#BrownCarGuy – News, Views & Reviews!
The Changan Deepal S05 arrives in Britain with 303 miles of claimed range, rear-wheel drive and enough technology to keep a small branch of Currys busy. Has this unfamiliar electric SUV earned a place on your shortlist?
The Kia EV2 is the smallest and cheapest electric car the Korean manufacturer sells in Britain. That usually means a worthy little urban runabout built to a price, with the interior ambience of a bare cupboard and unpainted bumpers. But the EV2 has other ideas. It arrives with the upright stance, bold lighting and visual confidence of something at least one size larger – and a couple of grades more expensive.
The new Aion V has landed in the UK, and I got an early first drive at SMMT Test Day at Millbrook, where some of the latest cars are laid out like an automotive buffet and you try not to come away with indigestion, or an existential crisis about how quickly the car industry is changing. This is Aion’s new electric family SUV, and while the badge may still be unfamiliar to most British buyers, the proposition is anything but vague: 317 miles of WLTP range, £36,450 OTR, around 204PS, lots of equipment, loads of space and one of the most interesting ownership packages currently being offered on any new car in Britain.
The Nissan Micra has always been one of those cars that quietly got on with the job. It was never glamorous, rarely outrageous, and yet somehow became deeply woven into British motoring culture. Your mum had one, your driving instructor had one, your mate learned to heel-and-toe in one, and somewhere out in the sticks, there’s probably still a battered K10 surviving on sheer stubbornness and WD40 fumes. But now the Micra enters a whole new era because this all-new sixth-generation model is fully electric, thoroughly modern, heavily digitised and, perhaps most surprisingly of all, good value and rather likeable.
There was a time when cars didn’t need mood lighting, over-the-air software updates, lane departure nags, adaptive personalities or a touchscreen larger than a student bedsit television simply to survive the school run. There was a time when a humble hatchback existed purely to provide practical, affordable and dependable transport, and somehow, almost accidentally, managed to become charming in the process. This 1988 Nissan Micra GSX Automatic is one of those cars.
This is the Kia PV5 Passenger, and no, I don’t normally review commercial vehicles, but this one sits in that interesting space between van, MPV, taxi, family bus and rolling sci-fi appliance. Kia calls it a Platform Beyond Vehicle, or PBV, which sounds like marketing nonsense until you understand the idea. Because electric vehicles use a flat skateboard-style platform, Kia can build different bodies on top of it: a proper van, a passenger version like this, a chassis cab for conversions, and potentially all sorts of specialist versions in future. You know, I’ve been taking about this flexibility for years – looks like manufacturers are finally starting to exploit it.
The EV5 is Kia taking its best-selling formula – the Sportage – and rethinking it for the electric era, not just swapping out the engine for a battery, but genuinely reworking the whole idea of what a family SUV should be when you start with a clean sheet, and if they’ve got this right then this could end up being one of the most important EVs on sale right now, because it slots along the combustion-engined powered Sportage as the electric equivalent. And the Sportage is a best-seller for Kia.
The Geely EX5 marks the official arrival of Geely Auto into the UK market, and while the badge might be unfamiliar to many British buyers, the company behind it most definitely isn’t. This is the same automotive giant that owns Volvo, Polestar, Lotus, Smart and Zeekr, so there’s serious engineering muscle behind this car. The EX5 is Geely’s opening move in one of the most competitive segments in the country right now: the mid-size electric family SUV. Think Kia EV6, Hyundai Kona Electric, BYD Atto 3 and MG4 Extended Range territory.
Some cars don’t change very often. Others quietly evolve until one day you realise they’ve become something quite different from what they started out as. That’s exactly what has happened to the Toyota Aygo X.
This is the ‘second generation’ XPENG G6. So why does it feel like the G6 has only just arrived in the UK? Well… because it has. The brand officially launched here in early 2025. The G6 was its spearhead product. And just as we were getting used to seeing them on British roads, XPENG turns around and says, “Here’s the new one.” Hey?