Volkswagen Up!

VW has released images of its next production small car, the Up! ahead of its Frankfurt debut next month. It's almost four years to the day since the first concept Up!

Algae-powered street lights eat CO2

Algae powered street lighting (great Photoshop) A French biochemist – Pierre Calleja – has developed a street lighting system using micro algae that absorbs CO2. The need to reduce CO2 in the atmosphere is contentious - to say the least – but as long as governments use CO2 as a stick to beat motorists and empty their bank accounts it’s sensible to look at ways of ‘balancing’ the CO2 emissions of cars. French biochemist Pierre Calleja thinks he’s come up with a solution that would neutralise CO2 emissions from cars by cancelling it out with his micro-algae lighting.

Dacia Logan Estate: Price from £6,995

The Dacia Logan MCV (Estate) becomes the UK’s cheapest estate car with prices from £6,995 – for the Logan MCV 1.2 Access trim – rising to £10,795. That’s £1,000 less than we’d expected when the Logan estate was revealed at Geneva last month, and cheap enough to make it the cheapest estate car on sale in the UK. True, the entry-level Logan estate in Access trim with the 1.2 litre 74bhp petrol engine, 15″ steel wheels and not a lot of toys, isn’t exactly specced up, but if you need a proper estate car – and you want it new – the Logan MCV (the MCV bit means ‘Maximum Capacity Vehicle) is a great deal.