Innholdsfortegnelse for November 23, 2022 i Autocar

JAGUAR LAND ROVER CEO Thierry Bolloré – the architect behind the plan to electrify both British brands – is stepping down from the role less than two years after arriving at the Gaydon company. His departure was attributed to “personal reasons” and will take effect officially on 31 December 2022. As of 16 November, CEO responsibilities have been taken on by chief financial officer Adrian Mardell, who has been at the firm since 1990 and joined the company board in 2019. Bolloré’s departure comes less than two years after he announced the dramatic and wide-reaching ‘Reimagine’ overhaul. Alongside Land Rover’s electrification pathway, the strategy was headlined by the repositioning of Jaguar as an all-electric luxury brand from 2025 and by the axing of the marque’s then imminent electric XJ luxury…

ELECTRIC VEHICLE OWNERS will have to pay road tax from 2025, as part of a drive from new chancellor Jeremy Hunt to make the motoring tax system “fairer”. EV owners are exempt from the standard VED rate of £165 per year, but as uptake for electric cars, commercial vehicles and motorbikes continues to increase, the UK government has announced that exemption will apply for only two more years. As well as new VED rates for EVs, benefit-in-kind tax on electric company cars will increase from 2% today to 3% in April 2025, then rise 1% for each consecutive year to 5% in 2027/28. Revealed as part of the longawaited Autumn Budget, the Treasury said that the change will ensure “all motorists begin to pay a fair share” and added that…

HYUNDAI SPOILED TOYOTA’S party by scoring a one-two in its rival’s backyard, on Japan’s return to the World Rally Championship for the first time in 12 years. Thierry Neuville and co-driver Martijn Wydaeghe claimed their second victory of the year and Hyundai’s fifth as Toyota’s challenge wilted on the final morning of the season, with Elfyn Evans picking up a puncture on his GR Yaris. The Welshman finished fifth, with Ott Tänak more than a minute down on Neuville in second on his final outing for Hyundai. At least home hero Takamoto Katsuta gave Toyota something to cheer by coming home third for his second podium of 2022. Eight-time WRC champion Sébastien Ogier was undone by a puncture but recovered to fourth, while new king Kalle Rovanperä was out of…

Given that the 3 Series variants offered since 2019 have been the most successful in history, with 1.1 million sold, you can forgive BMW for not making many changes for the refreshed models. Even so, the 2022 cars incorporate useful improvements – which seem to work especially well in arguably the most versatile and economical variant, the 330e Touring xDrive. It has the short-haul economy of a PHEV, the versatility of a wagon and great all-weather traction via a mostly unobtrusive electronically managed four-wheel drive system. The visual changes aren’t dramatic: some alterations to the twin kidney grille, thinner headlights and new air vents low down on the front of the body, where the foglights were. In the cabin, it’s the fascia that gets the biggest changes, a gigantic central…

t’s the stuff of nightmares for a car company: you launch your first production BEV and in a matter of weeks an issue is discovered where the wheels could literally fall off. It took an agonising three months to find a solution, but the Toyota bZ4X is fixed now, and we have a production car in the UK. For the full tech details, you might want to take a look at our original first drive (15 June) or wait for the upcoming full road test. In short, though, the bZ4X is the first of a series of Toyota and Lexus EVs on the dedicated e-TNGA platform. Unsurprisingly, it’s an SUV in the Kia EV6 and Volkswagen ID 4 class. Every bZ4X has a 71.4kWh battery, giving the basic front-wheel-drive version…

Hard and fast rules are best avoided at Britain’s Best Driver’s Car. Like high kerbs, puddles of standing water, risky overtaking moves and snacks with particularly high fibrous or nutritional value, they are known trouble makers and generally viewed with scepticism. We could decide, for instance, that only one car per manufacturer should to be allowed in any given year. That would seem reasonable – but it would be an arbitrary rule made chiefly for the sake of the appearance of fairness, wouldn’t it? It’s much simpler and neater in practice simply to start by saying: “These are the 10 best new sports cars of 2022, made anywhere, by anyone and at any price. That is the defending champion of 2021 over there. Here are five judges. Over that hill…

