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Car
Ford Anglia
The Ford Anglia is a small, vintage family car that was made in the United Kingdom decades ago. It is easily recognized by its unique, backward-slanted rear window.
Concept
solar carport
A parking space with a roof made of solar panels. It keeps your car cool in the summer and dry in the winter while making clean electricity from the sun.
Company
Volkswagen
One of the biggest car companies in the world, based in Germany. They make popular cars like the Golf and Beetle, and they also own several other famous car brands.
Concept
dieselgate
A major scandal where Volkswagen got caught cheating on environmental tests for their diesel cars. They used secret software to make the cars look cleaner during tests than they actually were on the road.
Car
Volkswagen I
The ID. Buzz is a modern, fully electric van made by Volkswagen. Its design is inspired by the classic, retro VW camper vans from the 1960s.
Brand
Porsche
A famous German brand known for making fast, luxury sports cars like the 911, as well as sporty SUVs.
Car
Porsche 911
A very famous sports car with its engine in the back instead of the front. It has been made for over 60 years and is loved by car fans for how fun it is to drive.
Brand
Polestar
A newer car brand that focuses on making stylish, high-performance electric cars. It started as a racing partner for Volvo.
Concept
over-the-air update
A way for your car to get software updates over the internet, just like your smartphone does, without you having to take it to a mechanic.
Car
BMW i3s
The i3s is a small, sporty electric car made by BMW with a unique, futuristic design. It was built using lightweight materials like carbon fiber to help it go further on a single charge.
Car
Midsummer Morgan Midsummer
An incredibly rare, hand-made British sports car designed with the help of a famous Italian design studio. It looks like a classic vintage car but has a modern, powerful engine underneath.
Car
Skoda Peak
A very large, all-electric family SUV from the Czech brand Skoda that has seven seats and can travel a long distance on a single charge.
Concept
MEB platform
A shared "blueprint" or base frame that Volkswagen uses to build many of its different electric cars, helping them save money and design cars faster.
Car
Volvo XC90
The XC90 is a large, luxury SUV made by the Swedish company Volvo. It is designed to carry up to seven people comfortably and is highly focused on passenger safety.
Car
Land Rover Discovery
The Discovery is a large, premium SUV made by the British brand Land Rover. It is built to carry families comfortably while also being able to drive through tough off-road terrain like mud, sand, and deep water.
Car
BMW E30
This is an older, classic version of a small luxury sedan made by the German company BMW during the 1980s and early 1990s. It is highly prized by car enthusiasts for its simple, boxy design and fun driving feel.
Car
Audi 90
The Audi 90 is an older, premium sedan made by the German company Audi during the 1980s and 1990s. It was a slightly fancier and more powerful version of their standard family car of the time.
Car
Toyota A90
The Supra is a two-door sports car made by the Japanese brand Toyota. It is designed for fast, sporty driving and has a sleek, aggressive look.
Car
Alfa Romeo Brera
A beautiful, sporty Italian coupe made in the late 2000s. It is famous for looking like a concept car you can actually buy, though it wasn't as fast or sporty to drive as it looked.
Car
Jaguar D-Type
A highly famous, aerodynamic racing car from the 1950s with a cool fin behind the driver's head. It won the famous Le Mans 24-hour race three years in a row.
Person
Mike Hawthorn
A famous British race car driver from the 1950s who was the first British driver to win the Formula One championship.
Place
Le Mans
A famous town in France that hosts the most prestigious 24-hour endurance car race in the world every year.
LIVE
Welcome to the Motoring Podcast, your weekly discussion of motoring news. This is episode
693 on Tuesday, the 30th of June, 2026. Hello, I'm Alan.
Hello, I'm Andrew. And this week, you'll hear us talk about how the house roof fire
is a bit worse than was presumed. In new car news, you will find one brand is moving up
the social ladder. And in points of interest, you will just go back in time. And first though,
we have some follow up. And we start with the news after the second heatwave this year alone,
one that was breaking records that have stood since 1976, or even just the day before as it
turned out for some of them. Sorry, it's just got that's fine for those of you who are in England
and the south. Up here in Scotland, it was just kind of normal summer. It was rainy and windy.
You lot, just because the BBC keeps bleeding about it, doesn't mean it's everywhere. To say
with snow, you do the same with snow. And the headline of the East Anglia bylines is,
as Britain bakes ministers quietly park plans for solar carports. We talked about this last year
because there was a consultation on plans for new build car parks, large new build car parks,
to make it mandatory that they fitted solar canopies along the lines of what fronts do.
Now, they've had the results of the consultation. And the problem with the results of the
consultation is people have or organisations have jumped up down and go, oh, no, it's going to cost
too much. And oh, no, not every site is the same. And oh, no, there shouldn't be something that's
just blank, one size fits all. Despite the fact that the government themselves have worked out
exactly how much a place operating said car park, if they have a building, will save on electricity
costs. And amazingly, France manages to make it happen. You know, France, where if something is
a silly idea, they tend to jump up and down and shout about it and then cancel it. And they're
absolutely not because these canopies are really a win for everyone. Well, there's one group I've
worked out that probably aren't a win for. And that's probably the problem. But for those of us
who park cars, parking underneath means shade. It means the cars don't get hot. And also in the
winter, they don't get as cold, because they're they're sheltered from frost and all that kind
of thing, which we then scrape off. It means they use less energy to heat or to cool them and defrost
them and stuff. And whilst at the same time being able to generate quite a lot of electricity
over the top, there's a park and ride near here, by the way, that has a setup like this.
