Dieselgate is a major scandal where car companies were caught cheating on tests that measure how much pollution their diesel cars produce. This caused a lot of trouble for those companies.
An SUV is a type of car that's bigger and can handle rougher roads. It's designed to carry more people and stuff, making it a popular choice for families.
The Audi A6 e-tron is an electric car from Audi that combines luxury with eco-friendliness. It's part of their A6 lineup but runs on electricity instead of gasoline.
The Opel Astra is a small car that is easy to drive and great for getting around town. It's known for being affordable and reliable, making it a popular choice for many drivers.
An EV charging network is a group of places where you can charge electric cars. These charging stations help people keep their electric vehicles powered up while they're out and about.
Duracell is a company that makes batteries. They are starting a new project to create charging stations for electric cars, which is a new direction for them.
Blink Charging is a company that focuses on making charging stations for electric cars. They help set up places where people can charge their electric vehicles.
Kilowatt chargers are types of charging stations for electric cars that show how much power they can provide. Higher numbers mean the charger can fill up the car's battery faster.
The BMW M6 is a fast and fancy car made by BMW that is designed for people who love to drive. It has a strong engine and looks really nice, making it great for both everyday use and special occasions.
The Audi RS e-tron GT is a super-fast electric car that looks really stylish and is packed with high-tech features. It's designed for people who want a thrilling driving experience while being eco-friendly.
Brake horsepower is how much power an engine produces before any energy is lost to things like heat and friction. It's a way to measure how strong the engine is.
A mild hybrid system helps a car's regular engine with a small electric motor, making it use less fuel and produce fewer emissions, but it can't run only on electricity.
A plug-in hybrid is a car that can be charged by plugging it in, and it has both a regular engine and an electric motor, so it can drive on electricity for a little while.
The Volkswagen ID.5 is a new electric car that doesn't use gas, which means it's better for the environment. It's designed to be spacious and comfortable, making it a good choice for families or anyone who wants to drive an eco-friendly vehicle.
The Audi TT (Mk1) is a small sports car that started production in 1998. It's recognized for its unique look and is loved by many car fans for how it drives and its stylish design.
In a no reserve auction, the item will be sold to whoever bids the highest, no matter how low that bid might be. This can make auctions more exciting, but sellers might not always get a good price.
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Welcome to the motoring podcast, your weekly discussion of motoring news. This is episode 654 on Tuesday, the 21st of October, 2025. Hello, I'm not Alan, I'm Andrew. And this week you'll hear about some positive news. In the new car news, you'll find out about some refreshes. And in points of interest, you'll learn how you can be a kind person even if you lead a successful company. At first, we have a couple of bits of follow-up. And one is an old friend of the show.
Dieselgate. And the UK high court is holding a trial to consider the allegations that some OEMs have used illegal software to allow their cars to reduce emissions of harmful gases under test conditions. That opened last week.
The car makers and brands who are in the firing line for this are Mercedes Ford, Persia, Citroen, Renault and Nissan. They all deny the accusations. And the lead KC, who is fighting against the brands, Thomas Delamere has stated each player in the industry basically took a conscious decision that customer convenience, which helped the industry sell more cars, was more important.
Yeah, we're going to go find out about that one. I would presume the way that it's happened with all the others that the car brands are going to lose this heavily. When any news comes in, that will obviously keep you updated.
Next bit of follow-up is that all the production lines at JLR plants are now back up and running following this cyber attack.
The Range Rover Evoke and Land Rover Discovery sports lines at Hellwood were the last to start up, but at least they're all up and running now.
This is all been done by the controlled phase restart as JLR called it. A month and a bit of no production has been horrific for the company as well as the suppliers.
As we discussed a couple of weeks ago, they had opened their payment services so they were paying suppliers again, so that will help relieve quite a bit of the pressure that was on everybody involved throughout the supply chain.
Right into new news and we will start with the news that Michael Lighters, who used to be the CEO at McLaren, is going to take over from Oliver Bloom at Porsche.
