Innholdsfortegnelse for 6/6/2018 i Autocar

JAGUAR HAS DONE it: the electric I-Pace (p26), the most radical and revolutionary car to come out of Britain in a generation, is as brilliant to drive as it is in its execution. Yet the I-Pace also now highlights a disconnect in Jaguar’s range. Not only is it Jaguar’s first electric car, it is also its first electrified one. The company still does not o.er a single hybrid. Many keen on an I-Pace but unwilling or unable to take the leap to an EV would relish a hybrid as that first step, and Jaguar has had ample opportunity to match rivals’ hybrid offerings with new model launches. The speed with which Jaguar has rolled out new models over the past three years has been impressive; the order in which it…

The UK government is making rapid progress towards the opening of the country’s first automotive factory for electric vehicle batteries, with the £80 million Battery Industrialisation Centre (BIC) due to open in Coventry in 2020. The size of a medium-sized automotive manufacturing factory, the BIC will house cutting-edge research and development laboratories along with a pilot production plant for EV battery packs. It is the centrepiece of a £1bn public/private investment in energy-saving automotive technology, which is being channelled through the Advanced Propulsion Centre (APC) at Warwick University. “There is a real opportunity for the UK to grab a slice of the [battery] demand that Europe will need in the next few decades,” said Garry Wilson, the APC’s business development director. NEXT STEPS The UK is already well-placed for the…

“What is it?” is exactly the question Ian Callum, Jaguar’s design director, leads into with the I-Pace. “Is it an SUV? Is it a saloon? Is it a coupé? Is it a sports car? It doesn’t matter.” He’s probably right. He usually is. The lines between different types of car are blurring even to expert eyes, let alone those who actually go out and spend money on cars and who couldn’t care less about arbitrary segments. The only thing they’ll have to know about the I-Pace is that it’s a battery electric vehicle (BEV), and the first premium, long-range, practical EV from an old-school car maker, if that doesn’t sound overly specific. What I mean is that it joins the Tesla Model series and a host of plug-in hybrids as…

When we road tested the third-generation X3 xDrive20d earlier this year, it impressed us with the manner in which it struck a middle ground between composed comfort and BMW’s trademark handling poise and dynamism. The M40i variant you see before you places a bit more emphasis on the latter of those traits – quite a lot more emphasis, in fact. Under its long, sculpted bonnet sits a 355bhp twin-turbocharged straight six petrol engine that, with 369lb ft of torque, will launch the 1885kg SUV to 62mph from a standstill in a claimed 4.8sec. And it feels every bit as quick as those numbers suggest. Exercise all of the throttle pedal’s travel and you’ll be greeted with a surge of smooth, linear, and unsurprisingly rapid acceleration. The only trouble is, the…

With the fifth-generation LS, Lexus has made a clear grab for a distinct identity for its flagship limousine. It was a bold decision, and it’s resulted in an unusual car that should appeal to anyone looking for a fresh take on a large executive saloon characterised by eye-catching design and the imaginative use of cabin materials. However, when you’ve finally digested everything the LS is and begin to concentrate instead on what it does, the car’s appeal as a luxury product unravels a little. This is a relatively heavy car with a powertrain ill-suited to moving its mass in suitably low-effort style. It’s also a car that handles better than it needs to but doesn’t ride nearly as well as it should, and one whose onboard technology roster is exhaustive…

Raw power has never been the Suzuki Swift Sport’s thing. Traditionally, its raison d’être has been to wrap up just enough performance in a relatively svelte package and sell it at an attractively low price. The previous-generation Swift Sport produced just 123bhp from its naturally aspirated 1.6-litre engine. Measuring it against a 300bhp-plus, all-paw mega-hatch wasn’t so much like bringing a knife to a gun fight as attempting to face down a howitzer with an egg whisk. But on the right road, and when you got that free-revving four-pot whirring like David’s slingshot arm, it could give any of the hot hatch Goliaths pause for thought. It used its agility to overcome any performance deficit and emerged as one of our favourite driver’s cars on a pound-to-pound basis, providing a…

