Baseless Move? Ford Removes Cheapest Bronco From Its Website

Ferdinand Alexander Porsche—a.k.a. F.A., Ferry's son and founder Ferdinand's grandson—is probably best known in car circles for the Porsche 901 (which, due to a trademark tiff with Peugeot, became the 911) and 904. He should be equally well known for his 1972 founding of Porsche Design, a company that creates all sorts of non-car things—sunglasses, pens, luggage, knives, even a Blackberry phone—and, of course, watches. In fact, Porsche Design's first product was a watch called the Chronograph 1, and this new (if awkwardly-named) special-edition 911 celebrates the 50th anniversary of Porsche Design and its original timepieceThe celebratory car is a 911 Targa 4 GTS, painted and finished to commemorate the Chronograph 1, which Porsche says was the first all-black watch. Gloss black paint is highlighted by a Satin Platinum finish on the targa bar and wheels. Inside, the Edition 50 Years Porsche Design—as English majors, you have no idea how painful it is for us to type that—gets black-and-gray checkered upholstery, a slate-gray steering wheel, and plenty of limited-edition badging, including F.A. Porsche's signature embossed into the center armrest. The powertrain is standard for the Targa 4 GTS—3.0 liter twin-turbo flat six with 473 hp, and choice of PDK dual-clutch auto or a seven-speed stick—and the car comes with a phalanx of useful option packages.It also comes with a watch, specifically the less-grammatically-challenged Chronograph 1 - 911 50 Years of Porsche Design. The watch is based on the original Chronograph 1, with modern-day Porsche logo and fonts, and a clear back that reveals a winding rotor identical to the 911 Edition 50 Years Porsche Design's wheels.Both car and watch are limited to 750 copies worldwide, each individually numbered (with identical numbers for the car and its corresponding watch, of course). The price: $197,200. The cars and watches will arrive at U.S. dealerships in the spring of 2022. We haven't heard back from Porsche about how many of these cars will be earmarked for the States, so if you're interested, better give your Porsche dealer a quick call sooner rather than later.Interested in the timepiece alone? While the watch that comes with the car is unique, Porsche Design is also releasing a Chronograph 1 - 1972 Edition which stays true to the design of the original, featuring a titanium case back with the original Porsche Design logo; 500 copies will be made, with a price tag of $7,700.

The mighty rose and fell in the auto industry in 2021. A critical shortage of microchips helped determine winners and losers in U.S. sales for the year more than any other factor. Aberration or not, the surprises are worth noting when companies deemed too-big-to-fail fall off their long-held perches and underdogs ascend to new heights.Business publications have splashed plenty of ink in the annual presentation of final U.S. auto sales as another year came to a close. We won't go all corporate and financial here at MotorTrend but there were some unexpected plot twists that deserve to be pointed out—regardless of any asterisks due to chip shortages.Toyota Topples GM For the First TimeThe biggie: after decades of U.S. sale supremacy, Toyota beat General Motors in 2021. GM sold 2.2 million vehicles, but Toyota had about 114,000 more for a total of 2.3 million.Toyota executives were quick to say the lead is not sustainable. GM will be back on top as chip supplies normalize. The semiconductor shortage hurt all automakers, but some were hit harder than others. GM and Ford were among the more heavily pummeled. Toyota was the poster child for how to—almost—survive the chip crisis.Toyota is no stranger to pinchpoints from key parts shortages. After the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake, Toyota put an early warning system in place to monitor its supply chain. The result is that the inventor of the concept of lean manufacturing and just-in-time delivery became a hoarder. Once warned, the Japanese automaker stockpiled chips and was able to keep building and selling vehicles full steam while the competition was playing whack-a-mole in determining which vehicles took priority in receiving chip rations and which plants faced temporary downtime on any given week.As the shortage stretched out and was exacerbated by a fire at the Renesas Electronics chipmaking plant in Japan, and then COVID-19 outbreaks that forced closure of facilities in southeast Asia that test and package chips, Toyota was finally forced to idle some plants. But in the end, Toyota saw 10 percent sales growth in the U.S. in 2021 while GM saw a 13 percent drop because it lost hundreds of thousands of units of production.Hyundai-Kia Leapfrogs Over HondaHyundai-Kia outsold Honda for the first time, moving up to the fifth spot with almost 1.5 million vehicles sold. That was about 22,500 more than Honda. The two brands under the Hyundai Motor Company umbrella continue to be a juggernaut. This one will be interesting to watch in 2022 because the Korean brands show no signs of slowing down and have impressive vehicles hitting the market.The Hyundai group still has work to do to catch Stellantis at just shy of 1.8 million, or Ford at almost 1.9 million.Ford EVs Coming for TeslaFord, which was considered a bit of an EV laggard until fairly recently, ended 2021 in second