Indice dei contenuti per May 18, 2022 in Autocar

The transition to electric cars can’t be forced to go any faster, Volkswagen Group CEO Herbert Diess has cautioned. Speaking at the Financial Times’ Future of the Car summit last week, Diess set out ambitions for 7-8% of the Volkswagen Group’s sales to be electric this year, rising to 25% by 2025 and 50-60% by 2030. He highlighted that the issue with growing faster isn’t due to demand but about creating the infrastructure to support the manufacture and operation of EVs. “Everything will be there for growth, but it takes huge investment and time to achieve,” said Diess. “We need the correct plants to be modified or built, the battery production capacity to be available and to build a secure, sustainable supply chain. “The customer needs the correct infrastructure to…

THE BMW 3 SERIES has been updated inside and out, a little over three years since arriving in dealerships, in a bid to fend off Mercedes’ newer C-Class. Accounting for a huge 14% of BMW’s global sales, the crucial G20-generation 3 Series will remain on sale in this freshfaced guise until around 2025, when the firm is expected to usher in a similarly positioned EV saloon as the first model atop its radical new Neue Klasse architecture. For now, the 3 Series is largely mechanically unaltered, continuing with a choice of pure petrol, diesel (now with 48V mild-hybrid functionality) and petrol-electric plug-in hybrid powertrains, ranging in outputs from 182bhp in the entry 320i to 369bhp in the warmed-up M340i, and with the option of four-wheel drive. The previous entry-level models,…

RECYCLING AS MUCH of a car as possible when it, or parts of it, reach the end of life has been a priority for years now, but a surprisingly awkward material to recycle is a car’s windscreen. A new, one-year pilot project between Audi and a number of partners from the glass manufacturing business is expected to change that, but the task isn’t quite as simple as it sounds. The main ingredient of glass is silica sand, melted down with a few other additives. Until now, recycled automotive windscreen glass has only been fit for making bottles and not been of high enough quality to meet the safety requirements needed for car windscreens. A windscreen is laminated, a sandwich with glass taking the place of bread and polymer the filling,…

Luca de Meo, CEO, Renault Group • “If you look at the data, it is apparent that combustionengine sales – including hybrids – have yet to reach their peak.” • “We see price parity [between combustionengined models and electric vehicles] around 2025, but now that might have moved because of raw material inflation.” • “We will invest in future technology, of course, but we should consider too the impact of cutting off investment in what we are developing today.” Elon Musk, CEO, Tesla • “New companies are jumping in at the deep end – trying to create a highvolume vehicle when they’ve never made a vehicle before. This is like not practising an athletic sport and then going to the Olympics – you’re not going to win.” • “The current lead…

The no-nonsense Ineos Grenadier is a very different SUV to launch in today’s era of electrification and sustainability, so appropriately the company is planning a different type of dealership network to sell and maintain the rough, tough 4x4. In place of a network of identikit stand-alone dealers, Ineos Automotive is blending agricultural equipment franchisees and specialist used operators with a core of established OEM car dealers into a cohesive network, whose 24 UK sales, parts and service sites were revealed last month. The mix of locations is striking, with a rural emphasis reflecting the appeal of a car designed for living its life in farmyards and country lanes rather than supermarket car parks and motorways. Big cities like Birmingham, Edinburgh and Nottingham are on the list. Yet Greater London, with…

A RECORD NUMBER of used electric vehicles were bought in the first quarter of this year, with sales more than double that of the same period in 2021. Figures released by the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders showed that 14,586 used EVs were sold, up from 6625 in the first quarter of 2021, with further increases also seen across the wider, combustionengined used car market. The SMMT said the rise in second-hand sales could partly be attributed to the ongoing global shortage of semiconductors, which is hitting new car production and pushing buyers to buy used. CEO Mike Hawes added: “With the new car market hampered by ongoing global supply shortages, growth in the used car market is welcome, if unsurprising, especially given we were in lockdown last year.…