And that's in Scotland. As I said, there's work tree in France. The only group I can work out,
and you know, if you're a supermarket or something, by the way, you can then
feed in the power and you can save up to 28,000 or around 28,000 pounds a year in electricity costs
by using land that would otherwise be just sitting there and baking. You can also collect
the rainwater and use that for flushing your toilets and all these kind of things. There's
also for watering your plants or these sort of things. That's only for 80 spaces, though.
The 28,000. Yeah, you go bigger, you are saving more.
Yeah. And price of solar panels is coming down and down and down. The only people I can seek
who would not benefit from this if they put it over a car park is some of these,
those are the big management property ownership companies that build out of
retail estates. If you've just got straight up, here's a supermarket, and here's the car park
for that supermarket, then it's probably all earned by the supermarket and you're just fine.
They're going to want to save that electricity. Where you have ones that are owned by property
groups and property management groups, then there's no benefit to them because the places,
if any of the places around the back want to harvest electricity, although that's their
problem and they're benefiting from it, not the property management group. As the property
management group have to fork out to build it in the first place. I bet there's at least one,
two, maybe three of these big property management groups that lobbied the government
against these. Yeah. And that's what happened and that's how this came into being. I know that's
terribly cynical. It's very much of an Andrew opinion rather than an Alan opinion, maybe.
But I reckon that that's what happened here. I bet if you went right back to root cause analysis,
that's what would be happening was property management groups who make political donations
and say, well, I need an adorable thing to do. Whereas for the rest of us, it is an absolute win,
including companies that own their own car parks. End of rant, from me anyway.
Okay. Do you want to take us to Germany where it seems there's just widespread panic at the
moment in some companies? Well, for years and years and years, we wondered how Volkswagen
could keep spending, keep growing, and whatever else, despite all of those,
all of the fines and all of the money that everyone decided that they owed them as a result of
dieselgate. I think what we're finding now is that are the results of the lack of liquidity
that that has brought around. And that's taken 10 years to finish, because it took a while before
all the fines came through and stuff. But I think we're really starting to see the crunch of
Volkswagen. I think it's been going on maybe behind semi-closed doors for a little while.
We've seen definitely lots of hints of it. Yeah, they've been trying to hide it.
Yeah. According to this PA media article on Yahoo News that'll be linked in the show notes, of
course, they are drawing up proposals for a major overhaul that we'll see about 100,000
jobs cut over the next few years. Now, that's double what had been mentioned before. They
talked about 50,000. They talked about a lot of some natural wastage type stuff as people left
and things. But now they're really looking to make 11 billion euros or 9.5 billion pounds
of cost saving before 2030. Yeah. That's not the only stuff though that they're considering,
because they're also considering to increase the number of German plants they're going to shut
up to four, which is immense. It was bad enough that they were choosing one, but the fact they're
talking about four, they're also seriously considering spinning off the Volkswagen and
their component divisions to be separate entities. Yeah, and that protects them should stuff fall
down. Yes, that's what I was thinking. Are they spinning off Volkswagen because they think that's
the weakest link? Or are they spinning off Volkswagen because they want Volkswagen to be
protected if the other elements of the group dragged down? Well, the thing is, if you spin off the
other elements of the group like Ford did with AC Delco, I think I've got the right one. That could
be generated. Vistion was Ford, wasn't it? I think maybe it was Vistion was Ford and AC Delco was
General Motors. Somebody will correct me. But that also then means that it's easier for them to
subcontract to other manufacturers as well and build and sell parts for them and then continue
to make money that way. That is a possibility. And just to add in, by the way, there are some,
supposedly, according to Oliver Bloom, the chief executive, 28,000 agreements for staff to leave
by 2030 already. And most of that relates to headquarters in Germany too. Yeah, I think the
general drop in the global car market, focusing on a couple of, particularly in a couple of
formerly key markets, has stopped them being able to weather what they probably thought they could
weather whenever all the dieselgate finds and everything were coming in pre-COVID. And I think
from then on, it's been very difficult to recover and obviously reach the volumes and the profit
margins that they were at before, which could have stopped all this happening, really. Yeah.
But the new plan, full new plan, so we will hear about it very soon. I'm sure it'll be a follow-up
was going to be presented to the supervisory board on the 9th of July. Volkswagen right at the minute,
or at least it's spokeswoman for Volkswagen that said that it's not commenting on the speculation
because, and it's worth emphasising this maybe more than we did at the start of the story,
lots of this is based on speculation and hearsay. Yeah. 9th of July, we'll find out what the actual
plan is. It'll be interesting to see how different it is. Or not, yeah, letting the info out now
to take the sting out of it. Well, exactly. Anyway, I'm going to stick with Germany.
And stick Volkswagen ultimately. Yeah, we're just going to move over to Porsche. And they have now
come out with their strategy 2035. Now, the naming in this is going to be a bit of a theme
in the way that they have picked the language that they have all the way through this. So,
don't expect anything sexy. Well, whichever big four consultancy came up with it, because it is,
it's probably the same slight pack as was given to somehow. Yes, quite. But to understand how
bad it is for Porsche at the moment, they have a profit margin of 1.1%, which is awful. I think
is the technical term. And worse than that by Porsche standard. Yes. Yeah, absolutely. What
they've done is they've presented this to investors, this plan, and they are going to,
apparently, and I'm going to quote here from the car scoops article linked in the show notes as
ever. The strategy rests on three pillars that sound simple enough, random consumer,
products and technology, and company and operations. Show me a company that doesn't.
Yeah. Oh, God, you know, I've chosen to say once for very large retail companies. We've used
exactly the same. It's, it's, sorry, I cannot shove in my normal professional head on. I cannot
think of anything more. The trouble is right. It's kind of right. But also, why are you making a big
deal out of this? This has been the pattern for strategies for at least 15 years. I've used the
same flipping ones with, with, with large retail companies and stuff. It's, I don't get why this
is a big deal. If you're suddenly talking about this, what were you doing before?
