covisint was supposed to revolutionize the auto industry and make its founders billions through online engineering and purchasing.
The unfolding horror of the ignition switch crisis is a bitter pill for engineers and GM lifers like Barra and global product chief Mark Reuss. They chafed under the old cost-driven culture that created so many mediocre and poor vehicles. They relished the opportunity for a fresh start after bankruptcy. Just when they thought they were free, the old GM reached out and dragged them back.
A successful retro design is a tough act to follow. How do you do a new version of a car that borrows from an old and immediately recognizable design? That conundrum is at least part of the reason Chrysler and Chevrolet never built a second generation of the PT Cruiser and HHR.
More than 1,000 engineering and science students from universities and high schools across North and South America will come to Detroit in April 2015 to race futuristic high-efficiency vehicles on downtown streets. The Shell Eco-marathon, which is moving from Houston to Detroit, will also bring experts for a conference on the future of cities.
The WRX is one of the few cars that actually deserve the over-used adjective 'iconic.' The 2015 is the latest in a line that's won rallies around the world and made Subaru an enthusiast's favorite.
A pair of unexpected automakers had a very good day when the editors of Ward's Auto World magazine honored the best new automotive interiors in Dearborn last week.
Prices start at $52,800 for a rear-drive X5 3.5i with a 300-hp 3.0L twin-turbo inline-six engine. All X5s use ZF's smooth and efficient eight-speed automatic transmission.
Diesel powered vehicles are becoming more popular with American drivers, but wild fluctuations in the fuel's price could scare some buyers off, despite the fact that a diesel engine can cut their fuel consumption 20% or more.
Ram, which is Fiat Chrysler Automobiles' commercial vehicle/pickup brand, created the Ecodiesel by dropping a powerful and fuel-efficient V6 diesel into the Ram 1500 pickup.
If CEO Sergio Marchionne and his Fiat Chrysler Automobiles team went to the track to bet on 10 horses, I'd follow them to the window and put my money on the same ten nags.
From radar sensors that beep when there's a car in your blind spot to cars that literally drive themselves, new technologies promise to make driving safer for older drivers and easier for everyone.
Foremost among DaimlerChrysler's sins was a sneering attitude toward Chrysler's brands that assumed second-rate features and technology were more than good enough. The new 200, the first midsize sedan developed by Chrysler and Fiat, does a lot to remedy that.
Fiat Chrysler will have its hands full creating vehicles that deliver on the promises made in its five-year plan.
Fiat Chrysler Automobiles will refine its product strategy this week with a slew of new models from Chrysler, Dodge, Fiat, Alfa Romeo in a marathon strategic briefing Tuesday in Auburn.
Like Penny, the new Suburban, which is based on the same mechanical underpinnings as the Chevy Silverado pickup that went on sale last year, is huge and extremely appealing. Suburban prices start at $47,300 for a rear-wheel-drive model. Four-wheel-drive models start at $55,700.
A city teeming with idealists and immigrants, magnates of industry, union organizers and the goons and gangsters determined to stop them, Detroit seems more like the setting for a science fiction movie than our own recent past in 'Built in Detroit: A Story of the UAW, a Company and a Gangster.'
The CLA45 AMG is remarkably powerful, wringing 355 hp and 320 lb.-ft. of torque from a 2.0L engine. But aside from that impressive output and admirable fuel economy, I have a hard time finding any criteria that place the car among the leading $50,000-$60,000 sport sedans.
Once dismissed as an underfunded maker of outdated products, the Detroit-based supplier is gaining customers, expanding globally and focusing on new technologies.
Chrysler wants to send its owners on an Easter Egg hunt. The automaker's designers have taken to hiding amusing graphic images that pay tribute to its heritage on the latest vehicles from Chrysler, Dodge and Jeep. Examples include a topographical map of a famous off-road course secreted on the 2014 Jeep Cherokee and an image of the Detroit skyline — from a perspective where GM headquarters is not visible — in the new Chrysler 200 sedan.
The Ford Mustang, which officially celebrates its 50th birthday this week in New York, nearly didn't happen.
Aside from the cloying self-consciousness of its name, the Soul! has much to recommend it, including a quirky design and loads of interior room.
