Table of contents for Wheels Year Book 2018 in Wheels

The path most trodden by EV makers is to create an artificial soundtrack, with manufacturers promising everything from a deep V8 rumble to the futuristic bubbles of a car from The Jetsons. Interestingly, though, we once celebrated the sweet silence that accompanied the introduction of electric vehicles, picturing cities free of the noise pollution ICE vehicles create. But that was before studies found near-silent EVs were as much as 40 percent more likely to have an accident with a pedestrian, owing mostly to the fact that people couldn’t hear them coming. Now, the EU has legislated that, by July next year, all new EVs will need to make some sort of noise when travelling at city speeds.…

JANUARY-FEBRUARY ALFA ROMEO Stelvio Q; AUDI RS5 Sportback; BMW i3 update; FORD Endura, Focus and Everest update; JAGUAR F-Pace upgrade and SVR; KIA Cerato hatch and GT, Picanto GT; LAND ROVER Range Rover P400e plug-in; LEXUS CT200h update and UX; MERCEDES-BENZ C63 AMG update and X350d; SKODA Fabia facelift; SUZUKI Jimny and Vitara update MARCH-APRIL AUDI A6; BMW 3 Series, 8 Series, and X7 30d and M50d; FORD Fiesta ST; GENESIS G70 and G80; HYUNDAI i30 N Fastback; Kona EV and Veloster; JEEP Wrangler; LAMBORGHINI Aventador SVJ; MAZDA 3 hatch and sedan; MERCEDES-BENZ A-Class sedan, GLE-Class; PORSCHE Macan update; ROLLS-ROYCE Cullinan; SSANGYONG Musso LWB update; TOYOTA RAV4 and Prius Mercedes A-Class The A200 will introduce Aussies to the Mercedes-Benz A-Class sedan when it arrives in April. Benz’s booted baby is…

SUZUKI and Daihatsu might have beaten Toyota to be first in Australia with an SUV crossover, but since its 1994 launch, Toyota’s RAV4 took ownership of the idea. The SUV revolution redefined the market and now, 300,000-plus RAV4s later, Toyota brings a hybrid powertrain to the party as the “standout” version of the new fifth-generation model. Toyota is migrating almost its entire line-up to four architectures within the TNGA philosophy – the exceptions are the 86 and new Supra, both jointly developed models. The RAV4 is the latest to switch; using the so-called K-platform that also underpins the Camry, the next-generation Kluger, and Sienna MPV (that’s not for Australia). Wheel time in the new RAV4 instantly confirms the benefits to handling, comfort and refinement of the TNGA philosophy of a…

Active suspension was first shown by Benz under the W126 S-Class of 1978. Various concepts furthered the technology over decades until it reached series production as Magic Body Control in the W222 S-Class of 2013. That car read surface imperfections up to 15m in front and adapted its suspension to reduce sprung mass vibrations. A tilt function called Curve arrived in 2014 with the C217 S-Class Coupe. Today’s GLE executes all this and more using a superior 48v system for greater comfort and agility. Individual wheel control can counteract not only bodyroll, but also pitch and squat.…

Electric motors are everywhere around us, whirring away according to principles discovered almost two centuries ago. Yet for most of us their inner workings are a mystery. Wheels readers able to discuss the finer points of the internal combustion engine in all its complex variety will likely have only the faintest understanding, if any, of how an electric motor converts current into kilowatts. This is how it’s done. Create a magnetic field, put a conductor like a copper wire in that field, then connect the conductor to a source of electricity. Result? The magnetism pushes on the wire. This core concept applies to all electric motors, and grasping it is the equivalent of understanding that burning fuel mixed with air in a closed space creates pressure. Compared to the typical…

Putting electricity through a conductive coil can induce current to flow in a nearby conductive coil. This is the basic principle behind inductive charging. The way it works in practise is fairly simple. Install a live coil in a mat in a garage or parking space. Park an EV with an induction coil installed over the top of it. Current will then cross the air gap to charge the battery. Pushing electricity across the gap between the coils is less energy efficient than a cable connection, and the maximum charge rate is low. For these reasons inductive charging is best suited to Plug-in Hybrids (PHEVs), w which have small batteries that need frequent replenishment, rather than EVs capable of going days or even weeks between charges.…

