Innholdsfortegnelse for February 8, 2023 i Autocar

What’s your background? “Oil, gas and chemicals. I’ve held two CEO roles with Ineos, and I guess that once people know and trust how you operate, opportunities come your way. Ineos Automotive is full of people who understand automotive: the Grenadier proves that. What we need now is a sustainable plan that allows us to be here in 10 to 15 years’ time.” Do you like cars? “Yes. Like many people, I learned to drive in a Ford Fiesta – A-reg, pretty battered – and now I’m lucky enough to own a Porsche Macan Turbo. The buying experience was fascinating. I have experiences I can relate to this job.” How hands-on do you expect to be with the automotive details? “I’m not here to just look at the spreadsheets, put it…

BRITAIN’S SOLE LADA Niva importer has listed what’s likely to be the last-ever version of the Russian offroader brought into the UK. With sanctions against Russia growing just over a year on from its invasion of Ukraine, business is about to end for London-based Mark Key, who brought his first Niva to the UK in 2010. His last is a high-spec Bronto Prestige. “It ended the business full stop,” he said of the invasion. However, with the war resulting in an estimated death toll of 200,000 and rising, Key acknowledges that the impact on his firm is trivial and admits to “genuine distress” at what has been happening. Key became interested in the Niva after recognising its ability during a skiing holiday in the Alps. He noted how it was…

The next Mercedes-AMG E63 will swap its V8 petrol engine for an advanced new straight-six plug-in hybrid drivetrain, providing it with greater power and the capacity for electric-only use. Due in 2024, the hot E63 saloon and estate will be the first Mercedes-AMG models to adopt the new electrified drivetrain, which has a similar ‘P3’ hybrid arrangement to the recently launched GT 63 S E Performance 4-Door Coupé and C63 S E Performance. Official details remain under wraps, but Autocar can confirm the hottest version of the next E-Class will receive a heavily reworked version of Mercedes’ M256 turbocharged 3.0-litre straight-six petrol engine, mounted longitudinally and working in tandem with an electric motor on the rear axle. The extent of AMG’s revisions to the M256 remains unclear. However, it appears…

Motoring organisations and used car experts have criticised the mayor of London’s recently announced vehicle scrappage scheme, which is intended to compensate some drivers in the capital’s extended Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) who will be forced to change their vehicles to avoid paying an emissions charge. The extension to the ULEZ will go live on 29 August, when it will encompass all London boroughs within the M25. To avoid a daily charge of £12.50, petrol cars must meet the Euro 4 emissions standard, which became mandatory from 2005, while diesel cars must comply with Euro 6, which became mandatory from 2015. “The scrappage allowance is unlikely to be enough to enable the purchase of a ULEZ-compliant car” Under the scrappage allowance, up to £5000 per claimant is available, although…

FIRST DRIVES TESTED 2.2.23, SURREY ON SALE NOW The death of the V8-engined GT has been prematurely reported in many quarters. Counting up the total of such Aston Martins, Bentleys, BMWs, Ferraris, Jaguars and Mercedes left is actually still a heartening exercise if you dread the day when a car market of so much variety will be a distant memory. Yet there’s something about the Lexus LC 500 that suggests it will be the very last of its kind, having been one of the very last to arrive. There’s something about its ability to cling to its place in Lexus’s range, despite its various flaws and annual UK sales that probably barely reach three figures, that suggests it will keep on surviving until the end of days. There has been a…

A Rolls-Royce first, an electric car second: that was the brief from company CEO Torsten Müller-Ötvös to the engineering team creating the Spectre. “People tell us they would have bought the Spectre with a V12,” says Müller-Ötvös of the customers who have already seen and ordered the car without driving it. “That shows this is the right car.” The Spectre, then, is Rolls-Royce’s new flagship two-door coupé that just happens to be powered by electricity. At 5.5 metres long, it’s the indirect (and lower and sleeker) successor to the Phantom Coupé that went out of production in 2016, and it’s bigger than the also now retired Wraith and Dawn two-door models. “The Phantom Coupé is seen as one of the most striking Rolls-Royce cars, and it’s pretty rare: maybe only…

The road towards electrification might prove to be a dead end for some vehicle manufacturers, yet Swedish truck-making institution Scania hasn’t been afraid to set out on it, just to see where it may lead. The firm still typically fits sixand eight-cylinder turbodiesel combustion engines to its wares, of anywhere between seven and 16 litres of swept capacity. Capable of nearly 800bhp and close to 3000lb ft of torque, its V8s remain objects of fervent desire among trucking enthusiasts (and where Scania is concerned especially, you’d better believe those enthusiasts exist). But if you want to run your Scania on recycled vegetable oil instead of diesel, you can. In offering vehicles powered by either liquefied or compressed natural gas, the firm has been providing routes to lowercarbon trucking for years…

