Table of contents for 1814 in Auto Express

THIS WAY TO UNBEATABLE SAVINGS 6 ISSUES FOR JUST £27.00 PLUS A FREE GIFT 13 ISSUES FOR JUST £27.00 PLUS A FREE GIFT 6 ISSUES FOR JUST £27.00 PLUS DIGITAL EDITONS VISIT US AT SUBSCRIBE.AUTOEXPRESS.CO.UK/JAN24 to claim your special offer or call 0330 333 9491 using code DJ24 SCAN AND SUBCRIBE Calls to 03 numbers will be charged at your standard local rate. This offer closes on 31st January 2024. Discounts are based on the shop price of a single issue. The number of issues ordered will be displayed upon checkout. Offer only available on subscriptions delivered to UK addresses.…

PEUGEOT E-3008 Price from: £45,850 Monthly deal: £479pcm THERE’S no denying that the E-3008 has some eye-watering list prices – but Peugeot is already making the car available with a relatively low interest rate (2.5% APR) on a PCP deal. If you’re able to put down a deposit of just under £6,000 on an E-3008 Allure, it’ll cost you £479 per month, based on a 37-month deal and 6,000 miles per year. HONDA e:Ny1 Price from: £44,995 Monthly deal: £346pcm HONDA was one of the first to get aggressive on finance deals, with its e:Ny1 EV. Put down £5k and the Japanese brand will throw a whopping £8k contribution into the deal, bringing the monthly rate down to £346 (three-year deal, 10,000 miles per year). That arrangement also includes five…

Sony/Honda’s Afeela brand edges closer AFEELA – the electric car brand from Sony and Honda – has unveiled the latest evolution of its EV prototype at CES. The car is due on sale in 2026. Compared with the concept shown last year, there are different bumpers and a new nose, while inside you’ll find a tweaked, minimalist-style cabin. Tech will be integral to the design, with Microsoft providing an AI assistant for the infotainment. The car was driven on stage using a PlayStation controller. Hyundai Mobion gets out of a tight spot HYUNDAI brought its crab-walking Mobion concept to CES, previewing technology to help drivers navigate car parks and congested city streets. Using an Ioniq 5 as a base, the Mobion’s four wheels can swivel independently at up to 90…

DOWNLOADING the app is fast and free, and it’s immediately ready to go with no need to sign-in or create an account. Two options are offered on the app home screen; photo mode allows you to report individual potholes using a single picture, while drive mode records the road ahead as you go. If you choose drive mode, you’re initially shown a video-style image of the view ahead, so you can adjust your camera angle. Once driving, the screen goes black with a red ‘recording’ dot to save the phone’s battery and reduce the opportunity for distraction. While drive mode will work with a passenger holding your phone, serious users will need to buy a sucker-type windscreen mount to get the best from Stan. Whether using photo or drive mode, touching…

THE first-generation Honda CR-V is something you can buy very cheaply, but it’s not that easy to find one; these are relatively old cars now and aren’t exactly the sort of model deemed worth preserving. As such, a search for CR-Vs in the classifieds sorted with price ascending will reveal many Mk2s, but only the occasional Mk1. Buy one, however, and you’ll have a sound second-hand buy. These are well built, relatively simple cars that are unlikely to produce significant issues. For the best chance of less going wrong, you might want to go for a front-wheel-drive manual car, but any Mk1 CR-V should be a safe bet. As with any car of this age, keep a keen eye out for rust, and while the 2.0-litre, naturally aspirated engine is…

Richard_Ingram@autovia.co.uk @rsp_ingram Electric motor Power/range 469bhp/367 miles Performance 0-62mph/top speed 4.2 seconds/127mph “The Performance Pack gets a unique 20-inch design of wheel, as seen on the pre-facelift car” ELECTRIC cars, by their nature, tend to pack quite a punch. The instant power and torque mean even everyday models feel fast, while those with sporting pretensions can surprise six-figure supercars in a traffic-light drag race. The Polestar 2, even in its most basic form, is an electric car aimed at the driver. Indeed, our first test of the facelifted car deemed it “great to drive” and “a good set of dampers and a slightly softer chassis away from being a fabulous electric car”. So here we are, just a few months later, driving the revised, range-topping Polestar 2 Dual Motor Performance…