The people and technologies that will make future cars safer, smarter and more efficient will be on display this week on the streets of downtown Detroit and in Cobo Center on the city's riverfront.
How you spend your money says a lot about what you value.
Most automakers offer some sort of connectivity for road service along with directions for navigation and perhaps concierge services for hotel and restaurant reservations. Most companies get the service from an outside company that specializes in them and may work with other automakers. Hyundai and GM have decided they want ownership and control over the system that gives them so many contacts with their customers.
Reports of Land Rover's death were greatly exaggerated. The SUV brand Ford struggled to sell just a few years ago has become one of the auto industry's most desirable names.
It'll be months before we learn if the 2015 Chrysler 200 midsize sedan is the sales hit the automaker hopes for, but what we already know sheds valuable light on how the newly created Fiat Chrysler Automobiles develops vehicles.
The Highlander is a leader among crossovers that have three rows of seats and seat six to eight people. It competes with the Chevrolet Traverse, Dodge Durango, Ford Explorer, Honda Pilot, Hyundai Santa Fe, Kia Sorento and Nissan Pathfinder.
The brands once appeared to have a brighter past than future, but both have flourished since Indian conglomerate Tata bought them from Ford in 2008. New vehicles, engines, transmissions and all-wheel-drive systems have made Jaguar and Land Rover appealing to a broader audience than ever before, and some of the most dramatic moves are yet to come.
How many ways are there to make a BLT sandwich? How many different varieties of lettuce do you have to offer? If you asked a BMW product planning executive, I suspect they'd check the commissary menu at Mercedes-Benz and say, 'One more than they do.'
Spy photographer Brenda Priddy, who made her reputation taking pictures of future cars automakers want to keep secret, has moved into the art world. An exhibition of Priddy's photos just closed in an Arizona gallery, and the photographer hopes to bring the show to the Motor City.
As the European car market shows tentative signs of recovery, automakers this week in Geneva, Switzerland, will reveal a raft of new vehicles, potentially including an intriguing new small Jeep.
Based on the serving-platter-sized badge in the grille, Mercedes-Benz doesn't want there to be any question about whether the two-star 2014 CLA250 compact sedan is a 'true' Mercedes.
Cold weather can reduce your fuel economy drastically but there are ways to reduce how much this frigid winter adds to your gasoline bill.
I tested a loaded MDX with all-wheel-drive. It had adaptive cruise control, navigation, heated front and second-row seats, a backup camera, parking sensors and more. It stickered at $56,505.
Life is about to get a little better for pickup buyers. Chrysler, Ford, General Motors and Nissan all plan to join Toyota in using a uniform test for the towing claims they make for their full-size pickups.
I didn't exactly smirk, but I could certainly have been more sympathetic as I sailed past the cars, semis and SUVs buried in snow alongside I-94 as I drove from Detroit to Chicago following a winter storm. Blame the 4-star 2014 GMC Sierra Denali. The spacious luxury pickup made the drive as relaxing as spending the day in my living room.
2014 has already been a good year for Cummins Engine, and there's plenty of room for it to get better.
The powerful and thrifty engine and the platform's underlying goodness battle the car's age to a draw, but the 2014 E-class is clearly a freshening to keep Mercedes' midsize model relevant versus newer competitors until an all-new model arrives.
The way many of us calculate our fuel economy is wrong, but there's an easy way to get accurate figures for how much fuel you use.
Most of what you've probably heard about the 2014 Cadillac ELR extended-range electric car is wrong. First and foremost, it's not a Cadillac version of the four-door Chevrolet Volt. It's a luxury coupe with unique styling, tons of road presence, a lush interior, a unique suspension and much more.
The proof's in the doing. Here are some things I'm watching for as CEO Sergio Marchionne builds this new global automaker.
Like seeing a good movie, half the fun of going to an auto show is talking about what you loved and hated. There's still time to choose your own hits and misses or get a second look at your dream vehicle. The show runs till 7 p.m. Sunday.
From the moment Lexus and Infiniti rewrote the book on luxury automaking with their debuts at the first North American International Auto Show in 1989, NAIAS has provided plenty of memorable moments. Some were scripted, some spontaneous.
