What Happened With the Chip Shortage—and How the Auto Industry Will Emerge

Volkswagen just filed a patent application for an intriguing pickup-truck version of its upcoming ID Buzz electric van, and we're desperate to learn more. An image filed with the patent (above) depicts a four-door, crew-cab ID Buzz trucklet—essentially a 2024 Volkswagen ID Buzz van with its aft roof section removed and its rear sliding doors replaced with what appear to be conventionally hinged pieces. It immediately brings to mind the classic "Doka" versions of the vintage VW vans—short for doppelkabine.The patent image is unusual in that it's rendered in full color, and not in the typical axonometric, line-drawing style. Given the ID Buzz already is patented, we figure this is enough for VW to secure this kind of design, at least as a spin-off model.It also gives us an idea of what to expect should this truck become a reality. The cargo bed is quite deep and has seemingly thin walls to maximize its utility, while there is what looks to be a black-plastic-lined foot step just ahead of the rear wheel. Seeing as how the roof sports a ribbed section with the same kind of plastic treatment as the bed liner, we figure it's designed for carrying loads; that foot step therefore would come in handy for loading things atop the ID Buzz, too. We can even faintly make out a round Lidar unit similar to the pop-up pieces VW has been previewing on its semi-autonomous setups of the future; it's located on the front right corner of the roof, by the windshield pillar. There likely is a matching unit on the left side.Some of this ID trucklet's styling cues indicate it might be a concept car, however. The forward door cut line is slightly different from that on the production ID Buzz van; the tires are very low-profile and sport an unusual tread pattern; and instead of big glass side mirrors, there appear to be pop-out cameras. There also is a long LED strip running from the nose to the tail along the body line separating the green lower section from the silvery top.You've also probably noticed that this pickup is less "truck" and more, uh, van. The green vehicle shown here has absolutely zero off-road pretense, and doesn't even wear extra body cladding on its bumpers. It is a street-first type of truck, and that's okay—in fact, it's downright different; these days, most trucks sit relatively high off the ground and wear I'm-tougher-than-you styling. This ID Buzz pickup is a van with a buzz cut, and we're here for it (in fact, we even rendered just such a vehicle soon after the ID Buzz debuted!). We'll know more about this intriguing design if or when it appears in the metal; were it to go into production, don't expect an on-sale date before 2024, after the ID Buzz van hits the market here.

I will start this by saying I have zero buyer's remorse. Within about a day of driving the Rivian R1T—even in unfinished pre-production form, as was the case on our cross-country, Trans-America Trail journey—I knew I simply had to have one. Moreover, the R1T impressed every single editor on the TAT goat rodeo and we even named it our 2022 MotorTrend Truck of the Year, the highest honor in the biz. And so, on Flag Day, June 14, I took delivery of my "Spinach Omelet" electric pickup truck. Why Spinach Omelet? I went for the unusual but gorgeous color combo of Compass Yellow over Forest Edge. Yes, my 835-hp pickup truck has a vegan "leather" interior the color of day-old guacamole. The R1T is superlative. I love it.But buying it? I'd rather visit my periodontist and get my gums scraped.Jonny Lieberman's Rivian R1T with Compass Yellow exterior paint and Forest Edge interior 5The process began when I put down a $1,000 deposit, and luckily I did so before Rivian jacked the price of the truck by 20 percent. Soon after, a very friendly Rivian Guide—a specific customer service agent who helps each buyer through the process—contacted me to see if I had any questions. As I'd already driven the truck 1,850 miles across six states, I had just one: When will I get mine? The conversation went something like this:Me: Can you tell me when I'll get the truck?Rivian Guide: I'm sorry, I can't answer that.Me: Well, can you tell me if I'll get it near or if I'll get it far?RG: I'm sorry, but I can't answer that.Me: Will I get it in 2022 or 2023?RG: I'm sorry, I can't say.If you can picture my eyes rolling up into my brainpan, that's good because that's exactly what happened. If you don't know, I'm a cast member of the popular automotive podcast "Spike's Car Radio." I used this big megaphone to tell the above anecdote on an episode. A month or so goes by and I get an unexpected phone call from my Rivian Guide. I'm paraphrasing here, but they said, "Hey, what if instead of the truck you ordered, we got you an identically spec'd Launch Edition R1T? It would only cost you $400 more, and you'd get it in July instead of unknown?" I quizzed them pretty hard. For real, it's identically spec'd? With yellow paint, a green interior, underbody armor, the off-road recovery kit, ski racks, all that? Yes, I was assured. My exact spec. For only $400? How could I not?I agreed and was then told to just go and fill out the eight-step buying process on the website. When I heard "eight steps," I got nervous. Sounded like too many. More than an hour later, I was thinking about smashing my laptop against the wall. I'd managed to complete perhaps 5 of the 8 steps and my blood was boiling. The one that killed me—aside from essentially being forced to sign up for Rivian's Nationwide-backed insurance to get to the next step—was the value offered for my trade-in. I had a 2014 Ford Fiesta ST in good, slightly modified condition with 43,000 miles on the clock. Rivian's website offered