JCB DieselMax

Following its display at the Goodwood Festival of Speed last month, the JCB DieselMax has recently proved itself the fastest yet diesel-powered car during Speed Week at the Bonneville Salt Flats, Utah. Andy Green, who in 1997 broke the sound barrier on land in Thrust SSC, piloted DieselMax to reach a top speed of 350.09mph, increasing the existing record set in 1973 by over 100mph. Helping the JCB DieselMax achieve this is a drag coefficient of just 0.174 and two 4.4-liter four-cylinder engines, each producing 750PS.

Lexus tops UK J.D. Power survey 2010 – again

Lexus tops the UK J.D. Power Survey for the tenth year running We’re a predictable lot in the UK – or Lexus owners are a particularly smug lot – so we get the same result every year for the last decade. Lexus comes out on top.

Electric car range drops by nearly 60% in cold weather

Electric cars like the Nissan LEAF (pictured) can lose 60% of their range when it’s cold We already know that the range of electric cars reduces as the car ages, with Nissan conforming that the LEAF’s range will drop by up to 28 per cent over five years. And now we have confirmation that the ambient temperature can have a big impact on range too, thanks to the AAA, America’s equivalent of the AA. The AAA took three standard EVs on sale in the US - Nissan LEAF, Ford Focus EV and Mitsubishi i-MiEV – and subjected them to test in different ambient temperatures.