In this week’s automotive news you need to know…Ranger danger for the top-selling Toyota Hilux? Audi announces eye-watering prices for its e-tron range (as expected), Chery introduces its new small SUV – but it’s clearly not aiming for the budget market anymore – and Kia says it doesn’t want to produce a bakkie.

New Ranger – Ranger Danger, boet!

The wait is over, mychaaarnas. The new Ranger has been revealed and, what I’m most surprised about, is thatit’s been a fewdays since the announcement and, curiously, the Blue Ovalstill hasn’t released a special edition of the bakkie!Man, Ford has changed… a lot. All jokes aside (for now), this is THE big one for Ford as the American brandaligns its Ranger closer with the F-150, hence the wider and longer body. I imagine that this is all part of some strategy to merge the pick-up and US truckinto one model someday to streamline production and drive costs down. Business first, baby, always.

Read more:New Ford Ranger officially revealed

It’s certainly tougher looking than before. For those Fourways boets with the aftermarket body kits, you’re going to have your work cut out to make this Rangerlook tougher. Sorry, chaaarna, you better get more tribal tats then. The real question that remains is whether we’ll getthe 3.0-litre V6 turbodiesel in the Raptor? We should, but if not, it would be a travesty– and a get-out-of-jail-free card for Toyota.

Audi EV transformation – trickle charging…

Look– better late than never. Audi South Africa has copped criticism due to its delayed introduction of EVs (considering that the Ingolstadt-based marque’s arch-rivalBMW SA launched the i3 more than half a decadeago), but they certainly haven’tbeen the only risk-averse premium brand. This onslaught of e-tronmodels (planned for 2022) shows admirable intent, despite the products’ eye-watering price tags that even the top 1% of earners willfindprohibitively expensive. R2.5 million for anAudi (battery-electric) sedan?If you’d said that 10 years ago, thousands of people would have fainted in the streets.

Read more:Audi e-tron Prices in SA, Orders Open

What this does highlight is that Audiwants to sail silently(“roar” would not be appropriate here, would it?) past its opposition in the battery-electric-vehicle space – especially while Tesla remains conspicuous by its absence– and it’s willing to take a bath in the short run (hopefully with no power supply nearby) and absorb losses whileit holds out for more market entrants to help expandEVinfrastructure. Sadly, contrary to every other developed country, which has co-operatedwith OEMs to provide juicy subsidies to fast track the take-up of EVs, our government is still twiddling its thumbs. No surprises there.

Chery Tiggo – A bit of an anti-climax

There are myriad established brands competing in the small SUV segment…and why wouldn’t there be? That’s where all the action is. Volkswagen, the dominant force in the passenger-vehicle market, has the T-Cross, which aims at the upper end of that segment, but, below that, sits theHyundai Venue, Kia Sonet, Nissan Magnite, Suzuki Brezza,Renault Kigerand Toyota Urban Cruiser. All of those models are already established and fighting to securebudget-crossover buyers’ signatures. Cherry has nothing of the sort, apart from the (mercifully, fading) history of the QQ and Tiggo from a decade or soago.

Read more:Chery Tiggo 4 Pro (2021) Lanch Review

Chery had an opportunity to launch the Tiggo 4 Pro atprices that would genuinely trouble the opposition. Instead, they’ve entered the market at a price point that puts the newcomer in direct opposition to Jolion, which is a challenge, givenhow Haval’s sales numbers and brand reputation haveimproved in 4 short years. Chery, for its part,is offering 100 owners of current Tiggomodels R20 000in trade-in assistance (which they’ll need);it shows goodwill, but falls short of disruptingthe market.Not a greatstart. Perhaps a Chery executivewill readthis and exclaim:“It’s Black Friday,let’s slash prices”.

Kia not building a bakkie – Has the (work)horse bolted?

Pictured here is the Hyundai Santa Cruz, a double-cab bakkie based on the Santa Fe executive SUV that is now being produced in the United States; it certainly looks the part (wouldn’t you agree?), but, apart from the fact that it is a left-hand-drive-only product,it’s also a unibody (passenger-car-based) vehicle that’s not meant to haul huge loads or traverse anything more taxing thana rutted dirt road.Even if Kia wanted to build a model based on the Santa Cruz – and it doesn’t – it would not be able to compete against the Hilux and Ranger, of whichToyota and Ford selltens of thousands of units each year.

Read more:Why isn’t Kia following Hyundai into bakkies?

I’m paging Dr Obvious, but South Africans “smaak” a bakkie and any manufacturer that could adda ladder-frame-based bakkie to its local line-up would surely jump at the chance to do so. In the wake of Covid-19, small businesses will be the lifeblood of the economy and those SMEs need bakkies.If Peugeot gets it (pardon, madames et monsieurs), I’m not sure why anyone would sleepon the idea.

Kia produces a 6/7-seaterbody-on-frame Mohave SUV for the Korean market and, earlierthis year, it even unveiled a military vehicle with suitably robustunderpinnings.One would think the Korean sibling brands are quite capable of developingbakkies that would satisfy markets such as ours and Australia’s, but no, perhaps Hyundai Kia saw how Mercedes-Benz’s bakkie partnership with Nissan went south. The increasingly significant impact of Chinese brands’ products on the pick-up market– GWM (South Africa) and LDV (Down Under) – probably put paid to the Korean brands’ pick-up plans for good…