The 2018 JD Power UK Vehicle Dependability Study named Hyundai as the country’s most dependable car brand. The study, which is based on the responses of 13,536 motorists, measures problems experienced during the past 12 months after 12-36 months of ownership.

Question is, what model should you buy if you’re after something you can rely on? Here we run through every sector and reveal the most dependable motors in each category.

City car winner: Hyundai i10

JD Power examined 177 problem symptoms across eight categories: vehicle exterior, driving experience, features, controls and displays, audio, communication, entertainment and navigation, seats, heating, ventilation and air conditioning, vehicle interior, and engine and transmission.

The Hyundai i10 drives away with the award for the most dependable city car. Looks like you won’t be needing that five-year, unlimited mileage warranty.

Runner-up: Kia Picanto

The i10’s Korean rival – a previous winner in this category – finishes as a runner-up. In the Vehicle Dependability Study, overall dependability is determined by the number of problems experienced per 100 vehicles, with a lower score reflecting higher quality. Kia finished third overall, with a score of 94 problems per 100 vehicles. Hyundai scored 78.

Runner-up: Vauxhall Viva

The Vauxhall Viva is named as another runner-up behind the Hyundai i10, which is a good result for the value-driven city car. The likes of the Volkswagen Up, Skoda Citigo, Seat Mii and Renault Twingo might have more showroom appeal, but none of them have made the cut.

Small car winner: Peugeot 208

Moving up a segment, the Peugeot 208 is the highest ranked small car in the JD Power study. Peugeot finished eighth overall, with a score of 107, two points behind Dacia. But unlike Peugeot, Dacia hasn’t been named in the models section of the Vehicle Dependability Study.

Runner-up: Hyundai i20

The 2018 JD Power Vehicle Dependability Study makes for good reading for Hyundai, its dealers and prospective purchasers. Not content with finishing top in the city car class, Hyundai secures a runner-up slot in the small car category.

Runner-up: Toyota Yaris

The Toyota Yaris is another runner-up in the small car category. It’s not the most exciting car in its class, which explains why it is often overlooked, but the Yaris is available as a hybrid. Prices start from £13,015. What price dependability?

Compact car winner: Skoda Octavia

Skoda finished fourth overall in the JD Power study, while the Octavia finishes top in the compact car category. Prices start from around £20,000, and the Octavia is available as a hatchback, estate and sporty VRS model.

Runner-up: Kia Cee’d

There’s a new Kia Ceed on the way – note the missing apostrophe – but the enemy of the search engine optimiser secures a runner-up berth in the JD Power study. Prices start from just over £15,000 and, with a new version waiting in the wings, it shouldn’t be too hard to secure a sizeable discount on the outgoing Cee’d.

Runner-up: Hyundai i30

They will be throwing a party at Hyundai HQ, with news of yet another medal for the Korean brand. Pass the cheese and pineapple on sticks and the Wotsits, because the i30 is a runner-up in the compact car category.

Small SUV winner: Skoda Yeti

Hurrah! JD Power has confirmed what we have suspected for a long while: the Skoda Yeti is the best small SUV… in the world. Admittedly, that’s not quite what JD Power is saying, but it will be interesting to see if the Karoq is as dependable.

Runner-up: Vauxhall Mokka/Mokka X

The Vauxhall Mokka/Mokka X is unlikely to win many awards – unless they’re dishing out gongs for mediocrity and anonymity – but finishing runner-up behind the Yeti is no disgrace. Buy more Mokkas. Said nobody, ever.

Runner-up: Renault Captur

Renault didn’t perform particularly well in the JD Power study, with a score of 139 putting it above the industry average of 128 and in the bottom half of the table. Fortunately, the Captur managed to lift the entire squad, making it the Ronaldo of the Renault range.

Compact SUV winner: Volkswagen Tiguan

Moving up another segment, where we find the Volkswagen Tiguan named as the most dependable compact SUV. We’re struggling to find something interesting to say here, so how about a random fact: the African elephant has the greatest sense of smell among mammals.

Runner-up: Hyundai ix35/Tucson

Hyundai is going to be writing press releases long into the night, with news that the Tucson is a runner-up in the compact SUV category. Steer clear of the waffle, Hyundai, because an African elephant can sniff out that stuff from a mile away.

Runner-up: Nissan X-Trail

Pushing the ‘compact’ tag to the limit, the Nissan X-Trail is another runner-up in this category. Prices start from around £25,000 and you can upgrade to a seven-seat version. That said, the five-seater is a better option, as you get a larger boot. Or should that be trunk?

