Le Journal

Mercedes G580 electric G-Class now has a $10,000 incentive bonus. Previous lease-only bonus now expanded to all G580 transactions. Quad-motor electric G starts at $164,550 including destination. Mercedes-Benz’s decision to offer an all-electric version of the G-Class hasn’t come without controversy. After all, one of the most iconic and traditionally rugged off-roaders can now glide along in complete silence. Still, fresh off a strong 2025 for the G-Wagen lineup in America, Mercedes is moving ahead with its electrification strategy, now aiming to boost interest in the G580 with EQ Technology. Read: Mercedes’ Electric G Flops So Hard It Could Change What Comes Next The electric G-Class is currently offered with a $10,000 Incentive Bonus, now available whether you lease or buy the vehicle outright. Previously, this discount was capped at $5,000 and applied only to lease agreements, according to Cars Direct. Whether that’s enough to sway potential buyers is another matter entirely. The G580 starts at $164,550 including destination. However, as is often the case, finding one at base MSRP is nearly impossible. A quick search on Cars.com turned up 224 listings, with only a single example priced at MSRP. Most hovered between $180,000 and $190,000. Even so, at base price, a $10,000 discount, while not insignificant, doesn’t sound like it will do much to tip the scales. It amounts to roughly 6 percent off, and for typical G-Class buyers, that might equate to a minor financial blip, not a reason to commit. Sales Flop Mercedes recently confirmed it delivered 49,700 G-Class vehicles globally last year, a 23 percent jump over the previous year and a new high-water mark for the model. What it didn’t share is how many of those were the electric G580 and how many still carried internal combustion. However, reports from early last year described the G580 as a sales “flop,” noting that just 1,450 examples had been sold in Europe as of April 2025, and only 58 in China. It was also claimed that Mercedes had failed to sell a single example in the US, though that was never officially confirmed.

A Nissan dealer in Arizona will offer a NISMO-inspired Sentra. Features sports suspension, a cat-back exhaust, and new wheels. The dealer is also building two unique Pathfinders for SEMA. Nissan introduced the redesigned Sentra last year and it’s a big step forward as the car embraces new technology and a more upscale design. However, it’s not very exciting as the model has a continuously variable transmission and a 2.0-liter four-cylinder engine developing 149 hp (111 kW / 151 PS). Review: 2026 Nissan Sentra Feels Too Nice For Its Price, But One Familiar Flaw Remains Pinnacle Nissan of Scottsdale, Arizona is planning to change that by spicing things up with a new NISMO-inspired variant known as the Sentra SE RS (Special Edition Rally Sport). Created in-house, the dealer special is “designed to celebrate Nissan performance culture, promote genuine NISMO parts, and revive the spirit of the early-2000s tuner era in an affordable, showroom-ready package.” The turn-key model features a number of dealer-installed components including a cat-back exhaust, a coil-over performance suspension, and lightweight wheels. They’ll be joined by exterior graphics and special interior accents. There’s no word on pricing, but the Sentra SE RS will go on sale at the dealership next month. To help promote the model, Pinnacle Nissan announced they’re working on a turbocharged 2026 Sentra with a manual transmission for the SEMA Show. Two New Pathfinder Projects The Sentra SE RS program is being led by Nick “NISMO Nick” Scherr, who is probably best-known for creating last year’s Xterra-based Project X. He and the dealership are following that up with two new builds for 2026 and they’ll debut at SEMA alongside the aforementioned Sentra. Details are limited at this point, but the first is known as the Pathfinder Remix and it’s based on the old body-on-frame SUV. It will be modernized and equipped with a V8 engine. The second build is called the Trackfinder and, as the name suggests, it’s a performance variant. Drawing inspiration from NISMO vehicles, this Pathfinder will be “lowered, aggressive, and unapologetically bold.” We can also expect “extensive chassis and aero enhancements” as well as a supercharged engine. Those interested in following along with the builds can check out Nick’s YouTube channel.

One-off Macan Turbo Concept Lago debuts at German boat show. Cabin features wood floor mats and marine-style fabric seats. New 790 Spectre uses a Macan EV powertrain and makes 536 hp. Porsche and boats have been flirting for a while. The German sports car brand already helped create a rapid electric speedboat with Austrian builder Frauscher. Now the partnership is back with a smaller boat called the 790 Spectre and a one-off, marine-inspired Macan concept to keep it company. No, the Macan Turbo Concept Lago can’t jump from the road to water like a Gibbs Aquada or Amphicar 770. But it borrows some neat nautical design and trim ideas in the same way that the Frauscher’s boats have cribbed the Macan’s motors and battery pack. And it has some of the most stylish floor mats we’ve ever seen. Related: Alfa’s Yacht-Winged Giulia Quadrifoglio Special Is Fast, Wild, And Already Sold Out Porsche raided its Exclusive Manufaktur personalisation catalog and roped in experts from its Sonderwunsch “special wish” department to give the concept a distinctly salty vibe. Darkteal Metallic paint, which originates from Porsche’s Paint to Sample programme, covers the outside while neat graphics tie the car to the matching boat. Even the keys wear the same color. Swab the Floor Mats, Matey Open the doors and the nautical theme gets stronger. Real wood inspired by boat decks lines the front and rear luggage compartments and the floor mats look ready for bare feet. A compass replaces the usual dashboard stopwatch and the seat centers use marine grade fabric trimmed with Crayon leather. Green contrast stitching finishes the look and proves Porsche’s trim specialists can customise almost anything. Frauscher 790 Spectre The Concept Lago is just a one-off, unlike the new Frauscher 790 Spectre it’s designed to promote. Engineers built the 7,970 mm (313.8 inches) sports boat around the same 100 kWh battery and dual electric motor setup used in the Macan Turbo, though Porsche quotes 630 hp (639 PS / 470 kW) for the SUV and 536 hp (544 PS / 400 kW) for its sea-going counterpart. The hull is new and lighter than before and the cockpit borrows plenty of Porsche style touches, including the steering wheel and elements of the seat design. Buyers can personalise the boat with special paint and materials to mirror their car. Orders for the 790 Spectre are open now, but the price is going to make a $112,700 Macan Turbo Electric look downright affordable. While neither Porsche or Frauscher has indicated an exact sticker, the fact that the earlier 850 Fantom Air cost around $600k tells us this one is for wealthy Porsche and boat lovers only. Porsche

