The new Audi A6 Allroad still has a V6 diesel, and that is exactly the point

Kia's K4 Hybrid pairs a 1.6 GDI with a six-speed dual-clutch for 154 hp, in hatchback and Sportswagon form, with production from 15 October 2026 and no price yet. It fills a gap the Dutch importer opened in April, when re-homologation pushed BPM on the 180 hp 1.6 T-GDI to €13,000-14,000 and Kia dropped it, leaving the K4 with one 115 hp engine.

Bugatti's first Programme Solitaire car, the W16 Brouillard, reached Michel Perridon at Chantilly Arts & Elegance on 13 September, thirteen months after its reveal at The Quail, and won Best of Show for one-offs the same day. Mate Rimac did the handover four days after buying out Porsche. The Bugatti museum Perridon has promised for Rotterdam, Dubai and now Molsheim still has no building.

Hamburg's governing SPD and Greens will vote on 16 September to push a Bundesrat initiative banning synthetic engine sound on electric cars above the 20 km/h AVAS zone. UN Regulation 138 warning tones stay. EU type approval means a German-only ban cannot reach a factory-fitted speaker, so the route runs through Brussels or Geneva, and the next Bundesrat sits on 25 September.

Kia has revealed the production PV7 at IAA Transportation in Hannover: a 5,350 mm electric van on an 800-volt version of the PV5's E-GMP.S platform, with 71.5 or 96.2 kWh batteries, 272 hp, 460 km WLTP for the Cargo Long Range and a 25-minute charge from 10 to 80 percent at 350 kW. Cargo and nine-seat Passenger versions reach Europe in the second half of 2027.

Volkswagen's Mission Efficiency prototype has set three records: a drag coefficient of 0.158, 6.48 kWh/100 km at a constant 68 km/h, and 6.89 kWh/100 km over 1,278 km from Wolfsburg to Vienna with a single charging stop. The drivetrain is the ID. Polo's 135 hp motor and battery. Volkswagen officially calls it a concept, but is studying a production version at around €50,000.

Nio's third-generation ES8 will pass 150,000 deliveries this week, twelve months after going on sale in China at 406,800 yuan, a 26.8 percent cut on the previous 100 kWh ES8. In August the ES8 and ES9 made up 82.5 percent of Nio-brand deliveries, leaving seven other models with 3,696 cars. Nio lost 528 million yuan in Q2 despite record volume, and Europe still sells the second-generation EL8 through distributors.

The 50th Suzuka 1000km went to the AO by Absolute Racing Porsche 911 GT3 R shared by Laurin Heinrich, Julien Andlauer and Belgium's Alessio Picariello, who won by 51 seconds and led a Porsche one-three. It is Porsche's first outright win at the historic Intercontinental GT Challenge round since 1994, ending a 32-year drought on AO Racing's series debut. Belgian fans had more to cheer, too, with Frédéric Vervisch second and Maxime Martin fifth.

Kimi Antonelli won the inaugural Spanish Grand Prix at Madrid's new Madring circuit, leading home Max Verstappen and pole-sitter Lando Norris. It was strategy, not raw pace, that decided it: a Virtual Safety Car on lap 13 and the pit stops it forced handed Antonelli the win, and even he admitted Norris deserved better. His championship lead now stands at a commanding 81 points.

Leapmotor International will not bring the updated B10 that went on sale in China on 16 July to Europe, its Europe commercial head Danilo Annese said at the B03X launch in Spain. The Chinese car has an 800 V system, a 69.7 kWh battery and 16-minute charging. Europe's B10 stays at 400 V and 67.1 kWh from €29,900, and a C10 hardware update follows in early 2027.

Lando Norris tests McLaren's MCL-HY hypercar at Portimão on Monday 14 September, his first full day in the car after two Goodwood hill runs in July. He said in Baku in 2025 and again in May 2026 that he wants to race Le Mans. This year's race ended on the same afternoon as the Barcelona Grand Prix, and the provisional 2027 calendar wedges Le Mans between Monaco and Portimão.

Daimler Truck Defence and PGZ have agreed to assemble Mercedes-Benz truck diesels in Kalisz, Poland, from 2027, growing to more than 1,000 engines a year from kits of over 700 parts. The 7 to 15 litre six-cylinders, 326 to 625 hp, are the units used in the Unimog and Zetros and will power vehicles PGZ companies build for the Polish armed forces, chiefly Jelcz trucks that currently use Iveco engines. No Mercedes trucks are part of the deal.

The Chery-JLR Freelander 8 holds the Guinness record for the highest altitude reached by a hybrid car: 6,002.33 metres in Tibet on 22 August 2026, 22.28 metres above the BYD Fang Cheng Bao 5 mark from July 2024. Its 1.5-litre generator kept 80 percent of its output on half the oxygen and a two-speed rear axle put up to 8,000 Nm through the wheels. A petrol Porsche 911 reached 6,734 metres in 2023.

