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Electric cars amped up with £500 million boost

THE GOVERNMENT is to extend the £5,000 grant scheme open to anyone who buys a car with plug-in electric power. It is part of a £500 million move to encourage car owners – and city authorities – to take up the electric car baton and run with it. The initiative will give cities a chance to win government funding to further the sales of electric cars in their areas, for example by allowing them to use bus lanes or park for free.

Industry pulse: NHTSA administrator David Strickland talks distracted driving

Editor's note: In an exclusive interview with National Highway Traffic Safety Administration administrator David Strickland, Melanie Batenchuk of Be Car Chic asked about distracted driving and the agency's combined efforts with the Department of Transportation to curb this bad behavior. David Strickland has been championing safer, distraction-free driving since the beginning of his tenure at NHTSA in January 2010. Strickland has been working tirelessly toward this goal alongside stakeholders such as Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, private-sector executives, automobile manufacturers and safety advocacy groups.

Mazda RX-8 – Just a few left

The Mazda RX-8 - fewer than 100 RHD cars left In an email that looked suspiciously like a warning from QVC that their latest pitched offering really is being gobbled up quickly, and you’ll have to pick up the phone NOW to secure their latest life-changing bit of tat, Mazda inform us that stocks of the Mazda RX-8 are down to the last knockings. We reported a bit back that the RX-8 was to make its way to the great scrapyard in the sky, another victim of the increasingly strict Euro emissions regulations - Euro 5 coming in to play in January 2011. So although the RX-8 will continue for now in some parts of the world,  production in Hiroshima has ended for the UK and Europe.