Midsize car winner: Vauxhall Insignia

Leaving the elephant mentions at the side of the room for a moment, here’s the news that the Vauxhall Insignia is the most dependable mid-size car you can buy. This is a terrific result, as the likes of the BMW 3 Series, Audi A4 and Mercedes-Benz C-Class are conspicuous by their absence.

Runner-up: Jaguar XE

To paraphrase the great Barry Davies, where are the Germans? But, frankly, who cares? While BMW, Audi and Mercedes can’t manage a slot in this category, the Jaguar XE is on hand to keep the great British end up.

Runner-up: Ford Mondeo

Once upon a time, Little Chef restaurants lined the streets, the Spice Girls were a thing, and the Ford Mondeo ruled the road. Today, rather than fighting the Vauxhall Cavalier and Vectra, it must withstand the rise of the crossover and SUV. On this evidence, it’s a dependable car.

Large and luxury car winner: Mercedes-Benz E-Class

The Mercedes-Benz E-Class is victorious in the final category, seeing off its German rivals to secure top billing. With an overall score of 124, Mercedes secured a mid-table position, while BMW finished bottom with a score of 192.

Runner-up: Jaguar XF

There’s only one runner-up in the large and luxury category, with the Jaguar XF playing second fiddle to the E-Class. It’s interesting to note that there’s no MPV category this year, with the segment under pressure from the dominating SUVs.

Search online for ‘Croatian car’, and you’ll be greeted with a wave of information on the Rimac Concept_One supercar, arguably Croatia’s finest export since Luca Modric. It’s fast, it’s electric, and Richard Hammond crashed one, so it gets more attention than a certain Swedish blonde sat in the crowd looking forlorn during England’s quarter-final victory.

The Rimac Concept_One was, however, famous within enthusiast circles long before Hammond decided to go flying off the side of a Swiss mountain. You can thank a 1,224hp powertrain, 2.5-sec 0-62mph time and a 220mph top speed for its ability to rub shoulders with the hypercar elite.

Your choice? And tonight? #RUSCRO #WorldCup2018 #Croatia 🇭🇷 🔥 @HNS_CFF @MarioMandzukic9 @Mateo_Kova23 @HNS_CFF pic.twitter.com/BLHqD5iqhD

— Rimac Automobili (@AutomobiliRimac) July 7, 2018

But in flame-grilling a Concept_One for The Grand Tour, Hammond thrust the Rimac name into the mainstream, while providing more joke material for Messrs Clarkson and May. Today, many people will know of the Rimac Concept_One, even if they don’t link it to Croatia, or indeed know anything about the car’s background.

Croatia’s Elon Musk

The company is led by 30-year-old Mate Rimac. Born in Livno, in the former SFR Yugoslavia, Rimac grew up in Germany, before moving to Croatia to establish a construction company. As the owner of an electric car company, comparisons with Elon Musk are inevitable – his Wikipedia page lists the Tesla CEO under ‘See also’ – but Mate Rimac has forged his own path.

In 2015, Politico named him one of the 28 most influential people in the EU, Forbes named him one of the top 30 entrepreneurs under the age of 30, while only last year, he won the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year award for 2017.

“There is no greater pleasure than going into the factory and seeing how the others work. Hats off to all of them. I always say we are always at the beginning, eight years ago I was in a garage, today there are 350 people in the company. We have gone through a lot of hard times,” Rimac said.

Not that Rimac is ready to slow down. Rimac unveiled the C_Two at the 2018 Geneva motor show, with all 150 units snapped up within three weeks, despite an eye-watering £1.5m price tag. Kreso Coric, Rimac’s head of sales, must have one of the cushiest gigs in the business. Build a 1,888hp hypercar, and the punters will follow.

Meanwhile, back in the real world, Rimac unveiled its first electric bicycle in 2013, with the Greyp G12 offering motorcycle-like levels of performance. The G12 has since been replaced by the G12S, which can reach 70km/h without any assistance from the rider while offering up to 120km of range from a single charge.

With such a track record in the field of electromobility, it’s little wonder that Porsche took the decision to buy a 10 percent stake in the Croatian company. “We feel that Rimac’s ideas and approaches are extremely promising, which is why we hope to enter into close collaboration with the company in the form of a development partnership,” said Lutz Meschke of Porsche.

The investment will allow Rimac to focus on high-voltage battery technology, electric powertrains, digital interfaces between man and machine and, what the company claims, will be the most advanced electric bicycle on the market.

