Innholdsfortegnelse for May 3, 2023 i Autocar

How are Lotus sales at the moment? “We’ve had a really good response to the Eletre. We’ve had good interest and good orders, and a lot of interest from people wanting to test drive the cars when they reach Europe.” Are you on track to hit your target of 150,000 sales by 2028? “We haven’t started delivering the first cars in every market in the world – but if you look at the plan we’ve got moving forward, we’ve got a number of new products that are coming in. “We’re extending our footprint globally as well. We’ve had a relatively modest presence in China previously, but by the end of this year we’ll have over 100 retailers. There’s a real appetite for the Eletre in the US as well. So…

THE FABIA’S SPIRITUAL successor will be a compact urban EV thats twinned with the Volkswagen ID 2 and Cupra Urban Rebel and uses the Volkswagen Group’s MEB Entry architecture. Due in 2025, the chunky crossover will be the entry point to a new-look and heavily expanded Skoda EV line-up. In the next three years, the firm’s EV range will swell with a mid-sized crossover called the Elroq, a seven-seater in the vein of the Kodiaq, a new estate…

Cupra has provided a tantalising hint of the electric sports car that it’s developing as its halo model and a potential rival to the new Maserati Granturismo Folgore. Given a shock digital unveiling at the recent Tavascan launch, the Dark Rebel previews a slick, low-riding two-seat EV that Cupra described as having “the athletic proportion of a sports car combined with a shooting brake architecture”. It’s a pure concept for now, but Cupra boss Wayne Griffiths strongly hinted at its production potential, saying: “My designers aren’t allowed to just go crazy [with concept designs]. It has to be a car afterwards and have the possibility of being executed. “If you’re going to tease a car like this, then you one day may need to deliver.” However, he added: “We aren’t…

VOLVO HAS DRAWN attention to the design possibilities of newtechnology LEDs with the news that the EX90 has “near-sunlight” lighting. Time was when a bulb was a bulb, and as long as you could more or less find your way around a car interior in the dark, that was good enough. Now designers are seizing on the fact that the latest LEDs are so much more sophisticated than that to deliver (to use the lighting industry’s latest buzzword) a “humancentric experience”. Sounds great, so what is it? In the case of the EX90 (the Polestar 3 gets the same technology), the experience is delivered by a suite of 72 Sunlike LEDs made by Seoul Semiconductor. Without getting too much into the esoteric design speak, the idea is to create a…

New Swedish start-up Luvly is aiming to use an Ikea-style flat-pack construction concept to revolutionise the light electric vehicle market. Headed by car industry veteran Håkan Lutz, the firm is developing a Citroën Amirivalling quadricycle, with the aim of manufacturing it using a sandwich composite chassis. That makes it cheaper to make than a traditional vehicle. It also enables the machine to be shipped in individual pieces and then assembled closer to the customer’s location. The Luvly 0 weighs less than 400kg and is 2700mm long but features a 269-litre boot. It uses swappable batteries and the firm claims a range of 62 miles, as well as a top speed of 56mph. The initial starting price would be £8800. The sandwich composite chassis gains added protection from plastic foam blocks…

Victory was always going to be hollow for whoever took the spoils on Rally Croatia. The awful loss of Craig Breen, killed in a pre-event testing crash, devastated the closeknit World Rally Championship community and made this one to simply get through. No wonder Elfyn Evans was a jumble of emotions at the finish. The Brit scored his first win since his inspired Rally Finland drive in 2021 and his first on an asphalt surface. In the wake of that landmark win 18 months ago, Evans has endured frustration as sensational young team-mate Kalle Rovanperä has shot into the rally firmament, displacing him as the driver most likely to succeed the great Sébastien Ogier as Toyota Gazoo’s principal player. Rovanperä scorched to a first world title last year a day…

Mercedes-Benz steered itself into a spot of nomenclatural bother with its first fullproduction EVs. The EQA, EQB and EQC are all SUVs because they are electric versions of the GLA, GLB and previous GLC. But the EQS and EQE are saloons, because Mercedes wanted to show just how aerodynamic it could make an EV. So what to call the SUV versions? The answer is simply Mercedes-Benz EQS SUV. A little inelegant, perhaps, but effective. Much like the new car’s design. With its stubby bonnet and tall sides, it’s not the most dynamic-looking car, but it does offer a lot of space, and a 0.25 drag coefficient is good for a big SUV. We have tested Mercedes’ electric behemoth in the US, but now it has landed in the UK. As…

