Opinion

If you’d believed the hype around the first batch of autonomous concepts a decade or so ago, you’d have expected to be being driven home from the pub by now in a truly driverless car with no steering wheel.

Yet the mood has long since shifted, and now a line has been drawn between driver-assistance technology and true autonomy that cars seem unlikely to ever cross - for many reasons, but perhaps chiefly the legislative nightmare they open up and the funding they require. 

The idea of solid-state technology as a means of bringing down the cost and weight of EV batteries – while improving range, power density and resistance to degradation – has been around even longer than any serious discussion about autonomous cars.

You can date solid-state chat right back to when the first wave of mass-produced EVs arrived at the start of the last decade.

Toyota, Nissan, Honda, Volkswagen have all recently confirmed various developments to their roll-out of the technology, with the former two both firmly (and repeatedly) committing to 2028 as the year when it will go on sale. 

Unlike autonomous cars, then, it seems the day for solid-state batteries is on the horizon.

Or is it? Mercedes-Benz technical chief Markus Schäfer believes the all-out replacement of liquid lithium ion battery technology with solid-state chemistry in future EVs is most definitely not a given.

When the original proclamations were made around existing lithium ion batteries, they were done so without the knowledge and foresight of so many of the brightest brains from all across the world working on developing the technology for so long. 

Schäfer said work has been intensifying on existing liquid electrolyte lithium ion battery technology and there has been “unexpected” progress with the technology, to the point that it could end up being “neck and neck” with solid-state technology in terms of cost and energy density. 

Given that a whole supply and production network has been built up already for the existing battery technology, why would a new one need to be built up again for solid-state technology?

Nissan has said that new factories could even be needed for solid-state EVs, because the impact on almost every element of development and manufacturing is so dramatic. 

“When you commit to something like solid-state, you have to change the whole mechanism and architecture of the vehicle,” David Moss, Nissan’s senior vice-president for R&D in Europe, told me last year. 

Forget battery-electric versus hydrogen in cars: that race has been won by the former. Now what’s up for debate is which battery technology will power them, and it’s a debate with huge interest clearly attached, as Schäfer’s comments last week made for the most popular story on autocar.co.uk so far this year. 

So who’s right? Well, Schäfer’s notion that solid-state “reminds me a little bit of the forecasting for autonomous driving” makes it clear which side of the fence he’s on.

I'm intrigued by James Attwood's recent drive of the Audi Q8 E-tron Edition Dakar.

It’s a car that at once could be easily dismissed as an expensive folly: only a few will be a few made, it costs some £20,000 more than a regular Q8 E-tron and Audi will charge you another £8600 for a wrap that looks like its Dakar Rally raider, just to ensure that you won’t want to be seen in it.

Yet at the same time, it feels to me like a relevant, early and still-rare foray into electric off-roading, which is a thing that one day will have to become not extraordinary.

And in the way that, say, the multifaceted Hyundai Ioniq 5 N can change what we expect from performance cars, so an electric 4x4 could redefine what we expect from off-roaders.

It won’t just attempt to replicate what an internal-combustion 4x4 can do now but rewrite the book on it.

Jaguar, for example, never pitched the I-Pace as an off-roader, yet on its launch in 2018 it took us not only to a race track to sample how well it could rotate into corners but also up stupidly steep gravel tracks, through riverbeds and more.

The I-Pace has a little-publicised wade depth of 500mm, which people don’t routinely set out to challenge.

But, of course, not needing oxygen for hundreds of explosions every minute, the right electric car could theoretically wade as deep as it wanted. Just pack scuba gear for the occupants.

There’s more: as Attwood notes, the Edition Dakar has no more underbody cladding than any other Q8 E-tron.

Partly that’s because it’s not a serious rock-crawler but also partly because EVs already have heavy armour for their batteries and have fewer spinning or delicate ancillaries that need it.

Finally, and most importantly for going off road, there’s the power delivery. The way an engine delivers its power is largely governed by the way it’s designed.

For instance, big adventure or scrambling motorcycles have large-capacity, few-cylinder engines because they make good amounts of torque but also because the uneven, pulsing power delivery can help a tyre find better traction than a smoother torque delivery.

An EV can deliver torque to wherever it wants, whenever it wants, entirely how it wants.

An ICE 4x4 needs a complex drivetrain with locking differentials and complex management of slow-response mechanical systems; an EV has the benefit of instant, infinitely variable responses.

Problems? Of course. The Q8 E-tron weighs 2585kg and the world’s most serious current off-road EV, the GMC Hummer, weighs 4500kg.

But with the Hummer, hate the game, not the player: it needs a long range to cut it in the US, the enormousness and vulnerability of its battery means it does need underbody cladding and its consequential size and weight means its rear wheels need to steer because it’s ungainly, and so the unvirtuous circle continues until you need a different driving licence.

