Featured

MG has confirmed plans to put the four-seat hard-top version of its Cyberster sports car into production. 

The fixed-roof Cyberster GTS was revealed as a running prototype at last year's Goodwood Festival of Speed, but there has been no word on a likely launch date since then - despite suggestions that it could arrive as early as this year.

But now, MG has confirmed at the Shanghai motor show that a production version is inbound and could land in time for the 60th anniversary of the original MG B GT in October.

Asked for an update on the Cyberster GTS, MG parent company SAIC's design boss, Jozef Kaban – who was responsible for the concept – would only go so far as to say: "It's coming."

He cited the positive public reaction to last year's concept as a factor in MG giving the green light to a production version, saying the exposure "made it happen". 

Kaban was speaking on the sidelines of the unveiling of the new MG Cyber X concept – a brutalist electric crossover that's set to go on sale as the second model in the enthusiast-focused Cyber model family, alongside the Cyberster. 

He hailed the effectiveness of the two-door sports car as a halo model for MG as an incentive to expand that line-up.

"It makes you smile," he said. "It makes you happy the moment you open the doors. You know everybody's watching. You know you are the star.

"That's why we love cars, because you feel that they are there to make you stronger. They make you happy. They make you shine."

A new derivative of the sports car would effectively give MG's Cyber brand a three-car line-up - and the dramatic difference in billing between the Cyberster and Cyber X model lines suggests there could be bandwidth between them to expand it further.

The Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA) will boost driving test capacity by 10,000 slots per month in a bid to cut the months-long wait faced by learners across the UK.

According to DVSA figures, learners face a wait of more than half a year at 57% of test centres. Moreover, the number of centres with an average waiting time of more than six months almost doubled between February 2024 and February 2025 to 183. Meanwhile, the average waiting time for a test nationally increased from three and a half months to five months.

The DVSA has now promised to double its capacity for training new driving examiners and will reintroduce overtime incentives for existing examiners. This should increase the rate at which tests are conducted.

“I am instructing DVSA to take further action immediately to reduce waiting times, which will see thousands of additional tests made available every month,” said transport secretary Heidi Alexander. 

Speaking to Autocar recently, AA Driving School spokesperson Lorna Lee attributed the large backlog of tests to the DVSA's failure to fulfil pent-up demand from the Covid lockdowns of five years ago.

“During all those lockdowns, driving tests are one of the things that were stop-start, because of various restrictions at different points,” she said. “It’s understandable how [the backlog] built up, because you ended up with people who had been hoping to take their tests and then they couldn’t, or they couldn’t have lessons. There was pent-up demand as we all came out of lockdown and things got back to normal, but that pent-up demand has never been satisfied.”

The DVSA recently implemented changes to the terms and conditions of booking or cancelling a test to crack down on the practice of tests being resold for profit.

The changes are intended to prevent driving instructors from booking tests for pupils they don’t teach and from booking tests that a learner has no apparent intention of using.

The DVSA said this will prevent resale services from bulk-booking placeholder slots for to resell to (and rebook in the name of) other learners.

But these measures are only addressing the symptoms of the backlog and not the root cause, according to Lee. “It is a capacity issue – supply and demand – and there has just not been enough supply of test slots to fulfil the demand,” she said. “If that was sorted out, then some of the peripheral issues that are talked about would be [resolved].”

Lee noted that when the DVSA temporarily boosted test capacity by 150,000 slots between October 2023 and March 2024, “you could start to see average waiting times come down”. However, it “was not enough overall” to resolve the full backlog, and because it was not sustained, “it just cranked back up again and now it’s higher than ever”.

The DVSA previously announced plans to hire an extra 450 examiners this year in a bid to bolster its efforts to reduce waiting times to an average of seven weeks by the end of this year. It currently employs 1600 examiners.

Ricky Tang, an independent driving instructor in north-west London (pictured below), was offered a role as an examiner but told Autocar he declined it because it would have significantly reduced his wages, and because of difficult working conditions.

Indeed, the AA Driving School expects 130 examiners to leave their jobs this year, resulting in an actual net gain of around 320.

Tang added that the test backlog has brought significant ramifications for both him and his pupils. “Learners spend a lot of money now because they have to wait a long time,” he said. “For some who might need a test quickly – for example, for their jobs – they might have to wait six months, and that has an impact on their careers. I know some doctors who needed a driving licence to become a doctor and that unfortunately is affecting them as well, career-wise.”