A charging post in Milton Keynes isn’t the obvious place to meet the world’s fastest electric car. But the Rimac Nevera and its chief engineer aren’t in the UK for long and I have only an afternoon in the company of both. Tomorrow, this Croatian creation is needed in pristine condition at the Salon Privé concours in London so that people wearing red trousers and no socks can look at it and maybe order one. So before that we will head to the road and find out what it’s like as a normal, everyday sports car. And that seems as relevant to me as its 258mph top speed. Now, I’m not saying I’m totally accustomed to 1877bhp hypercars, I’m just saying that the age-old question “what’ll it do, mister?” isn’t…

Six laps in, semi-slicks simmering, confidence more than simmering, supercharged engine grazing its 8500rpm limiter with intensifying frequency… then the realisation. Imagine the love child of an Ariel Atom and a Caterham Seven 620R. Pretty sweet – and exactly what this new Spartan feels like. Busy schedules and an 11-hour time difference have meant my only chance to chat to the Sydneybased twin brothers who built this tiny warrior is on the car phone during the long haul up to Anglesey Circuit the day before. Listening to Nick and Peter Pap speak passionately about how they went about making the ultimate joygiving driver’s machine is a pleasure. I mean, it’s something we’ve all fantasised about doing, isn’t it? Clean-sheet design, styled just how you like it, with purity at the…

MILEAGE 2847 WHY WE’RE RUNNING IT To see if Ssangyong’s first EV can stand out among a slew of reputable rivals – and show that the firm has a future My experience of charging the Ssangyong Korando E-Motion has been a mixed bag so far. There’s an Ultracharge device on the street outside my London apartment complex that, at 50kW, is extremely useful for a quick hour’s worth of charging. However, sometimes it cuts out midway through a charge, due to a machine failure, otherwise it will proceed without issue. I’ve also walked past several times to see that it has switched off or is displaying an error screen. On another occasion, it wouldn’t release my cable, so I had to use the emergency stop switch. But that’s where my…

FEATURE Lucid Air Can this American ultra-range saloon transform the EV landscape? We drive it across New York to find out DRIVEN Aston Martin DBS 770 As swansongs go, this £314,000, 5.2-litre V12 coupé is quite the statement FEATURE Mission Motorsport The charity workshop where ex-forces are trained as automotive electrical engineers EVERY WEEK ROAD TEST Mazda CX-60 e-Skyactiv D An all-new 3.3-litre straight-six diesel SUV: mad or magnificent? OUR CARS Toyota Land Cruiser We’re going to find out if this cult hero is still worthy of the hype SUBSCRIBE autocar.co.uk/subscribe or see p18…

In these days of almost universal platform sharing, it’s quite common to find very different cars that, despite appearances, are made of largely the same stuff. But this isn’t a new phenomenon. Through the ages, many manufacturers have transformed a model into something else entirely using largely the same bones. Here are seven examples. Ford Sierra RS Cosworth, Ford Escort RS Cosworth The Sierra RS Cosworth had a turbocharged version of the old Pinto engine with a 16-valve cylinder head and was festooned with aerodynamic aids. Although it did win a round of the World Rally Championship in 1988, ultimately it proved too large and heavy for rallying. The Escort RS Cosworth was in all important respects the last development of that car. The reason for this was simple. The…

Lotus will accelerate its reinvention as an EV-only premium brand in the next three years with the arrivals of a new electric saloon and crossover designed to dramatically increase its sales volume – followed by a new line-up-crowning sports car that will affirm its performance credentials. These three models will follow the new Eletre, which is both the British firm’s first series-production EV and its first SUV. Lotus is now owned by Chinese car giant Geely, which has invested heavily in ramping up the facilities at two sites. The Lotus base in Hethel, Norfolk, will remain home to sports car production, while the high-ervolume EVs will be produced at a new Lotus Technology facility in Wuhan, China. That facility has an annual production capacity of 150,000 units, which Lotus has…

SKODA WON’T RELEASE any new ICE cars after the next-generation Kodiaq and Superb, due later this year. The decision comes as more customers turn to electric cars, EV prices begin to drop and the 2035 new ICE car sales ban in Europe looms, Skoda sales boss Martin Jahn told Autocar. “There will definitely be no new ICE cars,” he said. “There are so many variables [as to why], from regulations, and support for the sales of electric cars, and also countries deciding to go quicker to [full] electric.” The development and lifecycle of current combustion-powered models is also up in the air, he added, and dependent on the outcome of the Euro 7 proposals – which will require any new ICE car sold from 2025 to be fitted with an…

