Green cars: latest news

A Volt to the heart: Love conquests all

Faye Sunderland — Fri, 25 May 2012 11:25:47 +0000

Chevrolet’s Volt is winning customers away from rival brands including Toyota, Honda and BMW, the GM-owned brand boasts. The carmaker’s new range-extended model, launched in a blaze of publicity, is attracting the same sort of customer who just had to have a Toyota Prius when it first launched. Tech-savvy, early adopters and well as those [...]

Car2go car club doubles membership

Faye Sunderland — Fri, 25 May 2012 10:48:46 +0000

In the last six months, the world’s fastest growing car club has doubled its customer numbers. Owned and operated by car giant, Daimler, the car2go service now operates in 12 cities through Europe and North America and now has over 100,000 registered members. In total, its fleet of 3,375 smart fortwo and 625 smart fortwo [...]

Irish hotels to welcome electric cars

Paul Lucas — Fri, 25 May 2012 06:01:00 +0000

The Irish are renowned for offering a warm welcome – and now anyone with an electric car will feel particularly at home in the country’s hotels. That’s because ESB e-cars and Failte Ireland (logo, pictured) have teamed up to start a Green Hotel Drive. Its aim is to install e-car charge points in 100 hotels [...]

Green motoring that will drive you around the bend

Paul Lucas — Fri, 25 May 2012 04:01:00 +0000

It’s well known that driving smoothly can help to reduce fuel consumption and lower emissions. However, how does this apply to driving around bends? Simon Elstow, the head of training for IAM Drive & Survive, has issued a number of motoring tips aimed at enhancing the way we drive around bends – and even though [...]

Barcelona to start Nissan electric vehicle production

Paul Lucas — Fri, 25 May 2012 01:01:00 +0000

The Nissan e-NV200 (pictured) will go into production in Barcelona, according to media sources. Starting in 2013, Barcelona will be the sole producer of the electric vehicle which is based on the existing NV200 – a vehicle that is currently produced at the plant. It will be Nissan’s second all-electric vehicle, following on from the [...]

BMW announces China expansion plans

Paul Lucas — Thu, 24 May 2012 23:01:00 +0000

The largest car market in the world is about to get even bigger – as BMW announces its plans to expand its operations in China. Alongside its joint venture partner Brilliance China Automotive Holdings, BMW has now opened a second plant in Shenyang – increasing its capacity in the country to 200,000 vehicles. It has [...]

Electric vehicle company is Saab suitor

Faye Sunderland — Thu, 24 May 2012 13:16:34 +0000

A new company called National Electric Vehicle Sweden is in line to buy the bankrupt carmaker Saab, according to Autocar today. Following the news that Chinese car firm Youngman has pulled out of an attempt to buy the Swedish car brand, it has emerged that a new electric car consortium, believed to involve the former [...]

Green transport schemes share £113 million fund

Faye Sunderland — Thu, 24 May 2012 10:06:29 +0000

Thirty new carbon-cutting local transport schemes are given the green light today as they each take a share of £113 million fund. The funding, supplied through the Local Sustainable Transport Fund, is shared between eight regions of the UK. Projects to benefit from the funding including the Smarter Travel Slough scheme which will reduce congestion [...]

Mazda wins awards for SKYACTIV technologies

Faye Sunderland — Thu, 24 May 2012 09:24:44 +0000

Mazda’s engineers have been honoured with two awards in recognition for their work developing cleaner and more efficient combustion engines. The carmaker’s engineering teams were honoured with two two Technological Development Awards at the 62nd Society of Automotive Engineers of Japan (JSAE) awards ceremony in the Yokohama Convention Centre. One group of Mazda researchers was [...]

EcoVelocity enjoys huge surge in visitor numbers

Paul Lucas — Thu, 24 May 2012 06:01:00 +0000

It appears motoring enthusiasts in the UK are more eco-conscious than ever before – as they proved by turning out in huge numbers for the annual EcoVelocity event (pictured). EcoVelocity revealed record visitor numbers of 57,909 for the nine-day event – that’s a seven-fold increase compared to its 2011 launch. The ground breaking eco car [...]