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Plus, stay tuned because later in the show I’ll tell you why Nissan has dressed up its ARIYA in solar panels and called it *shudder* self-charging!
On EV News China today we’re talking about: Nio’s ONVO New Models, BYD Backs Vietnam and China’s Brutal Price War Hits Profits
MG4 URBAN CUTS PRICES AS ORIGINAL MG4 GETS REFRESH
MG has cut the MG4 entry price to £23,495 and widened the range.
The new MG4 EV Urban now anchors the line-up with the Comfort Standard Range at £23,495, Comfort Long Range at £25,495 and Premium Long Range at £27,995. MG wants the Urban to rank among the most affordable family EVs, while the rest of the 2026 range leans on upgraded interiors, more tech and tweaked driving dynamics.
Price cuts matter because the original MG4 EV has already shown that cheap electric cars sell. Since its 2022 launch it has recorded nearly 50,000 UK registrations and collected 50 industry awards. MG now cuts deeper: the mainstream Premium Long Range model drops to £29,995, a £2,750 reduction on the previous generation. Above that, the Premium Extended Range offers a 338-mile WLTP figure at £32,995, putting it among the longest-range EVs at this price point.
Performance buyers still get the XPOWER dual-motor version at £33,995. MG holds the price and keeps the figures bold: 320 kW and what it claims is the fastest-accelerating car per pound in the UK market.
Yet the MG plan goes beyond headline prices. MG backs every MG4, including the new Urban, with a 7-year/80,000-mile warranty and plenty of local dealership, with a brand many think is still British.
https://bit.ly/3LZ3DHB
RIVIAN BETS $4.6M ON COLORADO DIRECT-SALES FIGHT
Rivian has put $4.6m behind a Colorado ballot measure to protect direct-to-consumer sales, an unusually blunt move in America’s slow war over how to sell electric cars. The cash backs a proposed 2026 constitutional amendment that would lock in the right of EV-only manufacturers to sell and service vehicles without using franchised dealers.
The firm gave the money on January 6th to a committee called “Coloradans for Direct EV Sales & Service”, state records show. The group wants voters to approve a change that would state, in the constitution, that manufacturers operating exclusively in zero-emission vehicles can keep selling and providing warranty and repair services straight to customers.
Colorado law already lets EV-only brands sidestep the dealer model. The fight is over whether that carve-out stays a matter of statute or becomes harder to unwind. Rivian backs the measure even though it is not named in the text; any EV-only maker would qualify. The company has not commented on the donation, according to local reports.
The ballot push shadows a parallel legislative effort. A draft bill seen by industry groups would allow more direct sales and service, including by some established manufacturers, and would give independent repairers a broader role in warranty work. Trade bodies argue that any dealer-friendly rewrite or repeal of current law would hurt competition on both sales and service.
Dealer groups, long wary of Tesla-style models, have yet to show their hand.
ELECTRONS DOMINATE 2026 UK CAR OF THE YEAR SHORTLIST
Eight cars make the 2026 UK Car of the Year shortlist. All can run on electrons alone.
The list reflects a wider shift. Of 59 eligible models, electric cars took five of the eight category wins. When judges now pick the best car in a class, they usually choose a battery one.
Renault’s 5 E-Tech shows how mainstream that has become. Already past 100,000 units built and helped by UK Electric Car Grant eligibility, it took the Small Car crown. It has collected 44 awards so far, including 2025 European Car of the Year, and nearly two-thirds of the 33 judges put it top of its class.
Kia’s EV4 topped the Family Car category, with 388 miles of range and 490 litres of boot space, displacing last year’s petrol Skoda Superb Estate. The Small Crossover award went to Citroën’s C3 Aircross, in both petrol and e-C3 Aircross form. It took third at European Car of the Year and became the first UK manufacturer to gain Electric Car Grant status. Above that, Skoda’s Elroq dominated Medium Crossovers on the Volkswagen Group’s MEB platform, alongside cars from the Cupra Born to the revived Ford Capri. The Elroq vRS uses twin motors to send 340 horsepower to the road and hits 0–62mph in 5.4 seconds, making it the fastest-accelerating Skoda yet.
Hyundai’s Ioniq 9 won Large Crossover honours with six- or seven-seat layouts and a 110.3kWh battery good for 385 miles, replacing the petrol Santa Fe that won in 2025. Performance went to Alpine’s A290, a hotter Renault 5 sibling with 220 horsepower and a 6.4-second 0–62mph in GTS form. A Rallye version for single-make series doubles French hopes of the overall title.
Not every winner is electric. Audi’s sixth-generation A6 saloon, which still offers a 204-horsepower 2.0-litre mild-hybrid diesel alongside E-trons, took Executive Car. The A6 Avant then beat the Porsche Taycan Sport Turismo and BYD Seal 6 Touring to the Estate prize with 503 litres of boot space. Yet no estate has ever claimed the overall UK Car of the Year crown, and on 26 February the judges will decide whether an EV now takes that prize too.
BMW SEEDS IX3 IN MUNICH AHEAD OF EUROPE LAUNCH
BMW’s iX3 will not officially reach European showrooms until 7th March. Yet a few buyers in Munich already have the keys.
