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Slimming down is on many people’s minds. But as I’ve come to learn for myself, there are no shortcuts to melting away fat. Avoid any magic potion that promises to do that!

Many of us remember watching Aladdin as children as he and Jasmine ride on that magic carpet to discover a whole new world. The movie industry has benefited tremendously from capitalising on our love for watching dreams come true and underdogs climbing from rags to riches. It touches that special place in our hearts that desperately wants to believe that miracles do happen.

It’s that same desperation we dieters have as we seek that magic pill. That pill that promises to take away your appetite so your scale keeps going down. Or the pill that promises the sun and the moon without you having to do anything to earn it.

The only place for a magic carpet is on the cinema screen and is purely for entertainment. Let’s stop fooling ourselves into believing we can manage our weight on a magic carpet while sweeping the real issues under the rug!

No to shortcuts

We may see some results from popping a pill or drinking a mystery solution, but trust me, researchers will discover that very pill causes cancer or kidney failure a few years down the road. We’ll find ourselves stranded at the side of the road that we thought would be our salvation.

Freedom from overeating isn’t free. Like anything else in life that is worth fighting for, it takes courage and hard work to accomplish lasting goals. It also means we have to be willing to give up some things and I’m not just referring to food. Food is the tip of the iceberg. Underneath lie a million other reasons we have resorted to feeding this addiction. Until we deal with underlying cause, we cannot even begin to heal from overeating.

Slowing down

This month, let’s mindfully and objectively slow down enough to think hard about what we want to accomplish and what small steps we can take to keep us motivated. Do you remember the tortoise and the hare story when we were kids? The hare took a snooze only to lose at the end of the race because as slow as that turtle was, it refused to give up.

We are that turtle. Slow and steady is what it takes, the opposite of what the marketing world advertises as they push one product after another with promises to help us with our weight issues FAST. The only fast thing they may accomplish is quickly depleting our bank accounts as they make money off of our desperation.

I will be honest with you and tell you that I threw out leftover pills just approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration to decrease appetite for the sake of weight loss. It took facing the truth head-on to love my body enough to protect it from something that could potentially prove harmful.

If you are popping those magic pills, you’ll be surprised at how empowering it is to throw them out before you find you’ve thrown your health to businesses that line their pockets with profit.

Here’s to staying healthy the good old-fashioned way and plugging along without stopping, like that turtle!

Reprinted with permission from Family Flavours magazine

PARIS — More than half of species whose endangered status cannot be assessed due to a lack of data are predicted to face the risk of extinction, according to a machine-learning analysis published on Thursday.

The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) currently has nearly 150,000 entries on its Red List for threatened species, including some 41,000 species threatened with extinction. 

These include 41 per cent of amphibians, 38 per cent of sharks and rays, 33 per cent of reef building corals, 27 per cent of mammals and 13 per cent of birds.

But there are thousands of species that the IUCN has been unable to categorise as they are “data insufficient” and are not on the Red List even though they live in the same regions and face similar threats to those species that have so far been assessed. 

Researchers from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology used a machine learning technique to predict the likelihood of 7,699 data deficient species being at risk of extinction. 

They trained the algorithm on a list of more than 26,000 species that the IUCN has been able to categorise, incorporating data on the regions where species live and other factors known to influence biodiversity to determine whether it predicted their extinction risk status.

“These could include climatic conditions, land use conditions or land use changes, pesticide use, threats from invasive species or really a range of different stressors,” lead author Jan Borgelt, from the university’s Industrial Ecology Programme, told AFP.

After comparing the algorithm’s results with the IUCN’s lists, the team then applied it to predict the data deficient species’ extinction risk. 

Writing in the journal Communications Biology, they found that 4,336 species — or 56 per cent of those sampled — were likely threatened with extinction, including 85 per cent of amphibians and 61 per cent of mammals. 

This compares to the 28 per cent of species assessed by the IUCN Red List.

“We see that across most land areas and coastal areas around the world that the average extinction risk would be higher if we included data deficient species,” said Borgelt.

A global United Nations biodiversity assessment in 2019 warned that as many as a million species were threatened with extinction due to a number of factors including habitat loss, invasive species and climate change.

Borgelt said the analysis revealed some hotspots for data-deficient species risk, including Madagascar and southern India. He said he hoped the study could help the IUCN develop its strategy for underreported species, adding that the team had reached out to the union.

