Innholdsfortegnelse for September 6, 2023 i Autocar

AS WITH TODAY’S BMW EV line-up, the Neue Klasse will include a range of SUVs in varying market segments – beginning in 2026 with an iX3-sized model to rival the Audi Q6 E-tron and Mercedes-Benz EQC SUV. BMW design director Domagoj Dukec previously told Autocar: “The three-box is something we strongly believe in, and in the Neue Klasse there will be some products [like this]. But of course we also do SUVs, and there is a need for SUVs in the future.” The first of these new-era SUVs will be closely related to the 3 Series-sized saloon, and while that car is said to be 20% more efficient than its predecessor, the SUV will boost that to 25% – suggesting a range of 360 miles, as the iX3’s is 286.…

“They showcase a new design language focused on ‘the essentials of the brand’” The reinvention of Mini has accelerated with the launch of the new Cooper electric hatchback and a new Countryman SUV, which gains an electric variant for the first time. Both cars will go on sale in the UK in 2024, mixing retro-infused styling with new-age technology. They mark the start of a wide-reaching revamp and expansion of the British marque’s line-up as it pushes to become an EV-only brand. COOPER IS FIRST BESPOKE MINI EV Unlike the old Mini Electric, the new three-door electric hatchback – which takes the fabled Cooper name – sits on a bespoke EV platform. This has been developed by Spotlight Automotive, a China-based joint venture between Mini parent firm BMW and Great…

Volkswagen has marked the 50th anniversary of its hugely popular Passat with the unveiling of the slick ninth-generation model, which provides a combustionpowered alternative to the similarly sized ID 7 EV. Set for UK sale later this year, it will be sold exclusively in estate form with a choice of updated four-cylinder petrol and diesel engines, together with new plug-in hybrid drivetrains that offer an electric range of more than 62 miles thanks to a largercapacity battery. Twinned with the upcoming third-generation Skoda Superb – alongside which it will be built in Slovenia – the new Passat is the first in a series of Volkswagen models based on an updated version of the MQB Evo architecture. The revised platform, also used by the upcoming thirdgeneration Volkswagen Tiguan, has received a…

The Tesla Model 3, one of the world’s bestselling electric cars, has been substantially updated for 2024, bringing longer ranges, improved refinement and a new look. Tesla said that more than 50% of the saloon’s components have been refreshed in response to customer feedback, with the ultimate aim of improving refinement and comfort. Known by the internal codename Project Highland, the updated Model 3 has been the subject of much speculation since the first clues were announced in late 2022. Since then, a series of leaked images and camouflaged prototypes have given clues to the final design, but Tesla characteristically refrained from giving away any official details until now. As suggested by widely circulated pictures of an undisguised car earlier this year, the most obvious change on the 2024 Model…

Electric vehicles generate no fuel duty, so as their registrations continue to climb – up 38% year on year – and with the forthcoming zero-emission vehicle (ZEV) mandate likely to boost their sales still further, concerns are growing about exactly how the Treasury plans to recover the duty lost from the corresponding decline in sales of petrol and diesel cars. Fuel duty, currently 52.95p per litre, is expected to earn the Treasury £24.3 billion in the 2023-24 financial year. That would represent 2.3% of all tax receipts and is equivalent to £867 per household and 0.9% of national income. However, based on estimates it made in 2022, the Office for Budget Responsibility calculates that by 2026-27, fuel duty receipts will be £1.4bn lower than they are at present. In its…

“There’s truth on both sides of the argument, consensus on nothing” ot even scientific studies can reach consensus about how effective central N London’s Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) has been, so it’s no surprise that the expanded version – the world’s largest such zone, which came into operation last week – doesn’t exactly have unanimous backing. The arguments against – with which I have varying degrees of sympathy – are that it will make precious little overall difference, given that London’s air quality is improving anyway and more polluting cars will naturally reach the end of their lives soon enough; that nobody especially wants to drive around London but many have few alternatives; that it will disproportionately affect those who can afford it the least, especially shift workers; that…

In its mission to overcome the might of the established brands in Europe, Chinese battery giant BYD is bolstering its presence with arguably its most important EV to date: the Seal. While the Atto 3 is designed to take on the likes of the Volkswagen ID 3, this saloon is ambitiously intended to rival the Tesla Model 3, Hyundai Ioniq 6 and BMW i4. BYD is a huge company, with some 600,000 people across six continents working on not only cars but also batteries, solar panels, trains and buses. And it makes almost everything in-house, including its cobalt-free, lithiumiron-phosphate Blade battery. The Seal is by far the best-looking of the Euro-focused BYDs so far, to these eyes at least. It’s more into the maritime theme than the Dolphin hatchback, with…