‘Quite reliable’ coaches

Away from visions of the future and silent runnings, Croatia’s car industry is hardly overflowing with heritage and excitement. A few companies emerged during and after the Second World War, with production focused on buses, trucks, rolling stock and military vehicles.

Indeed, school children and tourists in the late 80s and early 90s might remember travelling on Tvornica Autobusa Zagreb (TAZ) Dubrava coach. It wasn’t the last word in luxury and quality, but it was powered by a dependable, rear-mounted Daimler-Benz V8.

According to Martyn Hearson on Flickr: “The not unattractive type was imported from Yugoslavia towards the end of the 1980s by Leicester-based dealer DSB Coach Sales, and if I recall correctly, about 60 were sold in the UK.

“Power came from a virtually bomb-proof rear-mounted Mercedes V8 and generally speaking they were quite reliable. Where they did fall down, however, was with poorer build quality than would typically be expected in Western Europe and spare parts for the bodies were to become an issue.

“The latter affected, I suppose, by feuds in the manufacturer’s ‘backyard’. There were tales of unsold examples being dismantled at the dealer’s premises in order to provide some form of back-up for those already sold and in service.”

Modric, Rakitic, Perisic and Octavia

Fortunately, the vast majority of Croats aren’t travelling around perched on the moth-eaten and fag-burned seats of a Dubrava. It’s also fair to say that, unless their surname is Modric, Rakitic or Perisic, not many will have the funds required to drive a million-dollar hypercar.

Indeed, the top 10 best-selling cars in Croatia are a tad predictable, with the Skoda Octavia topping the charts in 2017. This was followed by the Renault Clio, Ford Focus, Volkswagen Golf, Opel Astra, Suzuki Vitara, Opel Corsa, Volkswagen Polo and Dacia Duster.

Unlike here in the UK, the Croatian new car market is enjoying a successful period, with Best Selling Cars Blog reporting a 7.8 percent gain in May. A total of 8,758 registrations is the highest level this decade, with the Renault Clio hitting the top for the first time since 2003. What’s Croatian for ‘Va Va Voom’?

In the future, the people of Croatia might be driving around in a smaller and more affordable electric vehicle – the DOK-ING Loox. Built by a company with a history in electric, unmanned vehicles, the three-seater Loox offers a range of up to 220km and a 0-62mph time of 7.7 seconds.

With a central driving position, flanked by two rear seats – think McLaren F1, of sorts – the Loox also features a pair of gullwing doors, an aluminium chassis, carbon body and a charging time of 3-8 hours, depending on the source. DOK-ING is searching for investors to put the Loox into volume production, and if successful, the Loox is likely to cost around £25,000.

It’s coming home

For now, it’s left to Mate Rimac to fly the flag for the Croatian car industry and to Luka Modric and his teammates to do the same for the national football team.

The England fans will be hoping that two penalty shootouts will leave the Croatian players feeling as fatigued as an ageing Dubrava, while the opposing fans will be looking to the Rimac for inspiration.

But maybe that’s not such a good idea. The last time an Englishman encountered a Croat on foreign land, the Croatian crashed and burned, while the Englishman was able to fight another day before coming home in a blaze of publicity.

Jaguar has launched an app that it hopes will prove to uncertain motorists that the all-electric I-Pace will fit neatly into their daily lives after all. It will also work out how many times they’d actually need to charge it each week.

The Go I-Pace app can also work out how much cash they might save, simply by entering the real-world fuel economy of their car (which they can get from their trip computer). Once enough journeys have been logged, the app will advise motorists whether Jaguar’s EV is for them.

It can even estimate how much electric battery charge drivers may use each trip – or, more usefully, how many journeys they’d get per charge.

• You can now plan a sat nav route for your electric car
• ‘You can’t take an EV through a car wash’ and other electric car myths
• Electric taxis make cab drivers happy, study finds

Jaguar is confident the app will surprise people by green-lighting an EV, because journeys over 50 miles make up just 2 percent of all UK trips. The I-Pace, it adds, has a range of up to 298 miles.

“Making the switch to EV ownership is a big decision,” said Jaguar I-Pace vehicle line director Ian Hoban. The car, well, it speaks for itself, he said; what a test drive doesn’t show is the lower running costs and convenience of living with an EV.

“The Go I-Pace app is designed to help potential customers make an informed decision.” (So long, that is, they have an Apple iPhone: it’s coming to Android later.)

