News
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Stellantis Wants to Beam a Hologram Into Your Robotaxi’s Driver Seat. Here’s What It’s Not Telling You.
Somewhere in Stellantis’ latest patent filing sits an admission the company will never put in a press release: the empty driver’s seat isn’t an engineering problem anymore. It’s a marketing problem. And the fix isn’t smarter software — it’s a hologram. The filing, first reported by ClubAlfa, describes a system that turns a windshield into…
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VW’s Layoffs Could Hit 140,000. The Family That Controls the Company Already Wrote Off the Loss and Went Shopping for Drones
Volkswagen wants the headline to be about jobs. On August 24, labor representatives told employees the restructuring could ultimately touch as many as 140,000 positions, well above the roughly 100,000 management has floated so far. That’s a gap of 40,000 people, treated in most of the coverage like a rounding error. It isn’t. But it…
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Hyundai Just Settled Its Strike. Its Next New Hire Doesn’t Need a Raise, a Union Card, or a Retirement Age.
Hyundai Motor and its union reached a tentative agreement this week to end the company’s first full-day strike in a decade, and on paper it reads like a clean win for labor: a raise, a bigger bonus, hundreds of new jobs, and a real shot at a longer working life. Union members vote on it…
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Ford’s New Safety Chief Used to Regulate Ford. That’s Exactly the Point.
Ford is simultaneously the most recalled automaker in America and, per J.D. Power, one of its best-built. Hiring a 13-year NHTSA veteran as Chief Auto Safety Officer explains why both things are true at once.
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China Isn’t Sneaking Into Europe’s Car Factories — Stellantis And Nissan Are Handing Over The Keys
Picture an Opel dealer in Zaragoza a couple of years from now, selling a compact crossover that shares its underpinnings with a car nobody outside Europe has heard of: the Leapmotor B10. Same lot, same blue-and-white lightning badge that’s been on Opels since before most of us were born. Different DNA entirely. That scene, not…
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AirPods and a Tesla’s Cameras Cracked This Georgia Car Theft
There’s a category of car theft that requires no skill whatsoever, and Forsyth County just produced a textbook example of it — along with an unusually modern ending. According to the account the Forsyth County Sheriff’s Office published on its Facebook page, a woman stopped at a Primrose School in the Cumming area on Aug.…
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Dolly Parton’s Last Automotive Venture Was Built for Truckers, Road-Trippers, and EV Drivers
The singer’s Tennessean Travel Stop brought fuel, truck amenities, food, retail, and EV charging together at I-65 in Cornersville, Tennessee. Rest in peace, Dolly Parton. This is a look at one of her final road-facing ventures—and a small reminder that the Queen of Country understood the people who make America move. At Exit 22 on…
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Kia Settles Over Optima and Sportage Windows Falling Into Doors
If you owned a 2016 or 2017 Optima or a 2017 Sportage and remember the specific noise a door makes when the glass suddenly isn’t attached to anything, there’s money on the table. Not a lot of money. But money. Kia America has agreed to settle Le Beau, et al. v. Kia America, Inc., Case…
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Honda’s Threat to Skip a New Factory Isn’t About Honda. It’s About a Trade Deal Stuck in Limbo
When a Honda executive stands in front of reporters in Washington and says the company might not build its next North American factory, that isn’t a manufacturing update. It’s a message aimed at trade negotiators, delivered in public because private memos don’t move anybody. Honda Executive Vice President Noriya Kaihara told reporters at a roundtable…
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Tesla Autopilot Crash Data: The Regulatory Gap Every Driver-Assist Owner Should Know
Tesla is throwing a party in Austin on September 3 to launch the Cybercab, a two-seat pod with no steering wheel and no pedals. The invitation, sent to sweepstakes winners from its robotaxi app, promises attendees a look at full autonomy. It also specifies that your plus-one can’t be a content creator, which tells you…
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Street Outlaws Racer Dies Following Crash at Ohio’s KD Motorsports Park
The drag racing world lost one of its own this weekend. Chris “Block” Gordon, a longtime fixture on Discovery’s Street Outlaws: Fastest in America, died Saturday night following a crash at KD Motorsports Park in South Webster, Ohio. Racers and fans know the eighth-mile facility by its nickname, “The Hill,” a reference to a roughly…
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Thailand’s Auto Tax Overhaul: Why Japanese Carmakers Are Fighting Back
When a prime minister flies 5,700 miles to New Zealand and spends part of the trip insisting that nobody is leaving his country, the honest read is usually that somebody is packing. Anutin Charnvirakul made exactly that denial on August 21, telling reporters in Wellington that Japanese manufacturers are not relocating their production bases out…
