Having already lived with the car for almost a month, I was confident connecting my phone, adjusting most of the settings, and finding chargepoints on the move. Matt openly admits he’ll tailor his lessons depending on the customer; he’s happy to skip the basics on this occasion and focus on features I may not have yet noticed.“The little magnifying glass [on the infotainment screen] is your best friend,” Matt tells us. “You can use it to find just about anything.” As such, he types ‘head’ into the search bar, and opens up a load of settings related to the crystal-clear head-up display. From here, I can select which information I do or don’t want to see, or choose to switch the system off completely.
He’s also keen to show me the fingerprint-recognition tech – an extra fitted to my car. It’s a nifty feature that allows multiple users to store their settings, whether that’s for the seats and steering wheel, menu layouts or media settings; you just scan your finger when you get in and the car does the rest. If you share your GV70 with a family member, that could be £80 well spent.
The more we delve into things, the more I’m impressed with the GV70’s functionality. “You can even control the car from the key,” he reminds us, hopping out and pointing to some of the buttons on the fob. “Imagine you were parked between a Range Rover and a pick-up – you can use the key to reverse out of the space, without setting foot inside.”
It’s not something you’d use every day, but it’s clever ki برچسبها :
From the Mercedes-Benz streamliners that were constantly on the verge of new land-speed records in the twenties and thirties, to the 300SL Gullwing of the mid-fifties, all represented quantum leaps forward in their fields, something the EQE is aiming to mirror. So the question is whether Mercedes has chosen the correct direction for its new electric luxury car.Advertisement - Article continues belowWe’ll have a clear answer after a few more months, but early impressions are that the EQE is very comfortable and extraordinarily refined. However, we’ve also had a bit of bad luck, when a half-dropped manhole cover took out both passenger-side tyres after barely 300 miles. That wasn’t the fault of the EQE, but it did highlight the reality of 21-inch wheels on such a large, softly suspended car.
Mercedes’ roadside assistance service did all it could, but wild weather and localised flooding on the day meant recovery vehicles were scarce, leading to a fair old wait in the back seat. No matter – a nearby coffee shop and just enough battery on my laptop made it a perfectly useful remote office.
The EQE also seems insistent that the 12V battery is dead or dying, both on the dash and on the MercedesMe app, yet it comes to life without issue when the starter button is pressed. This doesn’t affect anything while I’m driving, but it won’t then allow any remote services like preheating, which is a drag when it’s been below freezing oveight.
Anyway, the car has now retued from a brief sti برچسبها :
The Exterior Pack adds matrix-LED headlights with dynamic light assist, an illuminated ‘grille’, LED tail-lights with dynamic tu signals, and tinted rear glass.The driver-assistance features are most welcome, given how much time I spend in London traffic; and overall, I think the styling add-ons make the ID.3 a very smart-looking car, particularly in the (also optional) Olivine Green metallic paint.
Advertisement - Article continues belowThis car benefits from being the recently revised model, too. That means it has a new-look nose, with extra air intakes in the front bumper and a longer bonnet, plus a chrome-effect strip running along the sides of the car over the windows. Inside, meanwhile, there are smarter materials designed to lift the perceived quality.
In all honesty, I think the interior still says £30k, rather than the £51k that the car actually costs once all the options have been taken into account. And I confess that, as with many others, I am rather underwhelmed by the laggy infotainment system. But otherwise, I’m finding EV life quite easy at the moment.
The ID.3 is perfect as Dad’s Taxi in suburban south west London, thanks to its combination of a smooth and refined powertrain with strong performance and relatively compact dimensions. It’s nice and relaxing in even the heaviest traffic, easy to navigate through city streets and no problem to park at the end of the jouey.
Model:Volkswagen ID.3 Pro S 77kWhOn fleet since:September 2023Price new:£42,870Powertra برچسبها :
Find your Vauxhall AstraOffers from our trusted partners on this car and its predecessors...Find your perfect new carFrom:£307 pmOr are you looking to sell your car?9/10 sellers got the price they expectedAdvertisementVerdictWe've endured a troubled start to life with the Vauxhall Astra, although that’s mainly through no fault of its own. Let’s hope getting a few more miles under its wheels will see some of our initial reservations disappear.
Mileage: 305Economy: 48.0mpg
The retu of a car with a plug to the Adams’ drive required a few spiders to be made homeless before I could take advantage of our Astra’s PHEV tech.
