A semiconductor shortage means there aren't enough tiny computer parts that cars need to work properly. This can cause car companies to make fewer cars or even stop making some models.
Special edition versions of the 911 are special cars made by Porsche that are different from the regular models. They usually have unique features or designs and are made in limited numbers, making them more desirable for collectors.
The Porsche 911 is a famous sports car that many people admire for its speed and style. It's been around for a long time and is loved by car fans for how well it drives and looks.
The Ford Capri is a stylish old sports car that many people loved back in the day. It's known for being fun to drive and has a lot of fans who like to fix them up and keep them running.
Car
Toyota FTME
The Toyota FTME is a small, two-door vehicle that Toyota is considering making for city driving. It's designed to help people get around in busy urban areas.
EV range is how far an electric car can go before it needs to be recharged. This is important to know because it helps you understand how practical the car is for daily use.
The Toyota Corolla is a popular small car that many people choose because it's dependable and gets good gas mileage. It's been around for a long time and is known for being a good value.
Fully self-driving taxis are cars that can drive themselves without anyone controlling them. They use special technology to find their way and pick up passengers.
The Jaguar I-PACE is a fully electric SUV made by Jaguar. It's designed to be eco-friendly and has a good driving range, which means it can go a long distance on a single charge.
Geely is a car company from China that owns other famous car brands like Volvo and Lotus. They make cars and have a big presence in the automotive industry.
Car
Geely EX5
The Geely EX5 is a new electric SUV from the Chinese car company Geely. It's meant to be a more affordable option compared to other electric SUVs like the Tesla Model Y.
The Skoda Enyaq is an electric SUV made by Skoda. It's designed to be roomy and comes with the latest technology, making it a good choice for families.
The Tesla Model Y is a new kind of car that runs on electricity instead of gas. It's like an SUV, which means it's a bit bigger and can carry more people or stuff, and it's popular because it's good for the environment.
A 1.5 litre turbo petrol engine is a type of car engine that is 1.5 liters in size and uses a turbocharger to make it more powerful. This helps the car go faster while using less fuel.
The Ford Puma is a small SUV that looks sporty and is great for driving around town. It's bigger than a regular car but still easy to park and use for everyday activities.
The drivetrain is the system in a car that helps it move by transferring power from the engine to the wheels. In hybrids, it combines both electric and gas power to save fuel.
The Citroën DS is a really unique car that came out a long time ago and looks very different from most cars. It was famous for being advanced and stylish, and many people still admire it today.
The Citroën ID is a model related to the DS, designed to be a more budget-friendly version. It still had a stylish look and many of the same features as the DS, but at a lower price.
The Isuzu Trooper is an SUV made by the Isuzu company. It was built to be tough and good for off-road driving, which means it can handle rough terrains and outdoor adventures.
Car
Vauxhall Monterey
The Vauxhall Monterey is another type of SUV made by Vauxhall, similar to the Isuzu Trooper. It was popular in the 1990s and is known for being roomy and good for off-road driving.
The Acura SLX is a fancy SUV that was sold in America a long time ago. It has nice features and can go off-road, which makes it different from other SUVs.
The Vauxhall VXR8 is a fast car that has a big engine and is built for people who love speed. It's part of a British brand and is popular among fans of powerful cars.
The Holden Caprice is a large, fancy car from Australia that is really comfortable to ride in. It's often used by important people, like police and government officials, which makes it a notable car.
Welcome to the Motoring Podcast, your weekly discussion of motoring news.
This is episode 655 on Tuesday, the 28th of October 2025. Hello, I'm Alan.
Hello, I'm Andrew, and this week you'll hear about how magic bean thinking is coming to London in
2026. In your new car news, you'll find the China zone, and in points of interest, you'll see the
faces are familiar, but the names maybe not so much. But first, we have just a touch of follow-up,
and this is to do with the JLR shutdown thanks to the cyber attack. However, this is from
Professor David Bailey on the blogs from the Blackstuff, where he has got an article that's
about the actual estimated cost to the UK of the shutdown. And the Cyber Monitoring Centre, or CMC,
has declared that they reckon the impact across the UK is between £1.9 billion and £2.1 billion.
Not only that, the event also affected over 5,000 UK organizations and was given a Category 3 rating
on their five-point scale because it was losses between one and five billion. It's a really
excellent article that explains how they go through these things and what actually happened
and how it went down. But also, the CMC Technical Committee has urged businesses, insurers,
and government bodies to recognize that operational disruption now represents the
greatest cyber risk facing UK industries. Will they? Who knows?
David Bailey Well, I remember years ago, I was at a...
Actually, telling the story gives away where it was. I was at a local council. Supposedly,
the risk manager came into the room and made sure that the training I was delivering was
in a nice, safe place. But his reputation had preceded him. He was the person who believed
that the biggest risk to the IT systems of this particular council was a tsunami coming up the
river. Yeah, that was the biggest risk. It was of a tidal wave coming up the river.
