We finally have our first taste of the 2021 Ford Bronco and it has been worth the wait. Ford’s newest ute is refined on the road and off-road, and if you’re one of the horde of people waiting for your date by van, it’s time to really get excited. Read our review here.

This week in sheet metal

Volvo unveiled an EV SUV concept designed to demonstrate the brand’s evolving design direction. In the style of Volvo, the focus is of course on safety – the car has a lidar sensor mounted on the roof, which is supplied by Volvo’s partner for autonomous driving Luminar.

E-Legend, a German EV startup, wants to build 30 examples of an electric Audi Quattro rally car by hand. E-Legend says the EL1 will have 805 horsepower and a range of 249 miles, but we wouldn’t bet our lunch break on ever seeing one on the road.

Porsche will use its most powerful V8 of all time, a 631 hp 4.0 liter twin turbo, in the upcoming Cayenne Turbo GT. Porsche says the V-8 will get the Cayenne to 60 mph in 3.1 seconds, but it will cost you. The Turbo GT will cost $ 182,150 when it launches in the US next year.

We spied on a camouflaged version of a convertible that we believe is the Mercedes-Benz CLE class. If we’re right (we’re speculating on a recently revamped trademark) the CLE will be a new model for the brand, available as a coupe or droptop, and would replace the C- and E-Class coupe and convertible variants.

Promise promise

A push to convert the global vehicle fleet to electric vehicles by 2035 received renewed impetus this week when Canada said it would ban sales of new gas-powered light vehicles by 2035 and Volkswagen would stop selling internal combustion-engine vehicles in Europe the same year. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said the 2035 ban is a necessary stepping stone towards the country’s goal of producing net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 by 2030, but the end of gasoline car sales in the US and China will be later, but before 2050, come. So far, electric vehicles only make up 3.5 percent of new vehicle sales in Canada. Electric vehicles and hybrids accounted for 12.4 percent of Volkswagen’s European sales in 2020.

Halfway there

The second quarter ended this week and brought the usual harvest of forecasts and sales reports. The news is broadly good as automakers made huge gains compared to the dismal first half of last year. Every brand that had reported sales at the time of our writing had double-digit sales increases despite the ongoing global semiconductor shortage that thwarted manufacturing plans throughout the year. Toyota’s sales in the second quarter exceeded GM’s by 5116 units. GM has been a sales leader in the US market for many years.

The industry still has rough waters ahead of it. Ford this week announced new plans for plant closings related to the shortage of microchips, as well as a planned closure of the plant that builds the Bronco and Ranger due to an associated shortage of parts. Stellantis lost an unknown number of new cars in a violent rainstorm that flooded the shipyard near Detroit where the vehicles were being stored. And industry analysts warn that the rise of new variants of the coronavirus, especially in countries with limited access to vaccines, could continue to impact microchip supplies.

further reading

Read about the details of the as-yet-dead, bipartisan infrastructure proposal that President Biden has announced will sign the bill when given the opportunity.

The New York Times has an audit of the Monterey Car Week auctions ahead of the event’s return in August.

Or read in Wall Street Journal About the increasingly common phenomenon that dealers charge the few new cars on their plots well above the sticker price.

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