Despite BMW M division’s lofty standing, it has only ever made one truly stand-alone production model: the M1. The low-slung 3.5-litre six-cylinder mid-engined supercar was built in a limited run of 453 between 1978 and 1981. Over the years, many concepts have hinted at a modern-day resurrection of the M1. But in a sign of just how diversified the BMW M line-up has become, and perhaps an even more pointed indication of where its future focus lies, it has followed up its original supercar with the car you see here in prototype form ahead of a planned launch in March next year: the new XM. Initially previewed in concept guise in November last year, the XM is based on the recently facelifted X7, alongside which it is set to begin…

This, if you like, is peak Volkswagen: a sharp but sensible people mover with subtle stylistic nods to its predecessors, a boatload of standard equipment and an array of variants to cater cost-effectively to wildly different demographics. On moving from generation six (T6) to seven (T7), the Caravelle becomes the Multivan, arriving just as VW prepares to welcome the similarly positioned but all-electric ID Buzz into showrooms and the new Ford E-Transit Custom looks to provide the innards of the next generation of the more commercially minded Transporter. Unlike them, the Multivan uses a much more familiar platform: the faithful MQB architecture, which over the past decade has proved its worth as a refined and well-rounded basis for everything from the Audi A3 to the Skoda Superb and Cupra Formentor.…

MODEL TESTED 300 AMG LINE PREMIUM 4MATIC Price £56,610 Power 225bhp Torque 273lb ft 0-60mph 7.7sec 30-70mph in fourth na Economy 3.0mpkWh CO2 emissions 0g/km 70-0mph 47.3m Anyone with a big family to transport and a will to do that in an electric car has faced quite a stark choice thus far when it comes to zeroemission seven-seaters. Tesla will sell you a Model X with either six or seven seats. Peugeot, Citroën and Vauxhall, meanwhile, each added an extendedwheelbase version of their electrically powered, passenger-market-intended Partner, Berlingo and Combo models in 2021. The first option is a luxury SUV priced from £90,000. The other is a van-derived MPV. Nothing in the market for electric vehicles stays the same for long at the moment, though, and so now there’s a third…

POLESTAR 1 Peak power 591bhp Motor power 114bhp (two at rear) Kerb weight 2350kg Platform Volvo SPA (2014) Polestar’s breakthrough model, a plug-in hybrid grand tourer, features two independent electric motors at the rear axle, but its handling is typically Scandinavian-feeling: planted, stable and pragmatic. AUDI E-TRON S SPORTBACK Peak power 496bhp Motor power 185bhp (two at rear) Kerb weight 2620kg Platform Volkswagen Group MLB Evo (2015) Audi’s tri-motor electric SUV is a real heavyweight, but it has rear motors potent enough to manipulate its mass keenly – on low-grip surfaces, at least. On dry asphalt, the effect is less pronounced. HONDA NSX Peak power 573bhp Motor power 36bhp (two at front) Kerb weight 1759kg Platform Bespoke (2016) The second-generation NSX used its hybrid technology only lightly, with a small, light battery…

A nother nail was hammered into the coffin of old dieselengined London taxis in November last year when their maximum permitted age for operation in the capital was reduced by one year to 13 years. To encourage wider take-up of cleaner alternatives, including zero-emissions-capable vehicles, Transport for London offers a grant to owners to take their older diesel taxis off the road and another grant towards the purchase of a new LEVC TX range extender or suchlike. These grants and the age restrictions first introduced in 2018 are achieving their desired objective, since around a third of London taxis are now zero-emissions capable. However, that’s one-third of not a lot. While TfL has been changing the type of taxis that Londoners travel in, Covid and the city’s Streetspace plan…

We took the XJ220 to Wales with a Ferrari 512TR in tow for benchmarking purposes. A nice couple turned up on our first location and expressed an interest in the car, then followed us to the next, on the Brecon Beacons’ Black Mountain. At sunset, we offered them a ride over the mountain in both cars in the hope they might then leave us alone. This we did, pretty much as fast as we could make the cars safely go. When we were done, the husband thanked us profusely and said he had to go to work. What work was that, requiring such a late start, we enquired. “I’m a traffic cop, working nights,” he replied. The next day, we headed to Millbrook, en route to which one of us…

