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BMW has pledged that its first software-defined vehicle, the new BMW iX3, won’t suffer from the software issues that have hampered rival firms.

The electric SUV, revealed at the recent Munich motor show, sits on a new EV platform and features a new computing architecture built around four ‘supercomputer’ chips that run all of the vehicle's key functions. 

BMW has developed the entire software stack for the system in-house.

While rivals such as Volvo and the Volkswagen Group have struggled with their efforts to develop software-defined vehicles, BMW’s Neue Klasse chief, Mike Reichelt, is confident his firm will avoid bugs and issues.

“For us it was really important [to develop the software stack in-house],” said Reichelt. “It’s like the transformation from the combustion engine to electric mobility: the biggest step is when you reach this change in the middle of the company. 

“Every engineer at BMW is dealing with this new technology. Every function in the car has a hardware part and a software part, so we speak about function and owner and not about the hardware side or software side.

"Every engineer has to go into the digital world; that’s the transformation. 

“For me, it’s a failure when you believe you can take digital development outside the company or to another part of the company and the rest makes cars like it has for the last 20 years. So we changed it.

"For example, in our Driving Experience department, half of the engineers work in electrics or electronics, and it’s a little bit more every month.”

You see that squiggly little map of the Nordschliefe stuck to the rear ends of quite a few cars these days. 

Quite often they’re BMWs, and if not from Munich they’re usually performance machines that might even have visited the track represented by this stick-on cartography. Occasionally said decal will be applied in irony, perhaps to the rear-end of an imported Mazda Bongo or a Vauxhall Astravan. Although the commitment with which the latter are usually driven somewhat diminishes the irony.

And it’s Vauxhall that at one point decided to do the adorning itself, applying an outline of the Nürburgring’s north circuit - aka the Green Hell - not only to the tailgate of a run of Corsa VXR Nürburgings - but also their ‘B’ pillars and grilles, too. 

Given the endless runs of frequently quite lame supermini limited editions it would be easy to conclude that this VXR variant was another of the same, its mini-maps signifying trim and equipment fiddlings, and no tweaks for the 189bhp VXR powertrain. But no - there was a lot more to it than this.

Which was just as well given that this VXR’s creators, GM’s Opel Performance Centre in Germany, boldly labeled it ‘Nürburgring’.

Given the track’s reputation, and the fact that you can buy laps in your own car, this amounts to more than a drum-roll’s worth of expectation. If you were a keen Corsa-ist, you might notice the Nürburgring’s lower ride height, a special set of gunmetal 10-spoke alloys and a pair of fat exhaust pipes erupting from the ends of black diffuser. A glance inside would reveal a sizeable pair of promisingly racy Recaro seats, complete with cut-outs for a full race harness. With all this virtue signaling, the Opel’s Performance Centre was already in deep, and would have to deliver.

The team certainly selected the right weapons. The most potent was a torque-sensing Drexler Motorsports mechanical differential, making this the first Vauxhall or Opel to feature such kit since the demise of the rear-wheel drive Omega. 

Inverted Bilsten monotube dampers, progressive rate springs and lightweight Brembo brake calipers were also installed, while those 10-spokers were forged and the car sat two centimetres lower. 

Adjustments to the turbocharger, a new ECU and a redesigned exhaust extracted another 13bhp from the standard VXR 1600 engine, taking the total to 202bhp, and you could extract 207lb ft of torque during frenzied moments of full-throttle acceleration.

That all sounded great, but so many times has Autocar been told of the great efforts invested in the latest Vauxhall chassis, only to experience disappointment 500 metres later, that stepping into this ambitious Corsa did not invite much hope. The venue was Rockingham’s handling circuit, the Autocar test team present for three days of driving everything from snappily spoilered shopping hatches to hypercars whose alloys would cost much the same money as this Vauxhall.

This time, though, the story was different. Your reporter was amazed to discover a front-drive Vauxhall that not only resisted understeer, but seemed magnetically attracted to any bend’s apex if you aimed its rather lively wheel accurately enough. 

You could adjust the Corsa’s line with the throttle – almost unheard of in Vauxhalls – you could feel the edge of its generous adhesion and generally have a brilliant time behind its neat, leather-skinned wheel. Suddenly, Vauxhall had a contender to pit against the Renaultsport Clio 200 Cup, the Mini Cooper S and the Fiesta ST.

