Showing posts with label 2020 vehicles. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 2020 vehicles. Show all posts

Monday, January 11, 2021

Tesla (Nearly) Meets Its 2020 Goal Of 500k Teslas Built And Delivered

[Auto Styling News]
 

In 2020, Tesla Motors says it produced and delivered half a million vehicles, in line with its 2020 goals, according to a company news release.

Well, almost. An actual spreadsheet included in the very same news release, shown below, indicate 499,550 delivered, with actually more than a half-million cars built last year. Company officials say that when all the data from 2020 is in, they may very well have reach the "500,000 delivered" goal, as well.
In addition, the release says Model Y production in Shanghai has begun, with deliveries expected to begin shortly.

For such a young company, it is quite an achievement. And CEO Elon Musk is thrilled with the result, tweeting,

"So proud of the Tesla team for achieving this major milestone! At the start of Tesla, I thought we had (optimistically) a 10% chance of surviving at all."

It was a vindication for Musk, who, in a 2014 interview, below, rather audaciously (at the time) predicted the company would be able to produce 500,000 vehicles by the end of 2020.

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Auto Styling News is a blog that covers car concepts, newly released models, and the auto industry.

Tuesday, February 26, 2019

#Toyota Supra Looks Great, But Some Only See A BMW [Auto Styling News]


Sports car enthusiasts have been waiting more than 20 years for the return of Supra and will soon be able to purchase the 2020 Toyota GR Supra for about $50,000.

For those fans and collectors anxious to be among the first owners of this iconic sports car, the initial 1,500 production Supras for the U.S. will be Launch Edition models starting at $55,250. Each will be uniquely numbered and have distinctive features signifying the exclusivity and excitement of Supra’s return. Toyota dealers will be handling all orders and the Launch Edition models go on sale in Summer 2019 starting at $55,250.

The Supra Launch Edition will be available in exterior colors of Absolute Zero White, Nocturnal Black or Renaissance Red 2.0, each featuring high-contrast red mirror caps and 19-inch forged matte black alloy wheels.

The Absolute Zero White and Nocturnal Black Supra Launch Editions will have a red interior. Each of the racing-inspired seats will be wrapped in red leather, with red leather steering wheel grips, and a red center console with carbon-fiber accents.

The Renaissance Red 2.0 Supra Launch Edition will feature a black leather-trimmed interior, with black seats, a black steering wheel, and black center console. The black interior will also feature carbon-fiber accents.

The first 1,500 Supras will feature an individually numbered carbon-fiber badge on the passenger-side dashboard complete with a graphic of Toyota Motor Corporation President and Master Driver Akio Toyoda’s signature.

CONTROVERSIAL DESIGN
The design bears a great resemblance to the most recent iteration of the car, the A80, which was produced from 1993 to 2002. The final design bore some resemblance to the 2014 FT-1 concept car, though with much toned down features.

The Supra is powered by two BMW-sourced engine options, and some critics say the interior is ripped from a BMW Z4. The exterior, too, has been accused of having a rather Teutonic/German style, and in a way, that's not an entirely bad comparison. (Though BMW is openly saying that the Z4 has a more powerful engine!)

The Pontiac-like nose juts outward, dangling between the two, large headlamps, which look like panthers about to pounce. They are placed on a bulging, Z4-like hood, that begs the question, "What's under that thing?" before one even asks the question. The side windows are small, and are finished off with a Hofmeister-kink style rear window. In front of both wheels are large, Lexus-like vents (likely not operational or useful.)

Another cut exists on the hood parallel with the windscreen that makes one wonder if the car has been in a knife fight. There's little question, however, whether it WON that fight. This small car screams masculinity in a way a Miata never could.

The rear of the Supra really shows the amazing curves on this thing. While rear visibility seems severely compromised by the large rear spoiler, the heart-shaped curvature of the rear window, indented rooftop and C-pillars - which curve inward at a sharp angle - are a sight to see, and the tail lights sit atop two large cuts that swoop downward, forming dramatic frames to the dual exhaust ports.

In short, this BMW-like Toyota is a quite ballsy sports car, and whether Toyota purists will enjoy the few Lexus-like hat-tips in the design or whether they'll shun it like they would a 3-series sedan remains to be seen.

Monday, June 18, 2018

Chinese Electric Car Company BYTON Unveils Sexy Autonomous electric #KByte Concept [Auto Styling News]


Fresh off a successful round of funding, in which it raised a reported $$ million, Chinese electric car company BYTON has introduced the K-Byte autonomous concept car, and it's a beauty.

