Ford Galaxy 2.0 TDCi 180 version in 2015

The Ford Galaxy is the largest of Ford’s MPVs and it’s also the most spacious. A seven-seater, the back two seats fold electronically into the floor and the central row of seats drops down at the press of a button, so it’s extremely practical.

The latest Ford Galaxy is still good to drive but has traded a little of the previous model’s sharp handling for comfort and refinement, for which it’s now one of the best in the large MPV class.

There’s a good range of 2.0-litre TDCi diesel engines available with four different power outputs, a pair of Ecoboost petrol engines and for the first time, a four-wheel-drive version. You’re unlikely to be disappointed by the standard equipment list, too. 

Our Choice: 

Ford Galaxy 2.0 TDCI 150PS Titanium

The third-generation Ford Galaxy is the largest of the four MPVs that Ford currently produces and it’s more practical and spacious than its sportier S-MAX sister car. It goes up against rival seven-seat MPVs such as the Volkswagen Sharan, the Citroen Grand C4 Picasso, the SEAT Alhambra and the Renault Grand Scenic.

The Galaxy has always been big, but with its new family face and upmarket interior packed with technology, it’s being advertised by Ford as a ‘first-class’ way to travel. Adults can fit in all three rows of seats, and when it’s not needed, the third row folds electrically into the boot floor, while the second row flops forward at the touch of a button.

On the move the focus is on comfort and refinement rather than sporty handling, but it’s still among the more enjoyable MPVs to drive. Well-weighted steering complements a range of strong but smooth diesel and EcoBoost petrol engines, along with six-speed manual or Powershift automatic gearboxes. Plus, for the first time the Galaxy can also be ordered with four-wheel drive for extra grip in slippery conditions.

The diesels are likely to be the big sellers, particularly the 148bhp 2.0-litre TDCi version, which strikes the best balance between price, power and economy. The same 2.0-litre diesel engine is available with 119bhp, 178bhp or 207bhp. 

If you like your MPVs fast then there’s a 237bhp 2.0-litre Ecoboost petrol model at the top of the range that’s good for 0-62mph in 8.6 seconds, while the 158bhp petrol is the cheapest engine in the range and is well suited to low-mileage drivers. 

There are three trims levels: Zetec, Titanium and Titanium X – and even the entry-level model comes with 17-inch wheels, an eight-inch touchscreen infotainment system with Bluetooth, and dual-zone climate control.

Mid-level Titanium models add sat-nav, LED running lights and keyless entry, while top-spec Titanium X cars get a panoramic roof, leather seats and powered tailgate as standard.

SourcE: autoexpress.co.uk

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Mercedes GLE500e full details

Mercedes-Benz has revealed the 2016 GLE SUV, which officially replaces the popular M-Class SUV. The big news is that the GLE also introduces Mercedes’ first plug-in hybrid SUV – the GLE500e, which can travel up to 19 miles in electric mode. The best part is that it can even travel at speeds up to 81 mph in electric mode, which is much faster than many other plug-in hybrids.

With a total 436 horsepower on tap from the combination of a 3.0L V6 engine and an electric motor, the GLE500e packs more power than many sports cars. Mercedes-Benz describes the GLE550e has having the fuel consumption of a more fuel efficient 3.0L car, but with the versatility of an SUV. The plug-in hybrid system has four driving modes: Hybrid, E-Mode, E-Save and Charge. Mercedes-Benz estimates that it will only take about two hours to recharge the battery using a 220-volt outlet.

“State-of-the-art and efficient drive technology, combined with superior ride quality and the versatility and robustness typical for SUVs – the new GLE has all the ingredients to continue the success story of our best-seller,” stated Ola Källenius, Member of the Board of Management of Daimler AG, Mercedes-Benz Cars.

Mercedes-Benz has not announced with the GLE500e will be available, but this fall the automaker will also release plug-in hybrid versions of its popular C- and S-Class models.

Source: http://inhabitat.com/

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Porsche Boxster GTS introduce

This is the new range-topping Porsche Boxster, a car that gets the hallowed GTS badge slapped on its rump - first used by the iconic 904GTS half a century ago - and for which Porsche is asking only an additional £5840.

In Porsche Boxster terms £5840 is not a lot of money. You can spend over half that much just choosing metallic paint, sat-nav and a digital radio from the Boxster’s options list. But that’s also the price Porsche is asking to trade up from a standard Boxster S to this new GTS model.

In pure equipment terms it seems there is very little choice to be made here: if you gave a Boxster S the Porsche Active Suspension Management (PASM), 20in rims, the Sport Chrono Pack, sports seats and dynamic headlights the GTS offers as standard, you’d already have burned through almost all the additional money.

That’s without considering the GTS’s additional 15bhp, 10lb ft of torque, unique suspension tune and standard active engine mounts. The GTS also comes with a mildly revised front bumper and rear valence of the squint-and-you’ll-see-it variety.

It costs £53,872 which might seem like a lot for Boxster but really isn’t very much at all when you consider it’s £30,000 less than Porsche will charge you for the cheapest 911 cabrio, a car powered by near enough the same engine but is slower because of its extra weight, whatever the official figures might say.

