Happy chirpy - 22 September 2025
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Welcome to the Motoring Podcast, a weekly discussion of Motory News, this episode 650
on Tuesday the 23rd of September 2025. Hello, I'm Alan.
Hello, I'm Andrew. And a week where we wonder where the time has flown, you'll be given
your warning now that the Alan Drinking Game trademark is back this week, twice. In new
car news, you'll hear us apologising for missing one car out from last week's Munich
Roundup. And in point of interest, you get a list of the week from one Italian designer
who has ties to the northwest of Britain. And first of all, we jump straight into follow
up. And can you guess what it is, ladies and gentlemen? I bet you can. Yes, we're still
talking about JLR and the cyber attack. Unfortunately,
well, nobody's talking about diesel gates. So we might as well have some kind of misery
to discuss. Pretty much on brand really.
Well, actually, I think we can in another story and not too far away because it was all
implied. However, JLR, they were due to start production tomorrow on the 24th of
September 2025. However, today on the day of recording, they decided to announce, actually,
we're putting it back another week to the first of October, following the cyber attack
and the inability to restart their systems in a meaningful manner, or possibly at all,
we don't know, because communication is still utterly pants. And by the way, anyone in
JLR do go and recommend that your board goes off and gets crisis communications training,
because I cannot believe how poor it's been on this. Ignoring that, that's just a side
note. Someone who has had experience of these things, that's the side note. They're still
down, still not made anything. It looks like they are not going to make a single vehicle
or be able to register a vehicle digitally for a month, which is horrific, obviously.
On many levels.
Yeah, it is allegedly costing, according to Professor David Bailey, who is a friend of
the show, and he's very good and up on the business economic side of things, thinks it
could be costing JLR up to £5 million a day. I don't care who you are, right? Okay, and
I know we have put the boot in on how this has been handled, and decisions that have
been made, etc, etc, that have led up to the position they're in now. I don't care who
you are, £5 million a day is enormous. And that has had, unfortunately, a huge knock on
effect. We touched on it last week, but the supply chain is really being hammered to the
point where staff in supply chain companies are being told to seek universal credit. Now
last week, we talked about how people were becoming louder and getting the government
to help out. And we were very reticent in that. However, what we want to clarify is,
we know this is not a bailout. This is not like the bankers in 2008. The idea is to go
along the furlough scheme. So therefore, there is a payment back type effort or the COVID
loan type thing. There is accountability. It is not a handout. It is not a freebie.
It is purely to help people survive. We are totally in favour of that.
Absolutely.
We don't want anyone to suffer for any of the decisions that have led to this position
and this point. Really reiterating that because that possibly didn't come through as well
as it should have.
Agreed.
We don't want any JLR suppliers to go bankrupt either because that has huge knock on effects
across the car industry in the UK, let alone in local communities, etc. But to think they
will come out and be building stuff on the 1st of October, I think is hugely optimistic.
The point to remain from last week.
Can we make it clear to people, by the way, you're not meant to shut down your entire
production process from materials to sales at once, ever. Trouble is, whilst you might
have lots of the procedures and everything in place for individual systems to be brought
back up and that's normal.
And one would hope.
Well, I would sincerely hope that they have resiliency plans in place, but that's for
the individual systems because they were the likelihood of everything going down is
crazy. So you've got the individual one.
No one will have entertained that.
No, but you sit there and then go, but hang on a minute, what are the dependencies between
these things? So what order should we bring them back up in? And it's not just dependencies
in terms of information and all the fun stuff that I deal with in my day job. In terms of
information and APIs and all this kind of stuff and what's transferred where it's as
much a case of, well, actually, where can we start? Do we start at the beginning of the
process? Do we start with our most important things first? It just, but then will those
need the other things done?
Are you doing a soft restart as well?
Well, exactly. There's a lot of, I mean, this is why the original time skills were so ridiculous
and why we felt it was so ridiculous is because Experian shows it's blooming complicated to
do this. And this is why we keep being quite so negative on the time scales that we're given.
Yeah.
Just because we actually understand the complexity that goes into running manufacturing
organizations, even in as business as usual, let alone in a, Oh my goodness, we have to
restart a whole darn thing.
And we would love to be wrong, by the way, we would, we would
Oh goodness, yes. I would always love to be wrong whenever I'm being so negative.
I would applaud and I would sing the praises of JLR, their cyber security and their IT support
people. If, if we turn out to be wrong, I would love to do that. However, I don't believe we are
going to be wrong at all.
But yes, I was going to say, but Andrew, even without the podcast, we know people who work in
in companies and we have an idea of what happens.
Anyway, in the show notes, there will be linked auto cars latest article, which keeps changing
every day, because they don't write a new article, they just update the article it got going.
So that that's good.
It makes sense. I mean, we're, I mean, we're almost doing a great job on that.
Yeah.
