Author: EVAI

• Used-vehicle market complex as leases end

• Stellantis’ search for CEO successor

• New rule’s impact on China-built cars

• Antitrust settlement gets judge OK

• Automotive News Congress recap

The new Carnival Hybrid rates at 33 mpg combined, versus 21 mpg combined for the base model The Carnival Hybrid costs $2,000 more than a similarly equipped gas-only Carnival The Toyota Sienna and its standard hybrid powertrain lead the minivan pack at 36 mpg combined The 2025 Kia Carnival Hybrid earns an EPA-estimated 33 mpg combined, according to…

New York City is due to get 5,000 new EV chargers through an alliance between a parking operator and charging-infrastructure company.

The Hudson Valley Parking Trust, which recently acquired Icon Parking, New York City’s largest purveyor of parking spots, is working with Invisible Urban Charging (IUC) to install the chargers at parking sites it controls, the organizations jointly revealed earlier this month.

IUC is the same company that in 2022 unveiled a plan to double the number of EV chargers in Florida. That project focused on high-amp Level 2 AC chargers, and that appears to be the case here as well. The company aims to deploy 1 million chargers over the next five years.

IUC EV chargers

Additional chargers will help address surging EV growth in the Big Apple. It saw a 660% increase in EV ownership over the past five years, and it aims to replace 400,000 vehicles with EVs in NYC for carbon neutrality by 2030.

New York City was fairly early in preparing for charging infrastructure, enacting a rule in 2013 that 20% of newly-constructed parking spaces must be charging-ready. That doesn’t cover existing structures, though, or address street parking. Roughly 1 million vehicles are street-parked in New York City, the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) estimates, and the city is working on a streetside charging program.

2024 Hyundai Kona Electric

While NYC hasn’t been short on logistical issues, it’s been the place for some charging innovation—like Gravity’s showcase charging station claimed to be the fastest-charging in America. 

As an MIT study out last year concluded, more emphasis on daytime and workplace charging could help reduce the need for additional power plants—by soothing peak-time evening demand. This goes hand-in-hand with a longtime argument that while DC fast-charging is great for long road trips, in the broader sense the deployment of smart charging is more important.

A new McLaren hypercar may be just around the corner, and not just any old hypercar, but the successor to the P1. McLaren on Wednesday released a video to social media listing the attributes of its cars whose names end with the number “1,” i.e. the F1 and P1. The video concludes with the date Oct. 6 on display, suggesting that this is…

The Chrysler Voyager returns to the minivan lineup The Voyager replaces the base Pacifica model; the Pacifica lineup gets slimmed down to three trim levels The 2025 Chrysler Voyager will cost $41,690 when it arrives in dealers later this year Chrysler once again aims to make road trips affordable and practical. On Wednesday, Stellantis announced…

Volvo has no plans to change its current strategy of styling electric cars like its internal-combustion models, Florian Mockenhaupt, the automaker’s senior manager of exterior design, said in an interview with Australia’s Drive.

“Everything still has to look like a Volvo,” Mockenhaupt said, adding that Volvo is still chasing reductions in aerodynamic drag that can help improve EV range. But it won’t resort to nontraditional designs like the Mercedes-Benz EQS, which now sports a fake grille and a hood ornament in an effort to look more like other Mercedes sedans.

Some might say models that chase aerodynamics at all costs end up looking like a melted bar of soap, with arched rooflines and flush transitions.

2025.5 Volvo XC90 and 2025 Volvo EX90

Maintaining a familial look that links future Volvo models to their predecessors is important for the EVs, Mockenhaupt said, but also comes with practical considerations. Super-sleek designs might compromise interior space, he noted.

“We know people love spacious interiors, so you will never see a Volvo XC90 or EX90 with a super slammed roof, because it’s not fitting our customers’ expectations,” Mockenhaupt said. The EX90 3-row SUV emphasizes that approach with a styling reboot that maintains traditional SUV proportions. Some of the same design features also carry to the smaller Volvo EX30, which has been delayed in the U.S. due to new tariffs.

2025 Volvo EX30 electric SUV (single-motor, Cloud Blue)

Volvo recently announced that its lineup won’t be all-electric by 2030 as originally planned, but it still expects 90% of the vehicles it sells to have a plug by that point. Plug-in hybrids will continue to play an important role in Volvo’s lineup, with additional EVs as well.

Among those new EVs will be the EX60, an electric counterpart to the XC60 SUV launching in 2026 that will debut a new scalable architecture called SPA3, and the ES90 sedan. They’ll give Volvo’s design team more opportunities to prove that this design direction is the right one.