But Jeep’s most capable – and popular – Wrangler is now the plug-in hybrid 4xe. Its motor sits on the engine side of the gearbox, so it doesn’t utilise the full benefits of an electric powertrain, but that motor still responds more quickly to challenging terrain than an engine.

Plus it’s terrific fun to drive around with the roof and doors off, hearing animals in the wild and the gentle scrunch of dirt under tyre.

Most off-roading will be more mundane, naturally. People rarely drive Q8 E-tron-priced vehicles in ‘proper’ wilds and you don’t want to be out of charge if you do.

But they do go on shoots, pull horse trailers into fields and back boats down ramps with them. And there will be a time when an EV will be the better tool for those jobs.

Has the arrival of a spreadsheet ever been considered exciting? Doubtful, yet it’s still an annual highlight to download the SMMT’s annual end-of-year new car registrations for the numbers where there’s simply no hiding for car makers, for better or worse.

As ever, 2023’s numbers didn’t disappoint in the stories they produced. It was less a year of chip shortages and supply constraints, more one of falling consumer confidence and the squeeze of a cost of living crisis. Still, the market was up 18%, mainly driven by fleet orders. 

So who did what? Volkswagen again claimed top spot in the UK, while Ford grew sales by 14% to take second – a performance it’s unlikely to repeat again now that the Ford Fiesta really is gone. 

Audi returned to form post-chip crisis with 25% growth, comfortably topping the premium sales charts, some 26,000 units ahead of BMW and 50,000 ahead of Mercedes-Benz in the latter’s first year of agency sales.

Gone are the days of a neck-and-neck race between this trio for that honour, but given that Audi was third only to Volkswagen and Ford in the sales charts, just what is 'premium' any more?

Toyota, Vauxhall and Kia were the other brands to break through the 100,000 barrier in a year of growth for each.

Just a year ago, Kia’s entrance to the 100,000 club was one of the biggest stories from the sales figures, but such is its charge and presence in the UK that it already feels normal.

Tesla sales surprisingly went backwards, dropping 10%. The firm was one just seven in fact that went backwards last year. Four of the others were from the Stellantis stable: Alfa Romeo, Fiat, DS and Abarth. Mercifully for Stellantis, its two biggest brands, Vauxhall and Peugeot, both delivered near-20% growth on their 2022 performances. 

In its first year here, BYD instantly outsold the likes of Maserati and Smart and ended not too far behind the likes of Alfa Romeo, Genesis, Ssangyong and Bentley. Expect BYD to want to ‘do an MG’ and post exponential growth from here.

MG itself in 2023 again posted stellar sales of more than 80,000 and 59% growth year on year to move within sight of heavyweights like Hyundai, Nissan and Mercedes, all of which posted growth of their own in 2023. Can MG get to 100,000? Don’t bet against it.

Newbies on the sales charts in addition to BYD included Ineos, which registered 877 Ineos Grenadiers, and Fisker, which put numberplates on 160 Oceans in December. That UK launch is going to occur any day now.

GWM Ora should also be considered a new entrant for 2023, given that it registered its first cars at the end of 2022, but it failed to leave much of an impression on UK buyers, with fewer than 1000 Funky Cats registered in 2023. 

Land Rover put its supply problems behind it with 24% growth and more than 50,000 sales, taking it ahead of Tesla and Mini.

Even Jaguar posted 17% growth with 14,000 sales, keeping it just ahead of a rapidly growing Polestar – the kind of car maker that Jaguar would soon like to itself become.

Porsche's 32% growth had it just slot in behind mainstream brands including Citroën, Honda, Dacia, Cupra, Mazda and Suzuki and well ahead of the likes of Lexus and Fiat. 

Other brands that posted impressive growth after recent malaise were Renault (+32%), Volvo (+37%), Mazda (+21%), Seat (+45%) and Skoda (43%). All of these brands will be grateful for making up ground lost in the chip shortage.

The projection from the SMMT for 2024 is for sales to grow 4% again in 2024. That smaller growth compared with the 18% of 2023 isn't going to lead to as many success stories from car makers, especially with so many ambitious new entrants into this most dynamic and interesting of markets. Let the games begin.

Missing in action at CES: the Tesla Cybertruck. You'd have thought the newest model from the firm that has done the most to accelerate the automotive industry’s tech transformation would be a shoe-in for the world’s leading tech show, but no.

An early rumour that the divisive electric pick-up truck was part of the fleet on Tesla’s underground Vegas Loop, which links halls at the city’s vast convention centre, were quickly scotched. Would it have even fit into the tight tunnels anyway?

