Author: James Baggott

Jaguar has unveiled a new logo that combines upper and lower case letters and confirmed it will only make electric cars in the future.

The British car maker has taken new cars off sale to the general public for more than a year as it reinvents itself to launch three new electric cars, starting in 2026.

The new logo is produced in a bespoke font and the car maker says its ‘geometric form’ has ‘seamlessly blended upper and lower case characters in visual harmony’.

It debuts along with a new prancing cat ‘Leaper’ design embossed on brass and some bold marketing slogans. These include ‘delete ordinary’, ‘live vivid’ and ‘copy nothing’.

A new concept car, showcasing Jaguar’s new look for the road, will be unveiled at Miami Art Week on December 3.

Jaguar managing director Rawdon Glover said taking new cars off sale was ‘intentional’ as it looked to create a barrier between the old models and the new-look Jaguars.

He said: “From a marketing sense, at the moment, there are lots of people out there that know what Jaguar stands for, and actually it doesn’t stand for them, and we’ve seen that in terms of how they’ve responded to the offering that’s been in the market for the last 10 or 20 years.

“We need to change people’s perceptions of what Jaguar stands for. And that’s not a straightforward, easy thing to do. So having a fire break in between old and new is, actually, very helpful.”

JLR’s chief creative officer Gerry McGovern added: “Jaguar has its roots in originality. Sir William Lyons, our founder, believed that “a Jaguar should be a copy of nothing”.

“Our vision for Jaguar today is informed by this philosophy. New Jaguar is a brand built around “Exuberant Modernism”. It is imaginative, bold and artistic at every touchpoint. It is unique and fearless.

“We are creating Jaguar for the future, restoring its status as a brand that enriches the lives of our clients and the Jaguar community.”

Jaguar also revealed its ‘Strikethrough’ branding – 16 bold lines that will appear across its marketing and products – as well as a ‘JR’ monogram and an ‘exuberant colour palette’ which uses ‘red, blue and yellow’ but ‘never flat colours’.

Making the switch to an electric car is a big transition – and one that needs careful thought and consideration.

Owning an EV and using it as a daily driver works for many people, but there are other circumstances where it can become a challenge – even a chore – when compared to a petrol or diesel equivalent.

But with the government-mandated transition to electric vehicles already begun, it’s a change in lifestyle that many drivers will have to make in the coming years.

My choice was made for me. I have been very fortunate to run a very-much-petrol-powered Audi RS6 for the past nine months, but in February that was swapped for an electric SUV – Audi’s SQ8 e-tron.

Now, a few weeks into life with the new model is probably the perfect time for some reflection, but before I get on to that, a quick ode to the Audi that went before it.

The last hurrah for the RS6 was a family trip to the Alps for our annual ski holiday. Four up and packed with kit, the RS6 devoured middle France with aplomb. Complete with top box, it easily swallowed all of the equipment needed and was incredibly comfortable for the entire 13-hour journey to Chamonix.

Audi had swapped the tyres for all-weather winters before the trip and I was glad they did. A huge dump of snow continued for the entire week we were there and the Audi’s four-wheel-drive and snow tyre combination made it practically unstoppable.

The tyres had huge grip and it managed to climb hills that had left many other cars stranded at the roadside. It was a wonderful last trip for the RS6 and made it very hard indeed to hand the keys back.

In the meantime, I had been preparing for the arrival of the SQ8 by attempting to get a charger installed. I live in a listed building so it wasn’t the easiest of processes. The council required a full planning application to be submitted – at a cost of more than £500 – just to get it signed off. A public consultation on the tiny box was also required and, all in, it was an eight-week-long wait to finally get the nod.

I chose PodPoint as the provider as they were recommended by Audi, but I can’t say I endorse them. The install was relatively pain-free, as I had planned a power supply to my garage in anticipation of one day adding a charger to the drive, but when I went to use it for the first time it didn’t work.

You’d think plugging a car into a socket would be as simple as you kettle, or a laptop, but sadly not. The Audi blamed the charger and the charger blamed the car. After a call to both Audi’s technicians and the PodPoint customer services team, the latter logged into the charger over wifi and made some adjustments. After that it worked, but I was left baffled at why something that should have been so simple, was so hard.

