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2021 Infiniti Q50 gains more safety equipment and sporty-looking Sensory trim

Details for the 2021 Infiniti Q50 are out, and while it’s largely the same sedan as it was last year, Infiniti made some notable improvements. For starters, Infiniti made its suite of driver assistance equipment standard. This includes blind-spot warning, adaptive cruise control, lane departure warning, 360-degree camera with moving object detection, parking sensors, backup collision assist and auto high-beams. ItÂ’s a fairly comprehensive package that many luxury brands would make you pay a pretty penny for. Additionally, Infiniti is adding a Sensory trim level for 2021. ItÂ’s equipped with the 300-horsepower version of the 3.0-liter twin-turbo V6 engine. Infiniti also equips it with sport design front and rear fascias, leather sport seats, black open pore wood interior trim, black headliner and pillars and a 16-speaker Bose audio system. Both the Sensory and Red Sport 400 gain power-folding, auto-dimming outside mirrors in the new year, too. Appearance changes for the Red Sport 400 include a new matte black carbon fiber interior trim package and more black exterior trim highlights. You can see the carÂ’s slightly more menacing look in the photos at the top of this post. The rest of the Q50 lineup gains two new color options: Slate Gray and Grand Blue. Pricing for the base Q50 hasnÂ’t budged in the new year. Rear-wheel-drive models will still start at $37,625 and all-wheel-drive versions will begin at $39,625. The 2021 Infiniti Q50 is arriving in dealerships now. Related Video:

Infiniti QX70 is fini, for now

We knew it first as the FX, debuting in 2003 as a bulgingly macho SUV/crossover thing with an impossibly long hood. It was quick and powerful, and lower-slung than typical SUVs, more like a tall wagon. Infiniti later dialed the cartoonishness of it back a few notches and started calling it the QX70. Now, the QX70 is going to take a little break, disappearing from the lineup for a few years while QX50 and QX80 redesigns are rolled out. The QX70 is sporty, with a 325-horsepower 3.7-liter V6. But it's an aging model and a bit of a slow seller - last year, Infiniti moved one-seventh as many QX70s as it did its kid-hauling cousin the QX60 - which seats more people (seven, to the QX70's five) and is less expensive. The QX70 was once popular like that, selling 30,964 as the FX in 2004. But that was long, long ago. Last year it sold 6,261. The QX70 nameplate is expected to be back in 2021 or 2022, in a redesign based on the Nissan Murano and built at Nissan's plant in Canton, Miss. Related Video: Featured Gallery 2015 Infiniti QX70 Plants/Manufacturing Infiniti Crossover SUV redesign

Hyundai, Genesis, Subaru warn their dealers about markups

Six weeks ago, word got out that Ford's VP of sales for the U.S. and Canada wrote one of those "It has come to our attention..." e-mails to the automaker's dealer body. The VP's problem was dealers trying to get reservation deposits for the Ford F-150 Lightning well above the official $100 fee. The tomfoolery resulted in interactions "with customers in a manner that is negatively impacting customer satisfaction and damaging to the Ford Motor Company brand and Dealer Body reputation." Two weeks later, GM told its dealers to cut out the reservation gaming and the markups on the 2023 Chevrolet Corvette Z06, banditry that's been going on for two years. Two weeks ago, Ford was back at it, this time about markups on the Bronco. Last week, Asian automakers swept into the melee, with Hyundai and Genesis, Subaru, and Infiniti writing letters to their dealers to deliver some variant of, "Stop pissing off the customers." Automotive News reported an SVP at Hyundai Motor America and the COO at Genesis Motor North America sent letters to their dealers expressing disappointment at "certain pricing practices which, if left unchecked, will have a negative impact on the health of our brand." One of the practices mentioned was dealer markups, another was the bait-and-switch, with dealers advertising one price then charging a higher price once the customer showed up at the lot. The letters acknowledged that dealers are separate companies to the automakers and have the right to set their own prices. The automakers cannot interfere with that; their leverage is distributing allocations and perks such as advertising support and financial incentives. So, like a movie boss letting the protagonist go on a technicality, the brands wrote, "we cannot stand idly by watching the actions of the aforementioned dealers undo all the efforts we collectively have put into making these brands what they are today." Jalopnik got tipped to a letter Subaru of America CEO Thomas Doll sent to that brand's dealers. Doll's polite yet insistent tone was the result of a letter a loyal Subaru owner sent to the automaker's VP of Customer Advocacy. In the market for a third brand-new Forester, the owner said they encountered a "tax" labeled a "Low Inventory Surcharge" of as much as $6,000, putting the Forester out of reach.