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2019 Mini John Cooper Works Hardtop International Orange Edition is very bright, expensive, verbose

Mini has introduced a new special edition version of the John Cooper Works Hardtop, and there are three key notable things about it. First, it is very orange. The paint on its body and roof is not available on normal Minis, and its specific hue contributes to this little car's very long name: (deep breath) 2019 Mini John Cooper Works Hardtop International Orange Edition. According to the man in charge of Mini's product planning and aftersales department, that particular shade of orange "is a bold color historically used to make great feats of engineering and aerospace design stand out." We suspect they're referring in particular to the Golden Gate Bridge, which is famously painted International Orange. How it relates to Mini, we're not exactly sure. The second thing about this orange Mini is the abundance of extra standard equipment pulled from the usual Mini options catalog. Visually, this includes black-accented graphics, door handles, fuel door and rear spoiler. The mirror caps are carbon fiber, too. Inside, a bunch of options are standard including heated seats, Harmon Kardon audio, a head-up display, navigation, and a variety of driver aids. It even comes with that neat John Cooper Works Pro Exhaust system with the Bluetooth remote to open flaps and make it louder. This brings us to the third thing about the (deep breath) 2019 Mini John Cooper Works Hardtop International Orange Edition: it's not cheap. Now, a starting price of $40,750 may seem like decent value when you consider that optioning up a non-orange John Cooper Works Hardtop with its Signature trim and comparable options would cost $40,950. So, you save $200 and get the otherwise unavailable fancy exhaust and bridge-inspired paint. Yet, a 40-grand Mini Cooper is still shockingly expensive compared to other hot hatchbacks. The 306-horsepower Civic Type R starts at just $35,595. The 292-hp VW Golf R is basically the same price as the Mini, and it adds all-wheel drive. The 350-hp Ford Focus RS is only about $1,000 more and delivers monster power with all-wheel drive. Then again, those aren't available in orange. Related Video: Featured Gallery Mini Cooper International Orange Edition View 12 Photos Image Credit: Mini MINI Hatchback Performance

Future Mini JCW models likely to be electrified

High-performance Mini Coopers need to be small, nimble, and relatively quick. One thing they don't necessarily need to be, according to the company's U.S. leadership, is gasoline-powered.  In an interview with Motor Authority, Mini USA Vice President Mike Peyton said that electrification is on the table for the range-topping John Cooper Works variants, which have traditionally been powered by a high-output turbocharged engine. The latest and greatest in the lineup, the 2020 Mini John Cooper Works GP, takes the formula to a new extreme, pairing a 301-horsepower mill with out-of-this-world aero. Peyton says that powertrains don't necessarily have to sound or feel the way traditionalists expect in order to be fun. It certainly doesn't have to feel that way in order to be fast; Tesla drivers can attest to that, as can those who have been fortunate enough to pilot some of the latest electrified hypercars.  He also acknowledged that while the future may be electric, that future is still a ways off. Mini is still waiting for advances in battery technology that will allow its performance models to deliver on other key expectations — namely handling. Minis are expected to be, well, miniature, and the additional weight of a current-generation, high-capacity battery is antithetical to that formula.  The take-away? The future of Mini performance is electric, but that future is still distant. So while the Mini Cooper SE and Mini E Countryman plug-in hybrid may give us a taste of Mini's approach to electrification, it could be some time before we see the company's highest-performance variants dabble in same space. 

Trump calls Germans 'very bad,' vows to stop their car sales in US

TAORMINA, Italy -Talks between President Trump and other leaders of the world's rich nations at the G7 summit on Friday were expected to be "robust" and "challenging" after he had lambasted NATO allies and condemned Germans as "very bad" for their trade policies. Trump's confrontational remarks in Brussels, on the eve of the two-day summit in the Mediterranean resort town of Taormina, cast a pall over a meeting at which America's partners had hoped to coax him into softening his stances on trade and climate change. According to German media reports, Trump condemned Germany as "very bad" for its trade policies in a meeting with European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, signaling he might take steps to limit sales of German cars in the United States. "The Germans are bad, very bad," he reportedly told Juncker. "Look at the millions of cars that they're selling in the USA. Horrible. We're gonna stop that." White House economic adviser Gary Cohn on Friday confirmed the reports. "He said they're very bad on trade, but he doesn't have a problem with Germany." Cohn said Trump had pointed out during the meeting that his father had German roots in order to underscore the message that he had nothing against the German people. Trump's spokesman Sean Spicer said Trump had "tremendous respect" for Germany and had only complained about unfair trade practices in the meeting. Juncker called the reports in Spiegel Online and Sueddeutsche Zeitung exaggerated. The reports translated "bad" with the German word "boese," which can also mean "evil," leading to confusion when English-language media translated the German reports back into English. "The record has to be set straight," Juncker said, noting that the translation issue had exaggerated the seriousness of what Trump had said. "It's not true that the president took an aggressive approach when it came to the German trade surplus." "He said, like others have, that (the United States) has a problem with the German surplus. So he was not aggressive at all," Juncker added. In January, Trump threatened to slap a 35 percent tax on German auto imports. "If you want to build cars in the world, then I wish you all the best. You can build cars for the United States, but for every car that comes to the USA, you will pay 35 percent tax," he said. "I would tell BMW that if you are building a factory in Mexico and plan to sell cars to the USA, without a 35 percent tax, then you can forget that." Last year, the U.S.