Virtuous triangle - 4 November 2025

Welcome to the Motoring Podcast, your weekly discussion of motoring news. This is episode

656 on Tuesday, the 4th of November, 2025. Hello, I'm Alan.

Hello, I'm Andrew. And this week, you'll hear some sad, some bad, and some mad stories.

In your new car news, you'll listen to us hash through the details of one car. And in

points of interest, you'll learn how fascinating a shelf can be. But first, we leap into some

follow-up. Back in August, we said, confidently, but wrongly, that Matt Windle was leaving

Lotus Cars as CEO. However, this week, he has announced that he is officially leaving

Lotus Cars as CEO. What happened back in August, if you remember, is that the company announced

it was going to be letting go a large portion of the workforce. He then went on a, what

is quoted in this Evo article linked in the show notes, a leave of absence for personal

reasons. He'd been with the company for eight and a half years. And then on his statement

on LinkedIn, he said, after a period of reflection and contemplation, I have taken the difficult

decisions to step down from my roles at Lotus. Well, I mean, it feels worse the second time

around, I have to say.

It does. There's a very good article that accompanies this from Evo, but it's by Stuart

Gallagher and Ethan Jupp. And it sort of outlines the situation at Lotus at the moment. If you

want to buy a new Lotus, now is probably quite a good time to do it. Do click through the

link in the show notes to go to the Evo article. It's very interesting, covers much more than

just Matt Wendell leaving and gives an outline of the situation as it's understood.

Yeah. It's not a happy article, but it's very, very good.

No, hopefully my tone has already sort of tried that, but you know, there's a limit

to how many, how much they're all going to die type of misery about car manufacturers

I'm prepared to include in a single episode.

Well talking of which, do you want to move on to Volkswagen now?

Hey, Volkswagen, everyone. Have you guessed what the theme is going to be? Don't worry,

it brightens up in a bit.

Yep.

Volkswagen has announced that it's going to continue its strong cuts amid an unsustainable

profits drop, according to the article in Autocar that's linked in the show notes.

The 8% drop in profits down to 5.4 billion euros for first nine months of 2025. Usual

reasons apply and we're going to see those apply a couple of times today. The first one

of course is that the Chinese market is just not what everybody planned on the Chinese

market being because the Chinese manufacturers have decided that actually they're going to

really up their game incredibly quickly and sort of squeeze out the Europeans. And also

the fact that tariffs for European cars in the US went from two and a half percent import

duty to 25% import duty.

And because there is just no way that the vast majority of American consumers are going

to stump up an extra 25% for a Volkswagen, a Porsche, an Audi. Then in this case, Volkswagen

amongst all the others are having to suck up most of that increase. I don't know if

anybody's noticed, but they've been being quite creative about it. One of the new ways

of doing it is to, well it's to do with the way that of course American new car, or any

American car prices are listed in that it's before tax registration, shipping, et cetera,

et cetera, et cetera. As opposed to the approach that has to be taken in Europe and the UK

because of legislation and customers, which is on the road prices. So there's a big difference.

What they're doing is they're sneaking another couple of thousand dollars into the old destination

charges. And that's a way to just claw back a little bit more whilst not changing the list

price that much. I mean, they can sneak that up, but the extra BS that gets tacked on once

you've agreed to purchase a car in the US is quite spectacular. And one of the ways to try and

disguise some of this tariff cost is to sneak it in there. But as it is, most of the manufacturers

are having to basically eat it themselves because there's no way that the American consumer is

going to do so and they need to sell something. So yeah, VW, not great. They're saying they're

going to do more parts sharing. There was a fantastic piece here of buzzword bingo from the

new CFO, Arno Antlitz. Many, many things he said, but he's saying that we must stay fully focused

on driving our strategic initiatives, improving the cost base, the full force, and to continue

our initiatives to reduce complexity and increase execution speed. Okay then, I'm pretty good at

that kind of corporate BS and this one is hitting me hard. Reducing complexity and increasing

execution speed, that to me means more parts sharing. How on earth they can do much more

parts sharing in Volkswagen, I don't know, unless we're going to see Polo door handles on a Macan.

But even then, I could actually believe that most of our Polo door handles are already used

on a Macan. So I'm at a loss just where they're going to find that. But there we go. I mean,

Porsche and Carrier have been two of the big areas of business where costs will be reduced, it says.

Rob Keeley Yeah, it's not all bad news because

Skoda has gone up with their sales and also the number of EVs they sold has gone up, which

obviously, each year now moving forward, this will happen for every car company that is beginning

to sell EVs or has started selling EVs, as the wider public are more accepting and understanding

of electric vehicles and the infrastructure allows for it.

Steve McLaughlin Absolutely. Next up,

Mercedes-Benz, which is more of the same, really. We could just repeat ourselves, but just say

Mercedes-Benz instead. Rob Keeley

It is pretty much identicate except for the fact that the profit plunge is not as bad as

analysts were expecting. They fell by 30.8% and they managed to make 1.19 billion in the last

quarter because the Volkswagen Group financials were for the last nine months. This is just for

the last quarter. That's why there's such a difference in figures. 1.19 billion euros

because analysts expected them to only make 1.09 billion euros. Well done, but Mercedes say

that is exactly on track with what we changed our full year guidance following as soon as Donald

Trump said there is now tariffs. They changed their projected outcomes and they seem to be

hitting it, which the stock market seemed to accept because their share price has pretty much

just gone slightly up but just stayed static whereas others have dropped when news like this

comes out. I think it's expectations are being met so therefore people are a bit more relaxed

about it. It's when something surprises them in a bad way that it causes the jitters.

