Opinion

What feature of your car annoys you the most? I’ll go first. Our eight-year old Skoda locks itself after about 30 seconds. Sounds good, but it isn't. It’s led to all manner of annoying moments, but locking itself while the keys were inside the car probably wins — don’t ask.

Money pit or not, Aussies spend big on 4x4s because it's simply a fun activity for a diverse community.

Mercedes-Benz design boss Gorden Wagener didn’t hold back.In an interview with Top Gear at this week’s Munich motor show, Wagener gave his frank opinions of the latest work from his German rivals at BMW and Audi. The German took specific aim at the interior design of both the new Audi Concept C and the BMW iX3.“That interior looks like it was designed in 1995,” Wagener was quoted as saying. “It is a little bit too known, and there is too little tech. I have always claimed that I am a big fan of hyper-analogue things, but you cannot ignore a screen. When you have a small screen, you automatically send the message ‘congratulations, you are sitting in a small car’.”As for the BMW, which not only had a large central screen but also a narrow screen that wraps around the lower edge of the windscreen, well, Wagener wasn’t a fan of that either.“What the other manufacturer did? I mean, they showed the concept a couple of years ago with the information across the bottom of the windscreen. I have to say I'm not a big fan of that because it's so far away it’s hard to read. Everything will appear smaller so it’s distracting, and you need a device to operate it because it’s too far away to be touch-sensitive, so you have to put a touchscreen in there which they did. So it’s a pretty conventional solution, and actually a complicated one because you have information on different levels and I don't think that's intuitive.”It’s always good to get honest comments from anyone you interview, but Wagener may want to look up the phrase ‘people in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones’ because, to be blunt, Mercedes’ design has been… hit and miss in recent years (to put it politely).I will acknowledge at this point that design is subjective and each individual will look at any car through their own eyes and form a unique opinion. But as someone who drives a wide variety of cars for a living, so I get up close to them, I have to say the latest era of German luxury design doesn’t make sense to me.Let’s do this alphabetically and start with the Audi. The Concept C is meant to preview the next-generation of design for the four-ring brand, ushering in a new ethos of ‘radical simplicity’, according to the brand’s design boss, Massimo Frascella.The new design, with a new vertical grille and a sloping tail is a clear call back to the brand’s iconic Auto Union racing cars of the 1930s. Nobody loves Auto Union racing cars more than me (just ask the poor Audi Australia folks who accidentally brought it up once at a dinner and I proceed to bore them for the next 45 minutes with non-stop history of such things), but the new look just doesn’t work in my eyes. The ‘vertical grille’ looks more rectangular to me, which looks very much like it came direct from the 1930s, before the car industry learnt to make radiators in all different shapes and sizes so cars could stop having rectangular, vertical grilles.Personally, I like the interior, but I also happen to think Wagener’s right that most customers will want bigger screens — even though, personally, I think a lot of brands are pushing the limits of how big in-car screens should be.Overall, I think Audi has arguably the best-looking and most consistent design themes of the three German luxury brands, so it is a huge risk to change it. Personally, I can’t see this design language transferring nicely to the same variety of cars the current styling does.Moving on to BMW, the all-new iX3 is also meant to herald the start of something radically different for the Bavarian brand. The so-called ‘Neue Klasse’ design theme is going to proliferate across the brand in the coming years, whether you like it or not.Again, the looks are subjective, but what bothers me about the iX3 design is it is yet another huge change for the brand and its once signature ‘kidney grille’ look. Ever since the controversial ‘flame surfacing’ design era, BMW has taken its long-running kidney grille and distorted it into all sorts of different shapes and sizes. So much so that what was once an easily recognisable design element has now become something completely random. On one model it might be small squares, on another giant, gaping holes and now the iX3 a throwback to the tall, slender version of decades ago.What is the point of a ‘signature look’ if it constantly changes?Finally there’s Mercedes, and the car Wagener will have personally overseen, the new GLC EV. This replaces the EQC SUV, the brand’s first mainstream electric model, which vanished without fanfare after clearly underwhelming the market.Maybe Wagener was lashing out at his rivals after the current EQ range of electric models has received ‘mixed’ reviews for their looks. Mercedes tried to clearly differentiate the looks of its electric models from its conventionally-powered range, but that has also been met with ‘mixed’ reviews and the new GLC attempts to correct course.Unfortunately, in an attempt to make the electric SUV look more like a traditional Mercedes that appears to have copied a design from the 1980s, when the grille was huge and rectangular, and added an array of bling to it.Personally, it’s not my taste, but for Mercedes’ sake I hope there are buyers lining up for the SUV with the big chrome face.I certainly don’t envy Wagener and his colleagues and the task they have at the moment, trying to integrate modern technology while retaining a distinctive look and needing to stand out in an increasingly competitive market. But, to be blunt, if what was on display at the Munich motor show is any guide, then we may be entering a controversial period for all three brands.

