Us820 Engine Us Motor Power Us 820 on 2040-parts.com

Driving the Chevy Volt isn't special, and that's good

We've had our first taste of the drive system under development for General Motors' pioneering Chevrolet Volt, piloting a test mule based on the Chevrolet Cruze at the company's Warren (Mich.) Technical Center, and it left us hungering for more. Yes, it's an electric car, but mostly, it's a car--one you could imagine driving every day without feeling as if you were engaged in a lab experiment. Frank Weber, vehicle line executive for the Volt, gets his nose out of joint if you call the drive system a hybrid.

2013 Ford Fiesta ST debuts at Geneva

2013 Ford Fiesta ST The 2013 Ford Fiesta ST arrives at Geneva in production guise – after a Fiesta ST Concept last year – and will go on sale early 2013. It looks like Ford has finally managed to fit the new 1.6 litre Ecoboost under the bonnet of the new Fiesta ST (all the cars running around so far have had the lump out of the Zetec S) and has pitched up at Geneva with the production version of the 2013 ST. That 1.6 litre Ecoboost engine is a four-cylinder petrol with 178bhp and 177lb/ft of torque, which gives a sub-7 second 0-62mph and a top speed of 136mph.

EVs are Dead, Long Live Tesla says Morgan Stanley analyst

The Tesla Model S is the only successful electric car The experiment of getting the car buying public to believe an electric car is a sensible alternative to an ICE car isn’t an unmitigated failure – but it’s close. And now Investment Bank Morgan Stanley has come out and stated the obvious: Apart from the success of Tesla, electric cars are a failure, falling far short of sales predictions and likely to see no real growth in the coming years. Morgan Stanley declare that we will still all be driving ICE cars for the foreseeable future, and despite predictions that as many as one in ten cars will be BEVs by 2020 the reality is likely to be less than one in a hundred.