Ford Focus Facelift price and spec – costs from £13,995

The new Ford Focus will be in dealers in November 2014 The facelift for the Ford Focus was revealed back in February, but only now are Ford getting their act together with prices and specifications, and the new Focus won’t be in Ford’s UK showrooms until November. Key changes for the new Focus include the new family grill (well, the ‘Aston’ family grill), some tweaks to the lights and alloys and a less cluttered, more upmarket interior, new engines and chassis changes. Ford has retained the same model line-up for the new Focus – and the same starting price – with the Focus Studio ((from £13,995), Style (£16,795), Zetec (£18,295), Zetec S (£20,045), Titanium (£19,795) and Titanium X (£21,795) which means the starting price stays the same and the top-end Titanium models drop by £100.

UK new car average CO2 now under 140g/km

UK motor industry body the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) claims 56% of new cars sold in the UK during 2010 boasted carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions figures below 140g/km. New car emissions of CO2 continued to fall at an increased rate year-on-year, dropping 3.5% over 2009’s figures and representing a cumulative drop in new car CO2 emissions of 20.3% since 2000.  The data comes from the release of the SMMT’s annual New Car Carbon Dioxide (CO2) report for 2011, out today. UK vehicle fleet CO2 continues to fall The presence of lower-polluting new vehicles in the overall UK vehicle parc (the total fleet of new and existing vehicles on the roads) has driven parcwide CO2 levels down 7.8% since 2000, and 2.7% since 2009.  This is partly thanks to new vehicles, and also due to reduction of higher-polluting vehicles via legislation and scrappage incentive schemes. The overall reduction also comes in spite of an increased number of vehicles on the road, and greater average distances travelled compared to 2000. Diesel’s rise continues One notable trend has been market penetration of diesel-powered cars. In 2000 petrol powered cars held 85.9% of the market, with 14.1% diesels.

Nissan Juke Nismo: Paris 2012

Nissan has kicked off its Nismo road car range with the reveal of the production Juke Nismo at the Paris Motor Show. The Juke Nismo get the same 1.6 litre petrol engine as the Juke DIG-T model, but it’s been fettled to offer more than the stock engine’s 187bhp. Trouble is, even though its due on sale in the UK in a few months, Nissan still isn’t saying exactly what the Juke Nismo gets – but it should be around 200bhp.