Level two driving assistance means the car can help with driving, like steering and speed, but the driver still needs to pay attention and be ready to take control.
Level two plus plus is a term used to describe a type of automated driving system that is more advanced than basic driver assistance but not fully autonomous. It means the driver still needs to be ready to take control at any time.
Tesla's full self-driving assistance system is a set of features designed to help the car drive itself. However, drivers still need to pay attention and be ready to take control at any moment.
The Dodge Charger is a big car that looks really cool and goes fast. It's been around for a long time and is loved by many people who enjoy driving powerful cars.
The Mercedes-Benz CLA is a stylish small car that is part of the luxury brand's lineup. It was recognized as the best new car in Europe for 2026, which shows how well it is designed and how much people like it.
The Mercedes-Benz S-Class is a very fancy car that is super comfortable and has a lot of high-tech features. It's considered one of the best luxury cars out there and is often used by important people.
Skoda is a car brand from the Czech Republic that makes cars that are usually more affordable. They are known for being practical and reliable, making them a good choice for many drivers.
The Citroen C5 X is a type of car that mixes the features of a car and an SUV, making it roomy and comfortable. It's great for families and has a unique look that stands out.
The Kia EV4 is a new electric car from Kia. It's designed to be efficient and has modern features that make it a good choice for drivers looking for an eco-friendly vehicle.
The Vision 7S is a concept car from Skoda that shows what their future cars might look like. It's not for sale yet, but it gives an idea of new designs and technologies they are working on.
The MEB platform is a special design by Volkswagen for their electric cars. It helps them make different types of electric vehicles using the same basic structure.
The Land Rover Defender is a tough SUV made for driving on rough roads and off-road adventures. It's popular among people who like outdoor activities.
Car
Galaxy Cruiser
The Galaxy Cruiser is a new vehicle idea from Gili that looks to compete with the Land Rover Defender. It was shown at a big car show and is almost ready to be made for customers.
Car
Lotus Electra
The Lotus Electra is a type of car that uses both a traditional petrol engine and an electric motor to run. This helps it be more efficient and environmentally friendly.
Wading depth is how deep a car can go in water without getting damaged. If a car has an 800 millimeter wading depth, it means it can drive through quite a bit of water safely.
ADAS is a set of technologies in cars that help drivers by making driving safer and easier. This can include things like automatic braking or helping to keep the car in its lane.
Turbocharged means that a car's engine has a special device that helps it produce more power. This makes the car faster and more efficient without needing a bigger engine.
A kilowatt hour is a way to measure electricity. In electric cars, it tells you how much energy the battery can store and how far the car can go before needing to recharge.
The G-Wagon is a luxury SUV made by Mercedes-Benz. It's known for its strong build and ability to drive off-road, making it a favorite among many people.
Car
Maserati 430 4V
The Maserati 430 4V is a stylish sports car from the early 90s. It's known for its unique look and powerful engine, making it a rare and interesting choice among car enthusiasts.
LIVE
Welcome to the Merging Podcast, your weekly discussion of Merging News. This is episode
667 on Tuesday, the 20th of January, 2026. Hello, I'm not Alan, I'm Andrew. And this
week, you'll hear about how we like the normal colour of the sky so much we slap it on our
cars. In New New Car News, you will listen to how it's taken one company 52 years to
win another European Car of the Year award. And in points of interest, we go on a theme
you can watch another Car of the Year award. And there is no follow-up this week, thankfully,
so I will jump straight into the new news. And thanks to SMMT, we now know that grey
is the most popular colour for new cars registered in 2025. Again. It's held the top spot since 2018.
Oh dear. Grey had 26.7% of the market share. That's down slightly on the previous year. Black
was up to 22.98%. Blue kept third with a jump to 15.6% of market share. White dropped its
market share down to 13.14%. That must be because people are not registering Teslas as much.
Then we drop down to silver. There's red, green, yellow, orange and then mauve is the final in
the top 10 with 5,711 cars registered or 0.28% of market share. Really are some interesting figures
in there. Also, do click the link in the show notes because you'll be taking to SMMT's own
article. They've really worked hard to come up with the 10 colour facts because number two says,
as wicked for good, finally hit cinema screens, green saw the strongest growth inside the top 10.
Wow. You've really had to search high and low to do something with that. Yeah. It's good to see
that there are other colours in the top 10. We just need them to be used more, please, everybody.
Manufacturers, please specify that we can have colours too.
Right. I'm going to move us on to the news that Honda is to adopt a new H mark or logo
on their cars for their EVs and their hybrid electric models from 2027. Just think how other
brands have gone with a flat logo so they can illuminate it from behind. It's one of those.