THE HYUNDAI IONIQ 5 N will make its debut at this year’s Goodwood Festival of Speed. The hot EV’s launch in front of a British audience is said to reflect the market’s potential for sales of high-performance cars, and Hyundai UK boss Ashley Andrew has highlighted its importance to the brand’s credibility. “Having N cars is a key point of difference for Hyundai,” he said. “They hammer home the point that we’re a car company, not just a company that makes cars.” Andrew added: “These are the vehicles that differentiate car companies – and being able to show it off for the first time at Goodwood will be incredibly special.” It’s expected that the Ioniq 5 N will feature nearly 600bhp and a drift mode similar to that on the…

Caterham will showcase its most radical model in decades – a stunning electric two-seat sports car entirely unrelated to the Seven – in a matter of months, Autocar can exclusively reveal. As first reported by Autocar last year, the Kent-based car maker – now with the backing of Japanese firm VT Holdings – has plans for a totally new model to serve as the spearhead for its transition into the era of electrification. While it was “just an idea in people’s heads” in September, plans have fast progressed and the new design will be showcased in the coming months as Caterham marks its 50th anniversary. Leading the design programme is new design chief Anthony Jannarelly, best known for the W Motors Lykan Hypersport and his own Jannarelly Design-1 – a…

I am trying to enjoy music in cars more, after exposure to some experts and high-end audio systems – and because two friends recently told me how much they think the car is a great place in which to listen. I’m trying, but I’ve never bought the idea. Not because I believe cars’ audio systems aren’t top-notch. They are. On a recent trip to drive the Ferrari Purosangue, some engineers from Burmester – which provides its audio system – came along, and there was no doubting its impressiveness. The Harman Kardon system in my Volkswagen Multivan long-termer is, to my ears, even better – as good as I’ve heard in a car. But as much as the system, I’m sure that’s down to the environment. The advantage that car audio…

The Mini Electric wasn’t the first hatchback EV and it certainly isn’t the best, but it was the first car to show that EVs don’t need to be 600bhp dragsters to have a sense of fun. Despite being a bit of an afterthought (effectively an ICE Mini with batteries taking the place of the engine, fuel tank and exhaust), it managed to combine instant electric punch and a pointy chassis into something quite compelling. Of course, its short range is a big handicap, and newer cars like the Fiat 500 and Cupra Born have since eclipsed it as our favourite affordable driver’s EVs, but the Electric still serves as strong proof of concept for the batterypowered hot hatch, and it has been a bit of a commercial success for Mini,…

There are two reasons to sit up and take note of the new, purely rear-driven version of Tesla’s junior crossover, the Model Y. For one thing – and this is especially true as you climb the rungs of luxury and price – entrylevel models are often the most likeable and convincing in the range. Simple as that. You see it all the time with Porsche, where more power, opulence and expense tend to become a distraction from those essential things the car does well. In the case of the Model Y RWD, the other element is the cost. Tesla’s pricing has been all over the place lately. Perhaps that is unsurprising when you have factories on different sides of the world, and your models use not just different battery packs…

“We’re under scrutiny because so many people are turning up to charge. That’s a success, not a failure.” Who would be a charge point operator? Barely a week goes by without the incumbents taking a kicking, be it from pointed words from an industry body or a social media pile-on. They argue that the reality is very different from the portrayal, citing the fact that in less than a decade they have transformed the charging landscape – with much more to come. To double down on that messaging, the majority of operators across the spectrum of the industry have now joined forces, forming ChargeUK to represent their views to government, business and the public, as well as to provide a robust response to misinformation. Here, we discuss the pressing issues…

MODEL TESTED SHINE • Price £34,495 • Power 134bhp • Torque 192lb ft • 0-60mph 9.7sec • 30-70mph 8.8sec • Economy 3.5mpkWh • Max DC charging speed 89kW • 70-0mph 45.7m Plenty of car makers still seem intent on forcing SUVs into as many niches of the market as possible, but a few, such as Citroën, clearly now believe that at least some customers are ready to move back into lower, sleeker options. It’s actually becoming quite difficult to keep up with the number of alternative crossover-style vehicles being introduced by Stellantis’s French brands. Citroën kicked us off with its jacked-up, fastback C5 X in 2021, which stablemate Peugeot then launched a sibling for, in 2022, in the form of the 408. The subject of this week’s road test is…

MILEAGE 4142 WHY WE’RE RUNNING IT To find out if going all-electric broadens the appeal of Renault’s family hatch The warmer weather has brought a much-needed boost to the Mégane’s estimated range, adding around 40-50 miles to the amount I can get on a charge to bring it nearer to 200 miles in total. And that has coincided with a bit of a thawing of my attitude to the Renault, too. While I still don’t think it’s the last word in practicality, as a solo daily driver it’s a very pleasant companion. I was particularly reminded of this on a recent run into central London – a journey I try to avoid taking whenever possible. But with a damaged knee making public transport unappealing, and tickets for the theatre just…