But it should be highlighted a great job on that so that there is a story and a history in there.
You can start, you can begin at the beginning, and you can learn all about it.
Talk to us to will for that.
And this is motoring journalists having to learn about production, cybersecurity, technology
and all sorts of stuff.
SAP in a crash court, literally a crash course.
As you say, well done will on this.
This is a really excellent reference point for us.
But there will also be an article from the record that goes in and discusses more in
depth the impact on the suppliers for JLR.
So you can get an impression as well of how hard this is hitting these people and how how
much of an impact this sort of thing has.
It is much more complex, much bigger than the M&S and the co-op.
That inconvenience does when shopping.
This is much more complicated and has much bigger impacts.
And I hope from this, the government and industries across the country and individuals
start to wake up to cybersecurity and the need to take it seriously.
Yeah, totally.
Anyway, Alan, do you want to move us on to some more good news?
Yes.
Citroen has issued four models with no drive notices.
And yet somehow that's still better news than the last.
It's over break worries.
The issue affects the C3, the EC3, the C3 Aircross and the EC3 Aircross, which if they've
been trying to write tongue twisters, they can hardly have come up with anything much harder.
These are brand new models.
Oh, yes, these are brand new models.
The problem is that the pedal box assembly in the right hand drive cars hasn't been built
to the correct specification.
That means there's a heightened risk of brake loss.
Seems quite serious, to be fair.
I mean, I applaud Citroen for going stop.
And it says if this would happen, the automatic emergency braking and the
electronic parking brake would remain fully operational.
As far as we know, this hasn't actually happened.
No.
There is a risk of this happening.
Yes.
I mean, don't drive it.
No.
But this isn't because things have happened.
The new Vauxhall Frontera and the Frontera Electric, which are much easier to pronounce,
are also affected, but there haven't been any customer deliveries of those cars yet.
And a Vauxhall was saying that they will be rectified prior to delivery.
I think they know what the problem is.
And I had to fix the problem.
And it's just a case of simply a case of fitting the right bits, really.
This is better than it is better.
Gee whiz, I've got to watch my word even less.
Less bad.
This is a less bad than the airbag one, of course.
The terrible risk of face fire work.
But this is the third stop drive from Citroen in three months, unfortunately for Citroen.
Yes.
Yeah.
One last thing, by the way, the Grande Panda and the Grande Panda Electric are not affected
by the issue, according to Viet.
OK, good.
If you have one of those cars, or you know someone who has one of those cars,
let them know if they have not received a letter yet, I would imagine
they're so new that they will have received a letter that they're not onto second owners yet.
I would imagine they have received a slightly panicked, don't panic type phone call from their dealership.
Not to worry you, but anyway, talking about not worrying, but I'm going to take us on
to the Volkswagen group and thanks to Porsche saying that they are going to delay their
EV only model.
Oh, boy.
Volkswagen group have now worked out that a smidgen under $6 billion is going to be
taken from their profits as a result of the work that Porsche are having to do.
Last week, we talked about the death of the internal combustion engine 718, whether that
was coupé or convertible.
And these are one of the cars that he's actually going to get an ice back in it when it comes
out as the new vehicle.
None, not only that, but the Panamera and the Cayenne are going to come out and continue
to be offered with combustion engine and plug-in hybrids into the 2030s.
This was not part of the plan.
This was not what was meant to happen.
And Porsche's stock price as a result of this has taken a massive hit.
Ouch.
Yes.
Particularly because of the intertwined Volkswagen group.
Porsche Volkswagen group share who owns what where now?
They for the share of CEO.
Well, he's trying to move away from that to be fair to him.
Yeah, fair enough.
But I think he because he knew what was coming out.
He's going, yeah, if I don't look like I'm making a positive step here, then my head
will be called for by the shareholders, which is understandable.
Yeah, quite really.
You see, there's two things at play here.
One is, oh, goodness, that's terrible for the shareholders because the most important
things and customer satisfaction is shareholder value.
The other thing is when you look at the recent history over the past decade or so, most
of the troubles that Porsche have been facing have been as a relatively direct result of
an over dependency on Volkswagen group, where a company in Volkswagen group, O.D.,
has decided to do something naughty or just poorly, then it's had an awful effect on
Porsche.
It's a blooming brave move to make this.
Well, to stop and say, we're going to wait before we do this and we're going to change
our plan.
I think they feel they've got no choice.
Well, yeah, I understand.
I mean, there's all this talk about how people are saying, oh, look, the premium and
luxury EV market hasn't taken off.
And you go, look at the products that were offered.
Look at the products that were offered because the industry took an, even though it was
told decades ago, it was going to zero emission.
It had a knee jerk reaction because dieselgate happened.
The Taycan was kind of cool, still is.
Yeah, but there's problems with software.
There's problems with reliability and it is not Porsche alone.