Well, that's it. You think, well, what kind of absolute cluster was it? But the thing is that I
don't think that I think this is just, this is just gloss on the top. And this is somebody showing
a shiny slide pack. Yeah. Because it's not about what you do is how you do it. Because that's how
you change what the money, the money is. But admittedly, there have been some changes.
They're saying that they're not chasing volume for volume's sake, which kind of puzzles me,
given the chasing volume is what actually made Porsche any profit in the first place.
Yeah, absolutely. When it didn't do that, it was flushing money down the toilet quicker than,
quicker than the 911 turbo at the time would, or 930 turbo, which's been off a damp corner.
Well, how many people, if you go, if when people objected, others objected to Porsche
building an SUV or any company building an SUV, and then people would immediately be like,
well, how are they supposed to make money? You know, that's the moneymaker,
which means they can make the fun stuff. That's become the expected. They're now talking about
that they're going to double down on sports cars, drivers engagement, performance and exclusivity.
That is completely opposite to what's got them all the money.
Yeah, it is quite an interesting one that because I think the trouble is that the sort of
fast SUV market, which got the money, is actually now a hotly contested space with loads and loads
of other companies in there. Well, an EV does goes as fast as the...
Well, that's the problem. So what you need to do is really focus on the original Porsche,
that's some dial back to that, I guess, but it's equivalent of centralized or decentralized, wasn't
some consultants will be in and they'll have said, well, the solution here is obviously to do
the opposite of what you're doing at the moment. They're off to do the opposite of what they
don't know. This happens constantly with big companies. As is the way with big companies,
somehow they survive despite themselves and despite strategies and tactics and management
that does this kind of thing and they make it and they manage and I really hope that's what's
going to happen to Porsche and sometimes just the way the tides turn, or very often just the way
the tides turn means the let's flip to what we weren't doing before, tactic works and I really
hope it works here. Yeah, well, because just looking at the... And this is all about the first pillar
of the profitability and customer. Sorry, brand and customer. They're talking about the CEO has
been quoted as saying that they want customers to buy a Porsche because they genuinely want one
and not because it just happened to be the right lease deal. But it's the right lease deal because
they hold their value and all these things because they're a Porsche. That's why you buy it because
it's that not because it's the equivalent Audi on the same platform, you buy the Porsche one and
that's why it's more expensive despite the fact that there's not really a lot of reason it should
be more expensive in many cases. And by the way, I would like to say if I sound like a cynical
terrible person, I would choose a Porsche. I want people would love to own a Porsche. I just
check it out every time it comes to car buying time because the numbers seem very, very big.
But other large things that have come out of the strategy is that the 911 is not going to be
electric. Until the time that it needs to be electric at which point there will suddenly
be an E911, a let's not pretend or 911e because then they'll reuse an old moniker.
Yeah. Let's not pretend that that's sure for the next five years, that's not the plan.
And they're also going to be greater platform sharing with the VW Group for greater efficiency
and fewer layers of complexity. They're also, this will tie up with the VW Group workforce
reductions of the cost cutting measures. And they're talking about the Porsche not building
in Slovakia because they want to get back to a made in Germany as their SP.
Of course, we've talked about VW Group now, we're talking about Porsche. I wonder how many
of these things are tied in because they're talking about workforce reductions and stuff.
It is quite chilling though, the words of the chairman of supervisory board, Dr. Wolfgang
Porsche saying, talking about the systematic implementation of the necessary measures
and how these will be highly noticeable and in some cases uncomfortable.
Anyway, do you want to take us to America for this week's edition of whatever the lunatic
regime is doing this time? Speaking of countries are struggling. Oh boy, this, right, this one
makes my head hurt. There is a new rule. The US is connected vehicle rule and it restricts the
import and sale of certain vehicles with hardware and software linked to China or Russia. Obviously,
nobody sells Russian vehicles in the US or outside of Russia. But they do sell Chinese vehicles,
you might have noticed them. You've probably gone, what the heck is that bland thing? And,
you know, we all think of, I don't know, BYDs, Geelys, Cheerios, whatever. Speaking of Geely,
actually. But you don't necessarily think of Polestar as being, Polestar's headquarters used
to be in Pista, for example, when there was still a racing company. However, obviously Polestar is,
was part of Volvo. That makes it part of Geely and that means it's Chinese. It shall be banished
from the United States of freedom. Volvo, however, will not be banished from the United
States of freedom and neither it seems will notice be banished from the United States of freedom,
despite the fact that Volvo and Polestar are built in the same factory on the same production line.
But somehow it doesn't count because it's a Volvo. I don't quite understand how Volvo came to some
agreement with the US government, but Polestar didn't. Unless Volvo's agreement was, well,
can we stay if we ever did Polestar? Then you can say you have banished something and then you
look like big, powerful men. Or it was money. Because we know that is a negotiating
tactic from the president of the United States. Demand always demands money for menaces.
Give him a solid gold model Volvo or something and he'll be simply delighted.
But yeah, fundamentally, if you're allowing Volvo, why are you not allowing Polestar?
Can't work it out from a...
There's no logic to why this might be the case from anything that's public.
Yes. I'm going to take us on to Ferrari and they have announced that their chief marketing and a
commercial officer Enrico Galliera is going to be replaced by Massimiliano di Silvestre
as of the 1st of July, so on the day of us recording tomorrow, in terms of the day this
comes out today. After more than 16 years at the company and he has decided to embark on a new
chapter in his professional journey, which Ferrari was at pains to say a decision shared with the
company some time ago. Now, I love the last three words of that sentence some time ago
because that leaves it fantastically vague that it could have been a year ago or it could have
been five minutes before they sent this press release out. Yes. It's quite wonderfully Italian.
