Pigs fly by - 3 February 2026

Welcome to the Motionary Podcast, a weekly discussion of Motionary News. This is episode

669 on Tuesday, the 3rd of February, 2026. Hello, I'm Alan.

Hello, I'm Andrew. And this week you'll hear us learn that something which is not safe

turns out to be not safe. In new car news, you get a second list of the week. And in

points of interest, you will see how cars don't need to be aggressive. But first, we

have just one item of follow up. And this is a biggie, it's so biggie that it couldn't

wait for new new car news, to be fair. Yeah. Where it was previously put, but Volvo have

now upgraded their recall information for the extended range and twin motor EX30s that we

discussed on the show, the back end of last year, I want to say. Something like that.

Where people were told not to charge past 70% because there might be a thermal event or fire

for the rest of us. Now they are saying, please do not leave it unattended if you are charging it

under cover or indoors. Yikes. Well, this is a car that I'm not going to be parking beside in

car parks. I think I know which one it is right now. Yes. Anyway, do you want to take us onto

some new news and something I think you're going to start with that both of us think is actually

a good idea? Yes. Northern Ireland is going to be the first area of the UK. I think that's

politically correct phrasing. To introduce graduated driving licenses. Due to be introduced

on 1st October, this new GDL scheme will impose a nighttime restriction on drivers aged under 24

or new drivers on aged under 24 for six months. During that time, they will be allowed to have

only one passenger between 14 and 20 in their car overnight. So from 11pm until 6am.

There is an exception to this and that exception is going to be immediate family members and it

also won't apply if the driver is supervised from the front passenger seat by someone aged 21 or over

who has held their license for at least three years. I don't know about you, but I can see a

lot of people having more siblings all of a sudden. Is the supervisor in the front seat

meant to be sober? I would presume so. It doesn't say in this auto car article, but I imagine it

will be in the same style as someone who's sitting beside a learner drive, given that the other

qualifications are the same. New drivers will also need to display an R plate for restricted

for two years after passing rather than the current one year. Although good news everyone,

that the current 72kmh or 45mh speed limit imposed by the R plate will be scrapped at the same time.

There's also going to be a whole load of reforms to learning to drive in Northern Ireland.

Learners will be made to take lessons for at least six months before they're able to

take a practical driving test. Cracky, that's going to cost you. And the curriculum for their

learning will be introduced to require at least 14 modules signed off by an instructor or supervising

driver, such as a parent. And learners will also be allowed to drive on the motorway with an improved

instructor. I mean, it's a good thing. I mean, you have younger drivers in your household now,

or at least a younger driver. I think the graduated driving licenses are a good idea,

particularly the number of other young people able to be in the car at the same time.

Yes. To be fair, of the safety ideas that have come out recently from some of the

very vocal safety advocates, this is the one that I can get on board with.

This is the one time he's agreeing with Sir Edmund King, president of the AA,

by the way, everyone. So let's just take that as a small win, shall we?

Take the win, Edmund. Take the win.

It seems like a good idea. I mean, there's quite a few younger folks around here who do seem to go

at a rate of naught. And I do think that there should be some kind of graduation to driving.

There should be a little bit about the power of vehicles or the weight of vehicles or these kinds

of things, because it does scare me a little bit that despite this, from what I've been reading,

people could still get into a 600 horsepower EV.

Yeah, absolutely. There's nothing to stop that, which does seem a bit backward on it,

it does. What's outlined here, it seems expensive, it seems difficult to do,

but I think that the outcome in terms of safety is probably worth.

Times have changed in the 30 years since we passed our tests, basically.

But yes, good thing, summary of all of our muttering. Good thing.

Yep. Okay, I'm going to take us to France and this is news out of Renault Group.

It was sort of announced at the same time as they were number two in Europe,

especially when you only counted Europe and not the Middle East.

They were still pretty high when you included Middle East and then also when you started to

include South America as well, Renault, on the global scale.

Yeah, but some others were including the Middle East and got beaten out of number two.

Yes. But what they have also said is that they are looking to reintegrate

Ampere, which is the EV and software division, that got split off back in 2023.

And the idea was that it was also going to go for an IPO, which never happened.

And at the time, somehow, Luca D'Ameo, who was the CEO, managed to convince Nissan to pony up

around 600 million euros or agree to pony up 600 million euros.

Yes. I don't think they ever did though, given the state of Nissan.

And also Mitsubishi were going to put forward 200 million euros,

but that all got cancelled. Obviously, Nissan turned around to Renault.

We've got no money, so why don't we just call this quits now?

And which also then meant Mitsubishi got theirs terminated as well.

So it's solely owned by Renault anyway. It was split off.

And at the time, that was a very, very fashionable thing to do.

It was. It was. And you and I were discussing this earlier on.

And we were saying, well, you were saying, actually, it was a good way to sort of

split out and try and sort of spread the risk of stuff going wrong,

in maybe a way that Volkswagen didn't do with Kariad.

Yeah. Well, when you look at Ford with their electric division,

that drags down the whole group. Yes.

Because of the losses they are making on the electric side of things.

Certainly in North America. Yeah, you're right.