OUR GOAL was simple. With the EV floodgates bound to burst open, it was high time to assess their viability in this vast brown land that we call home. And this being Wheels , we’ve done it properly. Perhaps it’s easiest to think of the following 21 pages as a stocktake of electrification in Australia right now. A guide that covers everything from plug-ins to pure EVs, and even hydrogen, driven to answer one simple question – should you buy one? And don’t think we took the easy route, either. Far from sticking to the city where charging stations and lifts home are plentiful should it all go wrong, in typical Wheels tradition, we wanted to cover some serious distance. Not coincidentally, Australia’s…

DEAN Martin ordering a martini at the Cal Neva Lodge was probably pretty smooth. A Scott Pendlebury no-look handpass in a busy centre circle is also silkily effortless, yet both pale into a lumpen clumsiness compared with the Audi Q7 E-Tron’s idle-stop system. It’s almost molten in the way the 48-volt electrics slur the diesel engine back into life, melding with the torrent of torque from the motors. There’s no audible impact, just a barely perceptible epidermal vibe on the steering wheel. That’s the Q7 E-Tron in microcosm. Ingolstadt’s plug-in hybrid represents a masterclass in making the difficult things seem easy, to massage away any residual stresses you might harbour about the wisdom of a diesel-electric hybrid. Those concerns are understandable. A petrol engine and an electric motor are a…

THERE were some who disagreed with the XC60 winning last year’s Wheels Car of the Year. But then there are some who believe the earth is flat, that you can buy Ray Bans for $15 by sharing a Facebook ad and that vaccines rather than dud genes are responsible for their dullard kids. The most awarded car in the history of ever is at its most imperious in range-topping T8 plug-in hybrid guise. Fitted with the obligatory optional air suspension, it’s a car with plenty of strings to its bow. Were we nitpicking, we’d probably like a little more pure EV range than the 35km maximum that the onboard computer shows which, like all batteries, gets better in warm weather. When the battery is depleted, you’re basically left with an…

TIMING is everything. Back in 2014, the brilliant i3 60Ah was the first EV to scoop COTY, bringing enigmatic and audacious design, packaging and engineering, while still encapsulating BMW dynamic appeal. Perhaps more so than many of its stablemates. Created as a premium urban runabout, that early version’s circa-160km range was par for the course given its 22kWh battery capacity, though – for a price – Tesla’s Model S has easily doubled that. In the i3’s defence, it also offered a twin-cylinder generator in the $6K-pricier Range Extender (REx), adding up to 150km of range. Anxiety be damned! With a 2016 battery upgrade to 33kWh boosting range to 200km and last year’s facelift bringing tech updates, let’s see if the i3’s virtues prevail today. The Bavarian EV certainly hasn’t aged…

EVERY time the man from Hyundai mentioned the words ‘Ioniq BEV’ I couldn’t stop thinking of a movie pitch featuring a crime-fighting superhero lunch-lady. The reality isn’t quite as exciting, and thankfully the Koreans are now calling it the Ioniq Electric but it nevertheless carries a pretty snappy tagline. ‘Australia’s cheapest EV’ ought to guarantee a decent return at the box office for the Koreans. The Ioniq Electric is but one part of a three-pronged hedge from Hyundai, offering a base Ioniq hybrid, a plug-in version and this, the range-topping EV version. While the duller plug-in could well be the more pragmatic pick for most Aussies, the comparatively extrovert Electric is the car that’s going to mop up the column inches and with good reason. Pitching in at $44,990 for…

TOUTED as the world’s first mass-market EV, in Australia the original ZE0 Leaf suffered the growing pains it had to have. Injured by the oddball design, starship dash and dull dynamics, it was high pricing (initially $51,500) and low range (about 115km realistically) that dealt the fatal blow, resulting in just 635 sales in the four years from 2012, against over 250,000 globally. In contrast, the ZE1 Leaf II out in June is the result of hard lessons learned, with stronger performance, a 16kWh-larger battery that doubles real-world range to 270km, and a slightly larger, longer, wider and lower body on offer. Progress – though some of the old Leaf’s friendly/dorky flair has been exorcised in the process. Note the doors and bonnet are no longer aluminium, but steel. Nowadays,…

DURING three days of electric and plug-in hybrid testing we discovered one hard, undeniable kernel of truth. If you want to own an electric vehicle, right now, in Australia, that makes owning one feel relatively easy, there is only one manufacturer that answers the call – Tesla. While we fretted and fussed over the available range and closest charger for our other test vehicles, finding chargers inoperable and realising some cars were achieving half the range their gauges claimed, the Tesla was a stress-free experience, with the testing team able to drive the car however we desired, knowing there was a supercharger within striking distance, and a healthy estimated range up our sleeve. The 100kWh battery provides a class-leading 565km of range according to the official NEDC test. During our…

