Car News

Mazda has announced its first-ever battery electric vehicle, the MX-30, will arrive in the United Kingdom from early 2021 with a post-subsidy price tag of just over AU$52,000. Only 500 examples of the Mazda MX-30 First Edition will be available to UK customers, with the vehicle available for pre-order at a price of £30,495 driveaway (AU$59,224), or £26,995 (AU$52,427) inclusive of the Office for Low Emission Vehicles (OLEV) grant.

On this week's podcast, you are joined by Mandy Turner and Mike Costello. We cover all the reveals that would've happened at the aborted Geneva motor show, including the Fiat 500 and Volkswagen ID.4. Mike talks about February's new-car sales figures (VFACTS), which sees Kia continue to climb the charts. Sam Purcell speaks with Land Rover communications boss, Richard Agnew, at the launch of the Land Rover Defender.

Mercedes-Benz has become the first German luxury car maker to introduce a five-year warranty across its entire range – a move certain to put pressure on rivals such as Audi, BMW, Volvo, Jaguar and Land Rover to increase their three-year coverage which is now well below the industry average. To date, 14 of the Top 15 car brands have introduced five-, six- or seven-year warranties over the past three years.

Cupra, the performance division of Spanish marque SEAT – a brand not seen in Australia for decades – has revealed its 2020 Formentor crossover coupe-style SUV. The Formentor marks the first exclusive model under the Cupra banner. As with the wider Seat and Cupra lines, it won't be offered in Australia. Available with a full-petrol or high performance plug-in hybrid powertrain, the Formentor looks to blend the practicality of an SUV with the performance Cupra is known for.

New vehicle sales in Australia fell double digits yet again in February, to 79,940 units (a reduction of 10.3 per cent over the same month in 2019). It’s now been 23 successive months of fewer sales than the corresponding month in the previous year, and sales are now the lowest they’ve been since 2011 when the Global Financial Crisis was intimately shaping purchasing behaviour.