“The hybrid is a cool system. You get a lot more overtakes” rofessional racing drivers aren’t always true-blue P car enthusiasts. In fact, you might be surprised by how many are not. But Jake Hill, British Touring Car Championship front-runner and all-round breath of fresh air, properly loves his cars. And he really loves motorsport. “If it’s got wheels and I think it’s cool, let me have a go,” says the 29-year-old, who is addicted to racing classics in his spare time. Not that he lacks focus on the day job, you understand. You can’t contend for BTCC titles without that obsessional total commitment that marks out the modern sportsperson. Hill races a works BMW 330e M Sport for WSR, under the banner of his sponsor Laser Tools and management…

MODEL TESTED 1.0 120PS ADVANCE • Price £25,725 • Power 118bhp • Torque 127lb ft • 0-60mph 10.4sec • 30-70mph in fourth 13.1sec • Fuel economy 43.8mpg • CO2 emissions 131g/km • 70-0mph 50.0m With the rise of crossovers and SUVs, car makers’ model ranges have ballooned very quickly. For every hatchback and saloon, there needed to be a high-riding equivalent. Not only that, but because the tall cars tend to have a slightly bigger footprint as well, gaps started appearing for more crossovers to be stuffed into. Filling them has led to a bit of overlap here and there. The Kona was launched in 2017 as Hyundai’s B-segment crossover – effectively a tall i20. Available with petrol, diesel, hybrid and electric powertrains, it’s been quite the success for Hyundai. And…

“The powertrain offers effortless rather than astounding pace” FIRST REPORT WHY I’M RUNNING IT To find out if this quirky newcomer is a serious prospect or a flash in the pan We have seen this sort of thing before, so we all know how this is going to go already, don’t we? A debutant from the East enters the UK market with plenty of fanfare, derivative styling and huge value for money, but ultimately it falls short against the established marques. Plucky effort. Must try harder. See you back here in a couple of generations’ time and you might be considered a contender… This time, though, the circumstances are a bit different. Hyundai, Kia, Ssangyong and, more recently, the reborn MG were very much on an upward learning curve when…

NEWS New Lotus saloon The storied British car maker’s electric transformation continues with the new Emeya ‘hyper GT’. We’ve got all the details FIRST DRIVE Toyota C-HR Nissan Juke rival receives bold new styling and a plug-in hybrid powertrain FEATURE How to be a motoring journalist Andrew Frankel’s guide to breaking into the industry EVERY WEEK ROAD TEST Mercedes-Benz GLC Mk3 SUV has familiar styling but is much changed under the skin USED GUIDE Mini Paceman The Countryman coupé really stands out, so is it time you snapped one up? SUBSCRIBE autocar.co.uk/subscribe or see p24…

Some people say that today’s cars are boring. Certainly when observing a traffic jam half full of medium-sized crossovers, we might sometimes agree. This, however, is an antidote to homogenised cars: it’s about cars that were genuine novelties, designed to grab public attention and to usually promote one product or other. Let’s take a look. Studebaker giant car Studebaker’s President range evolved to a peak for the 1931 model year and is considered the finest the company ever produced. To promote it, Studebaker built “the largest car in the world”, a wood and plaster-cast model 41 feet long, 15 feet wide and 13.5 feet tall, and weighing five tonnes. The roadster featured in a nine-minute film played in RKO cinemas across America, where it was used as a prop by…

The new Vision Neue Klasse concept gives the best look yet at BMW’s all-electric future, previewing a dramatic change in exterior and interior design direction alongside the introduction of highly advanced drivetrain technology. By the end of 2023, BMW will have an electric car on sale in each of its core market segments, and it aims for more than a quarter of its global sales to be electric by 2025, rising to a third just a year later. Now well on the way to achieving those goals with its current fleet of electric saloons and SUVs, BMW is shifting its focus to the launch of a radical new family of EVs. It has dubbed this ‘Neue Klasse’ as a reference to the family of brand-reshaping premium saloons and coupés that…