Steve McLaughlin Exactly. I don't always

understand how stock markets work. Rob Keeley

I mean, it's a game. Steve McLaughlin

It is a game. It is a game. Rob Keeley

Anyway, talking of stock markets. Steve McLaughlin

Yes, speaking of stock markets and shares, Polestar is listed on the NASDAQ, which is a

technology stock market, and it might not be listed on NASDAQ for very much longer. One of

the rules is that stocks and shares on that particular index have to remain over a dollar

per share. Polestar is not. Since September, it's actually been under. It's been near record lows

and shares currently are standing at around the $0.84 mark. If that continues, then they're going

to be forced to leave that particular stock market. It's mostly been a tale of dropping

shares really, as is the way. I mean, Polestar has a couple of challenges, one of which is that it's

seen very much as a bit of a dressed up Volvo, which it kind of is. The other one is that it's

just a car where, as opposed to, let's say, Tesla, where it's a cult around the one person,

but it's also Tesla, at least, even if you get rid of some stuff, there's still good stuff of

value in Tesla beside the cars. There's the charging infrastructure. I've just realized

where I've got to. There's the charging infrastructure, which, to be honest,

to me, would be more valuable than the cars. But you notice it's the unsexy bit,

so it's left alone, so it can actually just work most of the time, it seems.

But no, Polestar having a really tough time of it, as I say, I don't know. It seemed a good

idea to list them, I think, a few years ago when they were new and fresh and look at the technology,

but then the world hasn't moved on that much. There's nothing else to go along with it. It

was probably a pretty good publicity gimmick at the time.

Robert Leonard But luxury and premium EVs were

seen as such a positive thing because the West had got off its backside and started to pay them

attention and realize that they were going to be a thing. But the reality has turned out, like we

were talking last week, the reality of the market has turned out to be very different from what

people want, stroke, can afford. Robert Leonard

And again, intended growth in the US, absolutely stymied by the Trump administration as well.

Mm hmm. Let us move on to something more positive and negative.

Yes, happier news. And this is the news that the British startup Advanced Electric Machines

has entered a partnership stroke deal with a major automotive supplier who is not named,

but is definitely a tier one supplier for development of their electric motors that,

and this is the key bit, do not use rare earths to make their motors work and apparently work

better than the ones that do have the rare earths, allegedly. This is the company themselves saying

that last bit, so I can either confirm or deny that in any way. But this is brilliant because

this is showing how, and this is something we always knew and have always known, is we are

very good in this country at developing things and coming up with new things. The key bit is

to then make them viable businesses and not have them bought and removed from the country.

Yes. Well, this is really good news for AM as well because they have had a pretty rocky

time the last couple of years. One of the reasons is that one of its main customers

was the Teva Electric Trucks, which went down due to the battery manufacturer going down.

It's that knock-on effect of supply chain. Lost that through no fault of their own.

There's been some other bits and pieces. It seems a real shame that it's taken

the US president having a hissy fit and then the Chinese president reacting to make a British

company who's innovating very well actually be taken seriously. But the good news is that that

does seem to be happening. I really hope that this works out well for them. One thing I learned

from this story, it says a link to a story on Electrive. One of the things I learned is that

BMW, it uses rare earth free electric motors as well. I think they developed, I've got this funny

feeling, there's something weird. Separately excited synchronous motors are also free of

permanent magnets and rare earths, but they do still use copper. AM is trying to get rid of

copper. I learned something new about BMW electric motors. Very good.

Well, do you want to take us off to France? I would love to. Specifically, we would be going

to a small section of the A10 motorway just south of Paris. This is another go at inductive

charging testing. The consortium led by Vinci Autoroute, which is obviously one of the French

motorway companies, is trying to test inductive charging of electric vehicles whilst driving.

At the start of the new year, they're going to install the necessary coils.

These are going to transmit 200 kilowatts of continuous power of 300 kilowatts of peak power

to suitably equipped vehicles. It's going to be one and a half kilometers long,

situated near the town of Angerville, near Paris. As we said, we're going to see just

what happens there. This is an interesting way of being able to boost range of EVs,

probably most likely commercial vehicles, meaning that they don't need such large battery packs,

which in turn means that they can, of course, carry more because you're reducing the unladen

weight. Well, the same for the test that a lorry, a van, a car, and a coach have been

equipped with the receiver coil. We'll get the data on it. We'll find out which benefits the

most from it. Those numbers for the battery were under optimal conditions. I guess part of this is

what happens when conditions aren't optimal, when it's a bit wet, when it's baking hot, for example.

What we'll see, I think this is interesting. It's important that they do this.

Yeah. There's a similar project in Germany, and it's being prepared on the A6 motorway in the

upper Palatinate. I have no idea where that is. It's in Germany.

