Accel 1855 Battery Terminal on 2040-parts.com

Volkswagen e-Golf goes on sale – price from £30,845

The Volkswagen e-Golf (pictured) is now on sale in the UK The Nissan LEAF has almost had the market place for proper family EVs to itself until recently, but the arrival of the impressive BMW i3 -especially when specced with a range extending motor – threatens to make a dent in LEAF sales, and another dent could come courtesy of the new Volkswagen e-Golf, which goes on sale today in the UK priced from £30,845 (£25,845 after taxpayer bribe). In most of the ways that matters, the e-Golf is a regular Golf MK 7, but lurking under the familiar exterior lies a thumping great bank of batteries weighing 318kg (about the same as a car full of passengers) and an electric motor driving the front wheels and good for 113bhp. Range for the e-Golf is up to 118 miles from a full charge, a charge that will take 13 hours from a regular 3-pin socket, a more acceptable 8 hours if you use the optional 3.6 kW wallbox you can spec (for free from British Gas) and a quick charge of up to 80 per cent in 35 minutes.

News watch February 2012: today's auto industry news

Welcome to CAR Magazine's news aggregator as we round up the daily stories in the auto industry. Top tip: news summaries are added from the top hour-by-hour Wednesday 29 February 2012• Following on from yesterday's news of a cross-holding between PSA and GM, it now appears that Peugeot Citroen would offer a €1bn rights issue to create cash and strip back jobs as part of its proposed alliance with GM (Automotive News Europe)  • The Bloomberg Riskless Return Ranking, a survey of investor performance, suggests that Kia has outperformed all 22 other car makers with a risk-adjusted return of 9.2% in the past five years. Second highest was Hyundai, whose shares rose 4.8% in the same period (Bloomberg)• Fisker has a new chief executive officer, as founder Henrik Fisker moves to executive chairman. The new boss is Tom LaSorda, the former top man at Chrysler pre-bankruptcy (Fisker)Tuesday 28 February 2012• General Motors is in talks to buy a 5% to 7% stake in PSA Peugeot Citroen, according to reports by news agencies Bloomberg and Reuters.

Audi sticks with Michelin – which is good for Michelin road tyres

Audi choose Michelin for 2012 races Audi are to stay with tyre maker Michelin and this year’s Le Mans 24hr cars will be shod with Michelin tyres. Have you ever wondered why car race teams choose one tyre maker over another? Well, in F1 it’s because they don’t have a choice, but elsewhere it’s different – they can choose.