Car review

Stylish compact crossover offers appealing looks and interior tech. Does it have the drive to match? The Vauxhall Mokka Electric takes the traditional crossover recipe and tries to meld it into something truly desirable and appealing.A funky, futuristic design and a stylish-looking interior made this car both modern and appealing to prospective buyers, and it still looks the part despite first going on sale back in 2019. Indeed, Vauxhall seems to have struck a chord with customers. Dealers have shifted nearly 100,000 examples of the second-generation Mokka, despite it finding itself in a fiercely contested market segment. The Hyundai Kona Electric, Volkswagen ID 3, Ford Puma Gen-E and Renault 4 all want a seat at the table too, but a series of technological and drivability enhancements promises to continue the Mokka's appeal and competitiveness. The standard version is now fitted with the same 54kWh battery as the old Long Range version, plus it has been given a comfort-focused damping retune, reworked steering and the same styling revisions inside and out as the ICE Mokka.Read on, then, to find out if a minor update can continue this crossover's appeal against an ever-increasing, ever-more competitive pool of rivals.The Vauxhall Mokka Electric range at a glanceThere are three trim levels available: Design, GS and Ultimate.Entry-level cars have pretty much all the kit you need, with a 10in infotainment touchscreen and digital instrumentation display, Apple CarPlay, Android Auto, rear parking sensors, LED lights and 17in alloy wheels. GS trim adds a rear-view camera, more adjustment for the driver's seat, 18in alloys and tinted glass.Ultimate adds additional comfort-based trinkets, such as a heated steering wheel, heated front seats, lumbar support and massage seats.Design starts at around £32,500, while GS costs about £2000 more and Ultimate just over £37,000.As standard, you now get the bigger 54kWh battery pack from the old Long Range car. In combination with improved energy efficiency, that results in a claimed 20% range increase over the old 50kWh Mokka Electric, to 252 miles.It has a good maximum charging speed of 100kW, meaning a top up from 20% to 80% takes 27 minutes. That's better than Renault 4 (80kW).Its front-mounted electric motor produces 154bhp and 191lb ft of torque, which is good for a 0-62mph of 9.0sec and a top speed of 93mph.

Is Volkswagen's family-friendly ID 4 electric SUV better when it's trying to mimic a coupé? Gone are the days when SUVs were purely boxy, drag-inducing lumps with a languid demeanour and lacklustre efficiency.Okay, so traditional SUVs are still a sales phenomenon, but there’s a more modern body style in town: the oh-so-fashionable coupé-SUV, and so enters the Volkswagen ID 5. You might look at the ID 5 and think it’s just an alternative to the Volkswagen ID 4 with a rounded backside, but in the world of EVs, a coupé-style design should in theory provide aerodynamical benefits for improved driving range. The ID 5 is akin to the Skoda Enyaq Coupé and Audi Q4 E-tron Sportback. The ID 4 arrived in 2021, the ID 5 a year later, and the two cars share their underpinnings, including batteries, motors and styling, save for the rear. Volkswagen ID 5 range at a glanceThe ID 5 range mirrors the ID 4 range. So three variants are available in the UK: Pure, Pro and GTX. The Pure is fitted with the smallest battery, a 52kWh unit, which offers a claimed range of 224 miles on a charge. The Pro gets 344 miles from a 77kWh unit, while the GTX gets a 79kWh battery, which offers 327 miles of range.Power ranges from 167bhp up to 335bhp. VersionpowerID 5 Pure167bhpID 5 Pro282bhpID 5 GTX335bhp

Fresh iteration of the hatchback gets a new hybrid powertrain and a smarter interior The Honda Civic isn’t as ubiquitous as it once was, having largely fallen prey to the same SUV contenders as other once big-name family hatchbacks. And for British buyers, it perhaps isn’t as appealing as when it had the cachet of being built in Swindon.In the past few years, it has quietly sunk down to the bottom of Honda’s sales statistics, with the Jazz supermini and HR-V small SUV dwarfing its figures. And that’s a real shame, because we reckon the sensible hybrid hatchback is easily the best car that Honda makes right now.

