Those who are railing against diesel car emissions are generally missing one important detail: it’s older diesels that are the problem, not brand-new ones. And this failure to bother about the facts in the witch hunt for a headline-grabbing rallying call is set to have one ironic side-effect.

Air quality will get worse.

Already, new car buyers are steering clear of diesel cars – the latest Society of Motor Manufactures and Traders (SMMT) figures show demand for diesel has plummeted 21.7 percent in the key new car sales month of September. Last year, almost 218,000 diesels were registered: this year, it’s barely 170,000 – a whopping fall of over 47,000 diesel cars.

• New car sales plummet in September 2017
• Greenpeace protestors storm ship carrying Volkswagen diesels
• Plug-in hybrids emit MORE CO2 than diesel, report shows
• Diesel car sales are declining across Europe

Diesel took a 40.1 percent market share last month, compared to 46.4 percent in 2016. What are car buyers choosing instead? Well, some of them are choosing alternative fuel vehicles, such as hybrids and plug-in hybrids, which is great: sales were up 41 percent in September.

But this is from a low base and still only represents a 5.3 percent market share. And, heavens forbid if some of them are misused: Motoring Research reported only last month on how one company has found plug-in hybrids emit more CO2 than diesel cars because people are not plugging them in.

Most car buyers, though, are simply switching back to petrol: the fuel took a 54.6 percent share in September 2017. Which is awkward for those proclaiming to care about air quality, because modern, brand-new Euro 6 diesel cars are, in official testing, allowed to emit little more NOx than petrols, can’t emit any more particulates than petrol…

…But, thanks to the greater efficiency of diesel fuel over petrol, generally produce around 20 percent less CO2 (and, per kilometre, half the amount of ground-level ozone-forming carbon monoxide). So by scaring people off diesel cars, environmentalists are pushing people into motors that produce significantly higher amounts of greenhouse gases, for a negligible if non-existent reduction in NOx emissions.

Daft, huh?

Even more daft is the fact people are so worried by this confusion, they’re actually putting off buying new cars entirely. So the single biggest thing someone could do to improve air quality – swap a dirty old model for a clean, green new one – is being put on hold. Old smokers will continue smoking around for a while yet; air quality will thus fail to get better.

OK, maybe that’s an anecdotal example. For hard facts on how the diesel debate (or, anti-diesel diatribe) is going to affect air quality, look to the SMMT’s own data. “Confusion surround air quality plans has inevitably led to a drop in consumer and business demand for diesel vehicles, which is undermining the roll out of the latest low emissions models and thwarting the ambitions of both industry and government to meet challenging CO2 levels.”

Which means? At the current rate, “UK average new car CO2 levels could actually rise this year, the first time such an increase would have occurred since average CO2 emissions were recorded”.

That’s right – CO2 is, officially, set to go up. Air quality is going to get worse. And all because some can’t tell the difference – or aren’t interested in explaining the difference – between a clean new diesel and a smoky old one.

Question is, just how much worse will air quality have to get before we can start having a grown-up and informed debate about all this?

Euro NCAP has declared the modern SUV one of the safest types of new car motorists can choose. The organisation has tested 15 SUVs since 2016 and says they “perform consistently well in impact testing, particularly for adult occupant protection”.

This is good news for new car buyers who are turning to SUVs in ever-greater numbers: following fashion is having a positive knock-on effect on crash protection.

• The cheapest new cars with five stars for safety in 2017
• New Ford Fiesta scores five stars in 2017 Euro NCAP crash test
• Global NCAP ‘frustrated’ by slow Mexican new car safety laws

The latest model to be tested is the Range Rover Velar, which has scored a full five-star Euro NCAP safety rating, winning particular praise for a very strong side impact test performance: driver’s head protection is particularly crucial here.

And allaying fears that big, heavy SUVs’ safety strength for occupants could be to the detriment of pedestrians, Euro NCAP has also applauded the Velar’s active safety technology, including standard-fit features “designed to avoid the crash happening at all”.

The newest Range Rover scored 75 percent in the Safety Assist category, which is a full seven percentage points better than the SUV average. As standard, it’s equipped with adaptive speed limiter, lane departure warnings, seat belt reminders for passengers – and autonomous emergency braking that can slow the car to a halt if it detects a car or pedestrian ahead that the driver hasn’t reacted to.

“With small SUV sales set to break the two million barrier in 2018, it’s exciting to see one of the leading carmakers in the category deliver on standard-fit active safety systems,” said safety organisation Thatcham Research’s director Matthew Avery.

Indeed, Jaguar Land Rover was earmarked for particular praise, after the Land Rover Discovery and Discovery Sport also recently scored five-star Euro NCAP ratings. “This is another signal from Jaguar Land Rover that safety is a priority.”