Volkswagen has previewed a feisty, affordable performance variant of the upcoming ID 2 with the new ID GTI concept – a car that harks back to the original Golf GTI in spirit and styling. A headliner at the 2023 Munich motor show, the compact front-wheel-drive hot hatch is earmarked to head Volkswagen’s new entry-level electric car line-up with a front-mounted electric motor, specially tuned sport suspension, traditional GTI design elements and a price expected to start at around €30,000 (£26,000). “Production has already been decided as part of our electric offensive,” said Volkswagen brand CEO Thomas Schäfer in a clear statement of intent for the first electric GTI model. “It remains sporty, technologically progressive and accessible, but now has a new interpretation for tomorrow’s world: electric, fully connected and extremely…

Mini could be about to make a landmark jump into the urban e-mobility market, having hinted at the potential for a motorcycle to follow its overhauled car line-up. Plans for a production version of the diminutive Rocketman city car concept were shelved long ago, and it’s understood that the new Cooper supermini is the smallest car the brand will launch. However, CEO Stefanie Wurst hinted to Autocar that this doesn’t necessarily mean it will be the smallest Mini product. Asked if Mini could return to its roots by expanding its line-up downwards, Wurst replied cryptically: “Everything is possible.” There is “no plan right now” to explore the idea of a motorbike, said Wurst, but she emphasised that “Mini is an urban mobility brand – we aren’t limited to four wheels…

AUDI’S NEW Q6 E-tron SUV will set the tone for a widereaching rethink of the German manufacturer’s interior designs, adopting a ‘humancentric’ arrangement that majors on digital functionality and ease of use. Due on sale in February next year, the Q6 E-tron is the first car to ride on the new PPE EV platform. The use of this new structure opens up fresh packaging possibilities and introduces a new electronic architecture that allows for a near-total overhaul of Audi’s digital interfaces. Audi highlights the focus its designers have placed on the real-world needs of its driver and passengers. Head of Audi design Marc Lichte said: “By understanding the interior as the centre of our customers’ lives and experiences, we are rejecting the status quo and systematically designing the vehicle from…

SKODA HAS REVEALED the interiors of its new Kodiaq SUV and Superb estate, due on sale in 2024, with the Czech firm hailing the continued importance of physical switchgear. A trio of dials beneath the infotainment touchscreen is the centrepiece of the plush new look, with each featuring a slick 1.26in digital display for easy control of the seat heating, interior temperature, audio volume or driving mode. “Skoda interiors stand for intuitiveness, simplicity, customer focus and smart solutions,” said interior design boss Peter Olah, promising the rejuvenated flagship models will offer “practicality and genuine added value” to the brand’s customers.…

JOINING UP WITH a fashion or sports brand is a common way for car makers to add some glamour to their more mundane models. The marketing people from the two companies will get together and work out a mutually beneficial way of promoting their products. Usually, this will involve adding a few logos and stripes to the car, pillaging each other’s mailing lists and running a competition. One Asian brand tried just this formula to add sparkle to a hatchback by hooking up with a mountain bike maker. The deal was signed, the stripes were added to the car and the latest e-bikes were supplied for a photoshoot. The forest location was hired and models posed as a couple loading the chunky cycles onto the car’s roof bars. Just before…

WEDNESDAY Here’s a reason for getting your garage doors open earlier: it’s suddenly September, as I boringly observe to the Steering Committee at this time of year, and the evening light is ebbing. I zipped across the Cotswolds in my Alpine A110 to an evening drop-in at the Cotswold Motor Hub, a nearby classic car dealership, and by the time my friend Jeremy and I had chatted, downed a coffee, inspected his mate Mike’s Sunbeam Tiger and clocked the other motors, we had reached the departure time of 9.30pm and it was dark. Not that we need to get too depressed: the holiday traffic has gone, there’s been a lot of successful summer road repair near us and the light still lasts until 8pm. But this month, there’s driving to…

t has been a rough start to life for the Volkswagen ID 4. The mid-sized electric crossover’s fortunes were initially hit by the pandemic-related shutdowns and lockdowns. Then, just when things looked to be taking a turn for the better, component supply bottlenecks caused by the global semiconductor shortage and the Russian invasion of Ukraine further conspired to delay deliveries. And all this piled on top of criticisms of the EV’s performance, range, subpar interior quality and annoying control layout in a market segment that isn’t exactly short of rivals. Now, after a change of boss and a return to some sort of normality throughout its global operations, Volkswagen is ringing the changes to what has become its best-selling EV worldwide, intending to answer those aforementioned criticisms. In what’s billed…

