News
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Ford ‘Fixed’ the Explorer and Aviator’s Collapsing Seats Last Year. It Didn’t, So Now There’s a Sequel
Ford just told federal regulators that almost 388,000 Explorers and Lincoln Aviators have second-row seats that can tip or slide while the vehicle is moving. That’s the announcement. The real story is buried in one sentence of Ford’s own paperwork: some of the vehicles showing up with this exact problem again had already been through…
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BYD’s Hungary Factory Faces Audit After Minister Who Signed The Deal Joins The Company
Hungary’s new government has decided it wants a look at the paperwork behind BYD’s Hungarian empire — and the timing has everything to do with who just got a business card from Shenzhen. Prime Minister Péter Magyar told parliament on Monday that his government will examine every decision, negotiation and state commitment tied to BYD’s…
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Melbourne Busted a License Plate Knockoff Factory. America’s Toll Cameras Have the Same Blind Spot
A Melbourne crackdown netted 79 arrests and a guy who allegedly mass-produced 875 sets of cloned plates. The real story is what that reveals about a credential nobody ever secured, and why American toll roads have the same weak spot.
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Wisconsin Gives Car Thieves a Legal Escape Hatch From a Felony. A Stolen Cadillac Chase (and a Loose Dog) Show Exactly How to Blow It
Forget the chase for a minute. The most interesting part of what happened outside Madison, Wisconsin isn’t the sirens, the spike strip, or even the dog that bolted from a stolen Cadillac and landed in an animal shelter. It’s a single clause buried in Wisconsin’s criminal code, one that quietly grades car theft on a…
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Nissan’s Biggest SUVs Have Been Wearing the Wrong Weight Label Since 2011, and Nobody Noticed
Nissan just told federal regulators that 168,149 of its biggest SUVs have been carrying the wrong number on a federally required sticker, in some cases since 2011. No axle snapped. No brake failed. Nothing underneath these trucks is actually broken. The entire fix is a new label, and Nissan is mailing it to owners in…
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A California Junkyard Just Burned Down Again. Congratulations, That’s Seven Since March
Early Sunday morning, a fire tore through an auto wrecking yard on Crows Landing Road in Modesto, California, destroying roughly 100 vehicles before firefighters stopped it from reaching a nearby mobile home park. Crews had the blaze under control in about 80 minutes. Nobody was hurt. The cause is still under investigation. Garage Deals: Nowell…
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Hyundai And Kia’s Self-Disinfecting Cars Aren’t Really About Germs. They’re About Cars No One’s Left To Clean.
Hyundai and Kia just told the world they’re building UV lights into car interiors to kill bacteria and viruses. Read the announcement and you’ll come away thinking this is about a fresher-smelling back seat. Read between the lines and you’ll notice something else: nobody in the press materials talks about who is supposed to be…
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Cadillac’s All-Electric Future Is Dead. Long Live the XT6 Nobody Asked to See Again.
Mary Barra didn’t announce new Cadillacs on GM’s second-quarter earnings call this week. She announced a retreat, and she used two nameplates from the discontinued pile to soften the blow. The headline version is straightforward. GM will build gas-powered versions of the Cadillac CT5 sedan, the XT5 midsize SUV, and the XT6 three-row SUV, starting…
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Jeep and Ram Just Got New CEOs Who’ve Never Built a Car. That’s the Whole Point.
Look at the résumés of the two men now running Jeep and Ram, and you’ll notice something missing. Neither has ever developed a vehicle, run an assembly plant, or signed off on an engineering budget. One spent his career building dealer websites. The other spent it running car lots for the country’s largest public dealership…
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Georgia’s Gas Prices Are Rising Faster Than the Rest of the Country. Blame the Pipeline, Not the Persian Gulf.
Georgia drivers didn’t just see gas prices climb last week. They saw them climb at roughly twice the pace of the rest of the country, and still ended up paying less than most of their fellow Americans. That’s not a contradiction. It’s a clue. Garage Deals: Nowell Leather’s Hand-Stitched EDC Gear Belongs in Every Gearhead’s…
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California Rewrote Its EV Rebate Just for Rivian. Rivian’s Sales There Cratered Anyway.
California just did something automakers almost never get from a state government: it rewrote the rulebook to help. In July, Governor Gavin Newsom signed a $3,500 EV rebate that Tesla is legally locked out of, while Rivian and Lucid can claim it on trucks and sedans costing well into six figures. It was about as…
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Polestar Just Stopped Fighting Its US Ban. Its 32 Dealers Didn’t Get A Vote
Polestar didn’t lose its fight to stay in America this week. It lost that fight back in June, when the Commerce Department decided the company’s cars were no longer welcome past the 2027 model year. What happened this week is quieter, and in some ways more revealing. Polestar confirmed it isn’t going to spend another…
