Virtual Car Broker

• Privacy row brewing over surveillance on the road
• Box could reduce accidents, pollution and congestion

The government is backing a project to install a "communication box" in new cars to track the whereabouts of drivers anywhere in Europe, the Guardian can reveal.

Under the proposals, vehicles will emit a constant "heartbeat" revealing their location, speed and direction of travel. The EU officials behind the plan believe it will significantly reduce road accidents, congestion and carbon emissions. A consortium of manufacturers has indicated that the router device could be installed in all new cars as early as 2013.

However, privacy campaigners warned last night that a European-wide car tracking system would create a system of almost total road surveillance.

Details of the Cooperative Vehicle-Infrastructure Systems (CVIS) project, a £36m EU initiative backed by car manufacturers and the telecoms industry, will be unveiled this year.

But the Guardian has been given unpublished documents detailing the proposed uses for the system. They confirm that it could have profound implications for privacy, enabling cars to be tracked to within a metre - more accurate than current satellite navigation technologies.

The European commission has asked governments to reserve radio frequency on the 5.9 Gigahertz band, essentially setting aside a universal frequency on which CVIS technology will work.

The Department for Transport said there were no current plans to make installation of the technology mandatory. However, those involved in the project describe the UK as one of the main "state backers". Transport for London has also hosted trials of the technology.

The European Data Protection Supervisor will make a formal announcement on the privacy implications of CVIS technology soon. But in a recent speech he said the technology would have "great impact on rights to privacy and data".

Paul Kompfner, who manages CVIS, said governments would have to decide on privacy safeguards. "It is time to start a debate ... so the right legal and privacy framework can be put in place before the technology reaches the market," he said.

The system allows cars to "talk" to one another and the road. A "communication box" behind the dashboard ensures that cars send out "heartbeat" messages every 500 milliseconds through mobile cellular and wireless local area networks, short-range microwave or infrared.

The messages will be picked up by other cars in the vicinity, allowing vehicles to warn each other if they are forced to break hard or swerve to avoid a hazard.

The data is also picked up by detectors at the roadside and mobile phone towers. That enables the road to communicate with cars, allowing for "intelligent" traffic lights to turn green when cars are approaching or gantries on the motorway to announce changes to speed limits.

Data will also be sent to "control centres" that manage traffic, enabling a vastly improved system to monitor and even direct vehicles.

"A traffic controller will know where all vehicles are and even where they are headed," said Kompfner. "That would result in a significant reduction in congestion and replace the need for cameras."

Although the plan is to initially introduce the technology on a voluntary basis, Kompfner conceded that for the system to work it would need widespread uptake. He envisages governments making the technology mandatory for safety reasons.Any system that tracks cars could also be used for speed enforcement or national road tolling.

Roads in the UK are already subject to the closest surveillance of any in the world. Police control a database that is fed information from automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) cameras, and are able to deduce the journeys of as many as 10 million drivers a day. Details are stored for up to five years.

However, the government has been told that ANPR speed camera technology is "inherently limited" with "numerous shortcomings".

Advice to ministers obtained by the Guardian under the Freedom of Information Act advocates upgrading to a more effective car tracking-based system, similar to CVIS technology, but warns such a system could be seen as a "spy in the cab" and "may be regarded as draconian".

Introducing a more benign technology first, the report by transport consultants argues, would "enable potential adverse public reaction to be better managed".

Simon Davies, director of the watchdog Privacy International, said: "The problem is not what the data tells the state, but what happens with interlocking information it already has. If you correlate car tracking data with mobile phone data, which can also track people, there is the potential for an almost infallible surveillance system."

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A Europe-wide car tracking system may sound far-fetched, but the scientists behind the scheme say the technology required to make it happen is already part of our everyday lives.

The system uses the same connections as those in mobile telephones, Wi-Fi internet and security tags attached to clothes in shops.

A car will constantly stay in touch via all these methods of communication, stashed in a router behind the dashboard.

Crucially, vehicles beam out a "heartbeat" message, revealing their precise location, speed and direction, to all other cars within a 400m range.

The heartbeat can send out other messages which, scientists say, will save lives. So when a car is forced to brake hard, or its wheels encounter a slippery surface, that information can be supplied to other drivers in the area.

Vehicles can also communicate with the "roadside infrastructure", with beacons implanted in gantries or bridges to give and receive information. So traffic lights or intersections will be alerted when vehicles are approaching, while in return cars will be told about congestion ahead.

Scientists believe the data will be of most use for traffic controllers, who - without the use of cameras - will be able to know exactly where vehicles are on the roads and respond appropriately.

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This is a C5 that it's OK to like

The mention of the name "C5" in a vehicular context is unlikely to prompt thoughts of sumptuous ease in anyone who is over 35. Instead, the image that will almost certainly spring to mind is of the Sinclair C5, the 80s electric tricycle that became a comic byword for bad design.

Rest assured, that C5 did not have a back massager, though anyone foolhardy enough to squeeze into one could have done with a little muscular manipulation.

The Citroën C5, by contrast, does have a back massager, as well as heated seats. I didn't realise this on my first drive. Running late to meet a friend, I didn't at first take much notice of the pleasurable warmth around my bottom. Nor did I immediately appreciate the undulating sensation in the small of my back. But gradually I became aware of the rhythmic movement, as it crept up on me like Górecki's Third Symphony or a furtive masseuse. After a while I began to wonder what that dull pressure was on my spine and why my bum was so hot.

Was this it? Was I finally experiencing the nervous breakdown I've spent years working towards? If so, then it was not unpleasant. Indeed, if you were thinking of having a nervous breakdown, I'd recommend the C5 as an ideal venue to ameliorate the harsher physical manifestations of personal crisis.

In fact, once you get used to the slightly odd automatic gear stick, I'd wager that it would be a stiff challenge to crack up in this C5. OK, you've made a mess of your private life, but just feel that smooth leather. Your career is going nowhere. Too bad, but check out the leg room. No one likes you - know that feeling, still, that pneumatic suspension is a joy to behold.

While Francophiles have plenty to choose from among hatchbacks and smaller cars, it's been a while since Citroën produced a classy larger model of any repute. And you'd have to go back all the way to the DS, with its distinctive, long bonnet, to a time when Citroën led the field.

The C5 is a self-conscious attempt to loosen the forearm nelson in which the German motor industry has the higher-end saloon market so effectively locked. Citroën even boasts of its "Teutonic-like levels of quality", which amounts to a public acknowledgment of what the public already believes - that the Germans do it better.

But in this case the French have produced something that in comfort, if perhaps not performance, rivals an Audi or BMW. While it may not possess the iconic appeal of the DS, the C5 is undoubtedly handsome. If that doesn't massage the ego, then just feel what it can do for your back.

Citroën C5 2.7 HDI V6

Price £24,395
Top speed 139mph
Acceleration 0-62 in 9.6 seconds
Average consumption 33.6mpg
CO2 emissions 223g/km
Eco rating 5/10
At the wheel Sebastian Faulks
Bound for The Dordogne
In a word Teutonique

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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

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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.

Smart Fortwo Ed

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

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