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THE trouble with the car industry and its move to electrification is that there are too many different opinions and vested interests. It’s proving almost impossible to set out a clear direction that legislation and incentivisation can get behind when there’s so much internal infighting, and the sector as a whole can’t decide what it wants. In the past couple of weeks alone, I’ve heard the bosses of two major car companies send very different messages about how they envisage the industry’s direction of travel. Firstly, Toyota, whose European chief corporate officer Matt Harrison had a clear ‘technology neutral’ message – that we shouldn’t push manufacturers, and more importantly consumers, down one particular path, and everything from hydrogen to synthetic fuels, as well as electric, could be part of the…

AUDI is set to unleash a series of plug-in hybrids to satisfy growing demand. “By the end of 2025 we will launch 10 plug-in hybrid models,” said CEO Gernot Döllner. “The first will be the A5 based on the PPC [Premium Platform Combustion] architecture. “Plug-in hybrids are an integral part of Audi’s portfolio – an important contribution to achieving our CO2 targets, especially in countries where the transition is proceeding at different speeds.” The 2.0 engine and electric motor combination offers either 295bhp or 362bhp and will be fitted to several Audi models. The second of the PHEVs will be the A3 Sportback, expected to be the UK best-seller. It will be capable of 87 miles on electric power and will land as soon as this summer because Audi UK anticipates…

THE Smart #5 cannot be defined by a single headline statistic. It’s not only the biggest Smart ever at almost 4.7 metres long, it’s also the one with the longest range and the fastest charging. Plus, it’s set to be the most expensive – priced from around £40,000. We first saw the car last year, but now we’ve been given exclusive access to the Audi Q4 e-tron-rivalling SUV, which goes on sale in late 2025. The #5 represents a new direction for the brand, distinguished from the smaller #1 and #3 with a boxier design. The cabin also gains over its siblings; its three-screen layout is a first for Smart, and quality takes a big leap. Under the metal, it supports two electrical architectures; base cars use a 400V system…

DRIVERS could risk invalidating their insurance policy if they use their car to drive to a meeting during working hours, even if it is covered for commuting, with police seizing an uninsured vehicle every four minutes across the UK last year. Statistics from the Motor Insurance Bureau (MIB) show that in 2024, 138,000 vehicles were taken off the road by police due to the lack of a valid insurance policy. Such a lofty figure isn’t as surprising as it first seems, given that the MIB estimates that 300,000 uninsured vehicles hit the road every day in the UK, with the total number over the course of a year surpassing one million. While many of these vehicles are commandeered by criminals wishing to avoid paying insurance premiums, many are also driven…

THIS is the most powerful Rolls-Royce ever built. Yet, being a Rolls-Royce, the Spectre Black Badge isn’t about straight-line speed or Nürburgring lap times. This “motor car” is different – quite unlike anything we’ve ever driven before. How does it compare to the already quite potent standard Spectre? Well for starters, there’s an extra 73bhp – with power elevated to a record-breaking (for Rolls) 650bhp. It also gets a good dose of additional torque with the conventional car’s 900Nm boosted to 1,075Nm when you engage the Black Badge’s ‘Spirited’ launch mode. This is activated by pushing the ‘Infinity’ switch on the steering wheel, before placing one foot on the brake and the other on the accelerator. Lift the left pedal and the 2,890kg Spectre will pin you back in your…

FOR a brand that’s relatively new to the UK, BYD hasn’t been shy about wading into some very competitive segments. More often than not, it has acquitted itself well, too. The Atto 3 and Dolphin, its two smallest offerings to date, are its strongest models. And even though the Seal saloon can’t quite live with the best in the class, it’s still a compelling compact executive car in its own right. The Sealion 7 has the toughest task yet, though, pitching itself against everything from the Skoda Enyaq, Tesla Model Y and Hyundai Ioniq 5 to the Renault Scenic and Ford Capri. ENGINES & PERFORMANCE SEALION drivers get a choice of two battery capacities and two motor configurations spread across three models. The range starts with the Comfort, which is…

I MUST admit, I’m not always the best at keeping my car looking its smartest, particularly in the winter. Instead, I subscribe to the in-fashion mud spatters and layers of grime that adorn many urban off-roaders. Whether the Mazda CX-30 holds the greenlaning gravitas of a steel-wheeled Land Rover Defender in Heritage Green, I’m not sure, but for navigating the urban jungle, it’s a winner. Anyone with a kids/dog family combo will know that getting from A to B can be a trial. There’s always more kit than you thought possible, while leisure trips often involve mud, sand and piles of wet coats. Then there’s the hairy mess of a hound to contend with. Fortunately, Mazda offers a wealth of accessories to help ‘family proof’ your car from daily bombardment.…