Anytime anybody questioned him on this, he pointed out, well, nobody knows how many earthquakes there
are under the Atlantic every year. I mean, despite the fact it would have to navigate
its way around Ireland as well. I wouldn't put money on everyone taking this seriously.
People out there are very, very strange. That was well over a decade ago,
so I think I can tell the story. We only had at least two massively
huge incidents earlier in the year over similar things, so why bother? Why bother?
Similar things? You mean exactly the same thing? That's how similar it was, yes.
Yes, it was. By the way, if you do go to the blog that Andrew's talking about,
please follow the link in the show notes. You may want to turn on reader view,
to be honest, to sort of lessen some of the graphic design impact, I think.
It is fancy. It's quite distracting, actually.
But the words are really good, so turn on reader view, please.
Well, then, Alan, do you want to take us into the new news?
Yes. It's not really great news, as you've probably come to expect from this podcast
and the world in general. Yeah, that's not our fault. It's
not like we deliberately pick it. We have to reflect our news aggregation
podcast. We can't make it up. We would love to some weeks.
A Dutch semiconductor manufacturer called Nexperia was not long ago bought by the Chinese
and installed a Chinese CEO. The government sort of realized that what they were going to do was
basically shut up shop and ship everything out to China and close down all the Dutch operations,
decided that this wasn't a great idea, they didn't really want that, and they, in business terms,
forcibly took control of Nexperia to stop any of that happening. The thing is, of course,
that has displeased the Chinese government because they see that as something of an
imposition. And obviously, the Chinese parent company, Wingtech, were not that happy.
The thing is that this comes just at the point in this sort of ongoing general – it's not a
trade war that everyone seems to be having with China. It's more of a sort of drôle de guerre,
that sort of period before where it might turn into a full war and it might not turn into a full
war. It's the sort of pushing and shoving before the physical blows, isn't it? Yes.
Boy, did you spill my paint type of level that's sort of going on right at the moment.
As a result, the Chinese government has imposed export restrictions on parts of
Nexperia's production. And that is causing challenges because they were a major provider
to the automotive industry. You probably guessed there was an automotive link because it's on the
motoring podcast. This means that companies such as Volkswagen have about a week's worth of chips
and that they might have to stop producing the Golf. I mean, Volkswagen is doing quite so well
at the moment. And that's just Volkswagen, by the way. That's just an example. And other companies
are in a similar situation, one assumes. Well, the German Association of Automotive Industry
has urged policymakers to get around the table and negotiate this and sort it out.
The whole of the German car industry is absolutely worried extremely by this situation.
Because there's another thing here, which is in this article, which is really very interesting.
It talks about how many of these types of chips are in a modern car. And if you're in a normal
petrol or diesel, it's about 600. When you get up to an electric vehicle, you're getting up to double
that. One of the other problems is that nobody really knows how big the problem is. And the
reason is because the car makers themselves don't generally buy the semiconductors and the chips
themselves. They buy them turned into stuff by companies like Bosch and Continental and ZF,
who've already built them into plug-and-play modules. Because there's multiple levels of
supply chain, it's kind of tricky. But because of that way that it's done
and that complexity, you can't just go, right, I'll go to this chip manufacturer and use theirs
because you've got to put it through all the testing. You might have to rewrite your software
or you've certainly got to test it and all these other things for compatibility, let alone
conflicts. Let alone conflicts, let alone all the regulatory stuff. I mean, we've seen this
problem before with some of the Japanese car manufacturers where they've had to basically,
they've been in loads and loads of trouble because what was being shipped wasn't what
had been tested. So there's another dimension to it. It becomes very difficult.
There's no quick fix.
No, no, no, there isn't. And the thing is, the whole system and the way they do it works great
if it wasn't for politicians and sort of this competitive member waving that's going on.
Yes. This is a real panic time for the car industry with the knock-on effects. I mean,
if you mentioned Volkswagen, they need more problems, like they need additional holes in
the head.
And that's Volkswagen Group, not just Volkswagen.
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, talking of which, and we'll move on to the next article,
Porsche have announced their financial results for the last quarter,
and they are very much in the un-good end of the table. They were expected to make an
operating loss of around €611 million. However, they slightly exceeded that,
and it turned out they made a loss of €966 million.
Remember that there are lies, damn lies, and accounting.
Mm-hmm.
And remember that they have also just appointed a new CEO.
Mm-hmm.
And isn't it better for it to be able to easily justify the new CEO and have a nice,
smooth entrance for the CEO to then have got rid of all of the
bad stuff into this third quarter operating loss?
Oh, yes and no.
