+++ “Uncompromising AMG “. That’s how Mercedes described its new high-performance coupe when it released teaser images earlier this year. Few details were shared, except that the tail-happy prototype was based on the CLE and that the production model would be part of the ultra-exclusive “Mythos” series. While we wait for the camouflage to come off, dealers have already had a sneak peek. Mercedes allegedly showed the flagship CLE Coupe behind closed doors during a meeting with dealers in the United States and Canada. The private event didn’t take place in North America, but on the company’s home turf in Sindelfingen. Sales representatives saw a variety of future products spanning both ICE and EV lineups. Chief among them was the AMG CLE 63, of which apparently only 30 units will be sold worldwide. That would make it even more exclusive than the original Mythos model, a roofless, windscreen-less SL 63 sold as the PureSpeed in 250 units. The CLE 63 is said to pack 653 hp, a massive 204 hp jump over the CLE 53. While the report doesn’t specify the engine, it’s all but confirmed to be a twin-turbo 4.0-liter V8. Mercedes-AMG initially considered offering the top-tier CLE with a four-cylinder plug-in hybrid setup borrowed from the C 63. However, backlash over the sedan’s downsized engine may have convinced Affalterbach to reconsider. Those 653 horses are expected to come entirely from the combustion engine, as the CLE 63 is unlikely to be a plug-in hybrid. Whether mild-hybrid technology will be included remains unclear, but either way, the V8 will do all the heavy lifting. But the flagship CLE wasn’t the only car dealers got to see early. Mercedes also unveiled the AMG G 63 Cabriolet with 4 doors and an electrically retractable fabric roof.Production will begin in the third quarter of 2027, with a U.S. arrival the following year. Mercedes is also working on a new GT Black Series, though details remain limited. Logic suggests it will be based on the two-door AMG GT Coupe and positioned above the GT 63 Pro. It will likely be a 2-seater to save weight and should exceed the 612 hp available in the Pro variant. With the CLE 63 expected to pack 653 hp, the V8 could deliver at least as much in a significantly pricier Black Series. Alongside these combustion-powered performance models, dealers also saw a trio of electric AMGs. Leading the way is the already teased EV successor to the 4-Door GT Coupe, set to arrive in the U.S. early next year. It will be followed by an SUV equivalent in late 2027, with a lower, coupe-styled derivative arriving near the end of 2028. On the non-AMG side, Mercedes reportedly revealed the new E-Class well ahead of its U.S. release in early 2028. The luxury sedan is expected to launch first in electric form, with gas engines and plug-in hybrids added later. And yes, there will be another wagon. The electric E-Class won’t clash with the EQE, which will go out of production as early as this year. +++
+++ AUDI boss Gernot Döllner has again hinted the firm is working on an electric off-roader to take on the Land Rover Defender and Mercedes-Benz G-Class. The German firm has been considering a new flagship 4×4 for several years, as such a machine would push into a new market segment. While Audi has yet to officially acknowledge work on an off-roader, Döllner didn’t deny the prospect when asked about it during Audi’s annual media conference. “There has always been speculation in the media on various products, and the good news is the Audi brand can do everything from an entry-level electric vehicle to sports cars all the way to rugged SUVs”, he said, adding that “in the future you can expect a lot from Audi”. A luxurious off-roader would be particularly appealing to the vital US market and would fit into Audi’s new strategy of more localised products for that region, with a particular focus on SUVs. That is best shown by the forthcoming Q9, which the firm has confirmed will arrive later this year as Audi’s largest and more opulent SUV to date. Döllner added: “At the moment, we are very excited about the Q9, and this is really a product developed for the US market. We’ve really listened to what customers there want, and for the first time will be launched in the US first, which really shows what ambitions we have there for our customers”. It first emerged that Audi was considering a flagship 4×4 in 2023, when then design boss Marc Lichte suggested such a model would build neatly on the brand’s legacy of Quattro cars and tap into a highly profitable part of the market in which Audi was so far unrepresented. “There is potential because there are only 2 premium players” in the segment, he said, “and I think there is a space for a third one”. Lichte left Audi shortly after and was replaced by Massimo Frascella, whose role of shaping the Defender in his previous job at JLR reinforced speculation that Audi was gearing up to launch a similar car. Launching a relatively low-volume model would seem at odds with Döllner’s wider objective to simplify the Audi line-up, but he previously said it remains important to have flagship cars that serve as technology showcases for the brand and can influence other models. He said: “There is no niche banner; it’s just the opposite. It works perfectly to have a more focused line-up in the core and in addition to that have some niche models to build the brand and to also transfer new ideas from a niche segment into the core products. That works perfectly and this is part of our strategy”. On the potential for a