MONTHS after we launched Auto Express in 1988, I signed up a couple of star players who knew a thing or two about motoring, motorsport and the art of buying, owning and selling cars. The first was Stirling Moss. Readers loved his often maverick views on everything from car occupant safety, to cars that should or shouldn’t be bought and his definitive list of F1 heroes and villains. Stirling was so on the case that by the early nineties, he assured me a go-karting kid he’d just discovered was destined to be a grand prix driver and, potentially, a future F1 world champion. The little boy? Lewis Hamilton. My other recruit was a guy who on weekdays helped run his family’s Peugeot dealership, then at weekends raced for the McLaren,…

DACIA is expanding its line-up over the next few years with a new ‘C-Neo’ hatchback to take on the Skoda Octavia, and an entrylevel EV that will eventually replace the Spring – but in the meantime the brand is launching its biggest car to date, the aptly named Bigster. The newcomer is pitched as a more practical, bigger brother to our 2024 Small SUV of the Year, the Dacia Duster, and represents the value-focused brand’s first crack at the hugely important and competitive mid-size SUV market. Prices for the Bigster start at just under £25,000, slightly less than the most expensive versions of the smaller Duster SUV. It’s also, coincidentally, exactly the same starting price as MG’s similarly sized HS, but it’s comfortably cheaper than the Nissan Qashqai and Kia…

THERE’S a revolution going on at Audi. “The fundamental transformation of this company has started,” said CEO Gernot Döllner at the company’s annual media conference. Breaking from German tradition, Audi has a new French R&D boss with a background in software, a new Italian design chief and a mission to refresh the product portfolio in two years. But there’s one historic pillar on which the revolutionaries are doubling down – Audi’s Vorsprung Durch Technik ethos. It translates as ‘progress through technology’, and car fans of a certain age will remember it as an marketing slogan popularised by British advertising guru Sir John Hegarty. Its high point – literally – came when rally driver Harald Demuth drove an Audi 100 CS up the Kaipola ski jump in Finland to demonstrate the…

BENTLEY has confirmed it will launch a new plug-in vehicle, either fully electric or plug-in hybrid, every year for the next decade. The roll-out will be led by new lower-powered variants of three existing Bentley PHEVs due this summer. The company introduced new plug-in versions of the Flying Spur, Continental GT and Continental GTC last year. As such, they’re each currently offered only in 769bhp Speed specification. CEO Dr Frank-Steffen Walliser said plans are now set out for a decadelong succession of new cars. While he declined to reveal how many of the planned models would be fully electric or plug-in hybrid, he said Bentley is taking into account that customer demand for EVs hasn’t developed as quickly as the car industry initially expected. “Our ‘beyond 100 plus’ strategy already…

AUTO Express has learned that hot Quadrifoglio versions of the next-generation Alfa Romeo Giulia and Stelvio will get petrol power after all – potentially in the form of the Italian brand’s famous V6 engines. For some time, Alfa had intended that the new Stelvio premium SUV, set to be revealed later this year, and the next Giulia saloon in 2026 would be all-electric. However, Alfa boss Santo Ficili confirmed that both would now be offered with hybrid petrol engines as well as EV variants. The brand’s head of marketing, Cristiano Fiorio, told us that plans for high-performance Quadrifoglio models of the cars have changed in response to customer demand. He said: “Personally, I do not see a Quadrifoglio EV. I see a Quadrifoglio which has the sound of a real…

THE MGS5 EV is a critical car for the resurgent brand here in the UK. It replaces the popular ZS EV, taking its place in the now crowded all-electric compact SUV class. But where MG’s affordable EV once usefully undercut many of its key rivals, this fast-moving segment now has many new challengers. The range kicks off at £28,495 with the SE Standard Range model, which offers a 49kWh battery pack and a 221-mile range. This seems impressive at face value, but new to the class are a range of aggressively priced rivals like the Citroen e-C3 Aircross that undercut it by a fair margin. Move up a rung on the S5 ladder and MG’s mid-level SE Long Range model commands a £2,500 premium and ups the range to a…

