DAILY: Hyundai Kia Pull Back, MG Teases New Compact EV and AMG Shows Off Electric GT | 08 Mar 2026

Welcome back to EV News Daily, today Hyundai Kia pullback, MGTZ's new compact EV and AMG

shows off electric GT, plus stay tuned, later in the show I'll tell you which emissions

record Britain just broke for the first time in 400 years, no EV news China today, our

spin-off podcast, that's back tomorrow morning, first thing on Monday, Hyundai Kia have started

trimming back their EV ambitions in the United States, blaming, affordability pressure,

and tariff uncertainty, Hyundai will cut the South Korean Bill

Onyx 5 line, sorry Onyx 6 line to a single version, that's the Onyx 6N, the proper fast

one, the high performance model with 641 horsepower will arrive later this year, it's coming as

a 2026 model year, come, Hyundai hasn't confirmed pricing, but Onyx 6N should cost more than

the outgoing Onyx 6 limited sticker price of 52.5, the move ends the standard Onyx 6

in the US for now, Hyundai priced it for under $40,000, but February sales were low, dealers

have some stock that they can sell you, Kia, sister companies also pausing their United

States sales indefinitely delaying the GT versions of EV6 GT and EV9 GT, US built EV6

GT line and EV9 GT9, that's a trim level, not an indication of performance, that continues. So

those are made in West Point, Georgia, unaffected, Kia had already pushed back the US launch of the

EV4 from this year to sometime in the future, again shifting market conditions and uncertainty

over tariffs, they sit in the background because South Korean built cars are now facing 15% at

least as of when we woke up this morning and which way the wind was blowing, and that could be a 25%

tariff with new threats from the White House to escalate levees, and for now US built cars carry

on the imports wait for an EV market and a tariff rate that makes sense for them, so there's many

times before I'm no economist, but even my tiny simpleton brain can understand that if you want

to do any sort of favor for the car industry, you just need certainty, and decisions are made for

10, 20, sometimes 30 years, at least product cycles are very extensive, and you can't be

waking up in the morning and seeing which country has annoyed the president, and so

it's no way to run, hey, no idea what a country is, but there you go, it's not my business,

and no way to run a car company, and so ultimately consumers suffer, and so ultimately buyers of

those brilliant EVs are not going to be found in the US for a while, that's a real shame,

but it's inevitability with the consistency required by the automotive industry on things

like policy, and anyway we'll move on. MG will unveil a car at the Goodwood Festival of Speed

in July this year, a small EV, we think it'll be called the MG2, MG head of Europe William Wang

putting the production car in 2027, MG2 would be four meters long, and a great urban car,

although not the MG4 Urban, which is literally urban, not only in size, because it's smaller than

the MG4, I hope you're keeping up, but the MG4 Urban is literally called urban, however,

this car will be even smaller. Now MG4 Urban starts at £23,500, it's a really attractive

price, yeah sure, that's based spec, and the MG4 Urban is not the MG4, entirely different platform

and driving experience, but incredibly good value, and so Renault 5, BYD, Dolphin, Serf,

upcoming Volvo, Volkswagen ID Polo, and Cooper Revell, etc, that kind of market, that 20 grand,

or a little bit either way, market is so hot over in Europe at the moment. Under the skin,

MG2 would be front wheel drive platform underneath the MG4, MG4 Urban has in its smallest guys a

42.8 kilowatt hour battery pack, they could also, if they wanted to, at a price, offer the MG4's

semi-solid state battery. Now there is one trim in China which has a semi-solid state battery

on the road right now, a gel like electrolyte, very good for cold conditions, although unless

you are perhaps in Scotland over here, you're only going to get cold temperatures for limited

times of the year, and so MG, obviously owned by the Chinese SAIC, expanding their European lineup,

18 models in the next two years will launch, the MG4 Urban is really really good value by the way,

as for how it drives, if you're asking about whether it's front wheel drive or rear wheel drive,

whether the chassis dynamics are not as good as the other original MG4, then by the way,

this car's not for you. If you're asking that question, this car's not for you. If you're

asking what the monthly payments are, and if you like the fact that it's got loads more rear leg

room than the other MG4, then this is the car for you. Let's move on. Mercedes AMG has revealed

the production interior of its four-door electric GT. The Mercedes AMG GT has a full unveil coming

soon, previously called the XX when it was a prototype, and so we've seen it lapping for eight

days, a track called Nardo at 186 miles an hour. AMG Mercedes pitched the runners' proof of their

new platform, AMG.EA, and it's 1,360 horsepower, power transfer, 1,000 kilowatts anyway.

