Prestige & Luxury Cars

This is not a simple question to answer because Tesla is notoriously secretive about its sales data, choosing not to be recorded along with every other brand as part of the usual statistics complained by the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries (FCAI).

If you’re actually one of the few people still wondering ‘Are electric cars the future?’, we’ve got news for you - EVs have already snuck up on us, all ninja-like, with their silent engines and zero-emission tailpipes, to usher in a new age of motoring where “petrol” is just a dirty word.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock you will have noticed a rise in the number of SUVs getting around. In just the last five years SUVs have become the dominant vehicle type on our roads, with more than half of all new vehicles sold falling under the SUV banner.

Electric car brand Polestar believes it needs to offer more than tailpipe emissions-free motoring to Australians to stand apart from others like Tesla, and will highlight its sustainability credentials as it finds its footing.

The BMW X4 seems to be a car for people who want an SUV without the practicality, or a sexy coupe that doesn't sit low to the ground, and does have four doors. It's a segment that can create some confusion and yet, looking at the X4 from the kerb, you can see why people might desire one. It's an attractive if unusual beast. But what's it like to live with?

It's safe to say that, generally speaking, car companies get it pretty right most of the time.

As much as any carmaker Audi has embraced the automotive world's push into SUVs. But it hasn't forgotten its sedan and hatch (Sportback) heritage. The new updated A3 fine tunes an already impressive package with cosmetic tweaks, extra safety, new engine tech, and revised interior layout. What's the catch? It costs more.

As the early 3 Series models proved, BMW should know how to do compact sports coupes right. Recent efforts like the E82 1 Series and F22 2 Series coupes have their appeal, but what the latter's G42 2 Series replacement shows is a desire to broaden its bandwidth of capabilities without diluting what makes it 'the ultimate driving machine'. The M240i, especially, brilliantly succeeds in doing that.

BMW's i8 might feature a cutting-edge hybrid powertrain and over-the-top looks to make you think it's a supercar-slaying machine, but the truth is that it's actually a lot tamer than its styling might suggest.With a low-slung silhouette, and the theatre (and impracticality) of butterfly doors on the coupe, the i8 looks ready to demolish the established supercar big players such as Ferrari and Lamborghini, but in actual fact BMW has prioritised efficiency over performance.Mounted just behind the driver and passenger is a 170kW/320Nm 1.5-litre turbo-petrol three-cylinder engine that drives the rear wheels, while a 96kW/250Nm electric motor drives the front wheels, giving the BMW i8 all-wheel-drive grip.The combined output, though, is rated at 266kW/570Nm, meaning the BMW i8 is comparable in power to a Nissan 370Z Nismo or Audi S5, while its torque figure exceeds that of the Mercedes-AMG C43 and Lexus LC500.With a six-speed automatic transmission in tow, the BMW i8 0-100km/h acceleration can be dispatched in 4.4 seconds - much slower than its contemporaries in a similar price bracket such as the Audi R8 and Mercedes-AMG GT.Meanwhile, the BMW i8's quarter-mile (0-402m) was in the range of 12.1 seconds to 12.3s, according to independing testing.The BMW i8 top speed was also limited to 250km/h, much less than the often 300km/h-plus capabilities of supercars at the time.Without the limiter, though, its hard to tell how fast the BMW i8 will go, but then again it was never designed to be an outright record-setting in pace.Where the i8 makes up for its lack of straight line performance is with its ultra-efficient fuel economy figure of just 2.1 litres per 100km, largely thanks to its plug-in hybrid powertrain that enables around 40km of all-electric driving range.That's right, the BMW i8 is also a plug-in, and is actually the world's best-selling plug-in sports car, with more 20,000 sales.The cars from 2015-2017  featured a battery size of 7.1kWh, which was boosted to 11.6kWh from 2018 for an increased range all-electric driving range of 55km.The electric motor was also boosted to deliver 105kW with the update, resulting in a new combined total of 275kW/570Nm for the 2018 model, but the BMW i8 acceleration remained steady at 4.4s for the 0-100km/h run.The BMW i8 maximum speed also remained unchanged at 250km/h after the update.However, American publication Car and Driver managed to achieve a 0-60mph (97km/h) confirmed time of 4.1s on test, though it was for the convertible version that lacks the two rear seats and sports a folding fabric top.

What does PHEV stand for?