Legacy Carmakers Have too few EVs That Sell and too Many Gas Models That Don't

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By: Alex Oagana

For more than a decade, EV buyers have had only one good option, with Tesla severely dominating the market. EV adoption has moved slowly, and most legacy carmakers thought the trend was a fad, best to wait for it to pass. While some have launched electric vehicles, very few were good enough that buyers would want them.

 This offered them bullets to fire in the war against EVs. It's easier to hold out on launching more EVs when you could argue that nobody wants them. Some carmakers have made an art out of this argument. They have boasted about incredible EVs, fully knowing that they would never enter production. The best example is Stellantis in North America and its Ram 1500 REV. 

The charade held while the market was still stagnant. However, with the war in Iran and the oil crisis that ensued, the situation changed dramatically in just a few months. The average diesel price in the US is today $6.49, a new record, while gasoline is also approaching its all-time high, with a current average of $4.48. The situation is even more dire in Europe, where both gasoline (known as petrol there) and diesel hover around 2.50 euros per liter, or about $11 per gallon in American money. 

This changed everything for car buyers and the industry that caters to their needs. Cars that were mocked as "electric appliances" a few months ago are now the new gold. The best combustion vehicles you could think of yesterday are now looked at with disdain. EVs might not be "real cars," as many derided them, but they cost a fraction of the money to charge and maintain compared to their ICE counterparts. 

Legacy carmakers in Europe have planned for a slow transition to electric vehicles, with a timeline that stretched well into the future. They have somehow convinced themselves that, without an EV mandate, the market would turn back toward combustion vehicles they knew so well. That was a gross miscalculation, which the ever-increasing fuel prices have exposed. 

Not having enough EVs to sell at this time is only part of the problem. Even those who have genuinely impressive EV models, like the BMW iX3, can't survive on a single model. The other part of the problem is that the rest of their lineup is mostly unsellable. It's either mediocre EVs that nobody wants to buy or combustion vehicles that are even harder to sell in these times.

For the full interview, please continue reading on our site.

By: Bogdan Popa

This is a one-of-a-kind vehicle. The reason is simple: it’s a 1963 Chevrolet El Camino, and Chevrolet did not make an El Camino in 1963.

“I found this car for sale in the Philippines in the mid-’80s,” the owner explains in a post on eBay. The vehicle is now for sale as a project, and based on the photos shared online, it requires quite a lot of work to return to the road.

“I think this car is a great candidate for electric conversion because of all the space below the bed floor,” the seller explains. The reason why there’s so much space is that this vehicle was born as a Bel Air four-door wagon. The conversion into an El Camino included removing the rear seats and creating a bed that made sense on a pickup.

The El Camino came to be in 1959, as Chevrolet needed a new model to compete against the Ford Ranchero. The company turned to its full-size lineup to create the El Camino, so the new model shared its front styling and engines with the Impala and the Bel Air.

Chevrolet’s full-size cars were already selling like hotcakes in the late ‘50s, so the El Camino was an instant hit. The first model shipped over 22,000 units, whereas the Ranchero was way behind with only 14,000 orders.

The El Camino survived for one more year before Chevrolet decided it was time for a break. The vehicle was reintroduced in 1964, this time based on the Chevelle, so if you ever see an El Camino produced between 1961 and 1963, it’s not the real deal.

“This BelCo, as my family and I have come to know it, started life as a Bel Air,” the owner explains. “I was in the Air Force and didn’t have a car. I wasn’t looking for one until I saw this car born the same year I was.”

You don’t need to be a professional restoration guy to figure out that this vehicle received major structural changes to evolve from a station wagon to a pickup truck. The roofline was cut, a bed floor was installed, the doors were welded shut, and the tailgate was modified.

The side fuel tank is still in place, and this is how the resulting vehicle ended up with quite a lot of space under the bed floor.

The photos speak for themselves: this vehicle now needs a complete restoration after sitting for a long time. No information was provided on this front, but the owner says it’s been parked “since the photos were taken.”

For the full article, please continue reading on our site.

By: Aurel Niculescu

In my humble opinion, America shouldn't fear alternate powertrain models, whether diesel or EREVs, because they just make the whole vehicle experience better. Of course, if you don’t feel the same, feel free to contradict me in the comments section.

Just recently, I have seen a few interesting debuts across the automotive realm. In Europe, Renault’s subsidiary Dacia unveiled the second-generation Spring electric model, which is perfect for the city commute because of its low price and larger dimensions plus charming no-frills appearance. This model might not work in America, though, where the cities are large instead of ultra-crowded like on the Old Continent.

Audi also revived the A2 compact minivan some two decades after the original quirky model disappeared, now reborn as an e-tron EV packing the same odd style and seriously big range – up to 401 miles on the WLTP cycle. It also won’t work in America due to its inherent quirkiness and because people might quickly associate it with the slow-selling Mustang Mach-E due to those inexpensive and freaking ugly door handle thingies.

Jensen brought back to life the cool-named Interceptor with the fresh GTX prototype featuring 960 horsepower and a manual transmission along with decidedly aggressive looks. This one is beginning to light its way toward America because it looks good and has a heavily reworked supercharged 6.8-liter GM V8 packing 960 ponies, but it can also be uprated to 1,200 hp!

Jensen, if successful, will develop two street-legal models: a high-performance Interceptor GTR and the luxury-focused Interceptor GT. We’re quite down for the British-born and American-bred sports car, of course. But it may not reach out to many folks because sports car are adrift in America nowadays despite good efforts from all three Big Detroit automakers to keep them on our radars.