Inside, it's a big screen, to be honest with you, and not just one big screen,

like a Mercedes-Benz hyperscreen, a single piece of glass across the entire front with

various screens behind it. Oh no, this is just lots of screens all at different angles. Now,

you've heard me say before, I'm not convinced this current era that we're in is going to age very

well. I don't think big screens are very classy, very timeless, very high-end, to be honest with

you, feels like too much of a gadget, but they say this car will be aimed at a Chinese market,

which doesn't feel the same way that I do, and so there's a 10.2-inch driver display,

14-inch central multimedia touchscreen, a 14-inch passenger screen in front of the passenger seat

as well. Yeah, it's just all screens inside this thing, but also I think some, you know,

machined metal knobs and buttons and rotary dials, because this is going to be a high-performance

vehicle. Should get a confirmed on sale day, or at least more details,

coming soon. Talking of high-end vehicles, Ferrari has teased its upcoming Luce on video for the

same time, not just stills anymore, a brief nighttime glimpse of the front end and the

lighting signature. The clip shows little beyond a shadowy silhouette, but the front lighting

gives the first real-world hint of the Ferrari design. Ferrari plans to debut the Luce next

month until then. The teaser confirms the car exists and withholds pretty much everything

else. It will take the shape of a crossover, slightly smaller than a Pura Sangue in size,

with 116.5-inch wheelbase, four occupants in style and comfort. The cabin will feature a fully

redesigned interior from former Apple chief designer, Johnny Ive, described as a redesign

that marks a significant departure from Ferrari's traditional interior language. Underneath,

the Luce is on a bespoke platform, developed fully in-house, incorporating a structural

back-tree pack, they say under the floor and a range of 310 miles anticipated power for electric

motors, 2-power axle, over 1,000 horsepower, and 0-62 in 2.5 seconds. All right, one more story

then, we should take a break. Ireland is expanding its zero-emission truck and bus

grants, the zero-emission heavy-duty vehicle grant scheme, adding a second funding stream.

Under the expanded program, companies can draw up to €500,000, $543,000 per year,

towards zero-emission truck and bus purchases. The subsidy targets the price gap with diesel

alternatives, aiming to make buying decisions less about the upfront cost. A parallel stream,

the infrastructure scheme offering €300,000, $326,000 in funding for depot charging, logistics,

and urban distribution charging. The widen scheme backs the vehicles and the plugs. The next test

sits outside the grant terms, it's whether the take-up rate keeps pace with the scale of the job,

which is to electrify our road transport. In the UK, that's going very well actually,

the United Kingdom electric HDV market hit a big marker last year. The 1,000th electric heavy goods

vehicle is now on our roads. Okay, it's a thousand, we've got to start somewhere though. The data

from the car lobby shows EHDV registrations rising 171% last year on 2024. The gap remains large,

zero-emission trucks 1.4% of the market. GridServe's electric freightway program

supplied 161 of the almost 600,000 electric HDVs that gave the scheme more than a quarter

of all new electric truck registrations in the UK. Electric freightway is partly funded by the

Department for Transport, delivered in partnership with Innovate UK and GridServe, targeting

to eliminate two of the barriers really for fleet operators, vehicle access and reliable

half-hour high-power charging infrastructure. There are 21 zero-emission truck models to pick

from over here, DAF trucks, Volvo, Renault, Daimler, and more. GridServe has expanded its

dedicated charging network for heavy goods vehicles across depo hubs and the road network

on the A1M at Bouldock and Moto Services on the M5 down in the southwest. Not too far from me,

the M5, the southwest area, gets some great charging, by the way. It's fantastic when you

drive down in the southwest. There's some really good motorway infrastructure now. Anyway,

we'll take a break, we'll come back and we'll talk about our final trucking story today

and a bit of solantis threats. Find out why. Stick around.