Defender-rivalling Audi 4×4, he said: “Don’t give up on that dream”. Previously, it was thought that Audi’s luxury 4×4 could be aligned with the similarly conceived debut models from new Volkswagen Group brand Scout: the Traveller SUV and Terra pick-up, and built alongside them at its new factory in South Carolina. Döllner told that the US’s new import tariffs have prompted Audi to consider building cars locally there, and this new 4×4 is a candidate for US production, given the popularity of such cars in the US. “At a group level, we are right now discussing and investigating whether or not we should have a factory for Audi in the US”, he said. “But that’s dependent on a stable tariff situation and also on other regulatory boundary conditions that we would need to take [into consideration for]a decision like that”. He added that it could be “logical” to build Audi models in an existing Volkswagen Group facility in the US but said: “The big question is if we want to have a specific Audi factory or not, and that decision is absolutely open and dependent on how we are we aligned with the US government”. +++
+++ For years, we’ve had to listen to nearly all automakers refer to haptic buttons as a beneficial evolution of car interior design. While they look great in press images, capacitive keys are often frustrating to use and typically have a glossy finish, making them fingerprint magnets. Better late than never, car companies have listened to customer complaints and are reverting to hard keys. FERRARI has not only admitted its mea culpa but is also actively fixing past mistakes. Maranello is offering a retrofit for existing Purosangue and 12Cilindri models to swap out the steering wheel’s touch-capacitive buttons and make room for conventional controls. Additionally, the latest models bearing the Prancing Horse logo, such as the Testarossa and Amalfi, have more physical buttons than their predecessors. In an interview, the company’s CEO candidly admitted what everyone knew all along, but no other executive has dared to say: touch buttons are much cheaper to make than the real thing. Benedetto Vigna said manufacturing costs are 50 percent lower for touch keys compared to old-school buttons (imagine how much money companies are saving by eliminating buttons altogether). ‘The touch is something that is made for the supplier’s advantage’. During the same interview, the head honcho also discussed the retrofit mentioned earlier and how the company “got rid of the touch” in the two V12 models. Benedetto Vigna explained that switching (pun intended) back to traditional controls, even at a higher cost, allows Ferrari to stand out with tailor-made switchgear: ‘We have no problem going around with electronic consumer products that look the same. But we don’t like to go around with cars that all look the same. We need to do something unique. We are used to doing something else’. The upcoming Luce will be the clearest example of how Ferrari is rethinking its interiors, blending analogue and digital elements. The company’s first EV features an interior co-developed with LoveFrom, the American creative collective founded by Sir Jony Ive, Apple’s former design chief. Luce has plenty of proper buttons and switches developed from scratch to access various functions, including dedicated HVAC controls, rather than burying them in the main screen. It’s safe to assume these weren’t cheap to engineer and will cost a pretty penny to build. Naturally, those costs will be passed on to customers, with an alleged starting price of over €500.000. +++
+++ JAGUAR ’s electric-only pledge still hasn’t materialized into cars you can actually buy. In fact, the company currently doesn’t sell any vehicles, having sunsettled production of all previous-generation gas and electric models. The Type 00 concept debuted in late 2024, and it won’t be revealed in its final form until this summer. Order books should open by fall, with deliveries expected to begin in early 2027. In the meantime, we’re learning about all the cars Jaguar had to sacrifice to make way for an all-electric future, one that still hasn’t arrived. While it was already known that a next-generation, electric-only XJ was in development before being scrapped at the last minute, there were three other models in the works as well. Ex-Jaguar design chief Ian Callum revealed during the Road to Success podcast that a smaller XF sedan was also slated for renewal, intended to take on the BMW 5 Series, Mercedes E-Class and Audi A6. It’s unclear whether this third-gen model would have also spawned a more practical wagon, echoing its long-roof predecessors. The company’s best-selling model, the F-Pace, was supposed to get a second generation, but development of the SUV was halted as focus shifted entirely to the Type 00. By far the most interesting of the stillborn cars was a new F-Type, but that, too, sadly never saw the light of production. Instead, Jaguar is betting everything on its radically styled electric grand tourer as it moves upmarket, no longer chasing BMW, Mercedes and Audi but instead targeting Bentley. The production-ready Type 00 is projected to cost over $100.000, with an SUV to follow by the end of 2027. That model too will be purely electric, as the Tata Motors–owned brand has quashed rumours about offering hybrids. Having served as Director of Design for 2 decades, Ian Callum certainly knows how the story unfolded. He parted ways with Jaguar in 2019 and revealed during the podcast that these 4 models “were all in the cards, they were all being done”. The next-generation XJ was “nearly finished” before “that was all stopped just to start again”. While most automakers that previously set ambitious EV targets are pivoting back to hybrids and even petrol-only cars, Jaguar isn’t backing down. It’s a huge risk, and the company has already admitted that about 85 percent of customers are unlikely to return to buy the extravagant GT. Some dealers have sounded the alarm, with one going so far as to say there is “no business case for the brand” in an anonymous statement. Not all sales representatives are negative about the rebranding, but with Jaguar throwing caution to the wind, it’s a high-stakes gamble. +++