Hybrid help With reference to the fuel economy conundrum Kris Culmer faced with his Toyota Yaris Cross (Our Cars, 5 April), I have some advice, by way of my old car and Toyota GB itself. Don’t think of the tiny battery as a traction battery; rather, it’s designed to fill and drain constantly, almost like a capacitor. As such, I never really got the EV button to do much; it always threw up a message saying there was insufficient charge. You aren’t meant to drive around in ‘B’. It will just ding your economy. You’re meant to put the selector into ‘B’ when coasting to a stop – really, whenever you have momentum and can avoid friction braking. I enjoyed this. It became a fine art to judge it so…

In some cases, the future is clear to see. Few football fans would have been surprised last summer if you had told them Erling Haaland would break the Premier League goal-scoring record in his debut season. And nor would you have looked silly if in 1998 you had suggested that the 993-era Porsche 911 would become a desirable classic – and certainly not once confirmation came that it would be the last air-cooled 911. To purists, that marked the end of this sports car lineage. Not just was the 996 that followed water-cooled, it was much more modern overall. Certainly, in terms of old-school charm, the 993 delivers in spades. Air cooling helps its array of flat-six engines sound distinctive and retro (and can be enjoyed to an even greater…

An electric Lotus sports car will arrive in 2026 to cap the first phase of the marque’s EV reinvention and will represent the “pure essence” of the brand. The model, codenamed Type 135, will sit on a bespoke sports car EV platform currently being co-developed by Lotus and Alpine. The car will be designed and engineered in Hethel, Norfolk, ensuring that it can build on the lineage of the fabled sports cars that have been produced there, such as the Elise. The new platform will give the sports car a ‘mid-engined’ style of layout, most likely with the battery pack stacked in the middle of the car rather than under the floor. That will allow the Porsche 718 Boxster rival to sit lower and ensure a weight distribution more in…

“If you put so much cost into a car, the car that you want to sell is difficult to sell” The Skoda Fabia could be axed if upcoming Euro 7 rules make its price too unaffordable. The new rules require the fitting of a host of emissions-cutting and - monitoring technology for any new ICE car sold from 2025. The Czech car maker’s stalwart supermini currently starts from £18,600 in the UK, and around €15,000 (£13,000) in mainland Europe, where a different entry trim is offered. But boss Klaus Zellmer has told Autocar that if the current draft rules go ahead as proposed, “it will not be possible” to keep the Fabia at that affordable level. A price of around £20,000 or more would be expected, he said, adding: “Is…

LAND ROVER’S LARGEST Defender is going after the Mercedes-AMG G63 with a snarling supercharged petrol V8 engine option. The £116,845 Defender 130 V8 uses the same 5.0-litre unit as the most potent variants of the Defender 90 and Defender 110 – albeit detuned slightly to give 493bhp and 450lb ft – and can crack 0-62mph in just 5.4sec. The hot Defenders and soon-to-retire Jaguar F-Type are the only cars still to use the venerable AJ V8, but JLR wouldn’t confirm if the Defender 130 V8 represents the motor’s swansong.…

SEAT COULD STOP selling cars entirely by the end of the decade, bosses have told Autocar, in line with a scheme to reposition itself as an urban mobility brand targeting young consumers. The Spanish car maker, whose only electric vehicle on sale is the Mó scooter, will look at other aspects of “mobility solutions”, such as microcars and bikes, ahead of the European Union’s ban on combustion and hybrid car sales in 2035. It has previously showcased a Renault Twizystyle, two-seat urban EV called the Minimó, but this has yet to reach the market. However, the brand told Autocar that it isn’t immediately set to axe its car offering, saying: “We’re keeping Seat fresh and will continue with hybrid and high-efficiency combustion until the end of the decade.” Seat currently…

SUNDAY AM Just for once, I tackled the latest Bicester Heritage Scramble without trying to see everything, because experience says you can’t. I concentrated instead on my obsession of the moment: eyeing up specials of no fixed provenance. There were two this time: an impossibly mighty twin-engined, 7.2-litre Ford-based behemoth called the Ballard Special and an Allard-based trials special offered by The Motor Shed, one of the many eclectic car businesses that make Bicester so enduringly great. Once upon a time, the sight of such a contraption would set me off concocting my own machine, to the extent of measuring it out on the garage floor, but this time I managed simply to look forward to seeing the pair again. SUNDAY PM Home in the Citroën ë-C4, an electric car…

