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BMW confused (and possibly lightly offended) the world by claiming that 80% of its 1-Series customers think their car is front wheel drive. They obviously didn’t drive in the snow. Mitsubishi looked uncomfortable as it announced the electric i-MiEV will cost £38k, or £33k after the Government’s £5k electro-subsidy. And Chrysler promised to develop an electric Fiat 500 for America.
Just like kids always tell outlandish lies to their mates, motorshows always feature ridiculous concept cars. As fictional as the powertrains and styling may be, they at least serve as a statement of intent, showing what technology the R&D department is spending its money on, and what direction a manufacturer’s style house is heading. Here are the best concepts of Geneva 2010.
At Frankfurt, Citroen had the unfortunately named Revolte – a fictional car apparently designed for Penelope Pit Stop. At Geneva, they ran with the ‘girl racer’ theme and showed off the Survolt – an electric, two-door sports car which had lots of pink on it.
We asked Citroen man whether the little eye lashes were hinting at the shape of future Citroen daytime running lights, and whether the size and shape of the car (a Megane sized, Scirocco bating coupe) hinted at a future model, but he didn’t confirm or deny. Which means ‘well, yes… probably. But the boss in France has told me to keep schtum.’ Nice looking car, with a hint of Veyron on the shoulders. Because you’re worth it.
Not a Ferrari designed for the strong-legged hiking community, but one built with a Formula One style KERS hybrid system. It’s just a concept at the moment, but Ferrari have been running a car with a similar system for nearly a year, so similar technology is likely to trickle down – the California will come with a stop/start system soon, for a start.
A quiet surprise from SEAT was their little electric shooting break/hatch, which is apparently running on similar gubbins to VW’s UP city car. It’s got a 75kW electric motor which can whiz it to 62mph in less than 10 seconds, because it only weighs around a tonne.
It might turn out to just be pure fiction, but with the VW Group having the UP and Bluesport electric cars, it’s not hard to imagine the next Leon, Ibiza or new SEAT coming with an electric powertrain.
This was the shock of the show, catching everyone by surprise when it was unveiled on Monday night. It looked stunning, with wheels, lines and vents that begged to be put into production… which might not be as far away as first appears – rumours have it that this will be the Carrera GT’s replacement.
It’s easy to sneer at the stats for being works of pure fiction, but Porsche aren’t usually ones to invent figures without serious groundwork behind them, so here’s hoping all this can be real: 500bhp V8, 218bhp electric motor, 70g.km of CO2, 94mpg and 0-62mph in 3.2 seconds. Porsche also claim it laps the Nurburgring quicker than the Carrera GT. Keep an eye out for it – they’ve kept it secret for this long after all.
Porsche unveiled the new Cayenne which is now available with a £57k, 375bhp, 34.4mpg V6 petrol hybrid. Alfa Romeo released more pictures of the facially challenged Giullietta which we still can’t spell. And the Government announced a £230m scheme that will give people a 25% discount, up to a max of £5k, if they buy an electric, hydrogen or plug-in hybrid car.
An electric BMW 1 Series. The Mini E is all well and good, but with batteries robbing it of back seats, it’s not going to be popular with people who’ve got more than one friend. The electric 1 Series, however, has four seats…
Because it’s rear wheel drive, the electric motor is mounted in the back axle as opposed to up front. This frees up bonnet space, which is used in conjunction with the usual fuel tank space to store batteries… instead of having to put them in place of the back seats like in the Mini E. With 170bhp and 184lb ft of torque, it’ll do 0-62mph in 9 seconds, has a 100 mile quoted range and limited top speed of 90mph. Just like the Mini, it’ll be leased out to UK customers – you’ll have to pay around £500 a month and there’s likely to be a big queue.
A Toyota Prius Coupe. It sounds like a horrendous concept, and we’re still not convinced that hybrids are the future – but if we have to have them, they may as well be interesting. Call it a sporty stop-gap. Production isn’t confirmed, but with Toyota open about wanting to extend the Prius model to a whole family of hybrids, it looks likely.
The FT-CH is a couple of feet shorter than the Prius, and Toyota claim that it would also be cheaper, lighter and sportier… if it goes into production. We’ll just have a random guess – how about a plug-in Prius Coupe by the end of 2013?
Another hybrid coupe… but this one’s going on sale in the summer. It’s based on the Insight, which means that unlike the Prius or the possible FT-CH, it won’t be able to run purely on electric power at low speeds. The Insight chassis has had its wheelbase shortened and track widened to help the CR-Z handle decently, and the CR-Z is 50kg lighter than the car on which it’s based. Although, seeing as it’s a 2 seater, that’s no surprise.
The petrol engine is a 1.5 litre compared to the Insight’s 1.3, but 102bhp still doesn’t sound great – even when working alongside the electric motor, total output is just 122bhp. Performance figures haven’t been released yet, but it emits 117g/km of CO2 and should do 56.4mpg. We’ve ranked it higher than the FT-CH because it’s the first to arrive, but we’ll put a pound on the Toyota being the smarter car…
An electric TT. The e-tron was originally shown at the Frankfurt show last year – generally seen as an electric vision of the R8 supercar. This second version has shrunk to become smaller than a TT – which has helped the weight drop by a quarter of a tonne, to 1390kg. It’s also now rear wheel drive, instead of four wheel drive.
