+++ With only 7.608 units sold globally in 2025, the XM was the slowest-selling BMW , with even the now-defunct Z4 roadster faring better. This year is looking even worse, as demand through June fell by 22.4 percent to 2.816 cars compared with the first 6 months of last year. Of course, given its lofty asking price, Munich never really expected its plug-in hybrid SUV to be a huge seller. The problem is that the numbers are apparently so low that the dedicated M model is at risk of being put on the chopping block. The XM faces an uncertain future, mainly because it’s a slow seller in China. When the M-branded behemoth came out 4 years ago, the luxury automaker predicted that 23 percent of customers would come from China. The United States was projected to be its largest market at 26 percent, but the electrified SUV is struggling there as well. Official sales numbers show that demand slipped by 4.9 percent in 2025 to just 1.878 vehicles. The XM is highly unlikely to get a Neue Klasse makeover, even if the brand has promised to roll out approximately 40 new or updated models by the end of 2027. Although it’s officially considered a standalone M product, BMW has achieved significant economies of scale. Not only does the XM use the tried-and-tested CLAR platform, but its plug-in hybrid V8 setup has since been shared with the M5 models. The not-for-America XM 50e is also a plug-in hybrid, but it’s built around an inline-6 setup found in other PHEVs carrying the famous roundel. Even if BMW has spread out the costs, the XM might be too niche to warrant a successor. As always, nothing is official until the company says so, but the lack of any signs pointing toward a facelift, let alone a second generation, casts doubt on the XM’s future. That doesn’t mean it’ll be dropped overnight, since plans are made years in advance and rarely change during the product’s life cycle unless the situation is exceptionally bad. If the XM does go away later this decade, it’ll follow other BMWs into the car graveyard. The Z4 and 8 Series have already been discontinued, and the i4 is dying so that the new i3 sedan can live. Rumour has it that between the new iX5 and the upcoming iX7, there’s no room in the line-up for another outlandishly styled SUV, the iX. The 2 Series Active Tourer may be living on borrowed time as well. +++
+++ CHINA ’s car market just logged its 10th straight monthly drop, with July passenger sales down about one-fifth year-on-year even as exports nearly doubled. That split picture of quiet showrooms at home and packed export terminals is now a live stress test for legacy brands that long treated China as their profit engine. Chinese makers are leaning on overseas buyers to keep factories busy, from small EVs to electric heavy trucks, while global names juggle shrinking share in China and rising Chinese competition in Europe and beyond. If you watch Toyota, Volkswagen or Detroit iron, the squeeze in China now shapes which models survive, which get cut and where future EV money gets spent. July 2026 data from the China Passenger Car Association show domestic passenger sales down roughly 20 percent year-on-year at about 1.47 million units, the 10th monthly decline in a row, while car exports climbed nearly 90 percent to close to 1 million vehicles. Broader industrial numbers tell the same story of weak local demand but steady output for foreign buyers. Electric vehicles are doing much of the work. In the first half of 2026, overall car sales in China slipped versus 2025, yet Chinese companies shipped about 2.4 million electric vehicles overseas, almost matching their full-year 2025 total, so Chinese automakers are increasingly treating the world as their real growth market. Geely shows how this export pivot looks in practice. The company’s first-half 2026 exports hit about 474.000 vehicles, up more than 150 percent year-on-year and already above its 2025 total, and it has lifted its full-year target to around 920.000 units, helped by state support that European officials argue is warping trade and margins. The squeeze on legacy automakers is two-sided. In China, German brands such as Mercedes, Volkswagen and BMW are losing share in a bruising EV price war as the overall market shrinks. Several Western carmakers now face the same problem GM ran into before its decision to wind down Chevrolet in China: heavy investment, falling volumes and local rivals that can undercut on price.Those exports are landing in markets that used to be comfortable ground for legacy players. Chinese EVs are already reshaping Europe’s sales charts, and brands that depend on global volume to fund future lineups now have to budget for thinner margins or lost share. That strain shows up in reports that the auto industry is growing but still losing money on many EVs, while exporters such as Geely lean on overseas profits instead of home-market strength. +++