Yeah. That's as good as my geography gets.

It's near Amberg West and Susbach Rosenberg, and it's just under a kilometer long.

They'll be testing stuff in the second part of next year.

Right. I'm going to stick with France. This is something that when we covered the first time

the French government did it, we thought was an excellent idea. That is their social leasing

scheme where if you meet the criteria, and this is aimed at lower income households,

then you can get a subsidized electric vehicle, which is backed by the French government, which

enables people to get to work and get around their lives much easier, but with an electric vehicle

which helps clean up the national fleet that much quicker. As we said, so far it's been open for

four weeks. They're at 41,500 applications, or it was at the time of this article was

published on Electrive. It could well have passed 50,000, which is the limit for when

they're going to cut it off. It's going to be 50,000 plus a waiting list because it's

inevitable some will drop out. There's a linked article from Electrive again, and the final

paragraph is really interesting because it explains the sort of rough outline of how you

can become eligible. Eligible households must include at least one working person and have a

reference tax income of less than 16,300 euros per person. I don't know what a reference tax

income is. It sounds incredibly French. They must also commute at least 15 kilometers to work by car

or drive at least 8,000 kilometers a year for professional purposes. The reference tax income

is a specific calculation method. There we go. It also takes into account household dependents

such as children, and the program primarily targets part-time workers and single parents.

Rupert Murdoch

This is what we should have done over here. We should have done something similar over here

rather than how the electric car grant has been set up. If they were so hell-bent on new vehicles

and not other things the government could have done, it seems like a no-brainer. They had the

example over the channel, but it's just so frustrating.

Neil Milliken

But there's about 30 different models available under the scheme, and they start from things

like the Citroën EC3, the Fiat Panda, and the Hyundai Insta. Those are just under 100 euros

a month to lease. Volkswagen has the ID3 and ID4, and it's a mid-100 point. Renault is offering the

Renault 5 from 120 and the Renault 4 from 155 euros, as well as the Megane E-Tech for 195 euros

a month to give you an idea of the sort of prices they're talking about. There's a lot of support

being given by the French government to achieve those rates.

Rupert Murdoch

Yeah, great idea.

Neil Milliken

But also, for the manufacturers, it gets their EVs out there being driven,

being seen on the road, and then it should give them a decent supply of nearly new ones.

Rupert Murdoch

Yeah, and then on top of that, because people are able to work,

the tax income is good for the government. It's just...

Neil Milliken

Yeah, absolutely. I don't know what the opposite of a vicious circle is.

Rupert Murdoch

Yes, virtuous.

Neil Milliken

It's a virtuous triangle or something. I don't know. Oh no, I've just given him a show title.

Oh, dear me. Anyway, moving on from that.

Rupert Murdoch

Yes.

Neil Milliken

Speaking of EVs and EV drivers, Andrew, you've been delving deep into the Ipsos

Department for Transport EV driver tracker report on the first year's worth of findings.

Brace yourselves, folks.

Rupert Murdoch

The government wanted to find out exactly what is happening out in the real world.

How are EV drivers going about and meeting their daily needs in terms of the cars,

the charging, what travel do they actually do, all these sort of things.

They paid for this research to be done, and this is the first year that we've got any data back.

So hopefully, this continues on and on for a significant period of time so we can build on this.

But the aim of the research was to understand EV driving patterns. I'm reading from the

linked PDF that will be in the show notes, which I do recommend you read

because there's some really compelling information there.

Also exploring charging behaviors and experiences both at home and at public

charge points, which is important. Identify barriers and enablers to EV usage among

current EV drivers and provide evidence of the impact of recent public charge point regulations.

Now, I must make clear here that for this, they are saying an EV driver is both

the battery electric vehicle and the plug-in hybrid vehicle driver.

They have managed to muddy the waters of what we all

would think would be an EV driver would be a battery electric vehicle driver.

It's worth saying the sample size as well. So it's 1,007 drivers,

698 were battery electric vehicles, 309 were plug-in hybrids.

As well, quotas were set on age, gender, and region to make it nationally representative.

But we don't know what brands, we don't know what models.

No, we don't know.

Because that can have an impact on some of the attitudes and things as well, I'm sure.

Of the 1,070, we're invited to take part in an online diary between the 21st of November

and the 4th of December. This is in 2024. 77 took them up on the two-week period.

Some of this information is coming from those 77, but they feel that that number

is large enough to give a representation across the country. Because they have picked across

regions, they've picked across genders, incomes, age groups, all sorts of stuff.

They have tried to make it as wide a mix as possible.

Not wishing to inflame you in any way, shape, or form,

is it fair to say that it's worth pointing out that obviously all of this was in the past?

Yes, it's a year old.

Maybe the recent past, but essentially, the numbers from that kind of stuff are a year old

already.

Yeah.

Okay.

Just through the nature of this, I don't understand why it came out in August.

So they had from December to August to get this sorted.

Okay.

I'm late to bring in this, but it's not made it into several shows because we've had other

stuff that was in and plus I've talked about other reports and didn't want to

make you all wish to switch off the show.

We can only have one of these angry reports per show.