You look at Mercedes, you look at Audi, BMW, all of them.
Have had issues.
Some are doing better now, some are doing better now.
BMW fewer.
Yes, some are doing better now.
But they did because they fought hammer and tong to not move to zero emission.
They got caught completely on the back foot, which is why the likes of Hyundai have done
so well, I would posit because they were not reticent in moving to a multi powertrain idea.
They worked well with their suppliers, whereas the current stream Europe has not done the same
thing and they are playing catch up, massively playing catch up, and they are still finding
the problems that others found a few years ago.
And on the one hand, I have sympathy because of the knock on effects where people are losing
jobs, we'll get into that more soon because this is not a happy first part of the show.
I'm very sorry, everyone, we tried our best.
We really did something rotten as well.
But I have sympathy for the people who are affected by this, but I have no sympathy for
the car industry because they did their damnest not to ignore that this was going to come
along and they've been caught cold.
And I'm sorry, you are getting what you deserve at this point.
On which happy note, let's move on to the next story.
Nissan.
Talking of getting what they deserve.
Nissan is going to be downsizing its London design studio in Paddington.
It's going to close some others in a cost push.
This is all part of the re Nissan plan that was announced a couple of months ago, which
means that they're trying to claw back the 3.8 billion pound loss that Nissan recorded
last year.
It's going to be closing the design centers in California and in Sao Paulo and skin back
its operations as design headquarters in Japan.
Can I make a suggestion here, though, right?
Of all the things Nissan shouldn't be doing is scaling back designer.
No, I can understand shutting some of the design studios, but the ones that you still
have decided to keep open, making them smaller.
I think one of the things they've really struggled with in recent years, particularly
if you look at North America, differentiation is their designs do not stand out.
They're absolutely a North America.
Good Nissan are their automotive porridge.
There's just nothing distinctive about them.
I'm running through my mind just in case I'm being unfair.
And other than the Z, which I think I saw two in the, I was two years of launch
time that I was there, maybe three, actually, let me up it three.
Okay.
That's hardly staying in my own little area.
I covered tens of thousands of miles around the US on roads.
Then get it's, they just don't stick out.
I mean, they are cheap cars for people who don't like driving really.
And if they're not cheap cars, they're incredibly expensive cars and pickup trucks.
I would say that Nissan has to get some kind of design and styling mojo back.
Absolutely.
And the way you do that is by investing in designers.
There's all sorts of stuff that the London studio contributed to stuff
like the number of concepts, like the ones that the Cossana and the grips,
which became the juke marks one and two and the new micro one and the micro
C plus C dropped off of 2005.
I only ever see them in pink just to re it just to overemphasize how ugly they are.
No, the worst perhaps the Renault McGahn one was that special edition,
which is a hearing aid beige with a liver colored interior.
That's the worst.
Someone will tell us what that what that special edition is called.
It's a Florian or something like that.
Retirement.
Yes.
Well, very much that.
Yeah.
Nissan is going to be leveraging partnerships with companies such as Renault
to help design its cars.
So Nissan's are going to be rebadged something else.
So we've seen that with the micro.
Yeah.
Yeah, totally.
Well, that's the example.
And we said when we talked about it was if there wasn't the five, you go,
that's actually quite a good looking car.
Yeah.
Yeah, totally.
The other thing that's not mentioned here that does worry me a bit, but I'm
hoping is safe is a TCE, so Technical Centre Europe.
Is that Cranfield?
Yes, Cranfield, just outside Milton Keynes.
They need that.
That is vital because that's the technical centre for the, let's say for the
whole of Europe.
And there's lots of very important stuff that Nissan has introduced into
European market vehicles as a result of the work at Cranfield and being able to
get a Japanese engineer in a car and go, look, the CVTs don't work with roundabouts.
I was going to say that being in Britain gives you, because our roads are almost
third world poverty in spec now as well.
If you can work here, you're going to be fabulous on the lovely Spanish, French,
wherever in the rest of German roads.
I agree with you.
And I hope that this stays the way because much as I have not been a fan of some
of the products Nissan have come out in the last decade, two decades, when I have
driven them, I've never gone, oh, this is a dreadful thing to drive.
No, they're not.
They're not.
I have plenty of other criticisms, but to drive it has never been the problem.
Do you remember the story I told you from, I told, I'm sure it's in the Nissan
Duke Mark II launch special edition that the engineers at the technical centre
were really, really proud of the fact that they had 3D scanned a roundabout
in Milton Keyneson had it recreated road surface and all at the technical centre
in Japan, because it just had a little bit of everything that made roundabouts hard.
It's why American and Asian CVT transmissions do not work in Europe as a
whole was because they weren't programmed to deal with roundabouts, because
roundabouts involved breaking, but not stopping changes of direction and then
acceleration all at once.
Yes.
And it just overwhelms car sensors if they don't know what it is they're looking at.
