The original Nissan Qashqai was ahead of the game when it was launched but has the latest version already been left behind by the Peugeot 3008 and Hyundai Tucson?
Drivers who choose not to wear a seatbelt could be hit with three points on their licence. MPs want to increase the deterrent from the current £100 fine as data shows that almost a third of those killed in vehicles were not wearing a seatbelt.
It is 40 years since a change in the law was made to mandate the use of seatbelts in cars, a rule that was put into force two years later for front-seat occupants, and in 1991 for those in the rear.
But with 25 per cent of road deaths involving a vehicle occupant not wearing a belt in 2016, rising to 30 per cent in 2018, members of the Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety (PACTS) are said to be recommending more stringent punishments for those not belting up than the current £100 fine, which can also be just a £53 awareness course instead. The proposed points could also be given to the driver if one of the occupants is unbelted.
David Davies, executive director of PACTS, told the Times: “Seatbelts are a great success story but the job is not yet done. The £100 fine does not emphasise to drivers the seriousness of the risk.”
The reasons for drivers not wearing seatbelts will vary from person to person, with some decrying infringement of civil liberties, and others said to be overconfident about being unbelted thanks to the sense of security SUVs bring.
But whatever the reasons, as well as risking their own death and the trauma of anyone else involved in a crash that could potentially be fatal due to a lack of seatbelt use, there is also an economic cost MPs may consider, with each fatal road casualty costing the economy £2m.
Oxford-based electric car conversion specialist Electrogenic has revealed another electrified classic in the form of this: a battery powered version of the Citroen DS.
Based on a 1971 example of the iconic Bertoni designed Citroen saloon, the company has created what it claims to be the world’s first professionally converted DS running on electric power only.
The car’s original 2.0-litre four-cylinder petrol engine has been replaced by a 120bhp electric motor developing 235kW torque. Like other classics converted by the company, it still sends its power to the wheels (the front wheels in the case of the DS) through the car’s original manual gearbox.
A battery 48.5kWh in capacity has been packaged in, which the brand says offers a real-world range of around 140 miles on a single charge. The company says the car is also available with an optional range-extender battery providing up to 200 miles, but has not revealed the capacity of this battery. Standard charging tech is rated at 29kW, which can recharge the 48.5kWh standard battery in around two hours.
The car retains the hydro-pneumatic suspension of the original, though with some modern tweaks to make the system more compatible with the electric drivetrain. As such, the mechanical pump for controlling the suspension’s hydraulic system has been replaced with a modern electric one, to reduce noise.
“As with all first-time conversions, the DS presented us with unique challenges. In this case adapting the hydro-pneumatic suspension to run without the combustion engine. The old pump was so noisy that it detracted from the silent drive of the car, but our new electric pump solved the issue completely,” explains Ian Newstead, Electrogenic director and co-founder.
The design of the DS is largely unchanged. Opening the bonnet now reveals the tightly packaged battery and motor system, while outside the exhaust system is now absent, and a new ‘DS EV electronique’ badge has been added.
This first example of an Electrogenic DS has been converted to customer specification, so there is no set price for the conversion. The brand has produced bespoke conversions for a trio of British sports cars: the Triumph Stag, Morgan 4/4 and the Jaguar E-Type.
What do you think of Electrogenic's Citroen DS conversion? Let us know in the comments section...
Bowler has applied the knowledge its engineering team has gained through years of experience to create something quite brilliant and surprisingly approachable given how serious the Defender Challenge car looks, even if the character from a V8 would crown the package. However, the beauty of Bowler’s experience and its new relationship with Land Rover shouldn’t be underestimated. We can’t wait to see what comes from this partnership in the future as both brands go from strength to strength.
Not all that long ago, Bowler – long-time builder of rally special Land Rovers – was bought by Jaguar Land Rover, and this is the first fruits of the collaboration between the two brands under the new relationship. It’s called the Bowler Defender Challenge and it’s excellent.