SHOOT-OUT Autocar’s Used Car World Cup Here’s a knock-out contest all car lovers can get behind (and that England might actually win) FIRST DRIVE Ferrari 488 Pista: the verdict The world’s best supercar, made better. That’s the theory, at least… ROAD TRIP We set a new record John O’Groats to Land’s End in a hydrogen-powered Toyota Mirai EVERY WEEK ROAD TEST Merc-AMG GLC 63 S Coupé Has Mercedes perfected the high-performance coupé-SUV formula? USED BUYING GUIDE Ford Focus ST Mk2 The Focus ST makes a fine RS alternative. Here’s how to buy one FIRST DRIVE Lexus ES We assess Lexus’s latest attempt to take down the BMW 5 Series SUBSCRIBE autocar.co.uk/subscribe or see p24…

MILEAGE 6940 WHY WE’RE RUNNING IT It’s the first in a two-parter: diesel vRS for three months, petrol vRS for three months. Which makes the better buy? My Race Blue Octavia vRS will soon be making way for a Moon White one. The replacement vRS is different to the outgoing one in just about every conceivable way. Instead of being a diesel, four-wheel-drive hatch with a DSG transmission and Dynamic Chassis Control, it’ll be a petrol, front-wheel-drive estate with a manual gearbox and passive dampers. Between them, they represent the two opposing ends of the Octavia vRS model range. As I write, I still have some time with the blue car and recently I had my most enjoyable drive in it so far. I was on my way to a…

QUESTION My elderly mother’s 20-year-old Ford Fiesta has just been condemned by the MOT tester. She can afford £5000 to spend on a replacement and would like something with high seats. What would you recommend? Marianne Lees, Stockport ANSWER Another Fiesta sounds like just the thing. She’ll be able to buy a seventh-generation model for that money. They are great to drive, very comfortable and cheap to buy and run. Alternatives to the Ford hatchback include the Honda Jazz and the Nissan Note. AR QUESTION I’m thinking about buying a diesel Audi TT, because I want a coupé but need to do lots of motorway miles. Could you suggest any alternatives? Robert Macaulay, via email ANSWER The Volkswagen Scirocco (above) also comes with a diesel and it’s cheaper to buy…

QUIRKY NOUGHTIES CULT CAR Audi A2 £4150 Way back when, before SUVs were all the rage, MPVs were popular choices for those needing a spacious family car. Although their upright stances and mumsy images meant they were derided by most enthusiasts, people carriers incorporated some very clever ideas that we now take for granted. Although the Audi A2 isn’t exactly an MPV, it operates on the same principles: increasing the roof height adds space, because you can raise the seating position to allow occupants to sit more upright, with the added benefit that you give them a better view out. Combined with the all-aluminium body, this makes the A2 one of the most thoughtful and innovative cars Audi has produced. It offers family car space but is a compact size…

“Audi has followed the trend for more extravagant styling established by the BMW X6” The new Audi Q8 will give the Range Rover Sport its sternest challenge yet as the battle for sales of style-led premium SUVs hits new levels of intensity amid unprecedented — and still growing — global demand. Priced from an estimated £65,000 and powered by a choice of 3.0-litre petrol and diesel engines, the Q8 is also set to go head to head with German premium rivals including the BMW X6 and Mercedes-Benz GLE Coupé. Last year Mercedes was the world’s largest seller of premium SUVs, closely followed by Audi and BMW. Land Rover was a distant fourth with sales volumes around two-thirds the size of those of its rivals. Although the Range Rover Sport is…

MASERATI HAS VOWED to take on Porsche and Tesla with the biggest product offensive in its history, with the Alfieri, a new electrified sports car with a top speed of more than 186mph and capable of 0-62mph in less than two seconds, set to spearhead the charge. The Alfieri, first previewed as a V6-powered concept car in 2014, will be the “spiritual halo” of the Italian firm’s range, according to brand boss Timothy Kuniskis. It will be offered in both coupé and cabriolet forms and will be built on a new modular chassis. Three electrified powertrain options will be available, among them a plug-in hybrid and an electric version, which will sit within the firm’s new ‘Maserati Blue’ line-up of pure EVs. Notably, every Maserati powertrain – including the hybrid…

