U.S. judge sums up VW’s Dieselgate: only the little guy hurt ‘by this corporate greed’

The timing certainly is appropriate. On the eve of Earth Day, Volkswagen’s operations in both Canada and the United States have reached new settlements and agreed to new penalties in the ongoing “Dieselgate” emissions scandal that has rocked the company’s bottom line. Still, no senior executive has even been charged with a criminal offence in this …

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2017 Infiniti QX30: the alliances strike their compromises

The car business is glamourous and gritty. Complicated and simple. Global and local. Every product decisions is a $1 billion investment, or more. The oversized egos who run car companies are amusing yet somehow manage to retain their sanity while managing creative types — designers and engineers who are passionate, eccentric and sometimes unruly. Point …

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‘Alright, alright, alright’: 2017 Lincoln Continental hides its Ford Fusion roots

I run in a crowd of people with birth certificates and bank balances that might suggest an interest in cars offered by the Lincoln Motor Co., Ford’s luxury brand. Our kids are grown and we have tickets to U2 (with Mumford and Sons), revisiting the original Joshua Tree tour of three decades ago. We ski, …

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Review: 2017 Honda CR-V delights and disappoints

Honda used to be the Civic company, but that’s old thinking. Yes, yes, while Honda still sells piles of Civics – Canada’s best-selling car for a million years or so — the CR-V crossover wagon is the rig that defines the brand in a marketplace salivating over crossovers, SUVs (sport-utility vehicles) and trucks of all …

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Why consumers will grow to love electric vehicles

There are many good reasons to love electric vehicles (EVs), most of them practical and some highly emotional. I love how quick they are. A modest little Chevrolet Bolt — $30,406 will Ontario’s incentives — will do 0-100 km/hour in less than 7.0 seconds. A lightning-fast Tesla Model S in Ludicrous mode — $186,200 — …

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