Anyway, going forward, Ampere, it's still going to kind of exist,

but it's going to be a pure development center for EVs and software,

while the cars and component plants that they were meant to be operating

will become direct subsidiaries of Renault Group once again.

Yeah. Not being completely dissolved.

No, no. No. Anyway, you just muttered there about Volkswagen.

Do you want to take us on to the next bit of news,

which turns out there are consequences when you make ground statements on a geopolitical scale?

Yes. Oliver Bloom, who of course chairman of the Board of Management of Volkswagen AG and Porsche AG,

he has declared quite clearly that the idea of a new Audi plant in the US

is simply not feasible with tariffs, which makes perfect sense.

Yeah. Why pay tariffs on the steel?

Why pay tariffs on importing all of the equipment,

which you can't get in the USA?

Why pay tariffs on every single little part of the car

that you're going to need to build there, and all of the infrastructure doing it?

And then if you have people setting up a factory,

the chance of what will happen to them, what happened to the Hyundai employees,

and they'd be rounded up by ice and shoved into prison.

Less likely to happen with Germany, perhaps, because, you know,

they're more likely to be white.

Yeah.

But yeah, why go through all that agony when you can just pay on the drip car by car,

and it's not Volkswagen who pays in that case,

so it's not Audi who pays in that case.

It's the American consumer, and hopefully the American consumer will realize that this is the case,

as many, many do, and won't vote for that orange prat again.

No, because up to the first nine months of 2025,

the tariffs had cost the VW Group 2.1 billion euros, which is 2.5 billion dollars.

And at that point, you go, we don't have the capital to invest,

let alone how much it will cost us down the line.

So how can we do it?

It's not just the tariffs.

It's the fact that the whole world was gearing itself towards more EVs.

They were following China's been towards more EVs, Europe's been towards more EVs,

and under the previous administration, the US was moving towards more EVs,

but now it's not because it's special.

There's this huge losses there from a large market, just doing a 180-degree swivel,

because party funding, sorry, I'm taking a technology connections approach tonight,

which is to just say it, and if you haven't watched the technology

connections video on renewable energy, and while you're being lied to about it,

then you're on YouTube, you're really, really sure.

Yeah. Also, Bloom said, and he's quoted here in this Yahoo Finance article,

which I think is taken from the Financial Times.

It says, reduction of costs in the short term and reliable business conditions

in the long term are what we need, end quote.

And that's precisely it.

You need to have confidence to know what the hell is going on.

And at the minute, no one knows what's going on in the next two hours,

let alone for the next six months, 12 months, five years.

Five years, 10 years.

We've been saying this, we've been saying that about Brexit, we've been saying about everything.

What big companies, especially big manufacturing companies need and want,

well, they need, there's no one to doubt it, is stability, because they have to make plans

that are very difficult to shift after they've been started to run for maybe a year or two.

They have to keep with that same plan then for the next eight years to make up the

10 year strategy, 15 year strategy.

And they can't deviate from that.

To deviate is phenomenally expensive.

We're not really talking about Porsche and the Cayman and the Boxster and stuff right at the minute.

But those may be collateral damage in the fact that strategies are going to have to change,

because Porsche, biggest markets in North America and the US specifically rather than Canada,

and they've been stuffed.

Quite frankly, say whatever you want about electric cars, they have been stuffed over the last year

and it's costing them an awful lot of money.

So why the heck would Volkswagen let any more go that way?

Yep, and they're already struggling financially.

There is no spare cash.

They cannot absorb any more.

Exactly.

Should we move on to something better where I'm less likely to get angry?

Please note it was me that got angry this week and not Andrew.

Well, hang on, there's a couple of articles left.

Hang on, hang on.

Yeah, it's too early to call yet.

The show is but young.

Anyway, this next story, EV charging specialist company Gridsurf has opened a UK's first public

turn up a charge electric truck hubs at the extra Balduk,

unfortunately, and the Moto Exeter service stations.

These are the starting points, a very far away starting point of the company's electric freight

way and the plan is that they're going to put in a nationwide network to support zero emission

freight operations.

I was down the road, I was down the road, I was in Telford a week before last,

and that's why I was on the show because I spent my day driving a new car.

And one of the things that struck me on my way up and down the M6 is that even since the last

time I drove on the M6 a few months ago, there were a lot more electric trucks on the road,

specifically the E Actros, because they have a different front, so they're very easy to notice.

Are they the storm trooper ones?

They're the storm trooper ones, exactly.

You see, there's a point.

And I noticed how many of those there were.

And I was thinking, they can't all be depot to depot.

I wonder how they're all being charged.

This is the start of that.

The freight way is funded by the Department of Transport,

zero emission HDV and infrastructure demonstrator of ZHID, which is quite cool.

ZHID works better with the American Presentation, ZHID.

The program brings together a consortium of 25 UK hauliers and truck manufacturers to support

the deployment of this zero emission heavy goods vehicles, and of course the infrastructure to

support them.

They drove between the two places because the Bulldox on the A1M1, and Exeter is obviously

on the M5, that's 200 miles apart.

And they actually took a DAF XF electric, did the journey between the two to demonstrate

you can do distances.

