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The S-Class enters its final stretch as a combustion-powered sedan with a pinpoint refresh for the 2025 model year that’s entirely about the details; only those who keep track of the S-Class color palette year-to-year will know this is one is different to the 2024 sedan by looking at the exterior. The two new colors are Verde Silver Metallic and Velvet Brown Metallic — that’s right, brown, baby! Every auto scribe’s dream color. 

Inside, the comfort headrests that put a fluffy pillow between one’s hairdo and the traditional leather will be standard equipment. Streaming options rise by one, Mercedes integrating Sony Pictures Entertainment’s RideVu, porting films from Sony’s library into the cabin and onto devices in the cabin. RideVu says its custom interface tweaks just for the S-Class, which includes parental controls, allows “content to be streamed synchronously on up to six different in-car screens or personal devices or watched independently on each device.” A rotating roster of titles will count gems like “Jumanji: The Next Level,” “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse,” “Ghostbusters: Afterlife,” and “The Equalizer 3.”

Closer to the sedan’s German home, Mercedes’ MBUX infotainment interface will make assisted parking suggestions easier to find and use. For international markets, pre-installation for the Digital Key will make its way to the U.S. and Canada, and be compatible with Android devices. And for everyone, a new rear seat reminder uses the opening of the rear doors — as in, putting something in the back seat before starting the car and taking off — to figure out when to alert front-row occupants about something potentially left in the back seat. 

Moving up to the sedans in the Manufaktur program will get an OLED main display as standard equipment, part of MBUX Entertainment Plus. 

Based on a previous report, a more substantial facelift and refresh is on the way for 2026. At some point, either then or perhaps for another update planned in 2029, we’re told a less fussy user interface will return, with touch sliders on the steering wheel supposedly being replaced by capacitive buttons and thumbwheels, and a reworked instrument panel showing off a new Hyperscreen with an optional passenger display. Hartmut Sinkwitz, head of interiors, said, “Intuitive ergonomics will return, but I’m not saying analog is the new digital. Instead, we are going to offer the customers the best of both worlds.”

Orders for the 2025 S-Class are open now, deliveries in Europe will begin at the end of July, those for the U.S. will start at the end of August.  

Three recent Toyota patent filings look at different ways to mount tow hooks for better crash performance.

One of these filings, which was published by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) April 25, 2024 (and originally filed October 19, 2022), discusses tow hooks that would extend out when in use and retract into housing the rest of the time.

Toyota pivoting tow hook patent image

This arrangement could help improve safety, Toyota claims. In the patent filing, the automaker notes that rigid-mounted tow hooks can transmit impact forces to other parts of the vehicle, potentially causing damage. This design uses a shearing pin that will break if an impact is hard enough, causing the tow hook to retract and thus absorbing some of the force.

Another patent filing, submitted by Toyota and published by the USPTO within the same timeframe as the first, features a similar idea. Here, though, tow hooks would pivot up and down. Again, Toyota believes allowing the tow hooks to move when hit will improve a vehicle’s crash performance.

Toyota tow hook assembly patent image

The third patent filing, which surfaced around the time as the other two, proposes a more complex mounting assembly that would act as a crash structure for two hooks. The tow hook would be attached to a “crush box” designed to deform on impact, absorbing the force of the impact rather than transmitting it to other parts of the vehicle.

Not all patented ideas make it to production, but these three iterations at least indicate that Toyota is thoroughly investigating different tow-hook mounting options. And with the continuing proliferation of off-road variants of SUVs and pickup trucks, a closer look at the safety of permanently-mounted tow hooks might be a good idea.

Tesla cut two key executives and laid off the 500 staff members who supported the operations of its Supercharger EV charging network, The Information reported on Tuesday, citing CEO Elon Musk’s email to senior managers.

Musk cited falling sales and impatience with the overall progress in headcount reduction as the primary drivers behind the cuts and reportedly suggested that more will follow, warning his executives to take headcount reduction measures seriously. 

Rebecca Tinucci, senior director of the electric vehicle maker’s Supercharger business, and Daniel Ho, head of the new vehicles program, are both out. Musk also plans to dismiss everyone working for Tinucci and Ho, including the roughly 500 employees who work in the Supercharger group, the report said. The Supercharger layoffs stand out as particularly surprising, because the Supercharger network is widely regarded as a key advantage for Tesla over its competition — as of January, Tesla had built 6,000 Supercharger stations with nearly 55,000 chargers.

Tesla’s public policy team, which was led by former executive Rohan Patel, will also be dissolved.

Per Musk, Tesla needs to remain “absolutely hard core” about managing headcount and costs and said the cuts should serve as a warning to anybody on staff who isn’t taking the initiatives seriously. Tesla had 140,473 employees globally as of end-2023, Reuters said. 

Ho joined Tesla in 2013 and served as program manager on Model S, the 3, and the Y before being put in charge of all new vehicles. Tinucci joined in 2018. Two other leaders — Patel and battery development chief Drew Baglino — announced their departures earlier this month, when Tesla also ordered the layoffs of more than 10% of its workforce.

Includes reporting from Reuters.

