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I’D been looking forward to driving the new Atto 3 from Chinese brand BYD ever since John McIlroy’s first drive of a very early car on an airfield in Amsterdam. “It’s really rather good,” he proclaimed at the time. Now, having driven a right-hand-drive car in the UK, I can confirm that it is really rather good. In fact, I enjoyed it a lot – as you can read on page 26. But could it fit into the Fowler family fleet? I decided to do a quick bit of market research with the four car owners (and buyers) at home: my wife, daughter and two lads. They could sense my excitement about the BYD, they loved the interior with its swivelling screen and thought it looked pretty striking in blue.…

@johnmcilroy ● All-new EV9 will be flagship for Kia’s range of electric vehicles ● Chunky styling sticks closely to concept from 2021 LA Show KIA has been stretching the limits of its line-up and pricing over the past few years, with the most expensive Sorento to date and then the EV6, a pure-electric model that can break the £60,000 mark. But here’s proof that the Korean brand isn’t finished yet: this new flagship, the EV9, could well smash the £80,000 barrier. The EV9 is designed to be the largest and most expensive zero-emissions vehicle in the Kia range. It’s one of 14 new EVs that the company will launch globally over the next five years, and is the first of nine that will make it into UK showrooms. The new…

EV9 will work for Kia despite the price tag FEW makers have enjoyed such a meteoric rise recently as Kia. And it’s no surprise to see the firm push upmarket to rival premium brands. So while Kia raised eyebrows when some versions of its Mk3 Sorento SUV broke the £40,000 mark, its sales success has proven the brand can carry off models with a high price. Kia’s EVs are even more ambitious, with the EV6 GT costing over £60,000. And what about this new EV9? Well, that’ll likely be even pricier, but it’s a hurdle we don’t think will be too high for those after a cutting-edge Kia SUV.…

Q This is a very different-looking car from the EV6. Are you abandoning that design in favour of this new approach? A “I wouldn’t say that. We’ve tried to develop a design philosophy. So while there might be certain principles that will be repeated on other cars, the execution and the ways of doing it can be different. The EV6, for example, is more of a driver-focused car, while this EV9 is a bit more about the living space – a bit more family-oriented.” Q This is still very clearly an SUV, though, and there’s still an enormous front boot where the engine would have been. Why does it need to have a ‘conventional’ profile? A “I guess there are a few factors to that. First, there’s a sort of…

● Dacia hints off-road-style hatch could develop into genuine SUV ● Brand is set to expand line-up with Bigster and two new models “We feel there’s space to differentiate them more, so this is something we will investigate between the Stepway and the Duster” THE new-car market moves fast. After 10 years in the UK, Dacia is on a quest to reinvent itself, moving the brand away from its original ‘budget’ image towards ‘value’ – and key to that change will be a range of brand-new models. We’ll see the Romanian brand’s Bigster full-size SUV arrive in 2025, crowning the line-up and allowing the next-generation Duster (set for a 2024 reveal) to grow in size. This will leave a space between the Duster and the brand’s Sandero supermini which, in…

● Electrified Puma ST has 168bhp ● Seven-speed automatic box FORD is on a big electrification push and the brand’s Ford Performance division is part of it, with the big-selling Puma ST now available with an electrified, mild-hybrid powertrain mated to a seven-speed automatic gearbox. Both are firsts for the Puma ST, which has been manual-only up to now. The engine is the most powerful of Ford’s MHEV-equipped 1.0-litre three-cylinder EcoBoost units and features a 48V electrical system and a small, belt-driven starter/generator fed by a compact lithium-ion battery to deliver 168bhp and 248Nm of torque. This results in a 0-62mph time of 7.4 seconds, 0.7 seconds slower than the more powerful 197bhp 1.5-litre model. This puts it on par with warm SUV rivals such as the DSG-equipped VW T-Roc…