“Put your foot down and there’s a delay in throttle response while the hybrid gets itself together” WHEN the Alfa Romeo Junior was finally introduced in April 2024, not only did it arrive with a last-minute name change, it also looked like that the UK would only get the pure-electric version. Less than a year later though, the stylish small SUV – which was originally to be called the Milano – is now available with a hybrid powertrain that will widen its appeal to those who don’t want an EV yet, and has slashed the car’s starting price by £6,000. The Junior Ibrida, a simple translation of ‘Hybrid’, sits on the same Common Modular Platform as several other Stellantis SUVs, including the Jeep Avenger, Peugeot 2008 and Vauxhall Mokka. It…

IT seems amazing to say it, but the Hyundai Ioniq 5 is one of the longest-serving cars in this class now, such is the rate of progress and expansion of the family EV segment. Our 2021 Car of the Year isn’t simply lying down to let the latest competition walk all over it, though, because it’s received a number of nips and tucks for 2025. Key among them for buyers who drive long distances will be the updated battery pack, which increases capacity from 77.4kWh to 84kWh. Along with tweaked aerodynamics, this has boosted the car’s range. There are also changes to the interior and safety tech, while various chassis upgrades are designed to elevate the 5’s drive. A new shock absorber design aims to improve the ride, with a…

Price: £16 Rating: Contact: lasertools.co.uk WE’VE all faced the frustration of dropping a vital bolt or nut into the abyss of an engine bay. While a DIY mechanic’s toolkit might include a claw grabber, a magnetic pick-up or a torch, sometimes you need all three. If you’re willing to invest beyond the typical market-stall price tag of most pick-up tools, Laser’s 9055 offers a real upgrade. The 610mm flexible shaft has a spring-loaded four-prong grabber, a powerful magnet and an integrated LED light to increase your chances of recovering that awkward dropped nut. The magnetic head can lift up to 900g – a claim we tested with an 850g steel plate, which it held easily – although it’s essential to balance the load evenly or it will drop. It’s more than…

NOT that long ago, the options list for a mid-tier Mercedes C-Class or a base-model BMW 3 Series would have stretched further round the block than the queue at your favourite sandwich shop on a hectic weekday lunchtime. Dealership walls would echo with phrases such as: “Would madam like the extended ivory leather matched to the open-pore oak wood trim?”, or “Maybe sir is interested in the rear-seat entertainment package, and sun blinds on the side windows?” Things get worse the further up the luxury ladder you climb. Apparently, there are 46 billion ways to configure a Bentley – and that’s before you delve into the brand’s bespoke Mulliner programme where the possibilities are, quite literally, endless. It means that if you’re in the market for a high-end used car,…

IF you think the TT is dead, think again. Audi is fasttracking a new generation of sports cars influenced by the nineties coupé, which CEO Gernot Döllner describes as “an icon” and which fired the imagination of design chief Massimo Frascella. Our exclusive image shows how the new two-door could look. “I believe Audi should have a sports car, for sure,” Döllner told Auto Express. “That’s part of the brand DNA, and we have to find the right way, timing wise, to integrate it.” Within the wider Volkswagen Group, Porsche is leading a project dubbed C-Sport, and is due to unleash pure-electric replacements for the mid-engined 718 Cayman and Boxster this year. Expect lightning performance to eclipse the MG Cyberster’s, using a new electric architecture that Audi could tap into.…

THE new MG4 EV has been revealed in China, less than three years after the electric hatch was launched. It now sports a very different look, blending elements from the MGS5 electric SUV (far right) and two-seat Cyberster. As a result, the MG4 looks a lot softer and less sporty than before, particularly at the front, which now has a more rounded nose, subtler air intakes and a smaller body-coloured splitter on the bumper. The new headlights have shrunk too, but the traditional octagon badge remains. It appears that MG has even gone as far as to tweak the design of the rear doors, removing the rising shoulder line and enlarging the windows. There’s no longer any black cladding down the sides or on the C-pillar; instead there’s extra body…

A NEW facility specifically designed to recycle cars and their batteries will be opened at Toyota’s Burnaston plant this autumn, with the brand officially validating used-car parts for the first time. The firm announced its plans to create the first of a global series of ‘Toyota Circular Factories’ (TCF) at the UK facility during a conference in Brussels. Initially capable of recycling 10,000 vehicles annually, the new plant will operate alongside the existing Corolla factory, which Toyota has confirmed will remain the Derbyshire facility’s principle activity. Toyota said its recycling efforts will be split into three core areas. These are: reclaiming reusable parts and components; salvaging commodity items for remanufacturing; and recycling other materials. Reclaimed Toyota car parts will be resold into the market via retailers and distributors, following what…