Just aping JLR and what they did to the PR company who handled the announcement of the Jaguar
rebranding. The funny thing is the draw was that the Jaguar rebranding was too radical,
whereas the problem with the Ferrari one is that it's all a bit bland.
Yeah, but that makes it very radical.
It does. Yes. That's it.
For the expectations of the brand.
It's funny. In both cases, they were not the brand expectations, as you quite rightly say.
Worth mentioning that De Sylvestra previously served as president and CEO of BMW Group Italy,
which is one of the group's most important global markets.
I know it says that, but I was, eh?
I don't know. I'm reading what it says here in this.
This is coming from Ferrari. They're not going to say, yeah, we plucked some bloke off the street
and he was in charge of something that, you know, anyway, it was almost like a backwater.
I had missed the fact that this is word for word, the Ferrari press release. In fact,
it is the Ferrari press release. Not even someone pretending to have rewritten
something that was the Ferrari press release. Okay, so he is wonderfully qualified and we're
going to love him long time is basically the gist of the rest of this press release.
It is. I think the theme running through tonight's show is how all the companies
are really struggling with the comms and how to present information.
Talking of which, Alan, do you want to take us to America?
On many levels. Yes, absolutely. Ford, a company with which both of us have dealt professionally
outside of the podcast. With hilarious consequences generally related to the joys of this kind of
thing. Ford, via the verge and the story shared here is at futurism.com. Again, link in the show
notes as always. Ford basically decided they didn't need a bunch of engineers
and they would replace them with AI. Now, I hate AI. Among so many things, I hate AI as a term
for covering just about everything which a computer can do these days and it's driving me nuts
because there's lots of things that computers have been doing for a long, long time, which
all of a sudden is AI. But Ford decided that actually all of the knowledge that they needed,
they already had somewhere. I don't think they thought that. I don't think they even
considered that. You read the quote from the Vice President of Vehicle Hardware Engineering,
Charles Poon. Mistakenly, we thought that just by introducing artificial intelligence and adjusting
the design requirements that we had, that would produce a high quality product.
So what they did is they swallowed all the marketing like so many have,
that AI can do everything and it is almost sentience, blah, blah, blah, all this nonsense
that's out there and they weren't brilliant. We can get rid of 5,000 people, think of the savings,
Bosch, and off we go to the races. Well, not necessarily Bosch,
probably ECG. No, no, because Bosch just lost their CEO actually yesterday.
Yeah. And it's backfired. So what they've done is they've got out and they're rehiring the engineers
some and they're rehiring some of the same engineers because I'm sure some of the others
told them exactly where they could stick to this idea. And I hope the ones, by the way, that have
agreed to come back have added at least a zero to the end of the amount of money they're looking for
because, oh yeah, please, according to this article here, they've been hired back to basically
download their knowledge to the AI, maybe at some point in the future, the AI can
re-replace them. The thing is that this is really quite a popular thing to do these days,
to get rid of people who are maybe a little bit older, gray-haired and knowledgeable with experience
and decide that really you don't need those anymore because you've got some documentation and then
you discover that some things are just not documented anywhere and you end up with people
still coming back to the the old-degree-haired people and asking them how to do things and
why things aren't the way they are. Allegedly. I have a couple of problems with this. I have
many problems with this. Well, yeah, there's obviously Ford's attitude to its workers is
reprehensible. And any other company that does something like this, you just beyond
disgusting and you deserve everything you get, frankly. But moving away from just that side
of things, they've rehired or re-hired or promoted or bought in new hires of 350 engineers.
They lost 5,000 and they've brought back 350. That seems to be quite a large difference in number,
350, 5,000. I'm not sure they're going to get the knowledge that they think they're going to get.
No, they're not. And that's without anyone being a bit cute and poisoning the data anyway.
But equally, what have we banged on about for many years about something to do with warranty costs
for Ford? What? You mean recalls? Yes. Ford hasn't had any of those. I mean, what was it last year?
Was it one almost every day? No, not quite. No, it was one every other day. It was like 150 odd.
152, I think. Breaking the record massively. I think the rest of the top 10 didn't make
up enough to catch them up or something. It was something ridiculous like that.
These were the vehicles that were developed before these cuts. Before the AI, weren't they?
Yeah, before the AI. Yeah, using... Okay, so this is going to go well. Oh, yeah, the people.
It actually gives you a know of how bad the AI was.
Yeah, absolutely. Just ridiculous. I don't think it's going to work at all in any shape or form
until they adjust their culture, which they're not going to do, until they adjust their attitude.
Like we were saying last week with JLR and their cultural attitude to quality and reliability.
Until that changes, it's not going to change. No matter how many shiny presentations you do
or stuff like that saying, we must all come together, whatever, we must save money. Until you
make a move like JLR did with their security software for their cars, where they went,
this has to work and this is coming from the top down, then it won't change and equally here.
It's just going to fall on its face. Anyway, moving on back to Germany,
as we're playing ping pong across the Atlantic Ocean, back to Germany and talking of companies
that don't really grasp certain aspects of modern car making, it's BMW and an over-the-air update.
It's your favorite. Oh, dear.
Software is hard, everyone. Just remember that. Software is hard
and you had to listen to three or four minutes of me chuntering whilst my email client
decided to be a pratt earlier on this evening. And that was my email client. It doesn't really
matter. No, it is not a safety critical component at that moment.
Vecicular control software kind of does matter, but I don't know.
The only thing and I don't really want to make light of this because the core concept of the
problem is horrific, but at least this problem with the BMW with the over-the-air update for
i3s and i4s was that suddenly a battery warning light came up which said you had to replace your
battery and this is the 12-volt battery which powers your infotainment and that sort of thing.
