Car Tech: Ford Focus 'Facelift' and the haunted sat-nav 
There are three certainties in this world: death, taxes and owning a Ford Focus hatchback. Britain's perennial bestseller has quietly been impressing critics since its 1998 debut, but even its staunchest supporters admit it's started to show its age. Bring on the 'Facelift'. Continue reading...
Supercharged TH!NK electric car due to hit UK 'late 2008'
Car TechThe ranks of electric cars on sale in the UK are set to swell later this year with the arrival of the sprightly TH!NK city runabout.
Joining the 'smart ed', which tops out at 60mph and 72 miles, won't be able compete with the TH!NK. Continue reading...
Top 10 cheap green cars
Car TechOne of the few good green things to come out of Alistair Darling's Budget was his shake-up of vehicle excise duty -- better known as road tax -- to penalise gas guzzling cars. The new rules mean that when you buy a new car in 2010 which emits more than 130g of CO2 per kilometre you'll get stung with a 'first year rate' charge -- ranging from a minimum of £115 for a BMW 3 Series E90 right up to £950 for a Porsche Cayman S.
Obviously the way to beat the budget is to buy a greener car, but what if you don't have £20,000 to lay down on a Lexus hybrid? Worry not -- we've hunted down ten great motors that won't maul the planet or your wallet. Continue reading...
Car Tech: Jaguar XKR Portfolio drives by itself! Fast!
Ladies, geeks, petrolheads -- we're proud to present a video of the most technologically advanced car we've ever driven. Meet the Jaguar XKR Portfolio edition. Jag might be owned by Ford, but it still builds its beautiful cars right here in the UK, in glamorous Coventry, so get ready for some world-class boasting. Continue reading...
Car Tech: Ford Focus CC-3 voice-controlled car-bot
Convertible or coupe? Coupe or convertible? That, friends, is the sort of thing that keeps us awake at night. Thankfully, however, we no longer have to choose. Ford has teamed up with Pininfarina -- the guys who help design Ferraris -- to produce a car that is both convertible and coupe. And it has loads of tech inside... Continue reading...
Car Tech: Peugeot 308 shows even diesels can rock
We've put aside all our prejudices this week. We could easily have brought you videos of the technology inside supercars, hot hatches or convertibles, but we've taken the path of the common man in delivering you a tech-oriented video of the Peugeot 308. Continue reading...
Car Tech: Peugeot 207 GTi THP 175 Octane white-hot hatch
Our love for cars is greater than any mother could give her offspring. We hold them tightly to our bosom, feed them, then drive the backside off them down the back streets of London. Hard.
One of our favourite 'whips' to date is the Peugeot 207 GTi THP 175 Octane edition. It's a hot hatchback with more high-tech gadgets than CES and more performance than is good for the state of your licence. Continue reading...
Virtual Cable: Best sat-nav concept ever?
GadgetsSatellite navigation looks set to get a whole lot sexier. A company called Making Virtual Solid has unveiled plans for Virtual Cable -- a heads-up display that projects your route directly on to the windscreen.
Instead of taking your eyes off the road to look at a separate sat-nav display, you simply use your peripheral vision to watch the 3D red line emanating from the top of your windscreen, Engadget reports. It curves left or right, up or down, reflecting your chosen route, so it's a bit like driving in a tram, but without the need to stand next to sweaty commuters. Continue reading...
Car Tech: Will the G-Wiz electric car kill you?
Remember the post-apocalyptic movie Mad Max? If we don't pull up our socks, buck up our ideas and stop messing up the planet, that's exactly what we're headed for -- no, not low-budget Mel Gibson sci-fi, environmental disaster.
Pay attention: one of the easiest ways to help Mother Earth is to ditch your petrol-guzzling, smog-bellowing harbinger of death, in exchange for a G-Wiz. It's a fully electric car, meaning you never, ever have to fill it up with petrol. Just plug it into the mains at home or at your local garage, charge it up for eight hours, then drive to your heart's content*, safe in the knowledge that you're not exacerbating Mother Nature's toxic asthma. Continue reading...
KenBuster: Auto Congestion Charge payment nonsense
GadgetsHere it is, ladies and gentlemen, the gadget to end all gadgets; the digital cre de la cre. Meet the KenBuster -- a wireless payment system that automatically pays the congestion charge whenever you enter London's CC zone in your car. Take that, Ken!
Hang on a minute. How exactly is this thing 'busting' London's controversial mayor Ken Livingstone by automatically lining his pockets? We hope nobody invents a 'CraveBuster' that automatically gives us 8 every time someone strayed on to our site. That would really show us.
