Auto Meter 6374 Sport-comp Digital Nitrous Pressure Gauge on 2040-parts.com

BMW i3 EV revealed. It’s clever, but it’s not exactly pretty

The BMW i3 electric city car (pictured) has been officially revealed The BMW i3 – the first of BMW’s production ‘i’ electric cars – has finally been revealed at events in London, New York and Beijing as BMW plots its course to bring a premium electric city car to the world. Looking much like the original Mega City Concept, the i3 debuts a number of innovations from BMW – which are very clever – but it also debuts perhaps the worst looking BMW we’ve ever seen, with its incongruous lines, bulging bonnet, odd shapes on the flanks and slab-backed rear view. But what underpins the i3 is clever indeed, with a lightweight inner body made from carbon fibre and carbon fibre reinforced body panels providing the skin, all conspiring to make the i3 light – 1195kg, despite 25 per cent or so of that being batteries – and very rigid.

Lexus at the London motor show 2008

By Ben Whitworth and CAR reader reporter Carcare Motor Shows 23 July 2008 16:40 There was a performance bent on the Lexus stand, proving that Toyota's upmarket premium brand is keen to shed its image as a purveyor of steady-Eddy, high-luxury but low-on-thrills cars. What’s new on Lexus’s London motor show stand?The seen-it-before LF-A and the on-sale-now hotshoe IS-F – as well as its full line-up of hybrid models. We’re getting rather accustomed to seeing the LF-A – the Lexus supercar has been knocking around in one form or another since it was unveiled at the Detroit motor show in 2005.

Ford Mondeo [w/Gallery]

The new Ford Mondeo will make its debut at the Paris motor show in sedan, hatchback and wagon formats. The European version of the Fusion adds two new variants to the flagship the global D-segment platform. It will also be offered as a petrol Hybrid Electric Vehicle – a first for Ford in Europe.