Ford has taken its super-truck, the 2017 F-150 Raptor, to China, cashing in on the growing appetite there for unusual Americana. Chinese buyers are getting a special version of the Raptor especially designed for the market, complete with a tweaked example of Ford's EcoBoost engine. Initially, only one body-style will be offered, however.
Like a phoenix from the ashes, Ford is resurrecting the beloved Bronco nameplate, as well as promising to return the Ranger to the US market. The news, shared at the North American International Auto Show (NAIAS) 2017 this morning, was light on details but heavy on promise, with midsize truck and SUV fans finally getting the news they'd been hoping the Blue Oval would give them for some years now. Don't expect instant gratification, mind.
The future of American trucking is hydrogen-electric, ambitious startup Nikola Motors claims, and we've now seen the 1,200 mile range semi it thinks will start the revolution. Unveiled this week, the Nikola One may look at first glance like a traditional diesel truck, but under the skin it's a very different story. A smarter powertrain, connected cabin, and longer running on a single tank of fuel - paired with doubly-ambitious hydrogen fuel network plans - could make this the revolution hauling has been waiting for.
There are all sorts of cool cars coming next year and beyond that car guys and gals can look forward to. No matter if you are in the market for a million plus dollar sports car or an affordable daily driver, cool cars are coming in droves. Check out eight of the best cars, trucks, and SUVs that you will be drooling over in the coming months.
The Standard Ford Raptor truck is a beast on its own, but if you want much, much more than what the factory can offer, you need to take your ride to Hennessey. The Hennessey crew can take a normal Raptor and turn it into the VelociRaptor 6x6 you see here. The price for the transformation is $295,000 and the money does include the base 2017 Raptor 4-door truck.
A new vehicle has debuted and the vehicle is called the Global Vehicle Trust Ox flat-pack truck. The vehicle is designed specifically to provide all-terrain mobility for the developing world and is designed to help communities perform crucial daily tasks more easily. The vehicle was specifically made with Africa and other developing nations in mind where the need for transportation is huge.
Mercedes-Benz has introduced the Urban eTruck, a fully electric transport truck with a total admissible weight of up to 26 metric tons and travel range up to 200 kilometers. The model is said to be the first fully electric truck able to haul heavy loads, and it aims to help usher in a future of emissions-free transportation in the distribution sector. Daimler Trucks anticipates being able to bring this technology to market “at the beginning of the next decade.”
Huge towing power, plenty of engine grunt, and a few lessons in aluminum borrowed from its F-150 sibling: the 2017 Ford F-Series Super Duty is taking no chances. The 2017 version of the heavy-duty pickup has the highest towing capacity so far, along with more payload capacity than its beefy rivals.
Google's passion, nay perhaps even obsession, for self-driving vehicles seems to run deep in its employees even after they have left the mothership. Or rather, they leave in order to extend Google's dream beyond the current passenger car limits. That does seem to be the case for Anthony Levandowski, who was instrumental in steering, pun intended, Google's self-driving car efforts. He and two other Google veterans, including other former employees from Tesla and even Apple, have formed Otto, a startup that is working on self-driving trucks that would make highways a safer place to drive.
This hasn't been a good week for car recalls. So far we've seen Tesla, Bugatti, and BMW recall a large number of vehicles, collectively. Not to mention all of the faulty airbags that Takata has been trying to address. And now GM is recalling more than a million trucks, due to an issue with the seat belt.
In a world where full-size trucks are increasingly plush palaces of rolling excess loaded for bear with luxuries that rival traditional premium sedans, the mid-size pickup segment has fallen out of step. For more than a decade these somewhat smaller options - like the class-leading Toyota Tacoma - have focused more on utility than 'wow' factor, a symptom of the less significant market that exists for trucks outside the full-size spectrum and the fact that there was so much profit to be made with their bigger brothers.
There's nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has finally come, and in the world of light pickups that particularly prescient thought-form has manifested as turbodiesel power. After decades of denying diesel to anyone outside the heavy-duty truck world, both American and Japanese brands are starting to offer turbodiesel engines across a much wider range of pickup choices.