The car industry is no stranger to issuing teasers ahead of a big new reveal – just look at what Jaguar’s up to ahead of its big relaunch. But a manufacturer redacting the name of its new car from its own press release is a new one for us.
That’s just what DS Automobiles has done, revealing a new model with its name blanked out. So while this news might test our sub-editor’s patience, we’ll soldier on. The DS [redacted] is a coupe-SUV shaped electric car with a massive claimed range of 466 miles – or 750 km, as is written down the side of the nameless car.
DS explains how the long-range EV has an impressive drag coefficient of 0.24 (better than the Polestar 4) and how active air intakes in the lower part of the front bumped open to cool the electric drivetrain, then close when they aren’t needed, improving aerodynamics and boosting range.
Regarding the front-end design, DS Automobiles explained: “The front end takes on a very high-tech identity. The light signature is highlighted by vertical daytime running lights (DRLs), which frame the DS Pixelvision lights [redacted]. They frame the [redacted].”
We told you this was all a bit unusual. The manufacturer partially added: “In the quest for efficiency, the rear wings are sculpted [redacted], while the three-dimensional lights feature a vertical signature to help the stream of aerodynamic flow.”
Mercifully, DS says full details of the unnamed car will be revealed before the end of 2024. Hopefully then we’ll discover what exactly those lights frame, what the car is called and, more importantly, the rest of its specification. For now, the prospect of 466 miles’ range is plenty to get us excited. That figure is enough to give the new DS the second-longest range of any electric car on sale in the UK today. The current range champion is the Mercedes EQS 450+, at 481 miles, followed by the 436-mile Volkswagen ID.7.
Expected to be called the DS 8, the car will go up against the Vauxhall Grandland and Peugeot e-3008, but the DS’s proportions, especially its height, will likely be closer to a saloon than a higher-riding SUV.
