The Audi A2 e-tron. Photo: Audi
In today's issue:
Audi's new A2 e-tron goes 401 miles on a charge, but it is 12 cm too long for the EU's proposed small-EV category, and at €38,200 (about $44,400) it costs $15,000 more than the VW ID Polo that qualifies
EU onboard-monitor data puts real plug-in hybrid emissions at six times the official figure, and carmakers want the 2027 fix cancelled
Ineos, Ford and JLR are bidding to build the British Army's next Land Rover, as VW sells a car plant to an air-defense maker
MISSED THE CUTOFF
The Audi A2 e-tron starts at €38,200 (about $44,400) in Germany, tops out at 646 km (401 miles) WLTP, and is built in Ingolstadt with orders opening Sept. 10 and deliveries in December, per InsideEVs and The Next Web.
It is 4.32 meters long. The Commission's proposed M1E small-car category, floated in December, is capped at 4.2 meters, so the A2 misses it by 12 centimeters, per The Next Web. The category is electric-only, with no price or weight cap in the proposal, per auto motor und sport.
M1E cars built in the EU would count as 1.3 vehicles against a maker's fleet CO2 target, with requirements frozen for ten years, per The Next Web and auto motor und sport. Among the cars that clear it are the Renault 5 at 3.92 meters, the Renault 4 and VW's own ID Polo, per The Next Web.
The ID Polo starts at €24,995 (about $29,000) and is already sold out for 10 months on more than 30,000 orders since April, with the Skoda Epiq at 35,000 orders before reaching dealers, per Automotive News Europe.
The efficiency is real: 12.8 kWh/100 km in the 188-hp version, a 0.24 drag coefficient, and three batteries of 52, 61 and 84 kWh, all rear-wheel drive, per InsideEVs. So is the mass: the four versions weigh 4,056 to 4,255 lb, per InsideEVs, against under 2,000 lb for the aluminum 1999 original at its lightest, per The Autopian.
The A2 rides on the same MEB 31 platform as the VW ID.3 Neo, which starts at €33,995 (about $39,500) against the A2's €38,200, and Audi has no plans to sell the A2 in the US, per InsideEVs.
The M1E proposal never says "cheap," but every car named as qualifying is. Audi built the efficient half of what Brussels wants. The $29,000 ID Polo, $15,000 cheaper, is the car that qualifies, and the one VW cannot build fast enough.
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Also worth knowing
Plug-In Hybrids Emit Six Times Their Official Rating, and Carmakers Want the Fix Scrapped: Onboard fuel monitors in 220,000 EU plug-in hybrids registered in 2024 averaged 145 g/km of CO2 against an official 24 g/km, per a Transport & Environment analysis reported by InsideEVs. Real emissions rose 5% from the 2023 cohort while official ratings fell 15%, leaving PHEVs just 14% below the 169 g/km of conventional cars. ACEA wants the 2027 utility-factor correction cancelled; the Council debates it Oct. 12 with a parliamentary vote in November. #analyst
Canada's Retaliatory Tariffs Take Effect, With the 50% US Auto Tariff Still Set for Jan. 1: Duties of 15% to 50% on about $20 billion of US goods began just after midnight Tuesday with no ministerial talks scheduled, per CBT News. The threatened 50% US tariff on Canadian cars, trucks and parts remains scheduled for Jan. 1, 2027, and Canada has shipped nearly 68% of its exports to the US this year, roughly 80% of them duty-free under USMCA, per CBT News. #market
VW's Unions: 50,000 Is a Planning Target, Not a Deal: Four days after the supervisory board unanimously approved Future Plan 2030, IG Metall chief Christiane Benner told staff on the intranet that "the real confrontation starts now," and labor said the 50,000 additional cuts remain a target with no agreed program, per Automotive News Europe. The board set June 2027 as the deadline for a European production concept and did not decide the future of Emden, Zwickau, Hanover or Neckarsulm, per GoodCarBadCar. Osnabrück, which loses the T-Roc Cabriolet next summer, goes to Aurelius Capital and Rafael for air-defense production, saving about 1,400 jobs, per Automotive World. #analyst