FIRST UK TEST New Range Rover driven Steve Cropley heads on and off road in the all-new, fifth-generation Range Rover on home turf for the first time FEATURE Secret warehouse McLaren has the most extraordinary F1 car collection hidden from public view INTERVIEW Vincent Cobée We spend a day in Paris with the Citroën boss and learn of his exciting future plans EVERY WEEK ROAD TEST Peugeot 308 New hatchback has impressed us to date. Now it gets the full eight pages FIRST DRIVE BMW iX M60 M division has turned its hand to an electric SUV for the first time SUBSCRIBE autocar.co.uk/subscribe or see p22…

MILEAGE 8995 WHY WE’RE RUNNING IT To keep tabs on the career of Skoda’s popular seven-seat SUV Lots of people would look at a car like our Skoda Kodiaq, see a sizeable SUV and imagine that it could probably carry enough cargo and equipment to meet any daily requirement. That’s no doubt why SUVs sell so well, even to people who don’t actually have those needs but simply want to be ready for the day when they might. I guess I’m a bit different, but then my last long-termer but one was a Ford Tourneo van with an extra row of seats. My weekends often involve friends, tents, beaches, mountains and mountain bikes. It’s the kind of lifestyle that a crew van takes to naturally but can actually be a…

It’s sad to think that a whole generation will have grown up without the foggiest notion of how great Citroëns once were. If that sounds damning to the latest cars, note that I don’t mean great as in great for novices to buy and run on a budget or cheap enough for family men anxious to get a large and trendy new SUV to lease or buy. No, I mean great as in innovative, radical, revolutionary, intelligent, stylish, charming and just a little dashing, appealing to the intellect as well as to the heart, just as most of those post-war Citroëns were. Alas, Brits have always flocked to big Citroëns like a politician to a lie-detector test, largely due to the questions over their complexity and the reliability and depreciation…

“The ID 4 saloon will join an expanded mid-range line-up to provide competition to Tesla” The next phase of Volkswagen’s radical ‘New Auto’ electric vehicle strategy will bring to market a direct rival to the Tesla Model 3, insiders at the German car maker have revealed. The five-door liftback-style saloon, known internally as Project Trinity, is planned to take the ID 4 name in 2026, setting up a naming policy that will see future Volkswagen models grouped together under individual model lines dependent on size. The ID 4 saloon will join a facelifted version of the current ID 4 SUV in an expanded mid-range line-up that has been conceived to provide competition to the Model 3 and its sister model, the Model Y. Volkswagen’s new electric saloon will offer the…

Aston Martin has begun deliveries of the Valkyrie AMR Pro – the trackonly version of the V12-powered hypercar that the company says offers an equivalent level of performance to a top-flight race car. While the Valkyrie project has gone well beyond its original timescale, and the Formula 1 connection between Aston Martin and Red Bull Racing that underpinned it has since been dissolved, Aston Martin says it is on track to deliver more than 75 examples of the road-going Valkyrie and the track-only AMR Pro to customers this year. At the Miami Grand Prix, Aston Martin creative director Marek Reichman took Autocar through the changes that mark the AMR Pro out from the ‘regular’ Valkyrie. As well as a longer wheelbase, the trackonly car has a different tub with even…

Morgan’s new CEO, Massimo Fumarola, has told Autocar about the priorities for his “exciting” new job, in an exclusive interview at the firm’s flagship UK dealership in Kensington, London, just three weeks after moving over from his role as Lamborghini’s special projects boss. Number one will be to “steadfastly” maintain Morgan’s authenticity and amplify the marque’s unique values and attributes. This, he said, is the essence, but the Morgan ethos also needs wider circulation. Number two will be to take all opportunities for the company to grow, and create more of them, without harming its natural assets. “Heritage isn’t insurance,” he said. “You must have good plans for your future.” Morgan currently makes around 800 cars per year, and it sold a stellar 680 last year even with the 3…

