At a time when traditionally established brands in Europe are increasingly under scrutiny and Chinese manufacturers are rapidly making inroads in the West, it's worth pausing and taking a look at what products the "traditional" brands continue to offer to see if they're still competitive compared to the new vehicles that are arriving. And the truth is that one of the manufacturers that has best maintained the balance in its range has been Ford, although the price has been quite high.

The SUV trend arrived in our market almost two decades ago and has not only become established over the years, but is even becoming stronger in this transitional stage towards electrification. There are more and more car manufacturers (especially Chinese ones) and all these new ranges have a significant offer of SUV vehicles. But the fact that this type of vehicle is very successful in our market thanks to its versatility does not mean that they are the cars that all buyers really need.

A few years ago, the Mazda MX-30 passed through the Ara Motor editorial office, a fully electric SUV with a very peculiar design and a truly brave and risky bet: to offer a very low-capacity battery to try to save on weight and manufacturing costs and, thus, propose an SUV designed for eminently urban use. The result was a 145 hp car powered by a 35.5 kWh battery that allowed it to homologate a range of only 200 km, according to the WLTP cycle (262 km in urban use).

A few months ago, the future of the Mitsubishi brand in our country looked very bad. The Japanese manufacturer was not (and is not) going through its best moment, and in fact had made the decision to abandon the European market to focus on other more economically profitable continents. But a last-minute move, largely caused by Renault, with Luca de Meo at the helm, allowed the Japanese brand to maintain its economic activity in the Old Continent.