Car News

The future of the Mercedes-Benz X-Class ute has been placed in doubt for the third time this year, with joint venture partner Nissan telling international media at the Tokyo motor show: “We are doing our best to help them and that’s about it”. Nissan builds the Mercedes-Benz X-Class in its Navara factory in Spain and the project was designed to cut production costs for both brands.

Lexus is poised to go electric, confirming plans to show its first production EV in November, focused on China. It has divulged no specifics on what segment it will compete in, though we believe it’s a derivative of a current model. The brand will then roll out a brand-new “dedicated” electric car around 2022 on its own version of a new Toyota Group e-TNGA platform, focused on more markets with growing EV demand, starting with Europe and the US.

Another day, another electric vehicle. This time around it's from Mazda, and it blends all the hallmarks of a sporty city SUV with a fully-electric heart. The MX-30 debuts Mazda's pure-electric e-SkyActiv platform, along with a number of new interior technologies likely to filter through the rest of the Japanese brand's line-up in due course.

Toyota will debut solid-state batteries, one of the most significant technologies coming to electric vehicles, at the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games. Speaking with Auto Express, Toyota chief technology officer, Shigeki Terashi, said at "the Tokyo Olympics, we would like to produce a car with Toyota’s own solid-state battery and unveil it for you".

Mazda remains committed to the diesel engine, despite many manufacturers shying away from the powertrain technology in the wake of the Dieselgate emissions scandal, promising a "new approach" to diesel engines next year. Speaking with the UK's Autocar, the company's European R&D boss, Christian Schultze, said: "We are sticking to diesel engines. In 2020, we have a new approach to diesel engines". "We will show you how clean and very efficient diesel engines can be."