I must admit I found the first couple of weeks hard to adjust to the new Audi. It didn’t help that it has an awfully annoying speed limit warning ‘bong’ that sounds even 1mph over the speed limit. Now I’m not admitting to being a reckless driver here, but I am sure all of us have accidentally clicked 1mph over the speed limit now and again. What you don’t need is a constant alarm telling you you’re doing it.

Apparently, this isn’t an Audi thing, but a mandated addition to all new cars from 2024 onwards. I have worked out a way to turn it off in the SQ8 – but it’s buried deep in the car’s digital systems and has to be turned off every time you get in the car. If I am brutally honest it’s enough to make me not want to buy a new car ever again – but reporting on them is kind of my job.

I have also been a little shocked by the Audi’s range. This is a car that costs, wait for it, £118,105 and most of the time I struggle to get more than 200 miles range out of a full charge.

Theoretically, the car should offer 265 miles, but I’ve never seen anywhere close to that. Now I don’t really buy the argument that ‘most people don’t need to travel further than that’, because occasionally I do – and when I do it means battling with the woeful public charging infrastructure.

That last point is something most people will desperately want to avoid. There are still too many different apps needed to get them to work, far too many are out of order and when you do get connected they’re painfully expensive to use.

Talking of cost, the Audi isn’t really that cheap to run either. I’m paying between £50-£100 per week on my electric bill to top the car up which is largely the same amount I was using in fuel for the RS6. I have recently fixed on a standard tariff which works out best for us as we work from home too, so can’t even get a cheaper electric car rate.

I’m trying to remain positive about life with an electric car because the Audi is actually very nice to drive. It’s comfortable, quiet and has some clever tech. I’m still getting used to a lot of it and the shock (pun intended) of switching to an EV, but at least it’ll be an interesting experiment over the next few months.

Next time I’ll delve into the details of the SQ8 a little further and let you know whether I’ve finally managed to get used to life with an EV. I promise I’ll try.

Facts at a glance
Model: Audi SQ8
Price as tested: £118,105
Engine: Electric motor with 114kW battery
Power: 496bhp
Torque: 973Nm
0-60mph: 4.5 seconds
Top speed: 130mph
Range: 265 miles (claimed)
Emissions: 0g/km CO2
Mileage: 1,346

Financial incentives are required to promote new and used electric vehicles among drivers.

That’s according to Baroness Parminter, chair of an inquiry into the present state of the electric vehicle market in England and Wales.

The comments come following the publication of a House of Lords committee report titled ‘EV strategy: rapid recharge needed’ which has cited ‘a combination of higher purchase costs, insufficient charging infrastructure and mixed messaging’ as reasons behind drivers not making the switch to a battery-powered vehicle.

Speaking to Car Dealer Magazine, Baroness Parminter said: “If there was a commitment to immediately consult on the necessary fiscal incentives for both new cars and secondhand cars, that would be a win.

“And in the Budget saying we will equalise VAT on home and public charging, that would be a massive signal of intent.

“And that’s what we need from this government because the messages have been mixed.

“When Rishi Sunak rolled back on the deadline last year he used the term “getting to net zero is going to be hard” – that’s not what the public needs to hear.

“They need to see the government putting some skin in the game on this now. And the VAT equalisation in the Budget would do that.”

The report suggests that used electric car sales could be helped by introducing a ‘battery health standard’ and reducing the VAT rate for public charging to five per cent. It added that consumers need more information and a ‘trusted source of information’ with concerns being raised about the portrayal of EVs in the media.

Trading Standards officers have warned of the dangers of buying from used car dealers pretending to be private sellers on Facebook.

Officers said that they had seen a ‘large number’ of used car dealers using social media sites to advertise privately.

However, these cars are often plagued with faults and, since they’ve been sold privately, can’t be returned or repaired by the original seller as would be the case with a vehicle purchased from a legitimate car dealership.

Speaking to Car Dealer Magazine, Chris Hill, senior investigations officer for National Trading Standards, said that he had conducted a probe of more than 2,500 car adverts on Facebook in Wales and found that they had been posted by only 432 individuals.

Hill added that one of the users had advertised 90 cars during the six-month period of the probe and was ‘clearly a motor trader’. In fact, more than 100 of the users advertised more than 10 cars via Facebook.

