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Porsche Macan means 1,000 extra jobs at Porsche

The Porsche take on the Audi Q5 – the new Porsche Macan – looks set to be Porsche’s biggest selling model ever and means 1,000 new jobs at Porsche. The ‘baby’ Cayenne – the Porsche Macan – is Porsche’s take on the Audi Q5 and a model that looks set to take Porsche’s sales to levels undreamed of a decade ago (pre-Cayenne). But although the Macan is based on the Q5 – just as the Cayenne shares its underpinnings with the Q7 and Touareg – Porsche say it will still be a red-blooded Porsche – the ‘Sports’ car in its sector – when it goes on sale later in 2013, so we don’t expect to see a lethargic eco diesel under the bonnet, although a fettled 2.0 litre TDI is highly likely.

Alfa Romeo 4C in action at the Goodwood Festival of Speed (video)

The Alfa Romeo 4C made its dynamic debut (pictured) at the 2013 Goodwood Festival of Speed The long awaited Alfa Romeo 4C finally made its debut in production spec at the Geneva Motor Show in March, and at the weekend the 4C made its dynamic debut at the Goodwood Festival of Speed. To make sure the 4C made as big an impact as possible at Goodwood, we’d expected Alfa to run up the hillclimb in the launch edition 4C, which gets plenty of extra goodies including a carbon fibre body kit and spoiler, but this 4C looked to be a standard model. But even though we’d like to have seen the launch edition with its extra carbon fibre goodies, the standard car gets exactly the same 1750cc 4-cylinder petrol engine with enough get up and go, 236bhp, to move the lightweight 4C (under 900kg) to 62mph in just 4.5 seconds.

Toyota Prius plug-in hits UK

The Toyota Prius plug-in arrives in the UK The next step in the Toyota Prius story is the plug-in Prius, which adds some Lithium-Ion batteries to the mix and the ability to plug the Prius in to the mains to get a usable kick-start to your day’s motoring, with an electric only range of up to 12.5 miles – around double the range a regular Prius can manage when fully charged. Toyota announced plans to get 500 Prius Plug-in Hybrids on the roads in 2010 back in September last year to evaluate their real-world performance before the plug-in gets a proper release – probably in 2012. Toyota are leasing 20 of the Prius plug-ins to a handful of public and private businesses in London as part of their plan to develop the Prius plug-in, and reduce the company’s overall CO2 levels – something which is sadly required by legislation.