The battery and motor layout is very similar with two motors and a wedge of batteries sitting between the driver and the back wheels. Power is 200bhp and torque a ball-rupturing 1954lb ft: 0-62mph happens in 5.9 seconds and there’s a theoretical range of 150 miles. A much, much more realistic prospect than the original… and nearly 2000lb ft of torque through the back wheels? Make it please.
An essential car for Ford, the UK and the globe. This mk3 Ford Focus will go on sale across the whole world – so it needs to be ruddy amazing. While local tweaks will be made to suit each market, Ford are hoping that global tastes have converged to such an extent that one car fits all: it’s going on sale in 122 countries, with 80% of the car common to all of them.
The new Focus hits the UK in early 2011 – the same time as America and the rest of Europe. We’ll get a new 1.6 turbo charged engine, improved Duratorq diesels, an interior with a focus on quality and a chassis gently tweaked to suit our picky ways. In time, the Focus chassis will spawn saloons, estates, MPVs and crossovers – Ford expect to shift 2 million units a year by 2012. A plague of Focus… it’s biblically important.
Everyone’s favourite ridiculous car company Rinspeed released pictures of their electric ‘UC?’ concept, which has a 75 mile range. American owned Kepler Motors showed off their 789bhp hybrid supercar which they claim will do 60mph in 2.5 secs. And Saab are showing signs of resurrection, with Spyker conjuring a new deal which GM have until Monday to consider and accept.
BMW released pictures of their new 335bhp top-spec Z4, the sDrive 35is, which will get to 62mph in less time than it takes to say its name. The Beijing Automobile Industry Holding Company bought the rights and tools to the Saab 9-3 and 9-5, but didn’t buy the company. And Mercedes said they would have an electric SLS by 2013.
It was discovered that Land Rover are planning a Range Rover Sport hybrid capable of emitting less than 100g/km of CO2, to go on sale in 2012. Jaguar came top of the US JD Power customer satisfaction survey, with Cadillac second. And Chancellor Alistair Darling announced that electric cars will be exempt from company car tax, in his pre-budget report.
Mitsubishi revealed their brand new RVR crossover, which will go on sale in summer 2010. Audi chairman Rupert Stadler confirmed that the R8 shaped electric e-tron will go on sale (at least in some form) in 2012, hopefully still with 3319lb ft of torque. And Nissan confirmed a hardcore V-Spec GT-R will come to Europe… but only 40 of them.
The LA Auto Show opened. VW showed their Up! Lite concept, a four seat, 96mpg, 800cc diesel hybrid. Honda displayed the P-NUT concept – a 1+2 seater for city types. Porsche announced they’ll make a hybrid Panamera in 2011. Chevrolet’s electric Volt will be on sale in California in 2011. Elsewhere, GM President Fritz Henderson stepped down at the company’s request.
In non-A8 news, the possibility of Nissan building its upcoming Leaf electric car in the UK looked in doubt, due to their failed bid to supply 2,000 of the cars for the 2012 Olympic games. Tata boss Ratan Tata said a hybrid version of the Nano econo-box would be a good idea. And Schumacher still won’t deny an F1 drive.
Hyundai unveiled a facelifted Santa Fe SUV with a better engine, less enviro-poison and a lower price – starting at £21,495. Peugeot confirmed that they’ll join Citroen in releasing an electric Mitsubishi i-MiEV clone next year, which they’ll call the iOn. And a Spanish newspaper said that Schumacher won’t be advising Ferrari F1 next year. It was a slow news day.
Volvo revealed the gloopy faced but nicely proportioned S60 saloon, set to politely woo 3 Series buyers next autumn. Nissan gave current GT-R owners a rare reason not to be ecstatic, by improving the chassis on new cars. And Citroen unveiled the C-Zero, an electric car based on the Mitsubishi i-MiEV, which looks a bit staid next to Renault’s Twizy.
After plenty of tea and complex abacus arrangements, GM decided that it won’t be selling Opel and Vauxhall after all – GM in the UK are yet to comment on whether the men of Luton and Ellesmere Port will have a happy Christmas. And Ferrari rumours suggested the next 612 will be the company’s first 4×4, with electrically powered front wheels.
Tesla were shocked to receive positive press about their car’s battery life – 313 miles on one charge (set by some bloke in Australia), is a new electric production car record. ‘How much?!’ echoed loudly around the globe when VW admitted their Golf R will cost £29,000. And Mitsubishi clutched at straws, saying their 2010 SUV will have Evo X undergarments.
Fans of speeding paused for a second, as it was announced a new breed of flashless, mutli-lane, smart-arse speed cameras will soon be introduced on UK roads. Bluntly named UK company Axon Automotive revealed their 50g/km multi-fuel hybrid car, which should go on sale in three years. And a Japanese drifter flew round the internet with some tremendously accidental heroism.
Assuming the world was still recoiling from the LF-A’s price, Mugen announced the price of their spat on Civic Type-R – £39k, or two Sciroccos. Mercedes persuaded 30 more horses into the C63 AMG’s barn for a mere £7k. And the swarm of future-gazing micro-electric cars released at the Tokyo motor show was increasing in size and becoming bloody tedious.
The world endured the rigmarole of heading to Tokyo and discovered many things: Godzilla is becoming even more of a God; the Lexus LF-A is priced to ensure nobody buys one, Infiniti are pinching some Nissan technology to make a posh electric car; only three European manufacturers went to the show and the rest only wanted to talk about electricity.