PEUGEOT HAS CREATED its most striking-looking 508 SW yet in an effort to attract the attention of image-conscious buyers. Product manager Bernard Hesse said the design of the estate, which is predicted to account for 60-65% of 508 sales, was given as much precedence as its practicality. “We saw competitors like Mercedes with the CLA and the CLS Shooting Brakes, which are very interesting,” he said. “So we designed a more dynamic look for the SW right from the start.” The car’s taut proportions mean it is actually 6cm lower and 5cm shorter overall than its predecessor. It offers 530 litres of boot space (30 litres less than the old car), while maximum load space with the seats folded down is 1780 litres — identical to that of the Volkswagen…

MODEL TESTED 500H PREMIER Price £97,995 • Power 354bhp • Torque na • 0-60mph 5.9sec • Fuel economy 29.8mpg • CO2 emissions 161g/km • 70-0mph 46.0m • 30-70mph in fourth na Lexus will probably never launch another car with the impact of the legendary original LS limousine. Before the 1989 LS, Toyota’s luxury car brand simply didn’t exist. And not long after it came along, the industry was alive with gossip among Lexus’s European and American rivals, who had prodded, poked, tested and disassembled examples of the car and were, by and large, at a total loss to understand how a luxury saloon could be so refined and assiduously well put together in every detail. In causing the established powers to take a long, hard look at themselves, the original…

It’s not often I get nervous driving at less than walking pace. But when I saw the boulder-strewn, ditch-riddled, steep and rocky ridge I was supposed to climb, I got really quite nervous. Nervous about being revealed as the inexpert off-roader I am, more nervous about damaging a rare and valuable prototype on one of its final sign-off drives and, I guess, most nervous about tripping over a crag, falling over the edge and having enough time on the way down to calculate the terminal velocity of a 2019 Porsche Macan before it and I splatted ourselves into a pristine patch of South African veldt. Porsche, it seemed, had decided to show me that the Macan was more than just the most entertaining SUV ever to be put on the…

Before we get to the new BMW Z4, let’s talk about the previous one. Because there’s something you need to know: BMW knows. BMW knows that although the previous Z4 looked every inch the sort of two-seat roadster you’d expect Munich to produce, when it came to its dynamic capabilities it was a little, well, disappointing. It was a car to enjoy being seen in, rather than to enjoy driving. Which is fine, if that’s your thing. But, as an Autocar reader, that’s probably not your thing. It’s not really BMW’s thing, either. “We wanted a Z4 with more dynamic capabilities, one that was sporty and precise. A pure roadster, a pure driving machine,” says Florian Dietrich, a BMW driving dynamics expert. In that sense, the third-generation Z4 doesn’t follow…

FINAL REPORT MILEAGE 12,555 WHY WE RAN IT To gather real-world, big-miles knowledge of a variety of car, the plug-in hybrid, we’ll be seeing much more in the clean-air future It’ll be dull, people said. Lots of them did. Not my colleagues at Autocar, who know the Toyota Prius as the most reliable and economical of Toyotas, but friends in the wider world who heard we were planning to do 10,000 miles in the plug-in version of Toyota’s best-known hybrid. These people had clearly done too many miles in old-shape Toyota hybrids, ground down by night-and-day minicab use. Certainly to some people a Toyota Prius only means one thing. Me? I was excited by the idea. I’ve grown to enjoy the serenity and precision of electric cars, I’ve got religion…

Cast your mind back to Autocar’s bumper Christmas 2017 issue and our story on the cars owned by some of the magazine’s staff and contributors. Among them was the BMW X5 belonging to our technical guru, Jesse Crosse. It’s an E53 – or first-generation – 3.0 diesel Sport, registered in 2005. Jesse had owned it for two years and was in love. “It’s powerful, refined and fun to drive,” he wrote. He admitted to having spent £500 on a couple of oil changes and some bits for the air-con system, but concluded that it was money well spent. Jesse’s generation of X5 was on sale from 2000 to 2006, interrupted by a facelift for the 2004 model year. It was BMW’s first SUV but, thanks to its car-like, unibody structure,…

