Table of contents for 1871 in Auto Express

MOMENTUM is a fascinating thing with car companies. Some just feel like they’re on a roll, while others have periods where they seem to just be drifting, bereft of reasons to get excited about either their current line-up of cars, or what’s coming around the corner. Renault is a great example of a brand that has flicked from the latter to the former in recent years. Helped massively by the smash-hit styling of the new Renault 5, but with a decent bank of cars supporting it, there’s a bit of a buzz around the firm that not many would have seen coming at the beginning of this decade. Although the Clio has an enduring appeal and the Captur was a strong, competitive small SUV, back in 2020 there wasn’t a…

WE’VE already been given a good look at BMW’s revolutionary new design language for its upcoming models, courtesy of the Vision Neue Klasse X SUV and the Neue Klasse sedan concepts. We’ve seen inside too, thanks to a preview of the new panoramic iDrive system. But now it’s time to delve deeper into what will power BMW’s next-generation EVs. Step forward the sixth generation of BMW’s eDrive technology. The Gen6 eDrive system was shown off to Auto Express at the firm’s Landshut plant near Munich, where Neue Klasse battery and electric-motor components will be made. BMW claims the battery and electric motors that’ll be used in Neue Klasse models will provide 30 per cent faster charging and a similar increase in range over fifth-generation eDrive models such as the i4,…

THE first BP filling station forecourt to be transformed into an EV-only charging station has been launched in Hammersmith, west London, with the company citing declining pump sales and burgeoning demand for ultra-rapid charging on the A4/M4 corridor between the capital and Heathrow. According to Richard Bartlett, BP Europe’s senior vice-president responsible for the BP Pulse charging network and its retail and convenience stores, the former fuel forecourt – which due to its high-traffic location has become one of London’s best-known since its opening in the Sixties – is already hitting charger utilisation rates that weren’t expected until 2030. The new facility reflects BP’s focus on ultra-rapid charging sites, which is a change from the mindset in 2018, when the oil giant swallowed up Chargemaster’s UK network of 6,500 lower-powered…

THERE are few everyday performance cars that do quite such a good job of channelling a manufacturer’s heritage as the Audi RS 3. The firebreathing hot hatch and saloon don’t share their shapes with the iconic Quattro in the same way a modern Porsche 911 does with its forebears, but the correlation is no less distinct. Starting at just over £60,000, the RS 3 might not represent the future of Audi, but it’s certainly helping to shape it. The RS 3 is one of the firm’s few models that have retained the same powertrain layout across all of its generations, which in this case is both its strongest element, and most compromised, too. Its unusual 2.5-litre five-cylinder engine is full of character, with a deep and resonant exhaust note reminiscent…

IF you’re tempted by any of the cars here, then the next stage is actually getting hold of one. There are two main ways of doing this. You can look at those already for sale in the UK, or you can scour the Japanese sales and auction sites to bring a car into the country. While you can do this solo, it’s much easier to go through a company already set up to walk you through the process. The likes of Torque GT can source more or less anything you have your eye on, while other importers will keep a flow of stock of some of the most popular models, which you can reserve before they arrive on UK soil. Kei cars are often cheap to buy initially, because running…

I’VE switched one small premium electric SUV for another, as the Auto Express fleet waves goodbye to the MINI Countryman and says hello to the Volvo EC40. Eagle-eyed readers might have spotted both cars together in our touchscreen mega-test in last week’s special (Issue 1,870). Both fared very well. More on that shortly. First impressions of the Volvo have been positive. I really like the shape. It’s probably more of a coupé-crossover than an SUV but looks squat and safe, while retaining some stylish flowing lines. It looks like the kind of car that would fly down my Seventies Hot Wheels track if it were a model version of itself. What’s not to love about that? The characteristic Volvo light detailing looks sharp, especially at the back, while the swooping…

IT seems impossible to escape the damp during the winter months. Even if your car is completely watertight, you’ll inevitably enter it with wet coats and boots, drenching the carpet and fabrics. Older cars with worn door seals and blocked drain holes may have more serious soakings when it rains. Left unchecked, this dampness can cause a serious outbreak of mildew, and even on a car that’s used regularly the moisture in the air forces you to spend an extra few minutes demisting the windows before every journey. To fight the fog, we tried seven dehumidifiers that can be left in your car. These work in exactly the same way as the little sachets you find in boxes containing delicate electronics, using gels and crystals to absorb any moisture from…

AN all-new generation of the Toyota RAV4 is about to be revealed, heralding a fresh take on one of the world’s best-selling new cars – and as our exclusive images show, this sixth iteration will be bigger, boxier and more technologically advanced, with a chunky design offering even greater appeal for its millions of customers. However, while Toyota is planning a new look, under the skin we expect it to be closely related to the outgoing model by using the firm’s flexible TNGA architecture. In TNGA-K form, it’s being widely deployed across a variety of mid-sized Toyotas, such as the US-market Camry saloon and Highlander SUV, as well as most of the Lexus range including the NX and RX SUVs, the ES saloon and the LM MPV. In terms of…

