Category Archives: News, Reviews and Comment

Mercedes S-Class Plug-In Hybrid on sale now

Electric Cars, Mercedes, News, Reviews and Comment, S 500 Plug-In Hybrid
Mercedes S-Class Plug-In Hybrid (Image: Car Buyer)
Mercedes S-Class Plug-In Hybrid (Image: Car Buyer)Sparky: Under the bonnet, there’s a 113hp electric motor with a top speed of 87mph and a single-speed automatic gearbox (Image: LES)

The new Mercedes S 500 Plug-In Hybrid will do 101mpg and emit just 65g/km of CO2

The super-economical Mercedes S 500 Plug-In Hybrid will cost from £87,965, be exempt from road tax, and return up to 101mpg. That makes it the most economical Mercedes S-Class ever, despite being able to do 0-62mph in 5.2 seconds and hit a top speed of 155mph. It’s the third hybrid model in the S-Class line-up, joining the S 300 BlueTEC diesel hybrid and S 400 petrol hybrid versions. The S 500, however, is the first plug-in version – giving it an electric-only range of more than 20 miles.

The S 500 Plug-In Hybrid is not to be confused with the standard S 500 petrol version. That model will only manage 31.7mpg, while emissions of 207g/km mean it’ll cost £285 per year to tax. The Plug-In version will do 100.9mpg and emit just 65g/km of CO2 – the latter surely making it very popular in London, where it will escape the daily Congestion Charge. Mercedes has tuned the S 500 to read the road ahead and minimise energy loss. That means the Hybrid can store power on motorways and open roads, ahead of urban areas where it can then run on electric power alone.

The S 500 Plug-In uses a 328bhp petrol engine mated to an 114bhp electric motor, for impressive performance and acceleration. The 0-62mph time of 5.2 seconds makes it faster than a Porsche Cayman, and only 0.4 seconds slower than a Porsche 911. Based on the long wheelbase Mercedes S 500 AMG Line, the S 500 Hybrid gets 19-inch alloy wheels, a sporty AMG body kit and noise-insulating glass. Leather seats, sat-nav and LED lighting are also standard. Like all S-Class models, the S 500 Hybrid is available with imitation hot stone massage seats, as well as heating and ventilation systems in the front and rear. Magic Body Control, which uses a camera to read the road and prep the suspension for a soft ride, is also available as an option.

The S 500 Hybrid can be charged using a standard three-pin plug, but a typical top-up at a public power point will take around two hours. Of course, like all other plug-in models, when the batteries run dry, the Mercedes will seamlessly switch to petrol power to allow owners to continue their journey stress-free. It’s on sale now priced from £87,965, with first deliveries from November.

Source: Car Buyer

Outlander PHEV wins towcar award

Electric Cars, Mitsubishi, News, Reviews and Comment, Outlander PHEV
The Outlander PHEV won the judges' Innovation Award (Image: NGC)
The Outlander PHEV won the judges’ Innovation Award (Image: NGC)

The Caravan Club, formed in 1907 and now representing over 375,000 members, has honoured Mitsubishi Motors with its ‘Award for Innovation’ for the Outlander Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicle (PHEV). The award was made at The Caravan Club’s Towcar of the Year presentation at the Royal Automobile Club, London.

The Outlander PHEV is a full-sized family 4×4 SUV. It uses both electric and petrol power to propel itself. Unlike many other traditional hybrid vehicles, the Outlander PHEV can travel 32.5 miles without using any petrol. It emits just 44g/km of CO2 and the official combined fuel consumption figure is 148mpg.

Stewart Mckee, Mitsubishi Motor’s General Manager for Press, Public Affairs and Events received the award from Nick Lomas, Director General of the Caravan Club. Stewart said:

‘We are very grateful to the Caravan Club for recognising the plug-in Outlander with its special award for innovation.’