ROAD TEST BMW i7 Loaded with tech and 5.4 metres long, this electric limo is some statement. But is it still the ultimate driving machine? Time to find out ANALYSIS Global car sales Our annual datacrunching feast exposes all the trends of 2022 EXCLUSIVE DRIVE Citroën Oli With wacky looks and cardboard panels, it could only be a Citroën concept EVERY WEEK FEATURE Air ambulance We join a medical helicopter crew as they carry out their life-saving work USED GUIDE Volvo XC90 What to look out for when buying this darling of the chattering classes SUBSCRIBE autocar.co.uk/subscribe or see p40…

“The XC40 is gorgeous to look at and holds its own as well as any SUV on sale” FIRST REPORT WHY WE’RE RUNNING IT To see if Volvo’s smallest batterypowered SUV can be a motorway commuter and weekend companion “You’re kidding; that’s my dream car!” my partner said as news of the incoming Volvo XC40 came in. I had at this point failed to inform her that it would be electric, and given that we live in a city-centre third-floor flat, I felt that was the right call for the time being. More on that to come. Volvos have long been a divisive choice, especially with the lingering stigma of being antique dealer/old man/dad wagons. Even now I’m getting the “Really? A Volvo?” response. Yes, really. And I’m excited. This…

MILEAGE 18,461 WHY WE’RE RUNNING IT To see if an electric SUV is worthy of the Mustang name and, more importantly, if it augurs well for Ford’s future Goodbye. Au revoir. Adieu. Demonstrating all the insincere regret of a pub bouncer throwing a particularly irritating drunk out of the door, I watched as the Ford Mustang Mach-E slid silently out of my life, taking its desperately disappointing suspension set-up, multitude of warning lights, shonky sat-nav and rusty brake calipers on its way. To recap, this Mach-E, an earlybuild car that had performed press launch duties before being sent our way with 8000 miles on the clock, had proven to be one of the bigger disappointments of my career. It wasn’t so much a bad car; judged in totality it was…

The fastest cars aren’t always the most fun. And for proof of that, look no further than the Subaru BRZ. This is a sports car you can get the best out of at everyday speeds, just like its better-known Toyota twin, the GT86. A lot of this comes down to where its limits lie and how approachable they are. There isn’t an abundance of grip in the BRZ, for one thing, because it sits on the same narrow rubber as the Toyota Prius. This essentially feeds its fondness for shimmying beneath you, which makes sliding it – whether a little or a lot – a piece of cake. Everything here is so engaging, communicative, predictable and balanced that you always feel in full control, just like you do with every…

Homage. Pastiche. Copy. Call it what you will, but at a time when the automotive rulebook is being so comprehensively rewritten, it’s refreshing to climb – nay, clamber, given the substantial heave up into the seat – into a vehicle that seeks to do absolutely nothing new and is, as a result, so different from almost everything else on sale today. A ladder frame, six-cylinder engines, beam axles, recirculating ball steering… The list goes on. The Ineos Grenadier is a wilful throwback, even for fans of the determinedly oldschool Jeep Wrangler or Toyota Land Cruiser. It has a singularity of purpose that is perhaps unrivalled in the modern era, in which all cars strive to do more rather than less. The Grenadier’s goal? To be the best off-roader there is…

Summarise the journey from that famous chat in the pub to today? “The story really started before the pub. I’d been on safari, bouncing all over the place in a Land Rover Defender. My flight back to the UK was delayed, so I went for a curry and a beer with the guide, who I knew well. They have about 600 Defenders and he was crying: ‘They’re not going to make the Defender any more; what am I going to do?’ I asked him why he wasn’t buying Land Cruisers, and he just said that clients get bounced around too much; one had even been thrown out! The seed was sown… I guess you’re asking: ‘Would we make the same decision today as we did in 2016, knowing what we…

All new Rolls-Royce models will arrive exclusively with battery power as the firm plans to go electric-only by the end of 2030. The Rolls-Royce Spectre coupé (driven, p42), the British brand’s first electric car, will go into production later this year. Boss Torsten Müller-Ötvös confirmed that Series 2 facelift versions of the company’s current range of models – the Ghost and Phantom saloons and Cullinan SUV – would retain their V12 engines, but after that the brand would switch to electric power. “By the end of 2030, there will be no more V12,” he said. “Series 2 cars will be V12; brand-new Rolls-Royces will always be electric. “We’ve not fallen out of love with the V12, and we will invest in it to meet new requirements. It’s a lovely transformation…