When an EV’s battery wears out through use and age or goes wrong, what happens to it? The likeliest outcomes are being packed off for a less arduous ‘second life’ and being recycled. The second option is drastic, involving shredding and incineration. While recycling and recovering key materials such as lithium is vital, surely repairing a part of the car worth up to 40% of its total value would be a preferable option? British company Autocraft Solutions Group advocates that there should be more emphasis on this third option: properly repairing and maintaining EV batteries, as we do with combustion engines in conventional cars. Its core business has been remanufacturing engines since the 1970s, and it became involved in battery manufacturing for niche projects in 2006. Since then, it has…

Power failure Regarding your article On This Day in 1949 (23 August), I would have to agree with your scribe that the performance of the Holden featured would have been striking with only 22bhp! I think the real figure would have been about 60bhp. Perhaps you could check? In the meantime, continue the excellent work. Roland Brown Via email You’re quite right with your estimation, Roland. Sorry for that slip-up – KC Guilty as ’charged I’ve just read the Road Tests On This Day in the 26 July issue and my eyes were drawn to the 19.2mpg economy figure for the Mercedes-Benz C200. Surely some mistake? Colin Saunders Bangor, County Down No, that was indeed the average for the car on test – quite a way off the government figure…

The Ford S-Max 2.5T of 2006 to 2009 was the Clark Kent of motoring. A comic-book hero that doubled as a sober-suited executive MPV during the week and responsible family holdall at weekends, but which, thanks to the 217bhp 2.5-litre five-cylinder turbocharged petrol engine from the Focus ST under its bonnet, could morph into a hot hatch-baiter capable of 0-62mph in 7.4sec. Today it’s extremely rare, although we did find a wellmaintained 2006-reg example with 136,000 miles for £3995. More commonplace, and nearly as much fun, is its successor of 2012, powered by a 2.0T Ecoboost petrol engine making 237bhp. This version cracks the benchmark sprint in a shade under eight seconds, and it would be quicker but is paired with an automatic gearbox, whereas the 2.5T version enjoyed a…

“It’s not an SUV. It’s a crossover between a hatch, SUV and MPV” The new Renault Scenic E-Tech Electric is intended to represent a “new form of family vehicle”, according to its creators, mixing SUV design elements with interior roominess comparable to its MPV predecessor. Due to go on sale in the UK early next year, the Scenic will sit above the Mégane in Renault’s line-up of bespoke electric cars. While the new model is technically unrelated to the series of MPVs that carried the nameplate from 1996 until 2022, Renault insists that the family-centric values of that vehicle – with particular focus on maximising interior space and safety – have been carried over. Built on the CMF-EV platform also used by the Mégane and the Nissan Ariya, the Scenic…

Alfa Romeo’s long-awaited 33 Stradale supercar is both the brand’s final pure-combustion supercar and its first EV. In development since 2021, it has been revealed as a striking reincarnation of a 1960s racing legend and offers the choice of a 739bhp tri-motor electric powertrain or a mid-rearmounted 641bhp 3.0-litre twin-turbocharged V6. Developed by a team of 49 engineers, Alfa’s first supercar since the 8C Competizione spearheads a series of Fuoriserie (custom-built) limited editions. All of these will be designed to showcase the brand at its best while paying tribute to its heritage. Fittingly, just 33 examples of the Stradale will be produced. They sold out within two weeks of the first sketches being shown to prospective customers at the 2022 Italian Grand Prix at Monza, with all buyers said to…

NEWS THAT SOMETHING totally outrageous has just landed is always a breath of fresh air for petrolheads. In this case, it’s what Ford calls the “audacious”, street-legal Mustang GTD. With 800bhp, a supercharger, transaxle gearbox, semi-active suspension and carbonceramic brakes, the GTD was developed in parallel with the Mustang GT3. In one sense, the maddest Mustang yet is a deep dive into the most basic tenets of what makes a real performance car, but the details reveal it to be a car of two parts: the traditional and the cutting edge. Starting at the front, there’s a 5.2-litre, dry-sumplubricated, supercharged V8 producing 800bhp mounted on a subframe attached to the body. The suspension is a sophisticated take on the classic unequal-length double-wishbone design, with a single triangular wishbone at the…