By law, dealers are required to label adverts ‘trade’ so that buyers know they have consumer rights, such as being able to return a faulty car or have any issues resolved by the retailer.

Hill said: “This problem emerged a few years ago as we started to get a lot of complaints from people regarding vehicles they had purchased on social media.

“These are usually for lower value vehicles – around the £500 to £2,000 mark – or what the trade likes to call “end of life cars”.

“The problem comes when there is an issue with the car and the trader should have been liable but the consumer has nowhere to go. Some of these cars were still being sold in pub car parks and lay-bys and the buyers didn’t know who they were buying from.

“We would like Facebook to ensure that traders mark themselves up as traders so that when consumers have a problem they ultimately know who they are dealing with and know that they have their statutory rights.”

National Trading Standards told Car Dealer that it believes that the issue has become far more widespread and is asking Facebook to help weed out these traders posing as private sellers. At present, the social media site has no functionality to allow buyers to flag sellers who may be posing as private individuals.

A spokesperson for Meta, Facebook’s parent company, said: “This is an industry-wide issue and scammers are using increasingly sophisticated methods to defraud people in a range of ways including email, SMS and offline.

“If someone believes they have spotted content or an account they believe to be fake, they can report it using our in-app tools. We have a trained team of reviewers who check these reports 24/7 and move quickly to remove content or accounts which violate our guidelines.”

As long-term car loans go, they don’t get much better than six months with an Audi RS6.

As my colleagues will testify, I can usually find at least one thing to moan about most cars – but when it comes to this mighty estate I can honestly say I struggle to find a bad word to say about it.

For me, an RS6 is about as perfect as cars can get. You get the practicality of an SUV with a huge boot that swallows pretty much anything you throw at it, but all coupled with excellent driving dynamics, handling and supercar power.

I’ve never been a huge fan of SUVs that seem to dominate the best-selling car charts and have always favoured the humble estate. In fact, were it my own money I was shelling out on a family car, a powerful performance load lugger like this would be top of my list.

What I really love about the Audi is the fact that while it might have 591bhp under the bonnet and the ability to hit 60mph in 3.6 seconds – which, for the record, is faster than a Ferrari 360 – it can still be wonderfully sedate when you want it to be.

When you’ve got a baby in a child seat in the back, and the rest of the family along for the ride, it’s good to know that the RS6 can behave itself with a compliant ride and wafting acceleration rather than always being an unruly racer.

To be honest, I rarely test the car’s potent acceleration for fear of losing my licence. That’s why it sometimes comes as a bit of a surprise quite how much oomph it’s packing when I do need it at a busy junction, or when joining a fast-flowing motorway.

The only time I’m really reminded of the 4.0-litre V8 propelling me around is when I glance down at the average fuel economy. On a recent trip into London, I was achieving a painful 9mpg in traffic. Yes, it made me wince too.

However, on longer journeys – one to Leeds and that same aforementioned trip to London – the Audi has managed to top 30mpg on the motorway. It manages this by shutting off the engine and coasting when it can. That said, I still fill up the 70-litre petrol tank all too frequently at wallet-punishing prices.

However, as a family-friendly car, the RS6 works brilliantly. The child car seat fits onto the ISOFIX points in the back with plenty of space to spare for the front seat passenger, and the cavernous boot has swallowed pushchair and baby accompaniments on many occasions without trouble.

I’ve had a few warning lights illuminate on the dash in recent weeks, but thankfully nothing serious. The first was a low oil level light which meant some urgent addition of some Mobil 1, while the second was low tyre pressures. The latter I put down to the recent cold snap, but I have topped them up nonetheless.

There are lots of other little things to love about the Audi that all add up to make it a great car to live with. The infotainment system is first class with the excellent integration of wireless CarPlay, a real boon.

I’m also a big fan of the memory seats. My better half is roughly half my height. Ok, that might be pushing it, but every time I get in after she’s been driving the RS6, I smack my knees on the steering wheel and head butt the sun visor. Fortunately, the memory seat button puts the seat and steering wheel back into my favoured position swiftly – I just wish it would adjust the rear view mirror too.

The sound system is monumentally good and the haptic feedback touch screens – of which it has two – are great to use and display information clearly. Everything is so intuitive to use that you only really notice how good it is when you try to use a system in another car. Few have lived up to the ease of the Audi.