Yeah. You'd look at it and you'd go, oh, that's Honda. They haven't gone too far out of where they
were already. Great. So let's put more lights on the front of cars. Whatever. Moving on, though,
and Mercedes has decided it will no longer, for the time being, offer their level three driving
assistance. They are going to only allow or only offer a level two system instead. Now, the level
three allowed for under very strict conditions, which included speeds of up to 95 kilometers per
hour on motorways with a vehicle in front and good weather. That is the only time that the level three
could be activated and that would allow for hands off and eyes off. But the driver was given
10 seconds to stop whatever it is they're doing and take control of the car again,
which is absolutely insane. I cannot fathom how any regulator decided that that was acceptable.
10 seconds when you're deep in something else that you now have to be up to speed and deal with an
impending problem. Ridiculous. But so I'm for one, I'm very glad that this is no longer on the roads
and hopefully we can get the regulators to pay attention to the level two plus pluses and all
that because that's just marketing bump and they are in fact effectively trying to be level three
and that's not acceptable by putting the blame on the drivers. But good to see that's been removed.
Hopefully it just stays off because they're not good enough. Talking of automated driving systems,
Tesla has decided that it is not you will no longer be able to outright buy their full self
driving assistance system. But fret not for those who think that Tesla and automated driving
technology is good. You can still get it through a monthly subscription of $99 that will come into
effect from February the 14th. And there is for obviously US customers only because we do not
allow that in the UK or in Europe as it stands. No matter how hard they put pressure on the Danish
road safety regulator. Well, he desperately needs the money doesn't he? Let's be honest,
the sales are plummeting pretty much everywhere except Norway. Can't quite work out why Norway
doing that but that might change now with the geopolitical things going on in crazy land.
This just shouldn't be on the road, should it? Let's be honest.
Write some good news for the UK and the government is going to put an extra 18 million pounds
into grants to enable electric HDVs to be bought. Now this is tiered based on the size of the lorries
and it goes up to £120,000 of grant for lorries over 26 tonnes. Anything that helps
people being able to buy electric HDVs is a good thing because they can work for
certain, as we've discussed on this show many times, certain setups and for certain companies
and the way that they do business. It's not for everybody at the moment and we obviously need
more, much more charging infrastructure out there on public roads as well. But this is a good help
but also goes to show once again to try and get people to or companies to move into these things
with having to give money to enable them to do it. But that's just an ongoing issue.
It's a very short show this week and the news is there isn't much news but as we round out
we can all take a huge sigh of relief and worry no more or worry less for the poor people of the
area of Lewisham because they will be getting 200 more charging points thanks to Zest.
As we know the South East is so poorly provided when it comes to charging systems unlike the
North West or the North East or the South West or Wales. They are obviously all more than adequately
dealt with but the poor South East, the people there who have electric cars really struggle
to charge their vehicles. It's a good thing though as we move more and more to the full fleet of the
UK becoming electric we obviously need more charges. Whilst my tongue is firmly in my cheek
and I was extracting her somewhat there on the lead into that it is a good thing however it
would be nice if the rest of the country was looked at really would and not just in terms of numbers
but also in terms of actually the right type of charger for the right location. There we go.
And that rounds out the first part of the show. Like I said, there's not much news this week
and there's no Alan here for me to argue with so that definitely makes it much shorter.
That means it is gilding in it and that's the quick break in the show where we ask for a
tad of financial support to keep the lights on and the hosting running. If you feel that the
podcast is worth a small consideration every month then you can become a patron. The different
levels of patron include different levels of commitment from us to you including being able
to watch the show recorded live. We also have a small range of merchandise on our spring store
from stickers to mugs and t-shirts. If you don't have any spare cash and we completely understand
that then you can help us by following for free from a podcast player or YouTube to receive every
show as they're released and by liking and rating the show in whatever way your podcast
supplier lets you. If you've done all that and some of you do so thank you very much
then the last thing you can do is recommend us to your friends or colleagues.
Thank you everybody who has subscribed on the YouTube. If you haven't already then please do
because it helps us and it will help us to get to the point where we can actually monetize that
channel and help bring in some extra income into the show to help us improve and do more things
when it comes to the content that we produce. But also thank you for the kind words that we've
received about some of the special editions that we released over Christmas particularly the
Kia Design Week. That's really appreciated. Thank you for listening to that and thank you for
the comments. That is great and I'm glad that you liked the format and the ability that we got to
discuss the cars themselves with the designers involved. That was really, really delighted
that we could do that. Anyway, let us move on to new car news and congratulations to Mercedes-Benz.
Their CLA is the European Car of the Year for 2026 and it is the first time for 52 years
since one of their cars won it. That was in 1974 with the Mercedes-Benz S-Class. However,
it was quite a beatdown by the CLA. It was a full 100 points clear of second place Skoda LROC.
