The starting price on the M-Byte will likely be in the mid-$40,000s. Another interesting actor in this sphere is another former BMW peer. Richard Kim used to also work for BMW, the man behind the super-futuristic exterior of the i3. A guy that cut his teeth on sports car related designs, Kim has chosen again to focus on the interior, and put “form” into what he believes is the future of automobiles – “lounges on wheels.”

Canoo is a Los Angeles based start-up. If you reside in the City of Angels, you might have seen Kim’s company’s beta models rolling up and down Wilshire Blvd. The exciting thing about their living room on wheels concept however, is the ownership scheme. Canoo cars will not be available to buy, nor lease. Instead, they’re offered on a subscription service. Some other brands have waded into the subscription fee waters. It is certainly becoming more [...]

Infotainment systems, as we’ve reported on earlier, are big business. A car’s interior is becoming increasingly important, and people are willing to pay for killer systems. Yet, there’s infotainment systems, and then there’s infotainment systems on steroids. The latter comes courtesy of Byton. A Chinese all-electric manufacturer, Byton, is a new player on the scene, just three years old. Two non-Chinese guys founded the company, but the China Harmony New Energy Auto Holding Limited (aka, the Chinese government) quickly gobbled them up.

The Byton M-Byte SUV is set to debut in the States in 2021. It will make its official debut sometime this year (barring any unfortunate outbreaks) in China. While the technology is cutting edge, the feature that is drawing the most attention is a 9.5 inch high, 4-foot wide screen that stretches across the entire dash – one pillar to the next. While most manufacturers design a car from the [...]

My oh my, how fast something can switch. Just last week, we were going on and on about gasoline demand. The week earlier, we were talking about supply gluts, the result of demand at an all-time low, and barrels upon barrels of crude oil with nowhere to go. Well, folks, said oil has finally found a destination – back into your car.

We knew it would eventually occur. The world isn’t going to be hunkered down forever. Oil demand is rising, and the main reason why is not the re-opening per se. But instead, people who used to take public transportation are now clamoring to make that daily commute in the safe confines of their car as compared to a cramped subway train.

Driving is the number one preferred mode of transport now for most working Americans. Heck, anecdotes from around the world are reaffirming this. From Beijing to Frankfurt, [...]

Crises suck. COVID-19 has transformed the world into a terrifying place. It has us doing things we wouldn’t normally do, especially so for such a social species. While humans are no strangers to crises, and we’ll emerge from this one, it is worth noting that not everyone loses in a crisis. Granted, this one is a bit different, but with that said, some industries are doing well right now.

E-commerce marketplaces are one of them. Familiar names like Amazon are adding 100,000 new jobs to meet demand. Another, Ocado, an online grocer, has had to suspend new orders because it can’t keep up with scheduled deliveries. Pharmaceuticals are naturally in an advantageous position. Roche, Gilead, and Moderna are actively involved in vaccine testing, and on the video-conferencing side, we have all likely been on at least one, if not seventeen, Zoom calls during a given week.

In the auto world, one [...]

We already went through an annoying wave of extraordinarily small cars. They were strange-looking, relied on quirky marketing campaigns, and many had a shelf life of a couple years at best. The idea behind extraordinarily small cars is a solid one – most of us drive alone, so why do we need a vehicle that sits five or up to eight with room for four suitcases. After all, our Monday through Friday routine is generally schlepping ourselves to work with at the most a workout bag and a coffee mug. Those additional seats sit empty. Your trunk might have a handful of bags and a spare pump, but that’s it. This adds up to a whole lot of wasted space.

Some manufacturers considered all this and thought, “folks don’t use their space, so perhaps they won’t miss it.” Decent assumption, but flat wrong. People like their big cars, and when gas prices [...]

Ferrari Purosangue SUV (2022)

Stateside, pronouncing this name is going to be hilarious. Try it. Do it with your best Italian accent. Throw some walnuts in your cheeks and pretend you’re Vito Corleone from the Godfather. Sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it? Well, Ferrari could care less. Looking at this word – Purosangue – for those that speak Spanish, you’ve got two words combined into one here. “Puro” which means pure in Spanish, and “sangue,” which in Spanish is “sangre” and means blood. Put together – Pureblood. And throw this word into Google Translate, and Purosangue means thoroughbred.

If you have the means, get this car in a blood-red paint job. It’s a thoroughbred SUV that will compete with the Rolls-Royce Cullinan, the Bentley Bentayga, and the Lamborghini Urus. Honestly, we’ll take any of the four here. These are luxury car brands trying to expand their client base in an SUV world. Good [...]

Volkswagen ID.4 (2021)

You’re clamoring to call us out on this one. Understood. We’ve blasted the ID in the past. Not us, we just report on these cars. If the vast majority of test-drives indicated this car was crap, what do you expect from us? Well, perhaps we can put that bad blood behind us. VW is unleashing an onslaught of electric cars onto the market by 2025. Rumored to be 50 in total, the ID.4 will be the first to reach the US. It’s a crossover, and apparently has been reengineered. That’s a fancy word for “not as crappy as previous test versions.”

Given that folks are EV crazy, the ID.4 should find its audience. If not, we’ll crap on it again, don’t worry.

Toyota GR Corolla (2022)

Give this one another year. If you’re a Corolla fan, we’d say it is most definitely worth the wait. [...]

Every year there are annual posts in the car world that cover the same topic. These are anything from the most notable auto shows, new alternative fuel cars, the best spring deals, etc. One of the most enjoyable posts however, is “cars worth waiting for.”

Cars worth waiting for refers to those rides that are coming down the pipe. We know they’ll be arriving because production has already ramped up. Manufacturing is approved, you can pre-order (some of them), and even personalize the car that will arrive in 1,2 or even 3 years.

Like buying an apartment or home while it’s being built, you do have to deal with the wait. Your scribe for one would have a problem with that. The waiting game can be intense. Imagine knowing a new BMW is on its way in two years. You’ve got the photos, the specs, all the relevant news to [...]

Gas is currently cheap. If you are reading this three years from now, you might be laughing. Or perhaps you’re still nodding your head in agreement. That’s the beauty of the Internet – articles trapped in time. 

The date on this piece is revealing, though. We are currently going through some extraordinary times, and gas prices are plummeting. Lack of demand will do that. But we thought this might be the perfect time to dive into gas – figuratively. Literally, diving into gas would have some nasty side-effects. Instead, we’re going to go into what the differences are between premium and regular gasoline, and touch on cars that one might assume are “regular guzzlers of gas” that instead require premium. This last point might sound unimportant, but when you’re weighing which car to buy, and one will result in a substantial amount of money more per year, that’s a big deal. 

In [...]

There are cars out there that might appear to be “regular gas-consuming rides.” This is principally because of the brand. Again, most folks (and rightly so) assume expensive brands require more expensive gas. Not a crazy assumption. But what if we told you this list below were all rides that required 91 or 93? Take a gander …

• Buick Envision (only 2.0L turbo)

• Buick Regal (all)

• Buick Regal TourX (all)

• Chevrolet Equinox (only 2.0-L turbo)

• Chevrolet Malibu (only 2.0-L turbo)

• Fiat 500L (all)

• GMC Terrain (only 2.0-L turbo)

• Honda Civic (only 1.5-L turbo)

• Kia Stinger (all)

• MINI Cooper (all)

• MINI Clubman (all)

• MINI Countryman (all)

• Mitsubishi Outlander (only 3.0-L V6)

• Nissan Maxima [...]