IT’S BEEN A GOOD YEAR FOR...
It has been a good year for bad news. I can’t remember 12 months when our annual review of ‘car world’ found the cheery stories so outnumbered by the depressing. Well, not since the global financial catastrophe of a decade ago.
That’s not to say we haven’t been chuffed at a squadron of fabulous new cars. This issue is full of them. Of course, any great car this year is the result of work done in years past, but all the same, this is the year their arrival made us very happy.
We’ve enjoyed being teased too, by carmakers whipping up a froth over machines still untouchable. Bugatti showed the Divo to potential buyers when it was just a full-size styling model and a set of clever engineer’s what-if calculations. Years of drip-feeding over the McLaren Speedtail, Aston
Valkyrie and Toyota Supra culminated in the hypercars’ designs going public and us getting a Supra drive. But their buyers still face at least a year of enjoying them in their imaginations only.
Electric cars had a good year. To most car-industry giants, the logistical challenge of building 5,000 cars a week is no hassle. The impossible part is selling that many. For Tesla it was the opposite way around. But after some very public travails, it has done it, and the excellent Model 3 is not just the fastest-selling car in history by order rate, but now in the top five in the US by deliveries. Of any powertrain.
The Jaguar I-Pace is on sale here and is a fabulous thing. We’ve seen the final versions of the Audi
eTron and Mercedes EQ C. At half that price, other long-range EVs are piling into the fray, led by the Hyundai Kona. Lots of engineers got new jobs at Dyson. Don’t worry: Ofgem said our power generation and grid will be able to cope with millions of EVs, assuming they mostly charge off-peak.
More future shock. Flying cars...
Two are now claiming to be on course for delivery next year. The Terrafugia (now owned by Geely) Transition, and the PAL-V Aeromobil is advancing too. The headlines screamed ‘flying car’ when Aston Martin teamed up with the Rolls-Royce aero engine company. But actually their VTOL concept flies but doesn’t ever use roads. The R-R man explained, “You’d end up with a bad aircraft, and a bad car.” Among individuals having a good year, Lewis Hamilton majestically steamrollered over all the doubting and sniping. Another all-time multiple world champion, Sébastien Loeb, came back from a few years doing very well in practically every other motorsport except tractor-pulling to enter a couple of WRC rounds. He won in Catalunya in tricky conditions driving the Citroen C3 that everyone else finds just as much of a handful.
In the industry, high-fives to Ola Källenius, appointed to run Daimler-Benz. As a Swede he’s the first non-German to scale that peak. He’s previously been head of Mercedes development, and head of AMG. We like his style. Herbert Diess is now in charge of the whole VW Group, another engineer and finally a man at the top of that organisation who wasn’t there in the Dieselgate years.
But I’m not sure any of those guys are happier this year than the carloving women of Saudi Arabia, who are finally allowed to drive.