Ineos, Ford and JLR Are Bidding to Build the Army's Next Land Rover: Ineos added Hobson Industries and TVS Supply Chain Solutions to Team Grenadier, its consortium for the British Army's Light Mobility Vehicle program, per Automotive News Europe. The £2 billion competition replaces the Land Rover and Pinzgauer fleets, with JLR, Babcock on a Toyota Hilux platform, and a Ford, GDLS-UK and Ricardo consortium on the Ranger also contending, per Motoring Research. The armored variant carries a bespoke shell to NATO STANAG 2, built in France and converted in the UK, per Just Auto. #analyst
Team Grenadier's armoured EPV variant. Photo: Ineos Automotive
China's EV Market Shrinks and Sets a Record in the Same Month: NEV retail sales fell 10.1% year-over-year to 1.005 million in August, the eighth straight monthly decline, while penetration hit a record 65.2%, because total passenger car retail fell 23.6% to 1.541 million on a near-halving of gasoline car sales, per CnEVPost. Tesla's China retail sales fell 12.4% to 50,047, a third straight drop, per CnEVPost. #market
Diesel Hits a Record $5.85 a Gallon: The AAA national average passed the May 2022 peak on Friday, up 55% since the US war with Iran began in late February, with regular gasoline at $4.15, per Car and Driver. Russian refineries are running around 3.9 million barrels a day against 5.3 million a year ago after drone strikes, and Russia has suspended refined-fuel exports through September, per The Autopian. #market
Western Europe's Car Market Grows for a Seventh Straight Month: August sales reached 719,000, up 5.6%, with the selling rate at 14.1 million a year and year-to-date volume at 8.1 million, up 5.7%, per GlobalData via Just Auto. UK registrations rose 13.7% with BEVs at 30% share, and German BEV sales rose 75% to nearly a third of the market. #market
Reveals & culture
BMW's Next 3 Series Tops Out at 443 HP With a Rear-Drive Mode: The M350 xDrive replaces the M340i with a mild-hybrid 3.0-liter inline-six making 443 hp and 428 lb-ft, 57 hp more than the outgoing US car, for 0-62 mph in 4.1 seconds, per Motor1. "Drift Moment" sends all power to the rear axle and arrives next year by over-the-air update, per Motor1.
The 2027 BMW M350 xDrive prototype. Photo: BMW
Kia Puts a GT Badge on the EV3, EV4 and EV5: All three use a dual-motor setup and the 81.4-kWh battery. The EV3 GT makes 288 hp for 0-62 mph in 5.7 seconds and starts at €53,990 (about $62,500) in Germany, the EV4 GT at €57,840 ($67,000), and the 301-hp EV5 GT at €59,990 ($69,500), per Electrek. Only the EV3 GT is coming to the US, at $45,890 with a 280-mile EPA range.
Kia EV3 GT. Photo: Kia
Dacia Moves the Spring From China to Slovenia and Keeps It Under €20K (About $23,000): The second-generation Spring shares a platform and a Slovenian line with the Renault Twingo, starts at €17,900 (about $20,800) in Italy, and gets 250 km (155 miles) WLTP from a 27.5-kWh LFP pack, per InsideEVs. At 3,850 mm long it clears the M1E's 4.2-meter cap by 35 cm, where the A2 misses it by 12, per Carscoops.
The second-generation Dacia Spring. Photo: Dacia
A One-Off 1953 Cadillac Sets the Brand's Auction Record at $1.275 Million: The coachbuilt Cadillac Elegante, bodied by Carrozzeria Rocco Motto over 30 months, sold at the Auburn Auction and passed the $940,000 a 1934 V-16 Fleetwood coupe brought at Broad Arrow in 2023, per autoevolution.