All right, welcome back to the podcast. MAN truck and bus has finished the first winter test of

their fully electric coach. Never done a coach journey on fully electric and I can't wait for

the day that I do. They've been doing minus 30 degrees Celsius testing in the Arctic Circle

and on snow and icy terrain. The team focused on the systems that typically harm EVs, the high

voltage battery getting very cold, thermal management, powertrain, energy, and interior

heating. For a battery electric coach, cold weather isn't just about comfort, it's about

whether it can do energy management. These MAN PureBev trucks will do up to 650 kilometers

from 320 kilowatt hour pack, up to 480 kilowatt hour pack, carrying 63 passengers in comfort and

down to very cold temperatures as well. They say luggage capacity, all that kind of stuff,

exactly the same as the diesel equivalents, so no compromise there in going electric

if you are taking a coach journey. Now, Stalantis are back with a familiar refrain,

threatening the United Kingdom, because Stalantis have a lot of infrastructure here.

They do some car building, some van building, and politicians hate the idea of job losses,

and so once again, Stalantis, who are not shy of doing this as a tactic, by the way,

threatening to shrink its UK operations unless the government backs down and reforms the zero

emission mandate. The Stalantis Europe boss, Emanuele Capilano, said the rules forces car makers

to bleed money, and hands the edge to the Chinese importers. Stalantis sold over 200,000 cars here

in the UK last year. It's the second largest car maker by volume behind VW Group, and a fifth

of Stalantis were electric here. So they're doing all right. The mandate pushes the market faster

than it typically wants to go, that's why politicians get involved. It sets a 32% EV share

target this year, and EVs made up 22% of the sales in the first couple of months in 2026.

So a job to do, a long way to go, and government flexibilities, like credits for CO2 savings

are all part of the scheme. It's going to be very difficult for some of the car makers

to hit it, but Stalantis, of all of them, actually have strong brands over here and

some really good cars. So it's always a little bit sad to see them being a bit anti-EV and saying,

well, we can't do it. But missing the target brings fines of £12,000, $15,000 per car sold,

if they miss the targets, or obviously doing deals with other car makers to pool with them,

that's cheaper. The lobby organization over here of car companies reported average discounts of

£11,000 last year, which is a lot, isn't it, to discount an EV, to get it off the lot,

but by the way, massive discounting also on petrol and diesel cars, just a bit more for EVs.

So it sounds a huge amount, and then you go, well, okay, but there's still like

£9,000, £8,000 of discounting on average for combustion cars. So clearly, you know,

I have some sympathy. It's probably not as bad as those that want to make the headlines sound,

but it probably is a massive headache for, I don't know, the CFOs and those whose job it is,

to lobby politicians with things like this. They've got the Citroën EC3, Vauxhall Frontera,

Fiat Grande Panda, you know, they start from £18,000, £19,000, LFP pack, smart car platform,

they've got some great stock. I just wish there'd be a bit more pro EV rather than,

you know, butting up against the government, which they've done plenty of times before,

and even when they've reduced investment over here, which Stalantas has done in the last couple of

years, erroneously reported by the media as because of electric vehicles, and well, no,

they were always closing things like their van facilities and moving investment, you know,

around nothing to do EVs. But I think Stalantas were quite happy with that narrative to play out

in the media. Again, a lot of the newspapers who see massively falling circulations requiring on,

you know, clicks online and wild headlines are more than happy to print anti-EV stuff because it

does any kind of bad news that gets you your blood boiling is, you know, more clickable

than the truth. And so, yeah, I'm not surprised, but frustrating, if nothing else, Volkswagen is

starting pre-series building of the ID buzz autonomous vehicle, fully autonomous, making it

in Hanover. It's the buzz AD, AD stands for autonomous driving. And so these are genuine

Robo taxis and Robo shuttles. They'll be 500 made this year. They've got all that massive

sensor suite on the roof, like the Waymo vehicles with the radar, the LiDAR, the cameras and stuff

like that. But they'll be ID buzzes, which is really cool because the vehicles look cool anyway,

and a bit space agey. And now they'll be fully autonomous. I'm not sure where they'll be rolled

out, but these are level four vehicles like the Waymo ones, fully autonomous. That's cool. Now,

finally, UK greenhouse gas emissions fell two and a half percent last year, the lowest level since

