Innholdsfortegnelse for August 13, 2025 i Autocar

JLR’s new CEO, taking over in November, will be PB Balaji, presently chief financial officer of parent company Tata Motors. On 31 July, Autocar broke the news that current CEO Adrian Mardell was retiring after 35 years with the company. Prior to becoming CEO in 2023, Mardell had been JLR’s CFO. The appointment of Balaji suggests Tata wants more say over JLR’s direction of travel, having let the firm operate at arms’ length since buying it in 2008. “It’s a harbinger of tighter Tata financial control as the firm enters choppy waters amid the shift to EVs, Trump tariffs etc,” David Bailey, professor of business economics at the Birmingham Business School, told Autocar. By picking Balaji (known universally by his surname only), Tata has put in place an executive pivotal…

LOTUS EUROPE BOSS Matt Windle has been let go by the company after just four months in the job, with his successor set to be announced as Chinese executive Mao Jingbo. Windle’s departure comes after Autocar reported that Lotus was considering moving sports car manufacturing out of the UK as part of a costcutting drive aimed at arresting persistent losses. The proposals included moving manufacturing from its historic base in Hethel, Norfolk, after holding talks with the Labour government. His replacement, Mao, joined Lotus in 2022 as president of China operations after moving from Lincoln, where she was head of Asia Pacific and China for the US premium brand. Prior to that, she was head of marketing in China for Mercedes-Benz after a career in journalism. Lotus has yet to…

Car buyers and banks are bracing themselves for the outcome of a review into a multi-billion-pound scheme designed to compensate borrowers who paid too much commission for car loans. However, critics say the scheme may be overly broad and complex, potentially delaying claim resolutions for years. It follows a year-long battle between lenders, legislators and even the government over three cases centred on salespeople being incentivised to charge higher interest rates – without the knowledge of buyers – so they could bank an increased commission. This ended at the start of this month with a landmark ruling at the Supreme Court. Lord Robert Reed ruled that in two of the cases, such arrangements (known as discretionary commission arrangements, or DCAs) were legal, but in the third, known as the Johnson…

I am probably one of Maserati’s most loyal customers, having bought a Ghibli Cup (only 26 were exported to the UK) nearly 30 years ago and every model or more since then up to my recent Granturismo. I ordered the Granturismo while owning an MC20 and waited some two years. As the car arrived many months late, I had plenty of time to reflect. During that time, the MC20’s depreciation losses became very substantial, undermining the launch price of the Granturismo, which in any case I had always thought was overpriced and couldn’t be justified. I tried to cancel the order on several occasions but was told repeatedly by the Maserati franchise that the residuals would be good, as this was the best-performing model financially. I was also told I…

The Valhalla may be an Aston Martin like no other, but it isn’t a supercar like no other. It’s a two-seat, carbonfibre-tubbed coupé, with a mid-mounted turbocharged vee engine supplemented by an electric motor, plus two electric motors driving its front axle. And if that sounds familiar, the likes of the Lamborghini Revuelto, Ferraris F80 and SF90, McLaren Artura and even Honda NSX have had some kind of shades of this layout. Did the Porsche 918 Spyder do it first? But will the Valhalla do it best? This brief drive of the new supercar/hypercar, as you prefer, to be priced at £850,000 and limited to 999 units when deliveries start next spring, was of a late prototype, with productionready hardware but software about 85-90% complete. Software sign-off can be left…

With some test cars, I expect the attention. When I stop for petrol in a bright orange McLaren, I take it as a given that the person next to me will want to talk or take pictures. However, when I drove the Hyundai Inster Cross to the recent Festival of the Unexceptional, it came as a bit of a surprise just how interested people were in it. Any time I went near it in the car park, people were checking it out or asking me about it. A similar thing happened when I had a Renault 5 earlier this year. So clearly there is plenty of enthusiasm for affordable-ish, originally styled, sensibly sized cars, and I don’t think it matters that much whether they’re powered by batteries. So, is the…