It's not the battery pack for the motors of the car, it's that. And now BMW have looked into this
because this news came out last week and they have declared that you can ignore it. It doesn't
matter and we'll get round to sorting out this fake warning. But what you have done is you've
introduced the fact that people might ignore a proper battery warning in the future because
they'll go oh it's another one of those flaky over-the-air updates. But like I say, not to play
this down, at least it wasn't releasing the handbrake or fiddling with the steering.
Yes, yes, that could never go wrong for them. It's worth mentioning by the way, it wasn't just
12-volt battery needs replacing. The message was quite verbose and explanatory.
Feels like I'm doing this every week. You are. Get it sorted. Get it sorted because
it's ridiculous. You're going to kill people. The problem is at the minute it's sometimes seen as
a bit funny and a bit haha oh well never mind but they're going to do something that kills people.
And that's the problem because the attitude again going back to the culture or an attitude,
the culture and attitude is completely wrong for this. They don't understand how important it is.
They may think they do but they are demonstrating that they don't.
But it's cool for cars to do this stuff. Tesla does it. It's got to be fine.
Anyway, before my blood pressure gets any higher, I think that is the end of the first part of the
show. It is. And because it's the end of the first half of the show, that means it's guilt
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colleagues. Thank you everyone that does. Very much appreciated. We like it a lot. Thank you.
It's very kind of you. Alan, new car news and to calm us down and bring us into some happier
moments. Massive change in atmosphere and for the rest of the show. Thank goodness for that.
I'm sure we should warn people at the beginning. Okay, it's going to be a bit intense for about
30 minutes or so and then we shall chill the heck out and talk about cool things like the
Morgan Midsummer Coupe by Pininfarina. Morgan is going to make a nine examples of its Midsummer
Coupe. If you get one in or black is it a Midsummer Murder? Very good. Thank you.
It will be built by Morgan but with only nine being built would be even rarer than the Roadster.
It's maybe not quite as gothic in its design, its styling as the Aero Max was.
But the whole idea seems to be that actually this is a much later and brighter vehicle
that you can drive all year round. It's not maybe not quite as compromised in some ways.
Things like there is actually a bootlet rather than little windows that open if the wind catches
them the wrong way and think, ain't Morgan engineers a bit differently now than how they
did maybe 20 years ago. But it's really cool. We should go into all the specs of the turbocharged
really to straight six. BMW engine that's also using the SuperSport 400 means it has 402 horsepower
and 369 pound feet of torque going to the rear wheels but really that's part of what it's all
about but really surely it's about the theatre. Things like that stainless steel spar across
the top and all the glass as well. The rear windows are epic and then it goes over the top of the
roof and then obviously you've got the almost vertical front windscreen. But it's got like
actual windows and stuff these days. It's so cool. I really recommend clicking through to the
motoring research article that there's a link because they've got a really nice selection of
photos from sort of all angles and in big and uncross. There's loads of space. It just makes
the car look even cooler. Love it. Brilliant. Well done Morgan. Fantastic as you say but fantastic
collaboration. Picking peanut farina but they seem to be, I don't think they've got a rough
model at the minute in their lineup. And none of them by the way are going to be the same
because there's none of them. So if you're commissioning it, not buying it, commissioning it,
then you are going to make it the way you want it. So I'm sure there isn't a particularly strict
sort of price limit or some price list in there. There was something I was going to mention. Oh
yes, if you do want to see it, this prototype which is in all the photos, it's going to join the
Lohmann collection in the Hague. That will be rather cool as well. So it will be on display.
It will be possible to see it. I'm sure it might be a few months I think before it gets there.
I suppose the Lohmann collection, well worth visiting. I should go sometime. Cool. Next time
on that part of the continent, I might try make it. Okay. I'm going to take us to something that's
going to be a bit more every day for us to see. And that is the Skoda Peak. This is their largest
ever vehicle. It's a seven seat SUV, 400 mile range that is going to be on the MEB platform.
It's 4.87 meters long. Therefore, it is almost as big as a Discovery and the XC90. That's quite
large. And even with the rear seats up, it'll still have a hairs breadth under 300 litres
in the boot space. Please, sir, if this is the biggest ever, why does the current generation
of Skoda Superb, why is it a little bit longer at 4.902 meters?
Well, that's because I'll have said it wrong then. No, I don't think you've said it wrong.
I thought you said it right. It says it's 4.87...
I'm sure I'd seen that somewhere else.
4.87, which is less. That's less than the number for the...
No, but I have implied because of that I have said something that was factually incorrect.
Have you?
Yeah, because this isn't the biggest.
No.
This is not on this article. I'd seen that elsewhere.
But it says here, it says, as befits the biggest thing it's ever created,
the Peaks MEB platform crest 4.87 meters long.
And the superb estate is longer than that. Not a lot longer, but it is longer.
And we had this problem with Lexus the other week.
Yes.
That's what made me go look this up, in that I wish they would sort out their ready press releases.
It's not the biggest. Don't say it's the biggest.
Welcome to the Motron Podcast.
Fact checking the automotive news world since 2015.
Just because it's on a press release doesn't mean it's true, everyone.
I'm sorry. I mean, most of the time it is.
But blooming heck, I should get back into my nerd box.
Anyway, thank you for pointing that out.
I thought I was wrong and I wasn't wrong.
Well, I was wrong, but I was quoting wrongness from others.
Yes, you weren't wronging yourself.
Which nobody says that to you very often.
No, no, they don't.
If at all.
Anyway, if you decide to go for the 5 seat car, your boot is 935 liters.
I'm presuming that's up to the bottom of the windows.
I don't think they do the we go all the way to the roof to measure.
No, places do it to the window line now.