BMW HAS DETAILED a significant mid-life update for its X5 and X6 at the same time as Mercedes-Benz has rolled out their facelifted GLE and GLE Coupé rivals. All four SUV models gain technical improvements and performance enhancements and go hybrid-only for 2023. Due on sale in April, the refreshed X5 and X6 – priced from £66,230 and £72,430 respectively – bring a series of mild styling tweaks, a new-look interior with the latest iDrive infotainment and a revised engine line-up. The straight-six and hot V8 models are now equipped with mild-hybrid assistance, while the PHEV X5 gets a more powerful petrol engine and electric motor plus a larger battery for an EV range of up to 68 miles. THE UPDATED GLE and GLE Coupé will land three months after…

I still don’t quite know what to make of these new artificial intelligence (AI)-based text generators and picture generators. For the uninitiated, these are tools that scrape through a vast quantity of words and pictures from the internet and use them as a basis from which to produce texts or illustrations on your chosen theme on demand. Ask one to write you a poem about elephants in the style of, say, Thomas Hardy, or to draw a cat playing a piano as might be seen in a stained glass window, and it will come up with a passable effort at either (see below). The potential is at once exciting and terrifying. Every once in a while new technology replaces old, and with it go old ways and old jobs. There…

PORSCHE MAY HAVE fallen short at Daytona, but the German giant is flying high in the new Gen3 era of Formula E. Hot on the heels of Porschepowered Jake Dennis winning the season opener in Mexico, factory ace Pascal Wehrlein took an impressive double in Diriyah, Saudi Arabia. The ex-Formula 1 driver started ninth in the first race and fifth in the second, carving through the field to win both street sprints, proving that overtaking isn’t much of a problem for this new generation of electric single-seaters. Dennis kept up his great start to the year with two second places for Avalanche Andretti. “You know you’re having a really good season when you’re a little bit disappointed with P2,” quipped the Brit. The result leaves him just four points behind…

MODEL TESTED SWB 77KWH STYLE PRO • Price £61,915 • Power 201bhp • Torque 229lb ft • 0-60mph 9.5sec • 30-70mph 9.1sec • Economy 2.4mpkWh • Max DC charging speed 185kW • 70-0mph 60.2m As Volkswagen’s effort to electrify its model range gathers momentum, a new, different and vaguely recognisable kind of electric family car has entered its showrooms, and unlike with other VW ID cars so far (which have spawned Audi, Cupra and Skoda siblings), this one will be VW-only. After a stronger start, European sales of the supposedly epochmaking ID 3 have slowed to around 4000 cars per month (a fraction of those of piston-engined heavyweights like the Golf, Polo and T-Roc). But VW’s other EVs are proving more popular. And with two new entry-level EV superminis due…

“VW’s secrets for world domination”, read the Autocar headline when the Volkswagen Group revealed a new vehicle architecture in all its oily glory back in February 2012. In the decade since, more than 40 million cars have been built across 70 different model lines sold by seven different brands. By the end of the 2020s, around another 40 million are expected to be built. World domination? In automotive terms, there can be no debate. The idea for this architecture was both wonderfully simple and extremely complicated at the same time. Its name, Modularer Querbaukasten (MQB), hardly rolled off the tongue, although for non-German speakers, the English translation gave a clue of what it was: Modular Transverse Matrix. The MQB was designed to underpin transverse-engined vehicles as small as superminis like…

We’re not the target I feel much like Colin Reeve (11 January), and his comment that “people like us are no longer of interest to the [car] makers and dealers” hits the nail on the head. I had this brought home to me in 2014 when I bought my last car. I knew exactly what I wanted: a new Audi A1. It would have been so easy for the dealer, as he didn’t have to ‘sell’ the car, simply sort out what options I wanted and agree a price. I went into my local Audi dealer and explained; within less than 10 minutes I had walked out annoyed. I got the impression that they didn’t really like selling the A1, as there was no profit in it for them and…

The appeal of an electrified classic WITH THE BASIC petrol ration having recently been withdrawn (see below), British drivers were left forlornly looking at their cars – but not one Victor Bruce, who had had his pre-war Opel Kadett converted into an electric car by his company Silent Transport. The engine, clutch and gearbox were removed and sold to defray the cost of the conversion. Then the propshaft was modified and an electric motor fitted at its head, wired up to batteries in the nose (along with the control) and tail. A socket was added so these could be refilled in his garage by a charger drawing from the mains. Range, as indicated by a “most ingenious” dial on the dash, was just 40 miles – but this didn’t fuss…