The other reason for choosing a GTS over an S is perhaps less rational, but no less real for that. The very existence of the GTS demotes the S from the top of the range offering to a middle order car, and for convertible buyers who like not only to be seen, but to be seen in the best, that’s a privilege for which £5840 may seem like a very small price to pay.

You knew already that this is a fine car. Only a truly incompetent car company could do so little to a Boxster S and spoil it, and that company could not have made the Boxster S in the first place. But unlike others I don’t see it a car transformed.

When the standard is set so high, you’re already so deep ino the zone of diminishing marginal returns that it’s hard to see how giving Bosch another chip to slot into its engine management and some well judged suspension tweaks could make such a difference.

Think of it instead as an optimised Boxster, doing all those things the S does so well, and doing them just that tiny bit better. The engine is a little sharper at the top end, yet seemingly even more flexible in the mid-range, the chassis just that little bit more taut and accurate.

How much of this is the PASM and how much is the engine mounts would be interesting to know: in the 911 the active mounts make a clear difference, but in a mid-engined car? I expect they are less effective.

Either way, this is still a scintillating car to drive and for those who appreciate such things, rewarding and responsive in way more powerful rival Audis, BMWs and Mercedes could not countenance.

Yet it could be better still. It is frustrating that such a pure sports car has gearing such that it will reach nearly 120mph with half its gears still to go, while even with such long legs fuel consumption is poor and there’s still not quite enough leg-room for tall drivers.

None of these issues remotely resembles a deal breaker. Indeed what the GTS actually does best is to make far easier the business of choosing a Boxster.

Now we can dismiss the S, the choice is to spend less than £40k on the sweet and deliciously delicate standard car or over £50k on the serious driving weapon that is the GTS. And that is one question to which there is no such thing as a wrong answer.

Porsche Boxster GTS

Price £53,872; 0-62mph 5.0sec; Top speed 175mph; Economy 31.4mpg; CO2 211g/km; Kerb weight 1420kg; Engine 3436cc, flat-six, petrol; Installation longitudinal, mid-mounted; Power 325bhp at 6100rpm; Torque 273lb ft at 4500rpm; Gearbox six-speed manual

Source; http://www.autocar.co.uk/

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Top Gear car review: Suzuki Jimny

WHAT WE SAY: 

Still here, still surviving, that's the Jimny. It had a minor facelift in 2013: so minor, the challenge is spotting the difference...

WHAT IS IT?

Plodding, that’s the best way to describe the Suzuki Jimny. Looks like it was born in a bygone era, puny engine.

DRIVING

Read the spec sheet: beam axles at both ends, a high seating position, a short wheelbase. You can speculate on the result. A pogo stick is more satisfactory through a series of curves.

The long-travel suspension copes quite well with huge bumps, but shudders on smaller ones.

It is just possible to buy a slower-accelerating car elsewhere. Just about. But the plucky little 1.3 engine does a fair job, and certainly delivers all the performance that the chassis can handle. Useful for the occasional bit of towing, we suppose.

ON THE INSIDE

Another seriously weak point. It’s noisy and cramped inside. The Jimny has superb unstoppable engineering, but a distinctly off-hand approach to fripperies like soft-feel plastics or chrome-edged dials.

With only four seats and a small cargo bay the Jimny can’t carry much but it can carry it anywhere. Oh and it does have one advantage as a town car: it’s tiny and boxy so easy to park. Which is just as well as you’ll be dying to stop and get out.

OWNING

It’s so cheap it’s practically disposable, but actually it’ll last for ages and need very little care or attention. Yes there’s only a petrol engine, but this is hardly a high-mileage vehicle so fuel costs aren’t an issue.

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Audi Q7 review, prices, size

The Audi Q7 is a full-size luxury crossover SUV of the German manufacturer Audi, unveiled in September 2005 at the Frankfurt Motor Show. Production of the Q7 began in autumn of 2005 at the Volkswagen Bratislava Plant in Bratislava, Slovakia. It is the first SUV offering from Audi and went on sale in 2006. Later, Audi's second SUV, the Q5, was unveiled as a 2009 model. Audi has since unveiled a third SUV model, the Q3, which went on sale in the 3rd quarter of 2011. The Q7 shares its platform and chassis with the Volkswagen Touareg and the Porsche Cayenne.

The Q7 (internally designated Typ 4L) utilizes a modified version of the Volkswagen Group PL71 platform. Previewed by the Audi Pikes Peak quattro concept car, the Q7 is designed more for on-road use, and was not meant for serious off-road use where a transfer case is needed. In an off road test through the Australian outback it fared well for a "soft roader"

Although it lacks a low-range transfer case, it has quattro permanent four-wheel drive system with a central locking differential, and a self-levelling air suspension with Continuous Damping Control, called Adaptive air suspension, which helps in off road situations.

