Car News In the Rearview: Electric Revolutionaries and Shushing the Mustang
Hello and welcome to In the Rearview, where I bring you the latest car news in delicious nougat-y form.
First up, one enterprising photographer in Spain managed to snap a few spy photos of the new generation of Nissan LEAF, which is looking far less weird compared to before, and a lot more like one of Nissan’s other crossovers.
Then, Nissan has proudly announced that with its “E-Pedal” technology, drivers of the new LEAF can essentially drive using just one pedal—this is also known as “that thing which Chevy Bolt drivers can do already, so we gave it a gimmicky name to sound like it’s different.”
In bigger electric car news, though, Tesla has finally introduced production versions of its newest vehicle, the Model 3, doling out a handful to employees in a special ceremony. Unfortunately, since there are so many people who ante’d up down payments for these things, they are only going to be available in two varieties, normal and long-range, with only the barest version meeting the promised $35,000 price tag.
And speaking of Tesla, everyone lost their minds last week as, after Tesla CEO Elon Musk prominently argued with Mark Zuckerberg about the dangers of AI, two Facebook chat bots were shut down for “inventing their own language.” However, despite making electric cars look cool, Musk did not imminently predict our doom, because what many people (read: people who are wrong) called a “language” was just the chat bots creating a shorthand code using English, which is something they were programmed to do. So, seriously, calm down.
In other electric news, though, Bollinger Motors revealed their highly-anticipated all-electric truck, and it is just as interesting, odd, practical, and cool as I had hoped.
On the other hand, new cars weren’t the only thing in the news this week, as Cadillac entered the spotlight for axing most of its sedans. Instead, it is going to replace them with two sedans in total while focusing on its crossovers.
Wordplay also made headlines this week, as Ford took Geely Motors (the company that owns Volvo) to court over the name of the latter’s newest brand: Lynk & Co. According to Ford, that sounds way to close to Lincoln Co, its luxury brand. Some of our writer’s suggestions for alternate names include Four Motor Company, Lynk & Nab a Gator, or Harry Furred Motor Company.
Finally, from Ford we go to Mustangs. Thanks to a story about one Mustang GT owner who got the cops called on him just for firing up his car and backing out of the driveway in the morning, the new 2018 GTs will come with “Good Neighbor Mode” to make the startup quieter, also known as “If it will make you shut up, Jerry, you jerk, why don’t you spend some of your time mowing your grass rather than sitting around with a decibel meter, and by the way close your blinds if you are going to walk around the house after you get out of the shower, but NO, we’ll all bend to JERRY’S whims” mode.
The News Wheel is a digital auto magazine providing readers with a fresh perspective on the latest car news. We’re located in the heart of America (Dayton, Ohio) and our goal is to deliver an entertaining and informative perspective on what’s trending in the automotive world. See more articles from The News Wheel.