January 23, 2024
With the ‘Neue Klasse’ or ‘New Class,’ BMW will launch a new vehicle architecture for the electric future in 2025. The Munich-based company has a tight model schedule: six model series are to use the New Class base within two years. More details have become available. BMW already confirmed in March 2023 that six model […]
January 23, 2024
Car manufacturers are making increasingly wider cars. For instance, the 1974 Volkswagen Golf was ‘only’ 1,610 m wide, but the 2019 version measured 1,790 m. Not to mention the Dodge Ram, which is more than two meters wide – 2,085 m, to be precise- overshooting the 1,80 m-wide parking spaces by almost 30 cm. The […]
January 22, 2024
Chinese auto manufacturing group BYD is reportedly considering expanding its European range with hybrid off-road models from its sub-brands Yangwang and Fangchengbao. The former is a 1200-hp luxury vehicle with tank turn capability, and the latter is a more affordable SUV that could rival the Toyota Land Cruiser and Land Rover Defender. BYD is expanding […]
January 22, 2024
Volvo Car Gent celebrates a stellar year as it nailed a total production of 230 527 cars in 2023, marking a significant 19,4% increase from the previous year’s output of 192 991 vehicles. It’s the first time in four years that the factory has surpassed the figure of 200 000 cars per year. In 2024, […]
January 19, 2024
The Afro-European start-up NamX has released more details about its first car, the HUV. It appears that the automaker is joining the league of combustion-engined hydrogen cars, as the driveline of HUV features a roaring V8. We didn’t see that one coming. All passenger cars on hydrogen today use a fuel cell to make the […]
January 18, 2024
After four years of decline, the sales of Renault group are going upwards again (+9%). In 2023, the group sold 2 235 000 vehicles worldwide. Sales to individual buyers represent 65% of total sales in the five most important European markets. In a press release on Wednesday, the Group says to be “in a dynamic […]
January 18, 2024
Last year, Belgium registered 25 359 new motorcycles, 2,7% more than the previous year. According to the car and two-wheeler federation Febiac, motorcycles are increasingly popular, so registrations and the number of driving licenses issued are growing. For a long time, motorcycles were mainly seen as recreational vehicles. However, today, they’re increasingly popular among commuters. […]
January 18, 2024
Since 2021, the Ford Kuga has been Europe’s best-selling plug-in hybrid. The SUV has received a mid-cycle refresh, including a redesigned nose, updated technology, and a slightly more powerful plug-in hybrid drivetrain. Sales of the new model are set to kick off in January 2024. Although it was slow to launch due to battery problems […]
January 17, 2024
BYD expands its Ocean line-up with the Sea Lion 07, a mid-size electric Coupé-SUV that should compete with the Tesla Model Y. Ahead of its official launch in the first half of 2024, China’s MIIT leaks the new model’s technical specifications. The Sea Lion 07 will have three powertrain variants, including two single-motor versions and […]
January 17, 2024
At the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, California-based AC Future presented the ETH, a fully electric RV concept designed by Pininfarina with expandable walls that convert it into a luxurious living area and a mobile workspace. The AC Future eTH stands for ‘Electric Transformer House’, which is a great way to describe the […]
January 16, 2024
Maserati gains a new showroom in Belgium with Maserati Center Antwerp, a new concept store built in collaboration with D’Ieteren. The Belgian VW importer is expanding its business into the luxury segment, including creating dealerships of brands outside the Volkswagen Group portfolio. D’Ieteren may be best known as the Belgian importer of VW Group brands […]
January 16, 2024
The future Lancia Ypsilon has been photographed in all its glory and without camouflage during a promotional photoshoot in Italy. The new model will surely come with a fully electric variant and will be launched later this year. The first new Lancia for over a decade showcases a new brand design inspired by the recent […]
January 16, 2024
BMW chief financial officer Walter Mertl said in a recent media roundtable BMW has passed the tipping point for combustion engine vehicle sales and now generates most sales growth from electric cars. “The tipping point for the combustion engine is already there,” the CFO said, adding that, in his view, it had been passed last […]
January 15, 2024
Volkswagen has published its Group-wide sales figures for the past year. According to the figures, the Volkswagen Group delivered 771 100 fully electric vehicles worldwide in 2023. Across all drive types, Volkswagen achieved total sales of 9,24 million vehicles in 2023, an increase of 21% compared to 2022. The 771 100 fully electric vehicles delivered […]
January 15, 2024
Kia has shown its vision of the future of mobility at CES 2024 in Las Vegas, with a modular ‘Platform Beyond Vehicle’ (PBV) that takes another stab at creating a continuously customizable vehicle. But this is no simple fantasy: the first model, the Kia PV5, will enter mass production in 2025. Kia’s Platform Beyond Vehicle […]
