So what exactly does it cost to service a McLaren MP4-12C?

McLaren MP4-12C - almost affordable servicing With the McLaren MP4-12C now in the wild, and some of the first cars getting towards their first service, we thought we ought to have a look at what the new McLaren will cost to maintain. For a variety of reasons, today has been about chatting to a number of McLaren MP4-12C owners (more on that another day) and one chap who’s bought a 458 Italia instead of McLaren because the servicing is free. Yes, in case you didn’t know, Ferrari now throw in free, unlimited mileage servicing for 7 years on the 458 (and all new Ferraris), and it’s transferable to subsequent owners too.

Los Angeles, Miami on 2014 Formula E schedule

Today Formula E, the open-wheel world championship for electric cars sanctioned by the FIA, released a preliminary list of eight cities across the globe where races will be held: London, Rome, Los Angeles, Miami, Beijing, Putrajaya (Malaysia), Buenos Aires and Rio de Janeiro. Rome and Rio de Janeiro had been announced earlier, but the rest of the cities are new to the schedule. All courses will be run on city streets in downtown locations accessible to public transportation, according to a release by Formula E Holdings, the organization putting on the series.

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.