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Toyota Prius plug-in to cost from £31k

Toyota Prius plug-in will cost £31k We thought it was probably too good to be true. When we revealed that the US price for the new Toyota Prius plug-in was 36 per cent more than a regular Prius, we did hope that price increase would apply to the UK too. Because if Toyota were to do the same in the UK, the plug-in Prius would have come in – after the taxpayer very generously chipped in a £5k subsidy for ‘eco’ cars – at a ‘buy’ price in the UK around £2.5k more than the non plug-in Prius.

UPDATED: Three Tesla employees are killed in California plane crash

Three employees of Tesla Motors were killed in a small airplane crash in northern California on Wednesday, the electric-car maker's chief executive said. A Cessna 310 struck an electrical tower after taking off this morning and crashed into a residential neighborhood, killing all three people on board, according to local police. Tesla confirmed all had worked at the company.

Jaguar hybrid cars due in 2013-14

Jaguar will launch its own hybrid vehicles soon after Land Rover, CAR can confirm. Parent company Jaguar Land Rover is developing battery-assisted hybrid versions for both brands but its strategy puts part-electric Land Rovers first on the launchpad in 2013.Hybrid Jaguars – set to include the XJ and XF, but eventually every model – are therefore likely to be on the market by 2013-2014, using a similar eight-speed ZF hybrid transmission to petrol-electric BMWs.The staggered roll-out of battery Jags and Land Rovers makes sense: heavy 4x4s have come in the firing line from green protestors who label them Chelsea Tractors. Hybrid Land Rovers will trim emissions and – in plug-in hybrid mode – enable even big bulky Range Rovers to drive in zero-emissions mode into central urban areas emitting nothing more unsaintly than an electric whir.So which Jaguars will go hybrid first?It's likely that the largest models such as the XJ will receive the hybrid power packs first; large cars reap the greater benefit and can more easily swallow the additional cost, put at around £10,000 in today's money.JLR's Midlands engineering bases in Whitley and Gaydon now employ 100 engineers in the expanding hybrid powertrain business unit launched 18 months ago.