The Wallbox charger had been dormant for almost a year when the Astra arrived and had become clogged with webs, leaves and other debris. A quick wipe and the charger was ready, but there was no chance to use it before the Astra was parked up for more than a week through no fault of its own.
A country lane at night, low-profile tyres and a pothole added up to a three-hour wait for recovery and another hour to get home in our ill-fated first trip in the GSe. There’s no spare in the Astra thanks to its batteries, (which also squeeze boot space), and no sealant can fix a pothole pinch puncture in the sidewall a couple of centimetres long.
Then, Vauxhall’s tyre partner ATS hardly covered itself in glory getting the Astra back on the road. Thanks to a missed appointment, it was a week later before we could tackle our second trip in the car.
After running a series of برچسبها :
VerdictThe stylish Tonale stands out, while the tech on board has been effective on the whole. The PHEV version only really makes sense if you can charge it regularly, otherwise fuel economy takes a hit.
Mileage: 9,061
Economy: 35.3mpg
It’s time to say goodbye to our long-term Alfa Romeo Tonale, but over the six months I’ve had the keys, my opinionon its looks hasn’t dulled at all. It really is a stylish car, and one of the best bits of its design for me are the LED lights both front and rear. Not only do they look really stylish, but the shorter days and dark winter evenings have also highlighted how effective they are, too.
Since moving to the south coast, I’ve noticed a definite lack of street lighting. That’s great if you want to enjoy the night skies with less light pollution than in the city, but you really notice the need for good illumination of the roads when driving, or even the pavement when running.
The Alfa’s headlight clusters are great, though. The design, with two pairs of triple light clusters, harks back to the Montreal and SZ sports cars, but with adaptive matrix LED bulbs, the light they deliver is as good as in any mode rival.
More reviews Car group testsIn-depth reviewsRoad testsAnother thing that has come in useful are the illuminated doorhandles. My parking space is overshadowed by a tall hedge, and when combined with the Alfa’s Montreal Green metallic paint, it can be very difficult to see. But as you approach the car with key in h برچسبها :
VerdictI’m looking forward to exploring the benefits of these all-season tyres over the next few months. With negligible trade-off in performance, ride or refinement, it already seems a no-brainer. Full verdict to come!
Mileage: 3,390 (replacement car)
Efficiency: 2.8 miles/kWh
It's the same story every year. We get a short spell of cold weather and the British public panics. Meteorologists give us plenty of waing, yet society still grinds to a halt at the slightest sign of snow.
But I decided 2024 would be different. So before the sub-zero temperatures set in, I booked the Genesis Electrified GV70 into my local HiQ centre to get its existing Michelin Pilot Sport 4 tyres swapped for a set of Goodyear Vector 4Seasons.
These tyres are widely considered the very best of their type, triumphing in our all-season tyre test in 2023. At around £170 each (235/55 R19), they’re not cheap, though that’s roughly on par with big-brand alteatives from Continental and Pirelli. Our products editor, Kim, is a huge advocate of cross-climate tyres and immediately confirmed I’d made a sensible choice. He runs similar on his own cars and told me: “They give great confidence in winter.” Particularly with him living at the top of a hill.
More reviews Car group testsIn-depth reviewsRoad testsI’ll be running this car into the spring and early summer, so I chose an all-season design rather than full-on winter tyres – allowing me to assess the pros and cons in all cond برچسبها :
VerdictIf you need a Honda with a bit more boot space than the angular HR-V has to offer, the ZR-V is it. So far it’s doing everything well, combining great driving manners, efficiency, comfort and style.
Mileage: 4,606
Economy: 47.4mpg
Having spent time living with Honda’s excellent HR-V recently, I was pleased to be offered its bigger brother, the ZR-V, for a few months. The ZR-V not only offers usable room in the boot for our (not-excessively) Large Munsterlander dog (the HR-V’s sloping tailgate meant the load bay was just too confining), but also has a similarly spacious cabin and more oomph from a 2.0-litre petrol/twin electric motor hybrid set-up. It’s lifted from the Civic hatch, along with its entire platform, whereas the HR-V has a 1.5-litre hybrid powertrain.