Anyway, we've gone off in a massive tangent mostly because it was more
interesting and more positive than I think most of the news that we actually
have to talk about.
Andrew, next round of job cuts, go on.
Yes, well, we're going to go to Germany this time.
If we can make it brief then before all our listeners slit their wrists and that
would be a preview.
Forget them.
It's awesome.
I know.
No offence, dear listener, but this is grim for us to and we're going to go to
Germany and Ford has announced that he's going to cut up to 1,000 jobs at the
Cologne factory that makes the Explorer and the Capri due to Bricks fingers with
quotation marks, weak EV demand or is it weak demand for your EVs?
Well, yeah, I mean, the Explorer is fine and all.
I've driven one, I've driven an SMMT and it was a lovely Volkswagen.
It was perfectly fine, but it's very much a Volkswagen.
Whenever you're inside, it's a Volkswagen.
I think it looks all right, but it's not more expensive than an IDV.
The Capri is, the Capri is a total dog's den and an expensive dog's den.
We're ignoring the name there.
Oh, no, the name is the least problem with it.
I have no sentimental attachment to the name, so I don't care about the name.
I just think it looks ugly.
If you click the link in the show notes to the AutoCard article, there is some
fantastic explanation from Ford as to what the problems are.
And apparently it's the reluctance of all people buying EVs.
Nothing to do with their EVs, perhaps not being what people want or can.
And this is the most important thing, dear car industry, can afford to buy at the
moment with the way everything is.
And I think that's the real big problem with all of this is cars full stop.
We've, how long have we banged on about this over three, four years now?
Since the started going up way beyond inflation rate.
You just go, people just can't afford them.
There is your answer.
There is your full problem.
The end of the day, the buck stops with, we cannot afford, we do not have the
monthlies now.
And the trouble is because it's afforded, it doesn't have the residuals.
Not that your Volkswagen's, even these days, your Kia's and Hyundai's and
whatever else has, it's always going to be a more expensive choice than
equivalence with more premium badges.
Which would you have, an Audi or a Ford that they cost, they cost within a
five or a month of the Audi, if you're that kind of person?
Yeah, and that's if you don't go secondhand.
Yeah, well, absolutely.
Anyway, Alan, do you want to take us to Japan, Japan for some very bad and sad news?
Yes, sadly, the man who is credited with the first two generations of Mazda MX-5
and they are their design and styling.
Tsutomu Tom Mutano has died just on the 20th of September there at the age of 76.
He was born in Nagasaki in Japan, qualified as an engineer there, but by
in 1974 moved into automotive design.
He started General Motors in Detroit, was later in Australia, before a six
year stint at BMW in 1983.
He became the chief designer at Mazda North America's California Design Studio.
The original MX-5 supposedly didn't look nearly as much like a Lotus
Alans as it actually ended up looking, but a lot of it was to do with packaging
and all of that kind of thing, which sort of pushed proportions out to match the
Alans. Very cool.
1999 became Mazda's executive designer for the first time working in Japan, but
he left the company in 2002 after 19 years.
Very sad.
Did a big influence on lots of vehicles on the road there.
Yeah.
And we are still eternally grateful that Mazda has made the MX-5, continues to do so.
Yeah.
Right.
I'm going to take us to China now.
And this is the news that Warren Buffett and his investment company has sold
their entire stake in BYD.
This is the first time since 2008 that they do not hold any shares in the
Chinese electric vehicle company.
Obviously representatives of BYD are putting quite a positive gloss on this
and thank him for his companionship and support, particularly in the early years
when they looked like they were just a freak little company out in China before
they became the behemoth that they are particularly in the electric and
battery powered sectors.
But is this perhaps a sign that Chinese EVs or the EV companies are about to
hit or have been hitting quite a bit of choppy water, shall we say, when it
comes to their market?
There might be an article in the second part that helps explain a little bit
about this, but the Chinese government has had to step in and tell the EV
makers to stop undercutting each other in order for the greater good, the
greater good.
It's not going well over there, which is why we are seeing so many new car
companies come over to Britain because we have not put any tariffs in place
unlike Europe, unlike Mexico now, unlike America.
And I think Canada have done very similar as well.
We was talking about Canada getting rid of them.
Oh, taking them away.
But who knows really?
I don't know if that was just a thing because of stuff happening south of the
border.
Yeah.
Not quite as far south as Old Mickey Cool, but you know.
But it is quite a step to remove all their shares in BYD.
One of the things that is worth mentioning about Berkshire Hathaway is that
they never at any point have held any shares in Tesla, which was something
that the BYD was kind of proud of, to be honest, to understand.
I don't blame them at all.
Wiser, wiser, wiser people.
Look, we're rounding out the first part of the show and we have scraped all
barrels everywhere.
We honestly, we have to try and find something positive.
And we found one article that is remotely positive in any way.
And Alan, it is down to you.