“With these predictions from machine learning we can get really sort of pre-assessments or we could use those as predictions to prioritise which species have to be looked at by the IUCN,” he said.

Head of the IUCN’s Red List Craig Hilton-Taylor said the organisation was continuously harnessing new technology with a view to reduce the number of data deficient species.

“We also understand that a proportion of data deficient species are at risk of extinction, and include this in our calculations when we estimate the proportion of threatened species in a group,” he told AFP.

PARIS — Those lucky enough to have seen them will never forget.

For just a few days every year, the elfin cloud forest of Costa Rica came alive with crowds of golden toads the length of a child’s thumb, emerging from the undergrowth to mate at rain-swelled pools. 

In this mysterious woodland the cloud drapes over mountain ridges and “the trees are dwarfed and wind-sculpted, gnarled and heavily laden with mosses”, said J Alan Pounds, an ecologist at the Monteverde Cloud Forest Preserve in Costa Rica.

“The soils are very dark and so golden toads would stand out like animal figurines. It was quite a spectacle.” 

Then in 1990, they were gone. 

The golden toad was the first species where climate change has been identified as a key driver of extinction.

Its fate could be just the beginning. 

For years, researchers have warned that the world is facing both a climate and a biodiversity crisis. Increasingly they say they are connected.

One in 10 face extinction

Even if warming is capped at the ambitious target of 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says nearly one in 10 of all species face an extinction threat.

The golden toad was only found in Monteverde’s highland forest. So when trouble hit, the species was completely wiped out. 

“It was pretty clear about 99 per cent of the population declined within a single year,” said Pounds, whose research into the disappearance of the golden toad was cited in the IPCC’s February report on climate impacts. 

Climate change was barely on the research radar when Pounds first arrived in Costa Rica in the early 1980s to study amphibians.

But global warming was already beginning to take its toll. 

After the disappearance of the golden toad, the Monteverde harlequin frog and others, researchers compared datasets on temperature and weather patterns with those on local species. 

They found not only the signature of the periodic El Nino weather phenomenon, but also trends linked to changes in climate. 

Climate ‘trigger’

The die-offs occurred after unusually warm and dry periods.

Pounds and his colleagues linked the declines to chytridiomycosis infection, but concluded that disease was only the bullet — climate change was pulling the trigger.

“We hypothesised that climate change and resultant extreme events were somehow loading the dice for these kinds of outbreaks,” Pounds told AFP.

It was not an isolated incident. 

The expansion of the chytrid fungus globally, along with local climate change “is implicated in the extinction of a wide range of tropical amphibians,” according to the IPCC. 

The fingerprints of global warming have since been seen in other disappearances. 

The Bramble Cay melomys, a small rodent living on a low-lying island in the Torres Strait, was last seen in 2009. 

The only mammal endemic to the Great Barrier Reef, its populations were battered by sea-level rise, increased storm surges and tropical cyclones — all made worse by climate change.

Vegetation that provided its food plummeted from 11 plant species in 1998 to just two in 2014. It was recently declared extinct. 

Today, climate change is listed as a direct threat to 11,475 species assessed by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. Around 5,775 are at risk of extinction.

#MeToo for species

The main reason why climate change is increasingly cited as a threat to so many species is that its impacts are becoming more obvious, said Wendy Foden, the head of the IUCN’s climate change specialist group.

But there is also a growing understanding of the enormous variety of effects. 

Beyond extreme weather, warming can also cause species to move, change behaviour or even skew to having more male or female offspring. 

And that’s on top of other human threats like poaching, deforestation, overfishing and pollution. 

In 2019, a report by UN biodiversity report experts said one million species could disappear in the coming decades, raising fears that the world is entering a sixth era of mass extinction.

“It’s absolutely terrifying,” said Foden, adding that warnings of catastrophic biodiversity loss have often been overlooked. 

“We need a #MeToo movement for species, a whole wake up on what we are doing.” 

Almost 200 countries are currently locked in global biodiversity talks to try to safeguard nature, including a key milestone of 30 per cent of Earth’s surface protected by 2030.

But Foden said the threat of climate change means that the response will have to go beyond traditional conservation. 

“That can’t happen anymore, even in the most remote wilderness, climate change will affect it,” Foden said. 