MODEL TESTED: i5 M60 xDrive PRICE: £97,745 POWERTRAIN: 2x e-motors, 81.2kWh battery, 593bhp 593bhp Powertrain 2x e-motor 81.2kWh Battery/range 315 miles 3.8 seconds Performance 143mph 490 litres Seats up/down N/A THE best part of six figures sounds like a significant amount of cash for a traditional three-box executive saloon, but the i5 M60 is a technical tour-de-force. Tech highlights THE new generation also offers more car than ever before. The latest G60-generation model is 97mm longer than its predecessor, now surpassing the five-metre mark. Width, height and wheelbase are all up marginally, too. That body has been honed in a wind tunnel, so despite the quite boxy shape, it delivers a drag coefficient as low as 0.23cd – remarkable for a car in this segment. Under the skin, the i5…

WINNER BMW i5 1st BMW’s entire electric range is extremely strong, and this latest addition is one of its best attempts yet. The spacious, soothing and beautifully built i5 sits right at the top of its class. We would save a chunk of cash and buy the standard eDrive40 instead, but the M60 is still an electric performance saloon with a wider spread of abilities than any we’ve sampled so far. But for its numb steering and shortfall of playfulness, BMW has come close to producing a viable all-electric M5. ● Superb refinement ● Rapid performance● Stunning cabin● Slick in-car tech ● Lifeless steering● Artificial sounds● Awkward boot shape● eDrive40 model is cheaper INTERESTED? Scan the code for further information RUNNER UP Audi e-tron GT 2nd THERE’S no shame in taking…

Pete_Baiden@autovia.co.uk @PeteBaiden Running costs 35.6mpg (on test) £75 fill-up £255 or 33% tax Performance 0-62mph/top speed 10.6 seconds/120mph Practicality Boot (seats up/down) 445/1,623 litres LIFE changed for many motorists in Greater London at the end of August last year. The Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) was controversially expanded to cover all London boroughs, which meant a lot of people had to sell or scrap their non-compliant cars to avoid paying the £12.50 daily fee for driving in the capital. I live in west London and, while I wasn’t directly impacted by the expansion, some of my neighbours were. One of them has scrapped his car and now drives a Volkswagen Amarok pick-up (go figure!), while another is still currently paying the fee because he refuses to sell his 2009 Mercedes…

Alpine’s hot hatch gets Michelin tyres ALPINE’S new range of electric cars will use exclusively marked Michelin tyres, continuing a partnership that began in 2017 with the A110. The Alpine A290 EV hot hatch will have a range of three special variants of the Pilot Sport EV, the Pilot Sport S5 and the Pilot Alpin 5, covering summer, winter and sports tyres. Developed specially for the A290 over two years, they feature a 225mm cross-section and promise agility with stability and grip without having excessive rolling resistance to spoil the EV’s range. Based on the Renault 5, the A290 is due to arrive this year. LG unveils new dual car display at CES LG has launched an in-car passenger display that can’t be seen by the driver, in a bid…

FROM £10,000 40kWh Acenta 2018, 50k miles THE 40kWh Leaf that we tested had the smallest battery fitted to the Mk2 car, but by January 2019 a 62kWh battery was available, which boosted the range from 168 miles to 239 miles. If you top up away from home, the bigger battery can be charged faster at 100kW, compared with just 50kW for the smaller one. Designed solely as an EV, the Leaf is better packaged than the Kona, so it has a bigger boot, but its ride isn’t as well resolved, even though the Kona hardly sets a benchmark. The Leaf also isn’t as good ergonomically, and the infotainment disappoints. In late 2021 we also ran a buying-used feature on the second-generation Leaf, and at that point the cheapest examples…

Richard_Ingram@autovia.co.uk @rsp_ingram • New Active version joins range • Bigger motors for hybrids THE big-selling Ford Kuga has been given a thorough overhaul for 2024, with official information and images landing just weeks after we caught the car testing on public roads. Key changes include a new exterior design, with the addition of a rugged Active model for the first time. Active (the green car shown here) leads the updates, in fact, ushering in a similar look to that found on the jacked-up Focus. There’s a set of silver scuff plates and extra cladding, plus a new grille design with vertical bars and a gloss black finish. Inside, you’ll find unique seat trim and floor mats, and a wood finish for the dashboard. But Ford says the Kuga Active isn’t…

NEW Volkswagen models will benefit from a ChatGPT Artificial Intelligence chatbot to answer an array of queries offering what the car maker claims is “a uniquely intelligent, automotive-grade ChatGPT integration.” We tried the system at CES, but while it failed to answer or recognise some of our questions, it managed commands related to the car’s functions – such as adjusting the climate control or turning on the heated seats – pretty well. All questions and answers are deleted from the car immediately, and ChatGPT does not have access to vehicle data.…

