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LA Auto Show 2015: The biggest car news announced this week in Los Angeles

This year was a relatively quiet year for the LA Auto Show, but we still saw some big debuts — the Fiat 124 Spider and Land Rover Evoque Convertible, to name a couple — and spent time at some fun events. Let's go back and take a look at some of the best of this year's last major auto show before we gear up for CES and Detroit in January.

  • Nov 22, 2015

    Verge Staff

    LA Auto Show 2015 wrap-up: the best cars on the floor

    It's not quite a full-on podcast*, but The Verge's Tamara Warren, Chris Ziegler, and Jason Harper sat down for a few minutes of banter after the end of day one of this year's LA Auto Show. What did we see? What did we like? What did we hate? You'll just have to tune in and find out. (Despite the relatively small number of global debuts at LA ’15, the Fiat 124 Spider and wild Land Rover Evoque Convertible could fill up an hour's worth of discussion alone.)

    For all our LA coverage, check out the StoryStream — and be sure to follow Tamara, Chris, and Jason on Twitter.

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  • Nov 20, 2015

    Tamara Warren, Jason H. Harper and 1 more

    The Rolls-Royce Dawn is a beautiful convertible for the 0.01 percent

    In the midst of the LA Auto Show this week, Rolls-Royce invited media to a private event away from the hustle and bustle of the convention floor to show off its Dawn convertible. Needless to say, the scene was just a little bit higher-end.

    The Dawn — which is loosely based on the Wraith coupe — features a 6.6-liter V-12 that puts out 563 horsepower, but this isn't a sports car: this is the kind of machinery you use to loaf across Monaco or Malibu, celebrating your trust fund or your latest multimillion-dollar real estate deal. Like other Rollers, it has suicide doors, a retractable (yes, retractable) hood ornament, and an option list that reaches as far as your imagination and your bank account. If you wanted to encrust a Dawn's entire dashboard with diamonds, Rolls-Royce could probably make that happen for you.

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  • Tamara Warren

    Nov 19, 2015

    Tamara Warren

    Inside Faraday Future, the secretive car company chasing Tesla

    Inside a suburban Los Angeles industrial building that once served as an R&D facility for Japanese automotive giant Nissan, natural midday light spills through the windows. Today, a very different company occupies this space. I arrive at lunchtime. It's catered, in true startup fashion — there’s no time to have your employees actually leaving the building for lunch, of course. By 1 o’clock, the cafeteria cleared out; there isn't much time for kicking back, even on a Friday afternoon.

    This is the headquarters of Faraday Future, a young, seemingly well-funded company with an odd name that hasn’t said much about what it’s working on. We know that electric cars are involved, and we know that they’re probably years away from production. In the year and a half since Faraday’s founding, it has transformed this facility into a bustling corporate campus, stacked with a who’s-who list of poaches from some of California’s most prominent tech companies.

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  • Nov 19, 2015

    Tamara Warren and Chris Ziegler

    The new Porsche 911 Targa 4 is indecisive in the best way possible

    Like basically every version of the Porsche 911, the 911 Targa is an icon; it's instantly recognizable for its removable roof that rests somewhere between the hardtop and the full-on cabriolet. It's the 911 for the indecisive, basically — indecisive in the best way possible.

    When the Targa was last refreshed a couple years ago, it was a seminal moment in the classic sports car's history: Porsche had brought back the wide, silver bar wrapping around the cockpit that gave classic Targas their signature look starting in the late ’60s. Now, there's another refresh to match the new Carrera hardtop introduced a couple months ago. The biggest change is the switchover to turbocharged engines; if you select the Targa 4, you'll get 370 horsepower, and if you pick the 4S, you'll get 420. As the "4" in the name implies, both versions are all-wheel-drive. (That might be an odd choice for a car with a removable top, which is more likely to be purchased in a warm climate — but Porsche notes that the AWD version of the Carrera is quicker than the RWD version for the first time ever.)

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  • Nov 19, 2015

    Tamara Warren and Chris Ziegler

    The Fiat 124 Spider is the most polarizing car in LA

    The Fiat 124 Spider unveiled at the LA Auto Show last night is a little polarizing, to say the least: the roadster, based on Mazda's lauded new Miata, has some odd design elements that seem to leave it hanging somewhere between Italy and Japan. But even if you don't love the way it looks, there's reason to be excited, because the 124 is shipping with the same turbocharged mill as the 500 Abarth — a great little car that sounds wonderful and knows how to move.

    We had a chance to get up close with the Fiat 124 on the floor of the show, so check it out and decide for yourself — if you're in the market for a small, light, inexpensive convertible, you might have to decide between this and the Miata when it's in dealerships next year.

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  • Chris Ziegler

    Nov 18, 2015

    Chris Ziegler

    Chevrolet Bolt to be unveiled at CES in January

    At the LA Auto Show today, GM executive vice president Mark Reuss said that the company will unveil the production version of the Bolt at CES in a few weeks' time. The car had been shown as a concept at Detroit's North American International Auto Show last January, so it marks about one year from concept to the production design. GM had previously said that the Bolt would launch in 2016, so the timing of the unveil doesn't come as a surprise.

    CES has rapidly morphed into a car show over the last decade, focusing on next-gen driving technologies — connected car tech and autonomous driving, to name a couple — and automotive executives have frequently taken the stage there. (Ford CEO Mark Fields keynoted at the last show.) GM CEO Mary Barra has been tapped to keynote in 2016, so it makes sense that she'd want something big to unveil — and there's nothing bigger for GM right now than the Bolt, which promises better than 200 miles of electric range.