Mary Barra and Mark Reuss, the engineers who will take over as General Motors' CEO and global vehicle development chief Jan. 15, might have dreamed of a moment like this when they worked together at the Detroit-Hamtramck assembly plant a decade ago, but they couldn't have expected it to happen. It was just too unlikely.
The Silverado and its near clone, the GMC Sierra, check every box on the list for business customers and offer limo-sized interior space, features and comfort for after hours.
The Cadillac CTS and Mazda6 placed second and third behind the 2014 Corvette Stingray, which is the Free Press Car of the Year.
Expectations were high for the 2014 Corvette, but the car came in way above them, justifying Chevy's decision to revive the hallowed Stingray name that first graced the most beautiful 'Vette ever, the '63.
The Jeep Cherokee and the Subaru Forester placed second and third behind the 2014 Chevrolet Corvette Stingray, which is the Free Press Car of the Year.
Hyundai introduced the Veracruz a few years ago to compete with popular family crossovers like the Chevrolet Traverse, Ford Explorer and Honda Pilot. It flopped. Chevy frequently sold more Traverses in a month than Hyundai did Veracruzes in a year. The Korean automaker researched shoppers who were looking for big crossovers and learned most had never heard of the Veracruz.
They all had easier, safer options, but they chose to stay with the ship. Now they are the team that will lead General Motors into its next era.
The customer is frequently right. It's hard to argue with that conclusion when you look at the cars and trucks automakers pulled the plug on this year.
Unmistakably a Mustang but undeniably modern, the all-new 50th anniversary model of Ford's legendary pony car is graced with a low, wide and sinuous body and packed with advanced features. Not only is it just what millions of Mustang fans have waited for, it will introduce an icon of American automaking to a new audience around the world.
VW employment in metro Detroit has recovered from a low of around 600 in mid-2008 to 1,400 today and is likely to grow further. The company's plan to increase North American manufacturing and sales has been good for Auburn Hills.
The three-star 2014 Mazda3 compact sedan and hatchback display the automaker's split personality with a number of appealing features and a few missteps.
That's the potential and peril facing the new pickup. How many people silently long for a truck that's a bit smaller, more fuel-efficient and easier to park than the big Chevy Silverados and Ford F-150s?
That it remains true to Jeep's go-anywhere heritage and scored EPA highway ratings up to 31 miles per gallon make the new Cherokee a tribute to Chrysler and Fiat's joint product development.
The concept ditches the GTI's turbocharged 2.0-liter four-cylinder engine and front-wheel drive in favor of a twin-turbo 3.0-liter V6 that drives all four wheels. The engine produces 413 pound-feet of torque.
There's reason for optimism this week, courtesy of Sergio Marchionne, Maserati and Saad Chehab, a Detroiter who's about to step onto the auto industry's global stage.
The two-seat F-type V8 S has loads of power and a sporty character, but its price and features put it at a disadvantage when compared to convertibles like the Audi R8 V8, BMW Z4 sDrive35is, Chevrolet Corvette Stingray Z51, Mercedes SL 550 and Porsche Carrera S.
It's a real Jeep, with the off-road ability the brand's devotees demand. The Cherokee fords deep water, sneers at glutinous mud pits and scales treacherous slopes. A legitimate off-roader, it can literally leave ostensible competitors like the Chevrolet Equinox, Ford Escape, Honda CR-V and Toyota RAV4 in its tracks.
A range of Dodge cars and trucks will feature Scat Pack performance upgrades or Shaker hoods. The Specialty Equipment Manufacturers Association show, which draws hundreds of tuners who customize vehicles' looks and performance, is the biggest event of the year for Chrysler's Mopar parts division, Mopar chief Pietro Gorlier said.
The Vsport model is new to the XTS and Cadillac's lineup for 2014. Also available on the new CTS, it ratchets up performance without going to the extremes of power Cadillac's more expensive V-series delivers.
General Motors' far-reaching deal to develop vehicles with French automaker PSA Peugeot Citroën appears to be growing less ambitious by the day. That's almost certainly good news for GM Europe, which is more than capable of developing world-class cars on its own.