BMW has begun handing over the first units of its new iX3 to customers in its home city. The firm bills the car as its electric flagship. It has chosen to seed the model early, and to do so in public, with several celebrities among the first recipients.
That timing matters. Every big carmaker now needs visible proof that it can sell battery-powered models in volume, not just talk about them. Early, high-profile deliveries in a core market like Germany let BMW show a real product in real driveways while dealers elsewhere still work towards the formal launch date. The 7th March schedule for Europe-wide availability remains in place; the soft opening in Munich runs alongside it.
The venue also helps. Munich keeps the focus on BMW’s home turf and on buyers who already know the brand. The company can use these early cars to gauge response, find any snags in the handover process and refine sales pitches before hundreds of dealerships across Europe join in.
KGM MUSSO EV TARGETS BRITAIN’S DIESEL PICK-UP HEARTLAND
KGM will sell an electric Musso pick-up in Britain in 2026. The Musso EV, already revealed in Korea, will join the Korando e-Motion SUV and Torres EVX as the brand drops the SsangYong name.
The Musso EV keeps a ladder-frame chassis and double-cab layout, but swaps diesel for a 73.4kWh battery and a 308PS dual-motor set-up. KGM claims a 249-mile range, a 0-62mph time of under 7 seconds and a 105mph top speed. It says the truck will tow up to 3,500kg and carry a 1,000kg payload, matching or beating many diesel rivals and going beyond most electric pick-ups now on sale.
Britain’s pick-up market still runs on diesel. Electric efforts such as the Maxus T90EV and Ford F-150 Lightning remain niche or absent. KGM plans to price the Musso EV from around £45,000 before VAT, with well-equipped versions likely at £50,000-£55,000 excluding VAT, depending on final UK specification and incentives. That places it between Chinese entrants and premium American offerings, while still qualifying as a commercial vehicle for tax.
Early specification points to a 10.25-inch digital instrument cluster, a 12.3-inch central touchscreen with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, and a suite of active safety systems. AC charging peaks at 11kW, while DC rapid charging reaches up to 120kW, allowing a 10-80% top-up in about 35 minutes, according to KGM.
The brand lacks the scale of Ford or Toyota, and its dealer network is thin. Yet if KGM delivers those towing and payload figures at the hinted price, the Musso EV will offer trades and fleets a rare thing: an electric workhorse with a 3,500kg tow rating and a 1,000kg payload.
VOLVO BETS EX60 EV WILL OUT-EARN ITS HYBRID BESTSELLER
Volvo’s next big earner will not be a hybrid but a fully electric SUV. The EX60, due to reach customers in summer 2026 at about $60,000, will deliver higher margins than the firm’s bestselling XC60 plug-in hybrid, says Fredrik Hansson, Volvo’s chief financial officer.
That matters because the EX60 sits in the world’s largest electrified segment and lands as Volvo pushes to become a fully electrified brand. To make the numbers work, Volvo has reworked how it builds cars. The EX60 is the first Volvo to use both cell-to-body construction and megacasting, trimming 80 kg while improving handling, range, sustainability and manufacturing cost. Third-generation electric motors, developed and built in-house, cut component costs by 18 percent versus earlier units.
These gains follow hefty capital outlays on new structures and processes. Hansson argues that Volvo is now coming down the investment slope, leaving rivals at a disadvantage unless they match those spending levels. Scarred by the EX90’s two-year delay, he ranks quality alongside cost and timing targets for the EX60 ramp-up. Volvo will increase EX60 production step by step.
Tariffs add another complication. Hansson expects the Trump administration’s measures to knock 1 to 2 percent off Volvo’s full-year EBIT in 2025.
TESLA SEMI TO CHARGE AT AMERICA’S BIGGEST TRUCK-STOP CHAIN
Tesla will start plugging its Semi lorries into America’s biggest truck-stop chain from summer 2026. Pilot, which runs over 900 travel centres across 44 states and five Canadian provinces and serves around 1.2m customers a day, plans to host Tesla Semi chargers at select sites along major highways.
The tie-up matters because long-haul charging, not vehicle tech, now sets the pace for electric trucking. Tesla wants 46 Semi charging stations in place by 2027. Focusing first on busy stretches of I‑5, I‑10 and other key freight corridors should make the lorry more useful to early fleet buyers and less of a niche local-distribution tool.
Pilot frames the move as an upgrade to its alternative-fuels offer and as central to meeting the needs of the North American transport sector. It already has form in electrons: it has worked with Volvo Group and has rolled out more than 200 passenger-EV charging sites with GM and EVgo. Hosting 1.2MW-capable Semi chargers raises the stakes. Those power levels, already demonstrated by Tesla, are vital if long-haul trucks are to charge fast enough to keep drivers and dispatchers on side.
The geography matters as much as the hardware. I‑5 and I‑10 are key for Tesla’s first Semi customers, including PepsiCo. A corridor-based network at Pilot sites would let those operators go beyond depot-to-store shuttles and start to treat the Semi as a true line-haul tractor. That, in turn, broadens the potential customer base from local distribution fleets to national carriers.