If you remember, Bloom has agreed to step down as heading up Porsche and will now just concentrate on being the Volkswagen Group Boss.
This was, he made the decision but I think it was strongly pushed by investors and the board because things have not been going well for Porsche.
At all, a combination of geopolitical issues as well as their EV products not being up to snuff as well as China, that market, dwindling massively for them and then obviously with the geopolitical side of things, the extra costs that have come out of selling a vehicle in the United States.
Lighters got his hands full here, I have to say. He takes over on the 1st of January 2026 and then we will see what they're going to do from there.
More new appointments and this time it's Toyota GP, Luigi Kusweri, Luca has been appointed the new president and managing director, which he takes over from Scott Thompson, who will be returning to Toyota Australia again.
This will come into play from the 1st of January 2026. Good luck to both of them with that one.
Now we move on to news that was horrifically badly reported last week and that is that Cardiff Council has voted to implement changes to their parking system in the city.
This includes bringing out a parking permit for local residents and they have put some rules and some limitations in place on this.
Now the whole idea of the city parking plan was according to Cardiff Council themselves to reorganize on street parking in Cardiff into key administrative areas so that parking rules meet the needs of local communities.
2. It was to address unmanaged street parking through the phased introduction of parking zones.
3. It was to support blue badge holders and residents by reducing commuter parking and encouraging lower levels of vehicle ownership, freeing up road space for those who needed most.
4. Ensure parking policies reflect best practice and parking rules are simple, consistent and easy to understand for both locals and visitors alike.
5. Focus on the climate emergency and air quality agenda driving improvements in cleaner air by encouraging motorists to choose active and sustainable travel options and to switch to cleaner vehicles.
That was the whole idea behind all this.
They came out with some ideas of how to do it, then they put out a consultation and they had feedback from that and they are very happy to say I don't know how true this is but they were very happy to say that they listened
and they tweaked some areas of the changes they wanted to make.
The thing that's really caught on in the press, thanks to totally misreporting, fantastic job there by all the journalists involved pretty much, was that this was called the anti-SUV parking charge.
There's a couple of tiny problems with that because what they said they were doing is that the rules are going to have fees and surcharges.
They are putting those for, they are only going to be for resident parking permits by the way, so if you come to the city you have to go to a designated car park, you can't just park on the roads in certain zones as they spread that out throughout the city over phased timescales.
There's going to be fees and surcharges, the targeting oversized vehicles and there's also going to be a diesel surcharge.
The fees and surcharges, what's happening is that any vehicle that is over 2,400 kilograms of revenue weight which is gross weight, will be brought in because they are trying to encourage drivers to switch to smaller vehicles is a bit of a thing.
Weight does not necessarily mean larger vehicle, weight is about heaviness, dimensions are about size and everyone's got all hooked up on, oh this is anti SUV because they're targeting large vehicles, they're not the targeting heavy vehicles.
But this is all because it's off the back of the C40, the city's 40 group, who jumped up and down and took on board transport environments, very misleading report in inverted commas there, oh my fingers hurt so much we're doing that.
But their report and their research where they said that there are dangerous SUVs all over the European roads and they also said that there was an influx and a flood of American style SUVs which is not true when you actually question members of staff from transport environment.
They're talking about those giant pickups that you can't naturally buy over here even though the pickups we do get are you could argue over large.
But you know we're talking about like the Rams and the F140s the Ford stuff and that's not what you can buy over here some are imported yes but is there is not a flood of it and that's just nonsense to make it out.
And when you push back at any staff about this they do admit that what happens is that we get this misleading narrative gets spread out and out and I've seen some quotes from the council when the they voted this through and they're very very chuffed a bits that they are attacking SUVs when they're not actually because if you look at it and vehicles over 2,400 grows.
You're looking at the Audi A5 which is the old A4 estate that's 2,635 grows away okay the Audi A6 e-tron 2,675 kilos they'll have to pay more because with this surcharge what's interesting is any vehicle any car that is over 2,400 will have to pay irrespective of the powertrain.
They say that they're going to introduce a 2,000 kilogram limit but that will only apply to non electric vehicles obviously.