January 15, 2024
The French start-up company Tiamat Energy is planning a factory for sodium-ion battery cells with an annual capacity of 5 GWh in northern France and is receiving financial support from Stellantis, among others. Tiamat Energy is a sodium-ion cell developer spun off from the French National Research Centre CNRS (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique). […]
January 12, 2024
Mullen Automotive, a US-based manufacturer mostly specialized in converting Chinese EVs for its domestic market, has brought a self-developed high-performance electric crossover to CES 2024 in Las Vegas. The Mullen Five RS promises over 1 000 horsepower, 0-100 km/hour in less than two seconds, and a 2025 launch. Those figures sound promising, but Mullen Automotive’s […]
January 12, 2024
Since September last year, Wolfgang Bremm von Kleinsorgen (52) has been CEO of Mercedes-Benz Benelux. He took the alternative Mercedes motor show event ‘Defining Class Star Days’ in his own headquarters as an opportunity to talk to the outside world for the first time. The new CEO originates from Aachen, Germany, and knows Belgium fairly […]
January 11, 2024
By the end of 2027, BMW will no longer manufacture combustion-engined models in the plant in Munich near its headquarters. The premium automaker introduces the production of the revolutionary New Class in 2026 and will gradually fade out the ICE version as the line will be reserved exclusively for the electric range. BMW broke the […]
January 11, 2024
At CES 2024 in Las Vegas, Vietnamese electric carmaker VinFast revealed two new models. The VF Wild, a mid-size zero-emission pickup truck, wants to challenge the F-150 Lightning and Rivian RR1T, while the small VF3 takes on a more global role as an affordable two-door ‘mini-eSUV’. Indeed, the VF Wild is the more noticeable of […]
January 11, 2024
Honda has decided to start again from a blank sheet of paper for its next-generation electric vehicles. The 0-Series concept cars, the Saloon and Space-Hub, represent this new approach with a light and nimble design to bring back the joy of driving in the EV era. We should be able to discover the results in […]
January 11, 2024
Chinese BYD (Build Your Dreams) just unveiled on Weibo ‘out of the blue’ the new super sedan under its premium YangWang brand name, the U7, which is yet another challenger for German premium brands like Porsche, Mercedes, and BMW. Previously, only some European patent images of the sedan appeared, identified as ‘U6’. But apart from […]
January 10, 2024
Volvo has delivered – at the last moment in December 2023 – as promised, the first Chinese-built EX30 EVs to customers in Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain, and Portugal. The EX3 is Volvo’s smallest fully electric SUV to date, built on the same SEA platform as its siblings within the Geely Group, the Zeekr X and […]
January 10, 2024
As reported by the German car magazine Auto, Motor und Sport, customers eager to get their hands on the ID.2 will have to exercise patience, waiting almost two and a half years before significant deliveries commence.At the CES in Las Vegas, VW managers now denied the delay. Currently, Volkswagen’s cheapest battery-powered model costs roughly 40 […]
January 09, 2024
The in-car digital experience of both the present day and the future is the dominant theme of the BMW Group’s presence at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2024 in Las Vegas, U.S. New infotainment products for the current BMW model portfolio will be shown at the event. At the same time, the BMW Group is […]
January 09, 2024
While most Belgian car drivers generally stick devotedly loyal to trusted European or to lesser extent Japanese quality, and up to 80% don’t trust Chinese cars, 52% of the professional lease drivers start admitting these ‘Dragons on Wheels’, EVs with an attractive price and lots of high techs, could be a good deal. The distrust […]
January 09, 2024
Toyota Belgium, one of the market leaders in the segment of individual buyers with its Yaris model, ordered a survey showing great uncertainty reigning in this market segment about when and what to buy. Toyota Belgium asked marketing research specialist Ipsos to investigate the buying intentions of individual car buyers. 1 000 respondents (only potential […]
January 08, 2024
According to market research ordered by Mobia, the Belgian car buyer will be more impacted by a premium to buy an electric car than by the eventual expansion of LEZ zones. Mobia, the overarching association of car sector federations Febiac (new car market), Traxio (second-hand car market), and Renta (car leasing and renting), has done […]
January 08, 2024
Volvo Cars set a new global sales record as the company reported full-year sales of 708 716 cars during 2023, an increase of 15% compared to the entire year of 2022. Volvo Cars will also get a €420 million loan from the European Investment Bank (EIB) to develop a new electric car platform. Volvo Cars […]
January 05, 2024
