Table of contents for March 05, 2025 in Autocar

“I DON’T THINK you can plan to be the most talked-about brand on the planet…” says Jaguar boss Rawdon Glover, as he recalls those few days late last year after Jaguar’s rebranding, which must have left him reaching for his phone’s mute button. Ultimately, “the strategy played out” because the rebranding was designed to increase interest in the concept car that was soon to be unveiled. “You do a tease phase to ultimately get more eyeballs on the real thing”, says Glover, and Jaguar certainly did that. Yet he admits: “On a personal level, it took everybody a little bit by surprise in just how much commentary, how much debate, how much engagement there was on that.” It was not all positive – quite the opposite – and there “was…

TOYOTA WILL REVEAL a new EV on 11 March, expected to be the production version of 2022’s bZ Compact Crossover concept. It will be Toyota’s third EV, joining the bZ4X and Urban Cruiser crossovers. A single image and a preview video have been released, revealing that many elements from the concept have been retained, such as the rakish roofline, rear light bar, ‘hammerhead’ front end and extended bonnet. There are similarities with the Chinese-market bZ3C fastback, fuelling suggestions that it could be a European variant of that FAW Toyota-built car. Like the Urban Cruiser, the new EV is expected to be sold with a range of battery sizes and motor set-ups. The video shows an AWD-badged version. What the car will be called remains a mystery, because Toyota has moved…

Next-generation electric Minis will switch from the firm’s customary frontwheel-drive set-up to rear-drive due to the adoption of the new BMW Group Gen6 platform. The 800V architecture, which will eventually be used by all cars in the group’s stable, can only support the EESM motor (the only BMW Group motor to house a gearbox) on the rear axle. BMW Group engineers told Autocar at the launch of the platform that there are currently no plans to change this. When asked if this meant the end of front-wheel-drive electric Minis in the future, purchasing and supply board member Joachim Post would not directly confirm it. Instead, he said: “We will see what the future is.” Post added that the brand’s future models will “always have Mininess”. He questioned “what is the…

SONIC BOOM Your recent article on the Sonic 1 in-wheel electric motor (News, 22 January) reported that each unit would add 40kg of unsprung weight. I’m just wondering what happens when a car fitted with such meets a British pothole. Will the driver simply be ordering a replacement for a bent wheel or will they be seen alongside the highway, collecting up parts of a motor? Stephen Wisdom Via email HUSH MONEY Paul Ehrmann asks for a quieter Porsche 911 (19 February). I have a typically noisy 991 and recently test drove a 992 that was fitted with the optional lightweight and noiseinsulated glass. It was substantially quieter, so much so that I now consider this a must-have option should I decide to replace my car. Given that just about…

Between being unveiled in concept form in 2021 and reaching production, Hyundai’s newest SUV grew. Not literally but figuratively: the Seven became the Ioniq 9, an adjustment intended to crown the large six-or seven-seater as the flagship of the Korean firm’s electric range (and possibly to ensure parity with sister brand Kia’s related EV9…). Given how many car makers have stumbled on nomenclature when trying to add EVs into their already bulging line-ups (yes, Audi, we’re looking at you), credit to Hyundai for the pre-emptive minor course adjustment. And in its size, ambition and lashings of premium splendour, this car feels every inch the king of Hyundai’s ‘chess piece’ Ioniq family. That approach refers to Hyundai’s determination to give each Ioniq model a distinct character. Sure enough, park the 9…

PRESS THE START button and the iX M70 xDrive comes to life in an unsettling silence. There’s no transient electric hum from beneath, just a lifeless stillness, broken only by the glow of the instrument and infotainment displays confirming it’s ready to go. This range-topping iX isn’t a full-blown M car but an M Performance offering. With a combined 650bhp (the same as the i7 M70 xDrive electric saloon), it’s also BMW’s most powerful electric SUV yet, delivering 40bhp more than the iX M60 xDrive that it replaces. That increase comes courtesy of updated power electronics and a revised inverter system. But it’s not just about chasing headline figures: these drivetrain tweaks are aimed at sharpening throttle response and enhancing power delivery. As with its predecessor, the two motors –…

“A sense of drama descends when the sun goes down” WHY WE’RE RUNNING IT To find out if the Cupra Tavascan really is a sporty SUV - and if the segment needs it A friend recently got in touch because his wife was looking for a new car. She is currently running a Volkswagen ID 4, the Ronseal of electric cars – by which I mean an EV that works well as an EV but without being showy. She loves the thing, my friend told me, but it was time for an upgrade and she wanted something a bit different this time round. What else is out there, he asked. That’s quite a question, because the list of potential candidates for anyone seeking an electric SUV is long and growing.…