The company opines:
"Freed from driving, it is time to expand your personal comfort in your car. Thanks to its intuitive user interface, BYTON K-Byte Concept turns the vehicle into a living and working space. You can enjoy all the benefits of being chauffeured without being confined to the back seat."
The K-Byte's autonomous tech was developed by Aurora Innovation, which was started by the former head of Google's self-driving car division Waymo. The K-Byte was designed by Benoit Jacob. Before joining BYTON, Jacob served as BMW Group’s vice president of design, and was responsible for the design of the innovative i3 and i8 electric cars, and designed 2008's BMW M1 Hommage concept.

With a lineage like that, perhaps Elon Musk and Tesla should be worried about the 2020s and the future of competition in the autonomous electric market.

This car is unique in so many ways it's hard to begin describing it. The glorious (or wild) front end, featuring a beautifully detailed headlamp feature that will either remind one of the Joker's painted on smile, the front end of a 1989-era Mercury Sable, or simply a beautiful art piece. We'll go with the more flattering description here.



The frontpiece is adorned with the clever "B" logo of the company, which reminds one of the Bentley B, or of Bitcoin's, and the BYTON name is appropriately sized here in these images (which are all digital, since not one of these has yet to be built - production is at least three years off.)

Absolutely necessary for this to be an autonomous vehicle are the pieces on the roof and sides, which resemble smokers a beekeeper might use, or elegant lamps used on carriages of old. But even THEY look elegant, and are of a beautiful black lacquer that is in keeping with this vehicle's pretentions - that of a luxury car. And it does look luxurious.

The sides are curvaceous, with a "cut" in the lower door panel, sloping gently to the rear tire, giving it all great depth, and a pointed, dainty rear side panel that reminds immediately of the 2006 Spyker D12 "Peking to Paris" concept (irony noted) a concept that SHOULD have been built, but is now somewhat reincarnated in this concept.

The rear quarters are equally gorgeous, with a wrap-around tail light feature that is thin and dainty and manages to be utterly unique. The rear is instead dominated by a large metal strip featuring again the BYTON B, which looks elegant.

What say you? Should they build it as is, make changes, or give up before they start?


Photos: BYTON website.



Wednesday, September 28, 2016

#VW Teases "Revolutionary" Electric Vehicle By 2020 [Auto Styling News]



At next month's Paris Motor Show, Volkswagen - seeking to turn the page on its scandalous gaming of emissions standards - will urge us to "Think New." And the concept car it recently teased ahead of the show is actually something pretty good, if may live up to the hype, if it makes it off the drawing board.

Volkswagen says the concept electric vehicle it will launch by 2020 will be based on it's "modular electric toolkit" (MEB in German) the basis of battery-electric vehicles with ranges of  249 to 373 miles. Several vehicles up and down the product line will apparently benefit from this new technology, including a beefed up electric car with greater range before 2020 (the current one gets a mere 83 miles out of a full charge.) By 2025, VW hopes to be selling between 2 million and 3 million electric vehicles every year.

This one-of-a-kind concept car, says VW, signals the brand’s entry into a new era, as revolutionary, it claims, "as the Beetle was seven decades ago, before it evolved into the world’s best-selling car of the last century." This car, too, they claim, "has the potential to make history with its completely new vehicle concept."

All well and good. The car, which we have only seen teased in the photos here, sure looks nice. The headlamps and tail lamps alone look revolutionary. And even if it had a regular gasoline engine in it, it looks like a winner (assuming, of course, consumers forgive them by 2020 for lying about earlier models' emissions!) But a note of caution here: VW, not unlike GM, Toyota and many other brands, have a history of teasing big changes and gorgeous concepts, only to have bean-counters ratchet down the beauty in the production phase.

One hopes they not only ARE able to deliver on these astounding range figures, but that the vehicles continue to evolve into something beautiful, like these indicate they will most certainly will be.

Wednesday, April 6, 2016

Meet the 2020 Apple iMaybe - Car & Driver's speculative mini-ute [Auto Styling News]

"Google the word 'Apple' and a link to the fruit we've consumed for thousands of years doesn't appear until page four." - that's Car and Driver magazine in its May, 2016 issue, preparing to describe it's speculative (and completely fictional, for now) 2020 Apple iMaybe mini-Ute.

The completely automated vehicle, which the magazine speculates would be built by BMW, would be heavily connected to the internet, via your iPhone 12, of course.

While it may take Apple some getting used to collaborating with another company (something C&D correctly notes it's never done before) the draw of the Apple name may not only be golden to consumers' ears, but also be like a steel girder to the magnet of their wallets.

The magazine again speculates that the cost of this mini-Ute could be north of $30,000, and wouldn't make an appearance until the 2020 model year.

(Photo is from the May 2016 issue of Car & Driver. Good luck finding an image online!)