The week that was: Liars, thieves and EV shock

This week's look back at our biggest and best stories is brought to you by liars, cheats and thieves.

Let's have a look first at the cheater – or more correctly the ingenious bloke who thought he'd hit upon a foolproof plan to avoid speeding fines forever, only for it to backfire hilariously… Points for trying at least!

Next, we turn our attention to the latest survey of Australia's driving habits, and that vast chasm dividing our opinion of ourselves and our opinion of others' driving habits. F'rinstance, only one in ten Aussies surveyed fessed up to using a phone while driving, which is a long way short of the nine in ten drivers proven to be dialling while driving in this 2018 US study.

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Now I'm all for a bit of Aussie / US rivalry, but my own research conducted on this morning's drive to work suggests there's a lot more than 10 percent of us fiddling with phones behind the wheel.

Onto another topic and perhaps the biggest liar of them all is the Electric Vehicle Revolution? Controversial, I know, but before you throw your chai latte-filled keep-cup at your biodegradable laptop screen, read this damning report. I suppose we should be thankful we Aussies are so slow to get onboard the Electric Express to Tomorrowland.

As for the thieves topic, did you know how ridiculously, stupidly easy it is for modern thieves to steal your new car – a new car with rolling codes and motion sensors and other gizmos James Bond never dreamed of? Neither did we…

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Moving on from liars and cheats to explosions and crashes, Tesla spectacularly took care of the first when a new Model 3 small sedan went boom and then ka-BOOM on a freeway (video footage here) after a little rear-ender.

Nor was it a great week for the person who became the first civilian to crash the new Corvette. Hope it wasn't down to the new Vette's mid-engine layout… Well, somebody has to be first, and we're glad it wasn't us (touch wood).

On other GM matters, we spotted a spotty camouflaged new GM sports sedan with a fruity motor sneaking into Australia.

We named and shamed Australia's five thirstiest gas guzzlers, and showed you how to pay less for fuel. We also helped one lady decide between a hybrid hatch and a turbodiesel SUV for country miles, and compared the new Toyota RAV4 SUV to its Subaru Forester rival. The winner? You.

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On the 4X4 front, we revealed the best new 4WDs for bashing bush straight off the showroom floor, we adjudicated a red-dirt dust-up between the new Jeep Wrangler, Suzuki Jimny and Mercedes-Benz G-wagen, and we took a closer look at why some utes bend like a banana.

We also learned that the new MG Extender ute won't be coming to Australia any time soon, and that Kia Australia really really wants a Ford Everest rival, stat!

Meanwhile, in America, sales of the Aussie developed Ford Ranger aren't doing so well despite allegedly having 30,000 expressions of interest before our most popular ute launched there. Maybe these Aussie Ranger updates announced this week – or the the 2021 Ranger ute -- will do better?

And we drooled over this insane Wrangler-based Rezvani Tank 4x4 – Comrade Putin, your bullet-proof, thermal-vision equipped apocalypse machine is ready!

Have a great weekend!