Here’s a question for four-wheel driving enthusiasts: why? As in why do you do it? Serious question.

The rise of smart electric cars could see us fall into a future where we have to pay for nearly every function – even turning the vehicle on.Computers have been an integral part of vehicles since the 1980s, when engine management systems and electronics became more sophisticated, but it was always a car first and mainly mechanical with software added. In the past 10 years, however, we’ve seen computers become the architecture around which the car is built and aptly referred to as software defined vehicles (SDVs).Sure, that seems a natural part of the evolution of vehicles which have always been on a path of continual advancement from performance, efficiency and safety to comfort, convenience and entertainment. What could go wrong?The problem is that with cars essentially becoming just large electronic devices with many functions provided with software that’s updated over the air, the carmakers may choose to charge you for the use of them, or switch those functions off remotely if you don't pay up.It’s no different from your phone or TV and because you’re fine with paying for your Netflix and Spotify subscription, it stands to reason you’ll be okay with paying a subscription fee for car functions. Things such as heated seats, a head-up display, proximity unlocking, even the amount of power the motor makes. A most extreme scenario is failure to pay a bill resulting in the car itself not being able to be started. The safety implications of this are obvious and concerning at the very least.That last one seems unlikely but don’t underestimate the potential carmakers see in monetising vehicle functions. Electric vehicles have much fewer moving parts that need replacing, or fixing or maintaining than internal combustion engine (ICE) cars and manufacturers stand to lose billions of dollars they’ve made in the past servicing ICE cars. Subscription fees will be one of the ways they’ll keep that cash flow going.Some car companies are already charging for features through subscriptions. Tesla currently offers extra features such as live traffic updates, dash cam and music streaming through its subscription model. BMW offers heated seats among other features through subscription, and Toyota has made its remote start function available this way on some models. Mercedes-Benz provides traffic and sat-nav updates using subscription, and Volkswagen will increase the power output of its ID.3 electric hatch from 150kW to 170kW for a monthly or annual fee. Chinese carmakers haven’t embraced the subscription model yet in Australia, despite many of the brands such as BYD, Geely and Zeekr having increasingly software-defined these vehicles.This could be because the competitiveness of the Australian market is forcing the new carmakers into a price war where the value for money of Chinese EVs is all important in attracting buyers to what are still unfamiliar brands. But given enough time the brands will establish themselves locally and be in a position to almost certainly charge subscriptions for what they used to offer for the price of the car.As vehicles become even more software-orientated, we could see brands compete on the basis of technology in the form of entertainment and comfort features to performance and handling, even the physical features of the car which could change the colour or shades of the car through intelligent body panels, as we’ve seen in concepts such as the BMW iX Flow at motor shows over the past few years.New Chinese brand Nio has just confirmed its coming to Australia and overseas it offers subscription services to vehicle functions including the EV battery itself. Buyers can purchase the Nio electric vehicle without the battery and then pay a regular fee that allows them to swap to a larger battery for a greater range if they want, but it’ll cost them a bit more.Nio scored particularly well in a recent report from research company Gartner, which ranked car manufacturers based on the value added to their vehicles through software. Nine categories ranging from electrification, vehicle architecture and autonomy to connectivity, the user experience, and even how tech-savvy the executive team of the company are were rated.The big winners this year were Tesla, Nio and Xiaomi, with all three being headed by technology leaders who focused on monetising and adding value to their products. Mazda, Nissan and Toyota came in at the bottom of the rankings. These three established companies who helped define the modern motoring would be being left behind by carmakers whose software defines their vehicles. Will consumers actually pay for features that were once part of the costs of the vehicle? Would you? Well, if you could see the number of silly apps I subscribe to on my phone, the answer is probably yes. But maybe subscriptions could lead to cars that are even more affordable - a blank slate that allows a really low entry price with no pressure to add any features unless you wanted to. Oh wait, that’s exactly how the carmakers will sell it to us…