TALK ABOUT culture shock – Simon Evans has raced and won V8 SuperTourers in New Zealand, and a typical day at work consists of oversteer, lots of noise, then some lunch followed by a load more noise and oversteer. But in December he’ll travel to Saudi Arabia with his younger brother Mitch, who’s competing in Formula E. He isn’t tagging along for moral support, but to race in the warm-up act, the Jaguar I-Pace eTrophy. It’s the world’s first one-make series for production-based electric cars, and support for 10 of Formula E’s 13 rounds. “It’s a lot to adapt to,” admits Evans. But the 28-year-old also recognises that this is the way motorsport is ultimately heading – better to be early to the party and get the edge. Today, Wheels…

Waymo’s on board technology is a dazzling combination of sciences. Spinning around on top of the roof is a laser rangefinder with a 360-degree field of view and 64 laser beams that cycle around 10 times a second. This Lidar technology gives a 3D view of everything around the car. “It also gives you intensity data in the infra red spectrum. This is very useful if you look at the road, ” says Dmitri Dolgov. The disc below contains cameras that see and classify the world around it – what is a bicycle, what is a traffic cone, what is a car. Below the cameras is a Google-developed laser rangefinder that has a much longer range and much higher resolution. “It helps finding small obstacles on the road and helps…

“THAT thing is bloody lovely,” reckoned Peter Elliott, WhichCar TV’s lead presenter. I’d lent him the Velar while I was judging Wheels Car of the Year and it’s fair to say he was fairly taken with it. Fairly taken with the loud pedal too, recording the Velar’s worst average consumption of 11.5L/100km during his tenure. That’s still not too bad for a 1900kg petrol SUV packing 221kW, but the overall figure’s since come back down to Sean Connery’s preferred racquet sport: tennish. COTY aside, where the Velar was on camera car duties, it’s been an eventful few weeks. The Rangie was even pushed into service as an ambulance, rushing a fledgling peregrine falcon to surgery after its first flight resulted in a broken leg. It’s also taken a run up…

BRIAN Tanti’s coachbuilding and engineering skills propelled him to the curatorship of Lindsay Fox’s staggering car collection for 27 years. Now Tanti, 56, is showcasing those car-building techniques in an innovative Sydney workshop and events space, where body jigs and milling machines mix with cocktails and coffee. Tanti was born in Malta, his family moving to Melbourne when he was nine months old. His parents ultimately had seven kids. “My father wasn’t particularly interested in cars, but two of my uncles had an influence. One worked as a fitter and turner, the other as an aircraft fitter. At a very early age I learned about excellence. And I had a cousin, an apprentice at Ford, he had an XU-1 Torana. I’d watch him working – I was six or seven…

In a potential retrograde step, a torsion beam rear suspension layout has been adopted for all front-wheel-drive variants, rather than the more desirable independent set-up of the outgoing third-gen car. Refinement is the cited reason, though future-proofing the platform with space for a hybrid battery pack is likely to have had an impact. Whether Mazda has managed to maintain the 3 s dynamic capability with a torsion beam remains to be seen, though Peugeot and Renault – amongst others – have demonstrated that a well-tuned torsion beam is no impediment to great handling.…

Fellow Italian supercar maker Ferrari also recognises the importance of sound when it comes to marketing its cars. So much so, in fact, that engineers there claim they spend as much time tweaking the soundtrack of every new car as they do fine-tuning the driving dynamics. “We always tune the exhaust like you would tune a unique instrument,” one engineer told Wheels . “You are buying a Ferrari, so you appreciate the sound, and so we specifically create different levels of sound, different tones of the sound.”…

THE FAULT IN OUR STARS?  Vehicle safety has certainly come a long way in recent times, as highlighted by The Insider column: ‘ANCAP stars don’t always align’ (Wheels, November.) ANCAP does not apologise for promoting new technologies and safe vehicles. Vehicle brands continue to meet ANCAP’s increasingly stringent standards, which is why 91 percent of new vehicles sold in Australia have a five-star rating. This is a good thing for all road users, because you might be a good driver but you can’t guarantee everyone else on the road is. That’s why it’s important we have the safest vehicle fleet we can. “91 percent of new vehicles sold in Australia have a five-star rating” Of course, nobody benefits if new vehicles are too expensive, so ANCAP is also advocating to…

