07-10 Toyota Yaris 1.5l 4cyl Scion Xd 1.8l 1row Auto Aluminum Cooling Radiator on 2040-parts.com

Car makers to be forced to disclaim ‘Official’ economy figures

We’ve banged on for a long time about the futility of official economy figures, especially as car makers get better and better at ‘gaming’ the official economy tests to produce the results they want. Much of the impetus to create the best headline economy figure for a car is driven by taxation, with car makers well aware that the better the official economy results are, the lower their CO2 will be (CO2 isn’t tested for – it’s just extrapolated from the official mpg) and the more appealing the car will be to buyers, particularly fleet buyers. But a ruling by the Advertising Standards Agency (ASA) against Audi could at least see car makers having to admit in their adverts that the ‘official’ economy figure bears no relation to what owners can expect to achieve in the real world.

Peugeot 3008 HYbrid4 Revealed

The Peugeot 3008 HYbrid4 -launches Spring 2011 We got a glimpse of the Peugeot 3008 HYbrid4 at the Frankfurt Motor Show last year, and at the time we commented that it looked almost ready to go. And so it seems – even though almost a year has passed – with the reveal today by Peugeot of what will be the world’s first diesel hybrid when the 3008 HYbrid4 starts to hit the road in 2011. You couldn’t get a much better starting point for a hybrid than the 3008 Crossover (read our review of the Peugeot 3008 if you have any doubts).

Lamborghini Gallardo LP 550-2 Spyder at L.A.

Lamborghini Gallardo LP 550-2 Spyder arrives at LA Auto Show We’ve been expecting a drop-top version of the rear-wheel drive Gallardo – which first saw the light of day as a Balboni Limited Edition – for a while. And what better place to debut the Lamborghini Gallardo LP 550-2 Spyder than in a place where the sun always shines? So Lamborghini arrives at the L.A Motor show with a car that could have been built for California.