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Smart wanted to reveal its new #2 city car gradually, through a global street art campaign building anticipation for an October unveiling at the Paris motor show. A Chinese homologation filing skipped straight to the spec sheet, two months early.

Andreas Preuninger has run Porsche's GT division for nearly 25 years, has not missed once across 26 models by his own count, and says the hardest part of his job now is not building a faster car. It is keeping Brussels out of the way of a good one.

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.