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The regular Lamborghini Urus is no slouch, but the Italian supercar brand has opted to kick things up a notch with the Urus Performante, a new higher-performance version that promises to be lower, lighter, quicker and more powerful.

The brand debuted the 2023 Urus Performante Friday at the Quail during Monterey Car Week. Engineers squeezed an additional 16 hp from its twin-turbo V-8 to lift the Performante version's power rating to 657 hp, while reducing its overall weight by 104 pounds, giving it a 0-to-62 mph time of 3.3 seconds, Lamborghini said. The Urus Performante's upgraded powertrain also delivers 627 pound-feet of torque.

Set apart by styling distinctive from the rest of the Urus lineup, the Performante's drive modes were reengineered and include a new Rally selection, which amplifies its oversteer characteristics with anti-roll and dampening systems to augment its revised suspension, the brand says.

To prove its bona fides, Lamborghini took the…

MONTEREY, Calif. — Acura has unveiled a concept for its first electric vehicle, to be built through a partnership between Honda Motor Co. and General Motors, and said the production model will bear the name of a popular but discontinued vehicle — the ZDX.

The old nameplate was a short-lived performance-oriented crossover that Acura debuted in the 2010 model year and then canceled after 2013.

The Acura Precision EV Concept, unveiled here Thursday, will serve as a north star for the brand's upcoming EV design look. The sporty compact crossover has a low, wide athletic stance and is draped in a brilliant blue with space-age light effects. Its various exterior and interior elements will be incorporated into the electric lineup Acura will roll out starting in 2024.

"The ZDX will complement our current [crossover] lineup, offering a premium, sporty and all-electric experience," said Emile Korkor, Acura's assistant vice president of national sales. "We will re…

Lucid is rolling out the next evolution of its luxury Air sedan: a performance edition under the new Sapphire subbrand with three electric motors, 1,200 hp, a $249,000 starting price and supercar levels of acceleration.

The Lucid Air Sapphire, unveiled Friday at Monterey Car Week, has a track-tuned suspension and carbon-ceramic brakes and will vie for the title of the fastest sedan in the world with the Tesla Model S Plaid.

Both advertise a 0-to-60 time of under two seconds.

"With three state-of-the-art electric motors — all developed and manufactured in-house by Lucid — Lucid Air Sapphire reaches an entirely new level of performance," said Eric Bach, senior vice president of product.

"And because a three-motor Lucid Air was always part of the development program, it retains all the strengths of Lucid Air variants already on the market — including limo-like rear legroom, a voluminous trunk and frunk, and impressive efficiency," Bach said.

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Pebble Beach weekend has returned in full force this year. Automakers are showing a slew of new product changes out among the lawns and beachsides of the Monterey peninsula.

And stealing the spotlight this year: electric vehicles.

An annual cluster of events traditionally known for displays of sky-high-horsepower sports cars and rarified exotica, the venues this year will unveil EV versions of vehicles that can perform (and will likely cost) at breathtaking levels.

Muscling into Rolls-Royce pricing territory: The small-batch Range Rover SV Carmel Edition stickers at $345,000 — roughly $75,000 more than a 2023 Range Rover with all the options boxes checked. In comparison, the 2022 Rolls-Royce Cullinan crossover has a starting price of $348,000.

A north star for Acura's upcoming EV design: Acura has unveiled a concept for its first electric vehicle, to be built through a partnership between Honda Motor Co. and General Motors, and said the pr…

Dealership inventory levels will remain at or near record lows for at least another year before they begin to make any recovery of their unsold vehicles on hand, and may never return to previous levels that required sales incentives, said Jack Hollis, Toyota Motor North America's newly minted head of sales.

Speaking Thursday during an Automotive Press Association event, Hollis — who succeeded Bob Carter in the top sales role in June — said demand is continuing to outstrip automakers' abilities to produce enough vehicles to fill dealership lots.

"We're going to be dealing with this for one more year," said Hollis. "I do not believe we're going to see growing dealer stock for one more year. I think we're going to be in a situation, speaking for Toyota and Lexus, where whatever we wholesaled is what we'll retail."