That's not bad, then.

I mean, I don't know if it was laden or anything like that.

I don't know the details of that.

But the fact that they were confident to go that far is a good thing.

Yeah.

And they're talking about adding another five others as well around the country

to help the bread of it.

I think it's a great idea.

Something we've said, isn't it?

We have said, on and on, to charge an HGV is not the same as go get an electric car

as some people have misunderstood.

There are many constraints and everything.

But one of the biggest ones is, whilst I happily moan about the quality of infrastructure,

if I had an electric HGV, it is the years behind where the electric cars are.

Yes, but it's also easier in some ways as well.

Because you've got driver's hours limits and stuff.

So, as long as you can reach one that splits up around break time, then you've got 45 minutes

to charge.

That counts towards the rest period for the driver and stuff in a way that actually pulling

off to a diesel pump doesn't.

But later in the year, Critter plans to open further public EHCV charging sites in

Tamworth, Thoric Leeds, Chesterns, Drensham North, which is actually a fairly decent network,

especially if you can top up when you're waiting at depots.

Anyway, I'm going to take us on to the news that Cherry, the Chinese joint venture partner

of JLR, are going to open their European commercial vehicles headquarters in the UK

near Hailwood, Merseyside, because there was enormous amounts of rumours about

Cherry are going to build all their cars in JLR plants that are not doing anything, etc.

Which was slight over exaggerations, but we'll come on to that in a minute.

However, this is interesting that they want to set up a localised base for Europe,

in which it's mainly going to be their research and development to start off with.

We don't have a time frame and we don't have an exact location yet either.

However, they are making the intent clear.

I mean, they're saying the right things because their general manager is Quota saying

that he wanted to build a British business, not just bringing products to the UK.

They're saying the right things.

And I think if you can make a commercial vehicle work on our roads,

European roads will be an absolute doddle.

The key to this is going to be the size of electric commercial vehicle.

Because they do so much though.

It's true.

They do so much out there.

So I think they need to come over here and say,

what's viable for us to try and bring here to start off with?

And I think that that's the research part of the research and development.

Because if you look at people like Maxis and stuff,

then they're doing well with four and a quarter ton vans.

If it's electric, the physics doesn't matter.

Traditionally three and a half ton zone.

But once you move above that,

then you find that the buyers and the drivers get far fussier.

And that's going to be very difficult to try to move.

You really have to persuade some fleets to move away from stuff.

It's been tried relatively recently with,

oh goodness, me having a brain fart.

The, oh gee, Toyota truck part.

Anyway, they appeared and then disappeared.

Again, amongst others, Tata have tried selling trucks here,

but they're just not up to it with European markets.

I will find half way through points of interest.

I will remember the name.

Is it like Hondo or something?

No, it's more normal than that.

Just let me mull it over and it will come back.

Okay.

Anyway, the second part of the story is, as I alluded to,

there were rumors that Chinese car companies are looking to

take advantage of some of the spare capacity that is in UK factories

and build their vehicles here,

which would then help them to avoid tariffs or minimum price

points as the Europe is now going to bring in.

So it's not a tariff, but you still have to charge a certain amount to start off with.

That's a tariff, but anyway, never mind.

Yes, but the percentage of tariffs drops as the prices go up,

as opposed to the other way around.

One of the companies is obviously Cherry taking advantage of capacity in JLR,

but also apparently Dongfang is looking at capacity in Nissan's Sunderland site.

JLR refused to comment on the story.

Nissan did comment, but not really in saying,

well, we must make sure Sunderland's full capacity.

It was neither a yes nor a no, but sort of hinted at the yes.

But this does bring risks.

Obviously, this brings risks because you are enabling a huge competition

to build stuff here and decimate your market, especially your mid-market.

Hopefully at some point, the country has a grown-up conversation about

how are we going to handle China?

Are we saying yes, you're welcome?

Or are we saying like you can see in other areas and geographical areas going,

you know what, this puts our own brands in real danger?

Funnily enough, less risk for JLR in this particular instance,

rather than say Nissan, where Nissan's market area is more likely to be decimated by

have far more competition from the Chinese brands than JLR.

Yeah. We talked about it, didn't we?

About why is Lotus and the LEVC not being used by Geely?

Yes.

Just feels like that's a no-brainer.

You would think so.

But yeah, you see, they've made the mistake of trying Lotus,

but with a completely non-British view and the models have been a disaster.

Hino, by the way, is the Toyota Heavy Truck brand.

I knew that. We had one.

We had a Hino 8-Wheel, nobody cares.

There we go.

Right. Do you want to take us to Devon then?

Yes, but not on a bus.

Or I can't get to Devon by bus, but I can't get around Devon by bus.

Well, not if it's an electric bus, no, not if it's Stagecoach.

Because Stagecoach went off and they've started out rolling out new battery electric buses in

Torbi in Devon in the southwest of England, but they're going to have to withdraw services

in Torbi because the new vehicles are too large to operate safely on the narrow streets.

