7 HRS AGO - South Korean SUV specialist looks to all-electric future; with larger J100 flagship also on the way South Korean firm SsangYong has started production of the Korando e-Motion, its first electric car, as the company accelerates its new model development programme to secure its future.  The Korando e-Motion will be heavily based on the existing combustion-fuelled car, with subtle bespoke styling details hinting at its underpinnings. Ssangyong will also speed up development of its second EV, a medium-sized SUV under the project name ‘J100,’ set to launch in 2022 - seemingly as a successor to the long-defunct Musso large SUV.    European deliveries of the Korando e-Motion will begin in August with UK deliveries expected later this year due to restricted supplies of semiconductors. The company has struggled financially even after Indian manufacturing giant Mahindra rescued the SUV specialist in 2010, and filed for bankruptcy in South Korea last year. It says a renewed focus on Collapse

10 HRS AGO - Stellantis gives green light to revival of storied Italian marque, with premium focus likely Stellantis has showed its commitment to revitalising the neglected Lancia brand with the appointment of Jean-Pierre Ploué as its new design boss. Already a chief design officer at the 14-brand-strong group, Ploué will supervise Lancia’s styling evolution from his head office at Torino Centro Stile, where he performs a similar role for other former Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA) brands Abarth, Alfa Romeo, Fiat and Maserati. This is the second time that Ploué has been charged with leading the rebirth of a marque through design. In 1999, he became Citroën’s styling chief and led a wide-reaching transformation of the brand’s image, launching boldly styled models including the C4, C5, C6 and DS3. Ploué was then promoted to design director for the wider PSA Group in 2010, gaining recognition for the striking, range-defining Peugeot SR1 concept, among others. Of his latest appointment, he said: Collapse

12 HRS AGO - Performance saloon receives retuned suspension, interior adjustments and new exterior colour options The Mercedes AMG GT 4-Door Coupé has gained ride comfort improvements, a wider equipment range and a customised edition as part of a 2021 update. The changes are for now limited to 3.0-litre six-cylinder variants, which aren't sold in the UK. We're offered only the V8-powered GT 63, which will be facelifted later this year, gaining a raft of visual and dynamic tweaks. A new top-rung, 800bhp GT 73e plug-in hybrid model will be added, too. The most obvious changes for the standard car include an updated selection of wheels and new upholstery, trim, exterior colours and retuned suspension for improved ride comfort.  The changes include a reconfiguration of AMG's Ride Control+ suspension set-up. The damping can be electronically adjusted via variable control valves, which the German firm says can be adapted to improve comfort or sporting dynamics. The steering wheel has also Collapse

20 HRS AGO - Defender will be FCEV test bed as part of JLR’s Project Zeus Jaguar Land Rover will start testing its new fuel cell powertrain technology with a hydrogen-powered Defender prototype later this year. The company’s Project Zeus programme forms part of JLR’s plan to achieve zero tailpipe emissions by 2036 and is a core part of the Reimagine strategy unveiled by CEO Thierry Bolloré earlier this year. Fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEVs) will be “complementary to battery- electric vehicles” in the company’s new-era product line-up. Key benefits over battery-electric vehicles, as outlined by Jaguar Land Rover, include rapid refuelling and optimal range in low temperatures. Project Zeus will use an adapted FCEV Defender to test these attributes in a real-world setting, as well as other characteristics, such as off-road ability. Part-funded by the government-backed Advanced Propulsion Centre, Project Zeus is being run in partnership with engineering firms such as Delta Motorsport, AVL and Collapse