Italdesign used last week’s 2024 Beijing auto show to present the Quintessenza concept, a handsome grand tourer with a pickup truck-style bed hidden beneath a canopy.

The concept features the body of a sleek coupe but an adjustable ride height (up to 11 inches of ground clearance) hints at some level of off-road capability. The rear windshield can be removed, providing ample access to a bed mounted below. There are four seats split over two rows, with the rear two seats able to flip backwards so that occupants can face the rear when the vehicle is stationary.

In a statement, Italdesign said the concept is meant to showcase how “flexibility, freedom, and sportiness” could be combined in a single vehicle. Such a vehicle would be aimed at buyers who live in urban areas but like to spend time in nature, doing activities like camping or hiking or off-road biking.

Access to the cabin is via vertically lifting doors. Inside, a floating dashboard wraps around the cabin all the way to the rear. It features up front a main panel that is made of what Italdesign describes as a marble-based fabric. This fabric hides various controls that only become visible when a certain function is being used, such as the climate settings. For the driver, vital driving information is presented in a floating digital screen behind the steering wheel.

The Quintessenza is powered by an electric powertrain. A single motor powers the front axle while a pair of in-wheel motors are found at the rear. Together they form an all-wheel-drive system and deliver a combined output of 778 hp. Italdesign quotes a 0-62 mph time of less than three seconds. A 150-kwh battery sits in the floor of the vehicle.

This is actually the second time in two years that a member of the Volkswagen Group has presented such a concept in China. Last year, Audi presented the similar Activesphere concept in Shanghai.

Neither concept is intended for production, though. In the case of the Quintessenza, the concept was developed to showcase Italdesign’s capabilities, particularly to companies in China where Italdesign established a local office in 2022.

It’s been a little more than a year since Sony and Honda revealed their joint electric car project, the Afeela, and just a couple of months since an updated version of the car was shown at CES. Neither company has gone into great detail about the car parts of the EV, instead focusing on the interior and potential for infotainment. So, when we saw that the car had been added to “Gran Turismo 7,” we saw an opportunity to potentially learn more about the guts of the sedan, and maybe even a little bit about how the car drives.

Now obviously, you can’t take this little virtual drive too seriously. We can’t get a feel for, well, steering feel, through a Playstation 5’s DualSense controller, for instance. And as realistic as the Gran Turismo games are, they’re still adjusted to be accessible to lots of people and playable with a controller. There are many, many reasons this isn’t a super serious road test, and we totally get that. But we thought this would be fun, and could still reveal a little bit about this somewhat mysterious car. So with all the caveats listed out, let’s actually get to the car.

Booting up the game, I hoped that maybe we might find some actual numbers listed. After all, the developers at Polyphony Digital would have to know specs to deliver a somewhat accurate driving experience. And while Polyphony probably knows the numbers, they clearly are following a request from Sony and Honda not to tell those numbers to the player. Horsepower, torque and weight are all left blank. Even purchasing the power restrictor part and playing with it in the settings menu just shows the percentage of power, plus a big blank box where a power curve normally would be.

But there are some areas that reveal a little about the car’s performance. For one thing, we have a weight balance, which is 53% front and 47% rear. There’s even an estimated quarter-mile time of 12.65 seconds. And then there’s GT7’s vehicle rating system: performance points. The Afeela has a score of 546.75. Obviously, that number is meaningless without some points of reference. So here’s some: There are two Teslas in GT7, the 2012 Model S Signature Performance (single-motor) and the 2023 Model 3 Performance (dual-motor). The Afeela falls between the two, with the 410-horsepower, 4,449-pound Model S at 536.56, and the 531-horsepower, 4,038-pound Model 3 at 582.67.

That’s about all we can glean looking at menus, so it’s time to take the Afeela for a spin. I mainly did a couple of laps on the Nürburgring with the Afeela, as well as the Teslas for comparison. We did know that the Afeela had a dual-motor, all-wheel-drive setup, and it feels very much like a conventional all-wheel-drive car. A lot of EVs have opted to use a bigger rear motor than the front motor, lending a rear-drive bias. That doesn’t feel like what the Afeela has. It doesn’t feel like it wants to hang its tail out much, either on or off throttle. And adding power just has it holding its line, maybe with a bit of understeer. The slight front bias in weight probably contributes a bit to that feeling, too. 

On the long main straight of the ‘Ring, the Afeela got up to 145 mph, and that was it. Bringing the Teslas back into the picture, that’s 10 mph ahead of the Model S, and 10 mph behind the Model 3. Also worth noting, power seemed to drop off a lot more at higher speeds than in the Model S. So it definitely is down on power. Where the Afeela seems as though it might make up for it could be weight. You can feel that the Teslas are quite heavy, and the shift left to right can be pretty rough. The Afeela doesn’t seem to have as violent of a weight transfer, and feels a little easier to slow down.

Again, these are impressions of a car from a video game, played with a controller, and for a vehicle without full specification info and not completely production-ready. Quite obviously, the real car could feel differently in real life. But this is as close as we can get, and we were curious. So far, it seems pretty intriguing, and we’re excited to take a turn in the real thing if and when it reaches reality.

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