{also piping hot}

The next Lincoln Navigator will comes with a ride service: On occasion, The Sleuth likes to enjoy a night on the town. When that happens, he either sticks to soda water, or enjoys a cold one and then leaves his vehicle parked overnight. But, if The Sleuth owned a 2018 Lincoln Navigator, he would simply order a chauffeur by phone/text for a specific departure time to the party and then back home when it’s over. It’s all part of Lincoln’s go-the-extramile plan to lure customers to its showrooms. As far as The Spy Guy knows, not even Rolls-Royce, Bentley or other high-roller automakers go that far. Mind you, buyers of these upper-crust cars likely have a chauffeur or two in their employ already. Tesla is getting into the trucking business: Many pundits, including The Sleuth, were beginning to wonder if Elon Musk’s electric-car company would survive in an era of cutthroat competition and little apparent consumer or government urgency for lean, green autos. The Trenchcoated One now sees things differently. The small and affordable Tesla Model 3 passenger car, with a massive waiting list of buyers, will begin rolling out of Tesla’s California plant in July, followed by — says Musk — a pickup truck two years later. Tesla is also developing an electrically powered tractor truck for commercial applications, which is something MercedesBenz and other small start-up automakers are already working on. Combined with Tesla’s SpaceX and Solar City battery operations, it’s little wonder the company’s share prices keep going up. A Jeep Hellcat? Yes, it’s real: A super Grand Cherokee’s arrival has been rumored for some time and it was finally shown at the recent New York International Auto Show. The Jeep Grand Cherokee Trackhawk uses the same supercharged 6.2-liter V-8 engine and eightspeed automatic transmission as the Dodge Challenger/ Charger Hellcat. That means Trackhawk buyers will have 707 horsepower and 650 pound-feet of torque underfoot. Along with stupefying grunt, the Trackhawk gets Jeep’s Quadra-Trac four-wheel-drive system that has been beefed up for performance duty. Jeep claims the Trackhawk accelerates to 60 mph from rest in 3.5 seconds, covers the quarter-mile in 11.6 seconds at a terminal velocity of 116 mph, and reaches a 180-mph top speed. There’s no word yet on pricing, but it won’t be cheap. Mercedes-Benz gives its next new model an “A”: The Sleuth wonders if the recently revealed Concept A Sedan will ultimately sell alongside the lowslung Mercedes-Benz CLA-class sedan that launched for the 2013 model year, or even replace it. CLA sales have softened over the past year, possibly due to criticisms about its lack of passenger space and a less than thrilling driving experience. The A-class will employ the same front-wheel-drive platform as the CLA, but will spawn a variety of other body styles, including a hatchback, coupe and tall wagon similar to the GLA. If Mercedes-Benz has learned anything, it’s than conservatively styled models tend to outsell other designs by a wide margin. Volvo’s new South Carolina: The Swedenbased automaker says that the next-generation Volvo S60 sedan will be the first car to roll out of the 2.3-million-squarefoot facility in North America sometime in 2019. Up to 60,000 copies of this particular model will be built for worldwide consumption. The plant will also employ up to 2,000 workers that will eventually assemble a number of other vehicles built using the same platform. Consumer trust in selfdriving automobiles: Based on a survey by research firm J.D. Power, an increasing number of respondents are expressing a lack of trust in autonomous-vehicle technology, compared to the same survey conducted a year ago. Other than people born between 1977 and 1994, every other segment expressed an increasing distrust of the technology. Complexity, privacy and hardware/software hacking issues were most frequently mentioned as the reasons for the respondents concerns.