Straight six turbo BMW coupe obviously has its charms. Especially at these prices How does a twin-turbocharged six-cylinder BMW M4 for the price of a tidy, reasonable-miles Toyota GR Yaris sound? Well, then, step right up with your £25,000 in hand – or far less for a leggier example.Sure, these two brilliant driver’s cars are very different beasts, but with twice the number of cylinders, way more power and an extra lashing of premium appeal, Munich’s muscle car could be the more logical purchase.Launched in 2014, the M4 was effectively a continuation of the two-door M3 and joined its four-door sibling in swapping a howling atmo V8 for a creamier straight six.Displacement devotees shuddered at the loss of the mighty 4.0-litre lump that powered the previous-generation M3, but dropping down two cylinders and adding two turbos paved the way for a healthy uplift in power and, crucially, an extra 111lb ft of torque.Thus endowed, it had 406lb ft on tap and its peak power output of 425bhp arrived at 5500rpm as opposed to the 8000rpm of its ‘E92’ M3 Coupé forebear.The M4 could hit 60mph in just 4.1sec too – and it was an absolute slip-road supremo, capable of surging from 30-70mph a whole 3.0sec quicker than the E92 M3.Part of the reason for the Mk1 M4’s enduring appeal is that it arrived in the hazy days when BMW still offered a manual gearbox in the UK, but honestly the seven-speed dual-clutch automatic is the better wingman for the 425bhp motor.It’s slick and responsive – and full-throttle paddle shifts are highly entertaining. That said, the six-speed manual, while being a little slower, delivers the more interactive experience when hustling it down a twisty cross-country road – as you will often be inclined to do in a car this engaging and composed.When we road tested the M4, we said: “Select the M4’s angriest settings and you’ll have a car that is adeptly tied down yet compliant over the worst bumps.“The rear diff can be completely open so it doesn’t push into understeer on corner entry, or it can be completely locked, which turns the car into the kind of adjustable drift machine that M cars have recently become.”With excellent balance and body control, the M4 has all the key ingredients to stir the soul, but it isn’t totally free of niggles.The steering, for example, while resoundingly precise and accurate, lacks the raw feel of the Mercedes-AMG C63’s.For a more visceral experience, we would go for the M4 Competition. A 35k-mile ‘Comp’ is around £5000 more than a comparable standard car, but with 444bhp, a revised suspension set-up and retuned differential and stability control, it’s an even finer driver’s car.Its rear end is more planted and the vast reserves of torque are delivered in a more linear way to prevent the rear axle from being overwhelmed.When new, it also had the enticingly intricate 20in ‘snowflake’ wheels and purposeful, track-flavoured sports seats.If that isn’t enough to scratch your M itch, the hardcore, track-focused GTS model might be more to your taste. Good luck finding one, though, because only 30 right-hand-drive cars were made and it’s priced at around £80,000 today.Rounding off the first-generation M4 was the 454bhp CS, built to bridge the gap between the Competition and full-bore GTS.It’s a super-refined and well-rounded sports coupé and encompasses the very best of the M4 line-up in one package – and you can get one now for less than £40,000.It handles better, sounds better, goes harder and works very well on the road, so don’t rule it out if your budget can stretch further.

GBS Zero is a minimalist roadster on a Caterham-like theme The GBS (Great British Sports Cars) Zero is among a number of Caterham Seven-alike models whose existence the original maker has learnt to tolerate during the past few decades.The first of those (the original unoriginal?) was a Westfield that looked so much like a 7 that Caterham litigated it into it having a slightly different appearance, and every 7-but-not-7 has been a variation on the theme since; familiar but somehow not at the same time, like seeing a mate who’s been clean shaven for 30 years suddenly appear with a beard.The Zero is GBS’s take on the minimal two-seat, front engine, rear drive roadster. We haven’t driven a GBS for more than a decade and there’ll be a huge difference between the model we tested then, and this one, which has more than 200bhp and is more accommodating than a Caterham.