If you have a wad of cash to splurge on a luxurious and fast sports coupé but don’t want to follow the crowd into a Porsche 911, allow us to posit its brawling British rival. “We can’t think of another super-sports car that would make you smile more often” is how we described the second-generation Aston Martin V8 Vantage when we road tested it in 2018. We fell for its old-school V8 charm and impressive dynamics so utterly that it was our pick of the super-sports car class at the time. Depreciation hasn’t been kind to the Aston, but that’s good news for prospective used buyers, because you can now bag a tidy example for around £65,000, which is roughly £100k less than the latest Vantage. But if that tantalising…

I guess it helps that the very first motorsport event I attended in this country upon emigrating was a hillclimb – a short-course speed event for more than 100 disparate cars, all of which were given several chances to set their fastest time of the day. It struck me immediately as the perfect form of amateur motorsport, since it took entries from new cars and old, road cars and racers, brilliantly skilled drivers and beginners. Everyone had the same chance. “Skilled or beginner, everybody has the same chance” At the time, over 40 years ago, I couldn’t afford a suitable car, but I still quickly discovered an advantage of this sport that endures: as a spectator, you can get close enough to the cars to peer into their engines and…

“The new GT is stunning in how it delivers the power with a real sense of character” The electric four-door GT that will spearhead an all-new era for Jaguar will be revealed at the end of the year and go into production in the middle of 2026. In an exclusive meeting with Autocar at Jaguar’s Gaydon headquarters, Jaguar boss Rawdon Glover said in a wide-ranging interview that the 986bhp GT is “right in the midst” of prototype testing on public roads, at JLR’s Gaydon proving ground and in the Arctic Circle as it gears up for launch. Glover said the focus so far has been on the new brand and the design for Jaguar but it will soon enter “a very different phase” where the company will talk more about…

Mercedes-AMG will return to V8 power, it has confirmed, with a fresh mild-hybrid engine set to make its debut in the new CLE 63 Coupé later this year. The move marks a shift from the four-cylinder plug-in hybrid powertrain that AMG introduced in the C63 S E Performance saloon and estate. This failed to gain traction with customers, resulting in a significant drop in sales of one of the firm’s best-sellers. Sources in Germany have told Autocar that following the CLE 63, the V8 could be used in other AMG models, such as a revised C63 due in 2026. In response, an AMG spokesperson denied this. Full details of the new engine remain under wraps, but it is rumoured to lean heavily on AMG’s existing ‘M177’ twinturbocharged 4.0-litre V8 architecture.…

The EV2 will arrive next year as one of Kia’s smallest and most affordable electric cars yet. Previewed by the new EV2 concept, the small crossover will be priced from around £25,000 and positioned as a rival to the Renault 5, Renault 4 and MG 4 EV from 2026. The production EV2 is expected to utilise the entry-level version of the Hyundai Motor Group’s E-GMP platform, which also underpins Kia’s larger EV3 and EV4 (see below). While technical details remain under wraps, the EV2 will offer a similar assortment of powertrains as its siblings, which both pair a 201bhp motor with a choice of 58.3kWh or 81.4kWh battery packs. The former gives the EV3 a range of 270 miles, the latter an impressive 375 miles. It’s possible, however, that the…

The new PV5 electric van is cheaper than the diesel Ford Transit Custom, at £25,000 (excluding VAT). The first in Kia’s line of Platform Beyond Vehicles (PBV) EVs, it will be followed in 2027 by a larger PV7 van and a passenger-carrying PV5 at about £45k. Based on a development of the 400V E-GMP platform used by the Kia EV4, the PV5 van is fitted with a 161bhp front-mounted motor and offers a choice of three battery packs: 43.3kWh, 51.5kWh and 71.2kWh. Range tops out at 249 miles.…

BMW won’t need a solid-state battery for another eight years, it claims, with bosses insisting there is “a long way to go” with today’s lithium ion batteries. Solid-state batteries are widely regarded as crucial to EV longevity, because they offer greater capacity, enable longer ranges and are more robust than today’s packs. But while rivals such as Mercedes-Benz claim they are close to putting the technology into production, BMW doesn’t need it yet, according to head of next-generation battery tech Martin Schuster. “The most important thing is the lithium ion battery: it’s not finished,” he said. “You [still] see improvements. There is no one and only battery. It will not come.” He also told Autocar: “We can do [solid-state] now, but the cost in the packaging makes no sense to…