ASTON Martin has revealed its new open-top Vanquish Volante, creating the world’s most powerful front-engined cabriolet. The two-seat convertible is decidedly old-school, with a V12 engine and rear-drive layout, and it will rival high-end models such as the Ferrari 12Cilindri Spider and Bentley Continental GT C Speed, with an expected price tag of around £350,000. The basics are carried over from the coupé version, which means the V12 engine is a 5.2-litre unit with two turbochargers, producing 823bhp and 1,000Nm of torque. This is channelled through an eight-speed ZF transmission that’s mounted on the rear axle alongside a complex electronically controlled limited-slip differential. With the Volante developed alongside the coupé from the start, the brand says there are only subtle compromises in terms of rigidity, with a 75 per cent…

BYD is gunning to be the world’s top car brand, with key building blocks in 2025 including European production, the introduction of an entry-level hatch (below) and the roll-out of autonomous driving to rival Tesla. “Our goal is to be the global number one automotive brand,” said Stella Li, BYD’s executive vice president and boss of the European region. In 2025 BYD edged ahead of Tesla’s 1.788m EV sales, and produced a total of 4.272m ‘new-energy vehicles’, which includes plug-in hybrids. “The Dolphin Surf is definitely coming to the UK,” said Ms Li. That’s the European version of the Seagull, a Chinese electric city car with a range exceeding 200 miles that sells for around £10,000 in its home market. The new name won’t be the only thing to change.…

IMAGINE that you’re engaged in a little game of automotive word association. What would be the first things to spring to mind when the name Citroen crops up? We’d imagine that comfort would almost certainly be pretty high on that list, followed closely by price. That first word will crop up plenty of times over the course of our first full drive of the Citroen e-C3 – our reigning Car of the Year – in UK spec. But we’ll take a look at the second point first. Citroen has long been focused on value, and it intends to carry that through to its electric models. It’s proud to be the only brand on the market to offer five different EVs for less than £30,000 – alongside this e-C3, there’s the…

YOU’VE probably heard the term ‘anorak’ to describe the type of person who’d get more than a little irate if you accidentally confuse your British Rail Class 802s with your Azuma Class 800s. Along those same lines (pun not intended), the world’s ‘wax jackets’ got their feathers ruffled when Land Rover reinvented the long-running Defender back in 2019, after the old ladder-framed model was killed off three years earlier by safety and emissions regulations. More than five years on and the new Defender has slipped seamlessly into its role as a Chelsea Tractor, rather than one you might find traversing muddy fields. With this in mind, many have tried to eke out the lives of their old models, leading to a variety of different restomods being available, aimed at bringing…

IF there’s one thing that the Ineos Grenadier does really well – and some would say it’s at the expense of all else – it’s off-road driving. So when Ineos offered me the chance to take our Grenadier off the beaten track on one of the most spectacular off-road routes in the UK, the Strata Florida in mid-Wales, they didn’t have to ask me twice. Even driving the 260 or so miles to Wales didn’t put me off. Having already taken it on a mammoth motorway trek to Scotland over Christmas, I know that the second-best thing the Grenadier is good at is long-distance cruising. It’s where it manages its best fuel economy, too, although a return of around 24mpg isn’t anything to write home about. The Strata Florida (Latin…

SNOW foam is arguably the biggest revolution in car cleaning since the invention of the bucket. But not everyone can make the most of it, because they don’t have a pressure washer – or simply can’t be bothered with the hassle of using one. Research for Autoglym showed only 36 per cent of drivers who clean their own car always use a pressure washer, because they are time-consuming to set up or there’s no electricity supply. This led to the company launching the Polar Foam Sprayer. It works in a similar way to the devices used by gardeners, with a hand pump that compresses air to propel a liquid. “THE NEW SPRAYER WORKS IN A SIMILAR WAY TO THE DEVICES USED BY GARDENERS” Autoglym’s new sprayer has been specifically designed…

SINCE it arrived in 1998, the Ford Focus has been one of the best family hatchbacks you can buy – practical, with a wide variety of trim levels to suit every need and always fun to drive. However, as with the Fiesta and Mondeo in recent years, Ford has decided to pull the plug on the car, despite its success, and production will halt later this year. You might think the void left by the Focus means there’s nothing left for the traditional hatchback buyer – but here are some great five-doors, SUVs, fastback saloons and EVs for anyone looking to replace Ford’s big-selling favourite. 1 Volkswagen Golf Prices from £27,760 EVEN when the Ford Focus was dominating the new-car market, the Volkswagen Golf was never far behind, and the two…