Articles by Dom Tripolone

The future is here and it’s going to blow your mind. Tesla is about to launch its Full Self Driving (Supervised) in Australia, and CarsGuide was among the first people to trial it on Australian roads.

New data out of China shows it is decades ahead of Australia and has already won the electric car race.

The latest creation from BYD’s luxury brand Yangwang has some stats that defy logic.

Another cheap and cheerful Chinese electric car is headed our way.The Nio Firefly has been approved for sale in Australia by the federal regulator, which paves the way for the mini EV to land on our roads in the coming months.The Nio Firefly is a small hatchback measuring about four metres long, 1780mm wide and 1560mm high. This makes it slightly smaller than the BYD Dolphin and MG4 and a similar size to a Mazda2.It has cute retro styling reminiscent of the short-lived Honda e.The approval documents show two variants will be offered in Australia.Power comes from a single electric motor that makes 105kW and 200Nm, which is fed by a circa-42kWh Lithium Iron Phosphate (LFP) battery that provides a driving range of up to 330km via the benchmark WLTP test cycle.Its uses 14.5kWh/100km and offers 100kW DC charging for a 10 - 80 per cent charge in 29 minutes as well as either 7.0kW or 11kW AC charging with a vehicle-to-load (V2L) feature.The Firefly is also compatible with Nio’s battery swap technology. This allows owners to simply swap the battery when it has run low instead of recharging it. Nio claims this can take about five minutes, which is similar to refilling a petrol or diesel vehicle.No such battery swap stations currently exist in Australia, though.There is no word on how much it will cost or where and how it will be sold, with no news on a distributor or dealer network.In China it is priced the equivalent of about $32,000, which puts it on target to land here at less than $40,000.The writing was on the wall for the Firefly's local arrival when Nio announced it planned to expand to Europe and fellow right-hand drive markets Singapore and the UK.The right-hand drive version of the brand-new hatchback is expected to launch in October of 2025, according to overseas reports. This likely includes Australia now as the sale approval usually happens several months before cars land in showrooms.Homologation details published by the federal government hint that the Nio operation will be factory-backed with approval holders and contact details attributed to the head office in Shanghai, China.So this points to Nio following a similar route to brands such as Chery and Geely and launch via multi-franchise dealerships in capital cities.CarsGuide has contacted Nio's global operations for more Australian details, and will update the story with its response.

The new Toyota HiLux is getting close.

There is a new king of electric cars.Mercedes-Benz’s Concept AMG GT XX prototype has demolished no less than 25 world records.Mercedes-Benz said the prototype electric car concept “obliterated” the 24 hour driving record by more than 1500km after travelling 5479km in a single day.It didn’t stop there, but kept the good times rolling for seven days, 13 hours, 24 minutes and 07 seconds to travel the equivalent of the earth’s circumference at the equator or 40,075kmIt effectively travelled around the world in less than eight days and demolished the 25 records at various markers along the way.The Concept AMG GT XX averaged about 5300km a day with an average speed of 300km/h.Drivers had to stop to recharge the car, which Mercedes-Benz said achieved max charging speeds of about 850kW.That’s an astonishing charging speed that puts it amongst the fastest charging cars on the planet. Only BYD has speedy replenishing EVs that can absorb about 1000kW or 1MW.Currently the fastest charging vehicles on sale in Australia can take on 350kW of juice, but chargers capable of delivering that speed are far and few between. The record breaking test wasn’t completed on public roads, but at the high speed test track in Nardo, Italy.Nardo’s test track is a high speed ring at about 12km long and has been a regular spot for ultra-fast speed tests for carmakers.Mercedes-Benz used a team of 17 drivers — including its Formula One driver George Russell — to achieve the multiple world record setting test.The test acted as a torture test to Merc’s new 'AMG.EA' EV platform, pushing the motors and charging infrastructure to the limit repeatedly for almost eight days. The Mercedes-Benz Concept AMG GT XX gives a preview of the brand’s new flagship performance model and will be the most powerful AMG yet.This puts it on a collision course with new Chinese rivals such as the Denza Z9 and Xiaomi SU7.It uses three electric motors — which are coolly called axial-flux motors — to make a whopping 1000kW-plus. Mercedes claims these motors are about three times as powerful as conventional electric motors.Its 114kWh battery can accept up to 850kW of charge. The battery chemistry is NCMA (Nickel-Cobalt-Manganese-Aluminium), which is an evolution of the high-capacity NMC batteries found in many long-legged EVs.

Mazda’s new CX-60 SUV is now cheaper than ever. The Japanese brand has expanded the range of its premium CX-60 SUV with three new rear-wheel-drive variants kicking off at $44,240 (before on-road costs).

Subaru trialling game-changing breakthrough batteries, but not how we expected.

Nissan has spotted a light at the end of the tunnel.

China's most hyped automaker sets its sights on export markets.