It's hard to be a happy chirpy news aggregation show where the only news you
have to aggregate is all bloomin' misery.
But Toyota has added a new product to its Gazoo Racing Heritage parts line.
It is adding the 4AGE and the key components of the 4AGE engine to its
catalogue.
That's the engine that powers the Corolla AE86 and many other Toyotas of that
period to generally the sporty, racy ones.
They will be offering the cylinder head subassembly without cams or valves.
And they will also be reproducing a cylinder block subassemblies as well without
the rotating assembly of cranks and pistons.
That's not an issue because there's loads of those in the aftermarket, but it's
very hard for the aftermarket to produce new blocks and heads.
This is very cool.
There are also some changes.
So of course, the AE86 is from the mid 80s.
Obviously, machining standards have moved on since then as has metallurgy and stuff.
And these are unlikely to be going into vehicles that will leave a totally
charmed life driving to and from shops and nothing else.
As a result, the bores are honed to modern machining standards.
The cast iron block, the cast iron of the block even is updated with a higher
rigidity composition.
And Toyota has also modified the crank cap structure for durability as well.
More of this, please.
Love it.
I mean, this is this goes on the back of the 2000 GT, the A70, the A80 Supras,
as well as Land Cruisers, ranging from the 1960s into the late 90s.
These stuff they are offering manufacture made parts for.
And this this is good because the cars are already on the road.
All the track.
The best thing we can do for those cars is keep them running at a better standard.
Yeah, absolutely.
It's like the one you remember my W124 when I went off and I was able to order
a new key from the messages factory delivered to the dealership.
That made me incredibly happy.
So silly, but it made me incredibly happy that it was cheaper for me to do that
than for me to go to a key cutting place and get some some cheap keys.
But but for the same price, if not more than the proper messages one.
Yeah, yeah.
Anyway, finally, folks, that takes us to that break in the show called Guilt Minute.
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It's very much appreciated.
Yes.
OK, new, new car news and we have to start with an apology.
We were very down on Munich last week
and we were trying to scramble around to find positive cars.
And we missed out one of the most positive and uplifting cars that was there.
It was in one list that we saw, but then it wasn't in the list that we used in the end.
Sorry. Editorial error, I think is the technical term for that one.
Or I messed up.
Choose your title wisely.
However, this is the Ionic.
I'm going to go with three because the other name got changed very quickly.
And only in the article we're going to have linked on slide seven, by the way, ladies and gentlemen.
It's a perfectly reasonable thing, right?
There was a Mazda 323 that is known that is known by the same two letter combo.
Perfectly reasonable.
There's a whole Costco competitor in the US called BJs.
There is no reason that the Ionic BJ should be amusing in any way, shape or form,
especially when it's beside a Dix Sporting Goods.
Anyway, ignoring the name, the car looks fabulous.
Think Veloster, but electric and they have gone to town on it.
It looks, I think it looks great.
It looks recognizably as an Ionic in certain aspects like the front end.
If you'd removed the badge, I would have said that that was a Hyundai.
Especially at the front, it's a lot like the six, not the back.
It's a bit more like a five.
Yeah, because they've got that dot matrix lighting.
And in between us of Veloster.
But obviously the Hyundai group at the moment have got this fetish for pillarless suicide doors,
which I have no problem with at all, but they will never make it to production.
Even in flat gray, I think this car looks brilliant.
And it is apparently a design study to give a hint on how a small or small electric hatchbacks
might be for the Ionic brand, sub-brand from Hyundai.
How much of this actually makes to production?
Because there is a there is a lot of stuff in there.
Some of it we've seen on production cars like the wing mirrors we've we've already seen on the six.
Yeah, there are no door handles.
Let's just clarify that one.
It's a concept.
It's a concept, obviously, and the wheels are enormous.
And then there's stuff around the back that you go, well, that won't happen.
But overall, I could see it happening quite a lot of this with with certain changes, obviously.
But I could see quite a lot of this happening.
And I love it.
Yeah, I really do.
Yeah, it's really cool, really cool.
Yeah.
Next up, the same group.
Kia has announced that the Kia K4, a golf, roadling, flash-sized hatchback has been
confirmed for the UK.
It's interesting, especially as it's a car.
And I know that sounds silly.
It sounds weird to emphasise that, but it is the car.
It's an internally combustion engine car.
Yeah, and you can tell that, that it's internal combustion engine because of the
design of the front end, because Kia have differentiated between their electric and
their internal combustion stroke hybrid ones with a certain way that they deal with
the front lights in particular.
I will say that it has a phenomenally long front overhang, and it is not the most
attractive Kia model out there.
I don't know.
I don't think the colour helps either.
This is sort of a must.
It is a kind of must that, yeah.
I would like to see it in, say, Kia's metallic blue or something.
That might help it.
