Your friendly neighborhood BMW just wrapped itself in Spider-Man

XPeng delivered 38,027 vehicles in July 2026, up just 4% year on year, and its shares still fell more than 3%. In the same month Leapmotor topped 100,000 and Zeekr more than doubled, leaving XPeng and Li Auto as the two former Chinese EV darlings whose growth has stalled. The real story is not China versus the West, but a savage shakeout between Chinese brands that is only beginning.

The Peugeot Partner has turned 30, with more than 2.6 million vans sold across three generations since 1996, including the passenger Rifter. The current range spans the electric E-Partner, the value Partner Active and a rugged Pro Skill, with a hybrid arriving in 2027. Its real significance is bigger than a workhorse: the Partner's boxy, space-first packaging is now the template the affordable EV era is converging on.

Michal Strnad, a 33-year-old Czech defence tycoon who built his fortune supplying ammunition to Ukraine, has bought 14% of Pirelli for just under 1 billion euro. He acquired the stake directly from China's state-owned Sinochem, easing years of Italian and US scrutiny over Chinese control of the F1 tyre supplier. It is a striking sign of who now has the money to rewrite ownership of strategic European industry.

Ford CEO Jim Farley told employees at a closed town hall that Chinese automakers will enter the US market within five to ten years, most likely toward the end of that window. The forecast is not new, but the private audience is: he is warning his own staff that the tariffs keeping Chinese cars out are temporary. Ford is responding with a 30,000 dollar electric pickup and talks with Xiaomi and Geely.

BYD has revealed the Racco, an electric kei car for Japan, becoming the first foreign carmaker ever to design a car to Japan's strict kei rules. It has a 20 kWh Blade battery, 180 km of WLTC range and sliding doors, priced around 15,000 euro to take on the Nissan Sakura. After weak sales since 2023, it marks a shift from exporting global models to engineering cars for a single market.

The Schwarz Group, parent of Lidl and Kaufland, has temporarily stopped employees ordering fully electric company cars in Germany, across a fleet of about 13,000 vehicles. The reason is not range or charging but weak used-EV resale values, which hit Schwarz directly because it buys and resells its cars rather than leasing them. It is a rare, honest price signal about the transition's weakest link.

BMW owners are furious after their cars began playing a Spider-Man: Brand New Day advert on the dashboard at startup, complete with music and cabin lighting, in more than 70 countries from 27 July to 10 August. BMW denies it is advertising, calling it a special surprise and a festive animation. The bigger story is not the ad, but the language, and the fact that a screen you paid for can now be used to show it.

Tedson Motors has revealed a bespoke Grigio Titanio Etna commission built for a Texas-based race car driver, complete with a white racing stripe and dark blue pinstripes nodding to the owner's motorsport background. It is one of 77 examples of the Croatian coachbuilder's 600 hp Lamborghini Gallardo restomod.

Hyundai BeLux has launched the IONIQ 9 Calligraphy Black Ink, a monochrome flagship trim for its award-winning electric SUV, priced from €90,095 and available to order now for September 2026 delivery.

BMW has begun series production of the new i3 at its Munich plant, the second Neue Klasse model after the iX3. European deliveries start this autumn, with US sales following in late 2027.

Manthey Racing marks 30 years since Olaf Manthey founded it as a single Nürburgring race shop in 1996. Porsche now owns 51 percent of the company, and its road-legal Manthey Kits are available for nine Porsche GT models.

SRT has revealed eBoost Air, an experimental electric compressor fitted to a Jeep Grand Cherokee SRT Concept, designed to eliminate turbo lag on its 3.0-litre Hurricane inline-six. Multiple outlets put its output around 640 hp, though SRT has not confirmed an official figure.

Porsche Cars Australia has revealed the 911 Turbo S Land Down Under, a one-off Sonderwunsch commission marking 75 years of Porsche in Australia. It uses two exclusive Chromaflair paint colours and hides the message "See ya later mate" under the rear spoiler, visible only in Sport Plus mode or above 80 km/h.

Bugatti has revealed the Destrier, a one-off Solitaire commission built on the track-only Bolide's carbon monocoque and 1,600 PS W16, but stripped of all aerodynamic addenda to focus purely on proportion. It debuts at Pebble Beach on 16 August 2026.

Lamborghini confirms the Revuelto SV lapped the Hockenheimring in 1:41.6, the fastest time ever recorded there by a production car, ahead of its world premiere on 14 August at The Quail during Monterey Car Week. No power, torque, or weight figures have been released yet.

Belgian Mobility Minister Jean-Luc Crucke wants to study banning young drivers from powerful cars, following France and Italy. Road safety institute Vias says only 3 percent of serious crashes involving 18-24 year olds involve a car over 200 hp, versus 6 percent across the whole population.

Porsche CEO Michael Leiters has confirmed the electric 718 Boxster and Cayman are moving ahead, calling it the best economic solution after a year of reversals over the car's future. He said nothing about whether a combustion version still survives alongside it.

The French gendarmerie's rapid intervention unit in Écalles-Alix, Normandy, has put a seized Audi RS3 Sportback into active service for highway pursuits. The 400 hp car was confiscated from a drug trafficker in 2022 and refitted for police use for around €1,500.

Lucid is delaying the Cosmos, its sub-$50,000 EV, from 2026 to the second half of 2027, tying the delay to an operational reset that includes production cuts and $1.4 billion in identified cash flow improvements. CEO Silvio Napoli says the Air and Gravity both launched a bit in haste, and he does not want to repeat that mistake.

Mercedes-AMG has revealed the GT 53 4-Door Coupé, its new entry-level model below the GT 55 and GT 63, with 544 hp, all-wheel drive, and a WLTP range up to 809 km. It starts at €115,430 and arrives in Germany on 13 August 2026.

Audi has confirmed pricing and specifications for the A2 e-tron, a compact EV starting at €38,200 that claims 12.8 kWh per 100 km on the WLTP cycle, making it the most efficient car the brand has ever built. It arrives in full this autumn.

Rubau Cars, a Girona-based coachbuilder founded by designer Josep Rubau, has unveiled a windscreen-less speedster built on the Porsche 718 Spyder RS. Only 19 examples will be built, each honouring a year from Porsche's record 19 overall Le Mans victories.

Audi is marking 50 years of its five-cylinder engine with the exhibition "1-2-4-5-3: 50 years of Audi five-cylinder engines" at the Audi museum mobile in Ingolstadt, running from 1 August 2026 to 28 February 2027. The show gathers 14 vehicles and seven engines tracing the story from the 1976 Audi 100 to the modern TT RS.

The Mercedes-AMG CLA 45 4MATIC+ lapped the Nürburgring Nordschleife in 7:32.070 on 28 July, making it the fastest four-door coupé ever recorded around the circuit and beating a Porsche Taycan Turbo S. The record was set in a completely stock, fully electric car with three motors and 680 hp.

ROADPOL's August Speedweek runs from 3 to 9 August 2026, with around 15,000 officers checking roughly 3 million vehicles and issuing about 150,000 tickets across participating European countries. German research into past editions found the crash reduction does not outlast the enforcement week itself.