It seems that somebody at Stagecoach southwest didn't actually check what size bus they should

be ordering. The only reason, by the way, that this is news in inverted commas is because the

buses are electric. That's really it. And this kind of thing happens in France,

or did a whole stack of trains that were the wrong size for their tracks a few years ago.

Yeah, they had to rebuild all the platforms. It was a mess. Well done, SNCF.

They just employed an ex-MOD purchasing officer or something.

It seems like it. It looks like that's what Stagecoach has done.

There's a big deal here. Somebody ordered the wrong size of electric bus.

I mean, there are compact small electric buses. They're running around here.

They run up near me, something around Perth.

You'd think if you were going to do it in the southwest, you would litter your fleet

with the smaller version.

You would think so, wouldn't you? Because if there's one thing the southwest is famous for.

Because it is quite famous for not having wide roads.

Yes. You wouldn't go all some Doc Martin and have a large Lexus. I don't understand that

particular piece of thinking. Fingers crossed, they sorted out. But I'm sure they can shuffle

the fleet around or something. They are looking at improving other routes nearby,

including adding extra bus stops so they can pick people up from locally.

They'll get around it. Like we said, in the worst case, you just buy some smaller

or get a grant or whatever it is.

The smaller buses transfer these ones elsewhere, sorted. It's not as if Stagecoach is a small

local company. This is the island near the edge of the home of Stagecoach.

Even here, it's not a small local company.

The thing is with this story, we'll never find out because it won't be reported when they

get around the issue.

Anyway, do you want to take us to Volvo?

Volvo again, yes. Volvo is preparing to roll out. Here I'm quoting from this article,

quoting the quote inside the article, which we'll find linked in the show notes.

As you will for all of the articles that we use as source material for the Motion Podcast.

Roll out one of the biggest over-the-air updates in the history of the world later this year.

Ever.

In the world.

It is going to remotely install a new entertainment interface in 2.5 million cars around the world.

Whether you want it or not.

All I could think of, you know how we all lost our minds when Apple inserted a free U2

album without us asking? That's how I feel. Many Volvo people are going to wake up one

morning when they switch their car on.

And it's like, why is this all different in many, many languages around the world?

This is a very courageous move by Volvo, especially given their recent history.

I like that.

That's a very nice phrase.

Thank you very much.

I watched far too much Yes, Minister.

And given their recent history with software, batteries notwithstanding, with software,

it is incredibly courageous.

They are going to be replacing the Android automotive operating system which they launched

in 2020 with the XC40 recharge, or the EX40 as it's now called.

And everyone is going to get it.

You can have a new operating system.

And you can have a new operating system if you're in the EX30 and EX90 and the new EX60.

It's going to be that operating system to everything that's gone before.

What do we reckon, Andrew?

The percentage chances of this being a success are, and that's by what normal people

count as success, not someone internally whose bonus is based on whatever metrics

they've made up for the word success.

Well, I want to start out by saying I hope I'm wrong.

By the way, when we are laying into Volvo, I hate laying into Volvo.

But they have disappointed us so much in recent years with decisions made at senior

management level.

Yes.

I really feel they have taken some bad turns.

However, the chances of this considering how problematic their recent software...

Are you getting to the point where you're going to say it can't really get any worse?

No, I'm not saying that.

Right.

Okay.

Because at 2.5 million Volvos, 2.5 million Volvos you're going to update.

So this is anything that's post 2020 and you're going to slap in a completely new operating system.

Hmm, I'm not very confident at all.

This isn't going to unleash a host of problems for owners.

But it's going through final validation, so that's good, isn't it?

Or didn't the EX30 and the EX90 go through validation?

Not according to people who own them, they hasn't.

Well, no, quite.

Oh, I'm sorry.

I shouldn't be quite...

Please remember, everyone, I spent 17 years working for a software company.

And I spent six years before that as a product designer designing real things,

which should be made and used probably by you.

And so I am a terrible cynic about these things because I've had to be the person

on site looking at the customer when new software versions have gone wrong.

And we return to our usual stance, though, again, through experience and knowledge,

that the car industry just doesn't get this.

Doesn't understand how you need to get this right.

Yes, no, it does the software industry, though.

It is better to be slower and right than rush it and make a Horlicks of it.

Yes, but I'm going to go back to that Tim Stevens article that we covered at the start

of the year, into last year, started this year, about that and just go, but this.

We'll see what happens.

I really want this to be a success for Volvo's sake, for Volvo owner's sake.

I want this to work.

I don't really care about having Gemini instead of Google Assistant.

I'm not going to have to have a conversation with my car.

It's just not something I do.

I just want to be able to adjust my wing mirrors from a little button on the dash

or on the door, really.

I don't want to be sitting there going down a bit, down a bit.

No, up, no, too far, down a bit.

Or whatever the heck you're meant to be doing with this button-free misery.

Anyway, moving on from problematic software.

Make it better by not talking about AI, Andrew.

Oh, sugar.

Yeah, well, research has been undertaken in the US where autonomous cars and autonomous drones

with embedded AI have demonstrated how they will follow a road sign instruction

rather than the conditions and environmental situation.

And that has then caused these researchers to say, we need to fix this problem.