We’ve called the Jeep Wrangler a great hobbyist’s 4x4, the ideal set of wheels for leisurely green-laning or off-roading. And I don’t think there’s a better variant than this 4xe plug-in hybrid version. Not just because it means you can commute the daily grind on electric power and make longer weekend trips with its 2.0-litre engine. No, better than that is going off-roading on electric power alone. The doors and roof can be taken off a Wrangler quite easily. With the sun out, and only a gentle whirr of the motor and the soft crunch of tyres on gravel, it’s a wonderfully immersive way to go about things. Popular, too. The 4xe already takes 35% of US Wrangler sales and Jeep thinks it will be over 50% by the end…

The Alfa Romeo Giulia came out in 2016, meaning it will turn seven this year. For most cars, that would be a sad affair, of growing older, with dated looks and tech. But some things are better for being a bit old-fashioned, and the Italian saloon is a perfect example. It has now received its third update, gaining 3+3 LED matrix headlights that mimic the new Tonale’s, as well as a fully digital gauge cluster and a new alloy wheel design. Meanwhile, the engine range has been rationalised to just the 276bhp 2.0-litre petrol, with the lower-powered petrol and diesels being dropped in the UK. Happily, the 2.7-litre V6 Quadrifoglio will also make a return later this year. A fair update, then, but it’s not going to make the world…

“It contains the sort of cogs normally found in a watch” Heinz Ketchup. Google. The Adidas Predator football boot. Some products nail their brief with such conviction that they transcend any notion of competitiveness in their respective fields. They become ubiquitous for a reason. Which brings us to the ZF 8HP, a very prosaic name for a gearbox that has found a home in the BMW 1 Series, the Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat and all manner of vehicles in between. Now into its fourth generation and embracing electrification, ZF Friedrichshafen’s eight-speed automatic gearbox made its debut in 2008 in the Mk5 BMW 7 Series, but its development process started 20 years ago, within an automotive landscape that looked very different. Manuals dominated the mainstream and any excitement about automatics concerned…

MILEAGE 3768 WHY WE’RE RUNNING IT Audi’s inceptive performance EV is a class act, but what’s it like to live with? A bsence is supposed to make the heart grow fonder, but in the case of long-term test cars, such nauseating tweeness should never be presumed. As such, a couple of weeks apart from the E-tron GT was always going to be revealing. I’ve had various distractions during that time, ranging from an old-shape Toyota Yaris to a £250,000 Bentley, to not one but two Lancia Integrales and to the new RWD Tesla Model Y, with a BMW M8 Competition and Ora’s dubiously named Funky Cat also making appearances. In short, plenty to help me forget (or perhaps, in some ways, resent) the big Audi. But no, I’ve missed it.…

In your reporting from the Shanghai motor show, you stated that established car makers don’t need to build a brand, unlike the new ones emerging from China. I would argue that it has never been more necessary for European brands to continue being built and invested in and for them to have strong foundations way beyond the adoption of an updated logo. The brand should encapsulate everything that defines the business, what it stands for, what customers can expect from it and how it might behave. In a world where there’s a real danger that cars become nothing more than appliances, the ability to differentiate yourself in the market has never been more important. That’s why we’re seeing the rise of the agency model: it’s just too dangerous to have…

An expert’s view ROBIN SIMPSON, PEARCE & DALE “I spent 10 years at Porsche Silverstone as sales manager and then dealer principal. I used to buy a few 993s for stock, and I’ve carried on doing that at Pearce & Dale. The best description is that they’re built from solid granite. Nobody can afford to make a car like that now, in terms of the level of detail Porsche went to make them as reliable and as well put together as they still are now. The most common problem is corrosion in the windscreen frame, but apart from that and the normal servicing stuff, there aren’t too many issues.” Buyer beware… ▪ ENGINE Oil consumption can be heavy, so check previous owners have stuck to the recommended oil change regime.…

Nissan’s amazing half-price Ferrari IN EVOLVING FROM a steroidal version of the Skyline coupé into a bespoke supercar, the Nissan GT-R became the performance bargain of the decade, no contest. Imported JDM examples of the R35 blew minds in 2008, winning our annual Best Driver’s Car title, so our test of the first UK-market model was certain to be a blinder. From six years of development had emerged a bespoke platform, an ultra-rigid body, a new (frontmid-mounted) 478bhp twin-turbo 3.8-litre V6, a bespoke auto ’box, a clever all-wheel drive system and cutting-edge chassis electronics. Thus it almost matched Ferrari’s 430 – for less than half the price. We said: “Fast and, yes, quite furious. Performance comes no easier. Yet it’s possible to be left a bit cold at first. It’s…