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Skoda Yeti, Octavia and Superb Tour de France Special Editions launched

The Skoda Yeti Tour de France (pictured) – just one of three Skoda TdF Specials It’s always nice to have a hook to a limited edition car, and Skoda are hanging their latest limited editions of the Yeti, Octavia and Superb on the Tour de France. The 2014 Tour de France will see its first three stages run in the UK, so Skoda are doing a ‘cycling enthusiast’ version of the Yeti, Superb and Octavia with some ‘le Tour de France’ badges, waterproof covers for the seats and bike wheel bags as well as throwing in a centenary edition of the Rouleur Tour de France book and a chance to win a VIP Tour de France experience. Just 198 examples of each car will be built – that’s the number of entries for this year’s Tour de France – and you can only have one in Red, White or Blue.

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.

Volvo V60 Plug-in Hybrid: Production underway

The world’s first production plug-in diesel hybrid – the Volvo V60 Plug-in Hybrid – has gone in to production ahead of customer deliveries. Volvo are producing just 1,000 2013 V60 plug-ins, but are aiming to up production to between 4-6,000 a year from the 2014 model year and, despite the problems of integrating the V60′s complicated electric stuff in to a production car, the V60 plug-in is rolling down the same production line as the regular V60, V70, S80 and XC90. That complicated stuff includes two different powertrains and a battery pack – enough for up to 32 miles as an EV only – and a total of 300 additional parts compared to a regular ICE V60.