We drive the quickest car on sale THE ORIGINAL MERCEDES-Benz CLK was in essence a C-Class coupé. The CLK GTR, though? Far, far from it. About all they shared were some styling cues, the CLK GTR being a £1.1 million supercar that could go faster than any other, at 200mph – a limitedproduction special created to homologate the racer that had wiped the floor with its rivals in the 1997 FIA GT Championship. We reported: “The sheer range of torque from the 6.9-litre V12 is astonishing. There’s so much urge, so much of the time, that the gearbox is almost superfluous. “The suspension is firm, yet it feels civilised. It’s the steering that’s the revelation, fabulously direct, lighter than you’d ever expect, totally consistent in its weighting and always alive.…

MILEAGE 1803 WHY WE’RE RUNNING IT Does Kia still hold its own among the throng of sensible crossovers? A quick local drive in my mum’s Volkswagen T-Roc recently made me appreciate our Kia Sportage more than ever. They’re not direct rivals, of course, but the T-Roc’s hard suspension (it’s an R-Line) over the many speed bumps of my local roads meant I was glad to get back into the more wafty Sportage, made even more pleasant by the calming, quiet electric-only mode of this hybrid model. The system is so smooth that sometimes you have to look down at the instrument cluster to see when the engine has kicked in. What struck me most about this little experience was this: despite Kia’s exponential rise and impressive model range, I think…

ometh the hour, cometh the car. Nothing C was ever quite the same again for Ferrari after the F355 hit the scene in 1994. It was a game-changer – and boy did it need to be. Ferrari’s star was in worrying decline in the early 1990s. It was heavily in debt, its road cars were drawing strong criticism and its motorsport exploits, to put it politely, were losing momentum. But Ferrari gained a charismatic new boss in 1991, Luca di Montezemolo, and he was determined that its new sports car would recapture the emotion, excitement, finesse and driver engagement that had made Ferraris revered. The F355 was that car. The contrast with the F355’s predecessor, the underwhelming 348, was lost on no one, especially buyers. Ferrari went on to sell…

Whenever you drive into rural parts of Britain, the motoring furniture rapidly changes. Out go the shiny new SUVs and in come the patinaed 4x4s which performed that role in towns a decade or three ago. They must be tough and reasonably easy and affordable to maintain, not to mention fairly low-key, because showing off isn’t the country way. Here’s our spotter’s guide. Audi A6 Allroad The Audi A6 Allroad is neither a regular estate car nor an SUV, rather having elements of both. Its small but loyal ownership base swear by them as the best of both worlds. Handy enough in the rough stuff and with lots of space inside, they’re also decent to drive on the road on long trips or short – perhaps reasons why these cars…

“In the 12 months to March 2022, just 16,791 Discoverys were sold” Land Rover is poised to radically reinvent the Discovery as part of its rapid and wide-reaching electrification programme with a view to distance it from the hugely popular Defender and re-establish the nameplate as a core pillar of the line-up. The Discovery has historically been a highly important car for Land Rover. It was launched in 1989 as a more family-focused and affordable adaptation of the acclaimed underpinnings from the Range Rover flagship and it ultimately became one of the firm’s most popular models worldwide, with the millionth example leaving the production line in 2012. In recent years, though, the Discovery’s popularity has waned and today’s fifth-generation model has consistently ranked as the smallest-selling car in Land Rover’s…

Abarth has made its first step into the EV era with a performance variant of the electric Fiat 500, claiming it’s the most engaging, responsive and dynamic car the Italian firm has yet made. Fitted with a host of technical upgrades, including a more responsive motor, the Abarth 500e sends 152bhp and 173lb ft – increases of 35bhp and 11lb ft over the Fiat – to the front wheels, drawing power from the same 42kWh battery. This extra kick gives the baby hot hatch a 7.0sec 0-62mph time – 2.0sec faster than the Fiat and only slightly slower than the 180bhp petrolengined Abarth 695 (6.7sec). Abarth said blistering acceleration from rest – a hallmark of EVs – wasn’t the outright aim, instead opting for better mid-range power. The 500e gets…