The annual Towcar of the Year Competition tells members which is the best towcar to buy in 2015. The judging is carried out by caravan journalists, national motoring journalists and Caravan Club members at Millbrook Proving Ground in Bedfordshire and attracted 39 entries this year.

Vehicles are evaluated using the same criteria; acceleration, braking, reversing, ergonomics, hill-starting, visibility, traction and the suitability of the gear box.

Source: Next Green Car

Mitsubishi Outlander Plug-in Scoops BusinessCar Green Award

Electric Cars, Mitsubishi, News, Reviews and Comment, Outlander PHEV
Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV
Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV

CIRENCESTER – Mitsubishi Motors in the UK is celebrating the news that the all-new Outlander Plug-in electric 4 x 4 is to receive the ‘Green Award’ at this year’s BusinessCar magazine’s Techie Awards.

Lance Bradley, Managing Director of Mitsubishi in the Motors UK, said:

“We are delighted that the Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV has won the ‘Green Award’ at the BusinessCar Techie’s. The Outlander PHEV is an exciting new vehicle, at the forefront of a new era in fleet and company car use.”

The BusinessCar Techie’s are the industry’s only technology-specific awards which celebrate clever use of technology that makes company car and fleet operation easier, cheaper, cleaner, safer and more straightforward. Now in the sixth year, the Techies are judged by BusinessCar’s expert and experienced editorial panel, covering all the major sectors of the corporate marketplace.

Paul Barker, Group Editor said:

“The Outlander PHEV is, as Mitsubishi claims, genuinely a game-changer in terms of opening up ultra-low emission vehicles to a wider audience, thanks to the car’s practicality and post-grant pricing against an equivalent diesel. Plug-in technology is going to form part of fleet mobility in the near future, and Mitsubishi is showing that, with the right deployment, it can make great financial sense as well as helping enforce a firm’s green credentials.”

Read more: Mitsubishi Media

Formula E Support Cars Get Equipped With Wireless Charging

BMW, Charging, Electric Cars, Formula E, i3, i8, News, Reviews and Comment, Wireless Charging
Qualcomm Formula E Wireless Charging: BMW i3, Spark-Renault SRT_01E, BMW i8
Qualcomm Formula E Wireless Charging: BMW i3, Spark-Renault SRT_01E, BMW i8

Formula E Gets Wirelessly Charged Up

Four plug-in BMWs will be support vehicles (safety, medical, etc.) for the all-electric Formula E racing series. These 4 vehicles have now been fitted (or will be soon) with Qualcomm Halo wireless charging technology.

Per Formula E:

All four BMWs have been specifically modified to meet FIA requirements, with one of the BMW i3 models featuring an inductive charging system from Qualcomm Incorporated, with the remaining three vehicles set to be adapted at a later stage. The technology has been developed by San Diego-based Qualcomm Incorporated, one of the official Founding and Technology Partners of the series and a global leader in 3G, 4G and next-generation wireless technologies. The Qualcomm Halo™ technology uses resonant magnetic induction to transfer energy between a ground-based pad and a charging pad fitted to the underside of the vehicle. The cars can then simply park over the base pad for charging to start automatically.

Read more: Inside EVs

New B-Class to get Leaf-rivalling all-electric powertrain

B-Class, Electric Cars, Mercedes, News, Reviews and Comment
Mercedes-Benz B-Class Electric (Image: Green Car Website)
Mercedes-Benz B-Class Electric (Image: Green Car Website)

Mercedes-Benz is promising improved fuel efficiency and an all-electric powertrain from the facelifted B-Class when it hits UK roads in November.

With 124 miles of range, the B-Class will match the Nissan Leaf in terms of thirst for charge, but it will offer extra badge prestige, a little more practicality and increased performance. It will be the fastest B-Class in the range, with 180bhp powering the car to 62mph in just 7.9 seconds – more than 3.5 seconds faster than a Leaf.