Yeah so you're going to have things when that comes in you're going to have things like the random again that's the new one that's an SUV that's 2,165 kilograms but not overly large the Honda CRV which is a fev or a hybrid that is 2,350 or if you're range topping it's 2,430 already they're paying extra.
The problem by going for weight is that they will be actually targeting vehicles that are not what they said in all their literature they were aiming at because either they didn't know.
They know that when you start talking about gross weight that brings an awful lot more vehicles in or they did know and they deliberately misled by not telling people the sort of vehicles they're talking about because also on that 2,000 kilogram an astra estate will be then having to pay extra which just seems insanity that is not a large vehicle.
Irrespective of how wrong they've got this and how I might sound I'm against the parking levy and all that I'm not I'm just against misleading and lying to the public to get through and through some information or to get through something you want.
Even if you think you're doing it for a good reason a lie is a lie and if you do it for a good reason you'll do it for a bad reason and nothing ever comes out as it should if you have done it via lying because people will not be making a decision based on true facts and information.
I can see the sense in them wanting to say only residents will be parking in resident streets I totally understand that I think that's quite sensible thing.
I would also say and having asked some people who do live in Cardiff they need to really work on their public transport because it's pretty shocking it's not Londonesque.
If you are going to try and encourage people encourage people or find them or just tax them extra for what they feel is needing a vehicle then you need to give them options at the minute that's not quite the case.
I really wanted to make it clear that people have been misreporting this it is not against SUVs it's against all cars because that's what an SUV is and it is purely based on weight it's nothing to do with dimensions at all.
There will be a couple of articles linked in there there will be probably one of the best ones I've read which is from John Redfern in motoring research talking about this and also Cardiff's final plan there's a PDF version of that as well.
Right moving on now we have a bunch of news stories to do with infrastructure and that sort of things on EVs now I'm going to really rattle through these.
Essentially just going to tell you the titles if you want to learn more about each of them then you need to click the links in the show notes so you can read the articles but we've actually got quite a few backlogged up now and we wanted to just make sure that you were kept up to date because good things are happening out there.
I know it's hard to believe sometimes but good things are happening out there and there is some positive news no pun intended about UK EVs EV charging and also trying to get into the manufacturing batteries and that sort of stuff I'm going to rattle through these quite quickly.
First off I'm going to start with the news that Cornish lithium has secured 35 million funding to push UK battery ambitions forward down in Cornwall.
The CEO of Cornish lithium Jeremy rattle has stated that Cornwall is home to the largest lithium resource in Europe with enough beneath our feet to supply over half of what the electric vehicle industry need.
As we talked last week with China imposing rare earth restrictions don't forget that they're one of the main suppliers of lithium as well and if we can spread out who is supplying this stuff it reduces risk for companies particularly on the geopolitical stage.
Next up Duracell launches UK based charging network. This is obviously the battery manufactured Duracell and they have a new company or offshoot called Duracell E charge and it's going to be an ultra fast EV charging network and they will launch this year and then they're going to expand even further in 2026 they are planning to invest more than 200 million over the next decade.
I've seen the picture or a render of their charger and it looks like a Duracell battery which I think is just brilliant bit of marketing well done there.
Blink charging is going to deliver 1.4 million EV charging project in West Yorkshire they have been selected to deliver the first phase of this infrastructure project that's going to be 716 Blink chargers installed across West Yorkshire from the end of 2025.
They are going to be 3 to 8 kilowatt chargers as well as 8 to 49 kilowatt and then a few rapid which is 50 to 149 kilowatt chargers.
They're going to be apparently placed close to homes without adequate off-street parking so this will include both on-street locations and off-street areas like carparks.
Open Reach who is one of the larger fleets out there has signed a deal with my energy to supply home chargers for thousands of their engineers.
I don't know if you've noticed but if you drive around and you find you come across a charging station out in public quite often that there is an open reach or BT van plugged in charging up.
Open Reach can spot this because they probably spot it through their bills every month and it's going to be absolutely outrageous.
