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China-market Ford Edge spotted testing in Spain with a mystery wagon

There are a few threads to put together for this one. The U.S.-market Ford Edge and Lincoln Nautilus have been rumored to meet their ends during the 2023 model year; contract negotiations pointed to the Oakville Assembly Plant that that builds being converted to build five Ford electric vehicles in 2025. On top of that, we've heard years of rumors about a Ford Fusion Active wagon-esque product that would challenge the Subaru Outback and fill a perceived gap in the U.S. lineup. We're not sure what the Ford vehicles in the spy shots above are, nor were the spy photographers who caught them during hot weather testing in Spain. And we mean vehicles, plural, details like the side mirror attachment points, DRL signatures, rear bumpers and muffler orientations pointing to these being two products. Here are our guesses. One of them is almost certainly the new Ford Edge that will debut soon for the Chinese market (above and below). Motor1 saw that the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology published photos of that country's newest Edge in two configurations, a lesser trim that can seat five or seven, and a top trim that seats seven only. The camouflaged car in the gallery above with the mirrors that mount on the door would be the same vehicle. The headlights on the China-market Edge feature the same central, stacked DRLs instead of the single lower and side DRLs of the other vehicle. The taillights are temporary units, but they match the squared vertical design of the new crossover. And the rear bumper of the Chinese Edge features the same slanted cutout in the middle, and beneath that, the same enormous muffler on the driver's side of the car. Look more closely, and one can also spot the way the sheetmetal flicks up at the C-pillar then descends to the D-pillar. Engineers tried to hide it with camo, but it's there. Ford Authority believes the other vehicle, the one with the side mirrors mounted at the base of the A-pillar, could be a new Lincoln Nautilus. Ford's Changan Hangzhou plant in China builds the Edge and its sister Lincoln product for that market. Although both are presumed to be headed for the grave here, one is clearly carrying on over there, so there's no reason to believe the other wouldn't as well.       The big mystery is whether one of these is the Ford Fusion Active. Well, a bigger mystery would be to figure out if the Fusion Active is even a thing anymore, or if we — including Ford — collectively imagined it.

We test the 2016 Ford F-150 Pro Trailer Backup Assist

There are some automotive tasks that are more or less impossible the first time you attempt them, no matter your skill level. Remember the first time you had to back a trailer into position? Yeah, you'd have more luck disarming a nuclear bomb than getting the trailer where you're aiming. Ford is preparing to debut a technology that takes the mystery out of reversing a trailer, with the new Pro Trailer Backup Assist. Available on the entire 2016 F-150 range, the system essentially allows owners to drive their trailers by way of a dash-mounted knob. Turn the knob and the steering wheel automagically turns to the correct angle, leading the trailer in the desired direction. The steering wheel twirls about as needed, although drivers still have direct control of the accelerator and brake pedals, much as they do with Ford's Enhanced Active Park Assist system. Ford has spent eight years developing the system, the company's engineers told us. Drivers will need to measure their trailers a certain way and fit the checked reference sticker you can see in the gallery, although once a measurement is stored in the system, it can easily be recalled using the display in the instrument cluster. The system can stow the measurements for 10 trailers, and can accommodate tow-behinds up to 33 feet long. As of right now, though, the PTBA can't work with gooseneck trailers or fifth-wheels, although we're betting Ford is hard at work to accommodate those more substantial setups. "Pro Trailer Backup Assist is a smart solution to save time and increase productivity for our customers," Doug Scott, Ford Truck's marketing manager, said in the attached statement. "Instead of struggling to back up their trailer, they can spend more time on the job or enjoying the lake." We took part in a hands-on demo of the new system off the Detroit River, near Grosse Ile, MI. Full disclosure, we didn't back the trailer into the water, (your author had no interest in potentially damaging the roughly $50,000 boat/trailer Ford brought in for the test). We did, however, conduct a brief test in the safe confines of a nearby parking lot. Our immediate impression of this technology is that it will be a boon to novices or first-time towers, a group of which your author is a member. It takes the mystery out of backing up a trailer, and while there's still a learning curve involved, it's significantly easier than doing things the old-fashioned way.

Ford applies to trademark term 'Lincoln eGlide'

There's an epilogue to Ford's recent announcement that it's giving up on a battery-electric Lincoln co-developed with Rivian. The MachEClub forum discovered that just a week ago, Ford applied with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to trademark the term "Lincoln eGlide." The goods and services category details use for "Motor vehicles, namely, passenger automobiles, sport utility vehicles, electric vehicles and structural parts and fittings; electric vehicles, namely, passenger automobiles, sport utility vehicles, and structural parts and fittings." Living in an age where a small "e" is shorthand for "electric," and Ford having specified electric vehicles in the patent, the go-to guess is that this is for an electric vehicle. The inclusion of non-electric motor vehicles injects a little fuzziness. Tesla's trademark on the Model S specifies "electric automobiles" only, whereas Rivian's trademark for the R1T seeks coverage for "land vehicles" and just about every part found in or on a land vehicle.   Since Ford must have known about the end of the Rivian effort when it applied for the trademark, we suppose Lincoln has got some kind of eGlide coming no matter what. Lincoln refers to the theme of its latest cabin designs, as in the Aviator and Corsair, "Quiet Flight," and the road-scanning adaptive suspension on the Lincoln Aviator is called "Air Glide," neither term being trademarked. This leads our suspicions to eGlide becoming a vehicle component that could potentially serve a model with any powertrain, not necessarily battery-electric only, and eGlide won't be the name of the Lincoln EV that Ford says is still on the way. Another clue is that Ford included the word "Lincoln" in the term. Trademarked vehicle names such as Aviator and Corsair don't include the make, but services for vehicles do, such as the trademarks for Lincoln Connect and Lincoln Co-Pilot 360. We'll admit that a little bit of hope informs this line of thinking as well. Ford having done Lincoln the fabulous service of giving Lincolns terrific names, we'd be aghast if the Corsair and Navigator had to share showroom space with an eGlide. We've no choice but to wait for a retail product to provide answers. In the meantime, if we could just get to the bottom of this "Fastor Charge" trademark, and what's this bit about "Vandemonium?"   Related Video: