The Honda Insight and the Toyota Prius, both hybrid models, score in second and third place, respectively, in Euro NCAP’s list of safest cars for 2009.

The CSIRO and energy distributor, SP AustNet, have started a three-month road trial of a plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV), which could one day end up in every Australian driveway, after modification of the car using a US-developed conversion kit at the CSIRO’s laboratories in the Melbourne suburb of Clayton.

The Australian-invented UltraBattery is set for accelerated development in the United States with the US Government awarding a grant of $US32.5 million to manufacturer East Penn to produce the battery.

Like most drivers these days, I've been exploring options for cutting costs which still enable me to run a car. It has been a surprise to discover that the Australian Government elected last year partially on its green credentials is actually more friendly to big oil than alternative energy.

ABC NewsRadio, Australia’s only 24 hour continuous news service, has axed one of its longest running programs because it wants to divert funding elsewhere. The program? StarStuff, the only space, science, astronomy and cosmology show on Australian radio. What a shame!

Looks like GPS satnav systems will keep on expanding their usefulness to drivers, not only providing mapping, traffic information, red light and speed camera alerts and accident black spots – but now altering drivers to crime hotspots too... at least in Japan, thanks to Honda.

Want to buy the car that only the super-rich of the 1910 and 1920s could afford? It’s the Detroit Electric, a car that should have seen the world choose electricity over petrol decades ago, but for the fact oil and petrol became so cheap as to give electric cars a shock that they’re only recovering from now.

If you’ve ever wished you could drive your car underwater like James Bond in ‘The Spy Who Loved Me’, Swiss company Rinspeed have launched the sQuba, letting drivers do just that – but at a cost of US $1.5 million it’ll be a while before most consumers take to the water – in their cars!

The CSIRO has developed a revolutionary 'UltraBattery' for use in hybrid petrol/electrical vehicles that combines supercapacitor and conventional lead acid battery technology into a single unit. It is able to deliver the benefits of both technologies and with much lower cost and longer life than a conventional battery.