THE NIO ET9 now comes with a ZF full steer-bywire system that has no mechanical connection between the road wheels and the steering wheel. It’s among the first production cars to be fitted with steer-by-wire, but not the first. Infiniti tried it with the Q50 as far back as 2013. The Toyota bZ4X is also due to get it at some stage in the future. But the writing has been on the wall about steer-by-wire technology for quite a few years and its mainstream inception has crept even closer with the wide-scale adoption of electric power steering. The ZF system is based on its Cubix software suite, developed specifically for by-wire steering, braking and damping systems. Some electromechanical rear-axle steering systems are already by-wire activated and ZF’s own Active Kinematics…

I loved reading about that old Citroën in your used car pages of 19 February. It triggered cherished nostalgic memories for me, because I was brought up on these cars. Thank you. I was only four in 1952, when my car enthusiast dad bought a second-hand black Light 15 (HEH 59) from Procters of Longton. He immediately put Michelin X tyres on it, as he did with his later ones, and he regularly did about 30,000-odd miles a year through the 1950s in pursuit of his own business. I don’t recall his Citroëns ever breaking down, but maybe a young lad wouldn’t. I do remember that he was always very proud of the way he could get his Citroëns to make those tyres last close to a year. No wonder…

“One of those big-hitting diesel SUVs of old would hit it for six in terms of accessible performance” Roll up, roll up, folks, ‘ for your free plug-in hybrid.’ That very much seems to be the selling tactic for this, the new mid-range AMG performance version of the Mercedes-Benz GLE luxury SUV. Well, sort of. The new GLE 53 Hybrid slots into the GLE line-up between the mild-hybrid six-cylinder GLE 53 and the full-fat, turbo-V8 GLE 63 S in every way but on price. Mercedes UK has opted to charge less than £200 more for it than for the regular GLE 53 on which it’s based: a premium entirely at odds with the way most PHEVs are positioned and so negligible to someone paying in excess of £90,000 for a…

Electric cars, and new cars in general, are expensive. You know it, we know it, and even though they prefer to draw yourattention to attractive-looking finance deals and the potential savings of electric driving, car makers know it. Yes, they do appear to be trying to improve things (while protecting their bottom line, of course) but the various innovative ‘mobility solutions’ have proved to be deeply inadequate for most people and cheap ‘cars’ like the Citroën Ami are a case of being careful what you wish for. We want cheap cars, but not like that. Affordable petrol cars are bad for car makers’ CO2 quotas and, in spite of the demand from customers, are increasingly difficult to make a profit on. Of the five sub-£15,000 cars we gathered together for…

Peter Rawlinson has done what few other EV start-ups have managed to do: actually get cars into production at scale. Tesla has proven very much the exception to the rule. Lucid’s initial model, the Air saloon, has just now been joined by the Gravity SUV. They are built on different underpinnings but share a ‘flexible’ production line at Lucid’s plant in Casa Grande, Arizona. For 2025, Rawlinson is “hopeful we will see very significant growth” from the 10,241 cars that it delivered in 2024, not least because the Gravity “is the vehicle America wants: an SUV”. Lucid currently sells cars in North America, the Middle East and select European nations but not the UK, because converting the Air to right-hand drive would have diverted engineering resources away from other projects.…

VOLVO EX40 Mileage 2665 Last seen 26.2.25 One of the impressive things about an EV with a heat pump is how rapidly the windscreen defrosts on an icy cold morning. I didn’t time it precisely, but it must have been less than a minute from iced over to completely clear. Bonus points to the EX40 for not decimating its range despite all the climate settings being on full whack. JW SKODA SUPERB Mileage 2289 Last seen 19.2.25 Once the Superb’s at speed, its diesel engine is wonderfully smooth. And while the car’s natural habitat is clearly A-roads and motorways, it’s still comfortable to drive in town: no guarantee given its length and powertrain. It probably helps that the sensibly small wheels’ chunky sidewalls don’t just ensure a comfortable ride and…

AN OWNER’S VIEW IAN SLATER “I bought my 2019 Vantage in April 2021 with 8000 miles on the clock and have done 25,000 miles in it since then. During my ownership, it’s been fitted with an aftermarket rear-view camera and CarPlay – both essential. “The car has been recovered twice: once for an airbag fault and once for a sensor issue, both fixed under warranty. The only bills I’ve had have been for tyres, corrective work on the seat leather and a battery. A major service is coming up, and that will be £1500. Running costs aside, the only thing that could replace it is another Vantage. It’s fast, comfortable and an event every time I drive it.” BUYER BEWARE… ENGINE Coil pack failure is common with the AMG engine…

