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Jeep's off-road contingent can take quiet excursions into the wilderness these days with the brand's plug-in hybrid 4xe models. For limited distances, at least.

The Grand Cherokee 4xe can get up to 25 miles of electric range, while the plug-in Wrangler offers 21. This capability represents a steppingstone to the next phase of electrification for the SUV brand.

But Jeep's electric vision goes much further. Its eyes are set on delivering purely electric jaunts along the 22-mile Rubicon Trail without using an ounce of gasoline while still having considerable range left at the end of the journey.

"Our perspective is you're going to be able to do the Rubicon Trail and have another 100 miles at the end of the Rubicon to go to a charging station," said Jeep CEO Christian Meunier. "That's what we need to be able to do, and I think we can do it with a BEV."

The era of zero-emission capability is coming quickly for Jeep. An all-e…

For dealers dependent on auctions for cars and trucks, elevated wholesale used-vehicle prices were a pain point throughout 2021.

But there could be some relief in store: Forecasters saw limited price hikes during the 2022 spring selling season. Wholesale prices grew modestly for about eight weeks in a row — a pattern usually exhibited during the spring season as consumers spend their tax refunds on vehicles.

But now that the market is past that window, prices could smooth out even more.

"Dealers are starting to see the wholesale market behave pretty normally, just like we're seeing in retail pricing, so I think down the road, there'll be less pressure on that front," Cox Automotive Chief Economist Jonathan Smoke told Automotive News.

Dealers who source inventory from auctions have been taking the brunt of up-to-date market prices, which have gone through an extended bout of inflation, Smoke said.

Wholesa…

Finding quality used vehicles continues to be a challenge for auto dealers, from high pricing to low availability.

New tools aim to make it easier for retailers to keep their lots stocked.

Several retail technology companies are boosting their own capabilities to assist dealerships with used-vehicle sourcing, including by giving consumers an outlet to sell their vehicles.

Vehicle listings company CarGurus in January 2021 acquired a 51 percent stake in wholesale trading platform CarOffer, which allows dealers to create standing buy orders and automatically matches them to available inventory. CarGurus last year also introduced its Instant Max Cash Offer feature, through which consumers can sell their vehicles online.

Rival listings sites Cars.com and TrueCar have added tools of their own. Cars.com in March completed its acquisition of the assets of Accu-Trade, a provider of vehicle appraisal and valuation data and logistics technology. Company le…

PHOENIX — When it comes to luxury nameplates, BMW has long banked on the 3 Series sedan, billed as the ultimate driving machine, while the E Class sedan has carried the torch for Mercedes-Benz and the RX crossover has been a gold mine for Lexus.

Cadillac, feeling some heat in the light-truck market on its 120th anniversary, is cranking up the volume on its undisputed crown jewel.

Large luxury SUVs are moving more upscale in price, content and performance — see the 2022 Range Rover with optional third-row seating — and new entrants such as the Jeep Grand Wagoneer, which can top $100,000, are crowding in, so the Cadillac Escalade is getting fortified with an extreme performance model.

The 2023 Cadillac Escalade-V, packing a 682-hp, 6.2-liter supercharged V-8 engine with 653 pound-feet of torque, is a 3-ton luxury SUV that zips from 0 to 60 mph in under 4.4 seconds.

Priced at $149,000, including shipping, it will become t…

Earnest Morgan now smokes Texas-style barbecue ribs in the Infiniti showroom where he used to sell Q50s.

Morgan was the top salesman at Crest Infiniti and among the top 6 percent for the brand nationwide, before quitting to focus on the church he had founded and, eventually, a barbecue food truck.

Crest, in the Dallas suburb of Frisco, persuaded Morgan to come back — not as a salesman, but as its pitmaster. He and his wife, Cicely, turned the cafe by the service department into Earnest B's BBQ, a busy lunch spot.

Even Texas Monthly, the state's unofficial barbecue bible, has taken notice of Morgan, a Mississippi native the Frisco Chamber of Commerce named Citizen of the Year in March.

The magazine's barbecue editor, Daniel Vaughn, said he had been skeptical. But Morgan's ribs "would have been impressive even if I hadn't ordered them inside a car dealership," he wrote in a story published last week.

"I went in expecting a gimmick but inste…

A Toyota dealership in Georgia had a customer arrive at the service department with an unusual problem: His vehicle was meowing.

Technicians at Nalley Toyota of Roswell soon found the explanation.

A trio of kittens had gotten stuck behind the air filter in the engine compartment.

The dealership safely extricated the feline stowaways and named them Turbo, Hercules and Piston. All three now have new homes with store employees who decided to adopt them.

"We'd like to thank everybody at Nalley Toyota for going above and beyond to rescue these kittens," the customer wrote afterward, according to a LinkedIn post from Asbury Automotive Group.

"Thank you again for this miracle. I can't tell you how much we needed it."

Ford Motor Co.'s F-150 Lightning pickups are poised to come to the rescue of any Tesla drivers in need of a jolt.

Initial owners of the model that beat the Cybertruck to market have shared images online of an adapter that came with their pickup enabling them to charge Teslas, which use plugs distinct from the rest of the auto industry. When an electric-vehicle enthusiast blog wrote last week that Ford appeared to be trolling its rival, CEO Jim Farley assured his Twitter followers that the automaker means well.

Ford has made the F-150 Lightning's bidirectional charging capability a key selling point of the pickup, emphasizing use cases for customers who'd like to use their truck as a backup generator at worksites or for their home. Enabling EVs to both take and provide a charge has the potential to help utilities manage peaks in demand and even allow their owners to sell electricity back to the grid.

Tesla owners may not need the help. The carmaker boas…

As the old saying goes, the easiest way to eat an elephant is one bite at a time.

Shawn Butler can relate. The recently hired fixed ops director at Bristol Honda in Tennessee is taking that metaphorical advice to heart as he works — step by step — to revive a moribund and neglected service department that's been underperforming for years.

The importance of Butler's mission is magnified by the inventory shortage hampering dealerships' vehicle sales, which fosters more reliance on fixed ops revenue. Furthermore, service departments now serve as valuable funnels for potential used-car acquisitions that can at least partially replenish stores' flagging inventories.

The problems at the 55-year-old store, recently purchased by Umansky Automotive Group, of Memphis, Tenn., are, well, elephantine in scale: a well-below-average level of customer-pay repair orders per day; a low effective labor rate stemming from below-market prices for serv…