Well, I'm not actually angry with it. I just think it's very enlightening because

what it turns out is most people who took part in the survey have access to off-street parking.

You can go in and find out the actual percentages yourself if you want to.

And most who drove their EV did it only once a week with three in 10 driving daily.

Now the median battery electric vehicle journey was 11 miles.

For the FEV, it's 10 miles.

I don't, I mean.

You know what we've been talking about recently about how public charging

networks cost a lot, but they are struggling to make any money because of

the absurd in increasing charges they face themselves, et cetera.

But if people are not really using them anyway, it makes it trebly hard.

Yeah.

And as I said at the time, the challenge is though,

and it's borne out by reading through this survey in this report,

is that when they do have to use a public charger, they darn well want it to work.

Yes, absolutely.

Because when it comes to satisfaction with public charger availability,

only 52% of EV drivers are satisfied.

So 48 are really not happy.

I think I fall into the 48.

You are, yes.

I think I am the 48.

I get that angry.

Somebody's had some press cars recently.

They may or may not have been electric.

Yes.

And unlike the one of us who can't get hold of press cars because of where I live,

one of us has loads and loads of public charging nearby, and one of us doesn't.

You can imagine which way around that is.

It's a very nurturing podcast.

Without my choice, I have, I think, 30.

Within, if you put a three-mile circle around me, I have 30, 40 public chargers,

and that's not including the two different sites of Tesla ones that I have.

This is part of why I wanted to bring this up, is because we keep being told that,

oh, we've got 75,000 public chargers.

But are they the right ones in the right place?

Do they work consistently?

Are they for the needs of what people have now,

let alone how it's going to move as we move away?

Because there's such a, like I said, most have access to off-street parking,

which absolutely makes the narrative and the discussion

about EVs and how people just go, well, you should just get an EV,

understandable.

It's because they don't have the barriers that others do.

They don't have the problem, which is going to be increasingly more of the norm

as we move away from those who can home charge, have, or will very quickly.

We're now moving into the people who haven't moved to an EV because they know they can't

charge at home, and they know it's a bit of a faff and tricky, which is what makes these

moves to have on-street charging

for people who don't have home charging capabilities really, really important

for what the government's doing and the initiatives of maybe the pavement gullies,

although I'm not convinced by them, or using lamp posts or converting those BT boxes

that we hoped that would happen but aren't now.

Going back into the figures, they're saying for the average number of chargers,

it was four over a two-week period, and if most of them are charging at home,

again, compounds that or underlines that it's so difficult for the public charging network

to make this a viable business.

Only 9% of battery electric vehicle drivers are totally reliant on the public charging network,

and interestingly, in the data, they say at work or school is a public available charger.

So they're not talking just about on-street parkers or the hubs or at the supermarket.

They're talking specifically work as well. That's been dragged in.

This last stat I'm going to mention is, I think, fascinating and something that needs to be dug

into, but 78% of EV owners will go for another EV. That means 22% won't. We've always been told

it's something between 90% and 100% whenever you see these loud proclamations from fully charged

and zap map and this sort of stuff. They go, oh, no, all these people will get another one,

and again, you realize that whether intended or not, it is a biased position that that

information is coming from. This isn't a biased position. This is the government has asked people

or got Ipsos to ask people, and they are relaying what we have to presume is the truth. Of the

78% who say they will go new, only 50% say that they will go for a battery electric vehicle.

That's astonishingly low compared to what we have been told previously with 28% as fair.

I wonder if there's an all things being equal, etc., etc. type thing in there.

There's like 4% people said they weren't looking to get a new car at all anyway,

so that was in part of that detail. Like I say, they really list every question and

how it was broken down to if you wish to go through all the pages.

There are some lovely pie charts.

I think it's really well written. I think it's really clear. It's excellent. Even though some

of the reporting I saw on it, well not reporting but people commenting on this, chose very

carefully the information they wished to project. I don't want to come across as though I'm being

anti-EV by the way that I've gone through this because I'm not anti-EV. I think anyone who's

listened to this show for any length of time knows I'm not. However, I think it's really

important we pay attention to this data if we are going to enable the switch to zero emissions

as efficiently, as cost effectively, and as best meets the needs of people who are having to make

that transition. Because if we don't use this information and we are using fantasy information

that is much more positive and much more weighted in favour of something as though it's a given,

we can see from that it's not for everyone. This is people who have electrified vehicles saying,

look, there's problems and we need to address them. Otherwise, we're just going to compound

that. Then when you do get people who switch across who aren't as well informed, who don't

know, they're just going to reject it quickly and make a big stink. That makes it harder for people

behind that. I just think we have to grow up and be adult about this and we haven't been.

One hasn't been. Yes. If you do have doubts about the questions, by the way, I just vaguely

aired one there roughly, which was silly of me. There are copies of the whole questionnaire,

plus what you've got to have answered to show what comes next, etc. It's like the whole thing

are included in this document. It feels as transparent as it can be.

I think it's such a valuable piece of information for us. We can do so much

positive stuff with this if we take it on board and we accept it and we use it in the right manner.

What I'm really looking forward to is seeing the year one versus year two.

Yeah, absolutely. I think that is going to be so important.

I think we'll see huge changes as well.