me $10,400. I not only balked, I called my Rivian Guide and said something like, "ARE YOU KIDDING?" No, I was told, that's what the computer offers and there's nothing they can do about it. Fine, I'd just sell the damn thing privately.Jonny Lieberman's Rivian R1T with Compass Yellow exterior paint and Forest Edge interior 7In May, I received a call from a different, equally friendly Rivian employee at the company's delivery center in El Segundo, California, just 0.5 mile from MotorTrend HQ. "Your truck's here. We're so happy you went with such a bold colorway." Whoa, whoa, whoa. It's here? (Also, I still needed to sell the Ford, which I was able to do rather quickly for nearly 50 percent more than Rivian offered.) Because I was leaving for Pikes Peak practice, we settled on the day after I returned, June 14, for handover. Sunday evening, June 12, I'm told by my friendly Guide to make sure I bring a certified or cashier's check with me on Tuesday. "What?!?" I rudely exclaim. "You're telling me this now? I'm in Colorado, and flying back tomorrow, landing after my bank is closed and I have to work the morning of the 14th? How can I get a cashier's check?"Then I'm told there's another option. I can just simply link my bank account to my Rivian account and pay that way. All I have to do is go to the website and link the two. Thirty minutes and dozens (fine, hundreds) of swear words later, I determine that, nope, there's no freaking way to link my bank account to my Rivian account via the blasted website. I call my Rivian Guide back to explain this and ask for assistance. I mentioned that when I picked up my Alfa Romeo Giulia that I also custom ordered, I was in and out of the dealership in 26 minutes, and that it would have taken less time but they forced me to drive the car around the block. I'd just wasted more time than that on the farshtinkener Rivian website, and I'm furious. My Guide had no answer, so I needed to delay delivery until I had a chance to get a certified check.The next day I'm told, you know what, Rivian will accept a personal check from me after all. I'm not optimistic an anonymous buyer would get the same pass, but at least we're back on. I'm leaving out details of the seemingly never-ending series of documents to sign (it was like buying real estate), but mercifully they're all electronic-signature-type things. The next day I get to the MotorTrend office at 10:15 a.m. and the thing I'm supposed to be doing gets canceled. I call my Rivian Guide and arrange to grab the truck then, not at 2:30 p.m. as scheduled. Thirty minutes later, I arrive at the delivery center but am informed my early arrival will mean things will take a while. Now, I know they're not putting gas in the thing, so I have no idea what the holdup is, but my gorgeous new truck was parked right out front by about noon.I guess the delay wasn't because they were checking the paint, because a brief once-over revealed the paint-protection film on one of the gear-tunnel doors was defective, and my truck went away. It's fixed and 90 minutes later, I'm driving home. Hurray! Although, it must be said three hours to turn over my truck that I'd learned had been sitting there for days if not weeks is crazy. But hey, the Rivian R1T is fantastic and worth the wait.An electrician came over just before I sat down to write this, to install the Rivian charger that the company had shipped to my house. After about 90 minutes it was ready and we tried to pair the unit to the Rivian app. No luck. We pored over the instruction manual, and tried to pair it three more times. Still no luck. A solid red light then illuminated, which is a signal you need to contact Rivian. After 20 minutes of being on hold, my electrician left for other jobs. Eventually, I spoke with someone who told me I needed my electrician to proceed. Long story short—and many more privately spoken foul words later—my electrician agreed to come back.Rivian wanted him to confirm the charger was getting power from the breaker (it was, to the tune of 240 volts) and confirm that everything was hooked up and set correctly. It was, as verified by sending photos to Rivian for analysis. Bum charger, it turned out, and Rivian is shipping a new one. Meaning that as of this writing, I cannot charge my brand-new electric truck at my house. This is awful because I have to deal with the often unreliable Electrify America charging network. I know this will all get resolved and I'll soon be blissfully motoring along in my Spinach Omelet R1T, but man, I didn't know I had so much swearing in me. You learn something new every day.Postscript: I wrote this screed after burning an entire day's worth of time dealing with a defective Rivian charger and a new company's processes. My R1T's VIN ends in 05020. I don't know the actual production numbers, but seeing as my truck was built in May, I'd guess the 7,000th R1T hasn't rolled off the line yet. Lamborghini builds more cars in a year than that. True to its word, Rivian shipped out a new charger, got a third party to come remove the busted one and install the good one, and all that only took a few days. Since then, the Lieberman household has been experiencing trouble- and gasoline-free charging and driving, and my Alfa Romeo wound up in the shop. So, why write this? Rivian needs to get its buying experience in order. True believers like me who know how good the truck is will put up with this sort of nonsense. But with electric Ford trucks coming on strong, the buying experience needs to be as simple as possible. Tesla, despite numerous other faults, has mastered this process. The cars just show up at your house. Easy as that. Rivian can get there. When it comes to cars, like so many things, it's the little things that count.