That Tesla itself wasn’t at CES wasn't so surprising, given its patchy attendance at motor shows (Goodwood Festival of Speed notwithstanding), but you’d have thought some enterprising automotive tech company would have got hold of a Cybertruck to make it a feature on their stand, given that deliveries have now started.

Love or hate it, you wouldn't pass it by. Perhaps the scrutiny from the world’s tech press was too much to withstand for Tesla as the company irons out early teething problems.

Also missing from the fray this year were the US big three of General Motors, Ford and Stellantis (which owns Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep and Ram).

Stellantis said it had pulled out to save costs incurred by the gruelling UAW union stand-off last year, and it's likely the other two felt the same.

Ford had been a regular attendee since it showed off an electric Focus in 2011, and Chevrolet two years ago took the covers of its electric Silverado pick-up.

Honda and Kia both stepped in with unveilings of thought-provoking concepts, Volkswagen and Mercedes-Benz teased the new Golf and electric G-Class respectively, while Turkish EV maker Togg showed a new saloon.

BMW is a CES regular but dialled back its participation this year, demonstrating smaller-scale tech advances, such as augmented-reality glasses.

CES is undoubtedly now one of the world’s biggest auto shows in an era when traditional displays of metal are dwindling. But it needs more of the tangible representation of the future envisaged by the tech-focused suppliers that turn up in great numbers every year, this year being no exception.

Bosch, Hyundai Mobis, Magna, Marelli, Mobileye, Qualcomm and many others didn't disappoint, with early insight into what’s coming in cars five years’ time. But they need the manufacturers to ramp up the excitement in tandem.

It’s 4.15am and I’m in my kitchen waiting for the kettle to boil while flicking between the Google Maps and Waze apps on my phone.

I have to be at a lay-by in Teesdale between 9.30am and 10am in a car that’s fuelled enough for the day, and I need to pick up a videographer from Leeds on the way.

My phone says Leeds is 1hr 30min from our destination, so I should get to the videographer by 8am. And he’s 2hr 50min from my gaff near Bicester, so I could leave almost an hour later than now, at 5.10am.

But that – and you’ll have known this as you read it – would be a mistake. Because by the time I get to Leeds for 8am, there will be loads of people getting to Leeds for 8am. So the kettle boils, I fill a mug and off I go.

Initially it looks like I’ll be daftly early: 7.20am. But I’ll want more tea and a bun on the way, and if I fuel the car near Leeds, it will last the day. My estimated arrival time creeps onwards.

After a relaxed fuel stop, I arrive at 7.55am. Spot on.

The second section of the journey is more predictable. We’re the only people trying to get to a lay-by in Teesdale by 10am, so traffic is expectedly light and we’re there by 9.35am.

It couldn’t be simpler. Or could it? There are variables and options to go around if it goes awry, which I know about only through experience. Different leaving times give different results. But a near constant, at least, is how much it will cost.

A few weeks ago, I took a train to Birmingham. As with the car, I stood in my kitchen working out journey times. Being naive, I would have gone to the station and bought a ticket.

But that again would have been a mistake. At £29.10, I would have overpaid the German taxpayer, who ultimately owns Chiltern Railways.

Had I gone online, I could have saved myself 10%, paying £26.10 for the same journey. But that too would have been a mistake, because I was travelling with someone who had a Network Railcard and therefore could buy me a ticket for just £24 so long as we travelled together.

I say ‘a’ ticket. The catch was that the Network Railcard was valid only to King’s Sutton, a few stops up the line. So we were travelling there with a Railcard discount, then on a full fare to Birmingham – although these ‘split’ tickets were valid only on trains that called at King’s Sutton.

Confused? I was – and I would have paid 20% more than I’d needed to if somebody else hadn’t known better.

If you’ve regularly used trains for as long as I’ve been driving to nowhere via somewhere, I’m sure you’ve got the hang of it. But should one have to?

If I drive now to Edinburgh, say, all I have to think about is how long it will take me to get there. It will cost me the same amount as if I’d have thought about it three months ago.

By train, my options can be as little as £179 or as much as £380 (both standard class), depending on when I go. In a car, my naivety and spontaneity aren’t taken advantage of. It’s no longer really meant to be like this.

In May 2021, a new public body called Great British Railways was announced, promising that “a quarter century of fragmentation on the railways [would] end” and it would “simplify the current mass of confusing tickets”.

Alas, three prime ministers and three transport secretaries later, it has been bumped to at least the next parliament, even assuming it’s picked up then.

I don’t mind planning a journey. And I don’t mind the idea of a loyalty card: you regularly use something, you save a few quid doing it.

But I do mind the feeling that unless I game the system, I’m being taken for a mug. Kettle has boiled. Fetch the car keys.