Professor Robert Winston will come along and introduce it 20 years later type of thing.

But no, I think that the single one is good and it's important and it's interesting, but I think

that attitudes and time… Trends.

Yes, I suppose so. Yes, you're right. Yes, trends is a much neater way of saying that.

But I think trends over time is probably even more valuable because I'm interested to see

if satisfaction… That's a year old. So I'm interested to see if satisfaction with public

charging increases, with satisfaction with the vehicles increases. It's a bit of a shame that

it's not the case that everyone has the same view. Yeah, that would be interesting.

Because that would be very interesting. That would take one of the anomalies out of it because

I'm concerned if somebody's got an EV and it's one of the less good ones that there maybe were

a year and a half ago, two years ago, that that will influence, especially given it's not a massive

sample size. Well, they do mark that a certain percentage had bought used electric vehicle,

some were on new. But also, I think, you know, if the average journey is 11 miles,

the Dacia spring approach really fits a lot of people's needs.

If you bought a five year old Nissan LEAF, you're doing it because that's your use case.

And I plug it in at home, so it doesn't matter. And all I'm doing is I'm pottering to the shops

back again a couple of times a week. Yeah, I don't even have to charge it

up every time I get home. Yeah, I do that. Whereas at the other end of the scale,

people going out and buying, I don't know, I can't think right now. BMW i4, for example,

you're not going to buy that because you're going to do 11 miles. Yeah.

You know, it's different use. So that's a little bit tricky in my mind. But other than that,

it's a cracking piece of work, really. It's a great resource that hopefully

will get picked up now. And we can start, like I said, we start acting on this information in a

much more grown up manner rather than the pointing and shouting at people and telling how it's all

this. It's just that that needs to go out the way. It's so tedious and boring and it's not helping

anyone. And not just for EVs, but it just seems to be the way that the things are at the minute.

And as it gets colder and darker and wetter, then people's attitudes don't tend to change for the

positive. Yeah. Psychology with Alan. Yes. On that note, I think we've made it to the end of the

first part. Yes. And that means, of course, it's guilt minute. A quick break in the show where we

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on YouTube, everyone. Yes. Thank you, everyone. We move into new car news and we're going to start

with the Honda Prelude, which everybody and their friends seemed to go off and drive the other week

and the embargo was lifted and we got swamped by reviews. However, these are all from abroad.

Some of the information you get, you have to take with a pinch of salt, like

ride and handling because roads elsewhere are generally better than here. They're all driven

on really, really smooth roads in Germany, everyone. That's what he's trying not to say.

But the Prelude is a two-door coupe, which looks very similar to the Honda Civic at the front

and then slopes away in a, I think, fairly really nice looking rear and three quarters

and rear end. But I'm just wondering why it's a coupe. I love the fact that someone's bringing

out a coupe. Internally, everyone, we are celebrating the fact that we're getting to

talk about something other than a Chinese electric SUV. Let's look at the real positives here.

It's also available in bright blue. Yes. What we're both stuck at, because it is,

it's a handsome vehicle. It's priced around 40,000 pounds, which seems,

I'm told, is reasonable these days. It's all right, but it's not wonderfully exciting and

it doesn't have a wonderfully exciting engine or gearbox, sadly, which people are saying that would

be lovely if it had those things. As a result, who's it for? Who's going to buy it? Is it going

to be some, you've just retired, I've always wanted a coupe, so I've decided I'm not going to

buy a BMW 2 Series or a small Mercedes coupe used. I'm going to go and I'm going to buy this Honda

coupe. I don't know. Well, you're not buying it for sporty pretenses because if you want that,

you'll get the Type R because this thing has just an automatic gearbox where you've got no chance.

You can't have a Type R anymore. It's dead. Well, I know that it's going off sale.

The trouble is that the Type R isn't just sporty. The Type R is,

it's beyond sporty. It's pretty hardcore. It's a hyperhatch. We termed them hyperhatches years

ago, didn't we? We did, which is not what this is meant to be. This is more of a grand touring

coupe. It's like the old 80s prelude. That wasn't about breakneck sporty performance.

It was comfortable, brisk, and something a bit different. Technological tour de force.

Yeah, I agree. It is more like that. Is there still a market for that type of car these days?

I hope so. I really do hope so. I'd have to drive it, but on paper, it doesn't entice me.

I'm just ignoring, generally, I look at family cars and that sort of thing. I'm ignoring that.

I'm just going, if it was just me, it's...

You and Mrs. Winscreen. Mrs. Winscreen would like it,

the pair of you, because she'd drive it, because she likes an auto.

No, she doesn't.

Yes, she does. She loves autos. It took me years to get her to drive one, and now she

doesn't want to go back to manual at all in any way, shape, or form. Thank you very much.

So I've done too good a job there. But like I said, I really hope it's successful. I hope

loads of people buy them. I hope someone can explain to me what need this is fitting or

fulfilling, because if I can understand the need, then I can probably understand who's going to get

it.

I think the need is someone who's just retired, who's driven CRVs for a long time,

likes their Honda dealer, and as a result, is going to buy this. That is my genuine feeling.

I just hope it finds a market.

Yes, absolutely.