That’s why I believe that a couple of recent adventure SUVs are the perfect fit for the United States automotive market – though they may never reach North America. For starters, we have the reborn Mitsubishi Pajero, a resurrected off-roader which is already turning into a potential family with teased compact and small SUV versions.

Mitsubishi’s legendary off-roader has returned with a seriously rugged truck-based platform, seven seats, and great 4WD hardware. It’s been some time since we last saw the rugged SUV in America, by the way – the global Mitsubishi Pajero ended production in the spring of 2021, but North America was devoid of the Montero, its local nameplate, since 2006. Two decades later, its rightful successor comes back to life… and we’re left standing on the side of the road.

For the full article, please continue reading on our site.

By: Mircea Panait

BMW's electric M3 just proved it can get sideways on command. Spy photographers caught a camouflaged prototype at the Nurburgring, where the most controversial M3 to date tangled with a Xiaomi SU7. It held its ground, stepping its tail out like a champ under power on corner exit.

Camo wrap makes the ZA0 look nearly identical to the inline-six alternative, which is codenamed G84 and uses CLAR underpinnings instead of the full-electric model's Neue Klasse platform. Body panels are exclusive to each, yet a plethora of styling cues are shared, including the visor-like fascia and massively flared wheel arches that accommodate sticky rubber.

Previewed by the M Concept Neue Klasse, the sedan-bodied sibling of the iX3 M is certain to carry over the pillar-to-pillar setup of the i3. Bucket seats, an M-exclusive steering wheel, and specific animations for the infotainment system are certain as well, along with a quad-motor powertrain tuned to produce fewer than 1,000 mechanical horsepower at full tilt.

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While the quietest M3 of them all hogs the headlines, the gas-burning M3 is quietly shedding camouflage at the Nordschleife. What's underneath reads unmistakably Neue Klasse, and this particular test vehicle wears a lot less wrap than earlier prototypes. This way, it exposes a heavily reworked front bumper, four centrally-mounted exhaust tips, and staggered tires.

Serious braking hardware and a small trunk lid spoiler are on the menu as well. Up front, both kidney grille openings are short and wide. Four separate intakes are featured below, specifically two central apertures flanked by two smaller ones. Based on this arrangement, they split duty between feeding the radiator and cooling the brakes. The intercooler, meanwhile, should be hiding between the throttle body and intake runners.

Its partly masked headlights carry the Neue Klasse lighting signature, with the lamps sweeping toward the corners to visually widen the nose. That width claim holds up at the fenders too, with pronounced arches pushing outward. Unfortunately, what can only be described as the final iteration of the M3 with internal combustion may not get a manual because hearsay suggests mild-hybrid electrification for the S58 engine.

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Arguably the most extreme front-engine AMG of them all is finally starting to look like a production car instead of a thinly veiled GT3 racer. New spy photos taken at the world's most grueling circuit show the all-new GT Black Series wearing revised bodywork far closer to what customers will eventually take delivery of, starting in the latter part of 2027.

Codenamed X192, which makes it distinct from the C192 used by lesser GT Coupe variants, the Black Series sits above the 63 PRO 4MATIC+ and plug-in hybrid 63 in the lineup. Its real job is more serious than flagship bragging rights, being the homologation base for the GT3 racer. This, in turn, explains the motorsport-style canards and large hood scoop.

Active winglets over the front fenders, three-pointed-star daytime running lights, paired side exhausts, and carbon-ceramic brakes are easily noticeable, with Michelin PSC2R tires and extracting channels behind the front wheels bringing the point home. Its pièce de résistance is the rear wing, whose swan-neck pylons hide actuators for the drag reduction system.

Although powertrain specs remain a mystery for now, a flat-plane V8 with nothing more than 48-volt assistance is expected. The old GT Black Series used to make 720-something horsepower on premium-grade dinosaur juice, meaning that we may be in for just around 750 with this fellow.

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The A3 here is the odd one out because there is no prototype hiding underneath carefully applied camo. You are looking at a rendering created by Avarvarii, which explores the Audi brand's latest design language in the context of a mass-market compact hatchback. Obviously enough, its design and styling traits are heavily influenced by the Nuvolari supercar.

Both the Nuvolari and the Concept C preview the next design language, and the speculative A3 imagined by Avarvarii replaces the current grille for a much smaller opening flanked by tall vertical elements. The headlights are narrow as well, set high into the front corners, while the hood stretches back from the nose with broad, clean surfaces instead of decorative creases.

Although this interpretation remains firmly in fantasy land, the Nuvolari-esque A3 design exercise proves that Audi could pull it off as well. If there is a case to be made for such a dramatic visual makeover, don't expect completely new oily and chassis parts because the MQB Evo platform is sufficiently versatile to comply with Euro 7 and future standards.

By: Bogdan Popa

Now that the iPhone 18 is here and Apple has taken the wraps off iOS 27, we’re back to the usual business. New Android Auto bugs, new updates, and, more importantly, new features being tested without our favorite tech companies saying anything about them.

Google Maps on Android Auto is getting the most basic customization feature ever. It’s 2026, but Android Auto users still have to turn to their phones to change the driving avatar. That’ll change soon, as this ridiculous feature is finally coming to Android Auto.

Google’s latest Android Auto build actually does something good, in addition to breaking things. It fixes a Waze glitch that caused the trip information box to disappear, so if you’ve been battling this bug for the past few days, just update Android Auto.

The search behemoth used an Apple idea to combat motion sickness, and this new feature is now available for all Android users. Google is rolling out Motion Assist on all Android devices before being exclusively available to Pixel owners for the last few months.

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