place when it comes to U.S. sales of electric vehicles. Credit goes to the new Mustang Mach-E; Ford sold more than 27,000 of the electric crossovers.King of the EV castle continued to be Tesla which had a banner year. How banner we don't know exactly as it the automaker does not break out U.S. sales.General Motors was out of the running in 2021, not because of the chip shortage, but because the Chevrolet Bolt was all but sidelined for much of the year by a recall due to risks of fire from bad cells in its batteries and a recommendation to park outside.Ford Mustang vs. Dodge Challenger vs. Chevy CamaroThe muscle car sales wars are legendary, and we never tire of the jostling, even though their makers don't always give them the love they once received.We have a cool toppling this year. The Dodge Challenger actually stole the title in 2021. The coupe is no spring chicken, and this wasn't a chip shortage win. Credit energetic execs behind the Dodge brand who never say die. Efforts to keep the Challenger fresh led to a 3 percent increase in sales, bringing the total to 54,314 muscle cars sold and the highest full-year share ever at 21 percent of the albeit-small segment. (Dodge Charger also grew market share to a career-best 30 percent, more testament to pixie dust being sprinkled liberally over at Dodge).That pushed the Ford Mustang to second place. A 14 percent drop resulted in a final sales tally of 52,414. For the bronze: the Chevy Camaro saw sales plummet almost 27 percent, netting 21,893 sales. The once-mighty Camaro must be missing its long-time engineer: Al "Mr. Camaro" Oppenheiser, who was reassigned to the GMC Hummer EVs and is busy crabwalking and hurtling 9,000 pounds of SUV from 0-60 in 3.0 seconds. It probably doesn't help that today's Camaro doesn't look all that different from the last one, or the one before that...Big Truck WarsNo surprises here: Ford took the title for best-selling truck in the U.S. for the 45th straight year, selling more than 726,000 F-Series. Ram came second at just under 570,000. The Chevrolet Silverado could get a needed boost from the electric version coming—the Chevy came third in 2021 with almost 520,000 U.S. sales.Who said following auto sales isn't fun?

The Tesla Model S was a two-year-old car when Chinese auto execs Heng Xia and Tao He got together with tech billionaire Xiaopeng He in 2014 to found the electric vehicle manufacturer XPeng. Five years later, at the 2019 Shanghai Show, Guangzhou-based XPeng unveiled its homegrown Model S rival, the P7 EV sedan.The latest XPeng P7 is one of three EVs the automaker now has on sale in China, all built on the company's own platforms and featuring its own end-to-end software architecture. The P7 is already being marketed in Norway, and XPeng plans to launch the sedan in Sweden, Denmark, and the Netherlands in the second quarter of 2023.A fourth XPeng model, a midsize SUV called the G9 that will feature a fast-charging 800-volt electrical architecture and a Lidar-supported autonomous drive system, is due to go on sale in China this fall. The G9 is widely believed to be under consideration for launch in the U.S.Xpeng X7 Power, Range, and a Porsche Co-Developed Platform Move fast and break things—Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg's motto is one Silicon Valley's tech bros love to invoke to explain why Tesla deserves to be worth more than any run-of-the-mill automaker like Volkswagen or Toyota or Hyundai. But Tesla needed 17 years to get four models into production and into showrooms. Eight-year-old XPeng is moving so fast it makes Tesla look like General Motors.The XPeng P7 is built on a bespoke EV platform, known internally as "Edward," that was co-developed with Porsche. It's a conventional skateboard design, with multi-link suspension front and rear and an 80 kWh battery pack between the axles. Behind the standard 19-inch alloy wheels, which are shod with 245/45 Michelin Pilot Sport 4 tires, are Brembo brakes.The entry-level P7 RWD Long Range is powered by a single rear-mounted e-motor that develops 263 horsepower and 288 lb-ft of torque. Our tester, the P7 4WD High Performance, packs a total system output of 424 hp and 483 lb-ft, thanks to the addition of a 161-hp e-motor that drives the front wheels.The P7 is 5.6 inches shorter overall than the Model S but rolls on a wheelbase that's 1.6 inches longer. The XPeng is also slightly narrower and taller than the Tesla, and, unlike the Tesla, it's relatively light for an EV of its class—XPeng claims the single motor RWD Long Range weighs 4,380 pounds, while the dual motor 4WD High Performance is claimed to tip the scales at 4,623 pounds. That's almost 200 pounds less than a dual motor Model S.XPeng claims a range of up to 329 miles on the WLTP test cycle for the RWD Long Range, and a 0-60 mph acceleration time of less than 6.9 seconds. Claimed WLTP range for the 4WD High Performance is up to 292 miles, with a claimed 0-60 mph acceleration time of less than 4.5 seconds. (Note: EPA range is usually 20-30 percent lower on average than the WLTP quoted figure.) The P7's 80 kWh battery pack will accept up to 90 kilowatts on a DC fast charge, which allows it to go from five- to 80-percent charge in about 51 minutes, according to Xpeng.The P7's Overall Refinement ImpressesNeither version of the P7 threatens the Tesla Model S in terms of outright range or performance. But