Volkswagen Jetta Right Rear Door, Sdn, Electric, 2006 on 2040-parts.com

M25 Driver Clocked Doing 149MPH

THE IAM has, with the aid of the Freedom of Information Act, done some digging to find out the scale of speeding in the UK. During the course of its research, it found that the top offender was a motorist clocked at 149mph on the M25. The offence, near Swanley in Kent, was captured by a speed camera and was the highest recorded speed during the period April 2013 to May 2014.

2013 Nissan LEAF updated

Nissan has updated the LEAF EV in Japan for 2013 with better range, less weight and a new LEAF S entry-level model. Revealed in Japan – but likely to come to the UK from 2013 when the LEAF starts rolling out of Nissan’s Sunderland factory – there are significant upgrades to the powertrain which result in both less weight and better range. Nissan has had a play with the electric powertrain and made it both smaller and lighter with a new motor that uses 40 per cent less dysprosium (a rare earth metal) than before, and comes in 30 per cent smaller and 10 per cent lighter, and a new streamline battery case and a few other tweaks drops the LEAF’s weight by 80kg.

Alfa Romeo 4C Spider revealed: Geneva Motor Show

The Alfa Romeo 4C Spider (pictured) revealed in Geneva The Alfa Romeo 4C is the epitome of a modern ‘supercar’, with ultra light weight (for a production car) allowing the 4C to produce very good performance from its modest 17500cc engine. So producing an Spider convertible immediately raises the weight issue in a more dramatic way when the car’s abilities are so dependent on it low weight, but it seems the Alfa Romeo 4C Spider – previewed as a production car with a concept at Geneva today – has managed to keep the wight penalties of the convertible 4C down to a minimum. Thanks to a canvas roof and carbon fibre rollover bars, the weight penalty for the Spider is only about 60kg (around a 7 per cent gain) which shouldn’t hurt performance too much.