Author: kirklandc008@gmail.com

The biggest car news and reviews, no BS Our free daily newsletter sends the stories that really matter directly to you, every weekday. It was supposed to be a one-year special and die, yet here we are. Never would I have guessed that in the year 2026 I’d drive a new Hellcat-powered WK2-based Durango, but I did, and it’s exactly the vehicle you know and remember. The 2026 Dodge Durango Hellcat is the only three-row, supercharged V8-powered crossover SUV with a factory warranty. It’s loud, it’s quick, it’s fast, it’s comfortable, it’s thirsty, and it’s the same as it ever…

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Leapmotor’s first-half net profit rose to 210 million yuan ($30.95 million), marking its second consecutive half-year of profitability. Rising deliveries lifted revenue and gross profit, but gross margin, operating cash flow and free cash flow all declined year-on-year. Leapmotor (HKEX: 9863) said its first-half net profit surged 600% year-on-year to 210 million yuan ($30.95 million), marking its second consecutive half-year of profitability. Net profit was 30 million yuan in the same period last year. The automaker, backed by Stellantis NV (NYSE: STLA), said Monday that first-half revenue rose 57.2% year-on-year to 38.11 billion yuan, mainly driven by increased deliveries of…

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We have all seen the warning that AI can make mistakes. For a chatbot, that usually means inventing a fact, misunderstanding a question, or confidently giving you the wrong answer. Put the same technology inside a weapon, and those mistakes can end very differently. A New York Times investigation has detailed a July 6 Russian drone attack in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine, that killed three civilians, including a 19-year-old university student. Human operators programmed the drone to travel toward a gas station, but an autonomous AI system selected the exact object it would attack, most likely propane tanks. The drone failed to…

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Buying a hybrid vehicle for the long haul means eventually facing one unavoidable reality: the battery pack will need replacing. The good news is that hybrid batteries are substantially cheaper and easier to swap than their full EV counterparts, thanks to their smaller dimensions and lower capacity. They also tend to outlast EV packs by a considerable margin, since they share propulsion duties with a combustion engine rather than shouldering the entire load on their own. Among Lexus’s hybrid lineup, the Toyota Camry-based 2025 ES 300h stands out as one of the brand’s most accomplished and well-rounded HEV offerings. It…

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Automotive Porsche’s Sonderwunsch program is quickly becoming much more than a place for wealthy customers to choose rare paint colors and custom graphics. The automaker sees a bigger future for its “special wishes” division, one that involves increasingly ambitious one-off vehicles with significant design and engineering changes. Alexander Fabig, Porsche’s vice president of product offering and individualization, recently confirmed those plans in an interview with Car and Driver, explaining that several long-term Sonderwunsch projects are already underway and will be revealed over the coming months and years. A strong indication of where Porsche wants to take the program…

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Tesla has lost another senior chip engineer to DensityAI, the AI hardware startup built out of its own former Dojo team. Shishuang Sun, who spent more than five years as a Tesla AI hardware architect on Dojo and the Autopilot computers, now lists his role as “Packaging and System Hardware” at DensityAI, starting in July. This is not a junior loss. Sun left Tesla as Senior Director of AI Hardware Design — one of the people responsible for turning Tesla’s custom silicon into working systems, exactly the expertise Tesla needs as it stakes its valuation on in-house AI chips. A…

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GrapheneOS, an open source version of Android that prioritizes security and privacy, has detailed its plans for supporting Motorola smartphones. Official support is set to arrive next year, starting with traditional flagships, before rolling out to Motorola’s foldable phones and perhaps cheaper models, eventually.In a Mastodon thread, the GrapheneOS Foundation announced that it will initially support a Motorola slab flagship phone, but will later support both Razr Fold and Razr Ultra foldables — the latter of which would be the first flip phone to officially run GrapheneOS.Graphene has always had stringent security standards when it comes to hardware. The organization…

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The driver’s view is of a wide display strip, in the center of which – as in other Kia models – is the 5.3-inch area for the climate controls. However, its position is so awkward that the steering wheel rim constantly obscures part of the information, and it’s impossible to reach the controls with your fingers. It’s just as well then, that the Koreans have also provided manual buttons for adjusting the vehicle’s temperature.  Advertisement – Article continues belowThe 12.3-inch touchscreen is not ideally positioned either. To reach the far right corners, the driver has to lean forward out of…

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The Mazda MX-5 is a breath of fresh air compared to everything else on the road. As cars have gotten fatter, bigger, and more expensive, this humble Japanese sports car just keeps racking up sales, now in its 37th year on the market. Almost every manufacturer has taken their drop-tops off sale, but the Miata refuses to die. And here at CarBuzz, we’re in love with them. In fact, there are writers here who own more than one. There’s nothing else quite like it, and as sports cars become more complicated with hybrid and electric power, not much compares to…

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Fastco Canada has opened a 66,635‑square‑foot distribution centre in Vaughan, Ont. The company’s provincial expansion goal is to improve access to inventory for dealers. The move from Pickering increases the company’s ability to stock a wider range of aftermarket, OER and OEM wheel products closer to retailers. According to the release, the Vaughan facility will also support mounting and balancing services, giving dealers faster access to local solutions. “Our goal is simple: make it easier and faster for Ontario dealers to do business with Fastco,” said Lee Chaplin, president of Fastco Canada. “Vaughan puts significantly more inventory closer to our…

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