In some cases, people will need to choose which species to save. 

Take the endangered African penguin in South Africa, which Foden wrote about for the IPCC report on climate impacts. 

Forced to nest in the open after humans mined their guano nesting sites, the adults now have to swim ever further to find fish, likely because of a combination of overfishing and climate change. Meanwhile, the chicks in exposed nests can die from heat stress. 

“We are down to the last 7,000 breeding pairs. At this point, every penguin counts,” Foden said. 

Cloudless forest

In Monteverde, even the clouds have changed. 

While rainfall has increased somewhat over the past 50 years, Pounds said it has become much more variable. 

In the 1970,s the forest saw around 25 dry days a year on average — in the last decade it has been more like 115. 

The mist that used to keep the forest wet during the dry season has reduced by around 70 per cent.

Pounds said sometimes tourists in the area stop him and ask directions to the Cloud Forest. 

“And I say: ‘You’re in it’,” he said.

“It often feels more like a dust forest than a cloud forest.”

Researchers have also seen steep declines in frogs, snakes and lizards and changes in the bird populations. Some have moved uphill to cooler areas, others have vanished from the area completely.

As for the golden toad, last year a team from the Monteverde Conservation League, supported by the conservation group Re:wild, launched an expedition to look for the golden toad in its historic habitat in the Children’s Eternal Rainforest, after tantalising rumours of sightings. 

But in vain.

Meanwhile, Pounds and his colleagues continue to keep an eye out for the golden toad during the rainy season. 

“We haven’t completely given up,” he said. 

“But with each passing year, it looks less likely that they’re going to reappear.”

PARIS — The modern strain of the virus that causes cold sores has been traced back to around 5,000 years ago, with researchers suggesting its spread could have been propelled by the emergence of kissing.

Around 3.7 billion people — the majority of the world’s population — have a life-long infection of the HSV-1 virus behind facial herpes, according to the World Health Organisation.

But despite its ubiquity, relatively little has been known about the history of this virus, or how it spread throughout the world.

So an international team of researchers screened the DNA of teeth in hundreds of people from ancient archaeological finds. 

They found four people who had the virus when they died, then sequenced their genomes for research published recently in the journal Science Advances.

“Using these reconstructed genomes, we were able to determine that the variations of modern strains all trace back to some time in the late Neolithic, early Bronze Age,” said the ‘s co-senior author Christiana Scheib of Cambridge University.

“This was a bit surprising because it has been assumed that herpes is something that has co-evolved with humans for a very long time,” she told AFP.

Never been kissed

She said that was still true: all primate species have a form of herpes and humans likely had a strain when they first left Africa.

But the research indicated that those earlier strains were replaced by the modern form around 5,000 years ago.

So what brought about that change? The researchers suggested two theories. 

Around 5,000 years ago was a time of great migration from Eurasia into Europe, and that spread could have affected the virus.

The other theory? That was around the time when people starting romantically kissing each other.

“That is definitely one way to change the transferability of a herpes virus,” Scheib said. 

The virus is normally passed by a parent to their child, but kissing would have given it a whole new way to jump between hosts, she said.

“There is some textual evidence starting to show in the Bronze Age of kissing between romantic partners,” Scheib said. 

‘Far grander’

The researchers said the earliest known record of kissing was a manuscript from South Asia during the Bronze Age, suggesting the custom may have also migrated from Eurasia into Europe.

Kissing “is not a universal human trait”, Scheib pointed out, emphasising that it is difficult to trace exactly when it began — or if it is definitively linked to the spread of HSV-1.

Around 2,000 years ago, the Roman Emperor Tiberius was believed to have attempted to ban kissing at official functions to prevent the spread of herpes.

Co-senior study author Charlotte Houldcroft, also from Cambridge, said that a virus like herpes evolves on a “far grander timescale” than COVID-19, which the world has watched mutate in a matter of months.

“Facial herpes hides in its host for life and only transmits through oral contact, so mutations occur slowly over centuries and millennia,” she said.

“Previously, genetic data for herpes only went back to 1925,” she added, calling for more “deep time investigations” of viruses.

“Only genetic samples that are hundreds or even thousands of years old will allow us to understand how DNA viruses such as herpes and monkeypox, as well as our own immune systems, are adapting in response to each other.”

