News

The average new car sold in Europe last year was 4% more fuel efficient, emitted 4% less CO2 and was 2.5% cheaper in real terms than 12 months earlier. A report by the Brussels-based lobby group, T&E, reveals that CO2 emissions from the average new car sold in Europe last year dropped to 140g CO2/km. T&E argues that like-for-like retail...

When car radios first went on sale 80 years ago they cost the equivalent of £1000, but such was their success at distracting from the incessant noise of a long motorway journey or tiresome passenger that they soon became a standard item. But while many cyclists now use an iPod, if you want the cycling equivalent of a car stereo your choice...

RAW Bamboo Bikes have launched their first British-built bamboo mountain bike. Designed by Oxford Brookes University, the frame is assembled using natural materials wherever possible, including flax fibre composite lugs. Bamboo has a higher tensile strength than steel and its flexibility offers a vibration-absorbent quality particularly...

A see-through and flexible solar panel unveiled this week by 3M could allow motorists to generate power by applying it to their car windscreens and windows. Although the solar film generates only one fifth of the electricity produced by a conventional silicon solar panel, when applied to the windows of a family car it will produce enough...

Not content with running the world’s largest bicycle sharing scheme of its kind in the world, Paris has begun trials of an ambitious electric car club. The Autolib trial comprises a fleet of 66 Bolloré-built Bluecar four-seater electric vehicles spread across the city at 33 depots from which they can be collected, parked and charged. The...

The much anticipated electric motor-assisted eBrompton, which has been in development for over five years and is due to go into production ion 2013, is a major undertaking for a company so fiercely protective of its brand. The electric bike market is growing and accounted for over 30 million sales last year, but Brompton has become an...

Brompton’s managing director, William Butler-Adams, has said that many are too quick to write off UK manufacturing as dead and buried and if you look a little closer you’ll find a lot of small, entrepreneurial companies that are exciting, innovative and prosperous. Testament to this was there for me to see during my visit to the Brompton...

Hundreds of cities in up to 40 countries are today expected to take part in World Car Free Day 2011, an event first organised in Britain by the Environmental Transport Association (ETA). World Car Free Day, or ‘In town without my car day’ as it is referred to in Britain, takes place every year on 22nd September. How can I get involved? Car...

The cusp of autumn is a particularly pleasing time of year for the everyday cyclist, tempered only by the dark and wet commutes ahead. I love the imaginative bicycle wheel lights we’ve reported on over the last few weeks, but they are all the wrong side of £100. Inspired by the films below I’ve bought a handful of glow sticks to cable tie...

Relatively few electric bicycles are bought in Britain, but last year over 30 million battery-boosted bikes sold around the world and Ford this week became the latest car manufacturer to unveil its own design. Ford has no plans to sell its E-Bike, which looks every inch the elegantly-styled concept bike, but it does grace the company’s...