Voltec "y" Adapter, 30a-20a, 2ft, Locking 04-00204 on 2040-parts.com

London Congestion Charge: Buy 76-100g/km car NOW to get 3 years free of charge

Whether you think the London Congestion Charging Zone is a great way to clean up the air quality of the capital or just another way to tax motorists, you’re going to struggle even more to avoid it after the emission exemption levels are changed on 1st July so only cars emitting 75g/km CO2 or less will be exempt from the charge, Boris says the new lower level is necessary because car makers have worked their socks off to produce small diesel cars with the ability to hit the magic sub 100g/km emissions level in recent years, and that means London is suffering from air pollution as a result. The only answer, apparently, is to drop the limit to 75g/km or less to make those ‘dirty’ diesels pay their way. By reducing the limit to 75g/km you are effectively only allowing EVs and Plug-ins an exemption from congestion charging, thereby moving their emissions off to wherever the electricity they use is produced.

Now the Germans say no to Volvo

As we’ve reported in the last few weeks, Ford has been trying its best to offload Volvo, the last of its ‘Prestige’ Euro marques. The Chinese looked to be the best bet, but it seems that that is going nowhere at the moment (the Chinese are probably waiting for Ford to get in to an even deeper mess with the hope of picking up Volvo for peanuts) and now its seems that Ford’s fire-sale has drawn more blanks. Now the Germans turn down the chance to own Volvo Der Spiegel reports that Daimler (Mercedes-Benz) boss Dieter Zetsche has revealed that Daimler has turned down the chance to buy Volvo, and has also revealed that BMW has had a good look, and reached the same decision.

News watch Feb 2010: today's auto industry news

Tuesday 2 February 2010• Spyker has outlined its plans for Saab, which include a new 'all Saab' 9-3 to be launched in 2012. Read the full story here (Saab)• EuroNCAP has named the VW Golf as 'Safest Car of 2009' after ranking all the 33 models it crashed last year (Volkswagen) • Toyota's massive recall to fix fault accelerator pedals could cost the company £1.25bn in lost output and sales (BBC)• Ford will unveil an Edge SUV at next week's Chicago auto show with a turbocharged four-cylinder Ecoboost engine, but the extensive visual mid-life facelift has been made economically possible thanks to Ford's worldwide consolidation of its model ranges (Detroit News) • Toyota has denied that it ignored warnings and acted slowly over reports of unintended acceleration in its vehicles (Detroit News) Monday 1 February 2010• Lotus's vehicle engineering director Roger Becker announced his retirement today. Becker, 64, joined Lotus in 1966, worked alongside Colin Chapman and helped develop every single model since (Group Lotus)• Tata Motors' total sales last month hit 65,478 vehicles – a rise of 77% over January 2009.