So what's been happening is they've been standing on the road sign with different types of signs,

different languages, different ways the font has been visible to autonomous vehicles.

Can I just check?

This is people standing physically holding a piece of cardboard or similar that says

turn right on it and therefore the vehicle has ignored pretty much everything else and gone,

hey, that sign says turn right.

So I'm going to turn right.

Oh, yes, exactly that.

Wow, that's worse than just making a 30 road sign into an 80.

To the point where one of the situations was on a zebra crossing or the equivalent in the US

and there was people crossing it and it had turned left on it and the car,

the embedded AI went, I will turn left and ignore the fact there are human beings in front of the car.

Now, what's happened then is these researchers have then gone, we have to solve this problem.

Right.

And when I read that in this register article where they didn't use boffins,

so well done register.

When I got to that point in the article, I thought, hang on,

the universe is gaslighting me here.

Why was your reaction not so therefore, because we already knew that AI is not

compliant with safety critical software criteria, are we not just saying, let's remove AI?

Because on some of these, they were spoofed 90 over 96% of the time.

Yes.

And the simple real world prompt injection as in the standing there with the sign,

by the way, 81.8% success rate.

So we're not talking like 30% success, 52% success or something.

Oh, because the sun was dazzling the camera or something and it wasn't very clear.

We're talking 82%.

Yeah.

It's quite spectacular, really.

It really, this article from the register, by the way,

so that I remain the angry one this episode, we'll move on soon.

But it's worth saying this article from the register is illuminating the world,

of course, be a link in the show notes to it because it's a great read in a sort of terrifying read.

If you are not furious at the end of reading this,

yeah, I don't understand what will make you furious because it's the attitude and I mean,

there's been an awful lot of stuff coming out in the UK about autonomous vehicles,

absolute tosh that has been written.

One of the things for that, by the way, and I haven't included a Waymo article this week,

because I just couldn't be that angry for that amount of time, even though Alan's the angry one.

I thought I was going to be the angry one this week.

One of the things is that they were interviewed in the UK on this big launch that had ministers

and everything this last week and they said they were asked,

so what about the teleoperations?

Oh, no, we don't use teleoperators to drive the car.

Oh, really?

That's interesting because in America, you tell everybody you do use teleoperators

and quite a number of them are based in the Philippines.

Where are teleoperators going to be based?

Because I think the ping number from the Philippines to the UK is going to be quite a bit of a problem.

And that's if you can get a signal in certain parts of London.

Yeah, I mean, as I keep saying, look at who is being asked to report on this stuff

and ask the question, are they qualified to judge and analyse what they are being told by this company?

We've said before that the whole crossover between tech and motoring is very, very difficult

for people to cover and it's not a dig at either party and 90% of the time,

it's not a dig at either party.

Sometimes it is by saying that, you know...

It's a dig at the company.

Oh, dig at the company.

Absolutely.

Companies because they are deliberately picking people that they know cannot,

cannot sit there and make a judgment that is worthy of listening to.

In the 10 years that we've been doing this, I have found there are fewer instances of motoring

journalists who have declared they have lost everything because they hadn't learned how to

back up their computer.

Which I think that sort of approach to the world precludes you from covering anything tech related.

And you know, I do think there is a better awareness of tech stuff than there was when

we started doing this, but the flip side is, I don't know that the tech journalists have

a better awareness of motoring stuff.

In fact, I suspect the opposite.

Anyway, on that cheery note, I think that is the end of the first angry part of the show.

The second part is far less angry.

The second half, by the way, everyone is wonderful.

It really is.

I wasn't intending on getting this angry.

Anyway, moving swiftly on everyone, it's guilt minute, the quick break in the show where we

ask for a tad of financial support to get the lights on and the hosting running.

If you feel the motoring podcast is worth small consideration every month, then you

can become a patron.

Different levels of patron include different levels of commitment from us to you,

including being able to watch the show recorded live.

We have small selection of merchandise in our spring store, from stickers to mugs and t-shirts.

And if you don't have any spare cash, we completely understand.

And if you still want to support us that way, then you can help us by following for free from

our podcast player to receive every show as they're released.

And by liking the ratings show on whatever way your podcast supply lets you the best way

to support us, or the best podcast supply to support us via rate at the moment,

is YouTube, believe it or not.

It is very difficult to monetize podcasts as we have discovered over the years,

short of reading out articles for nut shevers.

And so, right at the minute, YouTube at least offers us the promise of getting paid at some

point, which is incredibly close because you've been so good, you've all subscribed,

you'll listen to the podcast that way.

And we are like 16 hours per month of being able to monetize, I think.

16 hours off the last 365 days, it's worse than that.

Maybe tomorrow, it'll happen, believe it or not.

Maybe tomorrow.

No, but thank you everyone who has that wonderful support.

Yes.

And thank you for stopping me waffling anymore.

It is great sport, we do appreciate it.

And of course, the other way that you could support us for free is to recommend us to

your friends or colleagues.

And so many of you do.

Thank you very, very much.

Right, that means it must be new car news.

And we're starting out with a car that both of us really like the idea of and I think will be superb.

Yes, I'm talking about it, aren't I?

Because I also want to get my groovy mitts on it first.