So that when a new CEO comes in, there's a chance that they're starting from a relatively low bar
– that's a very low bar, €966 million loss – to start from a low bar, and it can only be
better from here on in. He's not having to apologize for what's happened before.
Well, can it?
I'm just talking about the theory here, okay? I'm not saying it will be.
I understand the theory, and it does make sense. However, here, one of the reasons they are
putting down to the fact it is so bad is that Porsche has changed its strategy, particularly
when it comes to EVs, and now they are bringing back some ice stroke hybrid versions of cars that
were going to be electric only. Only 18 months ago, 12 months ago, six months ago, that strategy
has changed. I don't know if it is going to get better. Not anytime soon, because China's not
going to improve. They don't have the new products that people want. There is this massive difference
between what the expectation for the luxury sports car EV market was going to be and what
it actually is. They're not the only ones affected by this. Because of that, the market is not what
was expected, certainly not in the speed that everyone was presuming would happen. I don't
understand how everyone in the industry thought it was going to happen so quickly.
Politicians told them it was going to.
Just trying to walk through, I think possibly there was a bit of the post-lockdown boom
that they thought, oh, because there's so many industries out there, particularly consumer
facing industries, that have thought, well, that sudden outburst of spending, that was sustainable
and was going to carry on forever. Well, no, because at some point, debts have to be paid,
the costs go up, etc. They have gone up for everyone across the world, but the reality is
it's not happening as people hoped or the industry hoped and expected. I don't know
how Porsche get out of this, to be honest, particularly if they're dragged by Volkswagen
stroke. Volkswagen are dragged by Porsche. Untangle that Gordian knot yourself, please.
Steve Clarke I think that how do they get out of it?
I think that the secret is, I think the only way to do it is to, if you really want to get out of
it, and this is not going to be easy, is to do the whole Apple thing when Apple completely,
remember they used to make all these weird computers like the performers and all this stuff,
and they slashed it right back. You had a junior range, essentially, with the iMac was introduced
and you had the Mac Pro was introduced. You had two flavors of laptop and let's say two flavors
of phone nowadays, something like that, where you rationalize it right back. You have,
in Porsche's terms, you have a junior SUV and a senior SUV. You have a junior sports car and a
senior sports car. Turning out little special edition versions of the 911, where as we discussed
last week with Aston Martin, the anti-roll bars are 1.6% stiffer and there's a custom tire profile
and all that stuff. There's a limited market for that and once you pass the influencers,
people will get bored of it and you can't keep on doing that. You can't keep on repainting the
thing. There's only so many times you can do that. I think the Porsche have really been
stretching that fantastically. They've done very well out of that, but I think that there
comes a point where you've just got to stop and go, actually, we're going to focus on
core decent products and then we'll expand again from there and reset. As far as I'm concerned,
that's kind of the way to do it. That's the only way I can think of that would do it.
Robert Leonard, MPH. Yeah, I can understand that because
at the moment, their return on sales in 2024 was 14.1% and this year, so far, it is 0.2%.
That's over 212,509 deliveries. They've got a tough job on their hands. I mean,
obviously, I hope they're successful and I hope they manage to work it out, but
equally, I'm very glad I'm sitting on the outside pointing and making comments rather
than having to make the decisions. It's so much easier than actually doing things.
Yes. Let's move on then. Ford of Europe has a new president. It's been a while since Ford
of Europe had a president, but Jim Baumbach has been assigned that role. Baumbach was previously
the global head of product development and head of advanced product development. He's now in charge
of Ford of Europe. What I'm really hoping from him is some sensible products because, goodness me,
Ford of Europe's product decisions for the last five or six years have been baffling.
It's almost GM-esque. The current capri is just the strangest choice ever on many levels.
Getting rid of the Fiesta, these kinds of things, just very strange decisions indeed.
And hopefully, Ford can work this out. I mean, their product planning is just very, very strange.
It's baffling, isn't it? Good luck to him because he is going to need it.
Right. I'm going to bring us back to Blighty and some more positive news. Hooray. And this
is the news that the UK government is going to invest 15 million into investigating the feasibility
of Toyota's FTME concept becoming a production reality. If you don't know what this is,
think the IQ as a quadricycle, and it is more about mobility. It's that sort of size thing.
We're looking at a two-seater, two-door, small vehicle to move two people around.
Twenty-eight miles an hour, eight horsepower, et cetera, all of the usual
quadricycle stuff that the Citroën AME is under.
Yeah. This is aimed squarely at people living in high-density urban areas as well.
Mm-hmm.
It's that sort of thing. I think that's great. I think that's brilliant because there's the
potential for this to be built in the UK if it is deemed to be doable and that there is a market
for it. And I think that is a good use of tax-paid money because that will come back into the economy.
Yes. In the Autocar article linked in the show notes, one of the powerhouse reads,
the intention is to design and build the FTME at the Toyota Corolla plant in Bernester,
and the University of Derby will conduct research into how it is used by prospective buyers.
