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It was probably just a matter of time until someone put a motor in an office chair.

That someone turned out to be Volkswagen, which built a five-wheeled vehicle for cubicle dwellers. The VW electric chair — er, that may not be the best name for it — has a top speed of 12 mph and a range of more than 7 miles. It has LED lights and turn signals, and a rearview camera to catch the boss sneaking up from behind.

It's not available to buy, but VW says consumers will be able to take it for a test roll at select Norway dealerships.

"The chair is designed to give those who work in an office a feeling of what it's like to have a car from Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles as your workplace," a brochure reads. "You can drive, honk, and listen to music — even signal as you take a turn into a meeting room."

If an after-work soiree breaks out, the LEDs can be turned to Office Party Lights mode. And if the 300-cubic-inch trunk isn't large e…

The National Association of Minority Automobile Dealers has a new leader.

Hugene Fields, an industry outsider who has worked in the nonprofit space for 15 years, was named president during the organization's convention in Miami last month.

Fields, 35, takes the reins from Damon Lester, who had been at the helm since 2006. Lester, who joined NAMAD in 2002 as its vice president of operations, became a dealer himself in 2021 when he bought Nissan of Bowie in Maryland.

Lester became president not long before the economy faltered and caused the number of minority-owned stores to plummet. Minorities owned 1,805 dealerships in 2005, according to NAMAD data, but the Great Recession took hold soon after and sent this tally spiraling to 875 by 2011.

After that tough stretch, the numbers have been on an upward swing. The industry saw the biggest gain last year in minority-owned dealerships since 2012, adding 109 rooftops to bring the total to 1,366.

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Even Legoland is joining the electric vehicle revolution.

Legoland Florida Resort used Lego bricks to create a life-size replica of the Ford F-150 Lightning as part of its ongoing partnership with area dealers.

The Lego Lightning took more than 1,600 hours to build and is made of about 320,740 pieces. It's the same size as the real thing — more than 19 feet long and 6 feet high — and weighs 3,730 pounds, a little more than half as much as a driveable one.

It has working headlights, taillights and turn signals. Legoland made a time-lapse video showing its builders constructing the truck, which has a basic steel frame inside to keep the bricks from collapsing because of their weight.

The theme park outside Orlando has had a relationship with Ford Motor Co. through Southern Ford Dealers since its 2011 opening. The regional group sponsors an attraction that lets kids drive cars through a miniature town, and Legoland has bu…

Let's acknowledge right upfront: It might be a tell that a luxury brand's designers and marketers live in a different world than the masses when they decide that an airline seat should represent the pinnacle of technology and comfort. But that is what Bentley is calling its most technologically advanced and comfortable seat yet, which debuted this year as an option in the extended wheelbase version of its 2023 Bentayga crossover.

Each climate-controlled and fully adjustable "airline seat" constantly measures its occupant's temperature and humidity and adjusts automatically to one of seven preselected comfort levels. The seats in the rear of the Bentayga EWB also feature what Bentley dubs a "postural adjustment system," which employs 12 electric motors and multiple pneumatic valves to constantly change the way the seat interacts with its occupant, improving comfort and reducing fatigue.

The multiple servos and pumps are well-hidden beneath a luxurious and plus…

After spotting a dealership's help wanted sign during a small-town refueling stop led James Gramm into car sales in 1983, he became a dealer nearly 20 years later on April Fools' Day in 2002.

"The letters on the front of the building were made of Styrofoam," Gramm told Automotive News this week, laughing as he recalled how the Dodge dealership in Fredericksburg, Va., looked on the day he bought it. "One letter fell off as I pulled up. It literally fell off the building."

That dive of a dealership launched Safford Automotive Group, now one of the country's largest auto retailers after completing the industry's largest new-vehicle store acquisition deal so far in 2022, as tracked by Automotive News.

On Nov. 7, Gramm's Safford Automotive bought 16 stores in Maryland and Virginia from Brown Automotive Group, more than doubling its store count. The deal adds 14 franchised dealerships, one used-vehicle store and a muscle and classic car store to Safford, of S…

Policymakers on both sides of the pond work toward EV tax credit changes. Volvo’s CEO makes a bold prediction about ICE-EV price parity. Carvana’s troubles deepen with more license suspensions. Plus, Automotive News F&I reporter John Huetter talks about the FTC's proposal targeting “junk fee shock.”

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Audi's original dedicated electric vehicle, the E-tron, launched in 2019, is getting a reboot for 2023 that includes updated styling, more range and a new name: the Q8 E-tron 55 and Q8 E-tron Sportback.

A more energy-dense 114-kilowatt-hour battery pack replaces the 95-kWh unit in the same space. Power outputs are unchanged. The 55, with all-wheel drive via a dual-motor setup, maxes out at 402 hp and 490 pound-feet of torque in Sport mode. The high-performance SQ8 E-tron features three electric motors — a 166-hp unit up front and two 131-hp motors bolted on the rear axle — to produce a combined 496 hp and 718 pound-feet of torque in Sport mode.

Audi expects a 30 percent increase in range, given the more efficient rear electric motor and improved aerodynamics. It estimates 361 miles for the Q8 E-tron and 372 miles for the Q8 E-tron Sportback, both based on the Worldwide Harmonized Light Vehicles Test Procedure. The Q8 E-tron can charge at a rate of 170 kilowatts…

Self-driving vehicles may take a long time to hit the road in large numbers. The sensors driving much of their progress, however, are starting to go mainstream.

Lidar technology is trickling into human-driven vehicles in some cases. In others, it's finding scale in different industries.

The latest example of lidar for human-driven vehicles came earlier this week when Volvo unveiled its EX90, which contains the first fruits of its five-year collaboration with lidar provider Luminar. A standard front-facing lidar unit will underpin driver-assist features in the crossover.

With distinctive shapes resembling spinning chicken buckets or hockey pucks, lidar units once symbolized self-driving ambitions. Volvo's designers fashioned a far more subtle integration of Luminar's Iris lidar unit into the EX90's roofline.

It signals a shift into a new era — just not the one initially expected. But waiting for self-driving vehicles to materialize wasn't just the…