Jordan_Katsianis@autovia.co.uk • Power hiked by 19bhp to 276bhp, with torque up by 30Nm • New drive modes and stiffer suspension for better handling TOYOTA has given its GR Yaris hot hatchback a significant set of updates, revealing a ‘gen 2’ car at Tokyo Auto Salon. There’s a new interior and more power, plus an auto gearbox option for the first time. The firm has boosted the high-performance three-cylinder turbo engine to 276bhp, with 390Nm of torque. This has been achieved by tweaking the injection system and adding lighter pistons plus a higher-strength valve train, new exhaust valves and a new intake pressure sensor. Drive is sent to either a standard six-speed manual gearbox or Toyota’s new eight-speed automatic, which has been developed specifically for the GR. There are other small…

Crawler steps out ALONGSIDE the uprated Ariya (bottom left), Nissan brought the tough X-Trail Crawler concept to Tokyo Auto Salon. Tweaks to the body give greater ground clearance and improved approach angles, with extensive cladding to protect the Crawler on really rough terrain. It’s strictly a concept for now, and there’s no word on the tweaks making production. Mugen turns up heat JAPANESE tuner Mugen has applied its usual performance upgrades to the latest Honda Civic Type R, with a pair of models featuring both cosmetic and mechanical changes. These include a bodykit, new wheels and a titanium exhaust, plus a carbon-fibre bonnet. The company hasn’t green-lighted them for the UK yet. Hot Lexus unveiled ALONGSIDE the uprated GR Yaris (left), sister brand Lexus has fitted a version of that…

Chris_rosamond@autovia.co.uk • Phone app records condition of highways while motorists drive • Uploaded footage is scanned by AI trained to spot 45 problems A REVOLUTIONARY new ‘crowdsourcing’ app allows drivers to automatically report the condition of every road they drive on to the responsible council or authority, using their own smartphone mounted in the windscreen. The app is called Stan, and is free for drivers to download and use, with no sign-up or personal data collected or stored. Motorists can become ‘citizen surveyors’ for their local council by using their smartphone camera to record the state of the roads during any car journey. Every council will be provided with a portal and log-in, where data from reports made via the app will be continuously shared. Video and individual images recorded…

mail@autoexpress.co.uk @AutoExpress YOUR VIEWS This week’s letters Will EVs herald a rethink on VED? FROM: Brian Wills I CAN charge my Renault Zoe for about £3 per 100 miles, but the cost away from home is similar to that of diesel, which provides much tax for the exchequer. This tax shortfall will have to be made up. I can see a time when we pay road tax monthly, probably via a black box. Call-out for old BL literature FROM: John Webster (Expat in Australia, and British Leyland car enthusiast) I’D love to hear from any readers with British Leyland, Austin Rover or MG Rover brochures, books, showroom posters or other memorabilia. (E-mail Inbox and we’ll gladly forward messages – CR) Another way to boost EV sales FROM: Neil Entwistle WITH…

Steve_Fowler@autovia.co.uk @stevefowler Performance 0-62mph/top speed 3.6 seconds/202mph BACK in November, we were standing on stage in Berlin handing over an award for the most beautiful car in the world to Aston Martin. German readers of our sister title Auto Bild, as well as the country’s biggest Sunday paper, Bild Am Sonntag, had voted for the DB12 in the prestigious Golden Steering Wheel Awards. Now we can confirm that on a cold, wet, winter’s morning, the latest in an illustrious line of Aston Martin DB models does, indeed, brighten up the dullest of days. It is, as my German friends pointed out, quite beautiful. That has often been the case with Astons in the past, but sometimes they’ve failed to deliver dynamically. Not here – the DB12 is the best Aston…

Ellis_Hyde@autovia.co.uk @EllisDrives Running costs 50.4mpg (official) £52 fill-up Performance 0-62mph/top speed 11.4 seconds/115mph WITH the Ford Fiesta now six feet under, Hyundai has decided to seize the moment by giving its contender in the supermini battle royale a mid-life facelift. It’s not the only brand to do so, with key rivals such as the Renault Clio, Vauxhall Corsa and Peugeot 208 having also gone under the knife in recent times. So the i20 has some tough competition on its hands. Indeed, we’ve already put the updated i20 up against the revised Corsa in a recent twin test (Issue 1,812), awarding the manual Vauxhall a marginal victory thanks to its good value and improved tech. But what if you want an automatic model? Is the Hyundai the small car of choice…