Or its market finds it. That's really where I thought with that. I love the idea of it.

I like that it exists, and I hope it rekindles that particular market segment.

100%.

If you do, however, want an electric five-door Chinese SUV for around the same price as the

Priora, though, then perhaps you'll be interested in the Smart H5, which arrives in the UK very

soon for a starting price of £39,800. It is around the same size as a Skoda Enyaq,

a Tesla Model Y, and the Hyundai Ioniq 5, and comes in everything, according to evpowered.co.uk,

from sensible single motor variants to the 637 brake horsepower Brabus model.

Why you need that, I just don't know.

Begins with entry-level Pro, which has a rear-mounted motor producing a mere 268 brake

horsepower with a 74.4 kilowatt-hour battery. That gives you 289 miles of range, or thereabout.

Above that, there's a Pro Plus version and a premium model. They will take you up to a 358

horsepower motor, a 94 kilowatt-hour battery, and 366 miles of range.

So your 11 miles per trip can be an awful lot of trips.

Once you're into the Pulse and the limited edition Summit edition grades,

then you get all-wheel drive. They take power up to 580 horsepower, but drop the range to a mere

335 miles. Pulse starts at 47,300. Summit is an additional 1,500 pounds on top of that.

Pulse gives you five off-road drive modes, adaptive sand, snow, mud, and rock, which you'll

probably need with 580 brake horsepower under your right foot. Top of the range. If that's not

enough for you, the Brabus doesn't even bother with anything off-road. Instead, you get 637

horsepower, 524 pound-feet from its two-motor powertrain. It's a 2.3-ton SUV, 0-62 in 3.8

seconds. Just what you want when you're going to taking the kids on the school run.

51,800 pounds. So that weighs about the same as my Lexus, but has more than twice the power.

Anyway, it probably goes around corners much better as well, to be perfectly honest.

I mean, there we go. Every version gets heated front seats, two-zone climate control, panoramic

sunroof, powered tailgate, and a 13-inch central touchscreen. Higher grades get you heated rear

seats, real leather upholstery, an 1,190-watt Sennheiser Signature sound system.

Steve McLaughlin

That's to drown the family out as you rock it to 62 in 3.8 seconds.

Steve McLaughlin

It's to drown out the screaming, isn't it? Screaming and laughing.

Steve McLaughlin

Augmented reality head-up display and a second 13-inch touchscreen

in front of the passenger, for whatever reason that might be.

Steve McLaughlin

I think that's a prime example of showing the cultural differences between what

China expects in a market and what we in the West expect and want.

Steve McLaughlin

Which one is this? I don't know. I don't expect or want most of that.

Steve McLaughlin

I think the two screens is China.

Steve McLaughlin

I think so too, yeah. Smart, of course, is a geely.

Steve McLaughlin

Yeah, yeah. Because we've seen how interiors like BMWs and Mercedes,

when they've shown screens across the full width, have been reacted to. And it's not

positive when it comes from the UK and Europe at all.

Steve McLaughlin

No. No, it isn't, including the whole Mercedes interior light show thing.

Steve McLaughlin

Yeah.

Steve McLaughlin

But that might be down to the photographs, obviously. I'm sure it's not that bright in

real life.

Steve McLaughlin

I'm going to move us on now to round out new new car news. And because the Volkswagen

group realized that SEAT was actually quite profitable, they've had to quickly update

and facelift the Ibiza and Arona whilst they wheel it out, wheel them both out for I don't

know how many years now. I mean, I went to the Arona launch. That was like the first

launch I went to.

Steve McLaughlin

Yeah.

Steve McLaughlin

That was in 2016, I want to say.

Steve McLaughlin

Something like that.

Steve McLaughlin

So this has been around a long while. It's a super mini size SUV next to basically a

raised up Ibiza is what you're looking at there. I think this demonstrates how badly

SEAT have been treated and misunderstood and just ignored by the Volkswagen group.

Steve McLaughlin

And yet the SEAT Ibiza always seems incredibly popular with younger drivers.

Steve McLaughlin

Yeah, absolutely.

Steve McLaughlin

It's the stepping stone to an Audi A3.

Steve McLaughlin

And they're so popular in Europe. These cars, I mean, where they've made the money is

in Europe, particularly in markets that don't have as much money. It is a value proposition,

but has a bit of a touch of sportiness in terms of the looks and things. Whereas Skoda

has in the past, although I think they're leaving that behind, the value proposition,

but in a much more conservative, grown up way, if you see what I mean.

Steve McLaughlin

These facelifts, by the way, are very attractive.

Steve McLaughlin

I like the Ibiza a lot.

Steve McLaughlin

I think the Ibiza here in red.

Steve McLaughlin

The bonnet looks great, actually.

Steve McLaughlin

Yeah, it's a really whatever, you know, they've done a really nice job of this.

And the existing one looks, it still looks pretty good too.

Steve McLaughlin

Yeah, it's the way they took them to Penzance to photograph them as well.

Steve McLaughlin

Yes.

Steve McLaughlin

Yes.

Steve McLaughlin

If you look, if you come around the other side,

this is going to be St. Michael's Mount in the background.

