Cars are the technology of the future. The Verge brings you new car reviews, auto show insights, deeply reported investigations, and news from the frontlines of autonomous and electric vehicle development. We bring you updates from major companies like Ford, GM, Mercedes, and VW as well as digital upstarts like Uber, Google, and Tesla. Cars are among the biggest computers that we’ll ever own, and we know computers. We also bring you news and analyses from the growing effort to reduce the number of cars crowding our cities and the fight to reduce oil consumption, cut CO2 emissions, and shift to more sustainable sources of energy.
Putting Nokian’s James Bond tech to the test.
The native app is currently in beta for iOS users, according to WABetaInfo. It lets users access their recent chat list, view contact details, manage calls, and send messages from their car’s infotainment display. Meta’s devs are on a roll having recently brought WhatsApp to both Apple and Garmin watches.
The Rivian and Volkswagen Group Technologies joint venture brought one of its new software-defined test vehicles to Sweden and Germany to see how it handles the cold. They stress-tested the all-wheel drive system and validated over-the-air software functionality, amid other tests. Most importantly, the completion of these tests bring Rivian a step closer to receiving the next tranche of investment from VW, which will be crucial as the automaker ramps up its R2 production.
The company apparently gives parking priority to employees who own Jeep, Chrysler, Dodge, or Ram vehicles, The Wall Street Journal reports. But if you get caught parking a rival brand in the wrong lot, you get a warning. And now many Stellantis employees are posting their frustrations on Reddit. One employee said he got a ticket for parking his Eagle Talon sports car in the lot — despite Eagle being a defunct nameplate from Chrysler.
That’s according to BMW SVP Bernd Körber, speaking to Motor1.com. BMW announced the new i3 EV on Wednesday, but it appears that the i4 won’t be around much longer.
[Motor1.com]
The styling won’t work for everyone, but 440 miles of range could make this an attractive package.
The companies aim to launch a pilot program in Tokyo by late 2026, allowing Uber riders to book robotaxis based on the Nissan Leaf EV, powered by Wayve’s autonomous driving tech. In its press release, Uber said:
“The announcement reinforces a shared ambition to scale safe, intelligent autonomous mobility globally, by combining Wayve’s AI technology, Nissan’s cutting-edge vehicles and Uber’s network, the partners aim to bring autonomous mobility to more cities.”
The new Cayenne S Electric slots between the entry level Cayenne Electric and the high performance Turbo Electric, both of which were released late last year. The dual-motor S Electric will have an output of 536 horsepower, which jumps to 657 hp when using Launch Control. And it will start at $126,300 when it goes on sale this summer, as compared to $165,350 for the Turbo Electric. Giddyup.
Plug-in hybrid owners rarely actually plug in their vehicles, practically negating the climate advantages of the technology.
That’s Ford CEO Jim Farley to Car and Driver about the F-150 Lightning. The automaker recently discontinued the electric truck, after announcing a massive $19.5 billion write-down on its EV operations. “I mean, look, we didn’t know what we didn’t know,” Farley adds, admitting that Ford’s gas-engine “prejudice was so high that we hadn’t designed the [electric] cars right.” Now the company is betting that it can right-size its business with smaller, more aerodynamic EVs.
They even had to blur out the Ford logo in a couple of shots in this video. The best part of the press release is when Caterpillar says it was inspired by a deluge of AI slop in response to rumors that it was building its own pickup truck (it’s not; according to The Autopian, this is just a one-off).
AI-generated images of a Cat pickup were getting everyone excited. You couldn’t look away, and we couldn’t either. Thousands of inquiries flooded in from customers, contractors, and equipment owners with one simple question: “What would a Cat Truck really be like?”
You see, kids? Sometimes slop is good!
The Vision GT was designed to split the difference between performance on straights and corners, with a chassis that was “sculpted by the wind.” Apparently it’ll be on display at the MWC show floor, where hopefully I’ll get a better look at it.
The parent company of Jeep and Dodge just took a $26.5 billion hit on its EV investment. But its problems run much deeper than that.
The EV company says the staff cuts are intended to “improve operational effectiveness and optimize our resources,” TechCrunch reports. An internal memo added that the company is still focused on “further expansion into the robotaxi market,” following the launch of a robotaxi collaboration with Nuro and Uber last year.
Starting on May 3rd, 2026, five Formula 1 races, including the Miami, Monaco, British, Italian, and United States Grands Prix, will be shown in “select IMAX locations” across the country. The showings will take place in at least 50 IMAX theaters as a result of a new partnership with Apple.
The SUV pioneer owned by Volkswagen won’t start production on its first EVs, the Terra truck and the Traveler SUV, until 2028, not 2027 as originally planned, German publication Der Spiegel reports (as noted by The Drive). Given the dour mood around EVs these days, a one-year production delay isn’t the worse news.
Look, if you’re going to build a product that sits below a car’s backup camera and squirts it clean every now and then, there’s really only one name you can give it, and it isn’t Lens Lizard.
oak:
disappointed that they decided against calling it the backup-bidet
Get the day’s best comment and more in my free newsletter, The Verge Daily.
The automaker’s EV skunkworks team is using ‘bounties’ to guide engineering decisions that track gains in battery range and reductions in cost.
The system works to save fuel by cutting off the engine when the vehicle comes to a stop at a red light, for example. Automakers were incentivized at add the feature by off-cycle credits from the federal government. But now those credits are gone, and the auto industry is likely to start phasing the feature out. Lee Zeldin claims it will save “$1.3 trillion,” but good luck spending it while the world burns.
Geely may build cars in the US, but their software still has to follow cybersecurity restrictions.
On X, Ford CEO Jim Farley posted several photos of the automaker’s Universal EV Project, calling it “one of the most audacious and important projects in @Ford’s history. American innovation is how we compete and win against China and the rest of the world.” The first EV, expected in 2027, will be a four-door, midsized $30,000 pickup truck.
Of all the Chinese automakers, Geely seems best positioned to sell its cars in the US. That may explain why Ford is considering a technology partnership with the parent company of brands like Polestar and Volvo. Reuters reports that Geely could use Ford factory space in Europe to produce vehicles for the region.
