#3253 Honda Vt500 Vt 500 Shadow Seat on 2040-parts.com

Hyundai & Kia get Google Maps integration – but not in UK

Hyundai and Kia are adding Google Maps functionality to their SatNav Systems in the US, but it’s not coming to the UK any time soon. In the US, Hyundai has a clever system called Blue Link (Kia has a similar system called UVO) that offers increased functionality for stuff like the SatNav, Remote Access, Location Sharing and Enhanced Recovery. It costs a few hundred dollars a year (for the all-singing, all-dancing version), but makes your Hyundai much smarter than the average bear.

Electric car sales DOWN 20% in 2012 – time to scrap subsidies for EVs?

The SMMT are reporting that sales of electric cars in the UK have fallen by 20 per cent in the year to date (2012). Despite every green evangelist proclaiming that electric cars are the way to save the planet from imminent doom, UK car buyers obviously disagree. Despite a taxpayer bribe of £5000 to buy an over-priced electric car, car buyers have not exactly taken to the EV in droves.

Peugeot 208 Hybrid FE (2013) at Frankfurt motor show

Here’s Peugeot’s salvo in the fight to make cars more economical: the 208 Hybrid FE. The supermini concept can achieve a claimed average of 112mpg (and a maximum of 141mpg), and emits only 49g/km of CO2. Peugeot is especially keen to point out it’s a conventionally shaped supermini with five seats, unlike VW’s own super-frugal XL1, which looks decidedly sci-fi in comparison, but has a smaller boot than a Ferrari 458… The 208 FE is 25% slipperier and 20% lighter than a regular 208, but that’s only part of the reason it allegedly achieves such eye-opening numbers at the pumps.