Faraday Future, which has struggled to deliver its $300,000 FF 91 electric vehicle, now plans to launch a sub-brand selling affordable EVs at scale.

In a recent presentation to investors, Faraday Future announced Faraday X—FX for short—which aims to launch two models called FX 5 and FX 6 priced between $20,000-$30,000 and $30,000-$50,000, respectively. The FX 5 will be the mainstream offering, while the FX 6 will be a larger model targeted at families, according to a Faraday Future press release.

Faraday Future announces FX sub-brand

Both models will be available with fully electric or gasoline range-extended powertrains. Faraday Future is targeting a 2025 production start, although the company said this is “subject to securing necessary funding.” The FX sub-brand will be an asset-light operation—like the now-defunct Fisker—with limited marketing and an online-only sales model, according to Faraday Future.

Faraday Future has long teased more affordable models as follow-ups to its FF 91, while making little progress toward producing any vehicles at all. The company had previously announced that it would ramp up the more affordable FF 81 at a former General Motors plant in South Korea, but with no mention of that model or its also-under-development FF 71 in the corresponding business presentation, FX appears to be stepping ahead.

Faraday Future FF91 2.0 Futurist Alliance

The company said nearly nine years ago that they “are very fast” in getting EVs to market. But that most definitely hasn’t proven true. The FF 91 flagship was unveiled nearly eight years ago, and a first delivery was made last August.

The FF 91 had originally been hinted to be a somewhat more premium rival to the Tesla Model S, then it was revealed to cost in the vicinity of $300,000. So Faraday Future will be making a big leap with these affordable models.

The U.S. Commerce Department on Monday proposed a ban on the U.S. sale of connected vehicles fitted with Chinese software and hardware systems, due to national security concerns surrounding the collection of data, and the possibility the vehicles may be manipulated remotely. The ban, if approved, would be introduced as soon as 2026, starting with…

• Fisker EV owners have a list of confirmed service points
• Bankruptcy continues, production or brand restart looking unlikely
• Owners will have to pay for some recall repairs, Fisker again says
  

Fisker owners in North America can rest a little easier this week knowing that they’ll have access to a network of approved service centers for their Ocean EVs. 

The news comes Tuesday from the Fisker Owners Association (FOA) after months of “working to identify shops interested in providing service for previously stranded Ocean owners.”

Initially, the list of Fisker service points that can handle repairs, including recalls, includes 20 locations in the U.S. and three in Canada. The above link, which will be kept updated, notes that a list of service points in Europe is “in progress.”

One key to that, according to the FOA, was access to Fisker’s proprietary diagnostic tool, termed FAST, required to service the vehicles. 

2023 Fisker Ocean One

It’s an uplifting piece of news that may help assure Fisker owners have usable EVs for years—with a little extra perseverance.

What’s still unclear is how deep owners will have to dig in for repairs—especially for safety recall repairs that are the manufacturer’s responsibility under federal law. Earlier this month a notice on the bankrupt automaker’s website suggested that owners would have to pay for recall repairs. After some pointed out the legal issues in that, Fisker quietly modified its language to again provide labor. Yet in another, more recent update of the same page, made on Sept. 23, Fisker now says that for the water pump issue and door handle safety recall “the customer will be responsible for the labor costs incurred to complete the repair(s).”

Although based in California, Fisker filed for bankruptcy protection in Delaware in June. It’s now well underway as a Chapter 11 bankruptcy, which was relatively good news for owners as it requires the company to keep operating in some capacity through the process, with a plan to repay creditors. In recent weeks there’s been a flurry of court documents as creditors request money owed, and as those Fisker assets that are free of liens and claims are approved for liquidation. 

2023 Fisker Ocean One

The chances that we’ll ever again see production of the brand’s promising Ocean EV look very slim, given the nature of the EV’s birth, development, and production. It depended on Austria’s Magna Steyr as a contract manufacturer, though recall documents revealed Magna’s engineering bills weren’t fully paid. Fisker was in charge of coordinating software and various vehicle integration aspects. At the time of its bankruptcy, Fisker estimated liabilities at up to $500 million.

According to an Automotive News report last month, more than 800 owners have also retained Hagens Berman, the same firm that represented VW TDI owners and dealers in that automaker’s diesel emissions scandal. 

What kind of vehicle is the 2025 Jeep Wrangler? What does it compare to? The 2025 Jeep Wrangler is an off-road-focused SUV with a removable top. It’s best shopped against the Ford Bronco, though the Toyota 4Runner and Land Rover Defender make for intriguing rivals as well. Is the 2025 Jeep Wrangler a good SUV? Viewed within the realm of its…