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‘Hidden’ damage on hire cars costing drivers

MORE THAN one in three hire car users have found unreported damage on hired vehicles upon collection, according to new data. A survey conducted by YouGov found that 37% of business travellers found damage to their hired vehicle which was not marked down on the documentation when they collected the car. This could lead to the user being charged for the damage and liable to lose any insurance excess amount – which could be as much as £2,000.

Volkswagen Golf Estate Bluemotion stars at the 2013 Frankfurt Motor Show

2013 is the year of the Golf – and at this year’s 2013 Frankfurt Motor Show, there’s even more for Volkswagen to shout about with its super-frugal Golf Estate Bluemotion. The current MK7 VW Golf is the 2013 World Car of the Year, and in 2013 Volkswagen has already released the brilliant Golf GTI, practical Golf Estate and ultra-efficient Golf Bluemotion. And alongside the hot Golf R also here at Frankfurt 2013 is this, the Golf Estate Bluemotion.

Porsche 911 GT3 R Hybrid (2011) first official pictures

Porsche has released details of its updated 911 GT3 R Hybrid – the 2010 original nearly won last year's Nurburgring 24hr race before (ironically) it retired with petrol engine failure.  The 2011 Porsche 911 GT3 R Hybrid – the lowdown Before this report disappears in a chorus of ‘it looks the same as last year’s one’, let's outline where Porsche’s engineers have been busy. At the unfashionable end of the car remains a 4.0-litre flat-six engine producing approximately 470bhp. Up front are twin electric motors, now producing 75kW of power each (up from 60kW) and combined these give the GT3 R Hybrid a 197bhp electric boost, which can be programmed to activate automatically via the throttle pedal, or manually selected during overtaking. F1-derived hybrid tech for the 911 GT3 R Hybrid Power for the two electric motors doesn't come from batteries, but flywheel accumulator technology from Williams Hybrid Power, an offshoot of the Williams Formula 1 team. The flywheel, encased in a carbonfibre safety cell in the space where the passenger seat would be, spins at up to 40,000rpm and acts as a mechanical energy store for the electric motors. Regenerative braking feeds energy back into the flywheel system – no surprises there, as the technology is derived from Williams' exeprience with Kinetic Energy Recovery Systems (KERS) in F1.