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Cadillac to Corvette: You’re not getting our twin-turbo V8 engine

NEW YORK — Cadillac president Johan de Nysschen bluntly shot down rumors his brand's powerful twin-turbo V8 is also headed for the Chevy Corvette. Speaking Wednesday at the New York Auto Show, he said: "Just quit the speculation it's headed for Corvette. It's not." The 4.2-liter V8 cranks out 550 horsepower and 627 pound-feet of torque in the Cadillac CT6 V-Sport, which debuted at the show. With that kind of performance and the fact the engine will be hand-built at the General Motors Performance Build Center in Bowling Green, Ky. — at the Corvette factory — led enthusiasts to presume the engine would eventually be under the Vette's hood. De Nysschen, however, argued the engine will also focus on levels of refinement, rather than the Corvette's raw, visceral dynamic. "I think Corvette wants a different kind of character," he said. In fact, the V8 is set to be only for Cadillacs, de Nysschen said, giving the luxury brand its first exclusive engine in years. "It's a matter of being a thoroughbred luxury car," he said. "It's really only a luxury brand that could recoup this [development] cost." A version of the engine making 500 hp and 553 lb-ft will also be used in other Cadillac models. De Nysschen declined say which vehicle will get the engine next. The new V8 uses a "Hot V" configuration more common to German performance cars, and has direct injection, electronic wastegate control, active-fuel management and stop-start technology. It teams with a 10-speed automatic transmission and fits either rear- or all-wheel drive systems. With a new mid-engine Corvette — and potentially more versions of the existing generation Vette — on the horizon, speculation pointed to the sports car getting a twin-turbo powerplant of some sort (V6 rumors also have floated), and the Cadillac 4.2-liter seemed to fit on paper. According to de Nysschen, that won't be the case. Still, even though the Cadillac boss says this specific engine won't go to Corvette, it's hard to not think some version of this engine, perhaps in a different displacement, could find its way under the hood of the Vette at some point in the future. Related Video:

Hyundai and GM say they're serious about air taxis

The Hyundai S-A1 electric concept is displayed at the 2020 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas. (Getty Images)   DETROIT — Hyundai and General Motors said on Monday they are pushing ahead with developing "flying cars," with the South Korean company expressing optimism it could have an air-taxi service in operation as soon as 2025. A GM executive said it could take until 2030 for air-taxi services to overcome technical and regulatory hurdles and reach commercialization. Electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) zero-emissions aircraft, which take off and land like helicopters and carry passengers and cargo, are being developed by a number of startups as well as aircraft makers and automakers, but they face a long road to profitability. Hyundai is ahead of its previously stated timetable for rolling out air-mobility vehicles, Jose Munoz, the company's global chief operating officer, said in an interview broadcast on Monday at the Reuters Events Car of the Future conference. Munoz, who is also CEO of Hyundai North America, previously said urban air taxis would be in operation at major U.S. airports by 2028 and perhaps earlier. He told Reuters on Monday it could possibly happen before 2025. Cadillac Vertile View 9 Photos "We see this market as a significant growth opportunity," Munoz said, adding he was "very confident" of the technology's development. Hyundai is developing air taxis powered by electric batteries that can transport five to six people from highly congested urban centers to airports. Other automakers developing flying cars either alone or with startups include Toyota, Daimler and China's Geely. "I think that there's a long pathway here," Pamela Fletcher, vice president of GM's Global Innovation team, said at the Reuters event. "2030 is probably a real commercial inflection point." She added: "It's a very nascent space. There's a lot of work to be done on the regulatory side, as well as the actual technology side." In January, GM unveiled a flying Cadillac concept. Morgan Stanley has estimated the total addressable market for urban air mobility could hit $1 trillion by 2040 and $9 trillion by 2050. In 2019, Hyundai, which has a dedicated Urban Air Mobility Division led by Jaiwon Shin, a former NASA engineer, pledged to invest about $1.5 billion in urban air mobility by 2025. Munoz said Hyundai sees its flying cars serving not only residential customers but also transporting commercial cargo.

Weekly Recap: Car-pedestrian crashes remained elevated in 2014

The death of American Horror Story: Freak Show star Ben Woolf served as a reminder this week that car crashes involving pedestrians remain a problem, and a new study issued on Thursday reinforced that the situation isn't really getting better. The Governors Highway Safety Association found a slight decline, 2.8 percent, in the number of pedestrian deaths in the first six months of 2014. Fatalities dropped from 2,141 to 2,125 compared with the same period in 2013, though the association says it's a statistical wash when factoring in undercounting. Deaths are still 15-percent higher than in 2009. "The number of deaths remains relatively high and is cause for concern," wrote Allan Williams, who compiled the report and is the former chief scientist at the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. This is the first look at data from last year, and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration will issue its full-year results later. The GHSA found some progress on the roadways, as 24 states and the District of Columbia reported drops in pedestrian deaths. In some states, the problem isn't even a problem at all: Nebraska and Wyoming reported one fatality apiece, though large population centers in urban areas are where most accidents occur. "This is a clearly a good news, bad news scenario," Jonathan Adkins, GHSA executive director, said in a statement. "While we're encouraged that pedestrian fatalities haven't increased over the past two years, progress has been slow." Other News & Notes Cadillac previews CT6 during Oscars Cadillac previewed its upcoming flagship sedan, the CT6, in commercials that aired Sunday during the Oscars. As expected, the creased sedan carries on Cadillac's recent design language, and the car in the commercial looks like a larger version of the CTS and ATS sedans. The CT6 will be revealed this spring at the New York Auto Show and launch late this year. It will be assembled at General Motors' Detroit-Hamtramck factory on a rear-wheel-drive chassis, and the CT6 is the first car to use Cadillac's revised alpha-numeric naming scheme. The commercials also kicked off Cadillac's "Dare Greatly" campaign, which is the first with its new advertising agency, Publicis Worldwide. Honda unexpectedly changes CEOs Honda unexpectedly announced this week that it will change CEOs. Current chief Takanobu Ito will step down in June and be replaced by company veteran Takahiro Hachigo.