Awave of emerging brands is set to enact the biggest shake-up of the premium tyre sector in a generation, the boss of Pirelli has told Autocar. This impending push, especially from the Chinese market, is facilitated by the ability of the newcomers to “quickly catch up, both in quantity and quality terms”, said Pierangelo Misani. “In the past, we were used to looking at the traditional competitors, but today we have to have a wider view. We can’t neglect that there are newcomers, especially from Asia, or China itself, that are extremely aggressive and are progressing fast,” he said. “It isn’t just a matter of innovation only but [also] a matter of speed of innovation, so they’re catching up.” A prime example is Chinese company Triangle. A decade ago, it…

Brundle wins for Ferrari at Silverstone! No, this isn’t some vision from a parallel early 1990s Formula 1 universe. This is Alex Brundle, son of Martin, and we’re talking 1971 Ferrari 512M Le Mans sports prototype, at Silverstone Festival – the behemoth of all historic race meetings. His victory, shared with Gary Pearson in the glow of an evening sun, capped the highlight of an intense two days. Twenty races – 10 on the Saturday, 10 on the Sunday – coming thick and certainly fast, from dawn till dusk… It felt like an overindulgence. To see one 512M let loose is special. But here, there were two of them in the Masters Sports Car Legends 50-minute thrash – Brundle and Pearson’s bright yellow one and a red version driven by…

This will sound demented, but with the Huracán Sterrato, it’s possible to forget what it is you’re driving. This Lamborghini, to be clear, has an 8500rpm V10, banana-sized shift paddles and a header rail so low it might as well be resting in your lap. These traits are quintessentially hardcore supercar. But how, then, can there be times during our 385-mile Welsh odyssey when it feels no more obtrusive than a BMW M3 on the smallest available wheel, with dampers in their most languid state? You won’t automatically find the answer by looking at the spec sheet, though there are, for a modern supercar, some surprising and unflattering statistics. For one thing, the Sterrato has the honour of being the slowest mid-engined product in Lamborghini’s history. Were you to drive…

Your Slideshow of 23 August showed a car that you said had been likened to a psychotic cartoon duck, and you’re probably wondering what would have led anyone to buy one. Well, I did by accident and found it so useful that I now can’t find anything to replace it and am having to pay Mayor Khan £12.50 a day while I search in vain. The ‘accident’ was a careless minicab driver writing off my estate car, which led me to hire a sort of equivalent from Avis that they called an MPV. It was shorter and taller than an estate that had deep windows, so it was easier to park, and had even more room, because the rear seats were removable. And three seats up front meant more of…

An owner’s view GARETH CHAPMAN “I’d like to tell you my S-Max has been a pleasure to own… It’s certainly been great to drive: it’s a 2013-reg 2.0T 203PS Ecoboost automatic that is quick, comfortable and practical. But it’s also unreliable. I’m the third owner. I bought it with a high mileage and it’s now done 118,000 miles. The first thing to go wrong, in 2021, was the transmission, which cost £3000 to fix. Then the brake vacuum pump failed – twice. Now there’s an odd noise from the engine, and I’ve been told it’s a timing chain issue. The garage has said they will have to remove the engine to see what’s going on. In fairness to the car, its service history isn’t great.” Buyer beware… ENGINE AND GEARBOX…

THE LEVC TX, road tested two issues ago, broke with more than a century of convention in being electrically driven, but it wasn’t the first cab to be so. In fact, London’s very first self-propelled taxi was. For all of human history, every wheeled vehicle had harnessed animal power. But horses moved in unstable equilibrium; got tired; got spooked by noise and busy streets; got ill or injured; needed food, sleep and carers; and left unpleasant mess everywhere. So of course people tried to create self-propelled vehicles from the very earliest days of electrical engineering. But it wasn’t until the 1890s that batteries and motors had matured enough – along with suspension, steering systems, tyres etc – to make EVs practical. At the age of just 23, engineer Walter Bersey…

A road test in any other magazine might well be a short, subjective summary of a new car produced under almost any circumstances, but the Autocar road test is different. Specific, rigorous and detailed, it’s the closest examination we can give of any new model. It appears over at least eight pages and is close to 50 man-hours in the making every week. Most of what the road test process entails is designed to be strictly repeatable and fair. We benchmark standing-start and in-gear acceleration at a purpose-built test facility every week. We carry out both subjective and objective handling tests on both road and track, on the latter up to and beyond the limit of grip, so as to fully assess stability, drivability and limit handling appeal. And while…