John Vidal meets green entrepreneur Dale Vince, who is on a mission to make an 'out-and-out sports car' that can go from 0-60mph in four seconds and be recharged by wind power
Honda's Insight is the cheapest hybrid in the UK. But is it as good as the Toyota Prius, and can its 'eco assist' dashboard really make you drive more efficiently? Sam Wollaston finds out
The new Honda Insight is not shy about publicising its green credentials. It shouts them from the rooftops - make that the treetops, the tops of the trees that will live so much longer because you have bought one of these cars instead of a filthy gas-guzzler. The little booklet that tells me all about the car is covered in paper that has seeds embedded in it.
Presumably, when I have finished reading it, I will toss it into an urban wasteland and a meadow will spring up, and we Insight drivers will be able to skip around together among the daisies we have created.
When I put the key in the ignition and turn it, a little green plant lights up on the dashboard. Good news - it means I'm in Econ mode and the car's brain will send messages out to various components to improve fuel economy. That's not the end of it. The car actually encourages me to drive greenly - the speedometer glows green if I am light on the throttle and turns an angry purply-blue if I am not.
There is still more. My multi-info display will, in one setting, show me a row of trees. Again, depending on how I drive, these trees will either shed their leaves or grow more. It is like a little environmental videogame. The trouble is, I am so obsessed with the virtual trees that I drive into a real one, killing both it and myself ... well, I could have done.
Actually, my main problem with the tree game is that it is more fun making the leaves drop off than it is to grow them. Everyone - apart from Honda, obviously - knows that the best videogames involve violence and destruction. So instead of trees on the display, they should have put a virtual Jeremy Clarkson there, on a rack. You have to drive greenly in order to tighten the rack until eventually, if you are really easy on the throttle, Clarkson's limbs are pulled from their sockets with a scream and a red splat, and then you can go to the next level, which involves taking out illegal Brazilian loggers with an eco-cannon.
Enough of the dashboard display though. What about the car itself? Well, it is a bit like a Toyota Prius, the car that has dominated the hybrid market for the past 10 years. The Insight works in the same way as a Prius - the battery boosts the power of the smallish (1.3 litre) petrol engine when you accelerate, and the energy generated when you brake, which would normally be lost, goes into recharging the batteries. And when you stop, the engine cuts out. It looks a bit like a Prius too - slightly lower and sleeker perhaps, but with the same aerodynamic profile. It has the same advantages as a Prius - good fuel consumption (average 64mpg), low CO2 emissions (101g/km), low road tax (£15 a year) and, in London, exemption from the congestion charge. You can also drive an Insight with the same smug green grin.
But it is different in one significant way: it's cheaper. A basic Prius won't leave much change from £18,000; the entry-level Insight is £15,490, not too much more than a nice Ford Focus. That has always been the problem with the Prius - you have to be Leonardo DiCaprio to be able to afford one. Now, with the Insight, some of us B-listers might consider a hybrid.
I drive my test car over to show off to my friend Andy, a Prius driver. As it happens, his mate Chris, another Prius owner (they stick together), is also there. I want the green of their envy to match the green of their greenness. Weirdly though, they give it a mixed review. It is a cheap Prius copy, they say. They mock its cheap interior. They say that the Prius has become both a statement and an icon and this imitation will never achieve that. Leo, or whatshisname from Curb your Enthusiasm, would never drive an Insight. Well, they are probably right about all of that, but for £2,380 (the actual saving), I'm very happy not to be driving what the stars drive.
A more affordable hybrid has to be a good thing. But the environmental credentials of these cars have to be kept in perspective. With all this green glowing and trees sprouting up on the dashboard, it would be easy to con yourself into thinking that you were actually doing the planet some good. You're not; you're still harming it, only less so (100g of carbon dioxide is still 100g of carbon dioxide). By my calculations, in 40km you could fill a box 2m x 1m x 1m with it, which I reckon would be big enough for Jeremy Clarkson. Death by CO2 might be a more humane, and more appropriate way of disposing of him than the rack.
The real excitement, from a green point of view, is another Honda - the hydrogen-fuel-cell-powered FCX Clarity. It's not available here yet, but Honda plans to introduce it, or something similar, in the future. Its emissions? Nothing but water vapour. That's something to feel properly smug about, and would probably make the driver and not just the dashboard glow green.
• See how the Insight's CO2 emissions compare to over 4,000 new cars
£1,350 Tata Nano gears up to revolutionise travel for millions
India's Tata group has announced that the world's cheapest car, the Nano, will roll out of its car plant with a price tag of just 100,000 rupees - £1,350 - and will be exported to richer nations, beginning with Europe, in two years.
Ratan Tata, chairman of Tata Motors, said the car was originally designed to bring motoring to India's masses, but he was taken aback by the considerable interest in the west.
He said: "Initially we did not plan for this product to be marketed anywhere else but India or developing countries … I felt that the niche did not exist in the west. But now the present economic scene makes it somewhat more relevant in price."
The basic model has few frills, not even air-conditioning to deal with intense Indian summers. But Tata executives are convinced that with India's improving road network and a rising middle class the company could sell a million Nanos a year.
The emergence of the Nano has caused concern among green campaigners, who have warned of an environmental nightmare on India's roads. Although there are just 5m cars in use in India ‑ only seven in every 1,000 people own a car ‑ the roads are clogged with dozens of other vehicles.
The company expects to sell 100,000 cars this year before switching production to its new plant in Gujarat, which is capable of producing 250,000 units a year.