THE second-generation Volvo XC60 has been the Swedish brand’s best-selling model ever since it was introduced in 2017, and the mid-size SUV is sure to retain that status thanks to it being given a sophisticated new look, bigger touchscreen and much slicker tech. The seven-seat XC90 received a similar set of upgrades last year, including a new grille design with diagonal slats and the iconic Volvo iron mark badge sitting in the centre. There are new alloy wheel designs, too, and the tail-lights have been given a darker tint. Buyers also have some new paint colours to choose from: Forest Lake, Aurora Silver and Mulberry Red. Inside, the XC60 now features an 11.2-inch, free-standing central touchscreen that’s not only larger than the old unit, but sharper and powered by a…

THE long overdue third-generation Leaf will kick off a big year for Nissan, along with an “all-new compact EV” that will revive the Micra badge. Meanwhile, the best-selling Qashqai will benefit from more efficient, e-Power hybrid tech. Instead of a family hatchback, the new Leaf will be a more athletic-looking coupé-SUV, with its design drawing influence from the brand’s Chill-Out Concept from 2021. Nissan’s VP of Design for Europe, Matthew Weaver, told Auto Express in 2024 that “[The new Leaf] is going to be a triumph of efficiency and engineering.” It will sit on the same AmpR Medium platform that underpins its bigger brother, the Ariya, as well as the Renault Scenic and Megane. We expect it will feature the same 60kWh battery as the Megane, which should allow for…

PLANS are afoot to revive the long-dead Yugo brand, and a potential new car has already been designed. At the helm is Dr Aleksandar Bjelić, a university professor who has secured the naming rights to the brand. He has recruited Serbian designer Darko Marčeta, who has penned what a future Yugo could look like. Clearly inspired by the boxy proportions of the original (which itself was based on the Fiat 127 and 128), Marčeta’s design brings Yugo into the 21st Century with slim LED lights, big alloy wheels and flush-fitting door handles. Retro touches come in the form of a blocky grille and an angular rear hatch not dissimilar to that of the Hyundai Ioniq 5. The newcomer is expected to use a small-capacity petrol engine to keep costs down.…

THIS is the 2025 BMW 2 Series Gran Coupé, a car which has been subjected to one of the most comprehensive facelifts we’ve seen of late. It’s a model that, in the UK at least, doesn’t find as much love with buyers as its hatchback equivalent, the 1 Series. However, with cars getting bigger all the time, a four-door saloon whose footprint is almost identical to the E90-generation 3 Series of the mid-2000s has some appeal. Onto the changes, then, and from whatever angle you approach the 2 Series Gran Coupé, its look has changed substantially. The front has been brought closely in line with the revised 1 Series – so the headlights are slimmer and sharper, while the grille is a less pronounced than before, and its two ‘kidney’…

LEAPMOTOR brand director Damien Dally has confirmed that the firm’s UK line-up will be bookended by the dinky T03 (Issue 1,870) and this: the Tesla Model Y-sized C10 electric SUV. However, the C10 is worlds apart from the T03, to the point where it’s best to focus on it as a standalone product. Visually, there are whiffs of Hyundai at the front and if you squint, perhaps some Porsche Cayenne at the rear. Proportionally, it looks quite European, and the colour palette isn’t as wacky as some of the stuff currently en-route from China. The 20-inch gunmetal wheels look smart, too. It’s equally pleasing inside, at least on first glance. The layout is fairly minimalist, with a big 14.6-inch touchscreen taking centre stage, complemented by a 10.25-inch digital instrument cluster.…

THE transition to electric has been a perilous path to navigate for many car manufacturers, but Kia seems to have skipped along it more merrily than most of its rivals. Not only is it able to churn out new EVs at a staggering rate – the brand aims to have 15 fully electric models on sale across global markets by 2027 – but it has also managed to continue offering cars for those who aren’t ready to make the switch yet. From the affordable, petrol-powered Picanto to the large, diesel seven-seat Sorento, it’s a range which has something for everyone. Of its electric line-up, the EV6 marked a significant step beyond what it had offered before. The previous EV versions of the Soul and Niro helped Kia find its feet…

THE Superb has so far been all of the things I would have expected from a flagship Skoda. It’s spacious, has a great ride and the interior layout is excellent – although there have been a couple of blots on its copybook, which we’ll come to in a moment. First, the things I love. Skoda’s slogan is ‘Simply Clever’, but it’s not just the major stuff that makes the Superb such a winner. It’s all the little things that you use day-to-day that demonstrate how much thought has gone into designing this car. Coming out of a long and cold winter, in which I’ve been up before dawn on many frosty mornings to drive to photo shoots, I’ve come to love the Superb’s built-in ice scraper. Stored under the fuel…