The Kia EV4 was third which just beat the Citroen C5 Aircross. There was 59 jurors from 23
countries and they were given a short list of 35 cars to choose from and they got it down to seven
and then they voted on from there. There is a link to a motoring research article which you
Richard Orcock wrote that and he is one of the jurors himself. The CLA then is a very impressive
car by all accounts. It would be interesting to try one out. Moving on and Skoda has revealed
the new seven-seat EV SUV or the name for it and it's called the Peak. That's PEAQ.
Keeping in line with the LROC and the ENYAK and the EPIC. This is going, apparently,
is based on the Vision 7S concept car which we saw first in 2022. When you think of Skoda,
then you know that they are going to have space, they're going to have clever touches and they
are going to be a good proposition when it comes to value for money. It's apparently going to be
based on the MEB, the Volkswagen Group MEB platform. This will allow, which could allow,
because there's no details really out there about what it's going to be, could allow for two and
four-wheel drive variants and up to 335 brake horsepower and batteries up to 85 kilowatt hours.
When we know more details, then we will obviously bring those to you. I am sure
that this will be a good seller because people do seem to like Skodas and they do like the
electric Skodas as well. Finally, to round out new, new car news. Gili is confirming that they
are going to bring a Land Rover Defender rival to the UK. They have a concept called the Galaxy
Cruiser, first shown in the Shanghai Motor Show last year, but it's very close to production
ready. If we use the motoring podcast criteria for judging if a concept is a concept or almost
ready for production, this has proper wing mirrors and proper door handles. It must be quite close.
It's apparently the production car will be based closely on the platform of the Lotus
Electra plug-in hybrid. That means it's going to be massive. No idea in terms of price yet.
They say that it's going to have good off-road capabilities, up to 800 millimeter wading depth,
steer and brake by wire technology. Oh, goody. Yes. Oh, and excellent. They're going to use
AI to assist the ADAS functions. Oh, marvelous. Okay. It's expected to use the Gili Group
hybrid powertrain, which is a turbocharged two-litre, four-cylinder petrol engine with an electric
only range of up to 220 miles, thanks to a 70 kilowatt hour battery, which is according to
China's CLTC test cycle, which is apparently more generous than the WLTP. This is going to cost a
pretty penny. It will be interesting to see whether people go for this because you're going up against
the Defender, which is obviously hugely popular in the UK, as well as the G-Wagon, which in internal
combustion engine form has proved popular, not in electric form. This is from a company that
people really won't have heard of. Most people on the street, you intelligence and lovely listeners
will know about Gili because we've talked about them many, many times. That is going to be interesting
to see how customers take to that and how good the car is. Hopefully, we'll be in a position to let
you know when it does come to the UK. Okay. That moves us on to points of interest. We give you
this week. You may have seen it over Christmas, but in case you didn't, there is the Evo Car of
the Year for 2025 came out. They whittled down to 12 options. Then they had the real tough chore of
going to the south of France for a week. I feel so sorry for everyone involved. Thoughts and
surprises. It's a 45-minute video. You get plenty of bang for no buck at all. There is a link in
the show notes to the YouTube video. As ever, beautifully filmed. They go into detail about
how they score the cars. They hear them discussing it. Then the final winner is announced.
Brilliant. Personally, I feel one of the highlights of the year when it comes to
automotive videos. I always look forward to watching this. Do click on the link and do
enjoy that if you haven't already. List of the weekend. This is thanks to Haggerty.
It's called Early 90 Super Saloons to Make You Swoon. It's by Nathan Chadwick. There are some
that you would expect in here. There is at least one outsider. However, from this list of, I think,
it's 10. I am going to pick probably quite a left field choice here, but the Maserati 430 4V.
I love the look of the Maseratis of that time. Very wedgy-shaped and everything. Because they're
so unusual and so rare, I plumped for that over some of the other choices, which are, like I said,
you would, if there's a list of them, then you're going, oh, well, it must have this, this and this.
I am choosing to not go that way and not that route. I would obviously need to know a very good
mechanic, I'm sure. And I'd need to have deep pockets to be able to buy one in the first place,
but yeah, I do love these. Check out the link. Don't forget to let us know which of these you
would have. Everyone loves a Super Saloon, I am sure. So yeah, so do check out that Haggerty link
in the show notes. Right, I'm going to round out the show with an and finally and it's thanks to
Classic and Sportscard. And this is an old article, but one area that Classic and Sportscard
that does cover that we do like to dip back into now and again, because they find some real crackers
and it's motoring art. And this time it's Andrew Ritter. Some of you may know him from
Stansworth's magazine back in the day, but he's a trained artist, sculptor originally,
but he makes sort of cartoonish cars that are recognizable, but done in a very, if you think,
if any of you've seen the Incredibles and how the vehicles there were done, it's that sort of style
where they sort of squashed in made a bit taller, but they're easily recognizable as the model that
he's drawing that he's created. And then he also creates the backgrounds and everything for them
to be in to give them some life. It's a lovely little article with some fabulous examples of
the work he's done. Plus at the bottom of it, there's a link to his Instagram and to his website
in case you wish to go and purchase any of any of the stuff he has on sale at the moment.
