UK
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England: Tea, Big Ben, bowler hats and red buses. One of those things is about be be dragged, kicking and screaming, into the 21st Century. It's the famous red double-decker bus of course, much as we'd like to see today's young people going about their business in bowler hats rather than baseball caps. Thanks to Volvo, London's fleet of red buses is gaining a hybrid drivetrain to mitigate inner-city pollution levels from the traditional diesel engines. Curbs alongside bus stops in London have been blackened by the daily bus traffic ejecting soot onto the road and into the air. As with any big...
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Quiet As A... Cannonball? Nissan Leaf Enters Road TripWhile dozens of supercars will be revving up their engines ready for the start of Ireland's upcoming Cannonball Run, the ESB ecars team will be off to a much quieter start. The ESB team's 2011 Nissan Leaf is the first electric car to participate in the Cannonball Run which starts this Friday...
Antony Ingram -
Single-Malt Powered Electric Car Offers Travel Sans Hangover
You might feel a little "green around the gills" the following morning, but a night of drinking Bruichladdich whisky from the UK helps to do your bit for green transportation. Mark Reynier is managing director of the whisky distillery in Scotland, and every day drives to work in his recently...
Antony Ingram -
BMW's UK MINI E Test Ends: Drivers Happy, But...
A few months after BMW and MINI's electric car study ended in the United States, a similar scheme run in the U.K. has also come to a close, and the results are in... ...and if you've read the results of the American tests, the figures coming from the U.K. will all look very familiar. Basically, all...
Antony Ingram -
Top Gear Tests Nissan Leaf, Peugeot iOn: A Fair Assessment?
It's the episode electric car enthusiasts have been itching to see- and now the guys at BBC motoring show Top Gear have tested two electric cars to see whether they make any sense for the car buying public. Now we already know that Top Gear hasn't had the greatest history with electric cars. First...
Antony Ingram -
Delta Motorsport E4 Electric Coupe: LIVE PHOTOS From U.K. Launch
It's not every day that a brand-new electric sports coupe is launched, much less at a fabled race course. So we're delighted to bring you these live photos from Silverstone race track in the U.K., where the Delta Motorsport E4 Electric Coupe is about to take to the tarmac. The sleek electric...
John Voelcker -
Expected to be the first of many, French carmaker Renault has become the latest company to take an order for one of their upcoming electric vehicles, the Kangoo Van Z.E. The only commercial vehicle in Renault's upcoming range of electric vehicles that includes the Fluence sedan, the Zoe subcompact and the Twizy micro car, the Kangoo Z.E. will compete in the same market as the Ford Connect Electric, a first drive of which you can read here. The sector is hotly contested in Europe and many European manufacturers offer light commercial vehicles in their model ranges. Usually powered by...
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Are Public Electric Car Charging Points Needed? Not Necessarily
What comes first? The electric car or the charging point? Of course it depends on who you ask. Generally if you’re an existing electric car owner the answer is likely to be the former. If you’re a government official, prospective electric car owner or automaker the answer is likely to...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
Volkswagen Beetle Runs On Fuel Generated From Human Waste
We’ve seen fuel derived from garbage before, and even a race car that ran on chocolate, but now we have an even wilder concept: a Volkswagen Beetle running on methane gas derived from human waste. Yes, you read that correctly. The modified Volkswagen Beetle, or Bio-Bug, was developed as a...
Viknesh Vijayenthiran -
Will Jaguar Have the First Hybrid Born From Jet Turbines?
"Born From Jets" may be the slogan of recently-saved-from-death Swedish Saab, but one day it may prove more appropriate for British carmaker Jaguar. The company has been awarded funding from the U.K. government to develop a small jet turbine as a range extender for a future hybrid luxury car. Its...
John Voelcker