What they're doing is my energy is going to be installing charges at the home so they can charge overnight and that means that the charging rates will be much lower which saves them lots of money.
I have to drop in some bad news here and this is complete which is a German charge point manufacturer and operator has withdrawn from the UK market.
They have ceased with immediate effects and there's no details on why or how many people have been made redundant on this.
Good luck to all the staff involved in that. I hope you find new jobs really quickly and hopefully this isn't going to affect people trying to use EV chargers out in the wild.
BP pulse and moto are going to roll out electric charging on UK motorways. They are going to install high powered charges at key motorway service areas.
They're talking about a total of 300 charging bays at 23 locations. This will all be finished they anticipate by 2030.
They'll be pull through base is how they're looking to do this they're going to be on the M25 M1 M4 M5 M6 M20 and it says others.
On top of that, Eon is started testing reservations for truck charges because if you've listened to the show for any length of time you'll have heard Alan discussing about how that's going to be key because of working out.
Laurie drivers hours of rest what types of rest they need having the ability to arrive at a place where you know you you can then stop and charge at the same time.
Absolutely vital to make this work in the real world.
Okay that was the end of the first part we made it.
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Okay new new car news go a couple of refreshes and then a bit of an update on the electric car grant eligibility.
I'm going to start with Cooper is going to get the five cylinder VZ five engine from the VW group and slot it into their form and they're going to have that coming out soon.
That's the same 2.5 turbo charge engine that the Audi RS 3 uses which produces 385 brake horsepower and 345 pound foot of torque which goes to all four wheels.
That's great. I really like the look of the form and I have to say I like the fact that it's a bit of a jacked up a statey hatchbacky thing and I like how.
Apart from their SUV this out the minute that Cooper they look really distinctive they don't look like anything else so you go all that's a Cooper and I love some of the touches they've got with.
The sort of coppery accents as well but this is brilliant as long as you've got a fairly deep pocket though because they reckon it's going to start around 60,000 pounds.
Ouch but then again you you know you're getting a Spanish version of the Audi RS 3 it's not surprising.
Okay what else is being updated oh it is the Alfa Romeo Tanale that hasn't been out that long but they are widening the track they're sticking a new grill so it doesn't look like a piece of.
Well plastic just slapped on the front that they forgot to put any detail on as well as with the widening of the track they're going to have tweaked the powertrain as well.
You're going to get a 1.5 liter turbocharged four pot with 173 brake horsepower to the front wheels they're going to connect that to a 48 volt mild hybrid system and there is a plug-in hybrid which we use a 1.3 liter four cylinder petrol engine.
And with the electric motor will give all wheel drive and 266 brake horsepower that's a bit of a reduction from before because it was by 9 brake horsepower.
However Alfa says because of their new hybrid control processor it will be better we'll have to see people who've driven one.
Right electric car grant and two Volkswagen models are now eligible for it that is the ID4 and the ID5 are able to get the 1500 pound level 2 discount.
This is the ID4 pure essential 52 kilowatt hour 170 PS 1 speed automatic 5 door the pure match the pro essential as well the ID4 pro essential which is 77 kilowatt 286 PS 1 speed automatic 5 door.
The ID5 pure match again 52 kilowatt the ID5 pro essential again 77 kilowatt.
Apparently they've met the stricter was makes me laugh in this motor trader article says is required to meet strict technical and sustainability stuff.
I can see the technical side of things but the the sustainability standards I can't work out what they've tried to do there never mind.
Right let us move on to points of interest and we have a lunchtime read it isn't very long and has its tongue firmly in its cheek if you haven't seen this from.
Stiff petrol is written in evo and the title is when performance car magazine close to writers and a Subaru kept driving.
And he's recounting the extraordinary day that led to the birth of evo.
Yeah I think license has been taken with facts and reality but it's a cracking quick little read bring a smile to your face especially some details in there do enjoy that.
And we've got a list of the week this time it is from a top gear and is here on nine of the best classic car in tears as it's only me is not a long list this week.