It is electric and you can then spec for a 91 kilowatt hour battery pack,
which will give you 282 brake horsepower, 402 pound feet of the torques.
And this will then go from 0 to 62 in 7.1 seconds in something like that.
That is way too quick.
Or even if you get the all wheel drive, then it'll do in 6.7 seconds.
Wow. If you go for the smaller battery pack, which is 63 kilowatt,
you'll get up to 280 miles.
And the larger pack I was just saying before in a rear wheel drive only does 397 miles,
whilst the all wheel drive does 379 miles.
So they all do some miles then, yeah, that's what I've just got out there.
Big car with a big battery pack, so very heavy, will do a lot of miles.
Big car with a smaller battery pack will still do a respectable amount of mileage.
Yes, that sounds about right.
That's what I understood from all of that.
The prices are going to start at £51,980, and as you move up the arrange,
it will top out at £58,280 before you tick the option stuff.
I think it's a decent looking car.
I do like Skoda's design language at the moment, I have to say, but that is...
I wonder whether that price is something where people go, wow, for a Skoda.
I don't think people do that anymore.
But they have always been seen as the more affordable brand.
That is not pricing it as an affordable brand, but I know we've argued a lot in the past
at the point that it being electric rips up a lot of the old rule books.
Yeah, in the olden days, this would have been an Audi.
All of this, and it would have been an Audi, which leads us down the path of,
what's an Audi, and I don't have an answer for that these days.
I'm afraid I find that very difficult.
I can tell you what a Cooper is.
I can even tell you what I say that is.
It's the budget brand that Skoda used to be, but I can't tell you what an Audi is.
It's a funny one, that.
Yeah, it really is.
Anyway, meanwhile, back at the EV Pump, last one, not a car you're ever going to be able to buy.
If you thought the Midsummer Coupe was rare, then I reckon that this one is going to stay much
rarer, because really it's a proof of concept and it's Shell's triple 10 challenge EV concept.
It's a small five-door electric car, which does 6.2 miles per kilowatt hour and can get
an 80% charge in under 10 minutes.
But I can't see quickly here at a glance.
It's just what range it does.
No, I've been struggling to find that as well.
But it is clearly optimized for, I mean, it's going to be at least 300 miles.
If it's not 300 miles, I will be amazed that the whole idea is, the reason it's called triple 10,
right, is because it's got three key targets, that's 10 kilometers per kilowatt hour of charging,
hence 6.2, having a 10 ton CO2 lifecycle footprint and a recharging time of less than 10 minutes.
There's a bunch of different things there, hence triple 10.
It's been developed in the UK by British companies.
One of the things that they're really looking at here and one of the things that it's showing off,
is the thermal management of the fluid cooling of the battery, because of course,
if you do more efficiently, you can cool the battery, the quicker you can charge the battery.
Because the big problem there is the heat build up.
And that's really one of the things that it's all about.
And obviously companies like Shell are having to try to diversify these days,
because selling us dino juice for our cars is, in most cases,
that's something that we're doing less and less of, or at least buying less and less of it.
There's other stuff that Shell has to do and want to make up the shortfall.
And some of that is, of course, the thermal electric fluids for battery cooling and stuff.
Emple Systems developed the electric motor and drive unit, and RML in Willingbrook worked on the
battery and the integration as well. So that's all kind of cool.
Some of the stuff on it, by the way, things like the alloy wheels or what look like alloy wheels on
it from a distance, they're not their aero disc wheels with the design printed on them
to look more conventional, that kind of thing. So to try and keep it looking like
a generic small car, and I think it succeeds at that, I think it's a really cool concept.
I'd love to know a bit more about it.
I love the fact that they're experimenting with this. They're trying to think of new ways around
a problem so they can make smaller lighter vehicles. I can almost hear Nia Khan punching
the air at the idea of this.
It's not sporty enough for Nia, otherwise very much up history.
Yes. But no, I hope it's successful. I hope they keep trying to develop this. And eventually,
that means we see these more efficient and better smaller cars that have ranges comparable or
make up for lack of range by being comparable in terms of able to refuel very quickly.
This is a big switch, I feel. And we've known it was going to happen at some point.
So for ages and age and age, it was like, right, how big can we make our batteries to get our
range? How big can we... And we always knew that there was going to be a point where that stopped
being... People would finally stop looking at the size of the fuel tank by how they judged an EV,
and that eventually it would turn into, hang on, we can't keep on doing this.
We need to work on efficiency and work out that. That is one of the reasons we're doing
recharge around Britain, is to see what the efficiency is like, if that kind of thing has
changed. And it's tricky because we chose just about the most efficient one 10 years ago.
Yeah. And in that time, very, very little that's come along since, it's only happened like in the
last year, has been even comparable, let alone more efficient. And that's one of the reasons
the vehicle we're going to be using is what it is, because that is pretty much spot on the same
efficiency wise. But that's a decade later, it's a smaller vehicle, but it's a decade later.
Despite the wailing and gnashing at PRs, trying to persuade us to choose something bigger, but
yeah. And then ultimately agreeing with us. It's good to see stuff like that, concepts focusing,
concepts that are real style cars, not just something that's completely wacky,
and sharing off just what you could do with them. Worthy production. I agree. Yep. Love seeing this.
Anyway, it's points of interest. And I'm going to start with a lunchtime read from Haggerty.
I'd forgot that this was the lunchtime read, by the way, when I was talking a few minutes ago.
And thanks to Nathan Chadwick for another excellent article. And it is titled Audi 80 at 60,
the saloon that built modern Audi. When Alan did know what Audi was all about.
Even then, I still wasn't sure. It goes into the history of the 80 and how important it was to the
company, particularly going into the 80s and 90s. We're still using the same numbers here.