Mazda has reportedly delayed their EVs developed in-house. Instead of arriving in 2027, they could be pushed back to 2029. The company will reportedly focus on hybrids in the meantime. It appears you can add Mazda to the growing list of automakers that have delayed electric vehicles in the wake of lower than expected demand. According to reports out of Japan, the company’s first dedicated EV has been pushed back until at least 2029. Details are still murky, but Autonews cites Nikkei and Nikkan Jidosha as saying that production has been delayed by at least two years. Instead, the company will reportedly turn its attention to more popular hybrids. More: Mazda’s New EV Caught Testing In America While a spokesperson said Mazda hasn’t officially announced anything, they didn’t exactly deny the reports either. Quite the opposite, as in a statement to Autonews, they said, “We continue to advance the technological development of our proprietary BEVs based on our multi-solution strategy, and will determine the timing of their introduction while carefully assessing regulatory trends in each country and changes in customer needs.” This suggests launch plans are still up in the air and could slip beyond 2027. Test Mule Raises Questions Baldauf This is an interesting development as spy photographers snapped a mule undergoing testing in California late last year. The model wore a heavily modified CX-70 or CX-90 body and featured a fully enclosed grille as well as blocked off air curtains. The vehicle was said to be roughly the same size as the CX-50, but narrower than the body suggested. Little is known about the EV at this point, but it’s slated to ride on the Skyactiv EV Scalable Architecture. The platform was originally announced in 2021 and was supposed to be introduced last year. That obviously didn’t happen and it appears plans to introduce several vehicles on the architecture between 2025 and 2030 are also in jeopardy. These were set to include “various vehicle sizes and body types.” However, the situation has changed significantly in the past few years. In the United States alone, the Trump administration has enacted steep new tariffs and eliminated the clean vehicle tax credit. The latter has caused a significant drop in EV sales and a rethink by many automakers. Nevertheless, Mazda isn’t giving up on electric vehicles as the company recently introduced the CX-6e in Europe. It’s a Chinese collaboration with joint-venture partner Changan, and the model has a lot in common with the Deepal S07.

Mercedes wants to cut trunk wiring using spring-loaded contacts. Patent replaces flexible tailgate wires with mechanical switches. Taillight complexity added weight, wiring, and higher repair costs. As vehicles grow more sophisticated, so too does the tangle of wiring that powers their features. Wiring harnesses have long been big, heavy, and complicated, and now they’re getting even more intricate as manufacturers load their latest models with more tech than ever. To address this growing web of cables, Mercedes-Benz has come up with a novel approach that could simplify things around the tailgate or trunk area. Read: Porsche Patents A Crazy New W12 Engine To reduce the number of wires running into these movable panels, Mercedes has filed a patent for a surprisingly analog solution. The design might not reinvent the wheel, but it could help shed some bulk and streamline certain electrical connections. Rethinking the Rear End The newly filed patent, first spotted by CarBuzz, was registered with Germany’s intellectual property office. It outlines a spring-loaded mechanical switch designed to sit inside movable panels like a tailgate. Rather than routing wires through flexible conduits, the switch would transfer power to rear lights through physical contact points. Such a solution would be particularly useful for vehicles where the taillights move with the tailgate, necessitating longer wires to be run to them. Those flexible wiring covers seen near trunk hinges exist purely to accommodate this movement, adding cost, bulk, and additional failure points over time. Included in the patent is a depiction of what looks to be the rear-end of the current GLS, which has taillights that split in two when the tailgate is open. In this case, the switch could send power from the outer sections of the light to the rest of the light. Shorter wiring paths could then feed into the switching hardware rather than looping through the tailgate itself. An Old Trick in a New Context Using spring-loaded contacts like this isn’t a novel idea and has been used for decades, albeit it isn’t frequently seen in the automotive space. It could work well, helping to save a small amount of weight and complexity by reducing the number of wires running into the tailgate. The challenge lies in the environment. Tailgates tend to collect grime, especially on vehicles that see a lot of use in bad weather or off-road. Electrical contacts in these spots would need to be well protected and self-cleaning to remain reliable over time. If not, the whole system could fail with something as simple as a layer of dust. No current Mercedes model uses switches like this, and just because the carmaker has this patent, that doesn’t mean any of its future vehicles will use such switches. While the concept is clever, making it both practical and reliable could demand significant effort from the company’s R&D team. That kind of investment may not come quickly, so it’s hard to imagine this showing up in production anytime soon. Simplifying Complexity Also: Why You May Never Replace A Whole Mercedes Headlight Again Still, the idea does align with Mercedes-Benz’s recent push toward more modular, repair-friendly components, an approach aimed at reducing waste by allowing individual elements to be serviced rather than replaced outright, including headlamps.