It’s designed to give both novice and experienced competition drivers a thrill, as for the £99,500 this all-new Defender off-road competition vehicle costs, you also get entry into Bowler’s one-make Defender Challenge series, with a calendar consisting of seven UK-based rounds. Driver tuition and vehicle support is also available.
The car is the star though. It’s based on a new Land Rover Defender 90 fitted with the brand’s 296bhp P300 2.0-litre turbocharged four-cylinder engine. It doesn’t sound like all that much power, especially given that the Defender with modifications weighs around two tonnes, but it’s still enough to exploit what Bowler has done to the package.
Much of the car uses standard components, including the engine and eight-speed transmission, which are completely unchanged, while the suspension arms are also standard. This helps keep cost down.
However, the brand has spent money where it counts, with a new cooling set-up, some new cosmetic components at the front and rear (which could be sold as aftermarket accessories to road-going Defender owners in the fullness of time), reinforced subframes and bespoke Fox suspension dampers valved to Bowler’s specifications, which give superb damping capability off-road.
It rides rough terrain so well, soaking up huge inputs with minimal fuss, keeping the tyres in contact with the surface so the engine and transmission can relay maximum drive more of the time.
It’s the suspension that really makes the package, hung from a super stiff monocoque platform compared with the previous Defender Challenge car based on the old iconic model, which utilised a separate chassis and body. It’s also reinforced by an FIA-approved roll cage to help strengthen the body. Over lumps, bumps and jumps the Bowler stays resolutely composed, with a silky, cushioned landing as the big machine falls back to earth following its take off.
The steering is relatively quick and feels surprisingly direct, even on off-road tyres and a loose surface. The chassis inspires massive confidence regardless of grip levels and driver experience, pushing you to make the most of the P300 engine.
In a standard Defender 90 P300 0-60mph takes 6.7 seconds. It’ll likely be longer off-road, but thanks to 400Nm of torque available from low down in the rev range it offers plenty of flexibility in tight turns and good grunt to pull the raised-up machine’s bulk out of ruts.
Thanks to Bowler’s own sports exhaust system it even sounds fruitier, with a deeper rumble that morphs into a rasp higher up in the rev range. Yes, a straight-six or V8 petrol would be nice, but they’d no doubt be heavier, harder to master and more expensive to buy and run – the latter is a serious consideration for a competition car and has been a big consideration with this project.
A 25mm higher ride height to accommodate light 18-inch alloys and big off-road tyres, and 6mm thick aluminium underbody protection means it offers plenty of rugged durability. It feels rugged from inside too. The interior is stripped out, with two big bucket seats featuring six-point harnesses put back in. Bowler has ditched the Defender’s cross car beam and repositioned the climate control panel and gear selector to help ergonomics and improve the ease of use in manual mode when competing.
There’s also a 3D-printed paddle shifter on the right-hand side of the steering column to more easily flick up and down the box, allowing drivers to always keep at least one hand on the wheel.
The standard brakes are easily up to the task as well, offering good power and decent feel. In fact, after a handful of laps of Land Rover’s Fen End off-road test track it’s clear that Bowler has developed areas of the Defender that were necessary to upgrade it to the level of performance required for rallying but retained standard parts where there was no need to improve them – even the air-conditioning has been retained to keep drivers and navigator cool in the heat of battle.
The second-generation Bentley Bentayga Hybrid is one of motoring’s more curious anomalies. It’s still a Marmite car visually, despite a reasonably successful mid-life redesign. But ultimately, it’s also still a 2.7-tonne luxury SUV that is not going to help save the planet, plug-in hybrid system or not. It also lacks character compared with the V8 and W12 models. Nice interior, though.
When the Bentayga first appeared at the end of 2015, the world was a very different place, and 2.7-tonne, petrol-powered SUVs seemed far less out of kilter with it than they do right now.
So in the middle of 2019, before you-know-what began to unfold, Bentley reacted and gave us the Bentayga Hybrid. And now it has reacted again and given us a second-generation model that uses the same powertrain as the original, but which has been redesigned inside and out, just like the rest of the Bentayga range.