Development began in 2002 under the code AU 716, primarily focused on the Pikes Peak Concept. Design work was frozen for the Concept in July 2002, for presentation at the North American International Auto Show in January 2003. Following the introduction of the concept, full-scale development began on Typ 4L of the PL71 platform.

The production design was frozen in late 2003, for a late 2005 start of production. Prototypes went into testing in 2004, with development concluding in the first half of 2005. It introduced the world's only series production passenger car V12 TDI diesel engine.

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Toyota Mirai review, photos, prices

The Toyota Mirai is among the first hydrogen-fuelled electric cars to reach series production and be offered to customers as a regular private purchase – as opposed to a short-term lease deal, where customers are obliged to hand the car back, as has mostly been the case up to now.

This appears steep, but the Mirai is among the most advanced road cars on sale right now. Prospective customers can also look forward to a £5000 government-backed subsidy as well as a comprehensive 24-hour, seven-day-a week concierge service and an extensive five-year/100,000-mile warranty that includes roadside assistance. 

Toyota is also offering the Mirai on a £750-per-month lease scheme over four years and 60,000 miles, which begins to make the Mirai an interesting proposition, especially for those seeking a city charge-buster who live near one of the UK’s nine hydrogen fuelling stations.

Don’t expect Prius levels of market penetration, though. With production limited to just 700 cars this year, Toyota says initial volumes will be restricted to just 12 in the UK, followed by a further 18 next year.

The starting point for the Mirai is the Prius Plus. The two cars share the same high-strength steel platform, MacPherson strut front and double wishbone rear suspension and 2780mm wheelbase.

With exaggerated exterior styling elements, including two large air ducts that dominate the front end, it certainly looks distinctive. It’s fairly big at 4890mm long, 1815mm wide and 1535mm high. Without the need to package hot exhausts within the underbody, Toyota has provided the Mirai with a flat undertray. But with a drag co-efficient of just 0.29, its aerodynamic efficiency lags behind that of the competition.  

The Mirai uses a single electric motor delivering 152bhp and 208lb ft. It is essentially the same unit used in the Lexus 450h and is mounted transversely in the engine bay along with the power control electronics, where it provides drive to the front wheels via a fixed-ratio gearbox. 

The fuel cell stack, which uses a combination of oxygen captured from the air and hydrogen to create the electricity used to power the electric motor, is mounted underneath the front seats. Produced in-house at Toyota, it is claimed to possess a specific output of 2.0kW/kg – a 50% improvement in the electrical energy-producing efficiency of Toyota’s initial fuel cell stack revealed in 2008.

Key to the high efficiency is a patented 3D cell design which is claimed to clear waste water away from the surface of the electrode faster than previous cell designs achieved. As such, there is an improved flow of oxygen to the catalyst layer and an increased production of electricity.

The fuel cell stack, which is housed in a titanium case and weighs just 57kg, can operate in temperatures as low as -30deg C. It is also claimed to possess a similar lifespan as a conventional internal combustion engine. Toyota expects it to provide up to 300,000 miles of motoring before it requires overhauling.

Two separate carbonfibre and glassfibre tanks are used to store the hydrogen – one mounted under the front seat and the other behind the rear seats. Together they provide a combined capacity of 122.4 litres, which is enough to allow the Mirai to provide a claimed range of more than 400 miles. Refilling the tanks takes three to five minutes.

The relatively small 1.6kWh nickel-metal hydride battery used to store electrical energy recuperated on the run and produced by the fuel cell stack sits above the second hydrogen tank at the rear. 

The striking exterior styling carries over to the interior, which features a modern-looking dashboard with two TFT displays – one under the windscreen housing the speedo and power display functions, and another touchscreen device atop the centre console for infotainment. Elsewhere sits some less contemporary-looking switchgear sourced from various Toyota models.

The quality throughout the spacious cabin is similar to that of the outgoing third-generation Prius, with a variety of hard and soft-touch plastics as well as some less than dazzling graphics. It all feels solidly built, if a little cheap given the high price. With the fuel cell stack sited underneath the front seats, you sit rather high, although this affords good vision to each corner, making the Mirai easy to manoeuvre.

The long wheelbase provides plenty of room leg room in the rear seats, although it’s a strict four-seater, while boot space is limited to 361 litres by the battery and second hydrogen fuel tank behind the rear seat backs.

Given the complexity of the technology at play, the Mirai is extraordinarily straightforward to drive. As with the latest breed of electric cars, you press the start button, draw the stubby gear lever into drive and set off with a light nudge of the accelerator pedal.

Progress is ultra-smooth and, apart from a faint synthetically generated whine from the speakers under load, all but silent. Despite tipping the scales at 1850kg, step-off is quite brisk, making the Mirai well suited to stop/start city traffic. However, the performance quickly levels off, providing a claimed 0-62mph time of 9.6sec and top speed of just 111mph.

By sighting most of the heavy elements low down in its structure, the Mirai has greater agility and poise than you might expect. The ride is much improved over the Prius's, being more supple, smoother and with better body control. Bumps in the road don't disturb the smooth driving experience as much as they do its hybrid sibling. 

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