SELLING large SUVs has been a difficult business for Mercedes-Benz in recent times. Year to date, the ageing third-gen GLE wagon has been overshadowed on local sales charts by an X5 in its death throes and awaiting replacement. An overhaul for Stuttgart’s big family transporter couldn’t come too soon, and the brand hasn’t taken to the challenge meekly. The all-new, fourth-gen model is a boon for Merc’s big SUV stock, with an array of technological innovations including groundbreaking active suspension that advances the game significantly. It also carries over its predecessor’s badge for the first time in this model’s history. The first-gen M-Class of more than 20 years ago met opposition from BMW, who already had M-badged models. That saw it change to ML-Class in 2005, then again to GLE…

ON THE face of it, this first drive had the makings of a modern-day Western. An outsider in an arid and inhospitable land; sideways glances from a few slightly suspicious locals; an unspoken struggle between the past and the newcomer’s claim on the future. High up in the parched Hajar mountains that divide Abu Dhabi from Oman, we really needed a soundtrack of tumble weeds and perhaps a lone steel guitar. Instead, we had a soundtrack of ... nothing. Well, not quite nothing. When you demand full acceleration from the Audi E-Tron’s two electric motors, a cocked ear will detect a faint mechanical whir, but the sound is so muted it’s almost like hearing someone using an electric toothbrush from behind a closed bathroom door. Very quickly, if the audio…

Electric vehicle architecture is expensive, so cost cutting has taken place elsewhere. The Model 3’s boot lid is now manual, though combined cargo space is reasonable at 425 litres including a ‘frunk’ big enough for a carry-on suitcase. Smarter execution sees the 60/40 rear seats lay flat when folded, with no stepped floor like the Model S. There’s more storage underneath without a spare tyre taking space. Same goes for all Teslas. Get a flat and roadside assistance has to come and swap it, then call you when the old one is repaired.…

LIKE tethered skydiving and any ‘edited for content’ airline movie, the Ioniq Plug-in petrol-electric hybrid exudes more than a hint of entrée alongside its Electric sibling’s culinary smorgasbord. Why not just go for the main? Hyundai’s head-first dive into low-to-zero emissions vehicles is ambitious, with a pair of ‘taster’ electrified Ioniqs for buyers uncertain and/or anxious about committing to the full Ioniq Electric EV experience. And fair enough. As Hyundai’s Prius, the starter Hybrid from $33,990 brings a 77kW/147Nm 1.6 petrol/six-speed dual-clutch transmission internal combustion engine (ICE) combo with 32kW/170Nm electric motor and 1.56kWh battery assistants, for a 3.4L/100km average. It never runs electrically – unlike in the $41K Plug-in, using the same ICE powertrain but a larger (44kW/170Nm) electric motor and 8.9kWh battery, for up to 63km of EV…

ONE of capitalism’s more insidious assertions is that all that is popular is inherently worthy. The fact that ‘Call Me Maybe’ by Carly Rae Jepsen went nine times platinum here is all the evidence you need to torpedo that argument. Therefore, Mitsubishi’s claim that it shifts as many Outlander PHEVs as the rest of Australia’s plug-in market put together doesn’t, in and of itself, float our boats. If, during 2018, you had fifty-odd grand to spend on a plug-in hybrid with more space than a compact hatch, here’s the longlist: Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV. That’s it. Therefore it comes as a refreshing revelation to discover that the Outlander PHEV is not awful. In fact, it’s genuinely likeable. Talented even. When the battery is charged, it dips in and out judiciously in…

Glance down at the XC60 T8’s stubby glass gear shifter and as well as the park button and the standard reverse, neutral and drive detents, there’s the somewhat cryptic ‘B’ setting at the base of the shift gate. This is, in effect, a modestly increased regen mode, although why it’s there and not in the menu screen alongside the Charge and Hold settings is anyone’s guess. It’s great on downslopes, giving a welcome shot of battery recharge, but it’s too mild to be a genuine one-pedal mode.…

Included in the Ioniq Electric Elite is a stack of active safety equipment, parking sensors, rear camera, 16-inch alloy wheels, an 8-inch touchscreen with sat nav plus Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, a smart key and auto headlights and wipers. Stump up another four grand for the Premium model and you’ll get leather heated and ventilated seats, wireless phone charging, LED headlights, front parking sensors and a glass sunroof. Only around 18 of the Australian network of 170 Hyundai dealers will be authorised to carry the car.…

