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 … [Read more...]
Roadtests
Weekend roadtest: Honda Jazz Crosstar Advance Sport
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 … [Read more...]
Weekend roadtest: Volkswagen Touareg Black Edition
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 … [Read more...]
Weekend roadtest: Ford Puma ST mHEV
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 … [Read more...]
Weekend roadtest: Skoda Octavia Estate SE L TDI
Diesel cars are a dying range but I must say 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 … [Read more...]
Weekend roadtest: VW ID.3 Pro S
Of the legacy car-makers, Volkswagen has developed a very wide and strong range of new generation electric models. 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 … [Read more...]
Weekend roadtest: Honda CR-V HEV 4WD
Honda’s product range is one of the most diverse on the market but it’s all steadily heading in one direction towards pure battery power over the next few years. In the meantime, and probably being very wise to hedge bets about the roll out of the battery electric vehicle industry, Honda has given us the widest choice and the family friendly CR-V series. The Honda CR-V was launched in 1995 as … [Read more...]
Weekend roadtest: Skoda Karoq Sportline 4×4
It’s a familiar problem; you have to pick up a Christmas tree and somehow get it home along with maybe a few other seasonal plants and excited children. Most motorists resort to tying the netted tree onto their roof and hoping it stays there but the flexible seating in the Skoda Karoq offers a more practical packaging solution unless you have a very long tree. The split folding rear seats drop … [Read more...]
Weekend roadtest: Honda HR-V
Honda is for humans not robots and it shows in their model range with the HR-V. The third SUV in their line-up after the Jazz and CRV, the third generation HR-V comes only with a petrol-electric powertrain utilisig two electric motors and an Atkinson-cycle petrol engine for greater efficiency as a hybrid and it showed with our overall and effortlessly achieved economy. It has been produced … [Read more...]
Weekend roadtest: Audi TT Roadster 40 TFSI
The Audi TT has reached the end of the road and what a journey it’s been. I was lucky enough to attend the UK launch of the TT Coupe in Leeds in 1999 (see below), a year after it went into production and on sale in Germany and now, a quarter of a century on, production has ceased. In that time there have been only three generations of the car but it developed from Coupe to Roadster and even … [Read more...]