Price: £16.95 Contact: bilthamber.com IF you are confused about how to get your glass clean, Bilt-Hamber wants to make things as clear as possible with its latest product. While the company’s Trace-Less is currently our favourite glass cleaner, it does have some drawbacks - mainly an overpowering smell. It also isn’t the best at removing marks left by hard water. The company’s new glass polish – called Re-View – is a more hardcore cleaner which is designed to strip back the exterior glass surface to its naked form using both chemical and abrasive ingredients. This allows it to remove all coatings such as waxes and repellent treatments. While these coatings are great when freshly applied, they can create distracting smeary films once faded, especially on areas which are swept by windscreen…

LAST year’s top-10 list of best-selling cars was topped by the Ford Puma, Kia Sportage and Nissan Qashqai in first, second and third respectively, while Tesla’s Model Y was the nation’s favourite EV, so it’s a fair bet that some readers are looking at one wearing March’s new 25 plate. Before you buy, which of the top 10 is cheapest to run? Thanks to the total cost of ownership (TCO) database from expert Cap HPI, we can reveal all. This calculates the pence-per-mile of each car, and includes fuel, depreciation, servicing/maintenance and vehicle excise duty. Bottom of the pack is the Model Y. The long-range RWD is the most affordable variant in the line-up, setting owners back 88.7 pence per mile – almost 37p per mile more expensive than our…

CAR buyers from the leading countries of Europe, including Britain, have just selected their A-team. It comprises mostly of a disparate selection of small-to-medium-sized hatchbacks, some of which are more boringly low-tech than they are modern and cutting-edge. I’m talking about an unlikely gaggle of mostly modest motors such as the Dacia Sandero, Fiat Panda and Renault Clio. And although their senior teammates are more upmarket, they’re still a bit, well, ordinary. One is the Ford Puma. The other is the skipper-cum-elder statesman, the VW Golf, which has just celebrated its 51st birthday but refuses to retire. The cheapest team members have a price tag of around £14,000 (lower in mainland Europe) while the most expensive remain under the £30k barrier. Not cheap. But by today’s standards, all are below…

VOLVO now has its V60 and V90 wagons back in UK retailers, having admitted to Auto Express it was a big mistake to take them off sale for more than a year. “When you tell a retail customer that estates aren’t offered, they go off and buy someone else’s,” said Robert Deane, Volvo Car UK commercial operations director. Volvo took the V60 and V90 (and S60 saloon) off the market in summer 2023, having seen demand dwindle as more customers gravitated to SUVs. But sales still amounted to around 2,000 examples in the depressed market following the Covid pandemic, itself another factor exacerbating the estate’s decline. With car makers facing a global semiconductor shortage due to disrupted supply chains, they funneled chips towards more popular and profitable models, and so…

PLANS are already in motion to expand BMW’s latest Gen6 eDrive technology (left) to MINI and Rolls-Royce. Board member and head of purchasing and supplying Dr Joachim Post said: “When we start a new technology, we look at every opportunity. In general [with] the technology we develop for Neue Klasse, our interest is to spread that through the portfolio and make it feasible for all cars, whether that’s Rolls-Royce or MINI.” or Talking about how far Neue Klasse can reach in terms of smallest and largest segments in today’s car market, Post said: “You have seen how flexible our new cells and other components are – as well as the overall packaging.” So far, BMW has revealed two types of electric motors for Neue Klasse, although the motor that sits…

AN attempt by Chancellor Rachel Reeves to intervene in the ongoing car finance scandal has been blocked by the Supreme Court, with law firms saying it is “welcome news”. The Treasury filed an application to influence the outcome of a Supreme Court appeal due in April, following a Court of Appeal ruling that finance firms were breaking the law by paying dealers commission without the consent or knowledge of the buyer – otherwise known as discretionary commission agreements (DCAs). The case, which experts say may open the door for £30bn in payouts, could see almost anyone that’s purchased car finance since 2007 eligible for compensation. In a statement, HM Treasury said: “We respect the Court’s decision to not grant our application to intervene and will monitor it closely.” The decision…

KIA will look to capitalise on yet another profitable corner of the new-car (and van) market later this year with the introduction of its PV electric commercial vehicle range. The first – the PV5 – has now been revealed in both Cargo and Passenger form, ahead of interior and tech information being announced in the coming weeks. The production-ready PV5 develops its concept car-like aesthetic with a sharp daytime running-light signature and separate headlights mounted into the lower bumper. The bonnet is in a contrasting shade, and features a centralised badge, below which is the charging port. The plastic cladding on the lower part of the bumpers, sills and wheelarches gives both versions of the Volkswagen ID. Buzz rival a slightly rugged, off-road look. Both models have sliding side doors,…