80s and 90s. And what a fabulous car. I remember seeing a lot of them because I had a family member.
He kept getting these as company cars before he got senior enough to get to the 100 and 200 range.
All right. You see, remember, my dad was E30 BMWs all through this. It was always BMW.
Yeah. Wonderful explanation of the history. As ever, Nathan always brings out a bunch of
snippets and information that I didn't know or bits I sort of knew but had forgotten.
This is no exception to that. Do click the link in the show notes. Do enjoy it and then fondly
remember Audi's before they became SUV coupes. If anyone can actually tell you what the difference
between an Audi 80 and an Audi 90 was, I would actually genuinely appreciate that because I still
don't really understand. I tried to explain that it was one had an 80 on the back and one had a 90
that wasn't sufficient for him. That was the level I'd made it to.
But I don't really know. Not understanding Audi model designations hasn't really changed
over the years, for any of us. The new A5, A5 estate, is it? I've seen a couple of them around,
by the way. They're really, I mean, they're aggressive as heck and look like they've been on
the steroids but they're a good looking thing. It was in my top three for UK car of the year.
It's quite something. Having driven one. It made driving very easy.
I'm sure it looks like it would do. Yes, it looks like it could make crossing continents very easy.
Anyway, sorry, off on that tangent of mine, brings us to List of the Week. What I'm hoping is one
of our listeners has discovered that if you write a list of the week, the chances are that we'll
cover it. Thanks to Juanma Tazizian. Feel free to correct me on that. I'm so sorry, mate. For
the 116 years of Alfa Romeo 31 cars he drew in a month-long celebratory project, it's on his
creating likely newsletter and blog. You can see the first five without having to log in or create
a sign up for three. So do please sign up for the newsletter. It comes out on Sunday. It's really
good. It's an enjoyable little read. It doesn't often make it into the show but it does get
browsed through and red and I thoroughly enjoy it. We do still read it. Yeah, yeah. And then you
get something like this, which is really cool genius. Andrew, in amongst these 31, we've got
room for one each. But in amongst these 31, what's your take? I can kind of guess what it might be
but then that might be a bit predictable. It could have been many, many, many. Yes.
Which is a bit of a problem. This is a wonderful list but if you need to just pick one, it's a
right get of a list, I have to say. It is 116 years of Alfa Romeo and generally picking
a favourite Alfa Romeo is a bit of a get of a task. And I have to say I love the art style
that was picked to do the drawing. I love the just two colours being used. I thought it's
really, really a good decision and I love the that. It would make an awesome teacher.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. What I will then pick is the Julia Ti Super from 1962, which is number 14.
That was a strong contender for me. That very much was a strong contender for me.
I've changed my mind three times just in you speaking, by the way.
I can believe this. Again, we're back to stuff we've talked about before. This is a
phenomenally modern car. Yeah, the innovation. It's so frustrating looking at the Italian car
industry now when you look at, we said this recently when we were doing something about
luxury. Yeah, they are so ahead of their time. They were so innovative. They've created stuff
that we now just take for granted, but decades and decades ago. And this is another example of that.
How about you? So I did actually, I went for something new and that I keep changing my mind
as well. I have changed my mind. So I'm going to go for I think number 25.
I've always had a bit of a soft swap for the Alfa Romeo Brera. It gets quite a lot of bad
dress. Look great though. From some corners, but I think they look great. It's one of those cars
that breaks loads of rules for me in that those are kind of sat in gray, not quite Matt Gray,
they did. And I figured that some of the higher spec Brera in that just looked fantastic and kind
of menacing, kind of cool. It's always looked like I've never driven one, but it looked like a
comfortable car. It looked like it had space. It looked so many things that would tick the
boxes. Tick the Allen boxes without being overly practical. I really like it. I've always liked
it and I figure it should get an honorable mention. There are so many others I could have chosen,
but they're all a little bit more predictable. Maybe I worked with a chap who had one of those.
It was a lovely thing. Lovely, lovely thing. They look great. I saw one at the weekend,
actually. They still look outstanding, in my opinion. You could still kind of launch it
today, really, and I don't think people would back too much of an island.
No. Anyway, that means the and finally. This is an absolute cracker.
I don't know how I stumbled across it. It must have been a YouTube recommendation to me
because I didn't go searching for this or anything, but we are bringing a video of Mike
Hawthorne filming and narrating his own lap as he drives around Le Mans in 1956 in a D-type Jaguar.
Not a closed course, Le Mans, either. Absolutely. What I didn't realize is,
whereas today, you often hear it in the commentary and, of course, this is a public road most of
the time, blah, blah, blah. When they were testing and the week leading up to the race,
the road was still used by the public. You will find that out very soon into this,
and it's just wonderful. His voice is, I mean, it is 1950s BBC.
You could cut glass with it. Male BBC voice.
You could absolutely cut glass with it. It is fabulous. The whole thing is fabulous. There was
a film camera strapped to a D-type Jaguar, and he had a microphone. It wouldn't have been like
a little lapel mic or anything. It must have been a proper microphone somewhere down near his
mouth. I think it was held on something around his neck, and then it's held just in front of
his mouth, so he can still obviously use the gears and the steering wheel and everything.
There's no Insta360 being used here, folks. No. No drone shots.
No gimbals. No drone shots. This is properly raw. It's fabulous. It's so good,
and it's five and a half minutes. I was just under six minutes long. Worth every second of it.
