Right Passenger Side Replacement Headlight 03-04 Toyota Corolla - 8111002190 on 2040-parts.com

Renault Zoe EV production car at 2012 Geneva motor show

Renault had a surprise up its sleeve at the 2012 Geneva motor show – the new production version of the Zoe electric car will cost just £13,650 in the UK. That’s after the Government’s Plug-in Car grant which pays up to a quarter or £5000 of an electric car’s RRP, and makes the Zoe a more attractive proposition than other electric cars to date. Renault says the new Zoe is priced to be an equivalent to a diesel-powered supermini.

Citroën designers: Design students have 'golden opportunity'

Today's car design students "have got a fantastic opportunity in a very different world," say Citroën designers. Though the automotive industry has been suffering in many regions in the current economic climate, the next generation of car designers "have got a fantastic opportunity," says Andrew Cowell, Senior Design Manager at Citroën, in conversation with Car Design News at the Royal College of Art, London. "The industry will evolve quite a lot, and these guys (the students on the postgraduate Vehicle Design course) will come out into a very different world." "They'll start in a very interesting period", says Alexandre Malval, Citroën Design Director and himself a graduate from the RCA course.

MIT researchers rethink electric-car batteries

Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology say a new battery design for electric vehicles could be a lightweight and inexpensive alternative. The goal for the team's three-year project, launched in September 2010, is to have a functioning prototype ready to be engineered as a replacement for existing electric-car batteries. At this point in the project, the prototype uses a “semi-solid flow” to separate the two functions of a battery--storing energy and discharging it when needed--into separate physical structures.