New Dodge Charger Won't Get A Hemi V8, GM Might Bulldoze The Ren Cen And Porsche's Apartments Sink In This Week's News Roundup

The Porsche Design Tower in Miami, built in 2014, is one of 35 luxury beachfront properties along the coast that a recent University of Miami study has found to have sunk by up to three inches into the unstable sandy earth. Three inches might not seem like a lot, but this is much faster than most experts anticipated. If you, like footballer Lionel Messi, paid $9 million for an apartment in the Porsche Design Tower, your view of the skyline is now a few inches lower than it was a decade ago. - Bradley Brownell Read More

Despite the brand’s troubles, Jeep has a tendency to actually listen to its typically loyal customers. When Jeep customers want something they let the brand know, and that’s paid off for 2025. Just three months after announcing it would be discontinued, Jeep says it’s bringing back the automatic transmission to the V6-powered Wrangler, and it’s all because fans were asking for it. - Lawrence Hodge Read More

Detroit’s Renaissance Center, home of General Motors, is an immediately recognizable part of the city’s skyline. It’s also nearly empty and only getting emptier, but GM has plans for what to do with the building after its offices have fully moved out. It wants to renovate three of the center’s towers, and demolish the other two, but only if it gets some of your tax dollars from the city and state. Otherwise, the company may just tear down the whole thing. - Amber DaSilva Read More

Carlos Tavares wanted the Hemi V8 dead while he was in charge of Stellantis, and he pretty much got his way. Right now, there are just three vehicles built by the automaker that carry the engine: the Ram 1500 TRX (and HD), the Jeep Wrangler Rubicon 392 and the Dodge Durango. That’s it. Now though, it wouldn’t be a crazy idea to think this massive pushrod engine could make a comeback with the departure of Tavares and the incoming Trump administration that is poised to roll back emissions requirements. It’s impossible to know for sure if that’ll actually happen, but one thing is fairly certain: it won’t come back in the new Charger. - Andy Kalmowitz Read More

Back when the COVID-19 pandemic was in full swing, wreaking havoc across the world, automakers enjoyed record-high profits as they raised prices because of a shortage of new cars. Now though, that honeymoon period is over, and these companies aren’t in a position to recover without a lot of pain. - Andy Kalmowitz Read More

The fledgling robotaxi services currently out on the roads aren’t quite fulfilling the ambitious promises of a fully autonomous future. One Waymo robotaxi seemingly got stuck in a roundabout last week, causing it to lap around the tight loop 37 times. Thankfully, there were no passengers inside for the dizzying ride. - Ryan Erik King Read More

Chevrolet finally revealed the production version of the C8 Corvette ZR1 over the summer, promising us 1,064 horsepower and 828 pound-feet of torque from its twin-turbocharged 5.5-liter V8. That’s some serious power, and it gets even scarier when you remember the Corvette ZR1 is rear-wheel drive. That means the engine sends more than 500 hp to each powered wheel, which truly is an absurd figure when you think about it. Now, we’ve got official acceleration numbers from Chevrolet, and boy is this thing quick. It’ll hit 60 mph in just 2.3 seconds and runs the quarter-mile in 9.6 at 150 mph. - Collin Woodard Read More

It looks as if the Feds have finally given us an official reason for the mystery sightings of drones over New Jersey and neighboring states over the last few weeks and damn if it isn’t boring. - Lawrence Hodge Read More

Brace yourselves, because Honda is getting back into the sporty coupe business. On Tuesday the automaker announced that the Prelude will return to the U.S. in late 2025, two years after first debuting it in “concept” form. The downside? It sounds as if the new coupe won’t come with a manual transmission as was initially speculated. - Lawrence Hodge Read More

Shaquille O’Neal is a big man with an even bigger car collection. On a podcast a couple months back, the former NBA star and basketball analyst said he owns 40 cars. Many of them are unique custom builds due to Shaq’s large stature — at 7-foot-1-inch tall, he can’t exactly fit in most vehicles, even one as large and spacious as the Lucid Air. So Shaq did what he’s done before: He had a custom Lucid made so he could fit in it. - Lawrence Hodge Read More