PARIS — The world must prepare for a “climate endgame” to better understand and plan for the potentially catastrophic impacts of global heating that governments have yet to consider, scientists warned Tuesday. 

Climate models that can predict the extent of global warming depending on greenhouse gas emissions are increasingly sophisticated and provide policymakers with an accurate trajectory of global temperature rises. 

What is less well explored is the cascading impact of certain events, such as crop failures and infrastructure loss due to extreme weather events, which are made likelier to occur with every degree of warming. 

Researchers at the University of Cambridge and the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) outlined what is currently known about “catastrophic outcomes” and found gaping knowledge gaps. 

Writing in the journal the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, they proposed an international research agenda to help governments plan for “bad-to-worst cases”. 

These included four main areas of concern — what the authors termed the “four horseman” of climate change: Famine and malnutrition, extreme weather, conflict, and vector-borne diseases. 

“Irreversible and potentially catastrophic risks caused by human induced climate change must be factored into our planning and actions,” said Johan Rockstrom, PIK director and a study co-author. 

He said that the more research is done on Earth’s climate tipping points — such as the irreversible melting of the ice caps or the Amazon rainforest turning from a carbon sink to source — showed the ever-greater need to factor in high-risk scenarios into climate modelling. 

“Key is to do the math of disaster, in order to avoid it,” he said.

‘Mismatched caution’

The authors pointed out that successive UN climate science reports have mainly focused on the predicted effects of 1.5ºC-2ºC of warming and largely discounted the possibility of more excessive temperature rises. 

Government plans put Earth on course to rise as much as 2.7ºC this century, a far cry from the 1.5-ºC cap envisaged in the 2015 Paris climate accord. 

The study suggested that a scientific disposition to “err on the side of least drama” led to a lack of focus on potential impacts at 3ºC of warming or higher. 

“This caution is understandable, yet it is mismatched to the risks and potential damages posed by climate change,” it said.

In addition, risk assessments for so-called low-likelihood, high-impact events are notoriously difficult to accommodate in long-term climate modelling. 

The researchers calculated areas of extreme heat — with an annual average temperature of over 29ºC — could cover two billion people by 2070. 

They warned that temperatures posed a major risk of multiple “breadbasket failures” due to drought such as that gripping western Europe and heatwave such as the one that hit India’s wheat harvest in March/April.

The team called for a special UN science report focusing on “catastrophic climate change scenarios” similar to its 2018 report on 1.5ºC of warming.

“We have to get serious about understanding the profound risks that come with moving our planet into unknown territory,” said Joeri Rogelj, director of research at Imperial College London’s Grantham Institute, who was not involved in the study. 

“Researching these extreme cases means that we’ll be able to better prepare, including by being more serious about reducing emissions now.”

PARIS — “Go pee on the rhubarb!”

Engineer Fabien Esculier has never forgotten his grandmother’s unconventional approach to gardening — in fact, it has inspired his career. 

Human urine may seem like a crude way of fertilising plants in the era of industrial agriculture, but as researchers look for ways to reduce reliance on chemicals and cut environmental pollution, some are growing increasingly interested in the potential of pee. 

Plants need nutrients — nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium — and we ingest these through food, before “excreting them, mostly through urine”, said Esculier, who runs the OCAPI research programme in France looking at food systems and human waste management. 

This presents an opportunity, scientists think. 

Fertilisers using synthetic nitrogen, in use for around a century, have helped drive up yields and boost agricultural production to feed a growing human population.

But when they are used in large quantities, they make their way into river systems and other waterways, causing choking blooms of algae that can kill fish and other aquatic life. 

Meanwhile, emissions from this agricultural ammonia can combine with vehicle fumes to create dangerous air pollution, according to the United Nations. 

Chemical fertilisers also create emissions of the potent greenhouse gas nitrous oxide, contributing to climate change. 

But the pollution does not just come directly from the fields. 

“Modern-day sanitation practices represent one of the primary sources of nutrient pollution,” said Julia Cavicchi, of the United States Rich Earth Institute, adding that urine is responsible for around 80 per cent of the nitrogen found in wastewater and more than half of the phosphorus. 

To replace chemical fertilisers, you would need many times the weight in treated urine, she said.