Mercedes-Benz CEO Ola Källenius has given the clearest indication yet that the futures of smaller models, such as the Mercedes-Benz A-Class, are under debate. Talking at the Financial Times’ Future of the Car Summit last week, he said: “It’s not our goal to be a competitor of the volume producers. That’s not what the Mercedes-Benz brand stands for. So stay tuned as far as our product portfolio is concerned. But we would rather be looking up than down.” Sales volumes of Mercedes’ smaller vehicles have been constrained in recent times as the firm has prioritised semiconductor supplies for more profitable models. Without specifying the conclusions, Källenius confirmed that the high profitability of the company during this period had provided valuable operational insights. “Even before the supply constraints started, we had…

SPOILED FOR CHOICE Have you ever wavered on buying a new car because it isn’t offered with 18k goldplated organ stops? Step forward Bentley, which is building on the surge in popularity of options from its Mulliner personalisation division (around three cars built per day feature bespoke requests) with new options to choose from. Alongside the 1920sinspired gold dashboard decorations, Bentley customers can now also specify new types of openpore veneer – coated in just 0.1mm of lacquer – for the interior trim and a selection of new colour-matched wheels. With an already vast array of options on the book, Bentley says there are now 17 billion ways to specify a Continental GT. DON’T BITE THE HAND Car manufacturers have a huge job ahead to ensure customers aren’t priced out…

“When Ineos came along, we were very quick to link into them. We have lots of customers who are ex-Defender and we have a lot of clients looking for a rugged replacement for that vehicle,” said Justin Nichols, managing director of Compass Tractors. “The Grenadier is the boss’s car, while pick-ups are the working vehicles.” Compass stepped into vehicle sales three years ago, adding an Isuzu dealership to its site close to junction 24 of the M5. “When we’re at full chat with the full range of Grenadiers, we’ll probably be doing about 200 a year,” he added. “That’s more than we’ll do Isuzus.” In a typical year, Compass does £35 million of business – about three times the size of an average OEM car dealer – from sales of…

JAMIE CHADWICK’S BID for a hat-trick of W Series titles got off to a perfect start with a double victory in Miami, where the female-only Formula 3 championship supported the Formula 1 grand prix. Chadwick took the lead off the line in race one when Nerea Marti fluffed her start from pole position. In a race featuring two safety car interludes and a red flag, Emma Kimiläinen passed Chadwick with a great move at Turn 11, but as the drivers faced a one-lap shootout after the latter safety car, the Finn overshot Turn 1 and gifted victory to her British rival. The following day, Chadwick claimed her fourth W Series win in succession (including the double-header in Austin that ended the 2021 season) with a lights-to-flag victory in her first…

What if we told you there was a new hot hatch with compact exterior dimensions but powered by a 204bhp 2.0-litre engine? The Ford Fiesta ST and Hyundai i20 N make do with 1.5 and 1.6-litre engines respectively, so a big lump in a supermini makes for a bit of a hot rod these days. As you will have surmised from the title, that car is the Volkswagen Polo GTI, and it’s been around for a few years. And yet the Ford and Hyundai, and to a lesser extent the Mini Cooper S, get all the limelight. The main reason is that the others are simply more exciting to drive. The Polo has just been facelifted, with few mechanical changes, so it’s no surprise that the GTI still can’t touch…

All electric motors, you might well think, are endearingly simple, cylindrical, sausageshaped and similar in weight and efficiency. They have few moving parts and are much smaller than the combustion engines that they are busy replacing in the world’s cars. Official figures say they make great use of energy, too, producing efficiency figures heading towards 90%. That sounds great, given that the latest and best petrol and diesel engines are well south of 40%. The truth is less simple. Most current EVs do indeed use sausageshaped radial-flux motor technology, but in the past few years, a radically different, British-developed, dogin-the-manger design called Yasa has emerged – an axial-flux electric motor in a disc-shaped layout that’s more efficient and much lighter. Yasa (standing for yokeless and segmented armature) motor design has…

Prices for ratty FX4 Fairways start at around £600, although we found one converted into a pirate ship for just £200. Those in good condition are rare, which is why one seller is asking £5000 for his pristine example. The later TXII is also cheap, with good ones peaking at around £2000. Prices start at around £500 for cabs a bit older than TfL’s 13-year age limit and with around 400,000 miles, rising to as much as £25,000. The sweet spot is around £5000 for a 10-year-old one with 180,000 miles. Still, that only gives you a couple of years cabbying before it can no longer be used in the capital. On that point, if cabbying rather than converting is your aim, check the paperwork before buying, since there have…