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  • Jordan Golson

    Nov 18, 2015

    Jordan Golson

    Here’s what Volvo thinks you’ll do when your car is driving itself

    According to Volvo’s research, the average American spends 26 minutes driving to work. One way. That’s more than nine days a year, and the Swedish carmaker is building a time machine to get some of that time back for you.

    Volvo research has shown that most people will use autonomous drive on their way to work, during the boring parts of the commute like stop-and-go traffic on the highway. It’s unlikely that you will have anyone else in the car, just like today, so there’s no need to spin the seat around to face your passengers — which is fine, because the company says most people really don’t want to ride backwards anyway.

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  • Jordan Golson

    Nov 18, 2015

    Jordan Golson

    The new Toyota Prius isn’t just a good hybrid, it’s a good car

    Unless you’re an automotive battery technician, a Toyota shareholder, or an environmentalist who still needs to drive to work and can’t justify a Tesla, it’s always been hard to get really excited about the Prius.

    Like many Toyotas, the Prius is a perfectly adequate — if a bit boring — way to get around. Everything in the car is compromised in the name of increased fuel economy, and it’s not particularly fun to drive. And millions of Prius owners like it that way, thank you very much. So, fine.

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  • Jordan Golson

    Nov 18, 2015

    Jordan Golson

    The turbocharged Fiat 124 Spider (that’s still sort of a Miata) is here

    Fiat

    If you’ve had your eye on Mazda’s excellent MX-5 convertible, but you wish it had a wonderful and tiny turbocharged engine in it — or you wish it was a bit more Italian — then Fiat has the car for you.

    It’s the oft-rumored Fiat 124 Spider, a new car with a classic name. Fiat has taken the excellent chassis and interior from Mazda’s MX-5 and added it’s own exterior design and the turbocharged 1.4-liter four-cylinder power plant from the Fiat 500 Abarth. It pumps out 160 horsepower and 184 pound-feet of torque, a nice jump from the 155 and 148 in the naturally aspirated MX-5.

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  • Tamara Warren

    Nov 18, 2015

    Tamara Warren

    The Evoque Convertible is Range Rover's strangest car, but it's not as crazy as you think

    The premise of chopping the top off of the popular Evoque crossover took a certain amount of audacity on Land Rover’s part — and the impacts of its efforts are delightfully polarizing, as I learned when I saw it up close ahead of the LA Auto Show this week. The Evoque Convertible is not for everyone, but that notion is what gives it legs. It’s a plucky, rolling contradiction that somehow avoids coming across as gauche. (Sorry, but we have to throw a wee bit of shade at the late Nissan Murano CrossCabriolet.)

    Land Rover makes off-road vehicles that are designed for getting messy in the muck but still polish up as proper show cars to parade at the valet. (Think of, say, the timeless Defender versus something like the Range Rover SVAutobiography.) It’s a fine product lineup that separates Land Rover’s refined yet rugged aesthetic from Jeep’s rough-and-tumble ride. There are plenty of memorable examples of bohemian, off-road-friendly convertibles like the first generation Chevy Blazer, the Ford Bronco, the Toyota Land Cruiser, and the iconic Jeep Wrangler, but Land Rover’s boxy silhouette has always maintained a more stately persona. The compact proportions of the Evoque seem to have brought some playfulness into the equation.

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  • Jason H. Harper

    Nov 17, 2015

    Jason H. Harper

    Audi wants you to stop talking about diesels and look at its electric plans

    Be glad you’re not an executive at Volkswagen Group right now. This week they’ll face down reporters at the Los Angeles International Auto Show who only want to talk about one thing: diesel. But Audi, for one, is determined to talk about something else — electric cars, an area where it’s never really led. There’s not even a hybrid in the brand’s current portfolio.

    That’s going to change. This week, I am privately told, Audi will announce that 25 percent of its fleet will be electrified by 2025. That’s a big shift for the luxury automaker.

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  • Jordan Golson

    Nov 17, 2015

    Jordan Golson

    Riding hot laps in Ford's incredible new Focus RS

    I love hatchbacks. There’s something so eminently usable about them: they’re compact and easy to park, but you can throw a Christmas tree or a full Costco run in the back.

    Then we have the hot hatch. Start with a staid, normal hatchback. Add one part horsepower, one part attitude. Stir vigorously.

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  • Tamara Warren

    Nov 16, 2015

    Tamara Warren

    The world's fastest SUV comes in an ultra-exclusive First Edition

    Earlier today, Bentley introduced the Bentayga First Edition to a small group of owners and media in a leafy garden at the Sunset Marquis Hotel in Hollywood before the kickoff of this week's Los Angeles Auto Show. The First Edition consists of initial 608 examples of Bentley’s first-ever SUV, of which only 75 will be available in the US.

    These days, beauty alone doesn’t capture the hearts of ultra luxury buyers — true luxury, it seems, means being first in line without having to wait. Bentley customers already own an average of six cars, and it takes quite a bit to impress them. In some ways, Bentley also has to play catch-up in the red-hot luxury SUV market, where the Porsche Cayenne first proved that going big was possible for an iconic luxury car brand. The market for these types of SUVs has already grown in recent years, but Bentley earns the distinction of selling the first handmade SUV — and it’s a decadent doozy.

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