But she added: “Since the production of synthetic nitrogen is a significant source of greenhouse gases, and phosphorus is a limited and non-renewable resource, urine diverting systems offer a long-term resilient model for human waste management and agricultural production.” 

One 2020 study by UN researchers found that global wastewater has the theoretical potential to offset 13 per cent of the world’s demand for nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium in agriculture.

But pee diversion is easier said than done. 

‘Very radical’

In the past, urban excrement was transported to agricultural fields to be used as fertiliser along with animal manure, before chemical alternatives began to displace them.

But now if you want to collect urine at source, you need to rethink toilets and the sewage system itself. 

A pilot project to do just that began in Sweden in the early 1990s in a selection of eco-villages. 

Now there are projects in Switzerland, Germany, the US, South Africa, Ethiopia, India, Mexico and France. 

“It takes a long time to introduce ecological innovations and especially an innovation such as urine separation which is very radical,” said Tove Larsen, a researcher at Switzerland’s Eawag aquatic research institute. 

She said the early urine-diverting toilets were considered unsightly and impractical, or raised concerns about unpleasant odours. 

But she hopes a new model — developed by the Swiss company Laufen and Eawag — should solve these difficulties, with a design that funnels urine into a separate container. 

Once the pee is collected it needs to be processed. 

Urine is not normally a major carrier of disease, so the World Health Organisation recommends leaving it for a period of time, although it is also possible to pasteurise it. 

Then there are various techniques for concentrating or even dehydrating the liquid, reducing its volume and the cost of transporting it to the fields. 

‘Surprise’

Another challenge is overcoming public squeamishness. 

“This subject touches on the intimate,” said Ghislain Mercier, of the publicly-owned planning authority Paris et Metropole Amenagement. 

It is developing an eco-district in the French capital with shops and 600 housing units, which will use urine collection to fertilise green spaces in the city. 

He sees significant potential in large buildings like offices, as well as houses not connected to mains drainage. 

Even restaurants. Also in Paris is the 211 restaurant, equipped with waterless toilets that collect urine. 

“We have had quite positive feedback,” said owner Fabien Gandossi.

“People are a little surprised, but they see little difference compared to a traditional system.”

But are people ready to go to the next level and eat urine-fertilised foods? 

One study on the subject highlighted found differences from country to country. The acceptance rate is very high in China, France and Uganda for example, but low in Portugal and Jordan. 

Water works

Prices of synthetic fertilisers are currently soaring because of shortages caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which has also spurred countries to consider shoring up their food security.

That could be an opportunity help “make the subject more visible”, said Mercier. 

Marine Legrand, an anthropologist working with Esculier at the OCAPI network, said that there are still “obstacles to overcome”.

But she believes that water shortages and increased awareness of the toll of pollution will help change minds.

“We are beginning to understand how precious water is,” she told AFP. 

“So it becomes unacceptable to defecate in it.” 

The sportiest offering from Jordanian market newcomer Dongfeng, the Forthing T5 Evo is a stylish, brisk and well-equipped compact to mid-size crossover. Launched last year, it is value-oriented in pricing, but seems somewhat more up-market than its price tag might suggest.

Seemingly well-positioned to give many mid-range and even some premium European, Japanese and Korean competitors a run for their money, initial impressions after a short test drive indicate that the T5 Evo might well be among the best resolved Chinese crossovers of its class.

Dramatic demeanour

Distinctly aggressive in aesthetic, the T5 Evo’s design seems loosely, playfully condensed and far more attainably reminiscent of much more exotic and powerful sports SUVs and crossovers. With hints of Maserati Levante in its tall, wide and hungry grille, vaguely Ferrari-esque headlights and elements of Jaguar F-Pace at rear light edges, the T5 Evo’ predatory posture and rear wheel-arch bulges meanwhile seem distantly inspired by the Lamborghini Urus. 

Conceptually, it is, however, closer to something like a Mazda CX-5, but priced nearer to a Nissan Kicks. 

Urgent and athletic with its jutting shark-like front, side gills, vertically-slatted grille, slim headlights, scalloped clamshell bonnet and rakish windscreen, the T5 Evo features an assertively high waistline and muscular panels with contrasting convex and concave surfacing. 

Prominent sills, subtle Coke-bottle hips, sporty descending roofline, sharp tailgate spoiler and pert rear with short overhang and full width lights, meanwhile, complete the T5 Evo’s contemporarily sporting style. The T5 Evo also rides on wide, tall and low-profile 235/55R19 tyres to fill its bulging wheel-arches.