I missed the boat The press has written a lot about the UK launch of the Toyota GR86, with it selling out in 90 minutes etc, but I’m not sure I would call it a success, as a frustrated potential buyer. In the pre-launch notifications sent from Toyota GB to the dealerships, there was no mention of a limit of 400 units for the initial batch and entire 2022-24 allocation. Dealers have been confirming there will be production based on orders so there would be time to view the demonstrators in June and place an order, rather than a fixed quantity. Now there will be demo cars in June and no production!? Dealers have been pumping up the excitement only to be let down at the last minute by Toyota…

The best way to beat inflation INFLATION IS HURTING us all right now, but thank goodness it isn’t stagflation, as Britain suffered in the early 1970s: a soaring cost of living and economic stagnation. This meant that by 1972, even the Ford Escort cost a “remarkably high” £802 (although that’s equal to just £8062 in modern money). The time was therefore ripe for us to compare the four cheapest cars on sale: the Citroën Dyane (£637), Fiat 500 (£531), Honda N600 (£637) and Hillman Imp (£642). The Fiat was painfully slow, reaching 60mph a minute late, at 83.2sec, despite being no more frugal, each car doing about 125 miles per £1 of petrol (78p a litre). Nevertheless, “if you really want smallness in size and price, the Fiat wins over…

MILEAGE 2750 WHY WE’RE RUNNING IT To learn if a sporty crossover can ever be as rewarding to own as a hot hatch Life begins at 40, so say those in the know. They’re talking about the acceptance of the inevitable ageing process, of course, and the notion that existence isn’t futile beyond your nightclub years. But it’s a cliché that you might also use to describe the paradox that blights owning a driver’s car. Yes, fast is fun, and so are all the sensory pleasures that come with the accumulation of pace on the road, but when the highest legal speed you can achieve off track in the UK is 70mph (and less than that on the twistier roads at our disposal), where can you have all this fun?…

An expert’s view ROB MOSS, C6 SPECIALIST, THE CHEVRONIC CENTRE “I love C6s, but they’re trouble and cost you a lot to maintain. There are lots of things to go wrong. I had a C6 when they were new. It was only two years old when I got it, but it spent a lot of time in the workshop. The main problem is the hydraulic pipes are no longer available, and they leaked even when they were new. Most Citroën hydropneumatic systems are pretty reliable, but these were more specialist. C6s are beautifully designed and made, though.” Buyer beware… ■ ENGINE Servicing for the 2.7-litre V6 will cost about £150 for an interim service, £320 for a full two-yearly service. Timing belts and tensioners should be changed every 100,000 miles…

WE CAN ALL appreciate the success of the Ford Fiesta ST. The go-faster supermini has been around for 18 years and each and every version of it has been nothing short of excellent. Often regarded as the class leader for small hot hatches, even in its standard guise, the Fiesta ST received one of its most mouth-watering makeovers in 2016 with the arrival of the ST200. Limited to just 400 units, the ST200 was a special special. Marked out by bespoke Storm Grey exterior paint, it benefited from a host of mechanical upgrades. The ST200 was driven by the same 1.6-litre four-cylinder turbocharged petrol engine as the standard ST, but power was uprated to 197bhp (or 200PS, hence the ST200 badge). It could reach a maximum output of 212bhp with…

VOLKSWAGEN WILL launch the ID 4 saloon as a slick technological showpiece aimed at stealing sales from the most popular electric cars on the market, but at the other end of the line-up the brand is set to unveil a compact urban EV priced at around the £17,000 mark. The German car maker gave a hint of what to expect from its most affordable EV with the quirky ID Life concept at last year’s Munich motor show, but a new preview image suggests the design team have gone back to the drawing board to give the production version a stronger visual link to the ID 4 saloon, which will go on sale at around the same time. Earlier this year, it was reported that Volkswagen designers were seeking to give…