New cars come with umpteen sockets for charging 12V and USB devices, but what about if you need to plug in something you’d ordinarily hook up at home? Land Rover thinks it’s stolen a march on the competition here – by introducing its first model with built-in three-pin plug sockets.

The new 2018 Range Rover Sport now comes equipped with two three-pin plug sockets. There’s one domestic socket in the rear of the centre console, for back-seat passengers, and Land Rover has also fitted one in the load compartment.

• Land Rover launches 101mpg Range Rover Sport plug-in hybrid
• New 2018 Nissan Leaf revealed: the people’s electric car
• The best new hybrid cars in 2017

The idea is to allow passengers to charge up laptop computers, and owners to plug in, say, portable coolboxes in the boot – although the possibilities are endless: if it has a plug, plug it in. The car won’t quite have the electrical oomph of a domestic socket, but it should easily handle a power-hungry laptop while you sip your motorway service station coffee.

The addition of two domestic sockets takes the total connection points on board the new Range Rover Sport up to 14 (yes, they’ve counted them). In the front, there are USB, HDMI and 12V connections in the front cubby, plus another 12V socket in the glovebox.

In the rear, there’s another suite of 12V, USB and HDMI sockets, plus the domestic plug socket, and the boot carries both the second three-pin plug socket and yet another 12V hub.

Swelling the 2018 Sport’s plug and play credentials yet further is the introduction of a new P400e plug-in hybrid version – whose petrol-electric drivetrain and extra-capacity lithium ion batteries give the big SUV 101mpg claimed fuel economy potential and the ability to run for 31 miles as a pure EV.

Making the new Range Rover Sport the most plugged-in new car on sale?

Land Rover has launched the first-ever Range Rover Sport plug-in hybrid, one that combines a 404hp total power output with official fuel economy of 101mpg and an all-electric driving range of up to 31 miles. It joins the range in a series of updates for the 2018 model year.

The new Range Rover Sport P400e pairs a 300hp 2.0-litre four-cylinder turbo Ingenium engine with an 85kW electric motor. Combined with permanent four-wheel drive, this gives it a 0-62mph time of 6.7 seconds and a top speed of 137mph.

Yet the Range Rover Sport P400e PHEV also officially emits 67g/km – making it easily the best-ever Land Rover or Range Rover for exhaust emissions.

• Range Rover Evoque is top of the footballers’ car league
• New Range Rover Velar first drive
• Range Rover Sport gets 2.0-litre diesel for 2017

A 13.1kWh lithium ion battery gives it enough juice to travel over 30 miles as a pure EV, which also makes it the first time a zero-emissions Land Rover has ever been offered. Owners can even programme the sat nav to work out when best to swap between engine-on and engine-off modes, by using GPS data along the route.

Land Rover hasn’t given it umpteen confusing driving modes though, choosing instead to keep things simple – either Parallel Hybrid mode, which juggles engine and electric motor automatically, or EV mode, which runs the Range Rover Sport as a pure EV until the batteries are low.

The batteries take 7 hours 30 minutes to charge from a home socket, or 2 hours 45 minutes from a dedicated wall box.

The off-road Terrain Response 2 tech has been reprogrammed as well, so it’s able to make best use of the high-power, instantly-accessible electric motor’s output. And it performs so well, it’s led Nick Collins, JLR vehicle line director to exclaim: “The introduction of our advanced plug-in hybrid powertrain is a watershed moment in the history of our performance SUV.”

By 2020, all new Jaguars and Land Rovers will be offered with an electrified drivetrain: the Range Rover Sport PHEV is thus just the first of many new JLR plug-ins, hybrids and full EVs to come.

2018 Range Rover Sport revisions

Since launching it in 2005, Land Rover has sold 732,000 Range Rover Sport – and almost 50,000 of the latest 2013 model in the UK alone. This mid-life facelift aims to continue its strong sales with mildly tweaked looks and more tech.

Slimmer new Matrix Pixel LED headlights sit astride a redesigned grille, while a new front bumper gets a sportier style. On PHEV models, the 7kW charger socket is hidden behind the Land Rover badge on the grille. At the rear, a new roof spoiler has more slots, and is claimed to keep the rear window cleaner in grotty weather. 

Land Rover’s introduced a new colour, Byron Blue, and a new carbon fibre exterior detailing pack. There are three new alloy wheel choices too, including 21-inch and 22-inch designs.

Inside, all new Range Rover Sport get the Touch Pro Duo ‘twin screen’ infotainment system first seen in the Range Rover Velar. There also up to 12 power points, including two domestic plug sockets, and a new gesture-controlled sunblind. The front seats are slimmer and more supportive, and have ‘a more technical appearance’. 

