From the return of the Fiat Panda to Volvo’s prize-winning EX30, 2024 will be a big year for low-priced small cars
OVER the past few years affording a new motor has become even tougher, as many cheap cars have disappeared from sale.
Finally 2024 will bring some relief.
It’s small car pandemonium.
Or, in Fiat’s case, Panda-monium.
Yes, that much-loved little car is back.
Roomy and practical as ever, but with one difference — electric power.
But even so it should still be low-priced, coming in at little more than £20k.
Dacia and Citroen are known for value too, and they are both going to launch little five-door battery cars.
The Dacia Spring will be £18k for an urban spec with not much power and overnight-only charging.
A version that’s less slow — both on the road and at the charger — will be about £21k.
The Citroen e-C3 should come in around that figure too.
The ultra-chic Renault Five electric will be a bit more, but it will undoubtedly be a cuter machine and should go further on a charge.
Get a cheap-rate, overnight home-charge tariff and you can drive these little EVs at well under 5p a mile, as opposed to 20p a mile from a petrol supermini.
Even so, petrol still wins for lower sticker price and simple on-the-go refuelling.
There will be an all-new MG-3, with a 1.5-litre hybrid engine.
It is likely to arrive at under £18k, which looks more like a used-car price these days.
If you want a smarter small car, there’s going to be a few of them.
First, an all-new replacement for the Mini three-door, available with both petrol (built in Oxford) and electric (China) power.
The petrol one should start around £24k and electric one around £30k for the smaller battery version, which is less than the old Mini electric.
If that isn’t big enough for you, a Countryman is also out this year, basically a family-sized crossover, starting at £29,325 for the petrol.
Back to the small stuff.
Lexus has the LBX, a hybrid crossover little more than a supermini in size.
Lexus’s parent company Toyota is filling out its all-electric fleet with a small crossover.
Alfa Romeo will have something similar, the Milano, available in petrol and full electric.
Vauxhall’s next small crossover will provide more family roominess.
Like the Alfa it will offer both power types. Its job is to replace the Crossland X, but it will revive the old Frontera name.
We expected Volvo’s dinky EX30 to be good — but we didn’t expect the £31k price tag.
We crowned it The Sun Car of the Year and it has now been shortlisted for the 2024 European Car of the Year prize.
Apart from its new Transit Custom van, Ford had a lousy 2023, losing the Fiesta then facing a delay in getting the electric Explorer SUV to market.
So, like we said on this page last year, the Explorer will be launched next year.
At the end of the year there will also be a slightly racier looking coupe version — still an electric crossover mind.
And that’s called, wait for it, the Capri.
Also at the end of the year, the small Puma crossover gets a facelift and an all-electric alternative.
Or if you don’t mind a boxy outline, Ford will do you an MPV version of the smallest of its vans, called the Tourneo Courier.
Plus the mega-selling Transit Custom and Transit Courier get electric options, ideal for city use.
Vauxhall will have a car to put up against the Explorer.
It’s the new Grandland. It will come in all-electric, and one version has a range of 400-plus miles.
But unlike the Explorer you can have it with an engine instead.
Peugeot just launched the all-new 3008, and a seven-seat 5008, also electric or petrol, follows at the end of 2024.
Moving upmarket, Polestar becomes a three-car, all-electric range, adding to the current Two saloon with the Three big crossover and then Four crossover-coupe.
Yes, the Three is bigger than the Four, but the names are just the order they launch.
Another busy year for the posh Germans.
Audi’s range, from now on, will use even numbers for electric cars and odd numbers for the ones with engines.
So today’s A4 saloon and Avant are replaced by combustion cars called the A5.
There are two bigger all-electric cars.
First is a crossover called Q6. Then the A6, a sleek-looking car in saloon and Avant bodies.
At BMW the big-selling X3 gets replaced by a new generation.
It’s bigger than the current one, and gets petrol and diesel engines.
Also on BMW’s 2024 radar, the M5 super-saloon gets replaced.
This time there’s an estate option too.
Porsche’s best seller is the Macan crossover. Next year it will be one name for two cars.
The existing petrol one lives on for now but there is a different, all-new electric one coming in 2024.
Mercedes’ big news, literally, is that brutal G-class will get an electric option.
It has, count ’em, four motors.
It is unstoppable off-road luxury for the ultra-rich. But it won’t have the field to itself.
An electric option arrives for the Range Rover.
It will be the smoothest and most silent version of that always smooth, silent car.
Lotus is already selling its sporty electric crossover, the Eletre.
Next year’s addition is a related ultra-fast saloon, the Emeya, to take on the Porsche Taycan, Lucid Air and the Tesla Model S Plaid.
Lotus makes its EVs in China, like Mini. And in 2024 we will see a bunch more Chinese names.
BYD arrived here this year with a three-car range and will add another, the Seal SUV.
Other Chinese imports promising to launch here next year are Omoda, Lynk & Co and Seres.
All will start with crossovers the size of Britain’s family favourite, the Nissan Qashqai.
As MG and BYD prove, Chinese manufacturers won’t be selling bad cars here. But just to get your attention, they will have one quality that’s much in demand at the moment. Value.
Mind you, MG plans on going further.
This next year it will lean into the heritage of the name by launching a two-seat roadster.
Although as the name Cyberster implies it won’t have a heritage powertrain.
It will be one of the first electric sports cars on sale.