The AMR Pro starts rolling under pure electric power, the V12 starting with a bang when the car gets up to around 15mph. There’s a brief chance to experience some low-rev buzz as we rumble out of the pit lane, but from that point onwards it spends the entire four-lap stint in close proximity to its 11,000rpm redline. The noise is predictably savage, even through a close-fitting helmet, but there is less vibration than I remember from riding in the regular car in 2021. Performance is huge, but it doesn’t feel impossibly so. Fully lit, Aston says the Valkyrie Pro can generate more than 2G of linear acceleration, but the fact those forces are pushing me back into the seat diminishes them relative to the much more violent loadings I…

The Morgan future that Steve Morris and Massimo Fumarola are busy designing seems likely to include the rule-changing ‘new era’ model whose sketchy details were revealed four years ago. Conceived by a design team led by Jon Wells, the car aims to move Morgan’s design influence forward about 20 years to the 1960s Jaguar E-Type era. When details first emerged, the car was set to use the aluminium CX platform and independent suspension under today’s Plus Four and Plus Six. It was to appear around 2025, priced close to an Aston V8 Vantage. Times have changed, however. A more likely scenario would be for the car to appear as an EV, allowing a new pricing structure to cater for the probable high cost of its battery. For now, Morgan is…

On the other hand, Ola Källenius committed to Mercedes’ future in Formula 1, even if the sport doesn’t mirror the road car division’s move towards selling only electric cars from 2030. “The next powertrain regulations that we will have will put much more significance on the electrical side,” he said. “There is a clear commitment to making Formula 1 CO2-neutral. “We are not yet at a point where you can run a race like we had in Abu Dhabi with the energy from a battery only. A sport like Formula 1 needs to put on a show, so the path has to be one of decarbonisation. The battery technology is not there yet.”…

If you own an electric vehicle, there’s a good chance you’re enjoying the extra range that springtime weather brings over winter. With temperatures regularly now in the high teens, I’m getting a good 10% more distance between charges from the Polestar 2 I’m running than I was two chillier months ago. EVs are, in a way, victims of their own thermal efficiency. An internally combusted car’s range doesn’t vary like this because an engine generates so much heat and noise that its power is almost a by-product. There’s heat going spare so it’s easy for it to get itself into its most efficient – or least inefficient – state. Not so much with an EV. They get so much out of every drop of energy you put into them –…

Typically, new entrants to the car industry prefer to sidestep dealers as a way of saving costs; a comprehensive distribution system can be 40% of the initial outlay. Tesla went straight to direct sales, as has Polestar. Both sell EVs, which don’t need regular oil-change servicing. But Polestar can fall back on sister company Volvo’s dealer network for repair back-up. Genesis launched in the UK last year also with direct sales, uniquely for the UK/EU. Sales are online-only with servicing centralised at a hub in Bicester. Customer cars and guaranteed courtesy vehicles are trucked back and forth in covered transporters. “This model is being looked at very closely for other territories,” said Genesis.…

TUESDAY The biggest night of the year for us, presenting this year’s Autocar Awards at a glitzy suits-andrubber-chicken dinner for 250 in the Silverstone Wing. People talk so often nowadays about being ‘humbled’ by stuff that I’ve come to hate the phrase, but we were all truly taken aback by the generosity of the industry’s response to our invitation: the great and good (who fend off many such approaches) came in large numbers to support our wonderful 127-year-old organ. However, a prominent no-show was our Issigonis Trophy winner, Mate Rimac, leader of his eponymous company and now also of Bugatti. He rang on the morning of the event to say he was ill and wouldn’t be able to catch the London flight he’d arranged. But even before rushing off for…

“Even the cheapest variant can do a strong 406 miles between charges” Real physical pain is never more than just a toe curl away in the electric super-saloons of today, and the 1111bhp Lucid Air Dream Edition Performance is no exception. With the car meting out 1025lb ft of torque from its two electric motors, your tendons, ligaments, muscles and joints don’t stand much chance against the tidal wave of force that sends them from 0-60mph in 2.4sec. Of course, all of this is a necessary business when a car needs to make an impression alongside competition such as the Bugatti-humbling Tesla Model S Plaid. And make an impact the Air does, because in addition to producing comparable power to that Tesla, the newcomer can cover up to 520 miles…