Small but potent

Powered by a small but prodigiously potent turbocharged 1.5-litre direct injection 4-cylinder engine, the punchy T5 Evo produces 195BHP at 5,600rpm and a muscular 210lb/ft throughout a broad and usefully accessible 1,500-4,000rpm band. 

Driving the front wheels through a slick and reasonably quick-shifting 7-speed automated dual-clutch gearbox with various response level settings and lever-actuated manual mode shifting, the T5 Evo pounces through the 0-100km/h acceleration benchmark in 9.5-seconds. Capable of a 240km/h top speed, it, meanwhile, returns restrained estimated 6.6l/100km combined cycle fuel efficiency.

With quick spooling turbos, the T5 Evo is responsive from standstill and at low revs, with negligibly little of the turbo lag often associated with small but powerful turbo engines. Muscular in mid range, the T5 Evo pulls hard when overtaking and is confident on steep inclines. The T5 Evo’s engine meanwhile pulls smoothly and willingly to its relatively low peak power point. Developing power progressively, but riding a wide and generous mid-range torque sweet spot, the T5 Evo’s engine is refined in operation.

Settled and sporty

With a subtle burbling typical of some aggressively turbocharged cars, the T5 Evo’s soundtrack plays up to its aggressive design. Seemingly quicker from point to point than its headline stats would indicate, the T5 Evo turns tidily into corners, with an alert response and good front grip. Its steering is accurate and quick, if somewhat lighter than and with less of the intuitive nuance of Dongfeng’s Yixuan GS estate. That said, the T5 Evo provides enough road feel to well place it through cornering manoeuvres. 

Stable over short brisk bursts on the straights encountered during test drive, the T5 Evo handles with reasonably good agility and maneouvability on narrow winding roads. Going back early on power through tight incline hairpins does seem to initiate understeer that is quickly cut short by stability control interventions. 

However, given more time to better learn to finesse its throttle and get acquainted with its road-holding thresholds, it would seem that the T5 Evo could be quite a tidy and sportingly agile drive for its class.

Athletic interior

Settled over imperfections and with good vertical and rebound damping control when dismounting large bumps, the T5 Evo’s ride quality seems to be a good compromise between forgiving comfort and good lean control for its tall body. Cosseting and refined inside, the T5 Evo’s high waistline, rakish roofline, big rear pillars and bulging body reduce visibility when parking in narrow confines. 

This is, however, remedied by the T5 Evo’s parking sensors and reversing camera. Lane change assistance meanwhile also helps when on the move.

 Athletic in interior styling sensibility, the T5 Evo features sportily supportive seats, wide and high centre console, jutting round air vents and chunky flat-bottom steering wheel. Driving position is adjustable and comfortable, including steering reach and tilt adjustment, while front visibility is good on the open road. 

Stylishly upmarket, the driven version featured rich red leathers, and glossy trim panels. Comfortably spaced rather than outright generous for adult rear passengers even with panoramic roof, the well-equipped T5 also features seemingly good, yet unspecified, luggage space.

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS

• Engine: 1.5-litre, transverse, turbocharged 4-cylinders
• Valve-train: 16-valve, DOHC, direct injection
• Gearbox: 7-speed automated dual clutch, front-wheel-drive
• Power, BHP (PS) [kW]: 195 (197) [145] @5,600rpm
• Specific power: 131.6BHP/litre
• Torque, lb/ft (Nm): 210 (285) @1,500-4,000rpm
• Specific torque: 192.4Nm/litre
• 0-100km/h: 9.5-seconds (estimate)
• Top speed: 240km/h
• Fuel consumption, combined: 6.6-litres/100km (estimate)
• Fuel capacity: 55-litres
• Length: 4,565mm
• Width: 1,860mm
• Height: 1,690mm
• Wheelbase: 2,715mm
• Suspension, F/R: MacPherson struts/multi-link
• Steering: Electric-assisted rack and pinion
• Brakes, F/R: Ventilated discs/discs
• Tyres: 235/55R19
• Price, on-the-road, with third party insurance: JD27,300 (estimate)
• Warranty: 6-years or 200,000km (includes 2-years or 40,000km service contract)