And that is the Hyundai Ioni 6N.

Right at the minute, Hyundai have confirmed a sub 70,000 pound price tag for this.

The 641 brake horsepower Super Saloon, which is being put forward here as South Korea's

answers to the likes of the Porsche Taycan GTS and Tesla Model 3 Performance.

Love it.

I think it looks good.

Oh, I've seen a couple of I-20Ns recently, by the way, I should just dash off of it.

Look, Chinese thing, tangent.

And just thought how cool they were.

This looks great.

I said, back at the time when they first talked about N electric ends, the Ionics,

I said this is the one that should be the first one.

Yes, I did say that.

And this is because you don't like the 5N.

Yeah, I don't.

Because you're weird, which is why you shouldn't be allowed hot hatches.

It's not a hot hatch.

That's the problem.

I was promised a hot hatch.

It's not a hot hatch.

Fair enough.

Anyway, the Ioni 6N is promising a Super Saloon.

And as a result, it's promising 160 miles an hour from a twin motor or wheel drive power train.

And it's only going to have a premium of about 800 pounds over the Ioni 5N,

which seems slightly crazy, depending on the share, essentially.

It's the same EGMP electrical system, same 84 kilowatt hour lithium battery.

And it's expected that the 6N will have a similar WLTP rated range on approximately 278 miles.

Deliveries expected to start in spring 2026.

And in the UK, there will only be available in a single trim level.

The only optional extras will be a single pane vision roof priced at £1,250 and six additional

body colours.

It's the stock non-taxed colour will be serenity white, surprise.

And there will be matte metallic gloss choices priced from £752 to £1,250.

That's going to include performance blue, which we all know and love.

Abyss black, gravity gold, which sounds terrible, but I'm prepared to be persuaded otherwise.

That sounds like metallic beige, doesn't it?

Yeah, there's an American term about racing gold, which I'm not going to come near.

But that's what it sounds like.

And nocturn grey as well.

It should be a lot of fun fingers crossed.

I get my grubby little mits on.

Meanwhile, the reason you weren't on the show last week.

Yeah, the reason I wasn't on the show last week is because I was at the UK car of the year

judging drive day down in the wonderful and glorious and not at all soaking wet Stevenage.

Oh, boy.

The problem is that the last couple that I've been to, I couldn't make it last year,

but the two previous years before that, the weather's been lovely.

And this time the weather was not.

Did not want to play ball.

Stevenage in January.

What kind of glamour is that?

I know.

But what happens is that there was 33, according to this, a motoring research article

leading car journalists who were involved in the judging.

And Andrew, yes.

Yes, but there was, we originally had 59 cars to go through and we chugged it down into the

categories, which I'm going to run through now and tell you who's one of those categories

starts and these change each year depends on what's available, what's new.

These aren't like set in stone.

There must always be these categories.

It's just dependent on what's about started out with the small car, which the Renault five

E-Tech was the leader for.

Then we had the family car, which Kia's EV4 was the number one in that.

Then for small crossover, the Citroen C3 stroke EC3 Aircross,

think Fiat Grandi-Pandi size, that's what that is, the Citroen equivalent of that.

Fiat Grandi-Pandi with different badges and a bit of bodywork.

For medium crossover, the Skoda L-Rock.

Which we both quite liked in the past, the and me.

Yes. For large crossover was the Hyundai Ioniq 9.

Think the EV9 from Kia, the sibling to that platform and all the rest of it.

Then for executive car was the Audi A6 Saloon.

A state car was the Audi A6 Avant.

And then finally performance car, the Alpine A290, which is the electric Renault five turbo.

The turbo there was an inverted commas, everyone, all you pedants.

Yes. So we now have to wait for the final results to come out, which is in about a month,

I think, if I'm remembering correctly.

Am I allowed to ask you what you voted for or not?

You can ask, but I cannot answer.

Okay. I wasn't sure. I know that we discussed it earlier on, but I didn't.

Well, it's great. There's so many different judges.

It's because it is a wide breadth of perspectives on this.

How I look at these cars is very different to anyone else, because I'm coming out from

my own personal perspective on what I think makes a car or what I want to say.

Yeah, I think this is the best car for someone in the UK to buy.

I would say it's because you're more curmudgeonly, but then I've met other motoring journalists.

Yeah. Yeah, there are a few.

Yeah. I was in a launch recently. I had it reminded.

Anyway, do you want to take us on to the old car dead news, which was surprised,

wasn't announced years ago?

I know you might have forgotten everyone, but Tesla has still been offering the Tesla Model S

and the Tesla Model X. Well, production is going to end later this summer so that the

factory can be retooled for robots, human knowledge robots, because that's what makes

sense. You move from a two-ton electric car and electric SUV to building 75-kilogram robots.

Yeah, of course you do.

But it's also, don't forget, the autonomous vehicle.

Oh gosh, yes. Sorry. There is the cyber cab, which is not TM, because you can't because it's too

generic, which is going to have no steering wheel pedals and allegedly arrive in 2027.

Yes. Hang on. Let me just look out the window at these pigs flying by.

