SUV

I've spent enough time now with the CX-30 to find all the little day-to-day things that might help you decide for yourself whether I'm right about the CX-30's place as a small SUV benchmark for its price.

Porsche Australia has set the date it will close the order books for petrol versions of its Macan SUV and Cayman and Boxster sports cars.

Hints at Prado pricing in Japan give us an idea of where the 4x4 will kick off locally

Big, bold and nearly ready to transport large Australian families (or visiting heads of state) the GMC Yukon has landed on local soil with local pre-release testing now underway before the eight-seat luxury SUV hits GMSV showrooms in the first half of 2025.

The 2025 Nissan Qashqai facelift has been revealed in Europe with a bold new front end, new variant and technology improvements. Mechanically, Nissan’s small SUV remains unchanged with the offer of a compact turbo-petrol engine or e-Power hybrid system. Australian details are yet to be confirmed but a Nissan spokesperson told CarsGuide the local arm is “very excited by the facelifted Qashqai, which has just been unveiled. We anticipate arrivals towards the end of 2024.”The Qashqai’s grille has undergone quite the transformation. Gone is the petite V-Motion grille in favour of a more geometric look accented by comma-shaped LED daytime running lights. Nissan says the repetitive pattern is “inspired by the patterns of ancient Japanese armour scales”, while upper grades get a body-colour ‘chin strap’ detail encircling the bottom of the bumper.The new adaptive LED headlights are even smaller than before which Nissan says improves visibility in low light and foggy conditions.There are fresh alloy wheel designs across the range, with Australian cars likely to have 18-inch units as the smallest, where the UK may keep 17s on base trims. Nissan claims to offer the “widest range of wheels” in the small SUV segment in Europe.Three new colours – pearl white, pearl black and Deep Ocean – are added while the pictured Fuji red hue (or Fuji Sunset red locally) continues in Europe.The car shown here is Europe’s new N-Design halo variant featuring unique 20-inch alloy wheels, body-colour wheel arch and side skirt cladding.Inside, Nissan has implemented softer-touch cabin materials on the centre console while there’s new seat upholstery including ‘burnt umber’ accents on one trim’s upholstery. Native Google software is available with Google Maps and Voice Assistant. Connected services have been built on in Europe, with Nissan Australia yet to confirm local updates to these features for Qashqai. More views are available for the 360-degree camera system including a three-dimension screen and one that shows the location of the front wheels to minimise the likelihood of scratched alloys. Finally, there are updates to safety systems including recalibrated autonomous emergency braking. Lane-keep assist and speed limit monitoring default to on but there’s a configurable custom driver assist program that takes two clicks on the steering wheel buttons to access. Nissan Australia is yet to confirm local details of the Toyota Corolla Cross and Kia Seltos rival. Expect the 1.3-litre turbo-petrol four-cylinder producing 113kW to continue alongside the 140kW e-Power hybrid powertrains.Pricing is likely to climb beyond the current line-ups $33,890-$51,590 (before on-road costs) range.

Much like Australia, Europe is seeing an influx of Chinese brands with new models to shake up the market. This time China’s Dongfeng is hitting the EU with an electric rival to the GMC Hummer, called the MHero 1.

The stop-sale on Kia’s 1.4-litre four-cylinder Stonic is permanent, it seems, as the brand readies the model to go all-turbo from 2025 onwards.

Rumours of the demise of petrol engines may have been premature.Aston Martin is the latest brand to walk back its pure electric car range plans according to a report from Autocar.The swanky British brand’s boss Lawrence Stroll has pledged to keep selling petrol-powered cars for as long as he can.Stroll said the brand’s customers want “sounds and smells” from their vehicles and the preference was for internal-combustion power over electric only."For as long as we're allowed to make ICE cars, we'll make them. I think there will always be demand, even if it's small,” Stroll told Autocar.Aston Martin has put its plans to launch its first electric car on ice until 2025 and instead is pouring its resources into developing plug-in hybrids.Top-tier supercar makers such as Ferrari and McLaren are already selling plug-in hybrid machines.Those machines provide immense performance. The Ferrari 296 GTB and McLaren Artura make more than 500kW from their petrol-electric hardware and can sprint to 100km/h from a stand still in well under three seconds.Aston Martin had previously targeted 2030 for its range to go all electric but now it has no deadline to phase out petrol-propulsion.Stroll confirmed V8 grunt would live on, pairing it with plug-in hybrid tech and V12 engines were in for the same treatment.Plug-in hybrids haven’t found success in Australia with sales of the petrol-electric technology counting for a little more than one per cent of sales through the first three months of this year.Plug-in hybrid technology blends a petrol engine with an electric motor and a sizeable battery that can deliver a driving range of more than 50km.In theory it allows the car to run mostly on electric power around town and use the petrol engine for longer drives.Carmakers often claim plug-in hybrids use less than two litres per 100km of fuel, but recent findings out of Europe suggest they use about three and a half times more than the claimed figures.

A little known Chinese car brand has beaten the biggest names in the business in a crucial electric car race.

The Kia fully electric EV5 is a mid-sized SUV landing in Australia by the middle of 2024, so here's five excellent features of the car you should know about before it arrives