Arias Pistons 12.5:1 Compression 82mm Bore Honda B-series on 2040-parts.com

Tata says hello with the Tata Nano Europa

The Tata Nano Europa - expected to come to Europe as a sub £5k car [ad#ad-1] Tata has had a pretty torrid time of late, what with problems in India and the decimation of the world car markets, which has badly affected sales of its recently acquired Land Rover and Jaguar marques. But as we reported last week, they have just landed a huge contract to supply Jaguars and Land Rovers to the Chinese, which will ease problems at JLR, and now they’re on a world-domination cheapest-car quest with the Nano Europa. The Nano Europa is the version of the little Tata that is going to be launched in Europe, and has just previewed at Geneva 2009.

Renault R-Space concept car (2011) at 2011 Geneva motor show

Renault will show off a glimpse of its thinking for the Scenic segment with the new R-Space concept car at the 2011 Geneva motor show. It’s a 4.3m long show car that’s designed to inject some pizzazz where today’s Scenic prefers a more sober style. The new-fangled Renault look as pioneered by incoming design chief Laurens van den Acker is present and correct: there’s a large diamond on the nose and heaps more character than the current MPV.

Volvo makes breakthrough in battery tech

Volvo has developed a new way of ‘storing’ energy for its future electric vehicles. The Swedish firm is exploring the concept of lightweight structural energy storage components made from carbonfibre, containing “nano structured batteries and super capacitors.” This technology is said to offer a lighter, more compact solution to the problem of energy storage, potentially removing the need for the heavy, bulky batteries used in current electric vehicles. On Bing: see pictures of the Volvo S80 Find out how much a used Volvo S80 costs on Auto Trader The investigation into the new technology is part of an EU-funded research project, undertaken by Volvo – the only major car manufacturer involved – and nine other organisations.