Car News

The 2020 Toyota GR Yaris hot hatch has shed its disguise in a dust-covered debut that pays tribute to the brand’s world rally heritage. Although price is yet to be announced, Toyota has laid bare all the facts and figures behind its first in-house all-wheel-drive performance car in 20 years. An epic output of 192kW is believed to make the Toyota GR Yaris the most powerful three-cylinder in the world.

The Toyota HiLux and Ford Ranger might have stolen the limelight in the end-of-year sales race, but there are still some bargains to be had at the bottom end of the market. There are normally slim pickings below $40,000 but a few special deals have emerged that provide buyers on a budget more options. Isuzu has given its base model D-Max SX tradie pack the limited edition treatment, creating the D-Max X-Rider.

In a two-and-a-half-hour press conference in Beirut, Lebanon, Carlos Ghosn, the former CEO of Renault and Nissan, has given a full-throated defence against the charges he was facing in Japan. Starting with an hour-long monologue to a packed conference room, Ghosn said he was detained in an "inhumane system of hostage justice" with a 99.4 per cent conviction rate.

Long a luxury brand bridesmaid, Volvo outgunned all of its direct competitors in the Small SUV sales race with the XC40 last year. The Swedish-Chinese company recorded 2858 sales of its chunky little high-riding city crossover, equating to 17.4 per cent market share. It was also volume growth of 80 per cent over 2018, though it only launched halfway through that year.

We spent all this time waiting for Apple to unveil its heavily reported (and now dead) 'Project Titan' car, and here was Sony quietly working away at one of its own: the Vision-S electric car, unveiled at this week's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.