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Best Western Hotels rolling out EV charging points in the UK

We’re electric car sceptics – or at least sceptical about their ability to replace the ICE car as our principal form of personal transport – although EVs do have their place as runarounds in urban areas, where their limited range isn’t really a factor. But taking your EV off for a weekend jaunt does pose logistical problems when the average range is probably no more than 80 miles, and something worth making the effort for a weekend away is almost always going to be further away than that. But a bit of smart marketing by Best Western Hotels – a group of 270 or so independently run hotels round the UK – means EV drivers will soon be able to plot their weekend away on the basis of Best Western Hotels en route, with Best Western planning on fitting EV charging points in their car parks, with half their hotels having free charging points by September.

BMW i3 Coupe & 3 Series GT: Geneva Motor Show 2013

The new BMW offerings at Geneva are the debut of the BMW 3 Series Gran Turismo and the European debut of the BMW i3 Coupe Concept. There’s nothing at the 2013 Geneva Motor Show from BMW that will set the column inches flowing, but BMW does have a couple of debuts in Switzerland to tickle interest – the 3 Series GT and the i3 Coupe Concept. The BMW 3 Series Gran Turismo comes under the heading of ‘Why would you build that’ (although, to be fair, we thought the same about the 6 Series Gran Coupe until we reviewed it) when BMW already offers the 3 Series Touring and, if you want something bigger, the 5 Series.

Cadillac ATS and Tesla Model S make final five in Innovation By Design Award's 'Transportation' category

Cadillac's ATS and the Tesla Model S are among the five finalists bidding to win the ‘Transportation' category at this year's Innovation by Design Awards, which celebrates groundbreaking designs from the past year. Established last year by design magazine Fast Company, the awards consist of eight different categories – 2D Design, Products, Interactive Experience, Transportation, Spaces, Social Good, Concepts and Student Design – and this year saw over 1,200 submissions from all over the world, from corporations all the way down to individuals' designs. After a jury of 24 experts from all design disciplines – including J Mays, Ford's vice president of design and chief creative officer – whittled them down to just 54 designs, the Cadillac ATS and the Tesla Model S are battling for their category award against three other designs from 2013.