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Articles by Samuel Irvine

Samuel Irvine
Cadet Journalist

Since visiting car shows at Melbourne Exhibition Centre with his Dad and older brother as a little boy, Samuel knew that his love of cars would be unwavering.

But it wasn’t until embarking on a journalism masters degree two years ago that he saw cars as a legitimate career path. Now, Samuel is CarsGuide’s first Cadet Journalist.

He comes to CarsGuide with an eagerness to report on a rapidly advancing automotive industry, and a passion to communicate the stories car buyers need to know most.

Best hybrid cars arriving in 2025
By Samuel Irvine · 19 May 2025
If 2024 could be summarised with a powertrain then it would be the year of the hybrid.
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New name, new look for popular value SUV: 2025 Chery C5 pricing and specifications revealed to take on rival MG ZS and GWM Haval Jolion
By Samuel Irvine · 19 May 2025
Chery has announced pricing and specifications for its 2025 C5, formerly known as the Omoda 5.
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The seven Nissan factories on the chopping block revealed? Plant closures in Japan, Mexico, South Africa, Argentina and India all under consideration: report
By Samuel Irvine · 19 May 2025
Nissan will shut down two car assembly plants in Japan as well as factories in Argentina, Mexico, South Africa and India as part of its cost-cutting measures outlined last week, according to sources close to the matter.
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Alert! Tesla's Full Self Driving lands on Australian roads as testing commences in Melbourne for the future self driving technology available on the 2025 Tesla Model Y and Tesla Model 3
By Samuel Irvine · 19 May 2025
For Melbourne drivers who hate those pesky CBD hook turns, Tesla may have found you a solution. That is, if you’re willing to put your life into the hands of computer software.
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Major European car brand backflips on charging misstep that could have cost it thousands of sales of its new electric car: 2026 Mercedes-Benz CLA EV follows in footsteps of Kia EV6 and Hyundai Ioniq 6
By Samuel Irvine · 16 May 2025
Mercedes-Benz has moved to correct a major blunder on its new CLA EV that would have made its 800-volt architecture incompatible with 400-volt chargers.
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Car brand rages against EV mandates: Off-road carmaker behind 2025 Toyota LandCruiser 70 Series and Land Rover Defender rival said customers deserve 'choice' and shouldn't be forced into electric cars
By Samuel Irvine · 16 May 2025
Ineos’ CEO Lynn Calder has scolded the European Union’s mandate banning the sale of cars with an internal combustion engine (ICE) by 2035, telling Top Gear customers deserve to be able to choose the type of car they want to purchase.
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Cars have never been harder to design than in the EV era, so how does Chery's design chief think we can make them more exciting? Hyundai, BMW and Audi might give us a clue
By Samuel Irvine · 16 May 2025
Designing cars in the EV era isn’t as simple as it used to be, according to Chery’s Vice President and General Manager of Design, Steve Eum.The Korean-American design veteran and self-described automotive purist worked with some of the biggest names in the car industry, including Ford, General Motors and Hyundai, before joining the burgeoning Chinese firm in 2017.It was the same year Chery released its first electric car, the eQ1, marking a turning point for the brand as it began a fully fledged transition to electrification, carrying with it new design challenges.“Growing up, if you saw the front end of an Aston Martin or a Jaguar, you knew it was an Aston Martin or a Jaguar.”“With these newer energy vehicles, becoming a lot more simpler at the front, more cleaner, of course, but at the same time, you’re losing that identity,” said Eum.As car brands shift their priorities to aerodynamics and energy efficiency, designing a new car to be unique from its rivals has become an increasingly difficult task, said Eum.Take the front grille, for example.Irrespective of its functional purpose of cooling the engine on petrol and diesel cars, since the dawn of the motor car itself, the front grille has been the major identifier for car brands.But the problem for designers in the EV era is that they’re no longer required given there is no longer an engine to cool.In fact, a front grille on an EV can actually stifle aerodynamics, leading to lower energy efficiency that depletes driving range faster.“The grille plays a big part because it is that one piece of detail at the front of the car that really says it is a certain brand next to the badge. Of course, it gives a clear indication – especially from far away – about what vehicle is coming towards you,” said Eum.“As soon as you get rid of the grille, you’ve left this big part out of the visual identity.”The loss of the front grille has also coincided with the trend to adopt rounder body styling (also for aerodynamics), which Eum said has left little in the way of design features to tinker with other than the headlights and tail-lights.“A lot of vehicles are now designed because of regulation, aerodynamics and safety – it’s hard to get away from that.”But, depending on how you look at it, said Eum, the EV transition can either be viewed as a roadblock or an opportunity to experiment with more digital technologies.Hyundai is a prime example of how EV design can be individualised through the use of its LED lights, which incorporate a design technique the brand calls "Parametric Pixels”.As it might sound, Ioniq models use pixelated lights to create digital surfaces, lines and angles, rather than traditional physical styling.Audi is similarly an adopter of these lighting techniques. The LED light signatures on its newer models, such as the Q6 e-tron, are configurable to the driver's preferences and elicit different animations when locking and unlocking the car.BMW has gone a different route, reinstating the grille on some of its EV models but incorporating it as a flat panel that is, in some cases, much larger than on its petrol and diesel cars.The grille on the BMW iX, which is one of the brand’s largest to date, is coated with polyurethane to make it self-repairing from scratches and lined with LED lights to make its branding more conspicuous.According to Eum, it’s these sort of digital identifiers that will define Chery's car design going forward, rather than strictly physical ones.“I think, in the future, whether it be something that’s not so physically direct or so literal in terms of the physical grille, we might start experimenting with more digital aspects, like lighting, transparent lighting, opaque lighting and things of that nature.”“I think that gives more of an identity for the front part of the vehicle that supports the brand as well, and so, that's what we see for the future."
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Step aside 2025 BYD Seal Performance and 2025 Tesla Model 3 Performance: Another go-fast electric car joins the party as 2025 XPeng E29 teased
By Samuel Irvine · 15 May 2025
XPeng has teased its next possible Tesla Model 3 Performance and BYD Seal Performance rival, the electric E29 Coupe.
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'It's mind-blowing': Forget the Hyundai i30 N, the future Volkswagen Golf GTI will return with electric power to rival the Tesla Model 3 Performance, MG4 XPower and Hyundai Ioniq 5 N: report
By Samuel Irvine · 14 May 2025
An electric Volkswagen Golf GTI is in the works and the brand’s CEO, Thomas Schäfer, couldn’t be any more excited.
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Nissan announces more huge cost-cutting measures as it tries to find billions in savings to fund new hybrid and electric cars to fend off Chinese EV rivals BYD and Geely after failed Honda merger
By Samuel Irvine · 14 May 2025
Nissan's global CEO Ivan Espinosa has pulled no punches in imposing sweeping cost-cutting measures to get the ailing Japanese carmaker's bottom line back on track.
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