Around 80 percent of all trips made in the USA are one or two person journeys yet vehicles are designed for once-a-year occasions – look at seven-seater SUVs. Autonomous electric cars have fewer moving p parts and offer great cost efficiencies in production – with as little as 1/10th the componentry of a conventional car – and much lower operating costs per kilometre. It introduces an alternative to oil without the need for the current tally of 170,000 gas stations in the USA, as the ride-sharing business model has autonomous vehicles returning to central depots for charging. There are three parking spaces for every one of the 250 million vehicles in the US. The impact autonomous cars will have on the use of real estate will free up valuable land.…

THERE was no Golden Age of Cars. Think about that for a moment. Cars have never peaked and then become worse. Every successive generation of cars – taken in the round – has been better than their forebears. Faster, safer, better equipped, more comfortable, more economical, cleaner, cheaper in real terms and, yes, more fun. The gradual draw down on the internal combustion engine isn’t about to reverse that trend either. That’s not to say we don’t love a few reciprocating oily bits. From a personal perspective, my favourite moment on the job last year wasn’t even spent in a car. It was sitting by the roadside listening to editor Inwood pedalling a 911 GT3 up a set of forested hairpins in the Grampians, savouring the volume dial cranking up…

ALLOW me to share a few things that were not said from the driver’s seat of the Jag wagon during my five-month tenure. The first: “Hey honey, there’s a muddy, rocky, rutted trail that surely leads to somewhere magical – what a shame we can’t explore it because we’re not in a SUV.” Nor was this ever heard: “If only I was in a more elevated driving position, I’d have a much better view of this wretched Sydney traffic.” You get the gist. I know I’m way out of step with a big percentage of Aussie cars buyers, and JLR’s own sales of the Velar and F-Pace SUVs in the year to date (see sidebar, above) are indicators of just how strong the tide is. But my time with the…

DISASTER loomed large this month, and you, faithful reader, were lined up to receive a blank page that very nearly took the place of this XC40 update. See, the stylish Swede has been so popular in the Wheels office that for a good portion of the last four weeks I had no idea where it was. Editor Inwood reluctantly renounced possession of the key after welcoming the XC40 into our garage last issue, as a follow-up to its bigger brother, and his last long-termer, the XC60. But somewhere in the transfer to yours truly, the in-demand Scandinavian fell into opportunistic hands and became nigh on impossible to get a steer in, with every other member of staff playing dumb to its whereabouts. By the time I tracked it down there…

THIS past month the Mazda 6 Atenza has done a fine job of lobbing the kids around and doing the daily grind to and from work. Anyone that’s jumped in for a ride has been complementary of the car’s interior and premium feel. More than enough to bring a proud smile to my face, even if the car isn’t mine. In the middle of the month the routine was broken by the week-long organised chaos that is COTY. Throughout the year there’s nowhere better to compare the latest and greatest new metal in one location. While the Camaro, A110 and I-Pace held my interest, there were a choice couple that needed scrutinising – the Camry and Commodore. From this year’s COTY line-up, these two are the closest rivals to the…

How many people today realise there is a design link between the 928 and the still-born 1973 two- and four-rotor Chevrolet Corvette concept cars? The Corvettes, built by Pininfarina on Porsche 914 chassis, were designed to a large extent by Tony Lapine before he was poached by Porsche, and share many of the same design elements as the 928. Soft corners, a wide B-pillar, even the overall shape of the doors, and the proportions, all look 928-ish. ALSO IN WHEELS, May 1996 Angus MacKenzie drives the wildest concept to ever come out of Ford, the V12 two-seater Indigo. John Carey tests the new V6 Magna and finds it far from horrible; Stahly reviews the new BMW E39 5 Series and finds it to have “the tautness and resilience of a…

AN ALL-NEW generation of Mazda’s evergreen small car is preparing to launch locally in mid-2019, handing one of Australia’s most popular vehicles a new lease of life. Mazda whipped the covers off its fourth-generation Mazda 3 hatchback and sedan at a preview event in Los Angeles on the eve of 2018’s last major motor show. Heavily restyled sheetmetal for both body shapes introduces an evolved version of the brand’s now ubiquitous Kodo design language. The two models are distinctly different in appearance, sharing only their windscreen and bonnet. The hatchback is now slightly longer, narrower and taller than before, whereas the sedan is significantly longer, having grown by more than 80mm. Stand-out design elements include extremely low bonnets that lead to oversized grilles and headlight assemblies pared back to the…

