Yamaha Viper Tall Handlebars Mountain 97-06 on 2040-parts.com

Performance Car of the Year photo gallery - day 1

CAR publishes its Performance Car of the Year 2010 supplement this week. It's a 36-page standalone mag charting our 2500-mile European road trip to thrash out which is the best sports car of the year. We'll have a full microsite launching later in the week, video, competitions and more - plus we'll upload a gallery every day with some of the out-takes, extra photos and background to our PCOTY road trip.

MIT researchers rethink electric-car batteries

Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology say a new battery design for electric vehicles could be a lightweight and inexpensive alternative. The goal for the team's three-year project, launched in September 2010, is to have a functioning prototype ready to be engineered as a replacement for existing electric-car batteries. At this point in the project, the prototype uses a “semi-solid flow” to separate the two functions of a battery--storing energy and discharging it when needed--into separate physical structures.

Michelin Pilot Super Sport launches

Ferrari 458 Italia - just one of the Michelin Pilot Super Sport shod Supercars at the launch At the beginning of October – when it was already starting to feel as if we were in mid-winter on some days – the nice man from Michelin (that’s Paul, not the Michelin Man) called and asked us if we’d like to go and play with their new tyre – the Michelin Pilot Super Sport -  on some appealing cars. Sadly, too few staff and too much to do meant we had to decline his kind offer. Although it was very hard to do when we realised it would have meant a few days in the sun in Dubai and the chance to drive some of the world’s finest cars, shod with Michelin’s replacement for the Pilot Sport PS2.