A neat touch is a bigger central cubby, up from 5.8 litres to 7.8 litres. Land Rover says it can not only swallow four 500ml drinks bottles, optional cooler functionality can ‘rapid chill’ them down to 5 degrees C in minutes. 

At the top of the line, the Range Rover Sport SVR’s power has been upped to 575hp: 0-62mph in 4.5 seconds makes it the fastest Range Rover ever.

Ordering is open now, with first deliveries of the revised Range Rover Sport due in early 2018.

2018 Range Rover Sport: prices

You wouldn’t sell your mobile phone without giving it a hard reset to clear important data such as call records and messages – but many company car drivers are happy to hand their vehicles back without removing such information.

Until now, firms that handle the remarketing of secondhand cars haven’t been under any pressure to delete these records, meaning they could soon be passed onto the car’s second owner. However, new data protection rules set to be introduced in May 2018 could give remarketers a headache, the Vehicle Remarketing Association (VRA) has warned.

• Mobile phone companies urged to introduce ‘driving’ modes

“Anyone who has bought a used car in the last few years will know data such as satnav and phone records from the previous owner is often not removed when a vehicle is sold,” said the VRA’s deputy chair, Sam Watkins.

“It’s probably a good idea in general that this data should be deleted – it provides a very good indication of a person’s movements, work and social activities – but GDPR [General Data Protection Regulation] makes it a legal responsibility. At some point in the supply chain, it has to be deleted. The question is – who should be responsible for doing this?”

General Data Protection Regulation will replace the Data Protection Act 1998 in May 2018. It is European legislation designed to unify the separate EU member states’ regulations and to give people living in the EU more control over their personal data. It’s fundamentally the same as the Data Protection Act, but with a higher degree of emphasis on accountability and transparency.

“We have been aware of the GDPR legislation for some time and preparing for this legislation in a number of areas,” said Tim Bailey, fleet services director at Auxillis Services, a vehicle rental company providing replacement vehicle services. “Since the end of last year, on collection of vehicles from our customers, we remove all previous sat nav and in-car phone records as a matter of course. Given the varying methods employed by the manufacturers, this is no easy task, but is essential nevertheless.

“Any record that can be tied back to an individual needs to be dealt with in accordance with GDPR and your company’s resultant control policies.”

Deleting all sat-nav and phone records from your car can be a fairly simple task, depending on the car. Consult your owner’s manual for detailed advice – and let us know how easy it is with your car.

The new Seat Arona small crossover SUV will launch in UK dealers on 17 November 2017 with prices starting from £16,555, the firm has now confirmed.

Seat’s Ibiza-derived rival to the Nissan Juke and Renault Captur is its smallest crossover yet, sitting below the smash-hit Ateca, and follows the now-established trend of offering several ‘First Edition’ launch specials.

• New Citroen C3 Aircross to undercut Nissan Juke
• 35 hot new cars still to come in 2017
• 2017 Seat Ibiza first drive review

The core model range of SE and SE Technology, FR and FR Sport, Xcellence and Xcellence Lux will be joined by an £18,730 SE First Edition and £22,020 Xcellence First Edition, which will be the key cars dealers will be showing to customers from mid-November.

Seat says the model range has been tailored to be easy and straightforward: instead of making buyers fret with configurators over options and other choices, they simply choose the trim level, engine and colour. It is, reckons the firm, “an innovative new approach to simplifying customer choice for easier car buying”.

Regardless of this, buyers can still pick up to 30 colour combinations, including three different roof colours – and metallic paint is standard on every Arona, even the base SE.

Five engines are offered, a 1.0 TSI 95 or 115, a 1.5 TSI Evo 150, and either a 1.6 TDI 95 or 115. Manual and DSG gearboxes are available but you can’t get an all-wheel-drive Seat Arona.

2018 Seat Arona: standard equipment

• SE: 17-inch alloys, bi-colour roof, LED running lights, air con, five-inch touchscreen
• SE Technology: Connectivity Pack Plus (eight-inch touchscreen with nav, Apple CarPlay, Android Auto), wireless charging, rear parking sensors, two SD card slots
• SE Technology First Edition: Storage pack, Winter pack, auto wipers, climate control, adaptive cruise control, folding door mirrors, auto-dim rear-view mirrors
• FR: full LED headlights, sport front seats, flat-bottom steering wheel, sports suspension, rear disc brakes
• FR Sport: 18-inch alloys, Alcantara upholstery, Dynamic Chassis Control
• Xcellence Lux: 18-inch alloys, Alcantara upholstery
• Xcellence First Edition: Beats sound system, winter pack, front sensor, rear-view camera, park assist

2018 Seat Arona: prices

Earlier this summer, thefts of motorcycles and scooters in Birmingham shot up. In response, the city council came up with a novel strategy – ticketing at-risk machines.

