Tag: topgear.com

Renault has fitted its Megane E-Tech with a new 67kWh lithium iron phosphate battery during its mid-life update, meaning it now claims 310 miles of WLTP range. That’s an increase of around 25 miles on the pre-facelift version, but it also means that – despite a fancy cell-to-pack architecture – the whole car is now…

What are we looking at here? It looks like a Yaris. A Yaris with a bodykit, yes. A Yaris with a suspiciously extended wheelbase, certainly. A Yaris covered in some sort of digital camouflage, for sure. It isn’t a Yaris. Not in any way that matters, anyway. From the first time it starts up and flings…

Hummer’s don’t hum. Infinitis don’t go on for ever. Genesis’s (Genesii?) haven’t been here from the start. Smart’s once were but are no longer. And Mini’s aren’t. No, car firms don’t fret about living up to their names. The Countryman is the biggest Mini there’s ever been. Have an electric one and it’s also the…

Hard to imagine, as you clutch a melty Cornetto in 35-degree heat, but I’ve been skiing. OK, I went skiing back at the beginning of April (essentially the last week of the season before the Alps turn into one giant Slush Puppie), but I drove there in the Ioniq 9 – a car which, apart…

In the ’50s and ’60s, when fuel was cheap and space was plentiful, Americans that still wanted a small, fuel efficient car were seriously underserved, and the original Beetle pretty much had a monopoly on the market. The combination of its affordability and simplicity, a genius and sometimes self-deprecating ad campaign and its status as…

There was a time when we could say BMW is a company that builds grilles and does a healthy side business flogging them on the front of some cars. But things be different now. The neue Neue Klasse has introduced something new, and today we learn just how much that newness will cost. For its…

Technically an electric V-Class van. Except completely not – it’s as similar to the V-Class as a tortoise is to a jump jet. Completely new, it’s a mixed material monocoque called VAN.EA as a platform – lots of aluminium – powered by a 115kWh of your finest NMC battery, giving upwards of 400-miles of WLTP range.…

It’s already facelift time for the Maserati GranTurismo and GranCabrio. Having arrived in 2022 and 2023 respectively, the two grand tourers have been bundled together for a refresh. Maserati actually calls it a “strategic update” with the design bringing the pair in line with the look of the MCPura supercar. And yes, that was previously…

It’s a kei car in the UK! A what car? It’s short for kei-jidōsha, which translates to ‘light vehicle’. It’s the class of car introduced in Japan just after World War Two to get the market back on its feet, but it’s still going strong today. The dinky Honda N-Box has been the best-selling car…

I found out the other day that my i8 has just turned 10. Although it was first registered in March 2017, it was actually built in January 2016. I just hope it wasn’t languishing in a field for 14 months. Next month maybe I’ll find out, as it’s off to BMW UK for a good…