05-13suzuki Boulevard Seat on 2040-parts.com

European Car of The Year 2012 to be announced at Geneva

The European Car of the Year 2012 will be revealed at next month's Geneva motor show, drawn from a shortlist of seven cars. In the first stage of voting judges selected their seven favorite cars from a list of 35 candidates that were put on sale in Europe in 2011, with January seeing the declaration of the seven finalists. The second stage of voting will find the European Car of the Year 2012, with the winning car announced on 5 March at the Geneva motor show.

BMW plotting a hydrogen fuel cell EV

The BMW i3 EV (pictured) will eventually be joined by a hydrogen fuel cell BMW BMW has now taken its first fully-fledged step in to the electric car market with the BMW i3, revealed in full earlier this week. The i3 is a properly competent offering from BMW and it seems likely that, despite a price pushing on £30k even after the taxpayer bribe for EVs, that they will find a ready market in their affluent customer base for the i3 as a second (or third, or fourth…) car for local runarounds. BMW has even managed to negate range anxiety by offering the option of a range-extender engine in the i3 – basically a BMW motorcycle engine to charge the battery when it runs out of juice – so BMW’s customers who may wish to use their i3 for more than just a trip the shops can do so without getting stranded.

2014 Volkswagen Polo facelift, new engines and new tech

The 2014 VW Polo (pictured) gets a raft of updates If you want a premium feeling supermini, the VW Polo is hard to beat. And with a mid-cycle facelift, new engines and new technology it’s now even more impressive for 2014. Cosmetically, the facelift is a minor one, with tweaked bumpers and grill, new optional LED headlights, a chrome strip between the fog lights, new alloys, new instruments and steering wheel and a tweaked centre console with HVAC controls.