Autoblog UK

BMW has revealed an electric prototype of its 1 Series Coupe called Concept ActiveE. It comes as the second part of the firms 'project i' initiative and will be unveiled at the Detroit motor show in January.

The concept has been designed to undergo limited leasing trials in selected markets including the UK. It has been conceived along the same lines as the Mini E and is powered by a new synchronous electric motor developing 170bhp and 184 lb ft torque. Energy is stored in a lithium ion battery pack jointly developed by BMW and SB LiMotive.

BMW expects performance to be decent with 0-62mph possible in less than 9 seconds with a maximum speed of around 90mph (limited). Like the Mini E the ActiveE's real-world-range should be around 100 miles on a single charge. In Europe on a boosted 50 amp/240 volt socket BMW says the charge time should be around 3 hours.

The 1 Series ActiveE looks very much like the standard 1 Series coupe and will seat four – the rear seats haven't been sacrificed to the battery pack, in contrast to the Mini E – and BMW has added several details to improve its range, including low rolling resistance tyres and lighter alloy wheels, the removal of the exhaust system and the deletion of the smaller cooling ducts in the front bumper.

Lease programme details are few at the moment but it's thought that the 1 Series Concept ActiveE production version will be similarly priced to the Mini E, which is currently being leased for £330 per month.

Toyota has taken another step towards offering an electric vehicle with the global introduction of 600 Prius plug-in hybrids.

Europe will get 200 of the cars, with 20 making their way to the UK half way through 2010. Toyota reckons they should be good to drive around 15 miles on electric power alone – a considerable improvement on the current Prius hybrid which has an electric range of 2 miles.

The plug-in hybrids should also be able to go faster on just electric power – up to around 60mph before the engine kicks in – while the Prius will only do up to 30mph.

There is no official figure just yet, but Toyota reckons the plug-in hybrid should emit just 59g/km of CO2 and manage an average fuel economy well in excess of 100mpg. It gets the same 1.8-litre engine from the Prius for use as a backup when the battery runs out. A full charge should take around 3 hours.

Toyota won't be offering the cars for general sale, but will be leasing them to a mixture of government bodies and private companies and recording the use over a three-year period.

Now this is the kind of engine that you'd expect to find in the dinky little Smart city car – an electric motor, powered by a battery-pack mounted below floor. Drive it, and this Smart whirrs with a faintly throbbing beat that suits the Fortwo as much as its two-tone paint and friendly face. Electric Smarts are not new and if you live in Islington, North London, you will almost certainly have seen them, a batch of British-built, experimental examples humming around the capital for the last couple of years. This latest version is more powerful, has a longer range, is now fully built in Smart's French factory and will go on more widespread trial.

It develops 41bhp rather than 27bhp (if only for two minute kickdown bursts – otherwise it produces the same 27bhp as before), its new lithium-ion battery allowing an 84 mile range. The previous nickel-cadmium battery pack, which needed heating, could muster only 62 miles. That may not sound much, but it should be enough for most commutes, as should a top speed of 65mph if you're only scudding about town.

Audi has confirmed the production of its E-tron all-electric sports car, based on its E-tron concept car which was unveiled earlier this year at the Frankfurt Motorshow.

Due for launch in 2012 the E-tron will be limited to just 1000 units.

It will feature the same lithium ion battery pack and four electric motors producing around 310bhp and a lightweight body and aluminium space frame chassis – almost identical to the concept car.

The E-tron will cost more than the R8 supercar though, with a price tag expected to be around £120,000.

Porsche tuner RUF has created an all-electric version of the Cayenne which has been unveiled at the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference in a surprise move.

Called the RUF Stormster, the electric Cayenne is powered by a 367bhp Siemens electric motor which RUF says will propel the car from zero to 62mph in 10 seconds and should be good for a range of 125 miles.

It's not the first time the company has created an electric version of a Porsche: it recently unveiled the 911-based e-RUF which was launched as the Greenster at the Geneva Motor Show earlier this year.

It is not known yet whether it will make production or how many the company plans to build, but it's certainly an interesting direction for a high-performance tuner like RUF to take.

As you read this, 20 people in Oxfordshire and Hampshire are preparing to take delivery of what BMW hopes is the future of the car. The electric Mini is part of a field trial to get real-world experience of how everyday drivers get on with electric cars. That is real electric cars, not the quadricylces being presented as cars by the likes of G-Wiz, as demonstrated by the Mini E having a Cooper S-beating 201 hp. Unfortunately, it does suffer one deficiency associated with traditional electric runabouts, however: it is only a two seater as the lithium-ion battery pack takes up the space once occupied by the rear seats (and indeed most of the boot). That is a consequence of using an existing car as a base – future electric models under development by BMW, Renault, Nissan and others will be designed around their battery packs, so passenger space will not be compromised.