Peugeot 205 GTis are going for crazy prices these days and it’s logical to conclude the 306 will eventually follow. If it does, the Rallye variant will be in most demand, so get in quick while prices are still reasonable. Power comes from the same 168bhp 2.0-litre 16v engine as the 306 GTi-6, but with 52kg stripped out, the Rallye tips the scales at just 1163kg, making it even more agile to drive. This particular car, with 97,000 miles, a stack of invoices and a few months left on its MOT, went for £4028 at Anglia Car Auctions’ April sale. GET IT WHILE YOU CAN Dacia Duster 1.2 TCe Laureate Price new £13,295. Price now £11,495 The discount on this 2017 Dacia Duster might not look huge, but it has…

Alfa Romeo will launch a new version of its flagship 8C supercar, with an electrified powertrain producing more than 700bhp, as part of a major range expansion. The returning supercar, which will be capable of 0-62mph in less than three seconds, is a key part of the brand’s new five-year plan and will be launched alongside a new GTV sports car, a four-seater coupé version of the Giulia. The Italian firm is also planning two additional new SUVs that will sit alongside the existing Stelvio. The return of the 8C name, which last appeared on a roadster model that went out of production in 2010, was confirmed at the FCA Group’s Capital Markets Day at Alfa Romeo’s Balocco Proving Ground in Italy last Friday. The mid-engined car will use a…

Jeep has confirmed it will make a small SUV to sit below the Renegade as part of a product offensive that will include two new launches a year and electrification of the range. The as-yet unnamed new model, which has been rumoured for several years, is due by 2022. It is tipped to cost around £15,000 and its target is to cash in on the growing popularity of small SUVs. Other confirmed new models include a pick-up truck, which is intended to tap into the huge US market, and the return of the Wagoneer and Grand Wagoneer nameplates, which will be used on new large SUVs. The firm is also planning two additional SUVs to fill gaps in its line-up, including a three-row model that can seat seven. Jeep will…

Fiat will launch electric and mild-hybrid models as part of a renewed 500 city car range that will include an estate. An all-new Panda is also under development. The move is part of a Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA) five-year plan in which Fiat will be repositioned as a ‘green’ city car brand. The aim is to consolidate Fiat’s dominance of the city car segment – the 500 and Panda hold a third of this market – while developing technologies that allow these models to satisfy emission regulations and meet growing demand for zero-emission cars that can be driven into emission-restricted city centres. FCA boss Sergio Marchionne believes that Fiat “is very well placed to exploit battery electric city car opportunities in jurisdictions where access for internal-combustion vehicles will be increasingly…

“We’ve added an extra layer of comfort that will provide the X5 with more appeal than ever” The fourth-generation BMW X5 promises “new-found comfort and refinement”, according to Johann Kistler, the model’s project manager. He said the improvement is thanks to the X5’s new platform, which shares key elements with the brand’s CLAR architecture used by the 5 Series and 7 Series. Kistler said it elevates the X5’s capabilities to a new level, with the model’s established reputation for performance and handling now enhanced by an improved ride. The advancements are enough to give it an edge over rivals, he added, including the Audi Q7, Jaguar F-Pace, Porsche Cayenne and Mercedes-Benz GLE. Launching in the UK towards the end of the year following a debut at the Paris show in…

There are signs, here and there. If you rattle the Huracán Performante Spyder over a rough patch of tarmac at speed, you’ll be aware of the structure shuddering slightly around you. In the third gear with the throttle wide open it doesn’t feel as effortlessly accelerative as it might – although by the time 6000rpm has come and gone you won’t believe there could possibly be another car on the road that’s as fast. You might be faintly aware of the chassis getting a touch flustered when you ask it to do several things at once, too; such as turn into a corner while you’re hard on the brakes just at the moment the road drops away, for instance. If you really go looking for them – as in, look…