That sounds quite interesting. Also interesting is that the head of these Toyota mobility projects
is not unknown to the motoring podcast, Stan Peters, who's been interviewed a couple of times.
The last time was the Igocross because he was in charge of that.
Well, do you want to take us into something that the government's doing that isn't perhaps
as well thought through? Oh, I love how this one landed on me.
So it landed on me so that you can just either sit there and be very, very quiet or just generally
be argumentative because it's the announcement. And this actually happened before last week's
show, but because I had to run away and... Oh, I wish I was running away and hiding.
That last week at the last minute, Andrew decided to not discuss it with himself because that would
just be schizophrenic. Well, I was angry enough after the Cardiff coverage, I didn't need another
thing. All people would have had was just me screaming unintelligibly by then.
I have intentionally not listened to that. Waymo will be introducing its fully self-driving
taxis to UK roads next year. With safety drivers.
As part of a new government-backed pilot scheme that aims to accelerate the launch of driverless
tech in the country. They're going to be using a fleet of specially adapted Jaguar I-PACE,
just like we've all seen in San Francisco and in other cities in the USA, causing traffic chaos.
The cars have already covered more than 100 million miles.
The announcement follows confirmation in June that Uber will begin driverless trials next spring,
which is what Uber really, really wants to do because the last thing it wants to do is actually
pay people. I'm kind of stumped where to go with this because I could keep repeating the rest of
this article, but a few things jump into my mind. In the article, there is the
usual silliness from people who don't know what they're talking about, i.e.
The UK transport minister, Heidi Alexander, clearly doesn't know anything about how the
autonomous vehicle has been developed across the world and doesn't realize, nor do most people,
to be fair, realize how they aren't actually succeeding that much. What they have achieved
so far, yes, that is technologically impressive. However, it is not a self-driving car.
They are not that at all. We're going to have linked in the show notes.
There's a chap I keep talking about whenever any of this comes up, who, if you're on Blue Sky,
you should follow. His name's John Berry. There's going to be a thread, just one example thread,
from the many he posts every day, showing how farcical the idea that Waymo is
succeeding at driverless cars. Can we just chime in quickly, because I want to,
in the interest of balance, that Waymo is the most successful at having done this. It has the best,
the least worst minds. It's the least, well, no, relatively speaking, just I know, I hear you.
It has the best minds. They have thrown billions of dollars at this over the years,
and still, still they don't know to get out of the way of a fire engine, okay?
Or not to run into a telegraph pole.
That wasn't them.
Yeah, it was.
That wasn't Waymo. No, it wasn't. That was the GM one.
That was Waymo, yeah.
Maybe they've all done it. They've probably all done it. Then, what's another good example? Or
not to just sit there and beep at each other in a car park, or that they can drive if there is the
hint of snow?
Well, if you look at the map of where Waymo says it's the operating domain,
it looks really impressive.
Did I not point this out to you?
And then if you drill down and you look at the roads they will actually go on,
there is an enormous difference, to the point where they are costing people money by going a
very long way around, because, and this was a fact, I can't remember whether it was left turns
or right turns they couldn't do for some time, but they would only do the other, because for
whatever software reason, they couldn't manage to make it work.
It is recorded that a human teleoperator, which is an insane idea anyway, but there is a teleoperator
will step in every one and a half to two miles of operation. That's not winning.
On this thread, John Berry goes and explains and shows you with stats and figures exactly
how bad they are compared to a human driver.
Bringing them to London is absolutely insane.
Yeah.
But hopefully that it then means that people will wake up and go, oh,
maybe all the puff pieces and all the promotion was not truthful.
Maybe.
I watched a YouTube video recently and it wasn't a motoring one, but someone had got
a Waymo thing because it was the way to get between one place he had to be in the next
place he had to be.
He got it and he's in it and he went, it just went through a red light.
It just, it just went straight through a red light.
And yeah, that's, that's not completely unusual.
It seems, you know, still, at least it doesn't have a mad max mode.
Right.
Let's move on to something that is actually a good idea and associated with the houses
of parliaments and Lords, which is a shocking thing for us to be saying, actually.
I'm amazed that this is not already in law.
Yeah, no, it's astonishing that it isn't.
However, the Lords have backed an amendment protecting disabled access to EV chargers.
They have voted in favor of amending the planning and infrastructure bill, which would make
charger accessibility standards legally binding.
As Alan says, it is astonishing that this wasn't already in the bill, that this wasn't
already legal.
Just shocking and good on the opposition led peers who table this amendment because the
government declined to accept the proposed changes during the debate.
It just seems like such an easy win as well.
Yeah.
Yeah.
To put something positive out there and say, look, we can see that this would actually
have a good positive effect for people.
And this will help the transition to electric vehicles.