Lee added that as well as financial challenges, the waiting times put learners under pressure to pass on their first attempt. “They know they’re staring down the barrel of a lengthy wait if they do need to take another one,” she said.

Tang called on the government to work more closely with instructors to resolve the issue and suggested an airline-style standby system could be the answer to long waiting times. “If one of those original candidates doesn’t turn up, you’re still taking one out [of the waiting list],” he said. “That would cut down the waiting list a lot.”

"Booking a driving test is awful"

Heman Leung moved to the UK from Hong Kong in 2020. Because of the urbanisation in Hong Kong, he arrived with no driving experience but, soon after arriving in London with his family, he realised he needed a car.

“Booking a driving test is awful,” he told Autocar. “My booking was for half a year later.” He added that the stress from being unable to drive was “huge” because the long wait between each of his driving test failures left him plenty of time to “catastrophise”. 

“There were a lot of issues that made me feel like I couldn’t take care [of my family]. I blamed myself a lot.”

Two years later, Leung passed his driving test on his fourth attempt. “It changed everything,” he said. He moved his two children to better schools farther from home and said driving makes him feel like a part of the wider community.

“I treasure my driving licence very, very much. I’ve even framed my L plates at home.”

How bots are hoovering up test slots

Search for a driving test online and you’ll find any number of services selling slots practically on demand at £200- £300, as opposed to the £62 that the DVSA charges. Many such services are fed test slots by automated programmes – ‘bots’ – which use driving instructors’ IDs to bulk-book tests quicker than humanly possible. This prevents real learners from booking a test through the DVSA when it releases slots at 6am every Monday.

The DVSA has taken action against the practice, having recently revised the terms and conditions for booking a test. It has also closed 800 business accounts for abuses.

But it remains an issue, as Tang told Autocar: “I’m still getting third-party apps telling me there are dates in May and June. If it was working, that would be shut down.”

MG has taken to the Shanghai motor show to reveal a rugged, boxy SUV concept that previews the second model in its fashion-focused Cyber line-up.

The Cyber X is a bold, two-box, 4x4-inspired crossover measuring 4.3 metres long - making it roughly the same size as the Land Rover Defender 90 and slotting it in below the 4.5m-long MG S5 EV that recently arrived in the UK.

It has been revealed in concept form without an interior, but MG parent company SAIC’s design boss Jozef Kaban suggested to Autocar that the speed of development in China means it could quickly be made production-ready.

One priority of the concept is to demonstrate how the more enthusiast-focused Cyber line-up could be expanded, he explained, and to bring a new character to the MG family. 

"One thing we have been talking about is the passion of MG and delivering experience which is not just going from A to B but a pleasure which makes you happy."

MG, Kaban said, “connects young and old people, rich and unrich people. Not many brands have the ability to do what MG does."

While the Cyber X previews a sibling to the Cyberster electric sports car and would likely share its fundamental underpinnings and technologies, it takes a radically different design approach - as part of Kaban’s plan to give the Cyber line-up as broad an appeal as possible.

"When you see the Cyberster, it's soft like a circle, with almost no edges, and with the other one coming, it's almost like plus and minus. They are completely different. But plus cannot live without minus. Their contrasts bring people together."

Kaban highlighted the octagonal outline of MG's emblem as a shape that could be interpreted as a "square circle or a round square" - a theme he says translates to the radically different design treatment for the sleek, flowing Cybester and its brutalist new SUV sibling.

"The point is to show that we are so diverse, we are different, and MG is the brand which is able to handle two characters, because they will have one thing in common: the joy in connecting people and in being fun to have."

Kaban said that the priority with the Cyber X's design was to "give families an emotional car, to give them joy by not needing to compromise at the stage of life when they have a family". 

The production version of the Cyber X will be MG's third distinct SUV model in Europe. It's only slightly smaller than the ZS and S5, but Kaban said its radically different design and positioning means it can co-exist with its high-riding rangemates.

"Of course we have the HS and ZS, and they are going to live, but we could give another star next to them to shine, to make the family even stronger."

Kaban said the Cyber X's monolithic silhouette is not a reflection of a desire to rethink traditional SUV designs but rather a recognition that "being a little bit edgy doesn't need to hurt".

He referenced the unusual pop-up headlights – "like a [Ferrari] Testarossa" – as a particular design highlight, saying that the advent of the 'digital world' means some historic car design differentiators have been lost and the Cyber X concept is designed to explore ways of bringing some of that character back.

Chinese electric car maker Leapmotor will expand its global line-up in the next two years with a pair of hatchbacks and a small SUV.