1 DAY AGO - Japanese giant emerges victorious from Portuguese WEC round, although Alpine beats it to pole position Toyota won its 100th sports car race at Portimão yesterday, although Alpine, running a grandfathered LMP1 racer, made the new Toyota GR010 Hybrid hypercar work hard. In fact, Alpine claimed pole position, thanks to Matthieu Vaxivière, less than 0.1sec ahead of the Toyota of Sébastien Buemi, Kazuki Nakajima and Brendon Hartley, with the second Toyota of Kamui Kobayashi, Mike Conway and José María López in third. The Alpine led away from the lights and had the race pace to keep the Toyota honest throughout, thanks to the latest Balance of Performance formula and a late safety car. But the Toyota’s larger fuel tank meant it emerged the winner, because it could get away with fewer pitstops. American outfit Scuderia Cameron Glickenhaus was also racing for the first time in the new LMH class, ahead of more mainstream manufacturers joining it and Toyota in the coming years. Its new SCG Collapse

1 DAY AGO - Fifth-generation Range Rover is nearing unveiling, and new shots show the largest variant on the road Land Rover is well into the development of its new, fifth-generation Range Rover flagship - and prototypes for the largest, long-wheelbase version have entered the final stages of on-road testing. Images submitted to Autocar by reader Mohammed Rajak show a pair of camouflaged test mules running around the Highlands, one of which towing a trailer, likely for powertrain telemetry purposes. Numerous prototypes of the luxury SUV have been seen in varying levels of disguise testing across the UK and Europe over the last year or so. Earlier this year, a photographer managed to get closer to one than anybody managed previously, grabbing a look at the prototype's partly disguised innards.  Although we can't make out the overall cabin design, a few clues can be gleaned from the two images showing different angles. The first is a central touchscreen - that appears to be production-spec - Collapse

1 DAY AGO - We chat to Steph Houghton, Demi Stokes and Esme Morgan about the rise of the women’s game, their heroes and why they’re confident for the future Tune into our new series of Autocar podcasts, where this issue we talk to Manchester City’s Steph Houghton, Demi Stokes and Esme Morgan about their training regime, what it feels like to play in front of 30,000 fans and how your teammates react when you get your GCSE results on the way to a big game. Houghton, Stokes and Morgan are three of the stars of the Manchester City women’s football team, with all three having won major trophies and also been heavily involved in the England set-up. Houghton is currently captain for both club and country, while Stokes has earned 56 caps for England. Morgan, despite only being 20, has been with Man City since she was 15 years old, in that time earning a Women’s FA Cup.  About the podcast The Autocar Great Women podcast is a new series designed to build on the ground-breaking Great Women initiative that Collapse

1 DAY AGO - Dramatic though it looks, the M12’s rear spoiler offered zero ground-effect benefit Leicestershire’s Noble M12 went down a storm when it was launched in 2001, and it still offers a whole tonne of fun at affordable prices today Mechanical complexity and expense mark out modern-day supercar ownership. But back in 2001, low-volume supremo Lee Noble launched his first eponymous model, the M12, which for the next five years held sway as not just a true Ferrari and Porsche rival but also one that didn’t break the bank to buy or to run. With an original starting price of £44,950, the M12 GTO came to market with a simple but effective recipe: a steel spaceframe chassis clad with a Le Mans-style glassfibre composite body; suspension by double wishbones all round; and power from a then relatively new all-alloy 2.5-litre Ford V6 (plucked initially from the Mondeo) twin-turbocharged to produce 310bhp. Click here to buy your next used car from Autocar For a low-volume manufacturer, Noble Collapse

1 DAY AGO - Style-led version of electric SUV will arrive before a smaller, ID 3-based model Skoda will expand its electric car line-up in the next few years with a coupé version of the Enyaq iV SUV and a new smaller model that’s set to take the form of a crossover. The Czech firm recently launched the Enyaq as its first bespoke EV on the Volkswagen Group’s MEB platform. While virtually identical in size and specification to the Volkswagen ID 4, the Enyaq features a stretched wheelbase and a boot 42 litres larger, at 585 litres. Skoda design chief Oliver Stefani said that focus on luggage space reflects the popularity of the Octavia and Superb estates, adding that it will remain a design priority for the firm’s future electric cars. “Spaciousness is very important for us,” Stefani told Autocar. “It’s functionality. People love it, and it’s not something we want to give up. Every brand must play its roles. “The big loading area and boot is something you find on the Enyaq. And compared with other Collapse