All posts by Francis Mitterrand

NEW CARS

Škoda Epiq

If Škoda’s EV strategy were a ladder, the Epiq would be the first rung that most people actually want to step on. Unveiling in the first half of this year, the all-new Epiq is Škoda’s smallest, cheapest, and arguably most important electric vehicle yet—a city-sized crossover aimed squarely at drivers who like the idea of an EV but not the price tags that usually come with one.

And in classic Škoda fashion, it’s trying to do the sensible thing in an irrational market.

A Kamiq for the Electric Age

Park the Epiq next to a combustion-powered Kamiq and you’ll immediately understand what Škoda is going for. At 4171 mm long, it sits right in the same urban-SUV footprint, but it uses Volkswagen Group’s new front-wheel-drive MEB+ platform to stretch the wheelbase, flatten the floor, and carve out far more usable space.

The result? A 475-liter trunk, which is a ridiculous number for a sub-compact crossover—and 75 liters more than the Kamiq manages. Fold the seats and you get 1344 liters, meaning the Epiq punches well above its weight for IKEA runs, airport trips, and anything else city life throws at it.

This is where Škoda keeps winning: not with flashy tech demos, but with quiet, practical victories.

Small EV, Big Range

Three versions will be offered, and they’re neatly spaced for different buyers:

ModelPowerBattery0–100 km/hRange
Epiq 3585 kW38.5 kWh (LFP)11.0 s315 km
Epiq 4099 kW38.5 kWh (LFP)9.8 s315 km
Epiq 55155 kW55 kWh (NMC)7.4 s430 km

The smaller battery uses LFP chemistry, which is cheaper, more durable, and better suited for everyday charging habits. The bigger 55-kWh pack switches to NMC, trading cost for higher energy density and a genuinely impressive 430-km WLTP range.

Fast charging is another win: the top-spec Epiq 55 pulls up to 133 kW, good for a 10–80% recharge in 23 minutes. That’s proper road-trip usability, not just city-car convenience.

A New Face for Škoda

The Epiq is also the first production Škoda to go all-in on the brand’s new Modern Solid design language. You get a chunky, confident stance, tight body lines, and a drag coefficient of just 0.275, helped by active air shutters and hidden air curtains in the front bumper.

But the real headline is the lighting.

For the first time, a Škoda production car wears a T-shaped light signature front and rear, giving the Epiq a look that’s more sci-fi than supermarket parking lot. Higher trims get Matrix LED headlights with 12 segments and adaptive modes for city, highway, and bad weather.

This is Škoda finally admitting that even affordable cars deserve to look cool.

Minimalist, But Still Clever

Inside, the Epiq ditches old-school clutter for a clean, horizontal layout built around a 5.3-inch driver display and a 13-inch central touchscreen. It feels modern without going full tablet-on-a-stick.

Materials matter too. Every interior uses 100% recycled PES fabrics, with three design themes:

  • Studio – simple and durable
  • Loft – grey or mint green with synthetic Techtona trim
  • Suite – brown Suedia and Techtona for a more upscale vibe

Ambient lighting is standard on Loft and Suite, helping the small cabin feel bigger and warmer.

And yes, it still has Škoda’s beloved Simply Clever tricks:
an umbrella in the door, a ticket holder on the windshield, an ice scraper made from recycled plastic—and a clever bag in the trunk specifically for charging cables.

Tech From a Bigger Class

Škoda didn’t cheap out on safety. The Epiq comes with Travel Assist 3.0, which combines adaptive cruise, lane centering, traffic-sign recognition, and even automatic stopping at red lights and stop signs.

There’s also:

  • Top View 360-degree cameras with 3D visualization
  • Cross Assist 2.0, warning of cars and cyclists when pulling out of blind intersections
  • Up to seven airbags, including a center airbag between the front seats

This is the kind of kit you used to find only in larger, more expensive SUVs.

The EV That Actually Makes Sense

Here’s the part that really matters: in many markets, the Epiq will be priced roughly the same as a gasoline-powered Kamiq.

That’s a big deal.

It means buyers won’t have to choose between affordability and electrification. They can simply pick the powertrain they prefer. For Škoda, it also means the Epiq becomes the gateway drug to its electric lineup—sitting below the Elroq and Enyaq, with the upcoming seven-seat Peaq waiting above.

In a European EV market full of either overpriced crossovers or ultra-cheap compromises, the Škoda Epiq aims straight for the middle—and that’s exactly where the real volume lives.

If Škoda gets the pricing right, this little electric SUV won’t just be another model in the lineup.
It could be the car that finally makes going electric feel… normal.

Source: Škoda

News

CATL Claims Its New EV Battery Is Good for a Million Miles

For years, the dirtiest secret in electric cars hasn’t been range anxiety—it’s resale anxiety. New EVs roll off the lot with eight-year battery warranties and optimistic promises, but the second or third owner? They’re left staring at a five-figure battery replacement like a ticking time bomb. Fast charging, meanwhile, has been treated like a guilty pleasure: great when you’re in a hurry, bad for long-term battery health.

Now CATL, the world’s largest battery supplier, says it’s ready to blow up that narrative.

The Chinese battery giant claims its latest 5C lithium-ion pack can retain 80 percent of its original capacity after 3,000 full fast-charge cycles—under ideal 20°C (68°F) conditions. Do the math, and that works out to about 1.1 million miles of driving. That’s not a commuter car. That’s a New York taxi that refuses to die.

