Wheels -julkaisun May 2024 -irtonumeron sisällysluettelo

FINANCE EXPERTS ARE everywhere. You can’t move for genius advice. I was trawling the internet the other day in time-honoured work deferment mode and came across the 1/10th rule for car buying: “It’s simple: Spend no more than 10 percent of your gross annual income on the purchase price of a car.” Straight away you can probably see the problem with this one. Only seven percent of Australians would be able to afford a base Kia Picanto and you’d need to be in the top one percent of wage earners to be able to splash out on exotica like Toyota Corolla ZR hatch. Go on, you deserve it. Okay, so I’m being deliberately obtuse, but I’m guessing that we’ve all pulled up in the traffic next to someone in, say,…

So you’re across NVES – the Federal Government’s New Vehicle Efficiency Standard – and the debate, how Australia is the only country in the developed world besides Russia without a fuel efficiency mandate, and how the final proposed legislation was ultimately watered down at the behest of Australia’s new vehicle importers. But now that it’s set to be enshrined in law, how might NVES change the local new-car market in real terms? Will the cars you know and love disappear? What might replace them? From the outset, NVES as it stands will hit the local new-car market like a meteor. In just five short years, by 2029, the government has told new vehicle importers that the combined annual emissions of their new vehicle fleets must not exceed 58g CO2/km for…

IF YOU HADN’T noticed, electric cars are a thing. Three out of the five cover cars last month were electric. Editor Enright wrote about one of the greatest EVs to date in Upfront. So did Law in his monthly piece – as did I – while more than 40 additional pages of the magazine featured electric vehicles. Over the next 12 months, Australia will double the number of public EV chargers. Nearly 10 percent of all new vehicles sold in March were electric, with supply constraints preventing an even bigger number. The term ‘inevitable’ has never been better applied to the advent of EVs, yet the dawn of the electric era can be thanked for a wonderful irony that will delight petrolheads in the most literal sense. The arrival of mass-market…

The aesthetics of a product can never hope to make up for poor-quality technology.” You may well think that these words were spoken by an electronics engineer, but you’d be wrong. They were spoken by a car designer. Not just any car designer, but hall-of-famer Bruno Sacco – the head of Mercedes Styling Department who oversaw virtually every Mercedes-Benz shape over the last quarter of the 20th Century. If you know your Mercedes history, you’ll know that this covered classics like the W201 190, the W126 S-Class, and the W124 E-Class. It also included the car that we feature here, the R129-generation Mercedes-Benz SL. Sacco had no comprehension of form following function. Even in an era of technological upheaval, he knew that “there is no primacy of technology over design…

THE NEW-GENERATION Toyota C-HR compact SUV range is finally here, with the second-gen line-up going hybrid only. That plays to Toyota’s strengths, but in a number of ways, this product is a bit of a miss for the small SUV market. Pricing has increased by around 35 percent for the C-HR range, which essentially positions it in a different class to the first-generation model. Part of that is clearly down to improved spec and tech, but there’s probably a bit of scarcity costing added in there – the new C-HR is built in Turkey, and is only sold in Australia and Europe this time around. Even so, a base price of $42,990 plus on-road costs for a pretty basic C-HR GXL seems rich, while the Koba model – which shares…

BMW MAY HAVE defined the sports-sedan class decades ago, but it’s been left chasing Tesla in the electric-four-door stakes. The i4 arrived internationally in 2021, three years after Tesla’s Model 3 single-handedly revived interest in the sedan body style. It isn’t an all-new, ground-up creation, either, being based on a 3 Series platform – with a 4 Series Gran Coupe body thrown over the top. Aussie imports began in the second half of 2022 with eDrive40 and M50 xDrive models, which both required six-figure payouts from buyers. That made for good news at the start of this year when BMW Australia added a less powerful but more affordable variant, the eDrive35 that’s priced from $85,900 before added charges. By coincidence, that’s the exact price of the flagship Polestar 2 from…

WHEN HOLDEN MADE the decision to extend the Commodore nameplate to an Opel Insignia, there was a tangible sense of uncertainty in the air. Few beyond the confines of the head office were entirely convinced that a nameplate could seamlessly transition to a member of a different automotive lineage. In the same way, I’ve noticed that the Mustang Mach-E has gradually begun to shed its association with the “Mustang,” with many now simply referring to it as the Mach-E. It’s easy to tease out Ford’s thread of logic in that the Mustang Mach-E GT acts as an electric rendition of a muscle car. The problem is that those customers of traditional muscle cars are set to be the very last ICE holdouts, who would never countenance buying electric. So you can…