The California based EV car manufacturer Fisker Inc. today announced that the company is developing an innovative Dealer Partnership model in North America. In Europe, Fisker intends to pursue a hybrid of direct sales and dealer arrangements. “As we saw throughout 2023, the EV market has changed dramatically, said Chairman and CEO Henrik Fisker. “As […]
January 05, 2024
Last year’s new car sales in the United States are nearing pre-pandemic times, with +13% more vehicles sold in 2023, or 15,5 million units in total, compared to peaks of 17 million cars in 2015-2019. Despite the biggest six-weeks-long automotive strike America has ever seen, supply has normalized, and prices dropped by 2 to 3% […]
January 05, 2024
The new motorcycle market has recovered well in 2023, with an increase of +2,7%, resulting in 25 359 registered over the entire year, a positive result that partly can be attributed to the delivery of previously ordered in 2022. According to Mobility Federation Traxio, the second-hand market, on the other hand, suffered a historic decline […]
January 05, 2024
Last year, 2,84 million cars were sold in Germany, or 7,3% more than in 2022. Electrified vehicles, however, struggle to find buyers, primarily due to the disappearance of practically all incentives for buying them. 979 000 of the cars sold were simply gasoline engine powered, and that’s a 13% growth, while the pure electric cars […]
January 04, 2024
2023 was the second-best year ever for new speed pedelecs and the record year for second-hand fast bikes. That is the conclusion of mobility federation Traxio’s spokesperson Filip Rylant. Last year, a total of 22 477 new and second-hand speed pedelecs were registered. The good news is that there is still room for further growth, […]
January 04, 2024
Audi prepares again to take on the legendary Dakar rally with its electric-powered RS Q e-tron. The German brand has transformed its electric SUV Q8 e-tron into a terrain-ready vehicle with the edition Dakar to highlight this challenge. Since 2022, Audi has taken on the Dakar rally (which now takes place in Saudi Arabia) with […]
January 03, 2024
Porsche is returning to the Nürburgring with its electric Taycan. In-house development racing driver Lars Kern has managed to beat the electric Porsche’s previous record by 25 seconds, recording a lap time of 7 minutes 07,55 seconds. Kern was at the wheel of a still unnamed, more powerful, and track-ready Porsche Taycan. Porsche refers to […]
January 03, 2024
Volkswagen Anhui – former JAC-Volkswagen – has started building Seat’s sporty daughter Cupra’s second EV, the Tavascan, in the Anhui province in China, to be launched in 2024 in Europe. Based on the Volkswagen Group MEB platform, the Cupra Tavascan will be available with either 210 or 250 kWh of power and a WLTP range […]
January 03, 2024
The Chinese car manufacturer BYD (Build Your Dreams) has a very ambitious goal: to become the world’s biggest car manufacturer and overtake Toyota and other VWs by 2030. It is now the biggest producer of electrified cars in the world. BYD sold a record number of new energy vehicles (NEVs) in December, reaching its full-year […]
January 02, 2024
Volvo Cars is working on an electric version of its luxury saloon, which will probably launch in 2025 as the ES90. According to media reports, the carmaker has already built the prototypes at its plant in Shanghai. Deliveries will kick off in mid-2025. According to information from the specialized site motor.es, the Volvo ES90 will […]
December 29, 2023
Chinese electronics giant Xiaomi has unveiled its very first car in China. The new SU7 is a mid-size electric sedan powered by two electric motors up to 673 hp. Not only does Xiaomi claim it can reach 100 kph in only 2,78 seconds, but it also has a range of 800 km (CLTC). Xiaomi is […]
December 29, 2023
The Škoda Enyaq 60 GO is the latest of a series of electric vehicles in Belgium that sees its bare price plunge with an attractive €6 310 to get under the €40 000 threshold set by the Flemish government to be eligible for the 5 000 euro premium. But that twenty-million-euro pot will only benefit […]
December 28, 2023
E-bikes tend to weigh a lot – at least 22 to 25 kg on average – mainly due to their battery and motor, but this can be improved, as the French sports chain proves with its new electric road race bicycle, the Van Rysel E-EDR AF. This one, offered at €2 800, weighs only 14 […]
December 27, 2023
Toyota Motor Corp. said on Wednesday that its global output from January to November reached 9,23 million vehicles. That’s a new single-year record with still one month left in 2023. The result is also achieved thanks to robust demand in North America and Europe. The all-time high came as the automaker’s worldwide production for November […]
December 27, 2023
The Chinese car manufacturer BYD, the world’s number one in building and selling electrified cars, will build a car plant in Hungary as part of its plan to conquer Europe. “BYD is preparing to build its first car manufacturing plant in Szeged, Hungary, and is hereby making an important step towards green mobility in Europe,” […]
December 26, 2023
The day before Christmas, at Nio Day 2023, the Chinese premium EV maker took off the wraps of its new ‘executive flagship sedan’, the ET9, which has to play in the highest luxury car segment like the Mercedes-Maybach or EQS, or the BMW i7. It is something no Chinese brand has successfully done in their […]
