News

An electric car powered by 8,320 laptop batteries this week drove 1000km on a single charge. The Japan Electric Vehicle Club took a stock Daihatsu Mira and replaced its petrol engine with an electric motor powered by Sanyo lithium-ion batteries of the kind normally found in laptop computers. The record-breaking drive took almost 28 hours at...

One day in and my surviving without a car has been quite lightweight – I didn’t set my alarm early enough, and luckily sweet talked a friend into giving me a lift to work. I had a meeting in London, which would usually involve driving to the station from the office and then getting the train to. I got a lift to the station and did my...

A team of French students has built a single-seat diesel-powered car with CO2 emmisions of 0.88g/km – less than one per cent of that produced the most recent Toyota Prius hybrid (89g/km). The car competed in the Shell Eco marathon in Germany earlier this month and achieved an impressive 8,372mpg – the equivalent of driving from London to...

The Meguru electric trike is a low-speed urban runabout built from lacquered recycled iron, bamboo and washi paper – a car that you can throw on the compost heap when it reaches the end of its life. The Meguru is a new breed of electric vehicle intended for use in Japanese towns. It is barely heavier than a cycle rickshaw and has a range of...

A team of French students have built a single-seat diesel-powered car that can achieve 8,372mpg – the equivalent of driving from London to Rome for one litre of fuel that cost around £1.20. The car has CO2 emissions of 0.88g/km – less than one tenth of the most recent Toyota Prius hybrid (89g/km). The most impressive fuel efficiency...

My name is Lynzi and I am a self-confessed ‘car junkie’, I seem to spend my life in my car. I live in Guilford, Surrey and I drive to and from work which is Weybridge, Surrey (15 miles). I’m often out seeing clients or suppliers in the daytime and then most evenings use my car to visit friends or go to events. I am about to embark on a...

In stark contrast with the pro-electric vehicle stance adopted by Nissan, and Toyota’s announcement yesterday that it plans to invest in Tesla, head of research and development at Honda, Tomohiko Kawanabe, this week told Bloomberg news: “We are definitely conducting research on electric cars, but I can’t say I can wholeheartedly recommend...

Toyota, a company that favours hybrid technology such as that used in its Prius over electric vehicles, is to buy a £35m ($50m) stake in California electric-sports car maker Tesla. The decision comes months before Nissan is due to start selling the 100 per cent electric Leaf car in America. As car makers in America are jostling to produce...

Digital signs that scan cycle paths and display a tally of passing cyclists have been installed by Brighton & Hove City Council. The counter displays also keep track of how many cyclists have passed by since the beginning of the year. Brighton will use the data to monitor cycling levels and hopes the counters will more people to take to...

The Nissan Leaf, the world’s first mass-market electric car, will offer significant environmental advantages over conventional vehicles, but is to cost £28,350 when it goes on sale in Britain early next year – £10,000 more than a similarly-sized clean diesel such as the VW Golf Bluemotion. If the government honours its commitment to offer...