The recent news that Toyota Australia is discontinuing the GR Supra was sad for lovers of performance cars. But if you think that means Toyota is reverting back to its boring days of making ‘whitegoods on wheels’ then you are deeply mistaken.In fact, this is arguably the start of a golden age for not only Toyota as a brand, but the entire performance car market. Not only will the GR Supra be replaced by an all-new generation model, it is expected to be joined by a new Celica and possibly a revived MR2, if the rumours are true.And when I say ‘rumours’ I really mean teasers that Toyota itself has deliberately sent out into the world. In late 2024 it released an episode of its animated YouTube series, Grip, which featured a list consisting of: ‘Supra Mk6’, ‘Celica Mk8’, ‘MR2 Mk4’, ‘GR86 Mk3’ and ‘GR GT3’. Given Grip is an animated show and thought must be put into every element of the frame, those names didn’t appear by accident, but rather by design.Bringing back all of the brand’s iconic performance cars, which would join the existing GR Yaris and GR Corolla hot hatches in an expansive line-up of hero models would be something truly remarkable for petrolheads around the world.On top of this, Lexus just showed off a new sports car concept at the Monterey Car Week. This new rear-wheel drive coupe is expected to replace both the RC and LC coupes, form the basis of a new GT3 racing car and could even be V8 powered. If that all turns out to be true, it will be yet another major boost for the wider Toyota group’s coolness factor.It’s all part of a wider, all-encompassing strategy that Toyota began over a decade ago, with the launch of the revived 86 in 2012. This was a massive statement vehicle from the company, offering a rear-wheel drive coupe for under $30k, and a good one too, made a major impact on the perception of Toyota as a brand.The next most important model after the 86 to the brand’s current state of cool is the 2015 Toyota Prius. That was the first model to utilise the so-called Toyota New Generation Architecture or TNGA as it is more commonly known. Unlike the famous Volkswagen ‘MQB’ architecture, which was a modular platform able to be scaled up and down for a multitude of models, TNGA was broader than that. Yes, it was a scalable platform, but it spawned multiple platforms (TNGA-B, TNGA-F, etc) and it also represented a philosophical shift for the company.Under the leadership of Akio Toyoda, grandson of the company’s founder, this automotive behemoth made a conscious decision it was not going to be boring anymore. It decided that, even though it was incredibly successful, it should make a major change and not just make dependable, good value cars, but rather dependable, good value cars that are enjoyable to drive.This spurred the expansion of Gazoo Racing from Toyoda’s personal motorsport team to a global performance sub-brand that now offers multiple models with more clearly on the way. If all the speculation is right and Toyota rolls out a new Celica and MR2, alongside the new Supra, it will position the Japanese giant as arguably the most performance car heavy brand in the world.Which would be a remarkable turn around for a car maker that was once the subject of mockery from driving enthusiasts. Instead your future Toyota showroom has the potential to become a one-stop shop for car lovers looking for performance in any size and shape.

For the longest time, I would have sworn black and blue that auto giant Toyota was the world’s most boring car company. But not anymore...

Mazda revealed its new CX-5 family SUV recently, bringing fresh styling and upgraded tech, but not everyone was happy.Australian Mazda CX-5 owners forums have erupted, with Mazda's engine choice — or lack thereof — in the firing line.Mazda’s much talked about in-house hybrid technology won’t be available when the car launches next year. 2027 might even be stretched, with the vital new tech earmarked for a US launch towards the end of that year, there is no certainty Australia will get it before 2028.The brand has also ditched the more potent turbocharged petrol engine from the future line-up. This is likely a response to the federal government’s New Vehicle Efficiency Standard (NVES), which punishes carmakers for every gram of CO2 they emit per kilometre over a certain threshold.Instead Mazda will launch with a detuned version of the current 2.5-litre non-turbo four-cylinder engine that will make 132kW and 242Nm, or 8kW and 10Nm less than the outgoing version. Current owners are not happy.“New CX-5 is being launched half baked (how can you launch your best selling car with 1 single engine option???),” said one Mazda CX-5 Club Australia member.“So disappointed Mazda have missed the boat on hybrid opportunity,” said another.“It’s boring, will not buy it. Pathetically Slow Zoom Zoom,” stated another.Others quipped: “Mazda still thinks its competition is the RAV4? Wrong!”“Not only have they failed to deliver a ‘knock out punch’, Mazda haven’t even made it into the ring.”Even Mazda Australia’s own Facebook post was peppered with negative comments.“I’m stunned they dropped the turbo,” said one commenter.Others were less fussed.“I think the car itself looks great, as most Mazdas ,” said one fan.“I’m personally not fussed about not having a turbo engine, I’m not after the ‘fun factor’ and don’t drive aggressively.”"Stunning," said another. "Absolutely love it," replied another fan.Mazda’s new in-house developed hybrid will be worth the wait.Mazda North America VP of Strategic Planning, Stefan Meisterfeld, told US publication CarBuzz: “The hybrid system will have performance that is comparable to or exceeding the turbo powertrain.”That means it'll likely top the 170kW and 420Nm of the outgoing turbo CX-5. That kind of performance will leave conventional hybrids in its dust.Mazda Australia boss Vinesh Bhindi told CarsGuide the new CX-5 Hybrid will deliver on the brand’s Zoom Zoom promise."My understanding is that it will be totally Mazda, it will be designed in a way that delivers what Mazda wants it to deliver – the Jinba Ittai (Japanese for horse and rider as one), the Zoom Zoom element,” he said.The new CX-5 is more than just an engine, though.The company has evolved its handsome looks and heavily refreshed the interior to give it a more premium feel.It'll have wider opening doors, a panoramic sunroof option, ambient lighting and a 15.6-inch multimedia touchscreen.Mazda is also ditching its rotary dial multimedia display controls and instead going for more conventional touchscreen and physical button controls.It is bigger on the outside, so expect a roomier cabin.