1872. But the records actually get bigger than that. Cold demand sank to levels last seen in the year

1600. And because not only are we a very old country, but a country that likes things like

rules and, you know, queuing, keeping records, I fully believe that stat. I'm sure there's been

somebody since the year 1600 keeping track of how much coal we burned because that seems like a good

British pastime. I mean, you can't do something because the weather's terrible. So you might as

well keep track of how much coal we're burning. Gas demand slid to a 34 year low as well. A warmer

winter and higher gas prices doing some of the work. The rest came from a power sector that kept

pulling coal off of the system. UK coal demand fell 56% last year. That left coal use 97% below

what we burned in just 2015. And I know that the move to EV is incredibly quick for car makers who

work on long time scales. And sure, it can feel overwhelming not to you and I, because we talk

about this every single day. But to people, the idea of not having their petrol or diesel car seems

absolutely unthinkable. The never bevers are out there. But we've cut our coal use 97%

in this country in the last 10 years. And it's 99.6% below the peak in 1956. The closure of the UK's

last coal fired plant did much of the work. Oil moved a little bit less. UK oil demand fell a

last year. Electrified vehicles chipped away at that. There are now 3 million EVs on our roads,

plug-in hybrids and electric vans make up 5% of the overall car park. The UK added 700,000 plug-in

vehicles last year, saving 2 million tons of CO2. The fleet now cuts more than 7 million tons of

CO2 every single year. And EV drivers save 700 pounds, that's $800 per year, per car in lower

fueling costs. And it's a lot more per van as well, by the way. Heat pump sales, if you're

interested, I know it's not an EV technology, but it's kind of EV-adjacent. And you know,

when I talk about solar and heat pumps and stuff, people are still pretty interested.

Heat pump sales were up 25% last year. 125,000 heat pumps installed. But the heat pump stock

total around 450,000 as a total. Government wants 2.3 million. I feel like, you know,

it's a sample size of one, but we're right in the middle of that dilemma. So we have a gas boiler

that is old, really old. But it was a warm winter this year. And I look back and we put it on sometime

in November. I mean, we've got a new-ish house that's really well-insulated, by the way. 70s house,

but tons of extra insulation. New double glazing, not triple glazing, but loads of loft insulation

here. Way more than we have to. And cavity walls been added. Also got solar and solar thermal for

our hot water. I should get our EPC redone because the last 10 years, we've really got a home battery

here as well. So our EPC is really at a date. But we didn't turn it on till November. And it's

turned off now. And maybe some days in the evening or the morning can be a little bit chilly. And

we sort of just whack it on for half an hour. But if we didn't have the kids, we'd wear a jumper.

And so we haven't used much gas at all. So buying a heat pump, it's a struggle. Because we've got

other things we can spend our money on. If the gas boiler dies, it becomes a more compelling

argument. But to take out a working technology, we'd simply be doing it for the ideological

reasons because we want to cut gas. And we got rid of the gas hob. It's an induction hob here. Now

we did that when we did the kitchen last year. So we've done stuff, but we still do burn a bit of

gas. But that's a tough sell to my wife. Let's get rid of a gas boiler that works perfectly well.

The next phase of transport here in the UK, accounting for 30% of total UK emissions,

transport is less than half of all of our emissions, but it's roughly around a third.

And it remains the UK's largest single emitting sector. Transport is the primary source of emissions

cuts through to 2040 as the EV transition accelerates. And that's hopefully where I will be

for as long as you let me be. And you do that by supporting me on Patreon and listening to the

podcast and the odd ad and stuff. If you listen to the free feed, and we get to commentate on that

move every day for the last eight years, and maybe even until 2040 and longer. Who knows?

If there's a listener, I'll carry on doing it. And that's your podcast for today. Thanks to our

premium partners, National Car Charging on the US mainland and the low hard charge in Hawaii,

and Test TV. Have a loose trusted partner for independent EV battery health testing in Australia

and New Zealand. Have a good one. See you tomorrow. And remember, there's no such thing as a self

charging hybrid.

DAILY: Hyundai Kia Pull Back, MG Teases New Compact EV and AMG Shows Off Electric GT | 08 Mar 2026

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