It’s not just the electric model which has allowed Mercedes to clean up its act, with fuel consumption and CO2 emissions improving across the five-engine range, despite performance staying more or less the same.

Ola Källenius, a member of the Mercedes-Benz’s divisional board responsible for marketing and sales, said: “As the first member of a completely new generation of compact class, for us the B-Class paved the way for great success in this vehicle segment. The pioneer is now in better shape than ever.”

Source: Green Car Website

Volkswagen Golf GTE (Image: T. Larkum)

Car review- GTE is an electric dream

Electric Cars, Golf GTE, News, Reviews and Comment, Volkswagen

Creating a hot hatch used to be simple. Shoehorn the most powerful engine you can find into a small hatchback. Add some stiffer suspension, garnish with bigger brakes, flavour with large alloys and finally sprinkle with ‘GTI’ badges. This tried-and-tested formula has worked ever since the Golf GTI first appeared back in 1976.

Volkswagen Golf GTE (Image: T. Larkum)
Volkswagen Golf GTE (Image: T. Larkum)

However, Volkswagen didn’t stop there. Over the years the German firm has constantly pushed the boundaries of what a hot hatch is. From a turbo-diesel to four-wheel drive, fast V6 engines and even a small petrol with both a turbo and a supercharger, there has been no end to their hot-hatch tweaking. But nothing yet, has been as ambitious as this new Golf GTE plug-in hybrid.

Looking like a pumped-up GTI, the plug-in hybrid Golf doesn’t look all that different in the metal, but make no mistake this car is out to rewrite the hot hatch rulebook. Under the VW’s skin is the same hybrid powerplant as the Audi A3 e-tron that we tested on these pages back in July. That means it packs the same 150bhp 1.4-litre turbo petrol as well as a 75kw electric motor that pumps the overall output up to an impressive 204bhp.

That’s enough to give it a brisk 0 to 60mph time of just 7.6 seconds and onto a 137mph top speed while returning an 188mpg average fuel economy and just 35g/km emissions. Anyone lucky enough to run one as a company car will face an ultra-low 5 per cent Benefit-in-Kind tax bill – the kind of level that even company car drivers of conventional frugal cars can only dream of. Perhaps the most impressive aspects of this high-tech hybrid are its 31-mile electric-only range and the fact it takes just three and a half hours to charge from flat using a domestic plug socket. It can also travel at up to 81mph in electric mode alone.

All that means you could commute in the GTE without using a single drop of petrol all week, says Volkswagen. Which is why engineers had to use a petrol engine that could go for weeks without turning over. But if you do need to venture out of town at the weekend, the petrol engine will kick in and extend your range to a very reasonable 580 miles. So far, so revolutionary.

But what’s it actually like behind the wheel? Unsurprisingly, it feels like a Golf. Aside from an extra gauge where you’d normally find the rev counter (that shrinks and sits below it), the fit, finish and layout is just like the regular hatch. The only drawback we could find is that the battery cells have shrunk the boot capacity by almost a third and the rear seats no longer fold completely flat – but if you can live with that, you’re in for a treat once you’re on the move.

Read more: Sunday Express

Road test: Volkswagen e-Golf

e-Golf, Electric Cars, News, Reviews and Comment, Volkswagen
Sparky: Under the bonnet, there’s a 113hp electric motor with a top speed of 87mph and a single-speed automatic gearbox (Image: LES)
Sparky: Under the bonnet, there’s a 113hp electric motor with a top speed of 87mph and a single-speed automatic gearbox (Image: LES)

At first glance, VW’s latest model looks like an ordinary Golf. Then you notice C-shaped LED front lights, aerodynamic alloy wheels and the lack of a tailpipe, which add up to the all-electric e-Golf.