If you know, all members of society could actually get to a charger.
It shocked me.
I was reading this article from evpowered.co.uk and there's a bit further down that says that
crossbench peer and former Paralympic athlete, Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson, she called for
it to be made legally binding and she's delighted that the amendment had been tabled.
And then it says, she described how the lack of accessible charge points had personally
prevented her from switching to an EV.
When I tried several times to move to an electric car, it proved impossible.
There wasn't an accessible charging station within at least 30 miles of my house.
I was told perhaps I should take someone with me wherever I went to charge for me.
Astonishing.
Could you imagine saying that to someone?
Unbelievable.
And I'll say, I just can't believe that this wasn't law already.
This is a good thing.
It is a good thing.
And hopefully the government pay attention and they actually do amend the bill and don't
choose to ignore it.
And there we are, Alan, without getting too furious, we have made it to the end of the
first part.
Wait, wait, was that not too furious?
No, that wasn't too furious.
You seemed quite furious a couple of times there.
I done so much swearing in the week leading up to this.
That does make sense.
Anyway, it's guilt minute.
Quick break in the show where we ask for a tad of financial support, keep the lights
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If you feel the motion podcast is worth a small consideration every month, then you
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Different levels of patron include different levels of commitment from us to you, including
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We are human after all.
Yes.
No AI used here.
That's for sure.
No AI used here.
AI would have less demanding families, I think.
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Now, if you don't have any spare cash, we do completely understand that you can help
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Thank you to everyone who's following us on YouTube these days.
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Thank you.
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And of course, listening to the show via YouTube podcast is actually very good.
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That would be a great way to listen.
Catch up on all your favorite happy motoring news.
Thanks, everyone.
New new car news, Alan, and let's see if you can start us off and get us excited about
a Chinese SUV.
Yes, it's March of the bland, pear-shaped Chinese SUVs this week.
Yay.
First one to titivate our eyes, ears, and excite our feelings is Geely.
We all know Geely.
Geely owns Volvo, Lotus, Polestar, LEVC, and many other brands that aren't sold in the UK.
It also owns a significant chunk of Mercedes Benz.
What they're launching in the UK is the first car under their branding is the EX5.
It is a 4.6 meter long electric SUV positioned as a value alternative to the Skoda Enyaq,
Ford Explorer, and Tesla Model Y.
Yes, that's very much their tactic, isn't it, is value for money.
Yes.
I don't want to say budget.
You're right.
Value for money is correct, Tony.
It's value for money.
And also, because they're from China, they're not eligible for the electric car grant.
However, they're choosing to do their own version of that.
And my word, the money off is quite something.
Yeah.
Straight out the gate.
It is.
It's £2,300 off the entry-level car, £3,200 off the mid-range variant, £3,750
off the range topper, which matches the government's maximum.
There's also about £1,000 part exchange allowance, similar to a scrappage scheme
in inverted commas, on any petrol or diesel car, meaning that you can get £4,750 off the
range topping EX5 Max.
That's not bad, given the EX5 Max comes in at £36,990 is the list price.
It's taking essentially a seventh of the price off.
The entry-level SE is £31,990.
Despite my joking and whinging just there, it's a perfectly reasonable looking vehicle
with hints of bushikian.
It's the typical design by AI to not be offensive.
It offends nobody, but it excites nobody either.
Yes, exactly.
That's the downside of all these.
I mean, all three we're going to talk about, to be honest, is there's no excitement by them.
You have to really dig into some other element of the vehicle in this point.
It's the price as well as what is being offered in terms of technology
and that sort of thing to get someone really into it.
I think there's a problem here because this article from AutoCar talks about
how Geely plans to have 10 electrified models in the UK by 2030, etc., etc.
But it's another Chinese brand.
How many people are going to know or care about them?
But it's like choosing a Beko dishwasher or something.
Yeah, that's where we're at.
Pricing features.
And that's exactly it.
There is an interesting part in this AutoCar story, though,
about the fact that they were originally going to be branded as LEVC,
London Electric Vehicle Company.
So same people that make taxis will say branding as the taxis.
Focus groups didn't like that.
They didn't want taxi branded cars.
Hence, they decided to use to launch them as Geely instead.
Interesting.
Do you want to tell us about the Cheery Tiggo 9?
It's a cheery little car.
It's a big car.
The re-badged Mitsubishi Outlander.
It's not a re-badged Mitsubishi Outlander.
You said that earlier on and I believed you.
It's astonishingly similar in looks to the old Mitsubishi Outlander.
However, this is a 422 brake horsepower, seven seat plug-in hybrid,
which will offer an actually frankly astonishing 91 mile EV range,
all for just a smidgen over £43,000.
Uh, it's slightly bigger than the Tiggo 7.
Wait, that means nothing.
Sorry, slightly bigger than the Tiggo 8, which is a five seater, I believe.