Ferrari has revealed the 296 GT Modificata, a track-only special built in very limited numbers for its Club Competizioni GT customer programme. Based on the 296 GT3 Evo but freed from any racing rulebook, its V6 makes 730 hp, 130 more than the GT3 racer, and Ferrari says it laps Fiorano three seconds faster. It even has two seats, so owners can take a coach or a passenger along.

Lexus put an updated LS on sale in Japan on 10 September 2026, priced from ¥14.14 million to ¥18.05 million and offered only as the 359 hp LS500h hybrid. The 422 hp twin-turbo LS500 and the entry-grade are gone, so the cheapest LS now costs ¥3.03 million more. The shell gains a reinforced centre tunnel and resin-damped braces. Europe lost the LS on 1 October 2025; the United States gets 250 final Heritage Edition cars.

Ugo Ugochukwu won the 2026 FIA Formula 3 title at the Madring on 13 September with Campos Racing, 159 points to Freddie Slater's 145, after entering the final round 15 points behind. McLaren had signed the American at 13 and released him in November 2025 after a winless, 16th-place season. Slater is the first driver in Audi's F1 programme. The title is worth 30 super licence points and is Campos' first drivers' crown.

Toyota is recalling 8,521 electric C-HRs in the United States because a battery ECU programming error can let regenerative braking overcharge a nearly full pack and shut down the drive system. The cars were built between 6 February and 10 July 2026 at Takaoka, the plant that also builds Europe's C-HR+, and Toyota says not all of them were sold in America. The fix is a dealer software update, with owner letters due on 18 October.

Ford's Transit City, a 56 kWh electric van built by Jiangling Motors in Nanchang, went into production on 31 August and the first batch of around 1,000 is bound for Europe, priced from €35,990 net in Germany and A$50,000 in Australia. Ford exported 184,000 vehicles from China in 2025 while Changan Ford sold 99,400 there, and Jim Farley pledged deeper Jiangling ties days before Washington's letter objecting to Ford's Chinese partnerships.

China exported 7.153 million vehicles between January and August 2026, up 66.7 percent and already past the 7.1 million it shipped in all of 2025, according to CAAM. August alone saw 1.01 million exports while domestic sales fell 24.2 percent and petrol car sales at home nearly halved. Chery leads passenger car exports with 1.32 million, ahead of BYD, which is reported to have ordered ten more 9,200-car ships for delivery between 2027 and 2029.

Bugatti Brussels has moved from D'Ieteren's historic Rue du Mail workshops to a two-car showroom at Grote Baan 399 in Drogenbos, sharing a site with Bentley, Lamborghini and Rimac. Six Tourbillons are allocated to Belgian buyers, none of them registrable until the car is type-approved, and Belgium holds 15 of the 950 W16 Veyrons and Chirons built. The opening came six days after D'Ieteren announced up to 344 job cuts and on the day its automotive margin was reported at 2.1 percent.

Tesla has set 1 October 2026 for the Roadster reveal, with invitations to early reservation holders for an event in Waco, Texas. It is the fifth date given this year after 1 April, late April, "a month or so" and August. Musk said in November 2025 that production follows 12 to 18 months after the demo, Europe still takes €43,000 reservations, and the 2017 claim of 1.9 seconds to 60 mph is already slower than the Rimac Nevera R.

Chery registered 29,000 cars under its own badge in its first year in Britain, and its three UK brands took nearly 8 percent of the market in July. Four new or updated SUVs follow in 2027, led by the 476 hp Tiggo X, all retuned at a new Millbrook R&D centre because, in its UK boss's words, buyers want the German feeling. Germany itself gets the Chery badge in the first half of 2027.

Tesla has reversed one of its longest-standing promises. On its Q1 2026 earnings call, it admitted for the first time that Hardware 3 (HW3) cars, built from 2019 onward, cannot run unsupervised Full Self-Driving. They will keep getting FSD updates, but the hardware is not enough to drive without a person at the wheel. Tesla's fix is a heavy retrofit of cameras, wiring and computer at dedicated conversion hubs, or a trade-in discount toward a new car.

At the New Economy Forum in Madrid, in the week of the Spanish Grand Prix, FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem said Formula 1 does not need a twelfth team, it needs 'the' team, and it has to come from China. He confirmed meetings with BYD and Geely, told BYD to come back with a serious offer, and ruled out bending the engine rules towards electrification. BYD said in July there is no project.

At the third Tutto Bene Hillclimb on Mottarone on 9 September, Maserati showed the 1958 Eldorado livery on a one-off GT2 race car and a limited GT2 Stradale edition, beside the original 420/M/58 from the Panini collection. The single-seater was Europe's first sponsored racer, funded by Eldorado ice cream. It raced twice, finished seventh once, failed to qualify at Indianapolis, and Maserati still has not said how many road cars get the paint or what it costs.

La Cinquecento, a new studio in West Berkshire founded by photographer Max Kindersley, has turned his family's barn-stored 1973 Fiat 500 into the 500 Scattante, revealed at the Tutto Bene Hillclimb on Mottarone on 9 September. It keeps the rear-engined layout with an 802 cc Fiat 126-derived twin, wears a BorromeodeSilva body and targets about 650 kg against the original's 499 kg, at a price Auto Express puts near £150,000.