MG’s British design studio is the only one I’ve ever visited that sits on the roof of an office building. It occupies the entire top floor of the company’s Marylebone headquarters, within sound and view of London’s buzzing traffic but insulated from both by its own calm, creative atmosphere. Car companies have always liked to put designers where they can be influenced by the ebb and flow of modern humanity, and this seems the ultimate expression of it. The studio and its shifting population of 30-odd occupants moved to London in 2019. Before that they were in Birmingham, in less salubrious conditions. Design director Carl Gotham remembers those days well. He joined MG in 2005, just before Nanjing merged with SAIC to form the current ownership structure, which over the…

The fourth-generation Twingo will arrive in mid-2026 as the new, sub-£17,000 entry point to Renault’s expanding EV lineup and a direct rival to the upcoming Volkswagen ID 1. Spotted testing for the first time by Autocar spy photographers, the new city car will be launched seven years after its petrol predecessor was withdrawn from sale in the UK due to declining demand (just 877 UK sales in 2018). The new Twingo marks another significant step in Renault’s EV advance and comes off the back of the successful Renault 5, which has carved a path for smaller, affordable EVs. A key selling point for the Twingo will be its sub-£17,000 starting price, which is part of a brief to create a “fit-for-purpose urban vehicle with no compromise”. Notably, this undercuts the…

Bugatti is finally bidding goodbye to the W16 engine after two decades with a striking new one-off hypercar that is set to be the most expensive car the French company has yet built. Based on the Mistral speedster but with a fixed glass roof in place of that car’s open top, the Brouillard – French for ‘mist’ – will be the last new stand-alone Bugatti model to use the firm’s W16. All future creations are set to be based on the Tourbillon, which uses a 1775bhp plug-in hybrid powertrain centred around a Cosworth-designed V16. The Brouillard is due to be delivered in 2027 as the first in a line of “hyper-exclusive” one-offs from Bugatti’s new Solitaire coachbuilding division, which design chief Frank Heyl said will go much further than the…

IT’S RARE FOR a new CEO to speak to the media in their first few months in the job, let alone weeks. But just hours after being announced as Luca de Meo’s replacement, new Renault Group chief François Provost fronted up for questions following the release of the French firm’s latest financial results. A polished performance was dominated by a message promising consistency in delivering what de Meo had begun, albeit at an accelerated rate. No surprise there, given that Provost was an internal appointment and a close ally of de Meo. But don’t expect him to court the limelight in the same way. The one question Provost half-dodged was how it felt to follow de Meo – the journalist who asked having gushed n his praise for the departed…

Dacia’s chunky new large SUV, the Bigster, has gained a base variant with a manual petrol powertrain – and we’ve driven it for the first time in the UK. Sitting beneath the Hybrid 155 and Mild Hybrid 130 4x4 in the Bigster line-up, the new Mild Hybrid 140 is mechanically almost identical to the entry-level Duster. It gets off to a promising start, undercutting Far Eastern rivals such as the Nissan Qashqai and Kia Sportage on price. While those cost a hair over £30,000, the Bigster Mild Hybrid 140 starts at £25,215 in Expression trim. But even our range-topping Extreme-spec test car, which gets copper-coloured accents and the sort of standard equipment you want in a family SUV, costs just £27,365. The newcomer is powered by a 1.2-litre three-cylinder turbo…

This week, a chance to run the road test ruler over the kind of Volkswagen we used to see fairly regularly some 25 years ago, during the firm’s ambitious Ferdinand Piëch-led management era that was seemingly defined by an agenda for giant-killing. The Volkswagen ID 7 GTX Tourer isn’t quite the new, most expensive model in any VW showroom (that will still be the Touareg R PHEV, while it lasts), but it’s getting warm. More significantly, it’s an all-electric gran turismo estate car with a dash of sporting appeal, a punchy £63,000 price and clear designs on customers who might otherwise be shopping for Audi, BMW and Mercedes-Benz models. Has Volkswagen lost its marbles to think it can stretch MEB platform hardware that far? Or does it know something we…

