As SAAB readies itself to launch its looooong overdue 9-5 replacement, further details are emerging about the BMW 5-series rival.

The biggest news is that, true to SAAB’s desire to downsize engine capacity without hurting performance, the new model will feature a high-pressure 1.6-litre engine. Despite the small engine, the next car will actually be larger than the outgoing model and will be based on the new Epsilon II platform that debuted under the new Vauxhall Insignia.

Meanwhile the next 9-3 will downsize to the Delta platform that will underpin the next Astra.

We’ll be keeping a beady eye out for the 9-5 at next Spring’s Geneva Motor Show

[Source: AutoBlog]

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Jamie Lee Curtis may be more famous for getting her baps out in Trading Places, but she’s also an environmentalist, in the Hollywood sense.

She and husband Christopher Guest took delivery of only the second customer hydrogen fuel-cell Honda FCX Clarity.

The pioneering cars are only available on lease in Southern California and Japan: the only areas with a sufficiently developed hydrogen infrastructure.

On taking delivery of the FCX Curtis had this to say: "It's luxurious, luxurious, luxurious! I love the interior layout, design and access to controls. It is user-friendly and very modern."

I wonder if that striptease scene's on youtube…

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Self-proclaimed environmentalist Prince Charles has converted one of his Aston Martins (see the irony?) to run on wine.

The DB6 Volante he was given as a 21st Birthday present was modified by Aston Martin Works and is now fuelled by a biofuel derrived from surplus wine supplies which is said to be 85% less polluting than petrol.

We know that Astons like a drink, but this is ridiculous.

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Every right-thinking person (yes even us motoring journalists occasionally fall into this category) has to agree with the sentiment that lowering the motorist’s environmental impact has to be encouraged. However, simply pricing normal people off the road is not the answer. What is needed is needed is a bit of education.

The sentiment that big cars are bad and small cars and hybrids are good is far too simplistic and is indicative of the spoon-fed acceptance that is so prevalent in today’s society.

Somebody driving a Porsche Cayenne S (one of those dreaded “gas-guzzlers”) 2,000km per year taking the kids to school would emit around 716,000 grams of CO2 per year, while the driver of the saintly Toyota Prius driving 18,000km per (about the average mileage in the UK) would emit 1,908,000 grams per year. This is rather an extreme example but demonstrates how a fix-rate taxation system might not be as effective as it appears.

Surely a better solution would be to scrap road taxation altogether and place the duty on fuel. This would have the desired effect of charging people directly for their environmental impact and would encourage the use of more fuel-efficient and less polluting cars without hitting the average motorist.

This is your chance to tell us what you think. Is the Government right or is Alistair Darling barking up the wrong tree?

This image demonstrates how much carbon monoxide and dioxide a car releases into the environment during a day's driving. Comissioned by the WWF in response to darkening skies over China's cities, it attempts to educate motorists about their impact on air quality.

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Growcom - www.growcom.com.au - an Australian company are in the final stages of planning a plant that makes Biomethane out of banana waste. So instead of slipping on banana peel in a hilarious fashion, it could soon be powering your car. The process involves anaerobic digestion, which dissolves the banana waste and produces biomethane.

Going green is so last year. It’s all about the yellow now.

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OK, so we’ve seen the car/boat we’ve cleverly dubbed the ‘Coat’ (gosh, we’re funny.) But what do you call a car/bubble/streetlight?

This forward thinking concept is the brainchild of designer Ross Lovegrove. http://www.rosslovegrove.com/  He calls it ‘The Car on A Stick’

It sports a solar panel roof, self drive system through GPS navigation and an independent electric motor mounted on each of its three wheels. This is not the clever part however. The real innovation is the idea that parking would involve mounting the car on a pole to save valuable road space and then illuminating the underside to provide street lighting. This is just the kind of thinking that puts most so-called ‘concept cars’ to shame.

(I would call it a ‘Carubblelamp’)

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Sir Mark Moody-Stuart has called for an EU-enforced ban on all new cars that return less than 35 miles-per-gallon. There is nothing new in this - tree-huggers have been screaming for this sort of thing for years - but what makes this significant is Moody-Stuart's position. He spent most of his life working for Shell and now heads an Anglo American mining company, Moody-Stewart told the BBC that we must “ban gas-guzzlers and steadily increase the total efficiency of any vehicle sold. You would be allowed to drive as Aston Martin – but only if it did 50-60mpg.” 

It's a very simplistic approach that sounds nice on paper, but would have almost no impact on the environment. Aston Martin sells about 7000 cars per year, which is marginally more than Ferrari. Taking Aston's off the road will make no quantifiable difference to the climate, but finding a sensible, alternative power source for mainstream cars would. This is not elitism or pandering ot the rich, it's common sense. Once again, headline-grabbing rhetoric appears to getting in the way of sensible discussion.

Last week I found myself at the launch of the new Honda F1 car, the RA108. For an avid Formula One fan like me, pre-season is a time of frustration. Every team rolls out its new contender with a mixture of hope, optimism and self-delusion. There is always bullish talk of an improvement on last year as every team looks to make that vital step forwards. Those at the back of the grid talk of points finishes, the mid-grid boys look to the occasional podium and those of the front talk nervously of victory, while acknowledging that it's a tough sport and they might just have built a turkey.

These launches are followed by test sessions that most or all of the teams attend. In theory these should be a pointer to the new season, but the results are diffilcult to extrapolate Teams run different fuel strategies, different tyres, different drivers and different aerodynamics. Honda, for example, won't unleash its new aerodynamic package until much closer to the first Grand Prix, which might help explain why the new RA108 was well off the pace in its first test.

For all the conjecture and the media hype, we won't know the true pace of the cars until qualifying starts on March 15th in Melbourne, Australia.

It was on my flight back from the launch of the latest eco warrior, Seat’s Leon Ecomotive (oh, the irony!) that I felt the need to do that most blokey of things and define my position on this new crop of super-efficient models.

There’s no denying that the Seat Ecomotives, the Ford Econetics and the Volkswagen Bluemotions demonstrate the car industry’s ability to evolve in the face of adversity. But what is questionable is that we should have to pay more for the privilege especially seeing as the unit price, compared to the standard cars, is virtually identical.

It’s also questionable that going green should be optional – for example, why isn’t the Leon 1.9 TDI Stylance, on which the Leon Ecomotive is based, discontinued? Seat UK has the option of doing such a thing but I can’t help but think that the marketing bods will resist, preferring to capitalise on the green halo of the Ecomotive sub-brand.

Marketing niggles aside, these cars bode well for the future. If CO2 emissions can be reduced by 12per cent by modifying an existing model without any glaring compromises, imagine the possibilities when the next, clean-sheet designs appear. Hopefully the whole range will adopt the measures taken by these efficient models, just as BMW has with its excellent Efficient Dynamics systems.