+++ KIA says it won’t be making a sporty EV2 GT in the immediate future, depriving buyers of a rival for the new Volkswagen ID.Polo GTI. A member of the Kia EV2 product team revealed: “A GT version of the EV2 is not in our product plan”. This comes as a contradiction to a previous comment made back at the firm’s CEO Investor Day in 2024, when CEO Ho Sung Song said: “Kia plans to continuously release GT trims for its educated EVs”. Up until this point, Kia has followed through on its promise; earlier this year, the Kia EV3, EV4 and EV5 GT models joined the existing Kia EV6 GT and EV9 GT. Yet while those models occupy more expensive and lucrative market segments, the tight profit margins on small EVs may have swayed Kia away from producing an expensive GT version of the EV2. Whether or not Kia makes the plunge could depend on the success of the forthcoming Hyundai Ioniq 3 N; the EV2 shares its underpinnings with the baby Hyundai, meaning any technical upgrades would likely be shared between the two. Hyundai says it’s currently placing its focus on the upcoming hybrid-powered i20 N and i30 N replacements, but when the hot Ioniq 3 does eventually materialise, sales success could reinvigorate an EV2 GT project. When it does, expect a much higher power output than the 146 hp maximum currently offered on the EV2; rivals in this space typically exceed 180 hp, with such an output potentially bringing the EV2’s 0-100 kph acceleration time down from around 10 seconds to potentially less than 7. As with other GT-badged models, any theoretical EV2 GT would also come with a host of suspension upgrades; crucial given how, in my test drive of the launch-spec ‘First Edition’ model, I found the EV2’s handling to be rather wobbly at high speeds. Buyers wanting a small electric hot hatch also have the option of the aforementioned ID.Polo GTI, as well as the Alpine A290, Cupra Raval VZ, Peugeot E-208 GTi and Opel Corsa GSE. +++
+++ The MAZDA CX-30 has been on sale since 2019, and it is not getting a redesign anytime soon. Mazda CEO Masahiro Moro told Japan’s Chugoku Shimbun that the next-generation model will not land until fiscal year 2030, which runs through March 2031. That is a 12-year run for the current CX-30 without a full overhaul, an unusually long stretch even by Mazda’s conservative product cycles. Moro pinned the delay on cost pressure the automaker cannot ignore. The CX-30 is no minor player in Mazda’s line-up. It is the brand’s second best-selling vehicle worldwide, with 208.869 units sold globally in 2025, trailing only the CX-5. Pushing its redesign to 2030 means Mazda is betting a huge chunk of its volume on a decade-old platform for years to come. Mazda is not leaving the current CX-30 untouched in the meantime. The automaker has already rolled out a product update in Japan, and Mazda has confirmed it will be available for Europe too. This pattern of updating an aging platform instead of a clean-sheet redesign looks like the template Mazda intends to keep using through 2031. Moro was direct about the reasoning. “Changes are crucial as Mazda is facing global headwinds including economic instability in key markets, rising raw material costs and a sharp increase in US import tariffs”, he said. US tariffs on Japanese-built vehicles jumped from 2.5% to 15%, a shift that hits Mazda harder than rivals with more US manufacturing. The plan is to lean on engineering tricks already proven elsewhere in the line-up. The next CX-30 will borrow cost-cutting methods from the new CX-5, which managed a 10% reduction in body steel weight despite growing 4.5 inches longer than its predecessor. Mazda is targeting structural cost reductions of ¥200 billion ($1.300.000.000) between fiscal years 2025 and 2027, and the CX-30’s delayed redesign is part of that math. The company would rather stretch an existing platform than rush a new one into a tariff environment that keeps shifting under it. +++
+++ Many automakers cloaked cost-cutting measures as minimalism when they migrated most physical controls to the touchscreen. Alongside its low-cost Dacia brand, RENAULT has thankfully been bucking the trend by keeping buttons and knobs alive throughout its lineup. The French automaker has therefore taken a different approach and has no plans to abandon physical buttons and switches, even though doing so costs more. In an interview, Renault Australia general manager Glen Sealey described traditional switchgear as a “founding principle”, adding that it’s safer to access frequently used functions with a button than to fumble through a submenu on a screen while driving. Euro NCAP agrees, having updated its safety protocols for 2026 to call for “the availability of physical buttons for commonly used functions, which consumer feedback suggests can reduce distraction”. “The Renault philosophy is to keep shortcuts as much as you can with buttons, which is more expensive, by the way, and also to utilize technology to make sure it’s simple, user-friendly, and