I was reminded of quite how good the RS6 was during a recent swap into a Bentley Flying Spur test car. While from the same manufacturing stable, I found the Bentley incredibly uncomfortable to drive compared to the Audi and the tech far less simple to use. And despite its far bigger proportions, I would say the RS6 was capable of carrying more.

While the Bentley might have a luxury badge, and cost twice as much as the RS6, I was frankly quite glad to get back in my Audi. And if anything speaks of a long-term test car’s brilliance, it’s that.

Next up for the RS6 is my annual pilgrimage to the Alps. I’ll be adding roof bars, top box and winter tyres for the trip and am nearly as excited about driving it down there as I am for the snow. I’ll report back on how that trip goes next time.

Facts at a glance
Model: Audi RS6
Price as tested: £106,020
Engine: 4.0-litre V8
Power: 591bhp
Torque: 800Nm
0-60mph: 3.6 seconds
Top speed: 155mph
MPG: 22.4mpg (combined)
Emissions: 286g/km CO2
Mileage: 12,876

BMW’s design director has said that he found the positive reception to the firm’s Neue Klasse concept to be a welcome surprise.

Adrian van Hooydonk said that he wasn’t aiming for controversy with the new concept, which showcases the future direction for BMW’s design. The futuristic electric model does incorporate a few hallmark BMW styling touches, including the prominent kidney grilles which, on the Neue Klasse, have been made smaller than we’ve come to expect from current models from the firm.

“If it hadn’t been like that, it would have been an unpleasant surprise,” van Hooydonk told Car Dealer at the Tokyo motor show.

“Because we were not looking for controversy. We are looking for a bigger change because we feel the more you push forward now, the longer your design will stay relevant.

“The world around us is now changing so rapidly, that we felt that it’s better and it is safer now to change a lot, rather than to not change enough.

“The risk of not changing enough is bigger than the risk of changing too much.”

Van Hooydonk took over from designed Chris Bangle in 2009 as the head of the design team responsible for BMW, Mini and Rolls-Royce, alongside the Motorrad motorcycle arm of the company.

The Neue Klasse has been billed as one of the most important concepts to come from BMW and is said to depict what we could expect from the German brand in years to come.

Van Hooydonk added: “When you change the core of your brand, you want to be very careful. You want to be very conscious of what you do.

“But again, if you don’t push it, then in five years’ time, you might regret it. So that’s how we came up with [Neue Klasse].

“It effectively skips a generation. If people squint a little bit they will see BMWs from 1970s, and that’s okay with us.

“It’s not retro design, we feel it’s modern, but there are hints of our past and we think that’s a good thing. But this is a change that will happen at the core of the BMW brand and it will spread very quickly.”

BMW is set to launch hydrogen cars by the end of the decade but says that the UK risks lagging behind the technology.

Speaking at a recent hydrogen tech summit, BMW’s general manager for hydrogen technology, Dr Juergen Guldner, said that he would like to see the UK government ‘get behind’ hydrogen fuel by putting its backing behind a filling station network.

At present, the UK has just 12 hydrogen filling stations but this number dropped last year after Shell shuttered three, citing a ‘lack of confidence’ in the alternative fuel.

Shell has previously planned to expand the three sites – which were previously located at Cobham, Gatwick and Beaconsfield – throughout Britain, stating in early 2020 that it was working towards the opening of three more sites by the end of 2021. They failed to materialise, however, as Shell believed that hydrogen fuel cell cars still didn’t appeal to the public.

In contrast, Japan already has 164 operational hydrogen filling stations and has plans to expand this to 1,000 by 2030. In Europe, there are already plans to ensure that all major highways have access to hydrogen filling stations as well as for towns with more than 100,000 residents.

Dr Guldner told Car Dealer: “I think the UK government actually does have a role, at least in including hydrogen in its mobility strategy.

“When the UK government has a hydrogen strategy, there will be a lot of industry players that are willing to invest, that are willing to build a hydrogen economy, from production to pipeline transport, all the way to mobility and stations. But I think it’s lacking a little bit of public support.”

Dr Guldner said the UK was for a long time ‘on par’ with Europe when it came to hydrogen plans, but that is not the case any more.

He added: “Just make sure you’re not falling behind. I’m not going to advise the UK government, or the UK society, on what to do, but just make sure you don’t get left behind.”