Author: Robin Roberts

There is no doubt that China’s BYD car company is a new major challenger to legend European manufacturers with its Atto 3 cross-over. Not only does it have Europe’s familiar family cars in sight but it will be aiming to pick off sales from the Korean and Japanese brands which have had it much their own way up to now. Build Your Dreams, to give the company its full name, launched in Britain with the Atto 3 mid-way through 2023 and followed up at the end of the year with its Dolphin and Seal saloons as it progressively establishes 90…

As the EV market expands, Honda has rolled out its challenger in the family sector, the e:Ny1. A couple of years ago, Honda briefly introduced its city car sized e model but that had severe limitations in terms of size, range and appeal so the much larger e:Ny1 will take the Japanese firm’s fight to the chargers. It’s a wise move as SUV models account for more than half of UK registrations and that shows no sign of slowing, even if the BEVs within that are finding it hard going. All manufacturers now have to sell 22% of their range…

The Honda Jazz is one of the brand’s longest-lived models and remains one of its best kept secrets over 42 years. Improved for 2024, the Jazz range begins with the Elegance and Advance hatchbacks at £26,395 or £27,550 with the Crosstar Advance topping them at £28,550 before roadtax is added. The slightly taller Crosstar Advance gets the same bodywork upgrades, front, back and sills as its stablemates although in distinctive black trim, but has more ground clearance and comes with roof rails to fit racking or a box as well as water repellent upholstery to cope with active lifestyle users…

The Government must do more to get people to adopt EVs, says a Lords Committee. “If it fails to heed our recommendations the UK won’t reap the significant benefits of better air quality and will lag in the slow lane for tackling climate change,” said Baroness Kate Parminter, Chair of the inquiry. The inquiry was launched in August 2023 to identify the main obstacles and barriers to a successful and equitable transition to the Government’s EV target for passenger vehicles and to make clear and targeted recommendations for change to meet that target. Yesterday, it was reported by the Society…

Discounted business registrations meant Britain’s millionth battery electric car reached the road in January 2024, while the new car market grew 8.2% for the month, according to the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders. The first month of the year saw 142,876 new cars registered led by the Kia Sportage (above), which repeated its success of January 2022, and an UK uplift of 10,882 units on January 2023, the best performance for the month since 2020 and the 18th consecutive month of growth. Welsh dealers enjoyed a 6.5% rise in registrations to 5,208 new cars last month compared to 12-months…

For some, the Volkswagen Touareg is very old school, but for many newcomers it can still teach them lessons. If you have to regularly cover long distances at all hours, with or without people or luggage, or have to tow a horsebox or trailer, the Touareg will perform such tasks without trouble. Appropriately named after a nomadic Sahara group, the VW Touareg has been in production since 2002 and was a joint development with Porsche which led to the Cayenne, Audi Q7 and Q8 as well as the Bentley Bentayga and Lamborghini Urus. So, its pedigree and wider family is…

The Ford Puma outran all its rivals to sit on the top of Britain’s car sales in 2023, and it’s easy to see why. Ford has a soft-spot for the Puma, first considered using it for a performance version of the Escort and then putting it on the 1997 compact coupe before shelving it a couple of years later, only to resurrect it after 17 years for the present suv series. It has also played about with the ST and Vignale suffixes as it did with the Ghia years before along with the famous RS badges. Now it has sort…

When buying a new car, it’s always worth thinking about the potential resale value and how much it will depreciate over time. Some cars can prove to be very worthy investments, with their value increasing over time, while others may drop quickly in value as soon as they leave the forecourt. Elements such as age, condition, mileage and number of owners are all influencing factors, and there are many things that you can do to minimise the effects of depreciation, but choosing a vehicle that holds its value well is always a good place to start. Scrap Car Comparison’s new…

Diesel cars are a dying range but all I can say is long live the Skoda Octavia Estate turbo-diesel. It’s going to become a model we will look back upon and ponder; wonder why such a thoroughly good all rounder has to be replaced by much more expensive, less practical and, frankly, less satisfying electric rivals. It’s one of the oldest model names in the Skoda stable and still accounts for about half of the brand’s European sales but the fact its semi-estate shape and diesel engine have become unfashionable in the eyes of many buyers suggests we need to…

It has been working on electric cars for many years so it was probably only natural that modernising its best selling Golf family car would feature in its approach to the future, and the ID.3 fills the sector in which its petrol and diesel hatchback did so well before it led to the e-Golf. The pure electric ID.3 is a very worthy successor, if expensive particularly when you look at the price of options, but it’s not alone as moving to electric power is not cheap. More importantly, Volkswagen do it better than most rivals. The ID.3 was the first…