It was 44deg C in Seville, Spain. There were floods in Saudi Arabia and in Nice on France’s Cote D’Azur, a freakish hail storm battered the roof. The price of West Texas Intermediate crude was soaring as Israel retaliated to Iran’s missile strikes and raw sewerage continued to glug into our waterways and onto our beaches. Is someone trying to tell us something here?
If they are, it’s been a one-step-back response recently, with governments, legislative bodies and car makers all feeding off each other as they pull back from their bullish net-zero plans citing: too expensive, not popular and not practical.
Even Porsche, which didn’t do much to assuage the message that this new Macan would be an all-EV event, has retreated. Like Renault with its past generation Clios, which continued to be made after the debut of a replacement, Porsche will carry on producing and selling the combustion Macan in its facelifted form alongside the new EV version. Alternative names were considered, but both will be called simply Macan – go figure.