GRIDSERVE OPENS FIRST MOTORWAY E-HGV HUBS
Gridserve has switched on Britain’s first public electric HGV charging hubs on motorways, at Extra Baldock on the A1(M) and Moto Exeter on the M5, and sent an electric DAF XF 200 miles between them to prove the point.
The two sites are the first built under Electric Freightway, part of the Department for Transport’s Zero Emission HGV and Infrastructure Demonstrator (ZEHID) programme. Backed by around £200m of public money across four demonstrator projects, ZEHID aims to push large-scale roll-out of zero-emission trucks and the infrastructure they need. Heavy goods vehicles make up only about 1% of UK vehicles yet produce roughly 16% of domestic transport greenhouse-gas emissions. Cutting that share depends on more than depot chargers.
Electric Freightway, led by Gridserve, brings together 25 UK hauliers and truckmakers to run electric HGVs on real routes using shared public infrastructure rather than private yard hardware. Seven dedicated eHGV hubs are due during 2026, with further locations at Tamworth, Thurrock, Leeds, Chester and Strensham North to follow later this year.
Gridserve frames the hubs as a step towards decarbonising freight rather than a full answer. They follow its Extra Beaconsfield Super Hub on the M40, which couples six existing 50kW chargers with 12 new ultra-rapid bays able to deliver up to 400kW and add more than 100 miles of range in under ten minutes for compatible EVs. For hauliers, the question now is scale, not proof of concept.
ELECTRIC RENAULT HITS 1,000KM DAY ON 300KM RANGE
A Swiss haulier has taken an electric articulated lorry far past its stated comfort zone. Hugelshofer has shown that a Renault Trucks E-Tech T, sold with a nominal range of 300km, can cover more than 1,000km in 24 hours.
Long-haul operators fret less about range on a single charge than about what a truck can reliably run in a working day, under real limits on duty cycles, driving hours and charging stops. A four-figure daily distance from a 300km-range vehicle suggests that planning and infrastructure now count as much as chemistry.
The result also challenges a common industry assumption: that only huge packs and oversized ranges can make electric heavy trucks viable on trunk routes. Here, a standard E-Tech T with a 300km nominal range did the work, not an exotic prototype. That implies tighter route management and predictable access to chargers can stand in for ever larger batteries.
The test does not settle arguments about cost, grid impact or residual values. Nor does it show much about performance in harsher weather or tougher terrain. But it does show that an electric truck, run by a regular haulier, can match the daily distance once reserved for diesel on European-style schedules.
DS 7 EV CHASES RANGE
DS Automobiles will launch the second-generation DS 7 on February 1st, rebadged as the № 7 and claiming 740km of WLTP range in pure electric form. That beats the Audi Q6 e-tron on 660km and the Mercedes-Benz GLC EQ on 713km, and falls just 10km short of its bigger stablemate, the № 8.
The car sits on Stellantis’s STLA Medium platform, shared with the Peugeot 3008 and 5008. It will come as a hybrid, plug-in hybrid and full EV, giving DS a flexible tool in an executive crossover class that still lacks clear borders. DS expects price to do much of the work, undercutting German premium rivals while offering more range than many and only modest compromises elsewhere.
Engineers have chased efficiency rather than brute charging power. Flush door handles, a sloping roofline, a compact spoiler and tidier body contours all play their part; camouflaged mules already wear “740” badges on their doors. The design language follows the № 8, with vertical daytime running lights, an illuminated grille and a smooth side profile.
The EV line-up will span three versions. A base model offers 230hp and a 74kWh battery. A Long Range version pairs 242hp with 97kWh. A dual-motor all-wheel-drive variant sits at the top with 349hp. All use a 400-volt system, capped at 160kW DC charging.
NISSAN ARIYA TESTS SOLAR TOP-UP FOR CITY DRIVERS
Nissan has built an Ariya that tries to charge itself. On Clean Energy Day, as Australia baked in a heatwave, the firm showed a solar-powered version of its electric SUV with panels on the bonnet, roof and tailgate.
The hardware is modest but neat. About 3.8 square metres of high-efficiency solar panels feed DC power straight into the car’s system, topping up the battery while the vehicle sits or moves. Nissan’s tests suggest the set-up can add up to 23km of range on sunny days. In solar-rich cities the system yields on average 17-21km a day; even London manages more than 10km.
That does not free drivers from plugs, but it does cut visits. Nissan reckons the solar system can trim the number of charging sessions by 35-65%, especially for short urban commutes. A driver who covers 6000km a year could cut sessions from 23 to just 8 if the car spends enough time in the sun.
The project leans on Lightyear, a specialist in solar-assisted EVs that has endured bankruptcy yet still offers useful know-how. Others have tried to turn roofs into range; few have edged close to a product that works in daily use at scale. Nissan says the Ariya concept aims less at total solar autonomy and more at efficiency and incremental energy capture, and folds into the firm’s pledge of carbon neutrality by 2050.
https://bit.ly/49Xiavn
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