AS PISTONS AND spark plugs make way for synchronous electric motors and lithium-ion batteries, at least one constant could survive far into the electric performance-car age: rear-wheel drive. If it wasn’t for rear-wheel drive, we mightn’t pay much attention to the still relatively new, base-model Porsche Taycan. Outputs of 280kW and 357Nm from its lone electric motor look like that of a stick blender compared to pricier dual-motor models, yet the base could be the driver’s pick of the Taycan range in much the same way you might take a Toyota GR86 over aVolkswagen Golf R. Having absorbed its futuristic, amphibian-like exterior, the four-door liftback Taycan instals you low and ‘in’ the car, in classic sports-car fashion. Triple screens punctuate the leather-clad cabin and, when deactivated, hit home just how…

LIFTING THE PRICE ceiling beyond $80,000 for Part Two of our exhaustive Wheels Best EVs testing theoretically blows the field wide open – from Mercedes-Benz’s entire EQ line-up to the superb Porsche Taycan and splendiferous new Rolls-Royce Spectre. But we’ve approached our judging of this significant milestone in automotive evolution just like our time-honoured Car of the Year award – meaning we’ve focused on criteria such as ‘performance of intended function’ (which reinforces that this is not a direct comparison test) and, crucially, ‘value for money’. Which is where the Mercedes-Benz EQE/EQS SUVs ($135-$195K), Porsche Taycan ($175-$374K) and Rolls-Royce Spectre ($770K) begin to falter somewhat – especially against the hugely capable Kia EV9 7-seat SUV ($97-$121K) and game-changing Hyundai Ioniq 5 N ($111K). What sets the EV9 and Ioniq 5…

SOUND THE CANCELLATION klaxon because the Mercedes-Benz CLS has headed to destination discontinued. The CLS was always a bit of a thorny concept for some customers to wrap their heads around. The first generation C219 model, launched back in 2004, might have suggested that it was a coupe-shaped S-Class, but it rode on W211 E-Class underpinnings. What’s not quite so well known is that this car has Australian genes. Warragamba-born Peter Arcadipane, probably more famous for the Mad Max Interceptor (but also has the Mitsubishi Lancer and Mercedes-Benz SLK and M-Class models on his resume), drew up the original banana shape of the CLS, which was then worked up to a production reality by Michael Fink. Perhaps Mercedes itself required a bit more convincing around the CLS, because while it…

Keep it tight (no more than 200 words) and do include your suburb if via email: wheels@wheelsmag.com.au You can also have your say on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter (search for Wheels Australia) “The vehicle I hanker for is probably built around the turn of the century…” I RECENTLY had the misfortune to lose the keys to my car. It cost me nearly $2000 to get the key replaced and reprogrammed, during which time my car was a deadweight for two weeks. When I did start driving it again, I found myself increasingly disillusioned by its chorus of chimes, the touchscreen that is three years’ old and already out of date, and the constant chiding from the safety systems on the dashboard. Plus, I can’t even approach it with a spanner…

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LEXUS BREAKTHROUGH Crossover. That’s what the LBX badge on the back of this shapely new small SUV stands for. Coincidentally – following the LFA supercar – the 2024 LBX is only the second production Lexus to wear a three-letter badge. Where the LFA supercar was a chest-beating demonstration of the best ideas Lexus engineers had to offer, the LBX is a ‘breakthrough’ in the sense it represents a new entry point for the Japanese luxury brand. It also happens to be Akio Toyoda’s current daily driver. This hybrid-only SUV is based on a modified version of the Toyota Yaris Cross’s GA-B architecture, but that’s pretty much where the similarities end. The body panels are all new, with minimal overhangs and a sporty coupe-like stance (and just a hint of Mazda…

Here we are then: two of the top contenders in the highly competitive, and potentially highly profitable, luxury mid-size electric SUV class and neither of them is a dedicated, built-from-the-ground-up EV. That might be a surprise but it’s also an indicator of where this segment is at right now. Six years after Jaguar gave us the groundsheet I-Pace — and almost a decade since BMW gave us the even braver i3 and i8 — it’s clear this section of the market required a more cautious approach. Ease of transition has become the focus, and normalcy and familiarity are the key attractions. So you’ll find no wacky interiors here, nor any way-out exterior styling. That’s exactly the appeal. In fact, park both of these SUVs on a regular high street and…

ELECTRICITY and limousines are a match made in a bridal suite in a ludicrously expensive hotel. More than any other vehicle type, they’re truly meant for each other – a union built on silence, torque and enough real estate to comfortably accommodate all the complexities that make a great electric limousine an almost blissful experience. In saying that, the $100K-plus luxury car I’m referring to here is the BMW i7 – the fully electric version of the seventh generation (G70) 7 Series. As the first forward-thinking 7 Series design since Chris Bangle’s controversial E65 of 2001, it’s appropriate that Munich’s statement sedan happens to herald the debut of the limelight-stealing electric i7, and not just because it looks so damn imposing. It’s fascinating to comprehend the disparate approaches taken by…

