Toyota and Tesla strike $50m electric car deal

Toyota has bought a $50m chunk of Tesla By Tim Pollard Motor Industry 21 May 2010 09:15 Toyota today agreed to buy a $50 million stake in Tesla Motors, the Californian electric car start-up. The two companies plan to cooperate on electric vehicles, batteries and other EV technology. But Tesla's tiny!

Smart ForTwo GrandStyle Edition looks like the run-out model – price from £10,330

The Smart ForTwo GrandStyle comes as a coupe or cabrio The next generation Smart car is heading for the Paris Motor Show in October, so you can probably look at Smart’s latest special edition car – the Smart ForTwo GrandStyle Edition – as a final hurrah for Mercedes’ city car in its current guise. Based on the Smart Passion trim, the GrandStyle gets a set of 15″ gloss black alloys, LEd running lights,  titanium-coloured surrounds for the headlights, ‘grandstyle’ logos and a choice of five exterior and tridion colours. Inside comes swathed in Artico for an upmarket look, there’s a leather steering wheel, SatNav with 6.5″ colour screen, AirCon, cup holder and the option of a comfort package that adds heated seats and electric heated door mirrors.

OFFICIAL: Alfa Romeo 4C laps the Nurburgring in 8:04s

The Alfa Romeo 4C (pictured) laps the Nurburgring in 8:04s We wouldn’t normally report on a car lapping the Nurburgring in around 8 minutes; after all, the Nurburgring lap record for a full production car is sub-7 minutes, so 8 minutes seems almost a stroll. But the lap time round the Nurburgring for the Alfa Romeo 4C is worthy of note because it’s a new lap record for a production car with less than 250bhp, and puts the Alfa 4C very much on the map as a performance car. We’d heard rumours a few weeks ago that Horst von Saurma has managed the impressive time in the 4C round the Nurburgring, but Alfa has now confirmed the time – with the 4C shod with road-legal Pirelli Zero Trofeo tyres – was completed on 23rd September 2013.