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Volvo denies boss Jacoby is taking a run at Opel CEO post

It seems that every news report that involves the name "Opel" is eventually followed by a report that says, "Uh, never mind." Executives fill positions, then they're gone, or they're supposed to fill positions but duck out before doing so, five-year product offensives turn into grabbing for life preservers, and turnaround plans are followed by... new turnaround plans. With the recent departure of Opel CEO Karl-Friedrich Stracke, Swedish newspaper Dagens Industri reported that Volvo CEO Stefan Jacoby topped the list of candidates to sit in Opel's very hot seat.
Volvo spokesman Stefan Elfstrom has piped up to say "Mr. Jacoby is fully occupied with running Volvo and has no plan for leaving his present job." Stranger things have happened, though, and who knows what the truth is, but we have to admit we'd be surprised if Jacoby jumped off the Volvo express - recently given an $11-billion boost by parent company Geely - to take his chances in the Opel maelstrom.
So Opel's search for a CEO continues. At least we have the Adam to look forward to.

Volvo's product road map includes five EVs and two PHEVs

Volvo recently hosted a gathering in Miami for North and South American retailers. A few attendees, perhaps proud of what Volvo had to say, shared some details on the proceedings with Automotive News. Volvo's pledge to become an all-EV brand by 2030 will commence with five new electric vehicles and two plug-in hybrids in the coming years. First up is a full-sized, three-row crossover said to get its vibe from the Concept Recharge. We figure this will be the long-rumored and occasionally canceled XC100, but that's only an educated guess. We've seen no spy shots of such a vehicle yet, but AN reports sales aspirations for the full-sizer are about 20,000 units for next year. If that's the case, something should appear soon. Around two years after the potential XC100 comes an EV codenamed V546 that AN reported on earlier this month. Said to slot in between the 185-inch-long XC60 and 195-inch-long XC90, this tweener could be about the length of the 189-inch Ford Edge. The sources claim it will ride on a new electric platform, which could be the SPA2 bones that will support the coming electric XC90 and that the Concept Recharge electric crossover study (pictured) sits on. This one goes into production in the U.S., at Volvos' Ridgeville, South Carolina plant, and in China. The plan is to sell 100,000 units annually. At some point, the XC60 small midsize crossover gets a battery-electric variant. The fourth EV will be a dinky silent runner that slides in under the XC40 Recharge. Referred to in the past as the XC10, XC20 and XC30, previous reportage claims this will ride on the Sustainable Experience Architecture (SEA) sourced from parent company Geely. The fifth EV was only mentioned as being a sedan, which is another mysterious entry. The S90 and XC90 are getting new PHEV generations, the crossover still expected to inaugurate proper names to the Swedish automaker's lineup. Volvo's planning a hiring spree for the South Carolina plant that only makes the S60 sedan at the moment. One of the new EV crossovers will start down lines there later this year, along with Polestar's middleweight performance crossover, then the potential XC100 (or whatever its proper name is) begins assembly there in 2023.  Related video: This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings.

Poor headlights cause 40 cars to miss IIHS Top Safety Pick rating

Over the past few months, we've noticed a number of cars and SUVs that have come incredibly close to earning one of the IIHS's highest accolades, the Top Safety Pick rating. They have great crash test scores and solid automatic emergency braking and forward collision warning systems. What trips them up is headlights. That got us wondering, how many vehicles are there that are coming up short because they don't have headlights that meet the organization's criteria for an "Acceptable" or "Good" rating. This is a revision made after 2017, a year in which headlights weren't factored in for this specific award. This is also why why some vehicles, such as the Ford F-150, might have had the award last year, but have lost it for this year. We reached out to someone at IIHS to find out. He responded with the following car models. Depending on how you count, a whopping 40 models crash well enough to receive the rating, but don't get it because their headlights are either "Poor" or "Marginal." We say depending on how you count because the IIHS actual counts truck body styles differently, and the Infiniti Q70 is a special case. Apparently the version of the Q70 that has good headlights doesn't have adequate forward collision prevention technology. And the one that has good forward collision tech doesn't have good enough headlights. We've provided the entire list of vehicles below in alphabetical order. Interestingly, it seems the Volkswagen Group is having the most difficulty providing good headlights with its otherwise safe cars. It had the most models on the list at 9 split between Audi and Volkswagen. GM is next in line with 7 models. It is worth noting again that though these vehicles have subpar headlights and don't quite earn Top Safety Pick awards, that doesn't mean they're unsafe. They all score well enough in crash testing and forward collision prevention that they would get the coveted award if the lights were better.