MODEL TESTED: e-tron GT quattro PRICE: £86,585 POWERTRAIN: 2x e-motors, 93.4kWh battery, 523bhp 523bhp Powertrain 2x e-motors 93.4kWh Battery/range 296 miles 4.1 seconds Performance 152mph 405 litres Boot rear/front 84 litres TWO years on from its launch, there is still little else on the road that looks as spectacular as the Audi e-tron GT. It’s hard to think of many cars that offer so much presence, but there’s substance to back up that style, too. Tech highlights FEW cars on sale today – electric or otherwise – come close to sporting a silhouette as low or as sleek as the Audi e-tron GT. Indeed, only the Porsche Taycan, with which Audi co-developed its four-door coupé, offers an EV powertrain while matching its low-slung 1.4-metre height. To put it another way,…

Richard_Ingram@autovia.co.uk @rsp_ingram Running costs Official range/tax 283 miles/£0 Practicality Boot (seats up/down) 503/1,678 litres Performance 0-62mph/top speed 4.2 seconds/146mph THOSE with a keen eye will notice the Genesis GV70 in the main picture has a different number plate to the one we featured in our Fleetwatch section late last year. The colour, interior trim and spec are identical, but the car itself is new. I’d enjoyed the company of OE23 YWW for almost a month, and had covered nearly 700 miles running festive errands around town, with the occasional trip out of London for work. I’d also driven the car, fully loaded with the family in tow, to visit my parents for Christmas – all without issue. When we arrived, my dad kindly moved his BMW i3 out of the…

Got a query? products@autoexpress.co.uk THIS is a common question from drivers looking to be better prepared for our more extreme climate and one we’ve touched on previously. But it was interesting to read recently Pirelli’s take on which type of tyre drivers should fit. The query is posed as sales of all-season tyres are rising in Europe, where they now take 20 per cent of the market. All-season tyres have an even larger share of sales on crossovers and SUVs, where sales have grown 60 per cent between 2019 and 2022. Pirelli believes this is down to milder winters and the advances in all-season performance. So who should fit all-season tyres? The F1 tyre supplier believes that for urban drivers, with an annual mileage of under 25,000 miles, all-season tyres…

mail@autoexpress.co.uk LAND Rover’s stylish Evoque would perform much better if only it could scrape its scores for value, running costs and reliability off the floor. These are three critical categories in which it comes 75th, which is dead last in the survey. The Evoque’s best result is 14th in the exterior category, including a first place overall for styling. It also ranks a decent 14th for acceleration, and bags 24th place for ride and handling, the latter including an impressive seventh for ride smoothness and 11th for driving pleasure. But elsewhere the results are bleak, and the Evoque appears to be relatively disappointing on many levels for owners – a worrying trait for such a premium product. WE SAID “While some rivals offer a more engaging driving experience, the Evoque…

FROM £14,500 Kona 64kWh SE 2020, 40k miles ALTHOUGH the Kona is also available with various ICE powertrains, it was designed as an EV at the outset, so it’s well packaged. From launch there were 39kWh or 64kWh battery packs, which came with 134bhp and 201bhp electric motors respectively. We tested the smaller unit of the two and although it trailed the Nissan for performance, there wasn’t enough of a difference to matter. Overall the Kona was better to drive, came with more standard kit for slightly less money and the refinement was excellent. As with the Leaf, there’s some adjustability with the regenerative braking, and you can choose between five levels, compared with just two for the Nissan. When we published a Kona used-car guide in late 2021, you…

GUESS what? It’s OK to constructively criticise things you love. A few polite, productive home truths never hurt anyone or anything – the pure-electric vehicle included. For the record, since driving my first one in 1982, I’ve been a fan. Anti-EV? Not me. But if politicians, manufacturers, retailers, trade associations, infrastructure organisations and others don’t acknowledge and deal with the quandaries that still dog the widespread adoption of EVs, there’s a danger that the cars will be relegated into the ‘failed product’ league – like the Betamax video recorder. Ongoing issues for EVs revolve around perception, lack of understanding, hefty retail prices, stalling sales, infrastructure woes, and anxieties about range and resale values. Quick fixes include the auto industry and its appointed pressure groups NOT calling them BEVs (battery electric…

John_McIlroy@autovia.co.uk @johnmcilroy • Priced from just under £35k in mild-hybrid petrol form • All-electric version has a 327-mile range and a 160kW rating THE Peugeot 3008 has often been a significant car for the French brand – but the latest, third generation ramps up the stakes to a new level. It ushers in an entirely new generation of platform, not just for Peugeot but for its parent, Stellantis Group. Called STLA, and available in Small, Medium and Large configurations (the 3008 uses the middle of this trio), this tech has been designed from the ground up to support pure-electric cars, although it can still accommodate mild-hybrid and plug-in hybrid combustion-engined set-ups. As if to mark the occasion, we’re presented with yet another take on what the 3008 should actually be.…

