Mad About Cars

Nissan has finally caught up with the electric and hybrid revolution by creating a zero emission electric vehicle. Their rivals, Toyota and Honda have been at the forefront of the hybrid revolution and Nissan have slowly caught up and are now trying to become a significant player in the electric car market with the introduction of the Nissan Leaf. Nissan claim that they are creating the first affordable purpose- designed electric vehicle. The Nissan Leaf is due to go on sale in the UK in March 2011 and Nissan do want people to refer to it as a hybrid but they claim they have created the world’s first mainstream mass market pure electric vehicle.

At many of the motor shows around the world, many manufactures use it as an opportunity to display their concept cars. A concept car or show vehicle is a car prototype which is designed to showcase a new style or technology. Often these cars never make it outside of the showroom or the motor show but recently Honda’s concept car, the Honda FCX Clarity, has been put into production. This is a hydrogen fuel cell car, which is based on the 2006 Honda FCX Concept. The FCX Clarity car has been dubbed the car of the further, as it he demonstrates electric car qualities such as zero emissions while offering 5 minute refuelling times. The FCX Clarity is currently only available in Southern California, where “fast-fill” hydrogen stations are available, however Honda believes that it could start mass producing this vehicle by 2018.

Toyota have been in the news recently after a disastrous start to 2010 when they had to recall hundreds of thousands of cars across North America and Europe after it was discovered that there was a fault with the breaks. As a Toyota Yaris owner I was panicking but it turns out it was only the models above mind that were recall, for once buying the cheaper model worked in my favour. More recently Toyota’s luxury brand, Lexus, has issued a statement in the United States saying that it will be recalling over 138,000 models of its Lexus as apparently some foreign material may have contaminated a small number of the valve springs in these cars. Toyota have certainly had a terrible start to the year and it does not look like it is going to get any better, whether this will have an effect on their sales and the company as a whole we will have to wait and see.

The latest edition to the ever-growing Nissan SUV-crossover family is the Juke. After the overwhelming success of their first crossover vehicle, the QashQai back in 2007, they are continuing to develop their ‘urban proof’ range. The Nissan crossover range already contains the Murano, QashQai and the QashQai+2. Where the QashQai was aimed at young, urban families, the new Juke is aimed at ‘urban players’ which are basically young men and women around 25 to 35 with no children or with a small family. The Juke is also available in four-wheel and two-wheel drive versions for those urban players who like to venture outside of the city at weekends. According to the Nissan press office the new Juke will be available from £12,795 on the road.

In early July Victoria Beckham was brought in to lunch the new Ranger Rover, the Evoque, which has been dubbed the ‘baby’ Range Rover as it is far more compact than the existing models. This new style of Range Rover has been designed specifically to turn the mini-off-roader into a fashion icon for a younger generation of customers. The JaguarLandRover company is now owned by giant Indian conglomerate TATA after being bought by previous owners Ford for more than £1billion. The new mini Ranger Rover will be on sale in the UK in summer 2011 and it will be priced from £30,000 to around £45,000. The Range Rover Evoque will be the ‘greenest’ Range Rover so far produced and will be available in a four-wheel and two-wheel drive version. The new ‘green’ Range Rover will be the lightest and most fuel-efficient in the series Range Rover, with CO2 emissions of below 130g/km. The car will make its debut at the Paris Motor Show at the end of September 2010.