Disclosure: GWM Philippines kindly lent me a 2023 Haval Jolion Supreme HEV for eight days. It arrived with loaded RFID cards and a Shell fuel card. AutoFun Philippines paid for a carwash. When I was a kid, I swore by one specific brand of orange juice (which I shall not name, but it’s a brand that’s beloved by many). I simply could not have a meal without this overly sugary beverage that greatly contributed to my, shall we say, “portly” physique in grade school. And it had so many artificial ing

Kia Philippines has done well to keep things fresh with its crossover vehicles, with the Kia Stonic getting a Style Edition and the Kia Sorento getting its new generation. However, the Kia Seltos remains largely untouched, so the South Korean automaker is giving it a facelift for the Philippine market. Kia Philippines also released a quick teaser video on Facebook showing the updated model's highlighted features, but did not include a launch date for the new crossover. What the facelift might lo

The days of Chery Auto producing half-baked small cars with interiors that came standard with suffocating fumes seem to be long gone. Chery Auto Philippines announced in a September 2023 press statement that its Tiggo 7 and Tiggo 8 series of crossovers both got first place in their respective categories in the J.D. Power China Automotive Performance, Execution and Layout (APEAL) rankings. The result of the study was based on the evaluation of 35,155 traditional-fuel vehicle owners who purchased

Once a novelty in the slushbox segment, continuously variable transmissions (CVT) are getting increasingly popular. This is because of the multiple forward ratios that the transmission presents to the driver, instead of a set number of gears. In the Philippines, this particular tranny saw national attention when it was part of the original equipment for the mid-2000s Honda City subcompact sedan and Honda Jazz subcompact hatchback. The tranny was deemed a good alternative to a market that still p

Ever fancied the Nissan Kicks e-POWER but wanted something bigger? If you live in Singapore, you might just have that chance. Tan Chong Motor Sales, the distributor of Nissan vehicles in the island state, is set to unveil an EV version of its T33 X-Trail crossover, called the X-Trail e-POWER, at the Singapore Motor Show 2023. Although this variant has been available in Japan since July 2022, this is the first time that it has been introduced in an ASEAN market. Electric motor, gas generator Much

Mazda3 is arguably one of the best-selling cars in its class, grossing over 6 million units sold as of 2019, according to one reputable source. Adding to this heap of positives, are exhilarating driving dynamics, its fluid-sleekly-engineered flawless design, and a host of other, er, stable of good qualities, more or less. Short of calling it a trailblazer (because of its innovative Skyactiv mill), the car had sparked a modicum of fanfare because of those other exhilirating features found in this