familiar”. That philosophy applies to everything from changing the radio station and adjusting the volume to accessing other frequently used functions. Renault’s argument is straightforward: Why force drivers to navigate through touchscreen menus when a dedicated button can accomplish the same thing with a single press? There is a catch, though. Physical controls aren’t necessarily the cheapest solution. Sealey openly acknowledged that Renault’s approach is more expensive but argued that the additional cost is justified. That’s an increasingly unusual position in an industry that spent years chasing the minimalist, screen-heavy interior. In practice, however, some manufacturers have discovered that customers don’t necessarily want everything controlled through a display. Audi is promising to bring back the “Audi click”, while Volkswagen recently made its mea culpa about going overboard with screens and touch-sensitive keys. Mercedes also says it went “too far” with eliminating buttons, and Toyota is open to bringing back “physical switches for some things” in the RAV4. Mazda used to defend the old-school approach but now says big screens aren’t more distracting than buttons. Renault’s approach therefore looks less like a refusal to embrace technology and more like an attempt to use it where it actually makes sense. Screens can handle navigation, entertainment, and more complex functions, while buttons can handle the things drivers need to access quickly and without looking away from the road. +++
+++ Geely Holding has dropped a massive bombshell on the automotive industry, announcing that pilot deployment of its solid-state battery technology will begin in 2027. This breakthrough rollout will hit the Chinese conglomerate’s extensive network of brands, with household names like VOLVO positioned to be among the first to receive the game-changing upgrade. Boasting a staggering pack-level energy density of 500 Wh/kg, Geely claims these next-generation battery packs will allow pure electric vehicles to conquer over 1.000 km on a single charge. That kind of endurance effectively matches, and in some cases beats the long-distance capabilities of modern diesel engines. With real-world validation testing already underway, this technological leap promises to eradicate range anxiety once and for all. While Geely pushes the absolute boundaries of EV range, the manufacturer isn’t completely abandoning combustion just yet; it continues parallel development of ultra-efficient hybrid models to dominate all market segments. By securing a 1.000 km electric footprint for premium marques like Volvo, Geely’s multi-track strategy ensures it will maintain a ferocious competitive edge as the global industry transitions. The technical jump from current liquid lithium-ion technology to solid-state chemistry represents a significant leap in energy density. Geely’s current production ‘Golden Brick’ liquid batteries peak at a cell-level density of roughly 250 Wh/kg. Achieving a pack-level density of 500 Wh/kg implies that individual cell energy densities will be even higher, effectively doubling energy capacity relative to existing production packs without adding physical volume. Material development for these solid-state packs involves chemical industry giant Dow Chemical. According to Bo Tong, key account technical leader at Dow Chemical, the supplier has developed specialized adhesives specifically formulated for solid-state cells. This adhesive material maintains structural stability across an operational temperature range of -40°F to 248°F, addressing one of the core physical challenges of solid-state pack construction. Securing reliable thermal adhesives and chemical components allows Geely to address structural durability early in development. As Western automakers and venture-backed battery startups attempt to bridge the lab-to-factory gap, Geely’s concrete supplier partnerships offer an established supply chain foundation for scaling pilot production. Geely’s 2027 target arrives as the broader EV sector debates realistic timelines for commercial solid-state adoption. Battery giant CATL currently places its own solid-state efforts at level four on the nine-point Technology Readiness Level scale, targeting commercial certification later in the decade. Concurrently, major competitors are making strides in cell longevity to make pilot production viable by 2027. Legacy automakers like Honda and Toyota have suffered recurring production delays when scaling solid-state chemistry due to cell degradation and high manufacturing costs. However, Geely’s disciplined timeline, backed by real-world testing and commercial partnerships, signals that Chinese manufacturers are moving past theoretical laboratory metrics toward genuine commercial scale. If Geely meets its 2027 deployment window, it will force global rivals to dramatically accelerate their own electrification schedules. +++