Ten Things We Learned This Week: 14 Oct 2016 edition

That’s not to say that a DB11 isn’t expensive everywhere. The UK retail price of £154,900 (before you disappear down the speccing labyrinth) is hardly pocket change for most of us. But spare a thought for wannabe 007s in India, who’ll have to shell out – brace yourself – a cool £526,000 for Aston’s new V12 coupe. The Indian currency likes to put the sting on luxury goods, see. Still, if you’re an Indian-dwelling tycoon with the necessary funds, it’s probably going to be worth it… 

When Audi launched the second-gen R8 at the 2015 Geneva motor show, it displayed not just the V10 and V10 plus coupes, but also a new R8 e-tron. The AWD electric supercar, we were informed, developed 45bhp and 67lb ft, allowing it to reach 62mph in 3.9 seconds and cover 280 miles per charge.

Price? A mystery. Annual build totals? Schtum. And this week, we’ve heard rumours that Audi has ceased production of the special order-only R8 e-tron. Was it a victim of the fact the new V10 version is just too damn great, or the fact you can buy a family SUV that’s quicker off the mark? A bit of both, most likely. 

While Ford’s latest Mustang has been busy outselling the Porsche 911 and Audi TT in Germany, and generally taking Europe by storm (right-hand drive, at last!) the story is less rosy in the ‘Stang’s own back yard. Blaming an oversupply issue, Ford closed its Michigan Mustang plant for a week, after sales in September slumped by 32 per cent. Come on America, don’t go off the Mustang just as Europe is finally falling for it…

There’s a lot of anticipation around Skoda’s Kodiaq 4x4 – a trendy, handsome 4x4 that’ll seat seven and was expected to be good value for money. And now we know that’s a correct assumption, because prices will start at £21,495, around what you’d pay for a mid-spec (five-seat) Nissan Qashqai. Sounds like it could be a bargain in waiting. The proof in the commodious Czech's pudding will be in the driving – we'll be doing just that in a few weeks…

The fastest new BMW 5 Series is the M550i model, with standard all-wheel drive and a 462bhp 4.4-litre biturbo V8. Off the line, it can hit 62mph in a claimed 4.0 seconds, making it a massive 0.4sec quicker than the current M5 (whch doesn’t have the advantage of AWD traction). Course, there’ll be a 600bhp+ M5 in the not-too-distant future to set the pecking order straight again, but for now, current M5 drivers: consider yourself warned.

A car ending up in someone’s living room is usually the result of tragic understeer and a greasy, off-camber right-hander. Not so this time. This chap is called Randy Jalil. To protect his rather lovely E30 M3 from the wrath of Hurricane Matthew, he squeezed it through his patio doors and into his living room, thus keeping it safe and dry. The M3 survived the hurricane in perfect order, but we wonder whether it would have been any worse off in the garage…

Image: @Jalilsup on Instagram

Making big things out of Lego is very much in style right now. Land Rover did it at the reveal of the new Discovery, and now a group of Ford dealers in the US has teamed-up with Denmark’s most famous export to build this – a 1:1 Lego model of a 1965 Ford Mustang. The 194,900 brick sculpture is set to go on display at LegoLand Florida. It’s built on a flat aluminium chassis and has a working horn and lights. 

Image: Ford Mustang, Facebook

DHL has built itself a van. The delivery giant used to use VW Caddys to make its deliveries in various German cities, but it’s been forced to design and manufacture its own electric truck after its requests for existing manufacturers to build them one were denied. The StreetScooter has been designed to last 16 years, used every day 10 hours at a time. 1,000 are already in service, but production will soon ramp up to 5,000. VW are, predictably, not happy.  

Image: DHL

Bloomberg reports the Tesla Model S is the best-selling luxury car in the US. In Q3 this year Tesla sold 9,156 Model Ss, more than the combined sales total of the Mercedes S-Class and BMW 7 Series. The internal Tesla data supplied to Bloomberg also indicates sales are up 59 per cent from the same quarter last year. Blimey.

Le Mans winner and Force India F1 driver Nico Hülkenberg is set to race for the Renault F1 team next season. The 29-year-old German (on the right, seen here winning Le Mans) has signed a “multi-year deal” with the team, whose current drivers are Kevin Magnussen and Brit Jolyon Palmer. Who’s Nico replacing? Renault are keeping quiet for now.