Diesel as a fuel source might not be dead yet, but the vultures are circling, waiting for their prey to finally stop moving. Don’t believe me? It doesn’t take a crystal ball to see into a future already so clearly laid out, and not just by newcomer brands, but by some of the biggest proponents of diesel engines in the history of the fuel.

I’m okay with picking pattern progressions, but begin to fall short when the pressure of upper level IQ testing starts to bring me undone. That said, even I could detect the clear sequence of super performance carmakers following one another into the world of the 4.0-litre, twin-turbo V8.A slew of British, German and Italian brands using the same performance vs consumption vs emissions equation to propel their exotic machines towards the horizon at warp speed with maximum efficiency.So, why did white-coated boffins from all points of the automotive globe come up with the same engine configuration, capacity and induction answer?Well, at the recent global launch of the Lamborghini Temerario (a 4.0L twin-turbo V8 hybrid) we asked Lambo’s Chief Technical Officer (and drift king) Dr. Rouven Mohr exactly that.He confirmed the broadly accepted answer that an individual cylinder volume of 500cc is the magic number.That’s right, the capacity that took the ‘Wollongong Whiz’ Wayne Gardner and ‘The Master of going Faster’ Mick Doohan to 500cc World Motorcycle Championship glory is the Goldilocks zone for an individual engine cylinder. And that’s because a cylinder of that size, ideally undersquare (with a stroke length exceeding its bore diameter), optimises the combustion process thanks to a relatively small internal surface to volume ratio (as the piston nears top dead centre) which helps improve fuel efficiency while producing optimum power and minimising C02 and NOx emissions.So, 500 times eight equals 4000, which, with the benefit of forced induction pushes the golden ratio to its maximum.And Lamborghini should know because the all-new (L411) unit it developed for the Temerario produces 588kW on its own, before a trio of electric motors tips in another 89kW for a total output of 677kW (920hp).Two turbos producing 2.5 bar located in the engine’s ‘hot vee’ optimise packaging and thermal management; titanium conrods reduce rotating mass; a flat plane crank delivers an even firing order and super hard finger followers in the valvetrain allow more aggressive cam profiles. The result? A 10,000rpm rev ceiling, which is… nuts.Other brands within the Volkswagen Group portfolio are on the same train, like Audi’s SQ7 and SQ8 with Bentley and Porsche directly sharing engine tech.And what about Mercedes-AMG with the GT63 and SL63 or McLaren just about matching Lambo for specific power output with its 750S rocketship?But hands up those who remember JLR’s ‘Ingenium’ modular engine family. Three-, four- and six-cylinder units built around 500cc cylinders. BMW Group with its triple, four- and six-cylinder engines, along with many others have also struck on the 500cc formula. But maybe Lamborghini President and CEO Stephan Winkelmann has the most compelling reason for joining the club.While acknowledging the capacity of the cylinder premise - “Six cylinder is usually three litres, eight is four and 12 is six” - he lets slip that the 4.0L thing “is also a matter of taxation in a lot of countries”. So, follow engine efficiency or follow the money, the 4.0-litre, twin-turbo V8 answer is the same.