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Top Family Cars in the UK for Comfort, Practicality, and Everyday Adventures
From large SUVs to practical hatchbacks, family cars aren't tied to any particular segment. We reveal the very best
What’s the best family car? Answering that definitively is almost impossible, even for a title that has been steeped in all things automotive for almost 130 years.
The best family cars combine a handful of characteristics, including comfort, build quality and practicality, with enough flexibility for both long road trips and quick runs to the shops.
Whether you're a new parent juggling work or someone who's constantly hauling kids and their seemingly endless piles of stuff, there are several cars out there that fit the 'family wagon' bill.
Our top pick? The BMW 3 Series Touring. This estate shines with its all-around capabilities, hitting all the high notes of a family car with its practicality, fun-to-drive feel and seriously impressive plug-in hybrid option.
But there are many other options well worth considering, from SUVs to estates to saloons. Read on to find out the best family cars you can get in the UK.
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Tesla Unveils Cheaper Model Y to Boost Sales After Major Revenue Slump
US firm fights back after one of its worst ever quarters, caused by huge drops in sales and EV credit revenue
Tesla will launch a cheaper variant of the Model Y in a bid to increase sales after posting one of its worst ever quarterly sales declines.
In January, Tesla boss Elon Musk to launch a range of "more affordable models" by this summer in a bid to broaden its appeal. Rather than an entirely new model, this has instead amounted to a stripped-out version of the American EV brand's best-seller.
Production is scheduled to begin from around August or September.
Musk hasn't said whether other affordable models, such as a new Model 3, are planned. Nor has he provided more information, such as which markets the new Model Y would be sold in, target volumes or a target price.
The current cheapest version of the SUV starts at £51,990.
Tesla hopes the new base model wil especially help to incentivise sales in the US, where current $7500 government electric car grants are due to be stopped as part of president Donald Trump's rollback of emission mandates.
The new model announcement has come after Tesla posted heavy losses in the second quarter of 2025. Musk warned that the trend is set to continue in what is expected to be one of Tesla's most challenging periods.
The key pullout from the EV maker’s second quarter earnings, released on Wednesday night, was a 16% dip in income to $1.17 billion.
Tesla blamed this on a 13% decline in sales, a reduction in its average model selling price and an increase in operating expenses.
Most importantly, revenue from electric car credits, bought by other manufacturers to hit mandated emissions targets – which Tesla has hugely profited from previously – has dropped by 51% (or $441 million) since Q2 2024, including $154m since the previous quarter alone.
This has been driven by Trump’s winding down of electric car regulations in the US, meaning car makers no longer need to hit certain EV production targets and therefore have no need to buy credits.
Announced in January, the revocation of former president Joe Biden’s legislation – which mandates that by 2030, 50% of all new cars sold in the US must be electric – is due to take effect in the coming months.
As such, Musk told reporters on the earnings call that Tesla “probably could have a few rough quarters; I’m not saying we will, but we could”.
His comments resulted in share prices in the firm dropping 7%.
This year has been difficult for Tesla. Despite introducing an updated version of the Model Y earlier this year, it has struggled in China – previously one of its most significant makerts – due to tariff tensions and sales drops linked to Musk's ties with Trump.
While Tesla seemingly has no other mainstream models in the pipeline, a buoyant Musk said he expected a wave of revenue to come from the brand’s upcoming self-driving technology, such as its robotaxi service (currently being trailed in Texas) and vehicles such as the Cybercab. It has also invested heavily in the development of humanoid robots.
“Once you get to autonomy at scale in the second half of next year, certainly by the end of next year, I think I'd be surprised if Tesla's economics are not very compelling,” said Musk.
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Cupra Leon Estate Redefines the Daily Sports Car With Bold Design and Electrifying Performance
Latest Leon can be had as a 4WD estate with dazzling performance - is this the ultimate daily sports car? The Cupra Leon is no longer a rebadged Seat with fancy trim. At least that’s what Cupra wants you to think. What once was Seat’s performance arm has broken a little freer of the mothership and developed the Leon as a standalone product with its own driving character, technology and options.How is it trying to achieve this specifically? In a few ways; partly because it is one of the first cars in Cupra's line-up, along with the new Formentor, to receive the brand's new design language with a shark-nose front end and triangular matrix LEDs, but also because of an "environmentally conscious approach to performance" - achieved with more sustainable materials during manufacture - and new interior technology.At the same time, the Leon is trying to grab a larger share of the performance car pie. The arrival of a brand new 329bhp engine and 268bhp plug-in hybrid (up 27bhp from before), with the option of front- or four-wheel drive, pure combustion or electrically assisted power. This increased focus on performance comes as competition in this sector of the market gets tougher than ever, not least because parent brand Volkswagen offers the similarly-conceived Golf GTI, Honda the brilliant Civic Type-R and, as a true alternative, Hyundai's equally tremendous Ioniq 5 N; a car which we’ve awarded five stars.We’ve previously road tested the four-wheel-drive estate and found it to be fiercely quick but lacking some involvement, while the hybrid’s 1.4 never felt at home in a performance derivative.The Leon, then, will need more than just a facelift to convince us that it is worthy of purchase over a Volkswagen Golf GTI, but also that it can stay at the top of the class as the old one did.The Cupra Leon range at a glanceOne of Cupra’s intentions with the new Leon was to simplify its engine and trim line-up, but it seems to have made things slightly more complicated by adding more trim levels and various tunes of the same engine.The hatchback is always front-wheel drive and is powered by a four-cylinder engine, either a 2.0-litre with 295bhp in the five-door hatch or 329bhp in the estate, or a 1.5-litre petrol available as standard with 148bhp or 268bhp in plug-in hybrid guise. The estate comes with either the front-wheel-drive hybrid or the more powerful tune of the 2.0-litre with four-wheel drive. A six-speed manual is available only on base 1.5 mild hybrid trim, while a six-speed automatic and seven-speed DSG auto is available on cars higher in the range.There are no less than seven trim levels – V1, V2, V3, VZ1, VZ2, VZ3 and VZ First Edition – but not all engine and trim combinations are possible.