LIFE IN THE SLOW LANE  I’ve been an enthusiastic car-lover for as long as I can remember. Earlier this year, I turned 16 and finally got my learner’s permit – the long-awaited transfer from the backseat to the front right. But what I found, not long after I chucked on the learner plates, was that driving on Sydney’s roads, is, for the most part, extremely unsettling due in part to the 90km/h speed limit. I’m sure the limit sounds fine in a Roads and Maritime board meeting but I challenge anyone to put yourself in the left lane on the M1 and stick to 90. Simple answer is: you can’t. Not unless you’re comfortable driving with a rear-vision mirror full of Kenworth grille. Going 20km/h (actually, more like 35km/h) below…

CALL it tall poppy syndrome, but we were a little critical of the X5 when the just-superseded F15 generation arrived. Could you blame us? Its E-series predecessors proved that luxo SUVs could handle (remotely) like a sports sedan, delivering plenty for family types with petrol pumping through their ventricles. Though beaten to market by the Mercedes M-Class, it was the X5 that perfected the luxury large SUV in the noughties. Trailblazers are always a hard act to follow, and the ho-hum F15, with its slack steering and lack of dynamic sparkle, disappointed. But that’s in the past; the G05 is here now, and it’s moved the goalposts again. Luxury? Yes, sir. Space? More than ever. Driver appeal? Absolutely. From afar it doesn’t look all that different, but in each of…

Electric adjustment for the sliding second-row opens up generous space for passengers, and varies boot space between 630L and 825L, or 2055L with all seats stowed. Clever packaging of the folding third row means cargo capacity is the same as the five-seater with the rear pair tucked away, and a storage compartment for the cargo blind gives it somewhere to hide when all seats are deployed. Kids in the third row get USB ports and cup holders, though an absence of vents means making do with airflow from face-level B-pillar outlets is as good as it gets. Elsewhere the GLE’s premium cabin is an attractive and comfortable place to spend time. Advanced driver assistance and Benz’s latest MBUX infotainment are standard, presented on a beautiful dual-pane widescreen display. Thoughtful touches…

ELECTRIC vehicles are incredibly energy efficient. And, unlike liquid fuel burners, they aren’t inescapably reliant on a finite, polluting and mostly imported fossil resource. They’re quiet, quick and often entertaining to drive. EVs make sense, but making sense of EVs is challenging. This is an unfamiliar technology that speaks a mostly unfamiliar language. And it’s one that needs to be learned. In the near future, the Mercedes-Benz EQC, Audi E-Tron and BMW iX3 will be joining Jaguar in the battle to beat Tesla at its own high-priced game. Meanwhile, at the affordable end of the EV spectrum, Hyundai’s Ioniq Electric and Kona Electric, plus the much-improved second-generation Nissan Leaf, are providing competition for the BMW i3 and Renault Zoe. So it’s time to master the ideas and idiom of EVs...…

Familiar fuel tank and EV battery pack do exactly the same thing. They’re ways to store chemical energy. Liquid fuels release heat energy through the chemical reaction called combustion. This can be converted to motion by an engine. Batteries release energy by making electrons run from place to place via external circuits. Through a motor, for example. Charging simply sends electrons back to where they started. Only one of these two energy storage systems is compact and cheap, and it’s not the battery pack... Batteries are named according to their active chemical constituents. Lead-acid and Nickel-Cadmium are examples. Lithium-ion is a catch-all name that covers a variety of lithium battery chemistries. These have come to dominate in EVs, for good reasons. Lithium-ion delivers superior energy and power density compared to…

The Model 3 is certainly not the first car to put its speedometer by the driver’s wrist. Think original Mini Cooper, Nissan X-Trail, Toyota Echo, Citroen C4 Picasso and numerous others. Light touch lids for console cubbies close with magnets because they last longer than plastic clips. The main screen is lansdscape oriented, rather than portrait like prior Teslas, in order to locate driver-specific functions close to the wheel and media on the other side. Tesla’s sat-nav software maps journeys based on how much energy is available and where charging stations are. The system can identify the number of empty charging bays before you drive there, as well as display the cost of the charge in advance. Google ratings for nearby cafes and wi-fi availability are also shown. One massive…