It costs £155,000, which is £22,000 more than the first-gen model. But for that you get a new-look interior and exterior, along with a hybrid system that is capable of 81mpg and which emits just 79g/km in EV mode.
The styling “upgrades” bring the Bentayga more closely in line with the rest of the range, Bentley claims, with a larger and more upright new grille, more subtle tweaks along the flanks that include “Hybrid” badging, and an entirely fresh rear end, complete with new oval tailpipes. Vast 22-inch wheels also become available and a range of new paint options have been added to the already-expansive options list.
It still looks instantly like a Bentayga, and if anything, it appears even bigger and even more imposing in the flesh. That’s at least partly down to the new grille, but there’s also a pair of huge new LED Matrix headlights that have been designed to look like cut-crystal glassware, says Bentley, adding to the overall effect.
Inside, the new TFT instrument display replaces the more traditional dials from before, and in the Hybrid model’s case there are numerous new displays to inform you which mode you’ve selected – EV, Hybrid or Hold. As with the original Hybrid, you can also choose between four different driving modes for the suspension, steering, throttle map and so on.
Bentley says that rear seat and boot space have also been improved in all directions, although the Hybrid remains either a four- or five-seater; the seven-seat option can’t be made available because there’s a 210kg lithium-ion battery packaged beneath the rear seats and boot.
Either way, the cabin is even more luxuriant than before and is even better equipped, with a 10.9-inch touchscreen display for the infotainment system, a new steering wheel and yet higher-quality materials on the seats, console and dash.
The main point of focus for the Hybrid model – its hybrid system – remains unchanged, however. And that is somewhat disappointing, given that a) it wasn’t exactly world-beating in the first place, and b) the rate of technological progress is so fierce among the competition, for obvious reasons, that standing still in this game inevitably means you take one step back.
To recap, the Bentayga Hybrid’s main source of propulsion is a single-turbo 3.0-litre V6 that can also be found in a variety of other, rather less expensive cars within the VW empire. This is mated to 17.3kWh lithium-ion battery and an electric motor that boosts the V6’s outputs from around 340bhp/450Nm to 443bhp and 700Nm combined. This is enough to give a 0-62mph time of 5.5sec and a 158mph top speed, despite the Hybrid model weighing 200kg more than the rest of the range.
The claimed range on a single 75-litre tank of fuel and with the battery fully charged is 431 miles; the car is capable of 25 miles in full EV mode, during which it can also do 84mph before the petrol engine automatically fires up.
There are three modes; EV, Hybrid and Hold. In EV you use only the battery; in Hybrid the car works out which is the most efficient combination of propulsion, taking into account your driving style and how hard you press the two pedals; and in Hold it works out how to keep as much charge as possible in the battery so that, in town, you can switch to EV mode and still have plenty of charge left.
And you’ll need to hang on to all the EV power you can, given that a full recharge takes 2.5 hours from a wallbox or around seven hours from a regular three-pin socket. There is no fast charge capability, in other words, and you can’t drive your Bentayga Hybrid in a way that regenerates power into the battery on the move, either, because it’s too heavy to achieve this and would burn too much fossil fuel in the process to make sense. As plug-in hybrids go, it’s not one of the more cutting-edge examples.
But perhaps the biggest disappointment of all with the Bentayga Hybrid is its lack of personality on the move, its absence of Bentley-ness, and that’s purely down to the fact that it’s powered mainly by a strangely characterless Audi-sourced V6 engine. In many ways it feels far more majestic when wafting along in near silence in full EV mode, not in Hybrid mode. Only then can you fully appreciate the serenity of its ride (so long as the dampers are in Comfort), the accuracy of its steering, the feel and power of its brakes, the pure quality of its new cabin and the space it unquestionably contains – all the elements that distinguish the Bentayga as a world-class luxury SUV, in other words, and which define it as a true Bentley.
As soon as that V6 petrol sparks up, though, too much of that feeling is diluted. And at that point you do wonder if it is really worth £155,000.