GORDON Murray Automotive has established a new Special Vehicles division to design and build unique creations for the world’s most discerning supercar fans. Gordon Murray Special Vehicles (GMSV) will have its own engineers, who will produce three categories of “ultra-low volume” cars: Bespoke, Heritage and Special Vehicles. ‘Special Vehicles’ are new models that will sit outside the Gordon Murray Automotive (GMA) line-up, which comprises the T.50 (left) and T.33. ‘Bespoke’ will offer buyers the chance to commission a car according to their own design requirements. Finally, ‘Heritage’ covers revivals, or continuations, of some of the iconic cars that Murray has created.…

IT’S lucky that Italian is such a beautiful language, because it’s fair to say that when it comes to naming their cars, the Italians aren’t always the most creative. While many of those names sound evocative in the native tongue-Maserati Quattroporte, for example – the ‘fourdoor’ doesn’t have quite the same ring to it, and we doubt the Fiat ‘Well Done’ (or Bravo) would have been quite so successful from a British brand. Ferrari isn’t immune from such literal naming either. This, the 12Cilindri, is the most recent example. Somehow ‘doh-di-chee chill-in-dree’ sounds a lot more exciting than ‘12 cylinders’. This one is the Spider variant, lifting the lid off the superb V12 machine that we first sampled in Berlinetta form back in October. And losing its roof hasn’t dented…

ONCE an oddity offered only to buyers in a country thousands of miles away, Japan’s tiny ‘kei cars’ have become an automotive phenomenon in recent years, spurred on by demand from the United States, with several iconic models crossing the 25-year-old threshold that allows them to be imported by one of the world’s biggest enthusiast markets. The ‘kei’ in kei car is short for kei-jidousha, roughly translating as ‘light automobile’, and describes a uniquely Japanese class of car that conforms to tight regulations governing dimensions and propulsion. The diminutive vehicles enjoy various tax and parking benefits in their home country. All kei cars fit inside a box just 3.4 metres long by 1.48 metres wide (that’s 34cm shorter and 10cm narrower than the Dacia Spring) by 2.0 metres tall, while…

VOLKSWAGEN’S MEB platform arrived with huge fanfare, but we were a little underwhelmed by the early cars. Our doubts surrounded the sort of basics that we felt the VW Group should have got right in the first place. Cabin ergonomics, infotainment interfaces and perceived interior quality were letdowns in early VW ID.3s, for example. That made it all the more frustrating, because so many fundamentals showed promise – cabin space, comfort and efficiency have always been MEB strong points. Of all the cars to be released on the platform, the Skoda Enyaq came closest to getting things right the first time. Yes, there were still slight ergonomic frustrations, and it could be a little too expensive in some trims, but interior quality was excellent and the drive was solid. In…

CLEANING your wheels is arguably the most tedious part of any car clean. They are low down, so you’ll need to bend or kneel to get to them, and then the alloys or covers often have intricate spokes and inaccessible surfaces. They also tend to be the dirtiest part of any car, getting covered in brake dust and road grime which gets baked on. The wash mitt or sponge you use for the bodywork isn’t ideal as it’s too big and you don’t want to expose it to dirt or cleaning chemicals which can be transferred to your precious paint. This is why professional valeters use a dedicated brush to make removing tough dirt easier. Our favourite is Halfords’ Large Alloy Wheel Brush, which does a good job at a…

USED PRICES FROM: £3,500 YEARS: 2014-2024 CO2: 105-127g/km FUEL ECONOMY: 52-62mpg (Cooper) BEST OPTIONS: Comfort Pack, heated windscreen, glass roof WITH an all-new Mk4 MINI now on sale, it’s impressive to see the outgoing car, which is available in both petrol and electric guises, scoring so highly in our survey. You’d expect a MINI to be fun to drive, and this car delivers with first places for both road handling and driving pleasure. Acceleration and engine noise come third, although the firm ride (rated 17th) means the MINI is ranked only second overall for ride and handling. The MINI also takes second place in the infotainment category, with excellent scores for its controls and touchscreen, but losing ground for its audio system, which musters a (still good) 15th. When it…

IF circumstances dictate that you need a family car, you might think your dreams of owning something fun are over. However, there are plenty of options that offer both family car practicality and performance car thrills; here we name our 10 favourites. 1 Hyundai Ioniq 5N Prices from £65,000 DETHRONING the BMW M3 Touring from its place at the top – and sticking two fingers up to the idea that EVs can’t be entertaining – is the Hyundai Ioniq 5 N, an electric performance car that’s about more than straight line-speed (not that it doesn’t have plenty). Its dual-motor layout makes 641bhp, which was supercar territory not long ago, while 0-62mph takes 3.4 seconds. Its 161mph top speed is rapid, too. But it’s the way the 5 N goes fast…