December 26, 2023
Toyota is not experiencing its best week ever, on the contrary. At its daughter Daihatsu, part of the Toyota Group, serious fraud has been discovered running already for decades. Toyota has recalled more than one million vehicles in the US with a possible airbag safety issue. On Thursday, the Japanese Ministry of Transport started an […]
December 22, 2023
The Russian car manufacturer Avtotor has released the first pictures of a new electric prototype called Amber. It’s 100% made in Russia and has been developed in partnership with the Russian Polytechnic University of Moscow (MAMI). Since the start of the Ukrainian war, the Russian industry has been almost entirely on its own since all […]
December 21, 2023
BMW Belux will be celebrating its 50th anniversary of presence in Belgium and Luxembourg with the third consecutive number-one place in the market in 2023. At a press meeting, Belux CEO Alexander Wehr and his colleagues looked forward to consolidating this success. The fact that three premium brands are in the top five of car […]
December 20, 2023
Owning an ultra-rare wide-bodied competition 1993 Porsche 964 RSR 3.8, of which only 51 were built, might be a distant dream for a classic car lover. A ‘Strassenversion’ with only 10 km on the odometer was sold by Bonhams in Abu Dhabi in November 2023 for $2 127 500. But what about an even faster […]
December 20, 2023
Following the rest of the Stellantis vans, Fiat’s compact E-Doblò and mid-sized E-Ulysse passenger vans get a revamp that includes a fresh face and efficiency improvements. Both models will be available to order in early 2024. Stellantis recently unveiled a comprehensive facelift for its entire LCV range with more distinguished looks between the brands. Now, […]
December 20, 2023
Giant Chinese automaker group Geely is launching its first Galaxy-branded EV in its home market. The E8 is a large electric sedan that claims to have the lowest drag coefficient of any production vehicle but also one of the lowest prices seen so far in the Chinese EV market at 180 000 yuan or under […]
December 19, 2023
Giant carmaker group BYD has launched its new Song L electric crossover in China. It can be equipped with a 71,8 kWh or 87 kWh battery offering up to 662 km of range and 517 hp. The Song L packs BYD’s specific technologies, such as the Disus-C suspension and cell-to-body battery integration. With a design […]
December 19, 2023
D’Ieteren, the Belgian VW Group importer, will offer the ID.3 and the ID.4 for under €40 000 in 2024. This significant price cut means Flemish private customers are eligible for the €5 000 EV subsidy, bringing down the total cost to the consumer to under €35 000. A discount of over €10 000 compared to […]
December 18, 2023
The Nissan Ariya e-4orce has become the first-ever land vehicle to travel from the magnetic North Pole to the South Pole, taking 9+ months and around 30 000 km to complete the journey. Scottish couple Chris and Julia Ramsey from Plug in Adventures took on the challenge of improving infrastructure in remote regions and showcasing […]
December 18, 2023
After creating a foiling glass lounge boat with BMW and presenting it in June at the Cannes Film Festival, German electric boat start-up Tyde is launching a second project with the premium carmaker’s design daughter Designworks. The ‘Tyde Open’ is a 49-foot foiling electric yacht, the world’s largest to be seen (in autumn 2024). BMW’s […]
December 18, 2023
Chinese car manufacturer Maxus, daughter of the SAIC group, presents its first SUV in Belgium, a fully electric one. The eUniq6 is a 5-seater with ample cargo space (754 liters of boot volume). The SUV is driven on the front wheels by a 130 kW/177 hp electromotor, providing also 310 Nm of torque. The car […]
December 15, 2023
In April 2024 in Milan, Alfa Romeo will unveil its first ‘Sport Urban Vehicle’ in its history, which will also be available in a 100% electric version. It will be named Milano as a tribute to the city where it all began on June 24, 1910. With the Alfa Romeo Milano, the brand rejoins the […]
December 15, 2023
Swedish-Chinese Geely daughter Zeekr has presented a newly in-house developed 800 V lithium-iron-phosphate (LFP) battery to be used in its new 007 sedan. This so-called ‘Golden Battery’ can be charged at up to 500 kW from 10-80% in merely 15 minutes. That provides the Zeekr 007 with an extra 500 km range. Zeekr claims it […]
December 15, 2023
Volkswagen is planning a second version of the upcoming, affordable ID.2 small EV. It will be a compact SUV version based on the same MEB platform and with the same drivetrain. Stepan Rehak, spokesperson for Design at VW Passenger Cars, posted the teaser image on social media. Rehak also confirmed it will arrive in 2026. […]
December 14, 2023
Following Stellantis’ Commercial Vehicles Ambition Day, showcasing its overhauled and regrouped LCV portfolio last October, the different brands have commenced releasing their new models. Next in line is Opel, which has unveiled some further details – but no price – on the face-lifts of the Combo Electric and Zafira Electric. These models, offering room for […]