aston-martin dbx Full Overview"Watch this." Aston Martin boss Tobias Moers keeps his foot hard on the brake, selects launch control, and pushes the gas pedal to the floor. The revs build with a guttural snarl, then he sidesteps the brake pedal. The Aston Martin DBX707 super-SUV lunges with a roar like a hungry lion, the nine-speed transmission snapping through the upshifts as the twin-turbo V-8 kisses the 7,000-rpm redline. Moers laughs out loud. "It's ridiculous fast," he says.A tight left-hander. Moers pitches the Aston into the turn and punches the throttle. The tail swings wide, and he catches the motion with an armful of opposite lock. He keeps his foot down, and the Aston exits the turn in a graceful drift, as comfortable and composed as a sports car. Moers grins. "You shouldn't be able to do this in an SUV," he says, shaking his head.It's good to see the boss enjoying his new toy.And the Aston Martin DBX707 is very much Moers' toy. His fingerprints are all over Aston's new super-SUV, from the tweaked, AMG-sourced 4.0-liter twin-turbo under the hood, to the AMG Speedshift MCT wet-clutch nine-speed automatic with its Sport+ mode and launch control function, to the chassis that's been tuned to deliver precision and support without compromising ride comfort.The DBX707's mission statement is simple: to be faster than a Lamborghini Urus and to handle better than a Porsche Cayenne Turbo Coupe. And after a brief drive of a production-ready prototype at Aston's compact Stowe Complex test track at Silverstone, England, we're tempted to say, "Mission accomplished."The DBX707's raw thrust is a given: With 697 hp and 664 lb-ft of torque under the hood, even a 5,000-plus-pound SUV is going to feel quick. This Aston builds speed with relentless intensity, the power delivery so smooth and linear, you must carefully watch you don't hit the rev limiter if you're shifting manually. Moers claims a 0-60-mph acceleration time of less than 3.5 seconds and a top speed of 193 mph, and the DBX707 feels every bit that quick.But what's much more impressive than how the DBX707 goes is how it handles. It feels agile and responsive, not twitchy or straining at its tethers, especially when changing direction rapidly. It has, quite simply, the best, most authoritative front end of any super-SUV in the business, precise in its response and concise in its feedback. Turn in, and the Aston goes exactly where you point it. More important, there's plenty of support from the rear axle, right through from corner entry to exit.Much of that, Moers says, is the result of a major rework of the front suspension, particularly in terms of its supporting structures. A cross-brace means the front shock top mounts are 55 percent stiffer than those of the standard DBX. A 0.16-inch-thick underbody panel has raised torsional stiffness by 1.3 percent to improve steering response and impact control. Compression and rebound damping have been increased by 20 and 10 percent.Modifications at the rear include a new e-diff with a higher locking rate, and spring and damper rates that are softer than those at the front. Overall, the electronic active roll system has been recalibrated to deliver 50 percent more torque on low body motions, and the roll control is now more rear-biased at higher cornering speeds to reduce understeer.As a result, the DBX707 feels remarkably light on its feet, with none of the slightly leaden, nose-heavy feel you get when pushing a Lamborghini Urus or a non-GT Porsche Cayenne Turbo Coupe—the car Moers' team initially used as a dynamic benchmark—and little of the exaggerated roll and head toss you normally feel in vehicles with a high center of gravity. And although it's tighter and tauter than a regular DBX, the ride is still impressively refined, with no harshness or jitters over small, sharp lumps and bumps.It still feels more like a grand tourer than a track rat.The Aston Martin DBX707 is hella fast in a straight line and jaw-droppingly good through the twisty bits. We'll reserve final judgment until we get to spend more time with it on real-world roads a few weeks from now, as well as until such time we can pitch it against its rivals in a proper comparison test. On first impression, though, the DBX707 just might be the new benchmark super-SUV.Looks good! More details?