THE MERCEDES-Benz E350e isn’t an obvious choice for customers wanting to transition from burning hydrocarbons to consuming electrons. The problem lies with its battery pack. Of this group, it has the smallest capacity and the lowest claimed EV range, meaning it struggles to excel as a genuine halfway house between conventional internal combustion power and electric propulsion, despite the motor’s impressive 60kW and 440Nm outputs. Perhaps, then, its best to think of it as a vehicle that caters to established mercedes-Benz buyers looking to slash their fuel bills. The E350e is the most fuel-efficient E-Class available, with a claimed consumption of just 2.4L/100km. It achieves this with a combination of a 155kW/350Nm 2.0-litre four-pot turbo-petrol, and the aforementioned electric motor and battery. With combined outputs of 210kW and 550Nm, the…

THE 1948 XK120. 1961 E-Type. 1968 XJ. Jaguar has a history of smashing moulds, and into that elite group quietly rolls the I-Pace. Engineered in Britain (good) and built in Austria (great), the battery electric dual-motor AWD five-door, five-seater crossover is conceptually similar to the epochal Tesla Model S, which it has been designed to conquest (brilliant), but – 400km-plus claimed range aside – that’s where the similarities cease between the luxury EV grand tourers. Be prepared for a shock (no pun intended) when first encountering the I-Pace in person, with its nearmonobox proportions and cab-forward silhouette that’s pure concept car. Wearing the optional 22-inch alloys certainly adds to the drama. It’s inside, though, that the hushed EV really amps up the glamour, with what is undoubtedly Jaguar’s most alluring…

WELCOME to Australia’s oldest yet cutest electric vehicle, as well as Europe’s EV bestseller, the Renault Zoe. Launched in 2012, and based on the, ahem, current Clio IV supermini, the electric Frenchie five-seater city hatch has been systematically improved since then, so don’t worry; you’ll still manage an easy 200km-plus range, even when driven with gay abandon. Have no doubt. That’s precisely how things could end up, given those Clio underpinnings and a low centre of gravity provide such a solid and enjoyable dynamic base. Quick, responsive steering, nippy handling, excellent grip and an isolating ride make the Zoe more than just the keen driver’s choice. With an instantaneous 68kW and 220Nm on tap, the ZE40 (denoting the larger 41kWh battery pack) is also sprightly off the mark in that…

I really like driving… Government revenues will fall with less money earned from fuel taxes, private registration and stamp duties. Many US cities, including New York, Chicago and Pittsburgh, have banned on-road testing in metro areas, citing safety concerns. The effect on any country’s economy will be massive – a disruption measured in the US alone at US$4 trillion with major job losses. Jobs in long haul trucking will be devastated. Waymo is already testing big rigs on real-world roads. So is Otto. All designed to save the US$0.64c a mile in driver costs and benefits. Safety. Two well-documented fatalities – one with Tesla’s Auto Pilot, the other with an Uber prototype killing a cyclist – are cited as grave safety issues. Driving and delivery jobs will go, and with…

ADMIT IT. If pressed, you’d struggle to describe the plot of Bullitt. We all know the car chase, but the rest of 1968’s fifth-highest grossing movie is, to most of us, a pretty hazy construct. If ever a movie was distorted by one sequence, Bullitt is it. Movie buffs will laud it as tautly written, spare and thrilling, drawing on influences from Japanese and French arthouse classics, yet it’s been seized on by petrolheads like us, who often find this cop procedural’s pace slow, the character development non-existent and the dialogue tedious. But there, an hour and five in is 10 minutes and 53 seconds of cinematic gold that spawned the car we’re rolling in today. This is the third iteration of the Mustang Bullitt special edition, but this 50th…

Inspired by Henry Ford, Andre Citroen launched his first car in 1919 and, just 10 years later, was producing more than 100,000 cars and trucks annually. However, the Great Depression of 1929 slammed Citroen, which hung its hopes on a highly advanced new model for 1934. The Traction Avant would remain in production until 1957, but it came too late to save Andre Citroen, who ceded his business to Michelin in late-1934 and died in July 1935. In 1936, new Citroen boss Pierre Boulanger laid out yet another design so advanced, it too would hold up for decades. Codenamed Très Petit Voiture (very small car), but officially ‘2CV’ (deux chevaux, for two horsepower), only 250 prototypes – with liquid-cooled, flat-twin engines – were built before World War II intervened. Production…