Rawdon Glover says you can never remind people enough about why Jaguar had to change. So, from the top, it was due to the fact that Jaguar was “at a pivotal point in its history”, with all its products and platforms coming to the end of the road. While the BMW-rivalling era of Jaguars had been critically well received, they had not done well in the marketplace, so “economically, the Jaguar model didn’t make sense”. Glover said “going south” with Jaguar’s pricing was “not an option” so “instead, partly informed by our history, [we decided] actually we should take Jaguar upmarket. “We should take Jaguar back to a positioning of when it was much more successful in the marketplace and really try and restore that real lustre that the brand…

THE NEW KIA EV4 will attempt to dethrone the Tesla Model 3 when it arrives later this year, priced from £31,000. The first images of the production car reveal that little has changed from the EV4 concept shown in 2023. The EV4 will offer both hatchback and saloon bodies, the former roughly the size of the Hyundai Kona Electric, the latter’s stretched rump making it longer than the Model 3. It will be sold primarily in hatchback form in Europe, where it will be a natural rival to the Citroën ë-C4 and Volkswagen ID 3. Both versions will have a single front-mounted motor producing 201bhp and a 0-62mph sprint time in the mid-7sec range. All Kia EVs are destined to receive hot versions, so a dual-motor, four-wheel-drive EV4 GT with…

BMW will enter its next, Neue Klasse generation with an all-new EV platform that is claimed to drastically cut the cost of production while increasing efficiency and available range. Labelled ‘Gen6’, the platform, including batteries and electric motors, will be used first by the next BMW iX3, which was previewed by the Vision Neue Klasse SUV concept and will be unveiled in September. The 800V platform is claimed by BMW to be a “quantum leap forward” in terms of technology compared with today’s offerings. “Neue Klasse is not just a new car: it is a new technology,” said BMW Group purchasing and supply board member Joachim Post. The scalable platform will eventually be used by all BMW, Mini and Rolls-Royce EVs. Here’s a preview of the tech.…

New and updated motors are also important to the Gen6’s advancements. The core powerplant is the electrically excited synchronous motor (EESM), which can be traced back to the first-generation iX3 in 2018, although it has been developed extensively since then and is offered in multiple power outputs. Now heavily enhanced, it is available in four variants that range from 270bhp to 400bhp and is exclusively attached to the rear axle, where up to two units can be fitted. A single-speed gearbox is integrated into its casing. New with the Gen6 platform is a small asynchronous motor. Weighing just 70kg, it is offered with 161bhp or 241bhp. No gearbox is attached to it. As seen with the BMW Vision Driving Experience (Autocar, 19 February), it is fitted exclusively to the front…

The new A6 Avant has been unveiled as one of the final diesel cars Audi will launch and one of only a few diesel estates left on the market. The executive wagon was due to take the A7 moniker under Audi’s recently axed naming strategy, where EVs were even-numbered and ICE cars odd-numbered. Instead, it is called the A6 Avant and sits beside the technically unrelated A6 Avant E-tron EV, with both spearheading Audi’s estate range. The combustion car arrives with turbo petrol and turbo diesel-hybrid power and will be badged TFSI (for petrol) or TDI (diesel) to differentiate it from the EV. Both ICE engines are 2.0-litre four-pot units that put out 201bhp, with the petrol offering 251lb ft and the diesel 295lb ft. Each is paired exclusively to…

FEATURE RIVIAN R1T vs NEVADA We drive this prospering US start-up’s electric pick-up truck in the Silver State and unravel the story of the firm’s partnership with the VW Group ROAD TEST RENAULT 5 After the hype comes the acid test. What’s the Car of the Year truly like? MOTORSPORT FORMULA 1 SEASON PREVIEW Lewis Hamilton’s prospects at Ferrari and all the other big storylines EVERY WEEK MY CAR & I CATERHAM SEVEN SUPERLIGHT R A 220bhp, 485kg track weapon its owner drives in all weathers LIVING WITH A… VOLKSWAGEN TIGUAN Family SUV begins its daily charm offensive on us. Will it make us see beyond its generic looks?…