These were not real parking tickets, though (despite how official-looking they appeared). Rather, they were reminders to owners about the importance of extra security measures, and were only stuck on motorcycles lacking any form of security.

The ‘polite’ reminders were part of the ‘lock it or lose it’ initiative, run as part of the Motorcycle Industry Association’s ‘MASTER’ security scheme.

• The UK’s top motorcycles revealed
• Retro British motorcycle brands sells 500,000 models in a year
• Commuters buy most motorcycles since 1983
• Motorway ‘fuel bikes’ launched to help fuel-ish motorists

PC Paul Ennis from West Midlands Police admitted that “people can get a little defensive when they are approached by a cop, but I have been very impressed by the supportive comments and gratitude shown to us all… it has been a really positive experience”.

Officers also noted down the mix of motorcycles with or without extra security fitted. When the scheme was launched in early August, just 40 percent of Birmingham’s motorcycles were protected with security devices such as a chain or disk lock.

And now? More than 90 percent of machines are carrying extra security measures.

“When we set out on this campaign,” said PC Ennis, “we had one simple objective: to make riders aware of the risk of theft when parking a motorcycle and to use some additional security. 

“When we started this, the majority of motorcycles in this area were inadequately protected. Today the majority are well protected.”

Indeed, it’s been such a success, there are plans for the campaign to continue into the autumn. So, riders, if you park up in Birmingham and return to find a ticket on your machine, don’t worry. But maybe consider buying some extra security tech for next time…

The striking new Kia Stinger is now available to order in the UK with prices starting from £31,995. Deliveries of the large new four-door GT coupe begin on 1 January 2018.

One of the most ambitious new Kias yet, the Stinger GT firmly pushes the brand upmarket – not least thanks to the top-spec model’s very potent 365hp 3.3-litre twin-turbo V6 engine. This hurtles the rear-wheel drive car from 0-62mph in just 4.7 seconds; top speed is a fiery 168mph.  

• Kia’s shock new Stinger will be coming to Europe with a diesel engine
• Kia scrappage scheme cuts Picanto price to £7,450
• Kia teases GT4 Stinger concept

But despite the headlines, V6 versions will make up a small slice of sales. Most Stingers will be powered by four-cylinder engines, either a 197hp 2.2-litre CRDi turbodiesel, or a 244hp 2.0-litre T-GDi turbo petrol. An eight-speed automatic gearbox is standard on all; Kia’s only bringing rear-wheel drive Stingers to the UK, despite all-wheel drive versions being offered in Europe. Because the UK is a driver-focused market, we get a standard limited-slip differential instead.

Oh, and the four-cylinder models are not exactly slothful, either: the petrol will do 0-62mph in 5.8 seconds, and even the diesel will run it in 7.3 seconds, despite also averaging 50.4mpg and emitting less than 150g/km CO2.  

First seen as the GT Concept way back in 2011, the Stinger is being described as a game-changer by Kia, which rather breathlessly describes UK pent-up demand as “reaching fever pitch”. Hence its decision to open ordering early, ahead of the January on-sale launch.

Three trim lines – GT-Line, GT-Line S and GT-S – will pad out the range to a five-model line-up, with prices starring from £31,995; the top-spec V6 is £40,495.

Kia Stinger: specification

All UK Kia Stingers come with 8.0-inch touchscreen infotainment with standard sat nav, Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. A 7.0-inch TFT display is standard, as are all-round parking sensors, reverse parking camera and even a head-up display.

The standard sound system is a nine-speaker system with a subwoofer under the front seat; GT-Line S and GT-S come with a 15-speaker Harman/Kardon setup boasting subwoofer, external amp and a front centre speaker. Leather upholstery is standard too, upgraded to Nappa leather on the GT-S.

Premium-like features abound as standard: the D-shaped steering wheel is adjusted electrically, the dashboard is clad in leather, the headlining is suede and heated front seats are backed up by heated rear seats in the GT-Line S and GT-S – which also include ventilated front seats.  

Wheels? 18-inch on the GT-Line and GT-Line S, 19-inch on the GT-S – which also has Porsche-line mixed tyre sizes: 225/40 on the front, 225-35 on the rear. The GT-S also has electronic suspension.

Kia Stinger: UK model range

• Stinger GT-Line 2.0 T-GDI
• Stinger GT-Line 2.2 CRDi
• Stinger GT-Line S 2.0 T GDI
• Stinger GT-Line S 2.2 CRDi
• Stinger GT-S 3.3 T GDI V6