From the outside, the Mini looks normal apart from a few electric stickers – in a nice touch, the socket for the recharger is positioned where the fuel cap normally goes, so owners can easily guess where to put the plug. The statistics of the Mini E are impressive: 0-62 mph in 8.2 seconds an electronically limited top speed of 95 mph , a maximum range of 156 miles and a normal range of 100-120 miles. Of course, we have been hearing impressive-sounding claims for electric cars for at least 40 years, so we wanted to know how the Mini E really drives.

Badge-engineering – that's the cynical, and accurate, description of a manufacturer's re-labelling and rebranding of someone else's car in order to call it their own.

Examples today include the Citroen C-Crosser and Peugeot 4007, both of them lightly reworked versions of Mitsubishi's Outlander four-wheel drive, allowing these French manufacturers to enter a market that they have no expertise in for little investment.

Other examples? Seat's new Exeo is no more than a lightly modified version of Audi previous-generation A4 and one of Mazda's earlier Mazda2's was simply a rebadged Ford Fiesta.

Now Peugeot and Citroen are doing it again with Mitsubishi's i-MiEV, the Japanese company's small electric city car. The Gallic versions are barely altered, and will appear next autumn as the Peugeot iOn and the Citroen C-Zero.

That gives the pair a near-instant entry into the electric car market, although unlike many manufacturers, they do have a history here, having previously sold electric 106s and Saxos, though only in France, whereas the iOn and C-Zero will be sold in Britain too.

Autoblog grabbed an early chance to try an iOn before it was shipped to Copenhagen for the climate change conference. Peugeot badges apart, the iOn looks identical to the i-MiEV, which is to say long, tall, narrow and almost funky.

And it's one of the easiest electric cars to drive out there. You just twist the key, ignore the fact that nothing seems to happen because you only hear silence, move the gearlever into drive and accelerate away. Quite briskly too; the 63bhp electric motor's fat 131lb ft of torque allowing the iOn quite useful acceleration to 40mph. It tails off a bit after that – hence its less than scorching 13sec 0-62mph time and 81mph top speed – but the iOn's performance is adequate for commuting, a role that its range pretty much limits it to anyway.

Peugeot reckons it will do 81 miles on a charge – less than the 100 miles Mitsubishi claims for the i-MiEV, oddly – and extravagant use of the accelerator will drop it well below that. So this is very much a second car, and not a cheap one if the £350 per month lease deal Mitsubishi is offering on the i-MiEV is a guide. That said, Peugeot has yet to announce pricing, and government subsidies may eventually help. But as so often with new technologies, there are compromises if you fancy adopting early.

The motorsport great John Surtees has become the first person to drive a sports car through the channel tunnel during a charity stunt. The drive was one of the events celebrating the 15th anniversary of the tunnel's opening.

The 1964 Formula 1 winner, who is still the only person to have claimed world records on both 2 and 4 wheels, drove an electric powered Ginetta G50 EV through the 31-mile tunnel.

He didn't break any speed records this time though as he had to stick to the 50km/h speed limit.

What didn't help with keeping a good time was also his constant stopping to have a closer look at the tunnel, which he called "a tremendous engineering feat".

"You certainly wouldn't want to be subject to any claustrophobic feelings down there.The tunnel is very small in parts," added the 75-year-old after eventually resurfacing in Coquelles, France.

Mitsubishi launched their i-MiEV e-car in Japan during the summer 2009. An agreement was signed this autumn with the French PSA Group to build two sister models based on the i-MiEV for the European market. Peugeot's iOn will get its chance towards the end of 2010. Citroën has dubbed its version the C-Zero.

Some details about the C-Zero have now been released. Designed primarily for urban use and purely electric driven, it doesn't use petrol nor emit CO2. The vehicle simply glides quietly along the road. Citroën's e-car has a state-of-the-art, lithium-ion battery pack stowed amidships providing juice for a 64bhp synchronous motor. The C-Zero has a range of around 80 miles (130km) on a fully charged battery.

From November, the West Midlands constabulary will be setting an example to us all in terms of eco-friendly motoring when they become the first police force in the UK to send their officers out on patrol in the MiEV (Mitsubishi innovative Electric Vehicle). According to Mitsubishi, this electric motor on wheels was a huge hit at the National Police Show staged in September. The crime-busting version of the MiEV reaches a top speed of 80mph (130 km/h) and can cover a patrol beat of 100 miles before needing a recharge. So the bobbies should be well equipped for hot pursuits through the pedestrian zones in Birmingham, Wolverhampton and Coventry.

What initially may sound like a joke is in fact part of the Ultra Low Carbon Vehicle Demonstrator project with which Mitsubishi hope to woo the British public for its progressive e-class. The Japanese manufacturer has already seen the first fruits of its campaign, with the MiEV being acclaimed as Electric Vehicle of the Year in the 2009 GreenFleet Awards.