The 1953 Cadillac Elegante. Photo: Kruse Auctions
Quick links
Maserati Is Reportedly Close to a Huawei and JAC Tie-Up: Milano Finanza reports a dual-badge arrangement in which one design carries Huawei's Maextro name in China and Maserati's badge elsewhere, targeted for 2027, with Stellantis neither confirming nor denying, per Just Auto.
Polestar's Formula 2030 Concept Arrives in October: The first clean-sheet design under Philipp Römers previews the next Polestar 2, due 2027, and the Polestar 7 SUV, due 2028, per Autocar.
Xiaomi's Deliveries Fell 17% in August: 30,153 vehicles, down 17.15% year-over-year, with the year at 44.8% of a 550,000-unit target after eight months, per CnEVPost.
India's Retail Sales Rose 16% in August: Passenger vehicle retail hit 402,398 units, up 16.14% year-over-year, with Maruti Suzuki at 41% share and Tata up 40%, per FADA data in Autocar India.
Yesterday's picks
August Beat the Forecast, and Hybrids Are the Reason: US light-vehicle sales fell 5.6% to 1.4 million in August, but the seasonally adjusted annual rate hit 16.8 million, a high for the year and the strongest pace since April 2025, per Automotive News, citing GlobalData for volume and Motor Intelligence for the rate.
Jeep Recalls 328,381 Grand Cherokees for a Fix Two Recalls Missed: Jeep is recalling 328,381 Grand Cherokees under NHTSA campaign 26V562 because rear coil springs may have been installed improperly, in manufacturing or in a previous repair, and can detach while driving. The campaign was filed this week and is the third aimed at the same defect, after 23V413 in June 2023 and 26V051 in January, per Autoblog. The bulk is the long-wheelbase L at 215,433 units, alongside 97,477 standard Grand Cherokees and 15,471 4xe plug-in hybrids; models with air suspension are excluded, and Stellantis estimates 0.1% of the population is affected. → If you own one: Check your VIN at NHTSA.gov. This is the third attempt at the same repair, so a prior "fixed" notice does not mean you are covered.
The UK Rules Out a Bailout as JLR Opens the Door to 4,000 Exits: Jaguar Land Rover has opened a voluntary redundancy programme covering as many as 4,000 jobs, against a UK workforce of roughly 30,000 and a target of £1.7 billion in savings over two years, per the Financial Times and the BBC. Business minister Jonathan Reynolds said he will meet JLR's chief executive this week to look at mitigating job losses, and explicitly ruled out a bailout. That refusal is the story. JLR is Tata-owned, employs about 30,000 people in Britain, and is coming up on a year since the cyberattack that halted production for more than a month; the government's answer to all of that is a meeting rather than money. The cuts are believed to fall mainly on white-collar roles, and the company has not ruled out compulsory redundancies.
The week in attention
How many separate outlets ran a headline naming each company over the last 7 days, across the 560+ sources we monitor. Press releases and Reddit are excluded, so this counts what got written about, not what got announced.
Jensen: 20 outlets this week, against none in a median week over the previous 9. Most of it: "Jensen Interceptor GTX Puts 960 Supercharged Horses on Track Before Any Road Car Exists".
Bristol: 13 outlets this week, against none in a median week over the previous 9. Most of it: "The Bristol Fighter Supercar Is Back From The Dead With Its Mighty V10".
Scout: 12 outlets this week, about 1 in a median week. Most of it: "Scout Shows Different Traveler SUV Personalities With New Concepts".
Mitsubishi: 50 outlets this week, about 21 in a median week. Most of it: "Mitsubishi Puts a Price Tag on the All-New 2027 Pajero, Here’s How Much the Iconic SUV Costs".
Quieter than usual: McLaren (19 outlets against about 27), Aston Martin (22 outlets against about 31).
Most covered overall: Volkswagen Group, Ford Motor, Stellantis.
Worth a listen
One episode from Car Curious, our sister car-podcast platform, picked out of everything the shows published in the last day.
Our favourite restomods from £20k to £2m (and we have news...) (The Intercooler): The Intercooler on what counts as a restomod, who builds them, and what the market pays, from £20k to £2m.
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