And it's going to come with a 1.5 litre turbo petrol engine,
and it's going to be mated up to the Cheery super hybrid drivetrain.
It's got a good name.
Yeah, okay.
Quite why anyone needs 422 brake horsepower and 428 pound foot of torque
to give a 0 to 62 mile an hour time in 5.4 seconds when you're hauling your family around.
I am not so sure unless you wish to explore at what speed your family throw up.
I don't know.
I wonder if it tows.
Sorry, it's just it keeps being mentioned here that it's shown as a
against the Volkswagen Tyron and the Kia Sorento.
And they're both vehicles with particularly decent towing ability.
Well, in the back of the middle of the, just below the bumper in the black bit,
there's a section that's sort of semi cut out where...
It's hard to tell because the press photos to disguise that it's
really not an attractive vehicle.
The press photos are all in the flipping dark.
But it does look like that's where something could go.
You could imagine a tow bar poking up there.
Yeah.
I would be very interested.
I'm interested to know what the towing capacities are
because then the power and stuff starts to make a bit more sense.
Yeah.
Yeah.
If it's towing, then I can, yes, I can understand it then.
And joking apart, again, the Mitsubishi Outlander, it could tow a reasonable amount.
People liked it because they had a hybrid and they could use it to tow caravans.
Yeah.
It's like 1.6 ton or something, wasn't it?
Something like that.
Wasn't as big as the others that we're talking about.
But 91 miles of electric only is frankly astonishing because the Golf e-hybrids,
the next closest to that, and that was...
And I'm really dragging the depths of my memory here.
I think it was 70-ish miles.
To put another 20 miles onto what...
To nearly get 100 miles in a plug-in hybrid of electric only, that's a brilliant bit of
powertrain technology and would cover so many people for so much of their driving needs
on a day-to-day basis.
I like that bit a lot.
The looks, whatever.
And I hope you don't miss buttons when it comes to the interior,
particularly with the enormous touchscreen.
I'm sorry, I'm scrolling like a moron again to try to find some numbers that aren't just
talk and stuff.
No, I can't find it straight.
Well, anyway, do you want to take us on to BYD then?
Yes.
The BYD ATTO II DM-i Super Hybrid is to launch on a pose with a 633-mile range.
Again, this is a plug-in hybrid version of the already existing ATTO II.
It'll come on sale in the first quarter of 2026,
and it will be the only compact or...
I don't know.
This seems like a bit of a wide claim.
The only compact SUV plug-in hybrid electric vehicle available in the UK market.
That's quite niched down, isn't it?
It is quite niched.
What's compact?
I'm trying to work out what compact is.
Yeah, I think that's...
Is it C?
I think it's C.
Must be C.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
It's a bit bigger than a Puma, isn't it?
So it's looking at that.
Escape.
Escape.
It's branded escape here, isn't it?
What's the one that's bigger?
The Cougar.
Yes.
I'm sorry.
I'm so American these days.
So bilingual when it comes to cars, you see.
I am.
It's quite worrying.
Combined with the petrol engine and the electric, then you get your 1,020 kilometers or 634 miles.
The idea of it is that this drivetrain is going to maximize efficiency on longer journeys,
and can switch through different drive modes depending on the environment.
From the outside, you can't really tell the difference between the super hybrid
and the fully electric version.
But the only difference is that the Fairfax has a slightly larger grille
and a couple of tweaks to the front bumper.
No pricing has been confirmed as yet.
The electric only at O2 is priced from 30,850 pounds.
Again, it's not on my long list.
I mean, it's not offensive, but like both the others, it neither entices me either.
If you bought one, I wouldn't really judge you other than thinking
you're maybe a little bit of a skinflint.
I'm just not into used.
I mean, we're talking about it, and that's cool.
I'm more interested in talking about the Honda period next week.
I've at least got opinions on the Honda period.
I'm going to move us on to a designer's mood board is back up, and it is that
Alexandre Malveaux has been appointed as the vice president at Renault.
This follows the news that Gilles Vidal had left the Renault Group,
and now that Malveaux will take over on the 2nd of January.
He comes over from being the CEO and design director of Mercedes-Benz
International Design Center Europe that was based in France.
Soapy.
Anyway, let's move on to more positive and happy stuff.
Yes, let's talk about some really cool car design.
Driven to write, which I really love whenever you include stuff from driven to write.
It'd be very easy to put something every week, and I try not to do that
because there's so much good stuff, and it's so varied.
They have some great writers on there.
Well, that's it.
And this is again, this one's a Patrick Lecomte.
I'm just going to say story.
It's not a story piece, I think, which is Ladies beyond the myth chapter one.
This is only the first part of it, and it's all about Citroën DS and the ID,
and then how he feels that the DS is just generally better, and the Citroën.
It's just really interesting.
Just read it.
