Ford Model A Brake Pedal 1928 1929 1930 1931 Rat Rod Rat Truck on 2040-parts.com

£500m scheme introduced to boost electric car ownership

Newspress Deputy prime minister Nick Clegg is today launching a £500 million scheme to boost electric and hybrid car ownership in the UK.   Perks for electric car drivers The funding will provide extra perks to encourage more drivers to trade in their old, conventionally powered cars for electric or hybrid vehicles. Councils will be able to apply for funding if they come up with plans to encourage people to ditch their petrol and diesel cars – for example, by offering free parking to electric vehicles and giving them the right to drive in bus lanes.

Hennessey-tuned Ford GT does a 235.1-mph Texas two-step

A few times a year, some of the fastest and most powerful cars meet in Texas for an adrenaline-filled weekend of top-speed runs called the Texas Mile. The high-performance machines have one mile of arrow-straight runway to get the highest top speed at the one-mile marker. It was the right mix of conditions for Mark Heidaker and Sean Kennedy, who drove their twin-turbocharged Ford GT to a top speed of 235.1 mph down the runway into a decent headwind of 20 mph.

Ford Fiesta eWheelDrive gets wheel hub electric motors

The Ford Fiesta eWheelDrive – a driveable research vehicle built by Ford and German specialists Schaeffler – may be a regular supermini in size, but it points towards a potential future EV which is much more compact and very manoeuvrable. Ford has taken a regular Fiesta and dumped its powertrain, replacing it with a battery bank where the engine would be and fitted a pair of in-hub electric motors on the rear wheels. But the plan is to build new cars with the batteries under the floor which frees up the space under the bonnet which can then be all but removed to create a very compact urban car that still has space for four.