Under the bonnet, there’s a 113hp electric motor with a top speed of 87mph and a single-speed automatic gearbox, plus some clever tweaks to increase the range to a claimed 118 miles. To drive, it feels like an almost silent version of a conventional Golf, with a sprightly pick-up which accelerates the car to 62mph in 10.4 seconds (much the same as in a 1.6-litre Golf BlueMotion turbodiesel), although using Eco and Eco+ modes will restrict the power and throttle response to increase the range.

You can further extend the mileage by using five different states of brake regeneration, which means you can drive most of the time using just the throttle.

A standard full charge for the lithium ion battery takes 13 hours, but you can fast-charge it to 80 per cent in 35 minutes.

Volkswagen e-Golf
Top speed: 87mph
Emissions: 0g/km
Economy: 12.7kWh/100km
Price: £25,845, including government grant

Source: London Evening Standard

Electric Highway use quadruples in nine months

BMW, Charging, Ecotricity, Electric Cars, News, Reviews and Comment, Volkswagen
Nissan Leaf: The Electric Highway covers 90% of the UK's motorway services (Image: Ecotricity)
Nissan Leaf: The Electric Highway covers 90% of the UK’s motorway services (Image: Ecotricity)

The Electric Highway rapid charging network has had almost a four-fold rise in the number of vehicles plugging in over the last nine months, according to green utility company Ecotricity, which is responsible for running it.

A total of 4,080 cars used the network in the last quarter of 2013, more than doubling to 8,891 in the first quarter of this year, and 15,152 in the second quarter – a 271% rise, as plug-in car registrations in the UK continue to climb.

The network, which now spans 90% of all UK motorway service stations and includes 170 charging points, has so far provided 250,000 kWh of 100% renewably sourced electricity, or over a million miles of electric driving, for free.

By the end of the year, Ecotricity expects to have rapid chargers at all service stations in the UK, giving an 80% charge in under half an hour, with many sites gaining a second unit with the new Combined Charging System connector, compatible with BMW and Volkswagen’s electric vehicles.

As a result, the company estimates that it will have reached two million miles of free electric driving to its membership base, which is gaining 800 registrations each month.

Dale Vince, founder of Ecotricity and the Electric Highway, said: ‘Fast chargers are a massive turning point for electric cars in Britain, knowing you can recharge a car in 20 minutes, or about the time it takes to have a cup of coffee, and travel the length and breadth of Britain if you want to – is a massive boost.’

Source: EV Fleet World

Plugged in to our new quick-and-quirky BMW i3

BMW, Electric Cars, i3, News, Reviews and Comment
quick-and-quirky BMW i3 electric car (Image: Consumer Reports)
quick-and-quirky BMW i3 electric car (Image: Consumer Reports)

Futuristic, extended-range car reveals a whole different side to the German automaker

After a nine-month wait, we’ve just taken delivery of the futuristic-looking BMW i3, a tall, rear-drive, electric-powered hatchback. This is a quick-and-quirky little car with a driving experience quite unlike anything else, for better and worse.

While the base car is a pure EV, the i3 is also available with a range-extending gasoline engine meant to eliminate range anxiety. As with the Chevrolet Volt, the gas engine is only used to generate electricity. The engine only kicks in when the 22-kWh lithium-ion battery is near depletion.

The electric drive produces 170 hp and the REX adds a 34-hp, 650cc two-cylinder motorcycle engine. We opted for the REX in midtrim Giga World version. The EPA rates the electric range at 72 miles, and it estimates that the gas engine will supply another 78, for a combined 150-mile range. The starting price for the gas-assisted car is $45,200, but with options such as heated seats and navigation, our car came in at $50,450. Thankfully, it qualifies for a $7,500 federal tax credit.

The i3’s novel lightweight architecture uses carbon-fiber body structure and roof, plastic body panels, and earth-friendly plastics in the cabin. The leather bits are even “tanned” with olive tree extracts.

We took a brief stint behind the wheel of an i3 in Los Angeles in November but now we’re experiencing it on our home turf, in anticipation of a full test once the break-in miles are complete.

Read more: Consumer Reports