Toyota Auris Hybrid – details

The Toyota Auris Hybrid, which will debut at Frankfurt The Auris Hybrid will be the first Toyota Hybrid to be built in Europe – at Toyota’s UK plant. Scheduled to go on sale in the second half of 2010, the Auris hybrid utilises the same powertrain as the third-gen Prius, namely a 1.8 litre, 97bhp petrol engine with a bank of nickel-metal hydride batteries and an electric motor. This will give the Auris Hybrid a 0-60 mph time of around 10 seconds and emissions below the critical 100g/km (not 99g/km, by any chance?).

Hyundai/Kia – the Hydrogen push.

Hyundai and Kia are making huge strides in to the mainstream car buyer’s conscientiousness. They’ve managed – in just a short time – to move from being an almost laughably cheap option for buyers with no money and even less taste to cars that offer serious and credible alternatives the best from Europe and Japan. So we now think of Hyundai and Kia as a formidable threat to established car makers, but not exactly innovators and pioneers.

2012 Kia Soul Facelift arrives in the UK

2012 Kia Soul Facelift arrives in the UK Earlier this year, at the New York Motor Show, we reported on what we called the 2011 Facelift for the Kia Soul. But as it’s now October, and the titivated Soul is only just arriving in the UK, we really ought to rename the latest Kia Soul the 2012 Facelift. But whatever year we append to the facelifted Soul, it’s still good to see Kia’s funky little Marmite car get some decent tweaks to move it forward.