Our ZR-V Sport arrived just before the Christmas break, with its ‘Still Night Pearl’ paintwork set off by a handsome set of chunky black-painted 18-inch wheels. While it’s similar in outline and proportion to any number of medium-SUV rivals, Honda’s designers have developed a sleek exterior with edges rounded like a newly-wetted bar of soap. Slim LED headlamp clusters and A-pillars, plus an unusually smooth roofline – the press info mentions a laser-brazing technique that eliminates join lines on the roof panel – and simple, unembellished flanks combine to good effect, but I’m not sure whether the ZR-V’s finer design points will stand out to casual observers. I’m pretty sure the exterior could happily pass as a برچسبها :
Find your Genesis GV70Offers from our trusted partners on this car and its predecessors...From:£616 pmOr are you looking to sell your car?Find your highest offerAdvertisementVerdictAside from a failed charge – probably not the car’s fault – we’ve been very impressed by the Genesis ownership experience. Car makers can bang on about how they stand out from the crowd, but initial experience suggests Genesis could be a cut above the rest.
Mileage: 5,055
Efficiency: 2.9 miles/kWh
The Genesis GV70 in the main picture has a different number plate to the one that first arrived on our fleet late last year. The colour, interior trim and spec are identical, but the car itself is new.
I’d enjoyed the company of OE23 YWW for almost a month, and had covered nearly 700 miles running festive errands around town, with the occasional trip out of London for work. I’d also driven the car, fully loaded with the family in tow, to visit my parents for Christmas – all without issue.
When we arrived, my dad kindly moved his BMW i3 out of the way and I plugged the GV70 into his home wallbox. I didn’t think anything of it, and being relatively late at night, left it charging and headed for bed.
Except when I woke up, the Genesis Connected Services (GCS) app was showing a range of just 34 miles – pretty much exactly how I’d left it eight hours earlier. Assuming the app simply wasn’t communicating with the car, I shoved on some shoes and went to investigate. Yet before I’d even hit the unlock button برچسبها :
First drives and group tests make up a big part of what we do at Auto Express, but we also think it’s really important to put some of the most important new makes and models through long-term testing. After all, what better way is there to find out whether a new car is worth your money than by living with it on a daily basis?
Over the last 12 months, we’ve been in everything from sports cars to vans, and we’ve even had a broad mix of traditional petrol and diesel cars, as well as hybrid, plug-in hybrid, and pure electric cars. Most of our test fleet has come through with a clean report card, although some have given us grief, and one was even crashed into! So what do our long-term testers think of their cars over the last year? Read on to find out.
Range RoverSteve Fowler, Editor-in-Chief
Mileage: 16,078 miles
MPG: 36.2mpg
In the 30 years that he’s been writing about cars, Editor-in-chief Steve Fowler has been lucky enough to run three Range Rovers – not bad considering there have only been five generations. It was at another milestone – Auto Express’s 1,800th issue – that he said a sad farewell to his latest, an L460-generation D350 HSE in Fuji White. Steve’s Range Rover impressed him hugely with its quality, comfort and design. He covered huge distances, and it averaged 36.2mpg – just above the official figure. It was especially capable on numerous trips to Liverpool, when its long-distance ability and adaptive cruise control shrank the miles and the mpg rose above 40mpg.
H برچسبها :
VerdictThe Kangoo is a neat little van that works well with electric drive. Refinements to the powertrain mean it’s far better than its predecessor – we’ll just have to see how we go when it comes to range.
Mileage: 5,923
Efficiency: 3.2 miles/kWh
If you’ve always driven petrol and diesel cars and vans, then you’ve probably got a pretty good gauge on how efficient an engine is. Over 40mpg for a petrol car is decent, more than 60mpg for a diesel is becoming the norm. But what about EVs?
With miles per gallon thrown out of the window, I’ll have to admit that it’s taken me time to lea how to judge whether an EV powertrain delivers good efficiency or not. I think I’m getting the hang of it now, and I’m currently being helped to understand miles per kilowatt hour with the latest arrival on our fleet, a Kangoo E-Tech.
The Renault scooped our Van of the Year title at the 2023 New Car Awards, and it was helped to overall victory thanks to the fact this second-generation electric variant has been available from launch.
As before, the Kangoo E-Tech features the same running gear as the Zoe electric supermini, so what you’re getting is a tried and tested EV system. There’s a 45kWh battery, which isn’t the biggest on offer in the class, but a WLTP-tested range of 186 miles is 12 miles longer than you’ll get in a Citroen e-Berlingo, for example. However, a revised Berlingo is on the way, and this should improve on those numbers.
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