Diverter Valve on 2040-parts.com

BMW i3 EV: More than 8,000 ordered already

The BMW i3 EV already has 8k orders BMW has invested heavily in their new ‘i’ range of electric cars – as much as £2 billion it’s estimated – with the ‘i’ cars being developed from scratch rather than based on an existing BMW model. The first BMW i to be launched is the compact city car BMW i3, revealed in production form in July, which costs from around £30k for the regular EV and an extra 10 per cent for the i3 with a range extender engine. Despite being revealed in July BMW has not yet officially put the i3 on sale, but that hasn’t stopped potential buyers lining up to palce a reservation, with more than 8,000 already signed-up for an i3.

2011 Toyota Yaris T Spirit & Yaris SR revealed

2011 Toyota Yaris gets two new models - T Spirit & SR The Toyota Yaris isn’t the coolest supermini on the block, but it does have a certain appeal and the benefit of being a proper ‘mini’ car – perfect around town. It even handles quite well, is well-built and has a surprising amount of room inside. Even with all that going for it Toyota are obviously expecting the New Year to be less than easy on car sales, so they’ve announced a couple of new models at the top of the Yaris range to tempt buyers with extra goodies for just a wee bit extra – or nothing at all.

‘Charge rage’ on the up for electric car owners

Forget ‘range anxiety’, the latest term to sweep the world of electric cars is ‘charge rage’. The new phenomenon hitting owners of zero-emission vehicles relates to the growing number of electric cars on the roads – because public charging infrastructure is failing to expand at the same rate. On Bing: see pictures of electric car charging points Find out how much a used electric car costs on Auto Trader This means owners are actually fighting over these plug-in points, with some rather unsavoury behaviour reported causing charge rage for many electric car drivers.