Atrack-focused, roadgoing hypercar from Czech marque Praga is in the final stages of development and will be launched next year. The mid-engined, carbonfibre-tubbed and - bodied Bohema will mark the 115-year-old firm’s first foray into road cars since the R1R of 2015 and is heavily influenced by the flyweight Praga R1 racer. Beyond the aesthetics, the £1.32 million Bohema and R1 will share almost nothing because the road-legal model is new from the ground up. This was essential in order to give the Bohema enough breadth to be used properly on the road. It gets a cockpit-style design, with two seats rather than the usual one, as the footprint of the car is roughly the same width and length as a Ferrari 296 GTB. It even comes with 100 litres…

WHO WOULD EVER have guessed that some of the stuff that we all breathe could end up being among the biggest threats to the planet? Clearly CO2 is that, but what’s frustrating is that we can’t just magic up a giant school chemistry experiment and make it all go away. Or can we? There is such a thing and it’s called direct air capture (DAC), a technology already in play today and which could in theory make a difference to global warming if it continues to scale up from the current small beginnings. Audi is working with Austrian greentech company Krajete to jointly develop DAC systems. A recently established plant in Austria is based on an inorganic filter material that can adsorb a high proportion of CO2 molecules. These are…

Waiting times for popular models continue to grow amid a backdrop of part and material shortages, and people shopping for a new car are being told to go in with an open mind or “plan ahead and be patient”. Despite this, registrations rose 26.4% year on year to 134,344 units in October – an increase that was in part explained by dealers’ fulfilment of strong order books, said industry body the SMMT. However, dealers have told Autocar they continue to grapple with low stocks and long delivery times. Posing as a new car buyer, Autocar contacted five dealers, entirely at random, retailing a selection of popular models, in a bid to find out what delivery times they were quoting and which cars, if any, might be available from stock. We…

“When it lands, there’s no squirm or pitch, very little rebound and no sense it is even near its limit” The new Ford Ranger Raptor performance pick-up truck makes a whole spectrum of noises that are louder and more interesting than those of its dieselonly predecessor. The warble of its new twin-turbo V6 petrol engine, for example, when channelled through an active exhaust in what would amount to a totally unsilenced running mode if it weren’t for all the mandatory European-market exhaust after-treatment going on, sounds particularly promising. But the most interesting noise the Raptor makes is a quiet yet perceptible click that comes from its suspension just as its wheels part company with the ground – and just as that split second of eerie silence known best to rallycross…

Once upon a time, the X-Trail was a victim of the Qashqai. When it first appeared in 2000, the only SUVs Nissan built were the cumbersome Patrol and Pathfinder, and it was an on-road revelation compared with them. But in 2006 came the Qashqai, stealing all the headlines and sales, and the X-Trail was left forlorn in a corner. Not any more. Although it still shares its CMF-C platform with the Qashqai, the X-Trail’s styling is more distinguished now and it’s a full 255mm longer, with an extra 40mm of that in the wheelbase. As before, the X-Trail fulfils the sevenseater brief (for £1000 extra), as the Qashqai only accommodates five. We’ve driven the car before and liked the new e-4orce hybrid system (apart from the name…), because it offers…

They are already the best: whatever the final order, it’s worth remembering that these are the 10 best new driver’s cars of the year, and we would gladly have any one of them, with only a tatty old estate car as backup for shifting logs or dogs. That’s why we take them somewhere with good driving roads and a great race track for the best part of a week. Which, for the 34th running of Autocar’s Britain’s Best Driver’s Car, leads us, as so often, to North Wales and the hallowed ground of Anglesey Circuit. To keep them honest, and as tradition dictates, we’ve brought along last year’s winner from this contest, the Porsche 911 GT3. Our judges will drive all 11 cars and score them for the fun they…

I read with great interest your article entitled On This Day in 1959 (24 August), referring to British military vehicles. I was called for national service in 1958, training at Catterick Camp in Yorkshire and then being posted to the 2nd Royal Tank Regiment in Münster, West Germany, where I was trained as a Centurion tank gunner/driver. In 1959, the regiment moved to Tripoli, Libya, and converted to armoured vehicles. I then trained as an Alvis Saladin and Saracen driver. As your article said, the Saladin was a fascinating vehicle and brilliant across the desert and over wadis (deep ruts). I also liked the pre-select gearbox. Great memories. WIN Letter of the week wins this ValetPRO exterior protection and maintenance kit worth £48…