You might have seen it before. It's been on Duke video. It's been on since 13 to January 2017, but
I don't care. It's great. Watch it. Take six minutes out of your day. Yes, I like when we
end on something like that. That makes me very happy. It did. Well, the whole second half was
a much happier part of the show. Yeah, exactly. Meanwhile, back on track, no specific parish
notes this week. I think they're good. Fabulous. In which case, everyone, don't forget between now
and next week, you can give us any feedback. Share your thoughts for the show at motoringpodcast.com
on Blue Sky at Motoring Podcast on Instagram and Facebook, and on the contact page of
www.motoringpodcast.com. The hub of all our activities. Remember, you can support us financially
via Patreon and please leave a review rating on Apple Podcast, YouTube or every podcast app
that lets you do such a thing. Andrew, what's the best way to get in touch with you?
The best way to get in touch with me is if you search for Crack Windscreen on Blue Sky,
or I am on LinkedIn under my name, and I don't know if people would like to get in
touch with you personally, maybe to explain the difference between an Audi 80 and an Audi 90.
What is the best way for them to do that? I'll be very appreciated. The best way is Blue Sky,
we're a Mac, A, J, P, Bradley, that's B, I, D, L, U, I, dot, B, Sky, dot, social. I am also
like Andrew on LinkedIn under my own name, should be easy enough to find. We'll be back very soon,
but until then, I've been Alan Bradley, I've been Andrew Clews, and safe motoring.
About this episode
Alan and Andrew dive into the latest automotive industry shakeups, starting with the UK government's quiet abandonment of solar carport mandates for new car parks due to property developer lobbying. The hosts then dissect the massive financial crisis looming at Volkswagen, where rumors suggest up to 100,000 job cuts and multiple factory closures are on the horizon. Finally, they critique Porsche's desperate new "Strategy 2035" aimed at rescuing its dismal 1.1% profit margin by shifting focus away from high-volume SUVs and back toward exclusive sports cars.
Original notes
FOLLOW UP: UK GOVERNMENT CANS CAR PARK SOLAR CANOPIES
After reviewing a consultation on new outdoor large car parks should be required to fit solar panel canopies the Government has decided to shelve the idea. Costs and differing site conditions were used as excuses, in the responses, to the concept. To read more, click this East Anglia Bylines article link here.
VW NOW CONSIDERING 100,000 JOB LOSSESAccording to reports, Volkswagen Group is now considering doubling the job losses to around 100,000 and the shutting down of four German plants. Additionally they are considering spinning off the Volkswagen brand and the components division. If you wish to read more, click this Yahoo!News article link here.
PORSCHE’S NEW STRATEGY EXPLAINEDThe CEO of Porsche, Michael Leiters has outlined the company’s new strategy to investors, whilst asking for patience. Called Strategy 2035 it is hoped it will dramatically improve their fortunes as right now their profit margin is 1.1 percent. The strategy is targeting customers, cars to be offered and costs. For more on this story, click this CarScoops article link here.
POLESTAR BANNED FROM SELLING CARS IN THE USPolestar has been banned from selling cars in the US, despite having a factory in country, due to the Connected Vehicle Rule which restricts Chinese (and Russian) linked hardware and software. It must be remembered that recently Volvo, their sister company, was granted a waiver of this rule. To read more, click this Auotcar article link here.
FERRARI LOSE AND FIND NEW HEAD OF MARKETINGChief Marketing and Commercial Officer, Enrico Galliera, has left Ferrari after 16 years. He is to be replaced by Massimiliano Di Silvestre. This has occurred a few weeks after the launch of the Luce, which cause quite the stir. Click this Yahoo!Finance article link here for more.
FORD REHIRING SOME ENGINEERS FIRED FOR AI THAT HAS FAILEDFord have had to eat some humble pie as it has rehired some 350 engineers it made redundant and replaced with AI. This has not worked out as the company has found the software failed. The company isn’t retreating from its use, but instead is getting the engineers to train it. You can read more, by clicking this Futurism article link here.
BMW OTA UPDATE BATTERY WARNINGBMW has told owners that they do not need to worry about a 12v battery warning, which has occurred to i3 and i4s following an over the air (OTA) update. The company stated that there is nothing wrong with the battery. To find out more, click this CarScoops article link here.
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 -Morgan Midsummer CoupeThe collaboration between Morgan and Pininafarina has produced more lovely work, this time in the form of the Midsummer Coupe. There is now a hard top version to compliment the roadster which we covered previously. Only nine will be built. Click this Motoring Research article link here, for more.
Skoda PeaqSkoda has released the specifications for their second largest vehicle, the Peaq. An electric SUV, with the capability of seating seven, there are a couple of battery options and drive configurations, as we have come to expect from the VW Group. Prices start at £51,980 and as you move up through the trim levels, tops out at initially £58,280. Click this Top Gear article link here for the full details.
Shell Triple 10 ChallengeShell has revealed a proof of concept, called the Triple 10 Challenge. They are aiming for 10km/kWh, a total lifecycle CO2 footprint of 10 tonnes and a maximum 10 minute recharge time. Click this CarScoops article link here to learn more.
LUNCHTIME READS: AUDI 80 AT 60We are recommending a Nathan Chadwick article, on Hagerty, for your reading pleasure this week. He dives into the history of the 80 and how important the model was through a variety of iterations. Click this link here to read more.
LIST OF THE WEEK: 116 YEARS OF ALFA ROMEOIt started as an art project, where Juanma Tastzien drew 31 Alfa Romeo models from their 116 year history. You can see five by clicking this link here, but we strongly recommend you sign up to his Creating Lightly newsletter because a) it is very good and enjoyable and b) you see the other 26 cars.
AND FINALLY: LAP OF LE MANS IN 1956For the And Finally, we are pointing you towards a YouTube video that is the film of Mike Hawthorn taking a D-Type Jaguar around Le Mans in 1956, with a camera strapped to the car and he is commentating as he is driving it. Utterly wonderful. Click this link here to see how it was, back then.
Motoring Podcast - News Show
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