Only, it didn’t. Because this special edition cost over £3700 more than the Cooper S, and almost £4400 extra over the admittedly less potent Fiesta ST. And so the Nurburgring stayed rare, despite its considerable talents. Vauxhall nevertheless had another go, renaming this car the Clubsport, and fitting a different exhaust.

Little else changed, including the price, which produced the same banging-your-head-on-a-brick-wall effect for the Clubsport’s creators. Both cars are rare, then, but not so rare that you can’t find them for sale, and at vastly less than the £22,000 odd they cost when new. 

Today you’ll pay from £4000 upwards, the best costing closer to £10,000. That’s still not cheap, but it’s great value for a car that’s a riot to drive and pretty well equipped with it. It also has the merit of not being the most obvious hot hatch, but among the most effective.

Renault has opened a new flagship showroom in London's Battersea Power Station shopping centre, designed to show off its dramatically evolved brand image and new-generation electric cars to the British public.

Similar in its conception to the shopping centre showrooms operated by Polestar, Tesla and Genesis, the new 'Rnlt' store is "designed to provide visitors with a comprehensive and immersive experience of the Renault brand".

It is the latest in a fast-growing network of these new urban showrooms, which Renault's chief marketing officer Arnaud Bellouni told Autocar has been designed to address the lack of brand visibility in cities.

"We don't see dealerships any more in city centres," he said. "So I decided to think about a retail concept which is the right one to display [Renault's EVs] in city centres."

The Rnlt spaces – the name contracted to reflect the stores' smaller footprints than traditional dealerships – are designed to serve as a retail 'hub', at the centre of a wider network of Renault retail and service centres outside of the city.

Designed primarily to showcase Renault's new line-up of electric cars – including the 5, 4, Mégane and Scenic – the London site is far smaller than a traditional dealership – at around 200sq metres – but the aim is as much about boosting Renault's brand visibility as it is simply selling cars.

Bellouni explained the thinking: "Obviously the aim of this is to sell cars, but in a fancy way – not in a 'fast and furious' way. Many brands do not understand their job properly, because they think that when you show a car, you must sell it. But in fact, it takes time.

"More particularly with electric cars: you don't sell an EV in 10 minutes like when you sell an ICE cars, because people have been used to ICE for 100 years - but people are not used to EVs."

He added that it takes "basically double the time" to sell an EV "because you have to break a lot of constraints that people think about", including charging infrastructure, warranties and reliability. 

"So that's the story behind the short-format stores in city centres: we sell cars, we display cars, we sell merchandise, people can wait and work..." he explained, highlighting that salespeople will be on hand to offer a more traditional dealership experience, but the spaces can otherwise be used much more casually and in an educative manner.

While the initial line-up of cars on display will be electric, Bellouni suggested the new Clio will be added from early next year, given its inherent urban focus.

Alongside the various new cars on display, Renault is displaying its wide range of branded merchandise – including skateboards, clothing, scale models, snow globes and even handmade foosball tables costing nearly £4000.

There is also a vinyl bar, run in partnership with Sony Music, where visitors can sit and listen to records via personal headphones.

The thinking behind the diversification is that "when people are buying for love, they are not buying a product – they are not even buying a brand – they are buying a story," Bellouni said. 

"We tell a story."

Renault chose this site – located conveniently on Battersea's Electric Boulevard – due to its high footfall: the repurposed power station has welcomed more than 30 million visitors since opening in 2022, making it one of the UK's busiest urban retail spaces. 

It forms part of a new global network of Rnlt stores, with spaces already open in Paris, Milan, Brussels, Madrid, Rome, Rotterdam and Berlin. There will be 44 in total by the end of the year, with a store in Copenhagen due to open early next month.

Bellouni told Autocar that Rnlt stores will only be sited in highly residential areas where there is already a "butcher, a baker and a pharmacy - people live there". That's why the brand chose not to set up in a larger dedicated shopping centre like nearby Westfield - which does not have "the right image or audience".  

Rnlt London's opening comes in the same week that Renault staged a grand re-opening for its flagship showroom on Paris's Champs-Elysées following three years of renovation work. 

Dubbed 'Le Défilé Renault' (the Renault Parade), the revamped showroom – the city's oldest, having opened in 1910 – is similar to the new London site in its design and conception, but nearly 10 times bigger. It also has a dedicated merchandise shop, an in-house restaurant and a 170-metre spiral ramp that runs up through the centre of the building.