I’VE DRIVEN 102KM along the freeway from work and I’ve consumed over 50 percent of the Abarth’s battery. That right there will tell you why people who love driving won’t buy this car. Because the Abarth’s tiny 37.3kWh useable battery won’t let you do a great deal of it. I get it. There’s a place for small cars with small batteries and that place is in the city. There you can quite happily zip about in what will likely be a second or third car, not particularly worried that this Turismo trim level costs a smidge under 60 grand, nor that the 18-inch wheels rob around 11km of range over the 17-inch items our European cousins get. It’s hard to be sour about for long though. There’s so much to make…

GAME CHANGER. Horribly overused, isn’t it? But as I tip the Hyundai Ioniq 5 N into another corner at Haunted Hills and once again feel it transition smoothly into an easily controlled drift, it’s hard to think of a better term for this overgrown Korean hatchback. An EV built for keen drivers that’s fast and genuinely fun? If this isn’t the performance-car world’s iPod moment, I’ll be shocked. Let’s take stock: what we have here is an electric car that can seat five in comfort yet has more power than a McLaren F1. It has also been deliberately engineered to feel, and sound, like a petrol car. It even has ‘gears’ and will happily smash into a fake rev limiter, arbitrarily chosen at 8000rpm, if you forget to pull the upshift…

IT’S WHEELS trivia-night time! What does the secondgenerationVolvo XC90 have in common with the likes of I a 2002 Ford BA Falcon, 2004 VW Golf Mk5, 2007 Hyundai FD i30, 2008 Jaguar XF, 2010 Kia Sportage, and 2017 Toyota C-HR? I’ll avoid making you read the answer upside-down at the bottom of this page. The XC90 started a product renaissance for its brand. In 2015, the successor to Volvo’s first ever SUV heralded a completely new Volvo design language – while also, not insignificantly, introducing the company’s SPA scalable largecar platform, along with drivetrains limited to four cylinders. The XC90’s elegant yet muscular styling led to equally successful reboots of Volvo’s sedans and wagons, the second-generation XC60 midsize SUV, and the first ever XC40 compact SUV. In just a few…

DO YOU DRIVE a ‘best in class’ car? By that, I mean was your everyday driver widely acknowledged as the best car available in its category when you bought it? I’m prepared to bet that most of you don’t and I love you for that. Wheels’ foundation is built on the mercilessly meritocratic foundation of the comparison test but it remains the case that if everybody’s purchasing decision was purely and absolutely rational, the world would be a wholly monotonous place. Every time you see a quirky and interesting car go the other way down the road, someone walked into a dealership and bought a car that they found interesting or which fit their individual circumstances. I’ve been pondering this behaviour a great deal while running this Ford Mach-E, because…

AS PORSCHE reveals its most powerful EV yet, the firm is preparing to electrifyits longest-standing model line, the 911, with a hybrid due to join the line-up as part of a heavily updated 2025 car. Nearing the end of its two-year development program, the 992.2-generation 911 receives a host of mid-life revisions, including subtly altered exterior styling, a reworked interior and updated six-cylinder petrol engines. The changes are intended to sustain the 911’s appeal through to 2027, when an all-new ninth-generation A 48V model will join the increasingly electrified Porsche line-up. The most significant change to the 911 in its sixth decade of production, however, is the adoption of a unique petrol-electric hybrid system. Set to appear in a new four-wheeldrive model being revealed mid-year, it combines a tuned version…

IF SOMEONE proposed burning a known toxic substance and letting the resultant gases waft down our most densely populated streets, I reckon you’d be quietly shuffling them into a padded room. Yet not only did that happen for decades, but once we knew there was a problem, there was a perplexing resistance to stopping it. “It took two years to put lead into gasoline and 60 years to take it out,” said the late Herbert Needleman, a leading researcher of lead poisoning. And the parallels between the disbanding of leaded petrol in Australia, and the Federal Government’s NewVehicle Efficiency Standard, or NVES, are too humorous to ignore. NVES, as we’ve explained elsewhere in this issue, is about grabbing first gear on the road towards phasing out fossil-fuelled engines, a very sad…

