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Visit autoexpress.co.uk for all the latest new cars news WHO’D want to be a politician? Not me, for sure. While I admire their decision to enter public service, they don’t do themselves any favours with decisions that at best seem ill-thought through and at worst appear just plain stupid. Without any warning, the Government announced last week that it was scrapping the plug-in car grant for cars over £35,000 and reducing it by £500 for cars under that figure. Of course, the plug-in grant cannot go on forever and this plan will extend it. But now? The car industry – with showrooms still shut – is in a fragile state. This is, remember, an industry that employs around 800,000 people – families rely on it. And this is a Government…

James_Brodie@dennis.co.uk @jimmybrods Visit autoexpress.co.uk for your daily news updates • Hybrid tech for stylish French rival to VW Golf and Ford Focus • Goes on sale late this year, with prices from £23,000 (est) PEUGEOT has pulled the covers from its latest family hatchback, the third-generation 308. It’s the first car to feature Peugeot’s new logo, but the big news is that it’s also the first 308 available with electrified powertrains, including two plug-in hybrid models from launch. It uses the same platform as its predecessor, but the latest version of the EMP2 architecture – engineered by the PSA arm of the new Stellantis group – has seen heavy development since the 2013 launch of the second-generation 308, which was the first car to use this platform. The French firm…

A NEW corporate look for Peugeot coincides with a new boss, but one who’s a familiar face to Auto Express. Linda Jackson, who was crowned the most influential Briton in the global car industry in the 2017 edition of our Brit List, takes charge of the French brand as it enters a new era as part of Stellantis – formed by the merger of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles and Groupe PSA. Appointed head of Citroen in 2014, Coventry-born Jackson’s mission for that brand was to seek stabilisation and a return to profitability with a more customer-focused line-up as part of PSA’s “Back in the Race” plan. Her task at Peugeot could not be more different. Compared with Citroen’s value-for-money revival based on cars that were optimised for buyers on a budget,…

John_McIlroy@dennis.co.uk @johnmcilroy “Its overall look is more funky and slightly more aggressive than the current Aygo’s” • Crossover styling for city car • Uses same platform as Yaris TOYOTA recently confirmed plans to stay in the city car class with a petrol-only successor to its current Aygo based on the same GA-B platform as the latest Yaris supermini. Now the Japanese brand has given us a preview of how the new model could look with this: the Aygo X prologue. The new concept shows how Toyota believes its A-segment model can become a crossover. The Aygo X prologue is a little longer and taller than the current Aygo, at 3,700mm and 1,500mm respectively, while its wheelbase stretches 90mm to 2,340mm, potentially freeing up extra room in the cabin. Its overall…

WHILE there’s still a bit of future gazing to be done before the next-generation Aygo is seen in production-ready format, we should get a far more realistic interpretation of Toyota’s forthcoming all-electric mid-size SUV at April’s Shanghai Motor Show. The brand has confirmed that it will preview the upcoming model – the first car to use the brand’s new, highly modular e-TNGA all-electric platform, which will be the basis of a family of all-electric Toyotas. We’re expecting a close-to-production prototype to be unveiled, when the show opens to the media on 19 April. Lined up as a rival for the likes of the Volkswagen ID.4 and the Kia e-Niro, the as-yet-unnamed SUV could be the first in a series of BZ-badged electric cars from Toyota. It will be roughly the…

James_Brodie@dennis.co.uk @jimmybrods • First look at four-door coupé rival for the Tesla Model 3 • Top-spec models have 523bhp – more than BMW M3 BMW has revealed its answer to the Tesla Model 3, three months ahead of its original schedule. The i4 is a stablemate to the 3 Series saloon and 4 Series Coupé that has a four-door coupé body, but unlike those cars it uses an all-electric powertrain. BMW claims that this is the first all-electric model “from the heart of the brand”, and is key to its large-scale electric car push planned for the next 24 months. By 2023, BMW will have electric ‘i’ versions of its ‘major’ series models. Chairman Oliver Zipse says that 90 per cent of the segments the brand covers will be available…