There are some cracking looking things, but I love this sort of stuff that someone's got that
ability to and the vision to make that type of art is brilliant, lovely stuff to check it out.
That means, well, okay, parish notes, actually. Next week, Alan will be doing a solo because
I'm away. I will be on a drive day for the UK car of the year judging panel. We've got to
check out the cars that have made it through to the final round and then decide which of those
we feel is our top vehicle or our top three really. So I am away doing that next week,
but then the week after we should both be back together and able to record properly as it were
again. So for only the second time in 2026, which is quite mad by that time, but there we go.
Anyway, between now and next time, don't forget that you can give us any feedback and share your
thoughts with the show at motoringpodcast.com on Blue Sky, at Motoring Podcast on Instagram
and Facebook and the contact page of www.motoringpodcast.com, the hub of all activities. Remember,
you can support us financially by a patron and please leave a review and rating on Apple
Podcasts YouTube or however your podcast app lets you do such a thing. The best way to get
in touch with Alan is to search for at AJP Bradley on Blue Sky. You'll find him there.
For me, whilst I do have an account on Blue Sky, I'm not looking at it at the moment,
so probably LinkedIn or the contact page, but we'll be back soon. And until then,
I've been Andrew Clues. He's not been Alan Bradley and Safe Motoring.
About this episode
A lively discussion kicks off with the popularity of car colors, revealing grey's dominance in the UK market. The episode highlights Honda's new logo for EVs, Mercedes' decision to scale back their driving assistance technology, and Tesla's shift to a subscription model for full self-driving features. The hosts celebrate the Mercedes CLA winning the European Car of the Year after 52 years, while also introducing new models from Skoda and Gili. The episode wraps up with a nod to automotive art and upcoming car events, making it a mix of industry insights and light-hearted commentary.
The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) has released the details about the colours we selected in 2025 for new cars that were registered. Once again, claiming the top spot, grey won out. Black was second and blue rounded out the top three. To find out more, click this SMMT article link here.
HONDA LIGHT UP THEIR NEW LOGO
Honda has revealed their new ‘H’ logo that will adorn their electric and hybrid vehicles from 2027 onwards. This is a flat, stylised letter H that will be illuminated from behind. Click this Motor Trader article link here, to read more.
MERCEDES PAUSE THEIR LEVEL 3 DRIVING SYSTEM
Mercedes-Benz are to pause the sale of their Level 3 automated driving system, which under certain circumstances allowed the driver to have their hands off the steering wheel and be looking away from the road. They will only be fitting Level 2 driver assistance systems to cars that previously had the L3 option. If you wish to find out more, click this electrive article link here.
TESLA FSD TO BE SUBSCRIPTION ONLY
Tesla has announced that customers in the US will no longer be able to purchase the Full Self Driving driver assistance system outright, from the middle of February 2026. But, it can still be added to suitable cars for a subscription. To read more, click this electrive link here.
UK GOVERNMENT INCREASES FUND FOR EHGV GRANTS
The UK Government is adding £18 million to the fund for electric HGV purchase grant. The amount is tiered dependent on the size of the lorry, with up to £120,000 available to help buy HGVs up over 26 tonnes. You can find out further information by clicking this electrive article link here.
SOUTH EAST GET EVEN MORE EV CHARGERS
Charging company Zest will be installing over 200 charging points in the Lewisham Council controlled area. Good to hear the South East is getting even more chargers - but more seriously, we need more and we need all the country to be well provided for. Click this electrive article link here for more.
If you like what we do, on this show, and think it is worth a £1.00, please consider supporting us via Patreon. Here is the link to that CLICK HERE TO SUPPORT THE PODCASTNEW NEW CAR NEWS -Mercedes-Benz CLA wins European COTY
52 years after the German brand last won a European COTY award, they do so with their latest CLA. Second place, the Skoda Elroq, was 100 points behind. To find out more about the CLA and the European COTY awards, click this Motoring Research article link here.
Skoda Peaq
Skoda has revealed the name for their new seven seat electric SUV will be Peaq (pronounced “peak”). Very little else is know, although it is based on the 2022 concept the...