Basically, you're going to get the Tesla Model 3, the Tesla Model Y, SUV, and the cyber skip,

if you're in the US.

So the Tesla Model S is the only properly developed Tesla, is what I'm going to say.

I mean, they tried with the X, but there was just too much. I think that the engineers find

there was just too much interference in being able to build something good and instead were forced

to build something showy and therefore actually suboptimal. Tesla Model S, when it came out,

we've got to remember it was an awful lot of Audi experience went into the design and engineering

that and everything else from Tesla has basically been a derivation of the Model S.

It is, however, one of the most important vehicles in the 20th century.

And I think it's a shame that that's been overlooked and that it's it's kept on twitching

this long a bit like the Model T did. But it is the vehicle that kicked off the EV revolution.

There we go. So farewell. You know, I feel I should write it in the style of EG Thrib

from private eye and you know, so farewell then Tesla Model S.

You were there, you were fast and you were better than all the rest type of thing.

So just make that up off the top of my head. My apologies to the private eye

writers who actually do a good job of that stuff.

Well, associated with this, and this is why we've got this second article that's linked in

the show notes as well, is not only are Tesla losing the S and the X, but they're also losing

their director of vehicle operations and engineering. Benjamin Bate has now left the company

after being there for eight years and he's leaving the car industry as well when he moves on.

Eight years. As I say, eight years, I mean, well done. That's a heck of a staying power.

Well done to him and I hope he has been suitably

renumerated for the hell he must have suffered during those eight years because I know that I

couldn't have done it. And yeah, and moving out of the car industry makes a lot of sense too.

I mean, why would anyone touch someone responsible for the Cybertron with a barge ball?

I say responsible. Obviously, he's not really responsible. He was just a poor sod.

He had to try and make it work and give them an awful idea it was. I think he did a pretty good job.

Right. Do you want to take us on to Designers Mood Board? Good news, everyone. The Designers

Mood Board. When I think we talked about the other week, Michael Mauer is going to leave Porsche

after 21 years heading the brand's design. As a result, into his place is going to come Tobias

Schulman. He becomes, well, he became, pardon me, a head designer on the 1st of February.

If you're wondering what Tobias Schulman's qualifications for this are, I imagine being

German as part of it. But not only that, he has been the head of design at McLaren for the last

of a while, including the 750S and the Artura Spyder. You're probably thinking, well, I'm thinking

too, which was, well, he's incredibly experienced at making a lot of things look the same then.

I imagine Michael Mauer after 21 years is going to be retiring. I wish him a long and happy

retirement and good luck to Tobias, especially given that he's coming into someone who's going

to be quite constrained, I think, from a design perspective for the next few years.

Despite my jokes, that's not going to be an easy job.

No, that's going to be hard in anything. Everyone working in Porsche are going to have to really

pull out some stops to turn the company around. Yes, I agree.

Okay. I'm going to move us on to points of interest. It is a lunchtime read from Hagerty.

A few months ago, we brought you a story written by Charlotte Vowden called Spark Moments. It was

talking about getting people interested in classic cars and how people found their way

into it and all this sort of stuff. What really brought the spark of interest into classic cars.

This is the second part now. Again, it's a lovely, fabulous read. It also reminds you

of why so many of us like cars and stuff around the motoring world. I think it's these sort of

articles. I love reading them and I love sharing them because I think it just encapsulates how we

all generally love cars, which is why we started the show anyway, and what it means to us.

I think these are really, really nice pieces. I really like them because they talk about the

emotion and they talk about the why and they talk about the moments and all of these things.

I think that that's so vital. It's lovely. I really like this. I really want us to keep

sharing these articles. I really want Hagerty to keep commissioning them and I really want us to

keep sharing them because I think that's so important. I'd love listeners if you guys

can take a few minutes to read them as well. 100%. Brilliant. List of the week this week.

List of the week. I mean, Andrew, you put this one in. It's a cracker and it is from Auto Cars.

It's a list of 24 totally charming cars and it goes on. It says, looks have always been important

to the automotive world and to these cars vital to their appeal. Well, I'm sorry, but the looks

are not. Just the whole, this is about the whole package of niceness and fun and happiness and

all in one thing and so the looks, quite frankly, because I know the one I've chosen

pretty really, it's not that attractive, but I really like it and I always have liked it.

But first, before I share mine, Andrew, of the 24 totally charming cars, what is your totally

charmingest? Well, for me, the totally charmingest because it reminded me of a car that isn't

actually the one I'm going to pick, but allows me to say this is if you could all turn to slide

five in your past, please for the Citroen Mahari. I so closely, I want one of these so much. This

is on my card list. Well, why this struck with me is a couple of weeks ago, I saw a chap on a

Sunday morning with his family in a mini-moke. Oh, I'd rather have the Mahari, but yes, still.