Yep.
It's about Flaminio Bertone, who is the designer and stylist of the DS.
It's about Citroën-y cars being like Citroëns as a result of that.
It's about lots of things, and it's great.
I can't wait to read part two, which is really interesting.
A good way to spend 10 to 15 minutes of your time.
Please do go to the link on the show notes, go straight to driven to write,
and have a read of it.
Fantastic stuff.
Really good.
And as ever, the photographs are amazing.
Yeah.
Yeah, they are.
They're wonderful.
Okay.
I'm going to take us on to the list of the week, and it's from Autocar.
It's a slideshow, and it's titled,
Same Car, Different Names, The Most Rebadged Cars.
There are 37 slides.
There are some familiar names.
Well, faces.
Some names, and then new names associated with those faces.
Alan, out of all of these, what slide do we need to turn to?
There are so many, and I've changed my mind, and I've not reached it.
Yes, I'm just going to go with it.
What the heck?
I'm going for slide 36 out of 37.
Okay.
Hang on.
What's that then?
That one.
I'm only choosing this one, because the other one I was going to choose isn't there.
I'm choosing the Isuzu Trooper, which was sold under...
Because there's a lot in here where it's like a BMC, British Leyland, British Motor Company
thing, where it's like sold as Norton and Morris, and they're all essentially the same,
and they're all from part of the same group anyway.
But what I like about the Trooper is that it was sold under 11 different names.
All around the world, but all from different brands.
You've got the Isuzu Trooper, and then you've got the Vauxhall Monterey, as we know,
as well as the Opel version, the Holden Jackaroo, Holden Monterey as well.
And yet, well, okay, because those are all sort of Chevrolet Trooper.
Those are all sort of General Motors, and that's fine.
And then you realize it was sold in the US as an Acura SLX, and the Honda Horizon.
So it was sold as a Honda as well.
And then it was sold under as a Sanju 39, Isuzu Trooper in China.
Just loads of stuff all over the world, and very, very varied.
And I've owned most of the different styles of alloy wheels that are shown in the
illustrated picture, because they fit into my vehicles.
The one I really wanted to choose, by the way, was the, what we know as the Vauxhall
Frontera, which was just as mad, if not actually, I think it was probably sold as more things,
more variants, but it's not included in this list, sadly.
What about you, Andrew?
What have you chosen?
Now, I've waxed lyrical about the Isuzu Trooper twice, so I wasn't going to choose it.
There's two that I really like, but I'm going to plump for slide 30, and that is the Holden
Monaro, which we knew as the Vauxhall Monaro, and the VXR8 later in the UK.
That was it.
But it was also out as a Pontiac GTO, the Pontiac G8, the Chevrolet Lumina, the Caprice,
and the SS.
Yeah.
But it's such a mad car.
Anyway.
That was, I mean, all the badges they've included there, by the way, include saloon
versions as well as coupe versions.
Yeah.
It's cool.
But I nearly picked slide 12.
I didn't, but I nearly did, just because it's such a cool car.
Hang on.
I have to click a lot to get to 12.
I know.
So do I.
But no, the Monaro and GTO and stuff was one that I considered.
Yes.
What was it?
12.
12.
Oh, right.
Okay.
Yes.
Slide 12.
If you want to know what slide 12 is, go look at the list yourself.
Yes.
You'll never believe it.
Yes.
I always forget that it was sold by that other brand as well.
Yeah.
I had no idea.
Do you want to take us on to the And Finally then?
Yes.
This time, this week's And Finally is a money grovel, but not for us.
Friend of mine, Jim McGill and his mate Sean, they have the Also Driven channel on YouTube
and you will know them.
And they are doing something which they call in the cannoli run.
Although when you watch this video, the pronunciation goes everywhere, Jim.
Yeah.
Oh, God.
No, it does.
It does.
He'll have a fight with you over that.
No, he won't.
No, he won't.
Because at the end, he actually says that himself.
Stay for the bloopers.
But essentially, a few months ago, they bought a Fiat 500 and they bought it from a very nice
lady called Liz.
However, the 500 had belonged to her daughter who had died quite suddenly.
So they bought the car.
They promised that they were going to do some kind of charity event with it to raise money
for mind and mental health charity.
And so it's taken a few months, partly to bring the 500 back up to scratch again.
And Sean's done a stack of work on it.
But what they're off to do is they're doing, say, the cannoli run.
So they're going to meet up in Turin in the 500 with someone who we also mention on the
podcast a lot, Matteo Licata.
He's going to share a traditional local recipe.
That'll be the heart of the challenge.
They're going to source all the ingredients, as many of the ingredients as they can locally,
try and find them, get in the Fiat and drive back overnight to Cambridgeshire to then cook
the perfect Italian dinner for a group of East Anglian car community folk.