Although the LS’s handling is flat, fluent and relatively agile at road speeds, its dynamic flair doesn’t survive indefinitely when it’s driven quickly on a road as testing as the Millbrook Hill Route. For a big luxury saloon, that’s no great criticism; we’d expect the poise and handling accuracy of an Audi A8 or Mercedes S-Class to deteriorate in a very similar way, although a BMW 7-Series or a Jaguar XJ might stand the test a bit better. The LS can carry plenty of speed through corners and stays balanced, flat and on line until you’re pushing harder than you ever would in such a big car on the public road. When the handling precision fades, the car stays fundamentally stable, slipping from the front axle first, but it can…

“The Audi’s launch control requires no skill; the Ducati’s is a damned sight harder to use” Car versus bike. You’ll have read it before and you’ll read it again, but it’s worth reading this one too. Think of it as a state of the nation address. An opinion poll. An update from an ongoing fixture. The latest score from a match that has been taking place for about 100 years and will carry on for another century or more. Today’s premise is a pretty straightforward one. They’re two fast vehicles in a straight-line drag test. Supercar versus superbike, but the quickest ‘everyday’ vehicles from, if you squint a bit, the same manufacturer, Audi, which has a controlling stake in Ducati. Audi, then, provides the ordinary supercar, the R8. It has…

The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) test day at Millbrook Proving Ground isn’t the sort of place you’d expect to find motorsport royalty. With the major car makers gathering in one place, it’s typically a prime opportunity for motoring journalists to have a go in the latest facelifted models, drink as much complimentary coffee as their bowels can handle and chew the cud with PR folk. You can imagine my surprise when I was pulled away from this, er, ‘challenging’ schedule by an offer to accompany Sébastien Loeb, the most successful driver in the history of the World Rally Championship, on a flying lap of Millbrook’s daunting Hill Route. I’m very familiar with this circuit and regular readers of Autocar might be too, because it is where we…

Reading the article in the 18 April on the BMW M2 and your editorial stating that the BMW M Division is ‘at the top of it’s game’, am I the only one left underwhelmed? Not by the performance figures, but by an interior that is all black. Most other manufacturers are guilty too. When are we going to see some use of colour as standard in interiors? I love the sunroof in my Jaguar XF, which helps lighten the cabin. The Jag is better than most, but manufacturers, having brought on exterior designs, should be paying a bit more attention to their interiors. I am fed up of seeing pictures of black dull and uninviting interiors. The BMW in question would look better with some coloured carpet if nothing else.…

MILEAGE 5781 WHY WE’RE RUNNING IT To get fully familiar with the dynamic successes and foibles of an alluring driver’s car. And to see if the UK public can ‘get’ the idea of a truly desirable Kia Just over three months after we first picked up our Stinger GT S from GWR Kia in Brentford, London, Big Yellow was back there, in need of some fairly serious work. If you’ve been following our time with Kia’s striking new sports saloon, you’ll have read how a colleague recently had a rather unfortunate encounter with an exceptionally large pothole on a late-night run back from the airport. The encounter turned out to be an expensive one. In the days after this episode, after new tyres had been sourced and normal service was…

My most recent attempt to get a car through its MOT did not go according to plan. The Baby Shark failed on two items: a rusty sill and a sticky rear fog lamp switch. I booked it in for the patch work on the sill. I expected to find a rather ugly sight when the repair job had been done, but it was well hidden. The MOT rules are moving at a pace and because this is a pre- 1980 vehicle, it doesn’t actually need a rear fog light, so that fail was scrubbed. My 1970s road show rolls on for another year.…

An expert’s view CHRIS PLUMMER, CHRIS PLUMMER AUTOMOBILES “We’re a BMW specialist and I’ve been working on the cars for more than 45 years. I’ve been running a 2006-reg X5 3.0d for the past seven of them. Actually, my wife drives it; we’ve got horses so she’s at the stables every day using the X5 to cart bales of straw around or tow the horse box to events. Every so often she uses it to tow a chain harrow across the fields. It can do it when the ground is dry, but if it rains and gets boggy she has to drag the X5 out with our tractor. It helps that I’m a specialist because X5s can be money pits. My tip: check that the actuator on the transfer box…