All ABOARD THE MEGA BUS

Whisper it, but there could be an MPV revival underway. Spearheading the renaissance is this, the Li Auto Mega

- TOM FORD

Incarnate zeitgeist is all the rage until it isn’t, and everyone shifts the schtick to something else. It happens relatively quickly, and sometimes... not for the better. Take the MPV. The genuine multipurpose vehicle, the minivan shape, has fallen foul of fashion. The exact rules of these transitions can be hard to follow, gently dictated by car companies and buyer insecurity, but the MPV satisfies a need. Just because the shape has been usurped by the faux by four, it doesn’t mean that need has ceased to exist. People still need to move larger groups in comfort in car form. Of course you can do that in an SUV, but a boxy MPV will always win the space and comfort war - and when extreme utility speaks, it’s convincing.

We're not talking about converted live axle vans here, either. Putting windows and leather into a commercial platform always ends up feeling like exactly that: a commercial platform with a thin veneer of bougie tinsel slathered on top. But in east Asia the MPV hasn’t fallen out of favour, it’s kept evolving. And now it has some really compelling cars.

Take the Li Auto Mega as an example. Li Auto is a Chinese company more accustomed to providing plug-in hybrid SUVs, but has birthed the Mega as a first try at a full electric vehicle, ‘urban’ transport for seven apparently, with a generous 350+mile range. It charges faster than the UK network can provide, capable of ‘hyper charging’ at 520kW, and looks like real life sci-fi. But the practical application is more prosaic - it'll take seven people and luggage, and do so with a level of comfort you only see in cars costing four times the price.