The refreshed Nissan Serena e-POWER brings sharper styling, clever seating arrangements and a more sophisticated driving experience. Sometimes, a few thoughtful improvements make all the difference. I've owned my fair share of MPVs over the years. From the Toyota Estima to the Opel Zafira and Honda Odyssey, I've spent enough time behind the wheel of these family movers to appreciate what makes a good one. I've also had plenty of experience with ...
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The Proton e.MAS 5 is small, sensible and designed to make electric motoring affordable... before Singapore adds COE pricing. There is a 28-litre storage compartment underneath the rear seat of the Proton e.MAS 5. Proton suggests putting shoes in it. This tells you quite a lot about the car: it is a compact electric hatchback designed around ordinary things. In Malaysia, Proton introduced it explicitly as an affordable EV. In Singapore, things ...
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Mercedes-Benz has stopped trying quite so hard to make its electric cars look electric. The result is a GLC that feels reassuringly familiar, apart from the enormous glowing grille and 39.1-inch screen. The Mercedes-Benz GLC Electric has a grille. This normally shouldn't be remarkable; cars have had grilles for more than a century, largely because engines tend to get hot and require air to stop themselves becoming expensive paperweights. Electric cars do ...
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The Hongqi E-HS9 is more than five metres long, weighs 2.6 tonnes and has a grille that looks capable of issuing diplomatic instructions. Something peculiar happens when you drive a Hongqi E-HS9. Traffic moves. Not dramatically. Nobody mounts the kerb or salutes as you pass. But there is an unmistakable sense that people notice this enormous SUV appearing in their mirrors and quietly decide that perhaps now would be a good time ...
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Tesla has finally put the indicator stalk back into the Model 3. Then it removed the switches for adjusting the front seats. Tesla has finally admitted that stalks are useful. The latest Model 3 once again has a conventional indicator stalk sprouting from the steering column, which will come as welcome news to anyone who has attempted to signal halfway around a roundabout using touch-sensitive buttons on a rotating steering wheel. Progress. ...
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The BYD Sealion 8 has seven seats, 900km of combined range and enough equipment to embarrass cars costing considerably more. There is a set of electric seat controls mounted high on the front passenger seat of the BYD Sealion 8. Press the buttons and the seat glides forwards, creating more legroom behind it. This sort of arrangement is normally called a “boss button”, because it allows the important person sitting in ...
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Neue Klasse technology gives BMW’s electric flagship a fresh lease of life, while its blend of comfort and agility makes choosing where to sit surprisingly difficult. I didn’t expect the BMW i7 to attract quite this much attention. The current 7 Series has been around long enough for its imposing proportions to feel familiar, yet people still looked at the car I drove. The two-tone paint certainly helped. On something this ...
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The new CLA 200 has the looks, driving manners and premium appeal to make a convincing everyday companion. Just be prepared to pay handsomely for the privilege. There was a time when buying an entry-level Mercedes-Benz was relatively straightforward. You wanted the three-pointed star, a bit of German engineering, and something that would look respectable in the office car park. The Mercedes-Benz CLA has always brought a little more personality to that ...
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The entry-level Dongfeng 007 has a smaller battery and half the power of the version above it. The most important number on the Dongfeng 007 Prestige is not 007. It is 99. That is how many kilowatts its electric motor produces, and in Singapore that keeps this sleek, nearly five-metre-long electric fastback within Category A COE. And despite having less power, it has the same basic body, much of the same equipment and ...
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The seven-seat Jaecoo J8 has a petrol engine, two electric motors and 422bhp. Oddly, the best thing the engine can do is keep quiet. The Jaecoo J8 is a plug-in hybrid, although you could quite easily drive one for a while and forget about the petrol part. This is because its 1.5-litre turbocharged engine spends much of its time behaving like somebody working backstage. It switches on when required, generates electricity, contributes ...
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The Lamborghini Temerario can creep away silently on electricity. It can also spin its V8 to 10,000rpm. Apparently, compromise means something different in Sant’Agata. The strangest thing about starting a Lamborghini Temerario is that, sometimes, nothing happens. You lift the little red fighter-jet cover, thumb the starter and wait for the sort of explosion that normally accompanies waking a Lamborghini. Instead, there is a whirr. Perhaps a beep. Then silence. The Temerario defaults ...
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The new Mazda 6e electric fastback is handsome, spacious and capable of travelling 560km on a charge. The strange bit is that the most un-Mazda thing about it is sitting right in front of you. Mazda has spent years teaching us that cars should be easy to use. Its infotainment screens were deliberately kept out of reach. There were rotary controllers between the seats. Buttons operated important things. Even when everyone else ...
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The Subaru e-Outback is quicker to 100 km/h than some old WRXs, and it has a huge boot and roof rails you can actually put things on. Priorities, apparently. There was a time when the words “fastest Subaru” would have conjured up a large rear wing, gold wheels and something blue hurtling sideways through a Welsh forest. Now, the title belongs to an electric family car, and there is no enormous bonnet ...
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Every few months I get into a new electric car and spend the first five minutes trying to figure out where the air-conditioning controls have gone. That probably says something about where the EV market is heading. The modern electric car has become impressive. They are quiet, quick, efficient and increasingly loaded with technology. You can have enormous screens, animated graphics, voice assistants, apps, cameras pointing everywhere and enough computing power to ...
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The Aston Martin Vantage S has more power, more fanfare and another letter on its boot. None of those things is actually the reason it is sublime. Typically, when a company aspires to make a faster version of an already fast car, they give it more power, make the suspension harder, or throw in some carbon fibre bits. Stick a letter on the bootlid, preferably something from the sporty end of ...
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