And I'd like to see it in the flesh, of course, because it's very hard to make
any kind of proper judgment based on press pictures.
The inside's nice, though.
But anyway, it will come as either a hatchback or a saloon.
Saloon is not going to be offered here.
Only the hatchback is of interest.
It is somewhere between C and D segment.
So it's particularly long for a golf, a rivaling car.
It's actually about 20 centimetres longer than a market goal.
Depending on which engine you choose, Kia can accommodate up to 438 litres of luggage
with the seats up to 117 with the seats down.
There's going to be five different powertrains at launch, starting off with
a 115 horsepower turbocharged one litre engine with a six speed manual gearbox.
There will be a mild hybrid version that comes with a seven speed dual clutch auto
and there'll also be a turbocharged 1.6 four cylinder engine with either 150 or 180
horsepower output.
There will be a full hybrid model along later in 2026.
A number of different specs along the usual Kia.
The usual lines that the Kia use.
Full pricing specification will be confirmed closer to the case all going on sale.
And that will be in the fourth quarter of 2025.
Right, I'm going to round out a new, new car news with something utterly ridiculous,
but utterly wonderful.
Because again, we are trying to lift the mood now from the first part of the show.
And this is the RestoMod Lamborghini Diablo from Accentrica.
No, you've just made it sound like the gas company.
It's it's Accentrica.
Yeah, but maybe they as in Glombit.
Yes, maybe they did actually read the hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy.
It went, you know what?
Yes.
And if you don't know what I'm talking about, go buy the book or go get the
audio book and listen to that particular bit.
However, they are based in San Marino and they have revealed three vehicles at
Monterey Car Weekend and this was one of them.
And this has got a V12 engine.
Well, is it the Ablo?
It's kind of part of the course.
Basically a satin black, but everything is black in this.
The interior is black apart from some of the dials and is just utterly wonderful.
It is I am I'm so overjoyed one.
It's not a Porsche.
I'm so overjoyed by the black on black on black.
That's what I've just heard you say it should maybe have been.
They shouldn't have called themselves the Accentrica.
They should have been should have called themselves the hot black.
If we're going to follow this particular thing, it is exposed weave satin finished
carbon fiber for the entirety of the body.
On this particular one and it's just evil.
I mean, the pictures really make it look great as well to be fair.
In which as we just slagged off the last last lot of pictures in for the KV for
because we now need to see that in person this.
Yes, I want to see in person and I never will, but the pictures look amazing.
Yes, they showed two others.
One in a triple layer rose gold livery, which doesn't really sound like it
appeals to me and the other in a Verde Châtureuse pastel,
Châtureuse green pastel color, which I can't really imagine what that looks like.
But I kind of want to see it to be honest.
What I love most about this is is the interior, though, because they have
completely redone the dashboard and the HVAC controls and the center console.
You look like you have room in it to be fair.
Well, it must just be the angle of the photo, I think.
But it looks fantastic and it's just super retro, pixelated screens.
Yeah, you know, intentionally pixelated, just rubbish.
And you can see the rep counter going over the top as well.
Yeah, that's going to be amazing.
C4 Corvette style.
Yeah, yeah, I like this a lot.
This made me smile in a sort of what the heck.
There is no mention of price and I didn't even need to ask the price.
And I knew that there was no way that it would be representative of anything
sensible in any way.
It's not going to be.
I mean, they're only going to make, what is it, 19, I think it says here,
19 examples of the Pechetto Titano, each powered by a tuned version of
Lamborghini's naturally aspirated 5.7 litre V12 engine.
If you have to ask, you can't afford one of those.
Lunchtime read this week.
And it's about the Chinese EV and auto industry and how it is sending it
into a tailspin according to Reuters.
There's quite a lot of reading in this.
It is really quite and very interesting about how KPIs were kind of set by the
government, which was about like a minimal number of vehicles that were needed
to be made for the factories to get the funding and all these kinds of things.
Even when there wasn't necessarily demand, these factories are just
churning out vehicles, vehicles, vehicles.
And then what the heck to do with them once they're built.
And it's very interesting.
I recommend taking the time to read it.
It is one of our longer lunchtime reads that we've had for a while.
Yeah, we've talked at length over the last probably three, four years
of the Chinese car industry.
And we have tried to point out where others who have maybe more prominent
voices than ours have got things very wrong, have not understood situations
because they do not understand China, its history, the political makeup, etc.
I don't think anyone understands China, its history, its political makeup,
in all fairness.
Some of us get a better understanding than others though.
And I would suggest that you and I are in the car commenting world are higher
up that list than maybe others.
So this is why we're recommending this article is because this will be a good
reminder for those who are long time listeners, but anyone coming on board
more recently or has forgotten what we've said.
This is a great understanding of where the Chinese EV car industry came from,
how it came about, and the inherent problems with it.
However, that will give an indication of how much, say, the European car
industry is now under pressure because of decisions in China and in Europe.