THIS IS THE NEW 2024 Volkswagen Passat? It certainly is, although we wouldn’t blame you for feeling a mite underwhelmed. Where the outgoing, eighth-generation Passat was a chiselled thing – and charmingly rugged in Alltrack spec – this new car lacks visual clout. The Skoda Superb was always reasonably related to the Passat, but while the latest versions of each again share a platform and powertrains, they now also share much of their bodywork. And that’s robbed this car of some individuality. Still, its curvier lines have a noble cause – a newly slippery 0.25 drag coefficient whips its predecessor’s 0.31Cd into shape and nudges the humble petrol-powered ninth-gen Passat towards EV territory. The primary aim here isn’t a gargantuan range figure but rather optimum hush and refinement inside. Many…

PEOPLE KEEP interrupting us. One minute it’s a kid in a Peter Brock T-shirt with his father wearing the same PB team colours; the next it’s a young woman walking her dog who wants to take a look inside what may just be the ultimate shed in Australia. There are words spoken – a language if you will – they’ve brought in off the street. Rolling off the tongue are terms like ‘Salamanca Red’, NASCO, ‘Radial Tuned Suspension’ and ‘grey motor’, with ‘179’, X2, G-Pak, ‘253’ and ‘Starfire’ all being uttered. Names like Hartnett, Hanenberger, Zmood and Simcoe are flanked by Purnell, Suttons and Zupps, and of course James Alexander Holden – the bearded bloke from England who started a saddlery in Adelaide in 1856. Everyone who walks in –…

THE REALM OF the large electric SUV began in Australia with the Tesla Model X back in 2016, though it took another seven years for this burgeoning vehicle type to finally trickle down to the mainstream … in the form of Kia’s largest, most expensive vehicle ever produced – the EV9 seven-seat electric SUV. The Model X has since been discontinued here but several premium-brand German contenders have appeared in its place – namely Audi’s E-Tron SUV and Sportback (now re-branded Audi Q8 e-tron as of late 2023), BMW’s flagship iX electric SUV, and Mercedes-Benz’s EQE and EQS SUV siblings. The EQE is a five-seater; the EQS an extended-wheelbase seven-seater – making the EQS SUV the only direct packaging rival to the Kia EV9 on the Australian market. As you…

CAUTIOUSLY OPTIMISTIC. That’s how I’d describe the mood among the Wheels road testing team as we arrive at our meeting spot on the outskirts of Moe in southern Victoria. It’s drizzling and three of the four charging stations we need to use before we can hit the track are broken, yet there’s a fizz of excitement rippling through the team. A group of electric cars pitched at keen drivers? It feels like we’ve been waiting years for this. Inevitably, each car cops an appraising eye as it rolls into the carpark. The Porsche gets some knowing nods, the Audi turns heads like a Milanese catwalk model, and if we could have squeezed the cheeks on the impossibly cute Abarth 500e, we would have. The Mustang Mach E gets a more…

IF THIS WAS a beauty contest, the Audi RS e-tron GT would have won the instant it rolled through the gates at Haunted Hills. Long, low and wide, with coke-bottle hips and a bonnet the size of a tennis court, Audi’s top-tier electron-burner is a flagship that looks like a spaceship, and one that compelled all who gazed at it to profess their love for it, unprompted. But aesthetic appeal doesn’t mean athletic appeal, and the Audi has some factors working against it. For one, its size. It measures a smidge under five metres long and is three centimetres wider than a 300 Series LandCruiser, and that can make for some nervousness when threading through traffic or trying to squeeze into a tight charging station. It’s a dense thing, too, with…

IT’S SAID THAT comparisons can be odious. We’d beg to differ, as this one was utterly absorbing. The Hyundai Ioniq 5 N came in as the pre-match favourite, and while it certainly lived up to its big billing, there were other highlights along the way that made this anything but a steamrollering for the much-hyped Korean. It may well be five years old now, but the Porsche Taycan stood up well. Really well. It’s worth considering that there are people who might have aged out of the Hyundai’s overt nature and are looking for something a little less shouty who would willingly pay the premium for the Taycan. While Porsche’s sales figures might seem to suggest that these people are a bit thinner on the ground than we’d like to think,…

JUST LIKE the hand-held devices that have become the bane of our existence when there’s a pedestrian glued to them, the electric MG 4 requires software updates. Perhaps ‘requires’ is being a bit dramatic because if everything was perfect, it wouldn’t need them. But having that capability allows the factory to upgrade and finesse this EV’s multitude of electronic systems for “a more optimal driving experience for all owners” (the company’s words). The MG 4’s software update covered its forward collision warning and AEB performance – particularly for when the car is turning across traffic from the centre of the road while another car is doing the same in the opposite direction. Apparently, customers found the AEB overly eager to activate in situations where it wasn’t warranted, so the sensitivity…