Jens Meiners

2020 is over, and it certainly took a different turn than anyone could have expected twelve months ago. But, despite the incredible economic hardships brought about by the pandemic, the auto industry has remained surprisingly resilient. But 2020 was not a particularly good year for electric cars.

I’ve been busy driving more prototypes as the strangest year in recent memory is wrapping up. I was able to sample cars as diverse as the Audi e-tron GT, the Porsche 911 GT3 and the Hyundai Tucson. Audi’s drive of the e-tron GT, a derivative of the

We have a chance to ask the World Car of The Year jurors once a year in order to identify the biggest and most important trends in the business. And this year’s survey, under the cloud of the pandemic, provides some rather interesting findings on a wide scale of topics.

VW’s hasty move downmarket means that some originally planned elements have been struck out. The Touareg deserves luxury options, like an Alcantara headliner, and it would be an even better off-roader if it were available with a low-range

In German, you pay your respect by addressing someone with the formal pronoun ‘Sie.’ The more colloquial and intimate ‘Du’ has traditionally been reserved for family members and friends. The switch from ‘Sie’ to ‘Du’ is a meaningful event – and here’s

The automotive industry in Europe is still under the grip of the virus. Collapsing sales have not come back, and an incentive program in Germany that’s helping solely electric cars has predictably done little to help the industry.

Three months after both the US and Europe went into more or less of a lockdown, the world isn’t nearly the same. I chose to leave New York at the end of February and hunkered down at my place in Bavaria, which turned out to be a good decision.

The news from the biggest automotive market in the world is extremely discouraging. According to the Chinese automotive association CPCA, the sales curve has plunged to just 4,900 units sold in the first half of February 2020, as opposed to almost 60,000 units in the same time period last year.

Ghosn has taken Renault and Nissan to great heights by forging a largely successful alliance and streamlining its products and platforms, yet he has also shown surprisingly bad judgement several times. For instance, his bet on electric vehicles was premature – the Leaf remains a niche vehicle.

At least the presentation was entertaining. When Tesla guru and universal genius Elon Musk asked his chief designer to smash the window of the Cybertruck, presumably to show its strength, Franz von Holzhausen complied – and the window shattered into pieces.

Modern hypercars are a waste of design and engineering talent! Summer is considered a slow time in the automotive business, but this one proved to be full of exciting and innovative vehicles.

In the past decade, BMW has asked its strongest supporters to swallow a lot. First, the naturally aspirated straight-six engines were replaced by turbocharged models. Second, many of these turbos were downsized four-bangers. Then the brand began purging manual transmissions from the line-up.