Oh, the extra challenge for the European industry is, of course, China is doing
what the US and Europe did over 80 years and it's doing it in 18 years.
Yeah, because it's going through the same cycles.
No, well, so yes and yes and no, but they've got the added bonus of they've
got paid to learn these lessons thanks to the West going over there.
This is the thing that we that we both you and I get very right that most
other people don't recognize or don't understand is that the West rushed out
to China to exploit cheap labor in the late 90s, early 2000s, and they have
paid to teach China what is expected in terms of quality and quality control
and in terms of iteration and in terms of development, which they have then taken
and they are very good at iteration and developing something even further.
And they have done so and it's now coming back to bite the West.
I used to see that when I was a product designer, deal with loads and loads of
Chinese suppliers and some of them are fantastic.
The quality that we were getting was better than anything you should get in
Europe, the turnaround times even before teams meetings or any of these things
or easy access to rapid prototyping for small companies, all these kind of
things, which you just they just shot ahead and they were a delight to
work with, but some of the smartest people I've ever worked with.
Yeah.
And they think long term.
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
Really interesting article from Reuters there.
Bit heavier than normal, but we feel it's and longer.
We feel it's really worth you reading to get a grasp because you're going to
hear a lot of people talking about or you do hear a lot of people talking
about China, but like we say, not sure most of them actually truly understand
the situation.
Anyway, moving on to list of the week.
And this time, we're going to use a list from a classic in sports cars that
talks about a Italian designer called Mitchell Lottie, who I didn't really
know about.
I have to be brutally honest.
Really?
I suppose not.
But when I go through the list and I see the designs he has worked on, and it
has penned, I go, ah, I do know your work, sir.
I have to work with it.
Somehow I've done this 650 times with this guy.
And he never heard of Mitchell Lottie.
I just, dear me, you're massive, massive chunks of your education missing.
Mr.
Cloakes.
I know.
Come on.
You've got 25 slides to pick from.
I think 24 are different ones.
What is the slide that stands out the most to you?
I just have real trouble with this one because there's so many cute, cute and
cool cars.
I'm going to choose the DAF 44.
Hang on, what slide numbers that please?
That's a slide 12 in your, in your handout.
12.
Thank you.
Hang on.
Let me just get to that.
It is the first big DAF.
So of course the Dutch, the small Dutch car with its very aromatic transmission
powered literally by rubber bands.
My mom had a 66, you see, which was like two generations on from this 1970s one.
But yes, it's very, very cool.
So this was from 1966.
Just kind of, I still think it's got great proportions.
I mean, the wheels are tiny and everything, but it's, it's, it's a lovely, cute little car.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
Just enough.
I don't know, just enough to stop it.
It's cute, but not too cutesy.
Right.
Well, I'm, I'm going to swing us wildly different from that only because I've
got such memories of this.
I'm going to take us to slide 17 and the Leyland National Bus.
Oh, gee, I thought you might choose that.
And because I'm a person of a certain age, I do recognize particularly the one
that they have got there shown, I do recognize this bus completely.
It just, it was the staple of British roads for when it came to single-decker buses.
And I had no idea he was involved in the design of that.
And just aided lots and lots of Leyland Leyland and BL stuff, as you can see throughout it.
Neither of us have chosen to triumph, probably intentionally.
Triumph, to me, is what he's most associated with.
If I may pick one more, and there's plenty of Italian cars in here too.
But for me, the other one that I was wavering between choosing was the Triumph
2000 and 2500 saloon car.
That was fantastic, sort of, I don't know.
I've never quite had no idea how to describe that shape in Triumph Stag.
The same designer had the same kind of grill and tail as well.
But very cool.
What I would say, and I'm not going to do more than name the number of number 23,
I could quite easily see that as a BMW.
Absolutely, yes.
Particularly of the time.
So there is a very eclectic mix in the type of designs that he was involved in
and the type of vehicles.
And I just, I love coming across and expanding my education as Alan has
lamented on my poor education.
But this is expanded, and this is great to see something like this.
Oh wow, I had no idea.
Ah, but I do know, I do know, I just didn't know precisely.
It's always nice to connect dots.
Yes, Andrew.
Anyway, take us to the end, finally, we're nearly done, everyone.
And finally this week, Mazda has painted a new type of engine.
It has painted a six stroke petrol engine that separates hydrogen from carbon.
You put a regular unleaded fuel into the car.
It then does stuff with it involving catalysts and pressure and heat and
things to extract carbon one way and hydrogen the other way and then combusts
the hydrogen, meaning that all that comes out the tailpipe notionally is water.
And somehow it collects the carbon.
I don't know what happens if you just, it's like the opposite of an ashtray.
He's like taking out, oh look, I can, oh look, I'll use that in the
barbecue at the weekend.
And you sort of, I don't know, I have no idea what you do with it.