Steve McLaughlin

I joke, I joke. But no, good luck to them. I hope they do well. I like, I've always liked Zapp.

I think they do a lot with what they are given from the Volkswagen group. And I think they make

the most of it with limited resources.

Steve McLaughlin

Fantastic example of part sharing.

Steve McLaughlin

Yeah, yeah.

Steve McLaughlin

As we talked about earlier, I mean, I'm just looking at the

picture of the interior and you can see lots of parts from lots of existing Volkswagen models.

Steve McLaughlin

Yeah. Well, yeah, you look at Cooper as well. Cooper do a very good job.

Steve McLaughlin

Both of them. I've got a lot of time for both of those companies.

Steve McLaughlin

Me too.

Steve McLaughlin

Anyway, that sees us leave new new car news and move on to points of interest.

Steve McLaughlin

It does. Well, I actually had missed the Seat story and had forgotten to open it. So I was

ready to go from the ridiculous to the sublime. Once we're talking about the,

finish talking about the smart. Now, what we're going to do, it's, we're carrying on a theme

this week because a part two of Patrick Le Camus piece about the DS beyond the myth is out and

published on Driven to Write. That's all I really need to say about it. If you enjoyed the first

part, please enjoy the second part. If you haven't read the first part, go read it. And again, this,

this is excellent. Some of the ideas behind moving on from the tracks here. And what's also

interesting is, is the people behind all of these things as well. Things I like about Le Camus work

is his writing is that he tends to, on Driven to Write, he tends to write as much about the people

behind stuff as he does about the car itself. Yeah. I find that fascinating because I learned

so much from it. You know, my knowledge is very limited anyway, which boggles your mind

on a regular basis. It does a little, uh, when it, particularly when it comes to classic cars,

I will say though, that, uh, Le Camus feelings about the, the, uh, Citroën Amélyse, it seems

to hold the same place in his heart as the PT Cruiser Cabrio does in mine. I actually really

like the Amélyse. I thought it was horrific when I was a kid, like what the heck is that thing?

And then over the years as, as I have decided to actually, I really quite like it. I mean,

it's fabulously ugly, but it's also kind of cool. It's reverse recreate window and it's,

it's the Amélyse. Yeah. The Amélyse. I think so. Um, but, but yeah, Mr. Le Camus does not agree.

Well, that's why design is in the eye of the beholder, isn't it?

Yes. Totally subjective.

I'm going to take us on to the list of the week. And because Alan moaned so much that

I chose a list that's encompassed all of one country and that was unfair on individual

manufacturers. I really did. You did. We are now going to go back to classic and sports cars as

they redeem themselves. As we go through the list of 26 times, Mazda got it right.

And there are 27 slides to go through. Well, because there's an intro,

there's an intro slide. So I'm, I have, you're going to ask me which one I've gone for. So I'm

going to tell you it is a number 23 or slide 24 in your handout. And that is the 1993 Mazda 323F.

The Atlantis style one, which was such a break from all the other 323Fs.

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. That was good. Yeah. I liked that a lot.

Lovely cars. I went to look at one of these ones in Leicester with a view to buying it only to

turn up and find that it was gobbing coolant out of the exhaust like mouthwash. Oh, it was

not in a good way. A friend of mine had a V6 one, which was the one to have, you know, the same,

same engine as, as in the Mazda Z06, which you might also find in this list, but transverse

brilliant until you want to do any work on it. If you take these, took these to a garage or an

independent who was vaguely aware of them, they said, is it the V6? Yes. I'm sorry. We're not

working on it just because it's such a low bonnet line and an engine, which is jammed up against the

firewall and very hard to maintain, but great looking cars, frameless windows, all these kind

of cool things in a, a, a sort of compact C segment size, smaller end of the C segment size.

It looked like nothing else on the market at the time. It looks so good,

so good compared to everything. Everything else looked dumpy and old and slow.

And this is the version with the projector headlights, not the predecessor with the pop-ups,

which pop-ups that's cool, right? Yeah. But this even made that look, um, sort of,

sort of slightly, slightly dumpy and stuff. Such a cool car. I do like them.

One of those things in my great big lottery barn would probably be an immaculate one of these. If

I could find one, good choice. How's about you then? It's 27. Well, I need everyone to go back

to a slide eight and this is number seven and it's the Mazda, uh, right. I'm going to butcher

the pronunciation, Luca, Luce, Luce or something. I don't know. This is from 1966.

And Alan will be pleased at this. I looked at that and went,

did you get involved in that? And then red and yes, he did.

It is very pretty, but it's kind of funny looking at it because it could almost be a,

be a little tiny BMW as well. Couldn't it with that? It's almost got the Hofmeister

kink at the back of the rear door and the wraparound rear window, the way the C pillar

comes down wraparound rear window and those pretty, pretty light and how much glass as well.

This is the thing that we forget. Yeah. But it just, yeah, it's got this one

solid line. That's from the, the end of the, the, the, the, the front over the top of the grill

all the way down the side, just in one shape are the leading edge. Yeah. That, that, that too,

but all the way down the side and you just go, Oh, what are we doing today? What are we doing

today? It's so pretty. Pretty is the only way I think the best word to describe it. It's such

a pretty car. It's a beautifully proportioned, a nice choice. And there's loads, loads of,

this is a great, this is a great list. It's a really good thing.