Unless you’re familiar with the rapidly growing Chinese EV market, the chances are that you’ve not yet heard of Voyah. But despite being formed less than two years ago, this premium subsidiary of Dongfeng Motors has announced its entry into Europe this year, starting with Norway. Its first model, this mid-size SUV called the Free, will spearhead its entry, aiming to set the tone for a range that will gain a full-size MPV and a saloon in the coming years. Aimed squarely at the Li One and (also Euro-bound) Nio ES6 in China, the Free is also confidently taking on Germany’s finest, such as the BMW iX3 and Mercedes-Benz EQC. Key to Voyah’s success will be its focus on electrified drivetrains. The Free is available as a conventional EV or…

It’s a simplistic notion, but when any manufacturer bringing a new EV to market in these past five or 10 years has mentioned fully asymmetrical torque vectoring, only one thought has entered this road tester’s mind: tank tracks. Why shouldn’t a car with no joined driveshafts or differentials, which can drive opposing wheels in opposite directions, be able to spin 360deg on the spot? And why shouldn’t it handle in a totally transformative way? Surely a car that can deliver any torque load to any wheel in either direction ought to rip up the rule book on vehicle dynamics? It turns out there are many reasons. Good, understandable reasons – some of which apply to the current generation of EVs but might not to the next one or the one…

Want to own an example of that extraordinary breed of supercars that time after time broke all performance records in a 10-year spell from the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s? I’m afraid they’re all gone: any decent Ferrari 288 GTO, F40 or F50, Porsche 959, Bugatti EB110 or McLaren F1 now requires a seven-digit investment. Apart from one. Despite being built in similarly microscopic numbers to the GTO and 959, despite being as quick or quicker than any save the F1, despite class-winning Le Mans heritage and despite being one of the most drop-dead gorgeous cars ever created, a Jaguar XJ220 can be bought today for around £400,000. A lot, I grant, but a fraction of what’s required to secure any of the others. It’s hard to believe it’s 30 years…

Car-crash repair has never been cheap, but back in my day, a bent bumper or wing was reasonably affordable to mend. Then came airbags – a great invention, for sure, but their triggering in an accident, bursting open dashboards, deploying side curtain bags, sent many slightly damaged cars to breakers’ yards. Now with the advent of multifarious driving aids and sensors sited (unprotected) in the noses of cars (the Mercedes-Benz S-Class and Audi EVs to name a few), I fear that any frontal shunt will render the car uneconomical to repair and thus hasten the demise of an otherwise easy-to-repair car. It seems crazy that the horribly expensive nerve centre of the car remains so exposed and susceptible to damage, where even a car park prang could spell the end…

The Q2, Audi’s smallest compact crossover, has been knocking about for some time now. It first went on sale in 2016 as the new entry point into the German firm’s SUV model range. The good news for second-hand buyers is that this has given prices plenty of time to fall, in some cases to about half the original asking price. Equally enticing, the Q2 is excellent to drive, both in town and on the motorway, and it comes with a wide array of equipment. All of which makes it a shrewd choice for used buyers. If you’re drawn by its exterior design, you’ll probably like the cabin, too. Based on the A3’s, it is a tidier offering than the Mini Countryman’s and is a class above the Nissan Juke’s and…

No other type of car spawns so many could-have, would-have and shouldhave conversations as the supercar. Some don’t make it to production for lack of investment, while others are doomed due to a shortfall in styling or engineering. Here, we’ve gathered together the most promising supercars that might have been but never were for a variety of reasons. Jaguar C-X75 2010 Jaguar has a history of stealing the motor-show limelight, and it did just that when unveiling the C-X75 in Paris in 2010. Every inch the contemporary supercar, it also predicted the trend towards electrification, using a motor for each wheel and small gas turbine engines as range extenders, giving a 200mph top speed and 31-mile electric-only range. Developed with the Williams Formula 1 team, the C-X75 looked set to…