The firm, which is partnered with Stellantis and sells cars in Europe as Leapmotor International, currently sells the T03 supermini and C10 SUV in Europe, and will add the B10 crossover by the end of the year.

Not long after it launches the B10, Leapmotor will reveal a new Volkswagen Golf-sized hatchback called the B05, which will ride on the same platform – dubbed Leap 3.5 – and is expected to match its crossover sibling's claimed 650km (404-mile) range. 

There's no word on pricing yet, but the brand's focus on offering high levels of technology and equipment at an accessible price – summarised by its slogan "excellence within reach" – means it's likely to come in at sub-£30,000.

Leapmotor recently revealed that it plans to have a six-car line-up in the UK by 2027, making it likely that all three of these new cars will come here - the freshly revealed B01 saloon looking unlikely to be imported.

It remains unclear if it will offer any of them with the range-extender powertrain it has just rolled out to the C10, with bosses suggesting it is gauging market reaction to the technology.

The rival to the highly popular MG 4 and Volkswagen ID 3 is likely to share its siblings' main design cues – including wraparound light bars, sporting-inspired wheel designs and aero-optimised silhouette, while inside it's set to receive the same 14.6in infotainment screen and focus on high-quality materials.  

Those attributes will also be carried over to a forthcoming entry-level crossover to sit underneath the B10 as a rival to the Renault 4 and Jeep Avenger, dubbed A10.

That car will then spawn its own low-riding hatchback sibling, which will be called the A05. This entry-level model, which could be priced below £20,000, will go up against the Fiat Grande Panda, Citroën e-C3 and Skoda Epiq. 

Leapmotor's range expansion comes off the back of rapid growth for the ten-year-old brand, both in its home market and internationally.

Leapmotor says that within 13 days of launching the B10, it had shipped more than 8000 units - of which more than 95% have been specified in the mid-range trim or higher. 

The company now has nearly 1500 retail sites worldwide, and was the 11th most popular electric car brand globally last year. In 2025, it aims to move up to ninth position, then to seventh in 2026 - ultimately aiming to become one of the world's five top EV brands. 

Leapmotor, the Chinese EV start-up partnered with Stellantis, has revealed a compact electric saloon aimed at younger buyers - and it has not ruled out a European launch.

Twinned with the Kia Sportage-sized Leapmotor B10 crossover that is due in UK showrooms later this year, the Leapmotor B01 is a five-door fastback of a similar size to the Mercedes-Benz CLA and Audi A3 Sportback.

It has only been revealed in Chinese guise so far – complete with roof-mounted Lidar sensor – but Leapmotor has pledged to have a six-model line-up in the UK by 2027, so could bring the B01 here to join the T03 supermini, B10 crossover and C10 SUV.

A Leapmotor official told Autocar the company is assessing the viability of small saloon sales in Europe, but noted that demand for such cars has fallen in recent years. 

Technical details are yet to be fully revealed, but Leapmotor touts a ‘segment-leading’ range of 404 miles (650km) - though that is according to China’s CLTC test cycle which tends to be more generous than Europe’s WLTP system, so expect that to translate to a figure in the mid-350s.

The battery chemistry and capacity have not yet been confirmed, but the B01 owes its long range, in part, to its sleek fastback silhouette; with a drag coefficient of just 0.197, it is slipperier than even the Porsche Taycan and Tesla Model S.

Speaking at the car’s Shanghai motor show debut, Leapmotor senior vice president said the B01 was designed to respond to “what young consumers really want from a car”.

He said that “for young people who perceive taste”, the current offering of similarly sized and priced alternatives in China – predominantly aimed at ride-hailing services – is currently “not enough”. 

“They want good features and quality - they want it all!”

The B01 is set to be priced from the equivalent of roughly £15,000 in China, but if exported to Europe would cost considerably more - likely in the mid-£20,000s, where it would serve as a rival to the likes of the Citroën e-C4, Renault 5 and MG 4. 

As standard, it comes with contrasting black trim, sporting-inspired alloy wheel designs, a choice of two interior colours, a 14.6in touchscreen with over-the-air updates, and chrome elements which Leapmotor says are “from suppliers of the same level as Mercedes-Benz”. 

Other notable features include a 256-colour ambient lighting system, a hidden 70-litre ‘magic expansion space’ beneath the 460-litre boot, and a tissue box in the back of the centre console - a nod to the importance of rear seat refinement in China.

Confirmation of the B01’s powertrain specifications will be revealed closer to launch, but it has been confirmed to have a single motor on the back axle for rear-wheel drive.