So they're trying to use that to raise money if you want to help, if you want to support
Mind as a result of that, then you can, the link is in the YouTube video.
Jim goes on to explain in more detail all about how it works and everything in vid.
So please have a click, have a watch of it.
And then the outcome of it all will actually be on Sean's Morsels and Motors channel because
it'll be more foodie than car-y fixie.
Really?
Yes.
I mean, they've already hit and surpassed and quadrupled the target.
No, they haven't.
They've doubled the target.
I can't do maths.
That more than doubled the target, but that doesn't mean to stop.
So if you can spare a penny or two, have a watch of the video.
There's more explanation in there.
Spare a penny or two for a very good charity.
Yep.
Good luck, Jim.
Sure.
Yes.
You'll need it.
No, you won't.
You'll be just fine.
That's kind of it for this week, I think.
I don't think there's anything else.
No perish notes?
No.
No, no patrons.
I'm sorry.
I will.
You will get a link to this recording.
Sorry about that.
But otherwise, don't forget between now and next week, you can give us any feedback and
share your thoughts for the show at motoringpodcast.com, on BlueSky, at MotoringPodcast 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 and rating
on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, or however your podcast app lets you do so.
Andrew, what's the best way to get in touch with you at the bottom of your dark cave,
cut off from humanity?
Yes.
If you paint on the side of the wall, I'll pick it up there.
However, if you would like to use something a smidgen more modern, you can try BlueSky.
If you search for crack windscreen, you'll find me there.
And if you prefer LinkedIn as your platform of choice, I am on there under my full name.
And Alan, if people would like to get in touch with you personally, what's the best way for
them to do that?
BlueSky is definitely the best way to get in touch with me, where I'm at AJPBradley,
that's B-I-A-D-L-E-Y dot B-Sky dot social.
If you are on LinkedIn, by the way, don't forget to turn off the, we can use all your
stuff for AI learnings setting very soon.
Okay.
That is our information security guidance of the week.
We'll be back very soon.
Until then, I've been Alan Bradley.
I've been Andrew Cluze.
And safe motoring.
About this episode
The latest episode of The Motoring Podcast dives into pressing automotive news, including the impact of a cyber attack on JLR and its estimated £2 billion cost to the UK. Discussions also cover the complexities of semiconductor supply chains affecting major manufacturers like Volkswagen, and Porsche's staggering financial losses. The hosts explore new developments, such as Ford's leadership changes in Europe and the UK government's investment in Toyota's innovative mobility project. Additionally, they touch on the introduction of driverless taxis in the UK and the importance of accessible EV chargers for disabled drivers.
Professor David Bailey has written up a piece on Blogs from the Blackstuff following a report from the Cyber Monitoring Centre (CMC), which outlines the cost of the JLR shutdown and it is large. The estimated cost is in the region of £1.9 billion but could be as high as £2.1 billion. Over 5,000 businesses were affected. The CMC hopes businesses, the Government and insurers to learn lessons. To read more, click this article link here.
NEW CHIP CRISIS LOOMING
Another week and another example of how crucial China is to making things. This time there is a spat between Dutch and the Chinese Governments over the chip maker Nexperia after the Chinese CEO was removed and the European country took control of the company. They supply a lot of the car industry, particularly the electric car making segment. China has restricted exports of their chips, which means the company cannot guarantee reliable supply. For more on this story, click this link to an electrive article here.
PORSCHE PROFITS PLUMMET AGAIN
Porsche has released their financial results for the last quarter and they are, once again, poor. They had an operating loss of €966 million, with return on sales for the year dropping to just 0.2% after being 14.1% the year before. Click this Piston Heads article link here, for more.
FORD EUROPE FINDS A NEW BOSS
Ford Europe are to get a new president, Jim Baumbick, who moves from global head of product development and head of advanced product development. He takes the reigns on 1 November 2025. The role has been vacant for some time. If you want to read more, click this electrive article link here.
UK GOVERNMENT HELP TOYOTA BUILD A CAR
Toyota is receiving £15 million investment from the UK Government to explore the feasibility of bringing their FT-Me Concept to market. Think IQ size and it being a quadracycle, with the idea of it being used in high density urban areas. You can find out more, by clicking this Autocar article link here.
WAYMO SELF-DRIVING CARS TO TEST IN LONDON
Waymo is bringing some of their autonomous vehicles to London, to take part in a Government backed trial. They will join Uber, in the spring. For more on this story, click this Autocar link.
For some context, here is a link to a Bluesky thread that demonstrates had bad Waymo is at autonomous driving (and it is the least worst at it!).
LORDS PUSH FOR ACCESSIBILITY AT EV CHARGERS
The House of Lords has backed an amendment to the Planning and Infrastructure Bill, that would make accessibility standards legally binding for EV chargers if approved in the House of Commons. Click this link from EV Powered to read more.
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