And because Alan can't make it to the show this week I'm allowed to pick this car then because it won't set him off until he hears this.
And I am going to pick the Audi TT mark one interior much as I said that I was a bit flat line to the exterior looks at the TT the mark one.
Sorry to everybody who I fended with that I do think the interior is really really well done it was astonishingly simple yet clear and not overblown I just think they did a cracking job on the interior.
And there's the little touches in like the circular events and things like that and how that translates further on through the dashboard brilliant brilliant bit of design I feel many many many interior designers need to go and look at this today just as a reminder of what can be done if you sit and think a little bit and don't just slap a screen.
Right that means we have made it to the end finally and this is from the autopian and it is titled a cardboard magnet spent decades of paying for cars to help people in need now he's selling all 1300 of them yet this is the story of Greg Rusk who owns a cardboard manufacturing company in America who went around buying cars from people in need.
People come to him and say I hear you're interested in cars I've got this car I need it to to buy house to to pay a medical bill whatever it was so then what he did is he would say some how much do you need.
They would tell him and that's how much he paid for the car so he's overpaid for a lot of cars here to not get that wrong but now he's going to sell them at auction it's no reserve.
And what a wonderful wonderful man and what a wonderful idea where he's coincided something he likes which is cars and an ability to help people out there in the way that he has.
Do click the link in the show notes have a read and then have a look at some of the cards in the collection because my word they look lovely and some really odd ball things out there as well brilliant stuff absolutely love it.
That rounds out the show next week we should be back as a team Alan here to deflect some of my venting and give you is a bit of a break from just listening to me but between now and then don't forget that you can give us any feedback and share your thoughts with the show or at motoring podcast dot com on blue sky.
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If you would like to get in touch with Alan then the best way to do that is go to blue sky and search for at a JP Bradley.
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We'll be back pretty soon but until then I've not been Alan Bradley I have been under clues and safe motoring.
About this episode
The latest episode dives into significant automotive news, including the ongoing Dieselgate trial involving major manufacturers like Mercedes and Ford. JLR has resumed production after a cyberattack, while Michael Lighters is set to take over as Porsche's CEO amidst challenges. Cardiff Council's controversial parking changes, misreported as anti-SUV measures, are also discussed. The episode highlights positive developments in the UK EV sector, including new charging networks and battery resource initiatives. A heartwarming story about a man selling cars to help those in need wraps up the episode.
A trial has begun in the UK High Court to decide if some manufacturers used software to pass emission tests but then acted differently outside of test conditions. The brands all deny the charge. To read more, click this Motor Trader article link here.
FOLLOW UP: JLR RESTARTS ALL PRODUCTION LINES
JLR has now started the last of their production lines following the chaos from the cyber attack at the start of September. Halewood was the last facility to get back up. If you wish to find out more, click this Autocar article link here.
PORSCHE FINDS A NEW BOSS
Following the announcement that Oliver Blume would relinquish his role as CEO of Porsche the company has been searching for a replacement. Ex-McLaren CEO Michael Leiters returns to the brand to lead it, allowing Blume to focus on his Volkswagen Group role. You can learn more, by clicking this Autocar article link here.
TOYOTA GB FINDS A NEW BOSS
Toyota GB has announced that Luigi Ksawery Lucá will be the new prsident and managing director of the company, as Scott Thompson will be returning to Toyota Australia. Lucá starts in the role from 1 January 2026. For more, click this Motor Trader article link here.
CARDIFF PARKING PLAN
Cardiff Council has announced how they will be revamping parking within the city. Unfortunately, nearly all of the reporting on the matter has been shockingly bad thanks to equating weight with size. There are no restrictions to the size of a car, being introduced only the weight. Cars over 2400kg revenue weight (gross weight) will face a surcharge for a parking permit. This includes EVs. However, they plan to phase in a reduced weight for the surcharge, of 2000kg revenue weight that will exempt EVs. Do residents actually know what cars will be charged extra? In all likelihood they are going to be surprised, especially when the reduced limit comes into force. To read one of the better articles out there on this story, click this Motoring Research link here.
