Ford has announced that it is going to rapidly expand its fleet of bio-fuel compatible vehicles this year, starting with the new Mondeo, which goes on sale in Ireland in June.
The existing Focus and C-Max Flexi-Fuel vehicles (which can run on any mixture of regular unleaded or E85 bio-ethanol) will be joined by Mondeo, Galaxy and S-Max variants. Ford has also announced that all its divisions, including Land Rover, Jaguar and Volvo, will announce developments of a host of alternative fuel projects shortly. Volvo has already promised a plug-in hybrid version of the C30 (which uses batteries that can be recharged by mains electricity as well as by the engine and regenerative braking systems) and Land Rover is currently working on compact hybrid boost engines for its range, which should see the light of day in the next four to five years.
The anouncement comes as the EU considers imposing a 130g/km CO2 limit on cars for 2012, as well as the statement yesterday that European governments are committing to cutting 20% of CO2 emissions by 2020.
Interestingly, Ford's statement made no mention of eco-friendly technologies for Aston Martin, which is now coming to the end of its sell-off. Rumour this morning has it that David Richard's Prodrive organisation has won the STG£450 million rights to Aston. Watch this space.
No comments:
Post a Comment