How do you use the Jaguar Go I-Pace app?

The app uses smartphone location services, and runs in the background once opened (privacy-seekers, it can easily be turned off again – see the images above). It tracks individual journeys to precisely analyse what sort of driving you do.

Not just driving, either: it can distinguish between different types of transport and is so accurate, it will even ask for confirmation that a journey was, say, cycled rather than driven.

The free app is now available through Apple iTunes, initially in the UK, before rolling out globally.

It has a high-profile endorsement as well, from Fully Charged Show creator and EV expert Robert Llewellyn. “It can be hard for drivers to understand how an EV would fit into their day-to-day lives,” he said.

“I’ve no doubt the app will surprise many users with the scale of the potential cost savings and by revealing how little change to their driving habits I-Pace ownership would actually make.”

>> Find the Jaguar Go I-Pace app on iTunes

The new Audi R8 V10 plus Coupe with full Audi Sport Performance Parts package is a long name for a car with a very short UK sales window: just five of the £176,560 supercars will be sold here, strictly on a first-come, first-served basis.

Each finished in Misano red, the Audi Sport Performance Parts R8 has been created as a factory honing programme by Audi Sport. Only 44 will be sold globally. And they’ll all be identical.

So what’s different, to justify that eye-watering price? A full wind tunnel-developed carbon fibre reinforced plastic aero kit for starters, including large fixed rear wing and a diffuser with red elements.

There’s a deep splitter at the front, bigger air inlets, and tuned canards that mimic the previous R8 GT. On the side, Audi’s fitted aero add-ons behind the rear wheelarches to focus airflow, plus side skirts with big Audi Sport logos.

The result? 250kg of downforce at 205mph, 100kg up on the standard car. At a more sensible 93mph, the car still doubles downforce, to 52kg.

Exotic milled alloy wheels, first seen on the latest RS5 Coupe, save 8kg in unsprung mass, and are clothed in Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2 tyres. Behind, there’s a weight-optimised three-way coilover suspension setup and carbon ceramic brakes.

The interior changes are less dramatic, although track drivers will appreciate the grippy Alcantara steering wheel with red 12 o’clock stitching. The naturally-aspirated 5.2-litre V10 doesn’t have any more power than the regular 610hp plus either, although with all that extra downforce, suspension ability and cup tyres, it arguably doesn’t need it.

Audi also amusingly boasts that each one of its 115 dealers will take orders for the new (deep breath) R8 V10 plus Coupe with full Audi Sport Performance Parts package. At least 110 of them risk being disappointed, though.

• Audi E-tron prototype cabin revealed
• Audi CEO arrest: interim CEO appointed
• Driving four modern classics that made Audi great

Automobili Pininfarina is the world’s newest luxury car brand and will make a series of fully-electric high-end cars including an ultra-exclusive EV hypercar.

The new company is based in Munich and is going to work closely with famed Italian automotive styling house Pininfarina SpA. Automobili Pininfarina has also formed a technical partnership with the Mahindra Racing Formula E team. 

• 10 brilliant Pininfarina designs – and 10 you can afford

CEO of the new company, Michael Perschke, said: “Automobili Pininfarina is a pioneering new business created to service the most discerning clients in the world.”

The public launch of the firm is planned for an event in New York this week, where it will present its business and product plans to key stakeholders and the media. The first in the product plan is codenamed PF0: it’s described as an “ultra-low volume, ultra-luxurious fully-electric hypercar”.

The rendering above gives us an early insight into it – and Perschke promises us it will go on sale within two years.

He has an ample senior management team now onboard to help him do it, too: executives now moving to Munich have experience Audi, Bentley, Bugatti, Ferrari, Jaguar Land Rover, Maserati, McLaren Automotive and Volvo.

“Now this team is completely focussed on delivering ground-breaking, highly desirable vehicles through a business strategy which will see Automobili Pininfarina become the most sustainable luxury automotive business in the world”, said Perschke.

• Classic Mini Electric charges into New York
• Electric Morgan EV3 will arrive in 2018
• New Byton electric crossover set to take on Tesla

A 1965 Ford Mustang will undertake the very first autonomous hillclimb at the 2018 Goodwood Festival of Speed thanks to a full self-driving makeover by tech supplier Siemens and Cranfield University.

The car will first run on Thursday 12 July and then repeat the feat every day of FoS 2018. In doing so, it will make history as the first self-driving car to run up the Goodwood hill.  