Mr Tata said the car would be the greenest in India. The four-door, five-seater Nano has a 624cc engine at the rear, which delivers 23.6km per litre, and has a CO2 emissions rating of 101 g/km (grams of carbon dioxide per kilometre driven).
The Nano is being redesigned for Europe and the United States. Rigorous safety rules in the west mean the car must be fitted with airbags and its rear end strengthened.
Tata said: "We have many of the components ready ... It's just early days, but in Europe we will be ready in 2011. The United States a bit longer."
He added that unlike India, where affordable private transport will become a reality with the Nano, the western market will be different. "I had the Indian family in mind when I designed this car, where four people travel together by motorbike. I thought they could travel more safely by car. I think in the United States [the Nano] would be for younger people who want a low-cost car."
· This article was amended on Tuesday March 24 2009 to correct an editing mistake . Tata's car plant is no longer in West Bengal.
Is the future a Smart one?
From its debut 10 years ago, the Smart Fortwo has looked like a prototype for a future that is about to arrive but never does. Envisaged as a sort of 2CV for the 21st century, the Smart concept originated with Swatch, the watch company. It formed an alliance with Mercedes but when the project failed to live up to expectations, and ran up large financial losses, the Swiss timekeepers called time.
Subsequently, Mercedes worked on creating greater fuel economy for the Smart Fortwo, the standard two-seater, and produced a hybrid version. Yet perhaps the car's major contribution to transport culture has been the slightly irritating habit of parking nose outwards - even though it is not quite short enough to fit within a standard resident's bay.
Though obviously a major development in space economy, it wasn't quite enough to compensate for the fact that you were driving around in what is effectively a mobile SpongeBob SquarePants outfit. Not that there's anything wrong in looking weird, but it helps if it's for a worthwhile purpose. Now Smart hopes it has found that purpose, in other words that the future has finally arrived. For the new Smart Fortwo Ed - currently available only on lease to corporate "partners" - is completely electric.
As with the G-Wiz, it's charged from the mains - ie, you juice it up overnight and drive during the day. There are two problems with this. First, an extension lead running from your house is a tempting target for vandals. The other is range. This is not a car for long journeys, or indeed medium-sized ones, especially if you're using the radio, lights, heating and wipers. On a full charge, Smart says, it should do 70 miles. I tried it on full tilt and the power quickly began to drain. Had I gone much farther, I'd have come to a halt like a bumper car that's lost its connection. Only in this case, there are no teddy boys to jump on the back and restart the thing.
The look of the car is the same as earlier petrol versions. The interior still seems as if it was assembled from an office clearance in 1993. The steering is a touch heavy, though this is reassuring because you sense if it were any more nimble, the car might tip over at speed. And it boasts a top speed of 60mph, a whole 10mph faster than the G-Wiz. Getting there takes perseverance, but it is oddly exhilarating. Not since I was a teenager and I drove down Muswell Hill in a milk float have I got such a buzz from an electric vehicle.
But that's not the point. This is a city car, fit only for short trips. That's fine, but in terms of the future - it's not available until 2012 - it already feels a little dated.
Price £375/month for lease to companies
Top speed 60mph
Acceleration 0-30mph in 6.5 secondss
Average consumption Zero fossil fuel, but costs equivalent of 300mpg
CO2 emissions Zero
Eco rating 10/10
At the wheel Sheldon Plankton
Bound for Electric
In a word Plucky
The cancellation of this year's British International Motor Show should signal an end to our onanistic car culture
It won't shock you to learn that I'm neither surprised nor saddened that the 2010 British International Motor Show has been cancelled. The concept of building a temporary temple to the car each year, in which thousands of people pay considerable sums to pray and give thanks to the car industry, never did make sense to me.
Judging by the line-up of last year's accompanying Motor Show Music Festival – UB40, Alice Cooper, Status Quo, Squeeze, Deep Purple, Blondie, Bananarama, Toyah, Midge Ure, Meat Loaf, Belinda Carlisle, Chicago, Jools Holland – the organisers had a pretty specific target audience in mind, and I wasn't among them. The British International Motor Show is the leather jacket-clad, piston-pumping 1980s in mind, body and soul.
In 2009, where we are waist-deep in a recession that has led to thousands of job losses in the car industry and witnessed unsold cars being measured by the hectare, the organisers recognised that this particular show could not go on. Stir the environmental crisis into the mix, too, and such a celebratory event seemed entirely misplaced.
As many people have already commented, this year will hopefully come to be seen as a historic turning point for the global car industry. Any financial handouts that come the way of the ailing car industry must have thick ropes – not strings – attached that demand that this dinosaur sector greatly improves the fuel efficiency of all its products and urgently develops much cleaner alternatives to the fossil-fuelled combustion engine that, for a century, has gifted us great mobility but at such a huge cost to the environment. If any company refuses such conditions then we must let them go to the wall, however harsh the human cost might be in the short-term. We just can't afford the luxury of sentimentality any more.
Bringing a close to our onanistic car culture – typified by events such as the British International Motor Show – must be part of this gear change. The Top Trumps mentality, where we all aspire to a bigger, better, faster, newer model, must end. The penis-extension jibes aimed at petrolheads are cliched, but true. It's time we all grew up when it comes to both discussing and building cars.
So let's hope when the British International Motor Show returns – as it surely will – it has been remoulded and redesigned to reflect this new era. The organisers could start by booking some contemporary bands.