MILEAGE 6150 WHY WE’RE RUNNING IT To see if one of the world’s best driver’s cars can also prove sufficiently easy to live with for it to still make sense I’m betting plenty that you’ve spent just a bit too much time working on your fantasy garage. If I had been paid for all the words I could have written in all the time over all the years that I’ve spent selecting the occupants of mine, I could probably have afforded to buy one of them by now. Or maybe not… The process only becomes truly interesting with some self-imposed discipline, otherwise it just ends up as a list of your favourite cars. Even limiting it to two doesn’t really help, because then I just choose my favourite road and…

Go-to cars. You pick ’em. You squeeze ’em. You put ’em in your bag. No fuss. Just buy one and you’ll be driving as good as it gets in its class for the money. After a family car? Volkswagen Golf. Posh off-roader? Range Rover. Premium exec? A BMW 3 Series saloon. To make that choice even more justifiable, the 2019-onwards G20 3 Series is offered with engines to suit all. There are four diesels, four petrols and a plug-in hybrid to choose from. The base 148bhp 318d diesel is fine, but the 187bhp 320d is a better bet that’s almost as economical. Neither has quite the pulling power of the 261bhp six-cylinder 330d or the might of the M340d, which, with 335bhp, is the most powerful oil-burning 3 Series. The…

“The risks are high, but the rewards are too. I’m not someone who is scared by a challenge” Ineos Automotive has revealed plans to substantially grow its line-up to four vehicles by the end of the decade. A new, smaller electric off-roader will kick-start the expansion of the nascent marque’s portfolio beyond the go-anywhere Grenadier from 2026, setting up the firm to potentially beat Land Rover’s electric Defender to market. The ambitious plans underline Ineos owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s determination to establish his automotive division as a brand rather than the maker of a single, niche off-roader, as well as building its credentials in the electric and luxury car markets. As such, the cars are expected to be sold under the Ineos brand name, with the Grenadier designation reserved for…

Nissan is preparing for a full-scale mass-market EV push, with electric versions of the Juke, Qashqai and X-Trail being primed for sale from 2025. The move would build on the popularity of the firm’s e-Power hybrid powertrain, Nissan Europe boss Guillaume Cartier has said, and aid its push to ensure that EVs comprise more than half of its total global sales by 2030. The hybrid system helped the Sunderland-built Qashqai grow its European sales to 105,956 last year, according to figures from Jato Dynamics. “The point is we go in a transitional manner, in a smart manner, with e-Power then to BEV,” said Cartier. “We’re just launching e-Power [now]. “We need to take the benefit of it on the Qashqai. We’ve evolved, so this is something that it’s natural to…

THE REINVENTION OF the Land Rover line-up continues, as the Range Rover Velar comes in for a significant midlife facelift aimed at boosting the model’s appeal ahead of its final few years on sale. The headline upgrade is substantial revisions to the P400e plug-in hybrid, which, thanks to a boost in battery capacity from 13.6kWh to 19.2kWh, can now travel 40 miles on electricity alone, up from 33 previously. Also its battery can now take rates of up to 50kW, making it one of the fastestcharging PHEVs on sale. The P400e continues to pair a 296bhp four-cylinder petrol engine with a 141bhp EV motor in the gearbox for 398bhp and 472lb ft, which propels it from 0-62mph in just 5.4sec and on to a top speed of 130mph. The four-cylinder…

MAZDA’S NEW MX-30 e-Skyactiv R-EV series plug-in hybrid will be the first of its kind to enter production using a rotary engine to drive the generator. Manufacturers started tinkering with range-extended EVs way back in the dark ages (it’s a relative term). Some early creations were pretty clunky and a product of the technology available at the time. Unsurprisingly, given its predilection for quirky cars, Citroën was all over the idea. In the late 1990s, it rolled out the experimental Saxo Dynavolt with NiCad batteries topped up by a 200cc two-stroke twin. That was followed a year or so later by the Berlingo Dynavolt with a NiCad battery pack giving a range of 60 miles backed up by a 500cc twincylinder Lombardini four-stroke engine. Unlike classic range extenders, the power…