to airily dismiss this Chinese EV because of that is to miss the point. Entirely.It may not be a world-beater, but the XPeng P7 is one of the most impressive new cars we've driven this year. It has, of course, the punchy, silent acceleration you expect from a contemporary electric car, but what makes it stand out is how refined everything else about it feels, both at low speeds around town, and when cruising on the highway.Noise levels—wind, tire, and mechanical—are impressively low. The ride is good, though in truth the well-maintained roads of our test drive hardly exercised the suspension, other than over the occasional speed hump in the suburbs near XPeng's Dutch headquarters, which elicited some mild secondary body motions. Choppy surfaces induced occasional pattering from the tires, but impact harshness was well-suppressed.The steering is reasonably accurate and well-weighted, and the transitions between regenerative and mechanical braking are smooth. The P7 has just two regen modes —high and low. High regen delivers near-one-pedal driving capability, while low regen gives the car a slowing effect similar to lifting off the gas in a conventional internal combustion engine vehicle with an automatic transmission.P7 Price, Equipment, and Fit and FinishIn Norway, the XPeng P7 4WD High Performance costs less than two-thirds the price of a dual-motor Tesla Model S Long Range. In U.S. dollars, using the conversion rate current at the time of writing, that would make it a $53,000 car.You get a lot of EV for that money. Standard equipment includes a panoramic roof, heated front and rear seats, and the choice of black, beige, or red Nappa leather trim. The digital dash is a 10.25-inch screen, and the central touchscreen is a 15-inch unit. Standard driver assistance systems include adaptive cruise control, lane keep assist, forward collision warning, and autonomous emergency braking.It's easy to see the influence of the Model S in the XPeng P7's design. One area where the Chinese automaker has followed Tesla's lead a little too closely is the HVAC system, where all the functions—right down to setting the direction of the air vents— are controlled via the central touchscreen. As in Teslas, this requires taking your eyes off the road to go through a menu to do something that's easily done without looking or thinking in a HVAC system with physical buttons.The fit and finish throughout is superior to the Model S, though. Exterior panel gaps are more consistent and trim pieces better aligned, and the interior looks and feels plusher. But what makes the XPeng P7 perhaps more of a threat to the Tesla is not the hardware, but its software.It's All About the Software-Defined Vehicle"This is a software-defined car," says Piotr Chmielewski, XPeng's head of EV Charging in Europe, who points out that company co-founder Xiaopeng He—XPeng is a contraction of his name—made his fortune in software before deciding to get into the auto industry. Sound familiar, Elon?A Polish software engineer, Chmielewski says XPeng is the only automaker other than Tesla to use an end-to-end software architecture. The architecture is used on all XPeng models, and Chmielewski believes this software stack will give the company's products a competitive advantage over the long term.As on its other models, XPeng's XSmart operating system (initially Android-based but now highly evolved and unique) controls the P7's driver assistance systems, dubbed XPilot. The XSmart OS also controls the car's connectivity functions, infotainment systems, and its nascent AI capabilities, including a "Hey XPeng" voice activation function and smart navigation setup. It also allows for a wide range of over-the-air updates and remote vehicle diagnostics.It's Tesla-level stuff, though some of the P7's standard XPilot functions, most notably the lane keep assist, don't feel quite as well-resolved in terms of their operation. It's all in the software tuning, said Chmielewski, who noted our test car was running Chinese-spec software. He added that a team is already at work on tweaks to suit European operating conditions. XPeng Represents a New Age of AutomakingThe XPeng P7 is a graphic example of the new reality of the auto business in the EV age. In the past, the cost and complexities of developing and optimising internal combustion engines and suitable transmissions meant newcomers faced huge challenges in terms of delivering vehicles that performed as well as those from companies with long experience building automobiles—look how many years it took Toyota and Honda and Hyundai and Kia to become established in the U.S. as legitimate alternatives to GM, Ford, and Chrysler.However, EV powertrains are inherently smooth and quiet, and deliver plenty of easy driving torque. There are no pesky calibration issues in terms of driveability or to meet emissions and fuel economy targets. Making a car that's instantly competitive with mainstream rivals from established automakers has never been easier.The XPeng P7 proves the point. The way it looks and feels and drives means it would be right at home on any driveway in America right now, with no excuses needed. Were the P7 to be launched here, with software updated to suit the U.S. operating environment and American consumer tastes, and priced as competitively as it is in Norway, it would shock the automotive establishment. Tesla included.