We are not engineers, we are not able to fully understand the diagrams that are
in this article that are linked to the submission.
Well, I think it's very difficult to do it without a guide and that's pretty
standard for patent diagrams.
But there is a lot of description about what goes on.
Do follow the link to the article on Carbuzz and make your head hurt.
But by doing that, I mean, of course, this is the company that came up with a
turbocharged triple rotary engine, everyone.
I look forward to them bringing out to market now and being one of the first
to buy it and being financially ruined.
The last, um,
No, be under warranty, you'll be fine.
Oddly engine, the Mazda I had, despite still being under warranty, almost
financially ruined me.
So I'm not that keen to repeat the experience.
Understandable.
Anyway, that brings us kicking and screaming to the end of this week.
Don't forget that between now and next week, you can give us any feedback and
show your thoughts for the show at MotoringPodcast.com on Blue Sky.
At Motoring Podcast on Instagram and Facebook, or the contact page of
MotoringPodcast.com, the hub of all our activities.
Remember, you're supposed to find out if you buy a Patreon and please leave a
review and rating on Apple Podcast YouTube or every podcast app that you do
such a thing.
Andrew, in the meantime, what's the best way to get in touch with you?
Best way to get in touch with me is if you search for crack windscreen on Blue Sky
or failing that, if you prefer LinkedIn, I am there under my full name.
And Alan, if people would like to get in touch with you and curse you for being
the person who introduced a couple of articles which meant the drinking game
had to come back, what's the best way for them to get in touch with you personally?
Best way to get in touch with me personally is to use Blue Sky where I
am at ajpbradley.com.
Social.
That will be back as we said very soon, but until then, I'm
Alan Bradley, I've been Andrew Clues at Safe Motoring.
About this episode
A deep dive into the latest automotive news reveals ongoing challenges for JLR following a cyber attack that has halted production, costing them millions daily. The episode also discusses Citroen's recall of several models due to brake issues, Nissan's downsizing of its design studio, and Ford's job cuts in Germany amid weak EV demand. Notably, the episode pays tribute to Tsutomu Tom Mutano, the designer behind the iconic Mazda MX-5, and highlights Toyota's reintroduction of classic engine components. The hosts emphasize the complexities of the automotive industry and the impact of current events on manufacturers and suppliers.
Original notes
FOLLOW UP: JLR WOES STILL CONTINUE
JLR have put back their proposed production restart from 24 September to 1 October as they continue to try and deal with the hack on their systems where the effects became apparent on 1 September. What has only started to be appreciated is the knock-on effect the closures have had on suppliers to the company. Staff have been told to apply for Universal Credit, due to stopped wages, and many are calling on a furlough scheme to be instigated by the Government.
To read more about the ongoing issues for JLR, click this Autocar article link here.
To gain an understanding of the affects down the supply chain, click this article link from The Record.
CITROËN ISSUES NEW NO-DRIVE WARNINGCitroën UK has issued a new no-drive warning, covering the C3, ë-C3, C3 Aircross and ë-C3Aircross, due to potential brake failure. This no-drive notice is on top of the other two the company is already dealing with. Click this Autocar article link here to read more.
PORSCHE DELAY EV MOVE GIVING VW GROUP $6BN PROFIT HITPorsche has announced that they are delaying their move to EVs as had been expected. The Panamera and Cayenne will have ICE and hybrid options into 2030, rather than going all electric. Likewise the new 718 models. The projected hit to Volkswagen Group profits is a smidgen under $6 billion, following this move. You can read more by clicking this Yahoo! Finance article link here.
NISSAN SHRINKS LONDON DESIGN STUDIO AND CLOSES OTHERSNissan cost cutting efforts have been turned to the design studios across the globe. Those in California and Brazil will be shut, with the Paddington studio expected to lose some staff numbers too. Click this Autocar article link here.
FORD CUTS JOBS IN GERMANYDue to much weaker than expected sales of the Explorer and Capri, Ford has announced that it is cutting up to 1,000 jobs at their Cologne factory. This is on top of the previous 2,900 jobs that went at the end of 2024.If you wish to read more, click this Autocar article link here.
TOM MATANO HAS PASSED AWAYTom Matano was the designer of the first two generations of the Mazda MX-5 and has sadly passed away on 20 September 2025, aged 76. He had a long career where he worked for GM, BMW and then onto Mazda. To learn more about him and his career, click this Classic & Sports Car article link here.
BUFFETT SELLS ENTIRE BYD STAKEWarren Buffett, the renowned investor, has sold his entire stake in the Chinese EV maker BYD. This is the first time since 2008 that Berkshire Hathaway did not hold any stock in the company. Click this article link from Fortune for more information.
TOYOTA AE86 ENGINE BLOCKS BEING BUILT AGAINToyota is building the parts...
Motoring Podcast - News Show
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