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Dodge Hornet supposedly snapped inside Alfa Romeo Tonale factory

It appears that someone in Stellantis' Pomigliano d’Arco Assembly Plant in Italy couldn't keep their cellphone to themselves. Video uploaded to the Alfa Romeo Club Italia Facebook page, then quickly removed, purports to show Dodge's brand-engineered version of the Alfa Romeo Tonale in the same factory where the Alfa will be built. The Dodge is expected to be called the Hornet, and there are a few differences between it and and Alfa Romeo, which is understandable. But if the screenshots on Twitter are accurate, then the Dodge looks a lot closer to the Alfa Romeo than perhaps anyone expected. The front fascia and hood fall in line with Dodge's design language. The Alfa grille is replaced by a narrow, stepped upper grille, and the hood is one of the vented units similar to those available for Dodge's R/T performance trims. And as Mopar Insiders noticed, the silhouette of this car's front end matches a vehicle silhouette Dodge showed during Stellantis' 2021 EV Day.   Inside, the Italian brand's crest in the steering wheel center cap is replaced by Dodge's twin slashes, and the steering wheel has been stripped of the large, curved paddle shifters the Tonale showed on its debut. There's still a start/stop button on the steering wheel, but where the Tonale has a driving mode dial on its dash, this supposed Hornet has another start/stop button. Dodge's push-to-start buttons are usually on the instrument panel, so our guess is that the wheel is a holdover for testing. On the center tunnel, the parking alert buttons and Italian Tricolore flag on the Alfa Romeo are replaced by three different buttons.   We've known Dodge has two electrified vehicles on the way, and the Hornet name has been low-key buzzing for two years. Fiat Chrysler applied to trademark the name in the U.S. in March 2020; at the time, it was thought a vehicle with that name could replace the Journey. In 2021, a July rumor out of Italy was the first whisper of the Hornet name being attached to the Alfa Romeo Tonale. In August, when Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares said Dodge would get a PHEV in 2024, watchers pegged that model as the Hornet. That hybrid powertrain would show a year after the vehicle's launch, the Hornet anticipated as a 2023 model with the Tonale's turbocharged 2.0-liter four-cylinder. That engine could get the same 256 horsepower and 295 pound-feet of torque as the Tonale, or be boosted to satisfy Dodge's performance credentials.

Fiat Chrysler's next-generation Uconnect is faster, built on Android

If you're a regular reader of Autoblog, you know that for a long time we've liked Fiat Chrysler's Uconnect infotainment system for its bright, clear, responsive touchscreen interface. Now, according to the company, it will be better than ever with Uconnect 5, the latest iteration of the system. It has upgraded hardware and a revamped graphic user interface (the stuff on the screen). Looking at sample screens shown above, there are characteristics shared with the old system, such as the time, status and shortcuts at the top and the menu icons at the bottom. In the middle, the major change is the addition of home screens that can be customized with favorite menus and readouts that are always available. Each of these home screens can have up to four functions and you can have five pages to flip through. The graphics themselves feature more legible fonts and updated icons. Each car brand will get its own set of icons, colors and textures to help create unique experiences. And while each Fiat Chrysler product will be able to have Uconnect, including Alfa Romeo that has until now lacked Uconnect, each brand has the ability to make small tweaks including the screen orientation. The system will support displays in landscape, portrait or square, so different brands may choose different shapes. Powering Uconnect 5 is a processor Fiat Chrysler says is six times more powerful than what's in current systems. It features 6 gigabytes of RAM and 64 gigabytes of internal storage. The processor also supports screens as large as 12.3 inches with as many as 15 million pixels, or nearly twice that of a 4K resolution TV. The system can display information on up to four screens, too. Uconnect 5's firmware is built on Google's Android operating system, joining a few other automakers in using Android as a base for their infotainment systems. Uconnect 5 brings with it a number of new features. It brings full Alexa integration, so you can use it just like you do at home, provided you have a data plan for the car. Apple CarPlay and Android Auto continue to be standard, but now they can be used wirelessly. You can also now connect two phones via Bluetooth wirelessly so you can access content from both. Navigation gets real time information and updates from TomTom. Users can create five profiles with unique climate, radio and instrument settings, plus one for a valet.

Hellcat no help to Fiat-Chrysler's bottom-of-the-pile mpg average

What, you expected the "fastest muscle car ever" to help fleetwide fuel economy? Nope, don't think that's going to happen. That means Fiat Chrysler will likely to continue to languish at the bottom of the heap when it comes to fleetwide fuel economy among the largest automakers serving the US, especially as the automaker starts to sell its Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat. A few hundred Fiat 500E electric vehicles aren't going to turn the trend around. See, Chrysler has once again finished at the bottom of the list when it came to fleetwide fuel economy among automakers for 2014 model-year vehicles, according to a preliminary study by the US Environmental Protection Agency. Chrysler and Fiat had an average of 21.1 miles per gallon. That substantially lagged the overall 24.2 mpg average, but it was an increase from the company's 20.9 mpg average last year and the 20.1 mpg average two years prior. For 2014, General Motors had the second-worst fleetwide fuel economy at an even 22 mpg. Fiat Chrysler does say it's working on improving its fuel economy, according to Automotive News. The company plans on making its inline-four-cylinder and V6 engines smaller, and will sell more vehicles with eight- and nine-speed transmissions. Heck, there's even a plug-in hybrid version of the Chrysler Town & Country minivan in the works for late 2015, and the company can tout fuel-efficiency gains with the Chrysler 200 and Jeep Cherokee. We would be remiss if we didn't note that, compared to its muscle-car forefathers, the Hellcat actually performs pretty well at the pump. Last month, word got out that the 2015 Challenger Hellcat, equipped either with a six-speed manual or an eight-speed automatic transmission, got a combined fuel economy of 16 mpg. Heck, the automatic-tranny version got 22 mpg on the highway. And that's for a car with 707 horsepower and a 10-second quarter-mile time. Still, with the pedal floored, the car can burn a gallon and a half of fuel per minute. Ouch.