Perkins 4108 Rocker Cover/ Valve Cover Used on 2040-parts.com

Make like a tree and Leaf: We drive Nissan's coming electric vehicle

From behind the wheel, the production version of the Nissan Leaf electric car is smooth, silent, feels nearly friction free and offers all the prodigious torque inherent in an electric car. That's what we found after a short drive around Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles on Friday. The body you see in the photo is a Versa.

Mercedes AMG GT (almost) revealed

The Mercedes AMG GT revealed with green and black camouflage As we expected, Mercedes is drawing out the tease for the reeval of the new AMG GT – effectively a replacement for the SLS – and milking every detail for more column inches. We’ve had a full reveal of the S-Class inspired interior – a full reveal, not just a few detail shots – and we’ve also had a tease of the AMG GT on video with a few blurry glimpses of the new car dotted throughout. We’ve even had a variation on the tease them with a selection of engine noises – from idle to high revs – but now we get a real photo of the AMG GT, albeit covered in lurid green and black camouflage swirls.

Jaguar hybrid cars due in 2013-14

Jaguar will launch its own hybrid vehicles soon after Land Rover, CAR can confirm. Parent company Jaguar Land Rover is developing battery-assisted hybrid versions for both brands but its strategy puts part-electric Land Rovers first on the launchpad in 2013.Hybrid Jaguars – set to include the XJ and XF, but eventually every model – are therefore likely to be on the market by 2013-2014, using a similar eight-speed ZF hybrid transmission to petrol-electric BMWs.The staggered roll-out of battery Jags and Land Rovers makes sense: heavy 4x4s have come in the firing line from green protestors who label them Chelsea Tractors. Hybrid Land Rovers will trim emissions and – in plug-in hybrid mode – enable even big bulky Range Rovers to drive in zero-emissions mode into central urban areas emitting nothing more unsaintly than an electric whir.So which Jaguars will go hybrid first?It's likely that the largest models such as the XJ will receive the hybrid power packs first; large cars reap the greater benefit and can more easily swallow the additional cost, put at around £10,000 in today's money.JLR's Midlands engineering bases in Whitley and Gaydon now employ 100 engineers in the expanding hybrid powertrain business unit launched 18 months ago.