Ford will return to Formula 1 with leading British-based team Red Bull Racing and its Italian sibling squad AlphaTauri from 2026 until at least 2030. The partnership will bring Ford back to the top level of single-seater racing for the first time since 2004, when it supplied an engine to the Jordan team and ran its own team under the Jaguar name. Despite its two-decade absence from F1, Ford remains the third-most-successful engine manufacturer in the sport’s history, having won 10 constructors’ titles, 13 drivers’ titles and 176 championship grands prix. It won its last F1 title powering the Benetton of Michael Schumacher to his first title glory in 1994. “Ford’s return to Formula 1 with Red Bull Racing is all about where we are going as a company: increasingly…

SATURDAY Once again we’re into the penguin-suit season, so I picked up my trusty hired kit again, this time for Motor Sport UK’s Night of Champions at London’s Royal Automobile Club, where last year’s big winners, dozens of them, received the recognition that they deserved. I can honestly say I’ve never had more fun at such an event. MSUK is still refining its event, but the progress was obvious. As well as the accolades you would expect (my favourite was 17-year-old British Rallycross champion Patrick O’Donovan, who beat his dad to win), there was a new crop of gongs for racing’s legends. Ron Dennis won big respect for a Lifetime Achievement award, while Patrick Head took a new Keith Duckworth award – and spoke fascinatingly of his memories of Keith.…

Ancient mythology often combined the features of various creatures to create new ones. Think of the centaur, the minotaur and the sphinx. No longer content with simple hatchbacks, coupés and SUVs, Peugeot is doing the same with the 408, which it described in the press presentation as the bottom half of an SUV with the top half of a fastback. Unlike most sphinxes, the 408 also has the ears of a cat. Really – just look at the rear spoiler. But, according to the literature, it also has a ‘feline stance’. And like the man-lion-eagle hybrid, the 408 presents a bit of a riddle: what, and who, is it really for? Here is a car that looks like an SUV and has the higher centre of gravity, but not the…

I recently had to make a road journey for work. As I rarely get the chance to drive for pleasure, I chose to go from our Lancaster base to the north-east diagonally, across country. It was a glorious day during the recent cold snap that followed weeks of heavy rain. The route took me on the roads where Top Gear famously crashed a Lamborghini. The roads were largely empty, with near-continuous icy hazards that demanded extreme concentration levels but also enough overall grip to make decent progress. Delicate inputs were the order of the day. It turned into my most enjoyable drive in recent memory, and what made it so exceptional was my choice of wheels. I didn’t take my Toyota GT86 or mildly modified Mazda MX-5, instead the works…

MILEAGE 8555 WHY WE’RE RUNNING IT To see if an electrified estate has a place in a world of crossover competitors Life with the Peugeot 308 SW has brought several positives so far. It drives nicely, it’s comfortable and it’s proving to be quite economical. All sunshine and rainbows, then? Well, it’s all well and good excelling on the dynamic side of things, but those extra little home comforts are important too, and here things aren’t quite so rosy, particularly on the technical front. Since taking ‘ownership’ of the 308 SW, I’ve encountered random software glitches and other problems that make my life needlessly more stressful. Issues with the reversing camera have been one of the most common. At least once per day, the image of what should be the…

An owner’s view NEIL WINN “I had the opportunity to ‘learn how to drift’ in a Toyota GT86 at the 2015 Goodwood Festival of Speed as part of a Toyota promotional event. It only involved low-speed, second-gear slides on a skid pad, but I loved how playful the car felt and decided that I had to have one in my life. As luck would have it, just a couple of months later, a pristine one-owner Subaru BRZ came up for sale at a local dealer, so I pulled the trigger. It has been absolutely faultless during my time with it, and I still love driving it. Complaints? The standard Michelin Primacy tyres had no grip in the wet, so I fitted wider wheels and upgraded to stickier Michelin Pilot Sport…

It’s not too difficult these days to fit a whole host of performance-enhancing parts to an already overendowed car, giving it a truly crazy power output. Another method of achieving exhilarating acceleration is to work hard in every area to keep kerb weight to a minimum. Either way, here are favourite cars with incredible power-to-weight ratios. Head online for the full run-down. Hennessey Venom F5 2022 With an 86kg carbonfibre monocoque and a rear tubular aluminium subframe containing a 1817bhp 6.6-litre V8 engine, the Hennessey Venom F5 weighs 1385kg at the kerb, giving it 1336bhp per tonne. The American hypercar can sprint from 0-62mph in 2.6sec, 0-125mph in 4.7sec and 0-186mph in 8.4sec. Hennessey has claimed that the Venom F5 is capable of a top speed of 300mph, a speed…