The idea is good in principle, but where it falls down is the price. You pay a ridiculous 199 for infinite usage, or a 49.99 one-off charge then 8 per month on a 12-month contract. That's about the same you'd pay if you were fined three times for forgetting to pay the charge. Continue reading...
VW concept car: 1950s looks, 2050s power
Car TechA new concept car from Volkswagen may have the looks of an old 1950s Samba Bus (you know, one of those cool hippy camper vans), but under the hood is technology that's straight out of 2050. The Up! Blue is the third and latest design from the company's Up! range of concept cars.
Powering the vehicle is a high temperature fuel cell, which generates electricity from hydrogen and stores it in 12 lithium-ion batteries. These are then used to drive a hefty electric motor which can generate enough torque to drive the vehicle up to 121km/h.
Car Tech: Super-green Toyota Prius parks itself
Welcome to a brand-new video show dedicated to automotive technology! That's motors to me and you. We're aiming Car Tech at anyone who believes, like we do, that cars are the ultimate gadgets.
For our maiden voyage we've snagged one of the most advanced cars of recent times -- the Toyota Prius. It isn't particularly glamorous, but it is one of the most gadget-ridden cars we've ever driven. It has a hybrid petrol/electric propulsion system, built-in touchscreen with rear-facing camera, and it even parallel parks and steers by itself! Captain Picard would be proud. Continue reading...
Audi launches hybrid Q7 SUV
Car TechAudi is releasing two new models of its Q7 SUV next year, both of which it proudly claims are greener than previous versions. The improvements are small, though -- the new 3.0 litre diesel option only squeezes 1.3 more miles out of each gallon, and the petrol/electric hybrid may manage a 20 per cent increase in efficiency, but this only brings it up to 28.8mpg.
The hybrid will at least be able to operate electrically in built-up areas, reducing pollution and noise levels, but its size and weight mean that it will only manage 1.2 miles on the Li-ion battery. Audi proudly claims that the hybrid drive train can generate 720 kWh of energy a year from regenerative braking, based on use of 12,000 miles per year. Of course, you will also have burned up 417 gallons of petrol. Continue reading...
Mazda shows off its hydrogen-fuelled future
Car TechThe Tokyo Motor Show is currently in full swing, with manufacturers showing off everything from gas-guzzling 4x4’s to super-efficient electric vehicles. While some companies are investing heavily in electric drive trains, others believe the best bet for cleaner, greener transport still lies in internal combustion... of hydrogen.
Mazda is one such company, exhibiting its standard petrol and diesel models as well as touting this vision of a hydrogen-fuelled future. It’s far from a rough concept though; the company has been leasing a limited number of petrol/hydrogen fuelled RX-8s since 2004, and displayed its first hydrogen engine in 1991. They also have a new model currently in production, which is set to make hydrogen an even more practical alternative. Continue reading...
Can a 2.5 tonne hybrid be green? Lexus says so
Car TechLuxury cars are a green oxymoron, right? Well, Lexus is out to prove our hunch wrong by flogging its hybrid flagship LS 600h in the UK from today. Weighing in at two-and-a-half tonnes and equipped with every in-car gizmo under the sun, it hardly appears brimming with eco virtues on the surface.
Inside, though, a hybrid petrol-electric engine (similar to the Toyota Prius's) means this car comes third in the government's ranking of the greenest luxury cars. We're using 'green' in a relative sense here. With an mpg of 30.4, this car is only eco compared to the Audis, Mercs and Beamers it's up against. The CO2 emissions per kilometre are a hulking 210g -- over twice that of the cleanest motors on the market, but just low enough to dodge London's proposed £25 Congestion Charge fee for gas guzzlers.
Attack of the sat-nav driver
There I am, driving along the M25, when somebody in front of me decides to swerve across three lanes to make an exit. At first I was upset, but one peek through the back window and I could see it was somebody intently following a sat-nav. Continue reading...
How useful is the sat-nav in the Nokia N95?
I really want to love the sat-nav in the Nokia N95. It's a great idea to integrate the GPS chip and software into the phone -- anything that means I can leave one of my devices at home is a good thing as far as I am concerned. Continue reading...
When it's a good idea to ignore sat-nav
If anyone out there is making a TV programme called When Sat-Nav Goes Bad (and let's face it, if five hasn't commissioned it yet, it won't be long), this story has to be top of the list. Continue reading...
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