I came and I said this to you, to Alan earlier before we pressed record is as I was running

through the list, I was just going, well, that would work as an EV. That would look great today.

That, that works today. And in so many of these, and that's old and new or newer,

just a Mazda of, yeah. The problem is you forget sometimes you forget sometimes these companies,

that they've got some stunning back catalogs. I quite often comment that the Mazda is a bit

like the Japanese. So they do their stuff a bit differently. And as a result, and they've always

done stuff a bit differently, even when they're under Ford. Well, I think the three, the current

three looks, I love the current three. I love that design. I think it is so good. I love the six

in the state. I think they've kept their design really clean. I think that EV six is,

is not as good. And when they've gone to SUVs, it's not worked as well that well,

what was it? What's the design in which they talk about? Um,

it's not horse and rider combined. That's the old one. It's begins with K I think,

but it's, if I remember correctly, it's something to do with drawing with one line,

isn't it? And that sort of thing. Yeah. And you look at a lot of their models and you go, yeah,

absolutely. But some of the, like the, the, the really big SUVs, it struggles because well,

nobody makes a truly very good looking big SUV unless you are wanting rugged off-road look.

And then there are a few companies that manage that, but that's not a size and shape that,

that screams, Oh, we can be elegant. It's I think they're currently on Kodo, aren't they?

Yeah. I think so. Soul of motion. Keep being Mazda, Mazda, please. Yes. In a word that brings

us to the, and finally this week, uh, and finally is once again, we're celebrating French cars of

this time. We're doing it, uh, along with stew bird and what we're looking at for 11 and a half

minutes, believe it or not is the Citroen visa parcel shop. It's wonderful. It is. It is really,

it's obviously massively entertaining because it's you, but I didn't realize this about the parcel

shelf, what he goes on to explain. And it reminded me of another car. Um, but I just, I just, well,

want to love listening to stew anyway, but, uh, equally finding out these details in cars. I'm

never going to get near, I'll never see, I'll never drive. Uh, and it's, it's very similar to

why I like hub, not an Ian stuff because he goes and experiences these things and can share them

with us. Otherwise this stuff would be lost. Wouldn't it? It will be lost. Yeah. And another

thing, why driven to write so good as well, because that sort of stuff would just disappear.

Yes, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. I totally agree. And it's one of the reasons why we like to

try and share it. Yeah. Um, some of the reasons that the points of interest bit

exists is so that we have the opportunity to, to share these things and tell a wider audience about

them. And I, I do hope that the people do go on and read or watch or whatever the stuff that we

talk about. Yeah. And, um, feel free as ever, just a reminder, cause we haven't said this for ages.

If you find something you think is interesting and would work in this segment of the show or

even new stories, do send them our way. Um, you know, and we'll give them a look and we'll see

whether we think it makes it in or not. Bizarrely, these can be the hardest parts of the show to fill

every week, partly because they require real genuine human effort to go out and find the

stories. And also, but also because there's so much. Guff has appeared these days and yeah,

list of the week. Yeah. List of the week is the hardest slot to, to fill. That's why there's so

many auto cars, so many car and classic ones because they are still publishing them and they're

not AI slot. Yeah. And that's, that's really important. We don't do AI listicles. No, we

don't do AI, anything AI overpowered everything for a while. Nobody published listicles anymore,

but we still like slot. And when we tried the car configurator ones, we got pretty slammed.

It was not a segment that worked. No, I think we, we, we could make it work,

but it needs refinement and time for us to sit and refine them. And we haven't had that time.

And I don't know that we want to go through that agony to be honest. Nevermind. Anyway,

that little bit of behind the scenes discussion. Uh, don't forget between now and next week,

give us any feedback, share your thoughts, the show at motoringpodcast.com on blue sky at motoring

podcast on Instagram and Facebook and on the contact page of www.motoringpodcast.com the hub

of all our activities. Remember you can support us financially by a patron and please leave a

review of rating on Apple podcast, YouTube, or however your podcast app lets you do such a thing.

Andrew, what's the best way to get in touch with you? Uh, best way to get in touch with me is if

you search for Grant Windscreen on blue sky or I am on LinkedIn as well, if that's your preferred

platform. And Alan, if people would like to get in touch with you personally, what's the best way

for them to do that? Blue sky is definitely best where I'm at AJP Bradley. That's B-R-A-D-L-E-Y

dot B sky dot social. You can also find me on LinkedIn if that's your kind of gig,

but nevermind. We'll be back very soon, but until then I've been Alan Bradley.

I've been Andrew Clues. And safe motoring.

Virtuous triangle - 4 November 2025

About this episode

Lotus Cars

Volkswagen

tariffs

import duty

Porsche

Audi

MSRP

Macan

Polestar

charging infrastructure

Advanced Electric Machines

Vinci Autoroute

electric vehicle

EV

Nissan Leaf

Honda Civic

panoramic sunroof

heated front seats

two-zone climate control

powered tailgate

13-inch central touchscreen

Sennheiser

Geely

BMW

Mercedes

facelift

Skoda

V6

projector headlights

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