More than 30 years since Ford launched the UK’s first personal contract purchase scheme, PCPs are today the leading form of new car motor finance among private buyers. Affordable (you fund only a portion of the car’s list price), flexible (at the end of the repayment term, you can part-exchange the car for a new one, pay the balance to buy the car or return it) and widely available (pretty much every dealer offers them), a PCP kicks all other forms of personal new-car finance into touch. Factor in sweeteners such as low-rate finance and manufacturer deposit contributions (abbreviated here to ‘dc’) and it’s a no contest. Of course, a PCP comes with strings, such as condition and mileage penalties, but unless you’re handing the car back to the dealer…

WHY WE RAN IT To see if a sub-£27,000 price tag really does give you all the car you’ll ever need “It delivered a fuss-free motorway ride and great all-round visibility” Cars are remarkable things. Over the past C four months, I’ve travelled some 8000 miles on four wheels, completing a wide array of different journeys on various surfaces, and some other tasks besides. This has included lugging five adults around the country; helping to transport an assortment of non-specific stuff for my parents’ 100-mile house move; driving up steep coastal hillsides and clambering over rocky off-road terrain; and getting a good night’s sleep in the boot atop a fold-out mattress. Notably, I completed this wide variety of tasks in the same car, my Dacia Duster, and it was excellent…

Want a V8-powered semi-supercar for the same price as a new six-pot sports car? The classifieds are full of supercar slayers that make a mockery of buying new, and for less than £70,000 you can get your hands on one of the best: the McLaren 570S. The flagship in McLaren’s Sports Series line-up was launched as an ‘entry model’ to sit beneath the 650S and 675LT, but one look at the 570S’s technical spec shows it was a cut above the likes of the Porsche Cayman and Lotus Evora. With 562bhp and 443lb ft, the McLaren’s sizzling 3.8-litre twin-turbo V8 has the firepower to keep pace with true supercars. Despite being 40bhp and two cylinders down on the Audi R8 V10, the 570S matches its 3.1sec 0-60mph time and will…

Chris Ewin knows precisely when he fell in love with the Saab 900 convertible: “I was driving back from our office with the design for a missile when I saw one and thought, ‘I’ll have one of those cars one day’.” He worked for defence firm Marconi at the time, hence the heavy ordnance. It was the mid-1990s then, but Chris held onto his dream, eventually buying the 900 16v Turbo convertible you see here from a chap called Mr Blackadder in 2001. “No joke; that was his name,” says Chris. “It was love at first sight – the car, not him. It had been his company vehicle so had a perfect service history and some valuable extras, including the boot rack.” Almost a quarter of a century later, Chris…

Hyundai is readying a pair of crucial new models as it looks to bolster its position in Europe and get significantly closer to its Kia sibling for sales success. The imminent arrival of a radically different fifth-generation Tucson and a Bayon-sized EV, which is likely to be badged Ioniq 2, shows the breadth of Hyundai’s expanding line-up as it pushes into the booming new electric hatchback segment. The move is intended to bring new buyers to the brand while catering to core customers with a fresh take on its global best-seller, the Tucson SUV. EXPANDING EV LINE-UP The arrival of the Ioniq 2 is most notable because it will push the Korean brand into a completely new segment. Understood by Autocar to be twinned with sibling brand Kia’s incoming EV2,…

SUPERCAPACITORS, ALSO known as ultracapacitors, have been hovering around the edges of electrification for a long time, but, despite their simplicity, their use in production has been limited, a notable example being the Lamborghini Sián. Now Basingstoke firm Allotrope Energy says it has developed a new class of supercapacitor that is smaller and lighter with twice the energy density compared with existing devices. Its new Lignavolt supercapacitors can store 4-15Wh/kg compared with the 7-8Wh/kg of today’s technology, the firm says. They’re also said to be a “fraction” of the cost. Capacitors are electrical storage devices that appear in almost all electrical products. Like batteries, they store and release electricity, but there are a few major differences. Capacitors consist of two electrodes separated by an insulating layer, and when connected to…