Cadillac will probably add an even more powerful V-series version of the CTS later. A coupe is also expected. The odds look bad for a new version of the handsome CTS station wagon, though. Cadillac developed the current wagon primarily for sale in Europe, where station wagons are very popular.
The Viper costs more, has a shorter history and is built virtually by hand. 'Vette prices start at about half the Viper's sticker price. Corvette has 60 years of equity, and its factory can produce 10-20 times as many vehicles annually as the Viper plant on Detroit's east side.
The goal was to create a new look and 'make the Corolla a car people want to buy,' as opposed to a smart, but boring choice, said Toyota vice president for sales Paul Holdrige. The result is a car that bears no resemblance to previous Corollas, thanks to a big, bold lower grille, fast windshield and sloping C-pillar.
The way Chevrolet tells it, General Motors design chief Ed Welburn told his team the company 'might' revive the Stingray name if they did a great job on the seventh-generation of the Corvette. It's a good story, and every time I heard it, my cynical journalist's heart said, 'Yeah, right' and I sneered a little. A week with the four-star 2014 Chevrolet Corvette Stingray wiped the sneer off my face.
Jeep customers are likely to love the Cherokee whenever the delayed SUV rolls into dealerships. Forget the hullabaloo about its unconventional grille and headlights, the new Cherokee offers plenty of goodies.
Is this a bump in the road for plug-ins, evidence that the public isn't ready for the vehicles, or the inevitable growth pangs of a new technology?
'Chrysler has come a long way' since it nearly collapsed during the Great Recession, said Karl Brauer, senior analyst with KBB.com. 'How much better could it have done if the launches had gone right? This is really limiting Chrysler's success. Sales and profits have been compromised.'
'Chrysler has come a long way' since it nearly collapsed during the Great Recession, said Karl Brauer, senior analyst with KBB.com. 'How much better could it have done if the launches had gone right? This is really limiting Chrysler's success. Sales and profits have been compromised.'
The all-wheel-drive IS 250 F Sport I tested had rakish styling and responsive handling, but its 2.5-liter V6 engine and six-speed automatic transmission trailed the power or fuel economy of top competitors like 2.0-liter turbocharged versions of the Audi A4, Cadillac ATS and BMW 328i.
It's early October, but that's not too soon to say this has been a very good year for General Motors. All six of the new vehicles GM has introduced so far in 2013 made the short list of contenders for the 2014 North American Car and Truck/Utility Awards.
The MKZ hybrid's fuel economy, technology, features and price are just right. It's the car to beat for drivers aiming to minimize their carbon footprint and maximize comfort behind the wheel. The hybrid delivers a clear advantage in technology and efficiency.
Where is Cadillac's small crossover SUV, its sporty and efficient little competitor for new models like the BMW X1, Mercedes-Benz GLA, Mini Countryman and Audi Q3? For that matter, where's Cadillac's big, six- or seven-seat crossover, its answer to models like the Acura MDX, Audi Q7 and Volvo XC90?
The pickups beat the competitors' fuel economy and towing capacity while offering limo-sized four-door crew cabs trimmed with ritzy materials.
The Fiesta ST provides a lot of fun at a relatively low price. The appealing package faces very little competition. Surprisingly, no Japanese or Korean automaker sells a hot subcompact in America. The Hyundai Veloster turbo comes closest, but it's a compact.
Jamming a high-output engine into an inexpensive car comes as naturally to Detroit as crossing the river to Windsor, but the three-star 2014 Ford Focus ST is a new kind of Detroit muscle.
Expect GM's Opel brand and Ford of Europe to make news as they tout recovery plans designed to end huge losses that have continued for years.
Ford's Dearborn proving ground and Detroit's Eastern Market both feature in the Henry Ford Health System's 'Get Your Heart Racing' fund-raiser.
The Cayman — all-new for 2014 — is probably the purest example of what Porsche believes a sports car should be. As the 911 has grown larger, heavier and more luxurious, the Cayman slipped into its role as the most lithe and agile Porsche.
Edmunds.com, a website popular with car shoppers, is preparing a new homepage and layout. I was recently directed to the site as a randomly chosen test subject.
Mark is the automotive critic and a columnist for the Detroit Free Press. Email him at phelan@freepress.com.Dearborn Homecoming 2014
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