+++ LAMBORGHINI will unveil 4 new models this year as it seeks to broaden the appeal (and profitability) of its recently completed core line-up. CEO Stephan Winkelmann said the firm will unwrap a series of new “derivative” models at regular intervals before 2026, beginning in May with a dedicated event in Imola, followed by another at the Goodwood Festival of Speed in July, one at California’s Pebble Beach Concours in August and a final addition at the Art Basel exhibition in Miami in December. Having now completed the first phase of its line-up renewal in electrifying all model lines, Lamborghini will now begin the second, which is fleshing out those individual line-ups with special editions and different variants – as it has done before with cars like the Huracán Sterrato, Aventador SVJ and Urus Performante. Winkelmann would not be drawn on specifics about these new additions, beyond confirming that they would be “4 cars from four different types of bodystyle”. They will include “derivatives coming from the 3 base models, plus another car which is coming from another car”, which would seem to suggest 3 series-production variants and an extreme one-off in the vein of last year’s €4 million Fenomeno, revealed at Pebble Beach. Likely additions to the line-up include drop-top Temerario and Revuelto Spider models and a new version of the range-topping Urus Performante. +++
+++ POLESTAR has reaffirmed its commitment to only producing full-electric cars despite the slower-than-expected uptake of EV tech. Speaking at an exclusive media event at the firm’s Gothenburg HQ last month, chief executive Michael Lohscheller told a small group that the brand’s younger customer base is more embracing of both the new technology and the environmental rationale behind it. “Our customers, especially younger ones, believe in science, climate change is real”, said Loscheller. “Which is why if we said we were doing an ICE vehicle, they would be like ‘what?’. For us it is a good opportunity because we are so focused; we will not do a hybrid”. “The world needs to be simplified, the mobility of tomorrow needs to be with zero emissions and the best way of that is with electrification”, he added. “The transformation will happen; we are not in a declining market, BEV is growing and the opportunity for us is to increase coverage”. New models on the way include the Polestar 5 grand tourer this summer, an estate version of the 4 coming late this year, the all-new 2 due in 2027 and a small SUV badged 7 a year behind that. The new models will take Polestar to 57 percent coverage of the EV sector and Loscheller said there’s no current ambition to add further models in new areas of the market. “We will leave the other 43 percent alone”, he told. “We don’t discuss too much if we would go below Polestar 7”. According to the top man, Polestar’s average customer (45) is around a decade younger than the industry level and these customers are drawn to the company’s focus on sustainability; one of its three core pillars alongside performance and design. “The biggest differentiator I see actually is sustainability. Tell me a car company which publicly talks about sustainability these days? There are very few”, he declared, highlighting the brand’s 165-page sustainability report. “We talk about our CO2 emissions, we talk about gender pay, we talk about traceability of our materials; no other car company in the world is that open. And the young people say, don’t stop it. And that’s how I think we are differentiating”. +++
+++ ROLLS-ROYCE was once all in on electrification. When it launched the Spectre in 2022, the British luxury automaker pledged to go all-electric by 2030. Now, like so many other automakers before it, Rolls-Royce says it’s scaling back its EV ambitions. In an interview, the newly appointed CEO Chris Brownridge revealed that the company has dropped its plan to go EV-only by 2030. Instead, Rolls-Royce will continue producing its iconic 12-cylinder engines for the foreseeable future. According to Brownridge, a combination of relaxed regulations and slowing demand forced the company to reconsider its strategy. “For every client that loves an electric vehicle, there is one who does not”, he said. Still, he acknowledged that the original decision to go fully electric was “right at the time”. Earlier this year, the BMW Group confirmed it would continue producing combustion engines, including Rolls-Royce’s V12. The company noted it can meet Euro 7 emissions standards with updates to components like the exhaust system. For now, Rolls-Royce has no plans to discontinue the Spectre. While demand was strong at launch for the 2023 model year, sales dropped significantly in 2025, falling 47 percent to just 1.002 units. Even so, it still narrowly outsold the Ghost, which only recorded 993 units. +++