The Polestar 3 has claimed the world record for the longest distance travelled by an electric SUV on one charge, cracking nearly 600 miles in one hit on UK roads. The new Long Range version of Polestar’s flagship SUV, with a 107kWh battery and a single 295bhp motor on the rear axle, managed 581.3 miles of driving around the east of England. That comfortably beats the 3’s 438-mile official range and smashes the previous record of 569.64 miles, set by the Ford Mustang Mach-E last year. The distance travelled equates to a final efficiency figure of 19.5kWh per 100 miles, or 5.13mpkWh, which is in line with the official WLTP efficiency figures of some electric superminis weighing around two-thirds as much as the 2.4-tonne 3. Polestar said the SUV continued…

FEATURE DESIGNERS ON EACH OTHER’S CARS Aston Martin’s Marek Reichman and Renault’s Laurens van den Acker are old pals. We arranged a meet-up and car swap INSIGHT ARIEL AT 25 We go behind the scenes at the Somerset company as it celebrates an important milestone and prepares for the future VERDICT ROLLS-ROYCE SPECTRE BLACK BADGE Can a 650bhp EV really be an opulent luxury cruiser too? We find out EVERY WEEK ROAD TEST MERCEDES-AMG CLE 53 Big coupé undergoes toughest test in 443bhp six-cylinder form OUR CARS MINI ACEMAN Mini’s little electric crossover leaves our fleet. Will we miss it?…

When the latest VW Passat arrived in the UK, it had just a single engine option: a 1.5-litre mild-hybrid four-cylinder petrol. Adequate but not exactly in keeping with the idea of the executive express. A plug-in hybrid version brought some improvement, and now there’s an option for those who don’t want a car with a charging port: a 2.0-litre petrol. German Passat buyers have been able to chose this 201bhp engine from the start, as well as a 261bhp version with four-wheel drive and even a couple of diesels. But if 201bhp sounds something of a disappointment, a single plant of your right foot will confirm that it’s actually rather punchy. Volkswagen claims a 0-62mph time of 7.5sec, but it feels a good bit quicker in the real world. Once…

Car makers don’t want us to believe that less can be more. The more luxurious interior trim there is on a car, the more the buyer wants in the way of exterior flicks and tricks and the more power they feel they need. It all translates into a higher list price and more profit – but not necessarily a better car. Porsche has always provided a good example of this phenomenon. As you climb the ranks of the 911 hierarchy, the car’s ability increases inexorably, yet often the most rewarding, enjoyable experience is to found at the base of the range, as most savvy petrolheads well know. When we road tested Porsche’s new Macan Electric SUV earlier this year, we chose a 630bhp Turbo variant with four-wheel drive, rearaxle steering…

Once upon a time, back in the annals of history, there may have been an explosion of UK automotive sales greater than that of MG’s recent, towering success in this country – a 620% leap from 13,000 to 81,000 cars in the four short years between 2019 and 2023. If so, no one can remember it, and experts reckon MG is safe to claim a most remarkable record. However, even if there had been a rival high achiever, it’s vanishingly unlikely that the pretender would have achieved its feat – as MG did – while the supporting market around it collapsed in one disastrous year from 2.3 million cars to 1.6 million, as happened in Britain during the first Covid year. MG’s prodigious rise against the most powerful of trends…

MILEAGE 1732 WHY WE’RE RUNNING IT Can this upmarket SUV still hold its own in the face of fresher competition? A few years ago, I ran a Jaguar E-Pace long-termer. Remember those? I enjoyed it immensely, but one of my few complaints was the execution of the powertrain. Now in this new Evoque I find the same set-up – and, sadly, the same gripes remain. It’s a 1.5-litre turbocharged petrol engine, the type of which have become very common in recent years as car makers (a) desperately clamour to make engines more efficient and cleaner and (b) realise they are a good choice to pair with an electric motor for various hybrid options. In this case it’s a plug-in hybrid that offers 29 miles of electric-only range. So what’s the problem?…