No, no, but the concept was there and he had them all in big coats, and he had little kids in the

back and I thought, yes, I've talked about it for years about, oh, I get this bratty old Land Rover

with the soft top, have this thing so I can just go put your coat on, we're going in this,

whatever time of the year it is, and this is a similar thing, have this, roll up the sides,

just keep the roof over the top, drive it in all weathers, because it's just fabulous simplicity,

and it's non-threatening in every particular way, and it'll make everybody smile,

and that's part of the charm for me. I feel of these, of many of the cars on this list,

is it doesn't matter, you smile at the car. Right, we have both worked on exactly the same

thinking on this one. Oh, well, it had to happen eventually. So what, which, which slide do we

need to move to? Slide three for me, because what I really like is the Auto Bianchi A112.

I nearly picked this. There was, there was a danger you would actually, despite the fact

that it also is in racing gold in the picture, but this is a picture, by the way, is an Auto

Bianchi A112 bar. Auto Bianchi was mostly owned by Fiat, the latter part of its life, and Fiat

used it very much as a test bed. Hey, we've got this idea for a car, let's roll the basic proof

of concept. That is an Auto Bianchi first. If it's successful, then it might come into a Fiat

model and therefore become mainstream. Front wheel drive, rear hatchback, that's what the Auto

Bianchi A112 brought to the world. But not only that, there was a fantastic arcade game,

which was small cars, you were driving around a track, and the one that always came out first

was Monaco. He had the choice of Mini Cooper's and I can't think what else, Fiat 500's also

stopped, but one of the cars in there was an Auto Bianchi A112. And it was always the one I

chose because it's something that I very occasionally saw in France. And indeed the one in the picture

is a 92, so it's a Neil de France number plate. Just didn't exist in the UK. So I thought this was

super cool. I still think it's super cool. It's lovely. It's gorgeous. It makes me smile. It makes

me think of video games. You just know you're going to have a ton of fun in that. And I don't

mean because you're on your door handles. Well, you probably will be on your door handles,

but you won't be breaking any speed limits. Yeah, but you'll have so much fun behind the wheel of

that thing. This, and there was another one in the list I almost chose because I think

it's awesome as well. And it looks great. Just there's so much good stuff in this list.

Do please have a look at it. And I love the fact that that that whole totally charming

can cover the sporty and it can cover the definitely not sporty. Love it. Go have a look

at it. Please follow the link in the show notes.

Well, do you want to try and get us back on track and do the and finally this week?

Well, the and finally this week is by a friend of the show, Dan Padicum. He is currently playing

with trains in China, I believe. But he spoke to a chap is called Rath Messenger. He's from

Dorchester. And he drove from Land's End to John Grotes and a 101 year old Austin,

a 12 slash four to raise money for motor neuron disease association charity. Well done him.

Congratulations. And by the way, he didn't just take the easy route. He didn't just do

Johnny Grotes in Venice, but etc. He made it a proper thing. And he covered many, many miles

zigzagging across the country. Well done to him. Great to see him raising money for charity and

great to see but all cars can still do it. Yep. 100% love this. Thank you, Daniel for this one.

Appreciate that. And that is just a reminder to everyone that if you find an interesting article,

feel free to bung it our way and we'll have a look at it and see if we think it should be

included in the show. Yeah, we do appreciate people who do that. So thank you again, Daniel.

If any of our social media, you know, you can do it as a DM or whatever on social media channels

that support that kind of fun, then do please, please do that. Let us know. We also thanks and

shove it in the triage and when there's a slot, there's a slot. We'll probably definitely use it.

Especially if it's a list of the week. List of the week is the hardest article for us to come

up with. Yep. AI has ruined the listicle and has made life very difficult for us. No AI lists,

please. Real stuff only and no worst cars lists. Those are our two rules for lists

of the week, Andrew. Yep. I think so. No AI, no worst car ever type stuff that involves the

Austin Allegro. Any other announcements from you this week? I don't think so. I think we're both

going to be on next week as well. Yes, as far as I'm aware, all things being equal. That's the plan.

I have a new video out. If you want to install Apple CarPlay or Android Auto in a Toyota Yaris

from 2017 to 2020, then I put a guide together as to exactly how you can do that.

15 minutes of watching there on the Motoring Podcast YouTube channel,

enjoy or whatever. Other than that, don't forget to now next week, you can give us any feedback,

share your thoughts with the show at motoringpodcast.com on Blue Sky and Motoring Podcast on

Instagram and Facebook and on the contact page of www.motoringpodcast.com. Be hop of all our

activities. Remember, you can support us financially by a patron and please leave a review

and rating on Apple Car's YouTube or whatever your podcast app lets you do such a thing.

Andrew, in the meantime, now we're all calm, cool, calm and connected. What's the best way to get

in touch with you? The best way to get in touch with me is probably LinkedIn. If you search for

my name on there, I'll be there. And Alan, if people want to get in touch with you personally,

what is the best way for them to do that? The best way for me, I mean, I'm on LinkedIn as well,

if you so desire. But you can get me on Blue Sky, where I'm at AJP Bradley, that's B I E D L E Y

dot B Sky, not social. We'll be back next week. But until then, I've been Alan Bradley, I've been

Andrew Clews and Safe Motoring.

Pigs fly by - 3 February 2026

About this episode

DAF XF

Fiat Grandi-Panda

Skoda L-Rock

Request an Explanation

Want to learn more?

Help improve this episode

More from Motoring Podcast - News Show