Electric car range drops by nearly 60% in cold weather

Electric cars like the Nissan LEAF (pictured) can lose 60% of their range when it’s cold We already know that the range of electric cars reduces as the car ages, with Nissan conforming that the LEAF’s range will drop by up to 28 per cent over five years. And now we have confirmation that the ambient temperature can have a big impact on range too, thanks to the AAA, America’s equivalent of the AA. The AAA took three standard EVs on sale in the US - Nissan LEAF, Ford Focus EV and Mitsubishi i-MiEV – and subjected them to test in different ambient temperatures.

Euro NCAP finds quadricycles had “severe safety problems”

Euro NCAP has branched out from cars and crash tested a small selection of “heavy quadricycles”  – small, four-wheeled vehicles that were originally developed from motorcycles that are sometimes also known as microcars, and don’t come under the usual car regulations. Although legal for use on the road, these machines do not need to achieve the same rigorous crash test safety standards as ordinary cars. But they are increasingly seen as a fuel-efficient urban transportation alternative, and some of them can be driven teenagers as young as 16.

One Lap of the Web: 1956 Jaguar XK-140, CNG and bad-driver fines

We spend a lot of time on the Internet -- pretty much whenever we're not driving, writing about or working on cars. Since there's more out there than we'd ever be able to cover, here's our daily digest of car stuff on the Web you may not otherwise have heard about. -- A 1918 Sinclair gas station in New Orleans has been transformed into a 2000-square-foot vacation rental.