“It absorbs impacts and undulations without the brittleness or floatiness that plagues some rivals” The BMW iX has always been a conversation starter, whether you love it, hate it or simply don’t know what to make of it. Its mashup of estate, crossover and SUV styling hasn’t stopped generating remarks since its introduction back in 2021 – and that’s before you get to its oversized grille, an even bigger lightning rod for opinion. Yes, the iX is still controversial – but instead of caving to critics and moving to comprehensively rework the looks of its flagship electric SUV with this mid-life facelift, BMW is defiantly serving up more of the same, with just a few stylistic refinements accompanying the mechanical and digital changes. The grille receives a finer surround to…

Seismic changes are rare in Porsche 911 world. Gentle evolution has been the cornerstone of the car’s era-spanning appeal, and big changes to the recipe have been avoided in the design-engineering workshops at Weissach as well as the boardroom at Zuffenhausen. A bit of water-cooling here, a turbo or two there, rear-axle steering to counteract growth in the footprint and, all right then, a two-pedal GT3. The adoption of innovation has been subtle, yet for more than a decade one unswervable shakeup has hovered above the world’s best-loved sports car – a machine famed for its lightness, litheness and purity – like a regulation-driven sword of Damocles: electrification. That the 911 would eventually ‘go hybrid’ has long been accepted as fact. Equally accepted, and most certainly feared, has been the…

The step down in capability from a Renault 5 to a Spring is more of a tumble than the step down from a Megane to a 5. The same is true in the Stellantis family: the step down from an electric Astra to a Corsa is far smaller than from a Corsa to a Leapmotor T03. That automatically leads you to wonder: well, what about a Corsa? If you really want a newish electric car on a budget, there are lots of facelifted Vauxhall Corsa Electrics for sale online with delivery mileage for the same money as the Spring or the T03. The Renault Zoe has been out of production for almost a year, so you’ll have to accept a higher mileage, but very fresh ones can be had for…

“Bloody complex, modern car seats. Wires all over the place” The very simple fix would be to buy my wife some thicker knickers.Unfortunately, this is unlikely to wash with her so I am going to have to fix the passenger-side heated seat in our Saab 9-3 by either buying a replacement heating element or by finding a second-hand seat on eBay and replacing the whole shebang. You’ve met our Saab before, in 2018 just a couple of months after we bought it. We paid only £2300 for it and since then it has covered almost 50,000 miles and not let us down once. Most owners of old cars tend to fib a bit about reliability and I am no exception: the electric fuel pump packed up but at least it…

WHY WE RAN IT To find out if the original hybrid luxury SUV is still the best A little over 20 years ago, I was sent to cover the launch of the second-generation Lexus RX for Autocar. At the time it was not much more than a quirky niche player over here yet, thanks to the US market’s voracious appetite for it, the world’s best-selling SUV. While it has since gained traction in the UK, it has lost that title to its little brother, the Toyota RAV4 – a car that donated much of its drivetrain to this, the fifth-generation RX, in a search for greater efficiency (presumably in terms of parts commonality as well as fuel consumption). That means the sweet 3.5-litre V6 of old has been replaced by…

Registered in 1970, Jules Cranwell’s ‘woody’ was one of the last Morris Minor Travellers to be built. It left the Adderley Park production line with a 1098cc A-series engine – fine in its day but, according to Jules, a liability in the 21st century. “In standard trim, the Morris Minor is very slow so I’ve modified mine a little so that it can keep up with today’s traffic,” he says. By ‘a little’, Jules means the A-Plus engine from a Morris Marina that he has fitted to it in place of the model’s old A-series unit but bored out from 1275cc to 1340cc and with race pistons and a modified camshaft. Also, the beefier rear axle from a Wolseley 1500 that he has slotted in and a tougher and more…

MINI CLUBMAN 1.6 COOPER S 2010, 95,500 miles, £3690 Arguably the spiritual successor to the Traveller (left), the Mini Clubman is a quirky, compact family hauler – and this 15-year-old example looks to be in great nick, with a full service history and long MOT. Being a Cooper S, it also has 181bhp. SUZUKI IGNIS 1.2 DUALJET SHVS SZ5 ALLGRIP 2018, 25,000 miles, £9990 Versatile, well packaged, economical and pleasingly compact, the Ignis is an ideal urban runaround. This one even has four-wheel drive so it’s as happy in a muddy field as in town. A long MOT and full history adds to the appeal. FIAT 500L 1.6 MULTIJET 105 TREKKING 2013, 61,000 miles, £4790 With retro-influenced charm and greater practicality than the Clubman (above), this 500L looks a steal.…