There’s a reason why chauffeurs around the globe, from Southampton to San Francisco, adore the Mercedes-Benz S-Class. It’s because the limousine is and has long been a pillar of luxury, making drivers and passengers alike swoon. The previous-generation model won’t cost you Rolls-Royce money, either – unless your eye is on a Maybach version, that is. A budget of only £20,000 is enough to get you a 2014 or 2015 example with fewer than 70,000 miles to its name. That undercuts even a new Toyota Yaris. You will still want to know where your money is going, though, starting with what’s under the bonnet. Most examples come in S350d form. For 2014 to 2016 cars, this means a 252bhp 3.0-litre V6. It then changed to a 282bhp 2.9-litre straight six…

RANGE ROVER EV Due in 2024, Land Rover’s first EV is tipped to be among the quickest, most refined and best off-roading cars ever to bear the badge. Technical details are still under wraps, but a partnership with BMW could enable it to share some drivetrain elements with the similarly positioned iX. RANGE ROVER SPORT EV A more dynamically focused proposition to rival the Lotus Eletre and Porsche Macan EV, the electric version of the Range Rover Sport will follow its full-sized sibling into dealerships in late 2024. DEFENDER FLAGSHIP Plans are afoot to launch a highly luxurious flagship for the Defender line-up in around 2025. It will be largely unrelated to today’s 90, 110 and 130 but instead use the same MLA platform as the Range Rover. It is…

DURABILITY TESTING OF the Mercedes-Benz EQG has begun in earnest as a series of prototypes are pressed into duty at the halfway point of a four-year engineering programme. The electric G-Class is earmarked to act as a technological spearhead for Mercedes’ newly created G (for Geländewagen) sub-brand. G boss Emmerich Schiller has promised that it will deliver an “unparalleled combination of luxury and off-road ability for electric vehicles”. At the centre of the EQG’s technical development is a new drivetrain containing four electric motors, one powering each wheel for optimal off-road traction. Schiller hinted that there will be various states of tune, including an AMG flagship providing performance to match today’s 577bhp V8-petrol-engined G63. To facilitate full off-road capability, the four motors are also able to simulate the three locking…

In a rare exclusive interview, Maserati CEO Davide Grasso has outlined how the firm has completed a rapid and wide-reaching turnaround plan, going from heavy losses to profit in less than four years. Speaking as Maserati ramps up to its “year of electrification” in 2023, with no fewer than three EVs due in its dealerships, the ex-Nike marketing boss was hugely optimistic about Maserati’s outlook as part of Stellantis, forecasting huge growth in profit margins and a radical shift in brand perception. “It’s a banal quote,” he said, “but it’s nice to say: Maserati is back to the future.” Grasso refused to be drawn on sales forecasts, suggesting such predictions clash with his company’s luxury aspirations. “We have banned internally and externally the notion of volume, simply because it orients…

The new 911 Dakar is a highly limited and substantially modified take on Porsche’s flagship coupé, designed to offer rapid off-road pace with minimal compromise to its abilities on Tarmac. Revealed in full at the Los Angeles motor show, the 911 Dakar has undergone a lengthy development process, having made its debut in prototype form at the Nürburgring more than two years ago. Porsche has a long and successful history in top-flight rallying, most famously clinching victory on the Dakar Rally with the 911-based 959 Group B racer in 1984 and 1986, and supporting various successful privateer efforts with 911s in the early years of the World Rally Championship. Underneath, the 911 Dakar is most closely related to the four-wheel-drive 911 GTS and shares that car’s 473bhp, 420lb ft 3.0-litre…

Before we get under the skin of this all-new Peugeot 408, it’s probably worth taking a look at the numbers, specifically the ones appearing on the nose and the tailgate. You see, follow the French company’s normal naming policy and the newcomer should be a midsize saloon that logically follows in the wheel tracks of the 405, 406 and 407. Yet we know that the heir to those models is the current 508. What’s more, the 408 is actually a crossover, complete with subtly raised ride height and some toughlooking body cladding, so it should be a double-0. No, not a spy with a licence to kill, an impeccable dress sense and a penchant for very particularly prepared cocktails, but a Peugeot SUV. By rights, the 408 should be named…