Steve_Fowler@autovia.co.uk @stevefowler • Saloon on sale in 2026 • EV sports car planned HONDA’S new 0 Series EVs wowed the crowds at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, with the production-ready Saloon concept and the more forward-thinking Space-Hub. But it’s news of further 0 Series models, including a sports car, an affordable Jazz-sized supermini and a couple of SUVs that will please car fans. The new range was previewed at CES by the 0 Series Saloon and Space-Hub concepts. But Honda CEO Toshihiro Mibe has already confirmed that the company is planning an all-electric sports car under the 0 Series sub-brand. “We have been researching a sports car in an EV era,” Mibe told us. “It’s part of our research and development, yes. “We showed a hybrid Prelude at…

BMW i5 iDrive 8.5 | Key features: Wireless Apple CarPlay BMW’s ever-improving infotainment system remains one of the very best in the business. On its latest iDrive 8.5 operating system, there are a couple of adjustments which might not be immediately noticeable, including the fact that BMW is rolling out quicker update cycles for details of chargepoint location. The main screen houses permanent shortcuts for the map and widgets, so it’s easy to navigate. It also remembers the last settings you selected, so if you need to disable the lane-keep assist whenever you start the car, for example, the route to get to that function is quicker. The iDrive click wheel also makes small adjustments easier on the move than they would be via the touchscreen. Standard kit included Adaptive…

FOR two cars that command almost six-figure price tags, the difference between running them is fairly marginal. Place a £10,000 deposit on a three-year PCP agreement with a 10,000-mile annual limit, and the BMW comes to £1,280 per month. That’s just £8 per month less than the Audi, which currently benefits from a hefty £8,500 manufacturer deposit contribution. The e-tron GT is slightly cheaper to service, with its plan costing £456 compared with the £568 plan for the i5, while the more efficient BMW costs £798 less to recharge over three years – although this is based on a unit electricity price of 28.6p per kWh, so this figure will vary based on how much time you spend using pricey public chargers. To make public rapid charging more palatable, the…

John_McIlroy@autovia.co.uk @johnmcilroy Running costs Official range/tax 249 miles/£0 Practicality Boot (seats up/down) 355/1,053 litres Performance 0-62mph/top speed 9.0 seconds/93mph “The Avenger lollops happily about on rougher, unpaved surfaces” MAYBE it’s the badge, but our latest fleet car has all the resistance of a three-year-old in wellies when it sees some muddy puddles lurking ahead of it. Jeep’s Avenger may not be a true off-roader, but the appalling weather over the Christmas period has allowed it to settle in quickly by demonstrating the rugged (and rather mischievous) side of its character. We have our tongue slightly in cheek here because, of course, the Avenger is designed as an urban runabout. It even shares plenty of its underpinnings with lots of models in Jeep's parent group Stellantis’s ecosystem – Peugeot’s E-2008, the…

Boring Car Trivia 4 Richard Porter/Sniff Petrol (Independently published, amazon.co.uk) Price: £6.99 Rating: DON’T buy this volume if you want to know 0-62mph times or F1 history; buy it if you’re more interested in Renault having to rename its 17 hatchback for the Italian market. There are no pictures, no grandstanding, just plenty of obscure trivia in the fourth edition of this series. Surviving to Drive: A Year Inside Formula 1 Guenther Steiner (Bantam Books, penguin.co.uk) Price: £20 Rating: THIS book marks the first time that an F1 team has allowed its principal to tell the story of a whole season. So that’s exactly what Steiner has done here, giving his account of the good, the bad and the ugly during the Haas F1 team’s 2022 season. It’s brutally honest,…

CO2/tax 147-150g/km £180 Running costs 48-50mpg (50 TDI quatt.) £95 fill-up Performance 0-62mph/top speed 5.7 seconds/155mph WHEREAS hatchbacks have been the staple of many European brands for years, the big three prestige German car makers (Audi, BMW, Mercedes) failed to really embrace the breed until relatively recently. BMW and Audi first tackled the mass market with the 3 Series Compact and A3 respectively back in the nineties, and in time both would adopt the bodystyle further up their model ranges, with the 5 Series GT and A7 Sportback. Both of these were a response to Mercedes introducing its swoopy CLS four-door coupé in 2004, a car that achieved far more success than its maker had hoped for or expected. Audi aimed to raise the bar further with a car every…