Helping mark 25 years of the Goodwood Festival of Speed, Siemens reckons its partnership with Cranfield University will “bridge the gap between the legacy of the automotive industry while pointing to the future of autonomy in terms of both motoring and wider industrial applications”.

Equipping an achingly cool 1965 Mustang with autonomous tech is very ‘Goodwood’, although it’s not been the work of the moment for the Siemens engineers. A particular challenge, they say, has been honing the sensitivity of the handling control to navigate the course.

The teams thus developed a precise 3D scan of the hill using location-scanning technology from Bentley Systems, for ‘connected awareness of the car’s own position’.

• New Toyota Supra to make public driving debut at Goodwood FoS
• Tesla Model 3 in EU debut at Goodwood Festival of Speed
• 200mph JetPack to fly at Goodwood FoS

To ensure nobody misses it, Siemens has given it a smart silver wrap and is going to park it in the main Goodwood paddock when it’s not driving up the hill under its own steam.

Dr James Brighton from Cranfield said: “Goodwood offers us a chance to reflect on why we have an emotional connection with cars and acts as a reminder that humans like to be engaged and part of the action.

“The Siemens Autonomous Hillclimb challenge project connects the classic spirit of automotive adventure with advanced technology.” 

Tesla has reached the half-century for Supercharger locations in the UK, with the 50-strong network taking the number of individual Tesla electric car charging points up to 320.

The news follows the announcement of its 400^th European location: there are now more than 3,200 Tesla Superchargers operating in Europe, which it says facilitated 70,000 long-distance cross-border trips in 2017 alone.

>>Find a Tesla Supercharger location near you

It’s a pretty fast rate of growth for the Tesla Supercharger network, which was opened with the installation of the first European charge point in Norway five years ago. There are now 23 European countries operating Supercharger points; the most recent is the eight-bay UK site at Scotch Corner on the A1M.

Superchargers are located on major roads and the firm points out it’s actually expanded some sites to meet growing demand. Hopwood Park on the M42 in Birmingham has grown from six to 16 Superchargers, for example, and Tesla complemented the existing Bristol Cribbs Causeway site with an additional one nearby at Gordano Services on the M5.

Jeff Allan is a Model S owner who, says Tesla, recently demonstrated how extensive the UK network is – by driving from Lands End to John O’Groats. “We took turns at driving between Superchargers,” he explained.

“The long range of the Tesla meant that there was no need for additional stops: when we reached the next supercharger, we inevitably needed a break for food, drink and so on.” Range anxiety, in short, simply wasn’t a factor.

• Tesla Model 3 to make its European debut at Goodwood FoS
• New Tesla Model S Shooting Brake unveiled in London
• The UK’s most popular plug-in hybrid and electric cars in 2018

Although Tesla still sees most owners recharging either at home or at work (Tesla Wall Chargers generally charge at the rate of 22 miles an hour, but can be upped to 34 miles or even 51 miles an hour), the Superchargers come into their own for long-distance travel, hence their location on major routes. A 30-minute charge adds 170 miles of range.

The U.S. car firm also points out that all directly-acquired energy for the European Supercharger network is generated from clean energy such as solar and wind power – saving 92 million litres of fuel and offsetting 200,000 tonnes of CO2.

Alfa Romeo has revealed a surprise five-year warranty package on all new cars sold from 1 July 2018. The five-year warranty matches similarly-long packages from Hyundai and Toyota – and betters the three-year deals offered by Audi, BMW and Mercedes-Benz.

The Alfa Romeo warranty is limited to 75,000 miles, but it also comes with five years’ roadside assistance included for free. The sporting Italian brand is even combining the new warranty package with three years’ free scheduled servicing.

• The hottest new car deals of summer 2018

Alfa says it’s able to extend its warranty because of the quality improvements at its Cassino plant, where the Giulia, Stelvio and Giulietta are built. It was upgraded for the start of Giulia production and boasts “best practices from other FCA plants worldwide”.

The firm is branding the new deal as the 5-3-5 offer, and is offering it on all retail sales, excluding personal contract hire. Sorry, higher-mileage company car drivers. 

It’s also sorry to potential Mito and 4C customers: they’re not built in Cassino, so are not part of the five-year warranty offer. 

Motoring Research contacted Alfa Romeo to check if the five-year warranty is a time-limited summer special offer – and it seems it is not. There is currently no end date on it,” a spokesperson told us; “It’s running until further notice.”

• Alfa Romeo Stelvio review
• Alfa Romeo launches two Nürburgring-inspired specials