Jenkins began his career working as a designer at Audi in the early-1990s. After a few years in Germany, he moved to Audi’s Los Angeles-based studio, then switched over to parent conglomerate Volkswagen AG in the early-2000s. After working on notable projects like the second-gen Audi A8 and VW’s Scirocco and Microbus concepts, Jenkins left VAG to join Mazda’s North American Advanced Design Group in Irvine, Califor

Tesla had previously revealed that their business in China suffered a blow after Beijing raised tariffs on imports of U.S vehicles to 40 percent last July. The Asian country, though, has since issued a temporary suspension of the additional 25 percent, reverting to the previous 15 percent cha

In 2015, Jenkins told me, he met Peter Rawlinson, the former Chief Engineer who served under Musk on the Tesla Model S. "I had watched the EV transition from afar, with a lot of friends working at Tesla," Jenkins said. "The opportunity with Lucid came along and I took the opportunity. And I’ve been here pushing like crazy ever sin

"A lot of people criticize Tesla for being so dependent on incentives. In fact, for a company making EVs, we have the least access to incentives. It's pretty crazy. Because there's so many countries that have put price caps on the EV incentive which differentially affect Tesla. And in China, which is the biggest market for EV's, we've never had any subsidies or tax incentives for vehic

Instead of working with that same recipe, Jenkins explained, "We had to put a clear line in the sand, in a way, and say what aesthetic elements belong to the internal-combustion era and what aesthetic elements belong to this new era of electrification. Things like this long, powerful hood, big grilles, big air intakes, big exhaust pipes to the rear of the car, angry-looking faces. All the current internal combustion aesthetics, we thought we needed to move beyo

"We need to bring the Shanghai factory online. I think that's the biggest variable for getting to 500,000-plus a year," Tesla owner Elon Musk told CNBC . Our car is just very expensive going into China. We've got import duties, we've got transport costs, we've got higher costs of labor here. And we've never been eligible for any of the EV tax cred

"This thing is a miserable job," Munro tells Autoline’s John McElroy. Without even having disassembled the car, Munro was able to point out more flaws on the Model 3 than cars from the early ‘90s, and some of them were quite danger

Curiously, the Model 3 has manual door handles in the front of the car, but only electronic openers in the back, meaning if the car loses power the rear occupants are trapped. "I guess the kids don't matter," Munro no

But getting to the production model definitely took some time. With core concepts in mind, Jenkins said, "We really focused, from that point, building this brand around those attributes, building a core DNA to the brand. And then that, of course, leads to actually designing the car and building an aesthet

"That’s why we put all this focus on the lighting, on the light blade, we have this incredible microlens array technology which allows the very slim digital lighting. We need very little cooling on the front of the car, that’s why we have this very small opening down bel

Downstairs in the garage, another Tesla salesman named Gianni gave us a rundown on how the touchless test drive would proceed. He showed us the access card—keys are sooo 1990s—and Ryan climbed into the driver's seat. I slipped into the passenger seat, immediately impressed with the comfort level, from the soft padding to the aggressive bolsters more reminiscent of a sports car than an economy commu

Tesla's primary USP is the insane, raw performance of their flagships. In terms of acceleration, few cars, let alone electric Car news|https://evinsightzone.com/, can compete with some of its market leaders. But, as Top Gear points out , these "YouTube friendly 0-60 times" don't always reflect the car's overall package. The Polestar meanwhile, gives you everything you could possibly want from a saloon/SUV crossover. It's not exactly slow, even if it clocks in at a frankly excessive weight of 2.1 tonnes. but more than that, its spacious and comfortable to drive, thanks to the smooth handling and limited driver modifications required. This isn't one for the purist, but in terms of wider appeal, it ticks all boxes with flying col

Safely through the intersection, I chuckled to myself. Ryan seemingly took the episode in stride, no problem. And so, when a right turn onto Sunset Boulevard approached, I let a string of cars go by, checked both directions, and did it all over ag

The car’s panel work had frequent gaps and inconsistencies, showing a clear lack of manufacturing quality. "The tolerance stack-ups on this car are just, like nothing we’ve ever seen before. Not since... the ’70s or somethi

"We really approached it like the components are miniaturized, we pushed them away from the occupants, maximized interior space. That became an immediate opportunity. And then keeping the outside compact, agile, and sporty so it’s still like a sport sedan on the outside, full-sized luxury on the inside, with hypercar performance—and the cargo capacity of an SUV. So you have this really unique combination of attributes that doesn’t exist in the marketplace tod