A 911 Carrera is a terrific car. Those aware of and who subscribe to the age-old adage that ‘less is more’ will see the phenomenon alive and well at the entry point to the world’s most famous sports car nameplate. Only one thing annoys: if it is the 911 at its simplest, why can’t you order it with a manual gearbox when one is available in the Carrera S? Now we know. Porsche has been keeping that particular carrot up the 992-generation’s sleeve since it was launched in 2018 for this, the new 911 Carrera T. Which means for the first time in the 992 era, the base 379bhp Carrera engine is available with three pedals. About time, too. Porsche launched a ‘T’ version of the old 911 as a…

MODEL TESTED TECHNO • Price £38,495 • Power 214bhp • Torque 221lb ft • 0-60mph 6.9sec • 30-70mph 5.4sec • Economy 3.3mpkWh • CO2 emissions 0g/km • 70-0mph 63.7m Electrification brings big changes to mainstream cars, so what to do with the mainstream names? Volkswagen now has the ID 3, BMW has the i4 and Mercedes has the EQE, but when everything is electric, what happens to the Golf, the 3 Series and the E-Class? Peugeot and Vauxhall are hedging their bets by making electric versions of the 308 and Astra to sit alongside the petrol, diesel and hybrid variants. Renault isn’t ready to kill off the Mégane name, either. On the contrary: it has completely reinvented its mid-size hatchback to look nothing like the outgoing model and to be completely…

THE CONTENDERS BBDC 2022 When we look back at this, our 34th annual quest to find Britain’s Best Driver’s Car, there will be some strange memories. Great weather in North Wales in the middle of October will be one of them (although such unusual meteorological conditions seem to bless us here every year). More notably, it will be remembered not only for being only the second time a car has turned up with less than the standard complement of wheels, but also for the sight of representatives from one manufacturer hand-pumping special fuel into their car. We’ll remember our first contender with a retail price of in excess of one million quid, and the fact that out of our five mid-or rear-engined supercars, only one of them could out-accelerate a…

So this is what a slow-burner looks like, then? If that isn’t too ridiculous a label to assign to a car whose 503bhp regularly feels more like 603bhp. Because, if you cast your mind back to when the fourth-gen 911 GT3 broke cover in 2020, you’ll remember that praise didn’t flood forth quite so easily as it had done for earlier versions of Porsche’s much loved road racer. Was the 992 just too serious for its own good, we wondered? Was it overcooked for the road? We worried it lacked breadth and an ability to enchant at speeds that didn’t threaten one’s liberty. But those concerns now look somewhat misplaced, don’t they? Our returning 2021 champion has become that exceptionally rare and special thing: a double ‘Handling Day’ winner, putting…

FIRST DRIVE Honda Civic Type R Think the hot hatchback is dead? Fear not, as Honda lets us loose in the all-new version of its certified class legend FEATURE Traffic solutions What’s fastest across London: a Citroën Ami, a Porsche Taycan or an e-bike? NEWS Vauxhall Astra Electric We bring you all the details as Vauxhall electrifies one of the UK’s family favourites EVERY WEEK FEATURE PCP advice As margins tighten, we look at the best ways to approach car finance USED CARS BMW M2 How to get into one of BMW’s finest sports cars for less than you expect SUBSCRIBE autocar.co.uk/subscribe or see p22…

MILEAGE 5887 WHY WE’RE RUNNING IT Can BMW’s second dedicated electric car live up to its range-topping billing? Good news: I got our iX back after its alarm was fixed. Bad news: it was back with BMW 24 hours later after a new fault was found. The alarm fault was a strange one. It turns out the sensor for the interior alarm had become corroded after just 5500 miles. It’s mounted behind the nearside rear wheel arch, and it seems water had got in there, corroded it and then triggered the alarm repeatedly. Indeed, the technicians told me that the alarm started going off just minutes after I had dropped it off there as it sat outside the workshop. That was all replaced, though, so I picked the car back…