TOKYO — Honda on Tuesday said that it had furloughed workers at its U.S. plants, which will be closed until May 1 as demand for cars in the country has plummeted due to the spread of the coronavirus.

A spokesman for Honda, which employs about 18,400 workers at plants in Alabama, Indiana and Ohio, said the Japanese automaker would guarantee salaries through Sunday, having suspended operations on March 23. Operations at its Powersports plant in South Carolina, which makes all-terrain vehicles (ATVs), have been suspended since March 26.

Infiniti is slowly coming round to the modern age of infotainment systems this year, and our first taste of that is in the 2020 Infiniti Q60 Red Sport 400. This performance coupe has an updated system in it that, while it looks a whole lot like it did before, represents a step forward for Infiniti.

Most importantly, Infiniti has finally added Apple CarPlay and Android Auto functionality for 2020. Every new 2020 model year car should ship with the smartphone connection technology baked in, and Infiniti has finally gotten with the program this year on nearly all of its cars (QX60 is the holdout). The delay might have something to do with Nissan/Infiniti's reluctance to share customer data to Apple and Google, or perhaps Infiniti was waiting to roll out a broader interface update, but either way, the hardware they've applied it to would seem to be the same as before. 

Nissan is committed to introducing its replacement for the aging Rogue crossover in 2020 despite potential complications due to the coronavirus pandemic, the company confirmed early Monday. 

"At this time, our new model launch programs for the U.S. are on track. The all-new Nissan Rogue will be in U.S. showrooms this fall," Nissan said in a statement obtained by Automotive News. 

Even though these types of ads aren’t as aggressive as say, Chevy’s “Real People, Not Actors” spots, name-dropping your competition can make you look a bit “thirsty”, which is unbecoming of an already strong-selling nameplate like the Honda CR-V.

The introduction of the North American version of the third-generation Nissan Sunny couldn't have been timed better: just months after the global economic gut-punch of the 1973 Oil Crisis. This car, known as the Datsun B210 on these shores, was a flyweight rear-driver with endearing looks and excellent fuel economy, and it sold like mad during its 1974-1978 run. Rust killed most B210s quickly in the corrosion-prone regions of the continent, but this orange '78 lived in Arizona and managed to hang on until age 42.

While the coronavirus pathogen and the COVID-19 illness dominates the news, auto manufacturers are give people fun distractions (that also keep the companies in those people's minds) by offering positive car-related activities. Audi has offered Zoom video conferencing backgrounds, Porsche recently released a documentary, and Aston Martin released downloadable images for coloring. This week, Toyota contributed to quarantine play time with templates for foldable Toyota 86 coupe models with retro liveries.

In total, Toyota released templates for six different-looking 86 models, but they're technically not new. These were originally created for Toyota's 50th anniversary in the United Kingdom and dropped around the time of the 2015 Goodwood Festival of Speed. Each livery is a nod to an important vehicle from Toyota's past, and Toyota actually created real cars with the same looks using vinyl wraps. 

YouTuber and automotive photographer ‘effspot’ owns two of the loudest cars anywhere in Japan and no, they're not supercars. Instead, one is a Toyota Century and the other is a Mercedes-Benz S600, both of which feature insane aftermarket exhaust systems.

Remember the front-wheel-drive Dodge and Plymouth Colts (not to mention the Plymouth Champ and Eagle Summit) of the late 1970s through the middle 1990s? Those were Mitsubishi Mirages, and you could buy them here with Mitsubishi badging from 1985 through 2002. Then, for the 2014 model year, the Mirage returned to North America, as the cheapest new car you could buy here. Now, barely a half-decade later, I'm seeing significant quantities of these Mirages in the car graveyards I frequent. Here's a pretty clean '15 in a yard located within sight of Pikes Peak in Colorado.

It’s cars like this 2004 Acura NSX-T that present a serious dilemma. Do you buy one in order to drive it as it creators intended, or do you just store it as an appreciating asset? Why not a bit of both?

Former Autoblog editor-in-chief Mike Austin was kind enough to drop this little nugget onto Twitter yesterday: the history of Mitsubishi timeline on the company's press website. Basically, it's a virtual museum, spanning from the 1917 Mitsubishi Model A to the 2008 Galant Fortis Sportback. Frankly, it's not that surprising that they didn't go much further beyond that, but still, the timeline provides both a fun trip down memory lane and an introduction to fun and/or wacky JDM models we never got. 

Besides showing photos, there's actually a sizable amount of info for each, which has quite clearly and often delightfully been translated from Japanese.

In this week's Autoblog Podcast, Editor-in-Chief Greg Migliore is joined by Consumer Editor Jeremy Korzeniewski and Senior Editor, Green, John Beltz Snyder. They talk about cars they've driven recently, including the 2020 Nissan Titan Pro-4X, Hyundai Kona and Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV. Then they talk news, starting with Volvo's new pick-up and drop-off service. Then they talk about Q1 U.S. sales figures. Lastly, they discuss the possibility of new styles of motorcycle from Harley-Davidson, including a flat-track bike and a cafe racer.

New car registrations in Germany were down 38% last month to 215,119 units, according to a KBA vehicle registration agency report.

Mazda is turning 100 years old in 2020, and it's commemorating the occasion by releasing eight retro-inspired limited-edition models in its home country of Japan. Some of them might be available in the United States.

Cars weren't initially on the company's radar. It started life as a cork manufacturer named Toyo Kogyo, and it branched out into the transportation sector when it introduced a three-wheeled, motorcycle-based pickup called Mazda-Go in 1931. Its first car, the R360, was unveiled in 1960 as a two-door four-seater whose tiny dimensions fell in line with Japan's strict kei regulations. It's the model Mazda's celebratory cars are inspired by.

Honda's electric car range has been pretty paltry in the United States so far. Its only full electric is the short-range Honda Clarity EV, which is on its way out, and the adorable Honda E doesn't look like it's coming here anytime soon (no matter how much we want it to). But the company is planning on changing that. In a joint press release, it announced with General Motors that it has two new EVs coming that will be based on GM's electric car technology.

The two cars will use the new global EV platform from General Motors and the company's new Ultium batteries. The platform will be used in a wide array of GM vehicles from Chevy to Cadillac. The Ultium batteries are unique pouch-style batteries that allow for lots of packaging flexibility, rapid charging, and will be offered in packs from 50 to 200 kWh. All of this technology will underpin the new Hondas. In fact, these new Hondas will even have OnStar and the hands-free SuperCruise advanced driver assist system. They'll be built in GM factories in North America, too.