8 HRS AGO - Porsche reveals lesser trim grades for its first electric car, with up to 563bhp and 287 miles of range thanks to option packs Porsche has made its new Taycan EV much more attainable with the addition of a new 4S trim underneath the existing Turbo and Turbo S.  The new model is available to order now from £83,367 (excluding the £3,500 government grant) and is expected to arrive for UK deliveries in January alongside the Turbo and Turbo S.  While it doesn’t get the 751bhp of the £138,000 Taycan Turbo S, the 4S still puts out 523bhp during overboost in standard form. It also gets a 79.2kWh battery for a WLTP certified range of 252 miles.  However, Porsche also offers a Performance Battery Plus option pack, which raises peak power to 563bhp and increases the battery output to 93.4kWh. While the 0-62mph time is unchanged from the standard 4S at four seconds dead, the range is boosted to 287 miles - the highest figure in the current Taycan lineup. The Performance Battery Plus also gets a Collapse

13 HRS AGO - LA motor show unveiling for Audi's second electric SUV, prototypes are caught testing with no disguise Audi will will start diversifying its electric car lineup with a second E-tron SUV, the Sportback, set to make its public debut at November's Los Angeles motor show.  The more style-focused sibing to the regular E-tron quattro SUV has been undergoing hot weather testing with barely any disguise, allowing us our best look at the car's coupe-influenced design.  The with sportier styling is designed help it challenge the likes of Jaguar's I-Pace. As well as the more steeply raked rear windowline, it features a lowered stance and a bespoke rear-end profile. The car sports a more traditional front grille design than the Sportback concept that made its debut at 2017's Shanghai motor show. It does, however, retain digital rear-view cameras in place of traditional door mirrors as first seen on its E-tron sibling.  The E-tron Sportback appears to use the same kind of rear LED brake light Collapse

19 HRS AGO - British-built affordable electric city car set to land in UK and Sweden by mid-2020 Fledgling Swedish electric car company Uniti has opened order books for the Uniti One affordable electric car. The British-engineered compact EV will arrive in Sweden and the UK first in mid-2020, with a choice of battery capacities and prices starting from £15,100 including government grant.  Entry-grade 12kWh models will be capable of 96 miles between charges, while the optional 24kWh battery pack iextends that range to 186 miles. The larger battery can be charged from 20% to 80% in seventeen minutes on a 50kW CCS charger, while the 12kWh model takes just nine. A 67bhp electric motor drives the rear wheels only, reaching 31mph in a claimed 3.4 seconds and 62mph in 9.9. Top speed is 75mph, with separate City and Boost drive modes to alternate between efficiency and sharpened response.  The three-seat EV, which weighs as little as 600kg, has a central driving position and room for two rear Collapse

22 HRS AGO - Brake failure on penultimate lap of season denies Honda's Dan Cammish a maiden title BMW 3 Series driver Colin Turkington secured the 2019 British Touring Car Championship crown in dramatic fashion at Brands Hatch, as the title fortunes between him and his rivals see-sawed throughout the three-race meeting. Although Turkington went into Sunday’s events as clear favourite, having secured pole position for race one and holding a substantial championship points lead, his hopes were hit by an inspired victory for Honda Civic Type R racing Dan Cammish in race one, followed by a non-score in race two when he was punted into a spin by Cammish’s team-mate Matt Neal. All that drama left Turkington 25th on the grid for the final event of the season and trailing Cammish - who was leading the championship for the first time this year and eight points clear in the title standings, with Turkington’s West Surrey Racing BMW team-mate Andrew Jordan 13 points off the title leader. Even has Turkington Collapse

1 DAY AGO - EV battery production is the new frontier of the automotive industry, but how are they made? We open our chemistry set to find out Opportunities like this one don’t come around very often. Here, Autocar has the chance to build its own lithium ion electric car battery cell from scratch, to see the inner workings of a device that usually stays closed because its contents are flammable and to hear an expert ‘how it works’ explanation from the UK’s foremost professor of EV batteries. There are only a couple of places in the UK where batteries are built from raw materials and one of them is the prototype manufacturing plant at Warwick Manufacturing Group (WMG), a department of the illustrious University of Warwick. Our mentor for the day is Professor David Greenwood, a brilliant communicator of the intricate flows of electrons and lithium ions inside these anonymous-looking grey packages. So free your mind of the notion of crankshafts, valves and bearings and introduce to it instead the Collapse

2 DAYS AGO - There’s another type of conviction - a DR50 - which means you can still be prosecuted without ever failing a breathalyser test Collapse

3 DAYS AGO - Honda Civic Type R These are our favourite hot hatches currently on sale. But who will claim the top spot? When it comes to the balance of performance, cost and daily usability, no other type of performance car does it better than the not-so-humble, full-sized hot hatchback. The idea of taking a regular family hatchback and turning it into a performance car is now time-honoured and has become hugely popular with buyers, especially in the UK.  Volkswagen assumed ownership of the concept with the Mk1 Golf GTI of 1976, although students of the segment will tell you that the hot hatchback niche was founded earlier by either Simca or Autobianchi. Whoever went there first, most manufacturers now have one of these fundamentally enjoyable cars in their line-up. From mega-power German luxo-hatches to newcomers from Hyundai, the segment has never offered so much choice. Creating some semblance of order, here are our top 10 picks. 1. Honda Civic Type R The best hot front-driver of the moment Collapse

3 DAYS AGO - Will a basic – and we do mean basic – Land Cruiser cut it as a daily family workhorse? We found out over a year behind the wheel Why we ran it: To see if a utility vehicle can also be an endearing everyday vehicle Month 12 - Month 9 - Month 7 - Month 6 - Month 5 - Month 4 - Month 3 - Month 2 - Month 1 - Specs Life with a Toyota Land Cruiser: Month 12 You really get under a car’s skin after a 38,000-mile year. So what’s the verdict? - 25th September 2019 I know there’s a new Land Rover Defender, and very nice it is too (or isn’t, depending on your outlook), but spare a thought for the forgotten 4x4, won’t you? The Toyota Land Cruiser 3dr does what a new Defender 90 will do – perhaps more, perhaps less – and, while it’s at it, costs a lot less money and looks a lot more like Wile E Coyote’s head. Yet nobody seems to care about it like they do the Defender. I do. I’ve been running a Land Cruiser since this time last year. This grey one, in very base Utility specification, at £33,995 Collapse

3 DAYS AGO - Dyson's first car was due to be on our roads in less than 18 months, so what went wrong? Yesterday Dyson dropped the bombshell news it is canning its car project because it isn't financially viable. Yes, there had been long-term doubters, unimpressed by Dyson’s financial commitment to the project and disbelieving that he and his team of 500 or so engineers could realise something that tens of thousands of brains at established car makers couldn’t, even while spending budgets ten times the size of his. But this was James Dyson, a man who has amassed a personal fortune of billions through being smarter than most, and by taking engineering prowess and marketing genius and wrapping it up into products that change industries. Now, we know the reality, albeit with one crucial missing detail - why? What led Dyson to conclude - around a year from the first car going into production and 18 months from the car going on sale - that the project was no longer financially viable? Here are three Collapse