Drove 15 cars in a day and one £35k hybrid was the clear winner

On the SMMT Test Day at Millbrook Proving Ground in Bedfordshire, the journalist Christopher Sharp spent a day behind the wheel of 15 cars, illustrating the breadth of the UK market beyond SUVs. The annual event gathers a mix of new, near-new, and used models for journalists to sample across a range of handling courses. One featured model, the brand-new Aion V, is a Chinese SUV priced around £36,000. Sharp found it capable on the city course—stopping, steering, and offering a roomy boot—but could not complete the Alpine Handling Course, leaving some questions in his assessment. He assigned the car a 4/10.