Car News

Opel has announced the next-generation Astra small car will be built at its Rüsselsheim facility in Germany from 2021, also confirming an electrified variant. Currently, the Astra is assembled at Ellesmere Port in the UK, and Gliwice in Poland – the former supplying Australia’s now-axed Holden Astra Sportwagon, and the latter the source of the Holden Astra hatchback which remains on sale.

Volkswagen has floated 11.5 per cent of its truck-making unit, now named Traton, on the Frankfurt and Nasdaq Stockholm stock exchanges. Weak demand from investors had forced the automaker to price the listing at the low end of its target price range. It also meant the company couldn't float the 25 per cent it had wanted to let go of.

Singer Vehicle Design is preparing a two-car assault on the Goodwood Festival of Speed, with a new customer commission joining the DLS revealed last year. UPDATE, 1/7/19: The original version of this article stated Singer would be bringing three vehicles to the 2019 Goodwood Festival of Speed, however, this is not the case. While the Mulholland Commission was revealed in conjunction with the company’s announcement, it will not be on show at the event.

Electrification is high on the agenda, but BMW says internal-combustion engines will survive another three decades before being entirely usurped by electric or hydrogen vehicles. "The shift to electrification is over-hyped. Battery-electric vehicles cost more in terms of raw materials for batteries. This will continue and could eventually worsen as demand for these raw materials increases," said Klaus Frolich, chief BMW technical officer.

The newly arrived Lexus UX range will be available with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto in Australia before the end of the year, the Japanese luxury marque has confirmed. Following the debut of the smartphone mirroring technology (for Lexus in Australia, at least) with the facelifted RX sometime in the fourth quarter of 2019, the entry-level UX will be the second model in the brand’s range locally to get the feature.