Hollis said dealer inventories are likely to remain tight — he noted that Toyota dealerships have been down to a 36-hour supply at certain points…

WASHINGTON -- U.S. auto safety regulators on Thursday asked Tesla Inc. to answer questions about its cabin camera as part of a probe into 830,000 Tesla vehicles that employ the carmaker's advanced driver assistance system called Autopilot.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration in June upgraded its probe opened in 2021 to assess the performance of Autopilot after earlier identifying a dozen crashes in which Tesla vehicles struck stopped emergency vehicles.

NHTSA's nine-page letter demands Tesla answer questions by Oct. 12 about "the role that the Cabin Camera plays in the enforcement of driver engagement/attentiveness."

According to Tesla, the cabin camera can determine driver inattentiveness and provide audible alerts to remind the driver to keep their eyes on the road when Autopilot is engaged.

Tesla will once again get tax credits next year, but does it need them? A new study shows broken EV chargers are hampering adoption. Meanwhile, Volvo looks to lower costs with its Starbucks charging stations. Plus, a deeper look into the Inflation Reduction Act’s impact on the industry with Automotive News Washington D.C. reporter Audrey LaForest.

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WASHINGTON -- U.S. auto safety regulators will extend a deadline for public input on General Motors and Ford Motor Co. petitions seeking to deploy a limited number of self-driving vehicles without human controls like steering wheels and brake pedals.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration on Thursday made the 30-day extension of the public comment on the automaker requests after cities like San Francisco and Oakland, California, state transportation agencies, the National Association of City Transportation Officials and others sought further time to analyze the exemption requests.

San Francisco said petitions raise "numerous complex technical and policy issues involving vehicle safety that necessitate significant analysis."

San Francisco noted it "is the location with the most intensive testing of automated vehicles to date... As such, we have valuable insights to offer and stand to be significantly affected by the outcome of the petition." Read more

With the right online tools, your dealership can get customers to the two-yard line. And your salespeople can get them into the end zone to finalize the deal.

At Temecula Valley Buick GMC, they have perfected this seamless online to in-store handoff. How exactly?

Providing customers with a detailed, human to human chat interaction. Expanding their full retail experience beyond the four walls. Using a single process, wherever the customer starts their journey. They’re competing against the Carvana’s of the world with an experience that allows them to turn chats into signatures; an approach that allows them to retail anywhere.

5 things to look for in an inverter for EV battery and e-axle testing Flexibility: supports a broad range of DC output voltages and currents Power: it can deliver on ever-increasing DC output current demands Precision: accurate control with less than 0.1 percent ripple Efficient cooling: liquid coolant for more effective, energy-efficient testing Safety: well-designed safety disconnects to protect workers and testing equipment

Accurately testing complex systems like electric vehicle (EV) batteries and e-axles in a high-output, mass-production environment takes a new level of speed, flexibility and precision. But high-performance industrial inverter drives are powering a new generation of end-of-line EV battery and e-axle testing systems to meet the challenge. Advanced inverters like IndraDrive ML from Bosch Rexroth offer more power and more options in a scalable, space-saving design to handle high-volume testing more efficiently. Learn how to start increasing your productivity in EV battery and e-axle testing.

Steve Pitt, the longtime organizer of the convention held annually by the National Automobile Dealers Association, died Saturday of a brain hemorrhage just days before his 76th birthday, an NADA spokeswoman confirmed to Automotive News.

Pitt joined NADA in 1974 and planned 48 conventions for the dealer association before retiring this year. As senior vice president of NADA's conventions and expositions group, he directed the annual NADA Show, where he booked and stage-managed speakers such as former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and former U.S. presidents including George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton, among other famous celebrities, politicians and business executives.

Pitt was an Air Force veteran who served in Vietnam and then worked in the hotel industry. In 1974, while working at ITT Sheraton's national sales office in Washington, D.C., he received a job pitch from NADA. Pitt rejected the offer twice before ultimately deciding to go for it.

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