Even when the heat gets brutal, the numbers are still eyebrow-raising. At 60°C (140°F)—which CATL likens to a Dubai summer—the same pack is supposedly good for 1,400 cycles before dropping to 80 percent. That’s roughly 520,000 miles. Plenty of gasoline cars don’t survive that long even with engine rebuilds.

The “5C” label refers to how fast the battery can be charged relative to its capacity. In plain English: this pack could theoretically go from empty to full in about 12 minutes. That kind of charging speed usually murders batteries, but CATL insists it has figured out how to cheat physics—at least a little.

According to the company, the trick lies in smarter chemistry and aggressive thermal control. A more uniform cathode coating reduces microscopic structural damage. A special electrolyte additive helps heal tiny internal cracks before they become real problems. A temperature-responsive layer inside the separator slows ion flow when things start getting too hot. And the battery-management system can target cooling to specific hot spots inside the pack instead of treating it like one big, evenly warm brick.

The goal is simple: make fast charging routine, not something owners nervously avoid to protect their investment. If CATL is even half right, this could be huge for taxis, ride-hailing fleets, and delivery vans—anyone for whom a charging stop is lost revenue.

Of course, these are still lab numbers. CATL hasn’t said when these packs will hit mass production or which vehicles will get them first. And anyone who has followed EV tech long enough knows that the real world is far less polite than a temperature-controlled test cell.

Still, the implication is enormous. If a battery can really go half a million—or even a million—miles without collapsing, the most expensive component in an EV stops being a liability and starts becoming an asset. That means used EVs suddenly look a lot less risky, and a lot more like the bargain hunters have been waiting for.

And that might be the biggest revolution here—not faster charging, not longer range, but the simple idea that your electric car’s battery might actually outlive the car wrapped around it.

Source: CATL

News

Toyota Century Coupe Could Revive the V-12

Toyota has never been a company that chases headlines for the sake of it. But the Century Coupe—first seen as a blazing-orange concept and now reportedly headed for production—looks like a deliberate attempt to do something un-Toyota: shock the luxury world awake. And if the latest whispers out of Japan are true, it might do so with the most outrageous powertrain Toyota has ever put into a road car.

Forget the sensible 4.0-liter twin-turbo V-8 that underpins the GR GT. The Century Coupe is rumored to arrive with a twin-turbo 6.0-liter V-12 paired with plug-in-hybrid assistance, good for more than 800 horsepower. Yes, a Toyota with a V-12 in the 2020s. That sentence alone feels like it was smuggled in from an alternate timeline.

For a brand that just spun the Century nameplate into a standalone ultra-luxury marque, the move actually makes a twisted kind of sense. Century isn’t Lexus-plus. It’s Toyota’s answer to Rolls-Royce: understated, obsessively engineered, and designed to be bought by people who never talk about what they drive. A twelve-cylinder halo car is exactly the kind of statement that tells the world this isn’t just another fancy Camry.

A V-12, but Whose?

What’s still a mystery is where this V-12 would come from. Toyota hasn’t built one since the Century sedan quietly retired its own in-house twelve-cylinder in favor of a hybrid V-8 in 2018. That old engine made a modest 425 horsepower—not exactly the stuff of hypercar legend.

One theory floating around Japanese outlet Mag X is that Toyota could Frankenstein together two of BMW’s turbocharged 3.0-liter inline-sixes—the same basic architecture used in the outgoing Supra. On paper, that gets you a neat, modern 6.0-liter V-12 without starting from scratch. In reality, it sounds like a branding nightmare. Century is supposed to be Toyota’s purest expression of itself, not a luxury coupe with Bavarian DNA hiding under the hood.

More likely, Toyota will do what it always does at the top of its game: quietly spend a fortune developing something bespoke, over-engineered, and built to last far longer than anyone expects.

Luxury With a Launch Control

To keep all that power from going up in smoke, the Century Coupe is expected to come standard with Toyota’s E-Four all-wheel-drive system. Gearbox choices are rumored to include either an eight-speed or a ten-speed automatic—both very Toyota solutions, focused less on drama and more on smooth, unflappable torque delivery.

The production car should stay visually close to the concept, though some of the weirder elements are likely to disappear. Those chunky black wheel arches and the SUV-like ride height felt more like a design team flex than a coherent statement. Expect something sleeker, lower, and more fitting for a six-figure grand tourer.

Inside, things should become more conventional, too. The concept’s two-seat layout—with the lone rear passenger riding behind the front passenger in chauffeur-spec comfort—was amusing but wildly impractical. A proper four-seat layout makes far more sense, especially if Toyota wants this thing to actually get driven.

Bentley Money, Toyota Promises

The price? Start mentally north of $200,000 and work your way up. Reports suggest Japanese pricing between 30 and 70 million yen, which puts the Century Coupe squarely in Bentley Continental GT and Rolls-Royce Wraith territory.

That’s bold, but Toyota isn’t trying to out-plush Bentley. Its pitch is different: combine that level of exclusivity and performance with something those brands don’t usually brag about—bulletproof reliability. If Toyota really can build an 800-plus-horsepower hybrid V-12 coupe that doesn’t need a specialist on speed dial, that could be the Century’s real party trick.

The production Century Coupe is expected to arrive in 2027, timed to celebrate the model’s 60th anniversary and the full launch of Century as its own brand. And while nothing is official, it’s hard to imagine Toyota spending this kind of money just to keep it a Japan-only curiosity.

If it does come to North America, the Century Coupe won’t just be another ultra-luxury import. It’ll be a philosophical grenade lobbed into a segment dominated by European excess: a quiet, terrifyingly powerful reminder that Toyota, when it wants to, can build absolutely anything.

Source: Toyota