Motoring 2014 preview - Telegraph Personally I'm looking forward to trying to repeat this year's class win at the Motorsport at the Palace Crystal Palace sprint in my Aston Martin, a rainy weekend at Cholmondeley Pageant of Power and a dry weekend at the End of the Road festival in VW's California camper van. Professionally I'll be looking out for the new Ford Mondeo (at last), BMW's 2-series, Volkswagen's electric e-Up and Golf R, the new Mini, the new Toyota Aygo/Peugeot 107/Citroën C1, Renault's Twingo, Honda's new fuel-cell model and Citroën's Cactus. I'll be fascinated to see what happens at the top of Aston Martin and also whether Mary Barra, General Motors" new chief executive, can manage the continued turn around of the American giant. The first woman at the top of a big auto maker, she's no car guy, but that might be exactly what The General requires right now. The car makers have a hard act to follow if they're to continue surfing the wave of increased sales in Britain. One of the ways they'll manage it is by increasing the number of highly competitive finance offers, and we'll keep you up to date on these as the year progresses. And customer protection? It's about time someone got a handle on it. One impartial organisation will host a central resource that rates all garages and car dealers. It's about time the industry realised the current multiple schemes simply don't work. No one said I couldn't dream... The rise of the SUV will gather further momentum. I fully support the industry and can't blame it for making cars that people want to buy, but I still can't understand the appeal of quasi off-roaders. Never mind what I think, expect to see luxury SUVs from the likes of Jaguar, Maserati, Bentley, Lamborghini, and perhaps even Rolls-Royce this year, in either production or concept car guise. Talking of Maserati, the firm celebrates its 100th year in 2014 and I'm looking forward to following its centenary events which will meld some of the most evocative cars ever made with its latest creation, the £50,000 Ghibli four-door performance saloon. Could 2014 could be the year that electric cars finally gain some traction? Certainly BMW's i3 supermini gives them the best chance yet, not because it solves the problems of plug-in motoring, but because it is genuinely desirable. And I'm not talking about how an Audi A1 is coveted by those with premium aspirations, but proper, supercar-like levels of interest. And that could well be all it takes to get a few more bums on a few more seats, and the electric revolution finally in gear. Selfless as ever, I fully intend to help address the surplus in crude oil all of this electric motoring will create by road-testing supercars and doing some more racing. It looks like 2014 could be the year of the plug-in hybrid. There are a handful on sale already, but many more will arrive during the year, including versions of the Audi A3 and VW Golf, and more exotic examples such as the BMW i8 and Porsche 918 Spyder. Of the new cars due on sale next year, I'm intrigued to see the Volvo XC90. When I attended the launch of the current car in 2002 I'm sure I didn't expect it to still be on sale 12 years later. Its replacement is a big deal, because it's the first car to use Volvo's scalable platform, and introduces a new "design language." I'm also really looking forward to the second Telegraph Festival of Motoring. We are all set to build on the success of the first event, so expect even bigger and better things this time around.