CLICK here for the car leasing deal

One of our partners, FleetLine, has just uploaded their new pricing file and there are some excellent business car leasing special offers. Here are just a sample of just some of best ones available right now, on four year contracts, non-maintained car leasing, 10,000 miles per annum, with a payment plan of three rentals in advance followed by 47 subsequent equal monthly payments. Other terms are available from FleetLine on request.

• Ford Fiesta 1.6 TDCI diesel hatchback (95bhp) Titanium ECOnetic 3-door from £169.21+VAT per month.
• Audi A3 1.6 TDI 3-door diesel hatchback (99g/km) from £209.26+VAT per month
• BMW 1 Series 116d ES 3-door Dynamic from £226.94+VAT per month
• Toyota Prius 1.8 VVTi T3 5-door CVT Auto from £250.79+VAT
• Volkswagen Tiguan diesel 2.0 TDI BlueMotion Tech S 110bhp 2WD 5-door from £266.28+VAT per month

Or just check out the Business Car Leasing – Special Offers section for all our best prices.

Toyota Prius Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicle

Toyota will be unveiling its production line version of the new Prius Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicle (PHEV) at the 2011 Frankfurt Motor Show on the 15th September. The car features a new, more compact, lithium-ion battery which offers extended EV (electric power) range, enabling the Prius PHEV to achieve fuel efficiencies of 128.4mpg (target figure) and to lower CO2 emissions to 49g/km of CO2.

The new Prius Plug-in Hybrid PHEV becomes the flagship of the Prius range and features Toyota’s Hybrid Synergy Drive (HSD) system, which has earned a track record in reliability worldwide with over two million cars sold. The Prius Plug-in Hybrid will join a range of other new Toyota models for 2012, including Auris Hybrid, the new seven seat Prius + and the Yaris Hybrid, demonstrating Toyota’s commitment to launch this new hybrid technology to the wider market.

Hybrid technology

Toyota has just been awarded the title of the “world’s greenest brand” as part of  a new global survey from the international brand consultancy, Interbrand. The new global survey is called Best Global Green Brands and takes into account environmental performance plus public perception, to give a “green profile” which then produces a Green Performance Score.

Toyota’s development of full hybrid technology, notably with the Prius, was a key contributor to their strong green performance and since 1997, Toyota and Lexus have notched up 3.2 million hybrid vehicle sales worldwide. The Interbrand report covered data from the world’s leading markets including the UK, France, Germany, Italy, USA, Japan, Brazil and India with Toyota receiving an impressive top score of 64.19.

The methodology for the new report was designed by Interbrand and Deloitte, with the new Green Performance Score designed to be applied across differing industries. Interbrand also interviewed over 10,000 consumers across ten of the world’s largest markets to understand consumer perceptions of a brand’s green performance.

Toyota Prius

Toyota has supplied a fleet of Toyota Prius full hybrid cars for eCorporate Travel, an Edinburgh based offshoot of Edinburgh Executive Travel. The company has commited to taking 14 Prius T4s and with CO2 emissions at only 89g/km, they significantly undercut a standard hackney cab at 244g/km of CO2.

Low CO2 emissions are not the only benefit as the Prius hatchbacks return a fuel economy of more than 72mpg. The Prius can also operate solely on electric power, when required, meaning zero fuel consumption and zero emissions.

The company is also using Trees4Scotland to plant enough native trees to offset more than double the expected emissions from the transportation of its corporate clients. This would equate to around 73 tonnes of carbon dioxide, or the equivalent of driving 820,000km in a Toyota Prius.

The Toyota Prius T4 offers standard features such as automatic air conditioning, seven airbags, electric windows, eight-speaker CD player, rain-sensing wipers, Bluetooth, head-up display, Touch Tracer controls and smart entry and start, plus leather upholstery. If you are interested in Toyota contract hire leasing then prices for the Prius range are on the site now.

The SMMT has released details of the Government’s list of the nine cars that qualify for the Plug-in Car Grant of up to £5,000, when buying a low carbon car with CO2 emissions less than 75g/km. The new grant comes into effect from the 1st January 2011 however only three out the eligible nine cars are available to buy now.

There were also five successful areas that bid for the Plugged-In Places funding, namely the Midlands, Greater Manchester, East of England, Scotland and Northern Ireland and these regions will all share £20m, to further develop the new infrastructure by installing more than 4,000 more charging points. These regions join the successful areas from round one, which were London, Milton Keynes and the North East. In total these three will install over 11,000 charging posts by 2013.

Paul Everitt, SMMT Chief Executive, said,”The motor industry is making great progress in delivering practical, low carbon vehicles and we will see further progress of new and conventional technologies in the year’s ahead”.

The list of the nine qualifying cars is below;

Electric and Hybrids

A recent survey conducted by Glass’ s, one of the UK’s leading vehicle valuation specialists, has found via its website that almost two thirds of UK motorists (60%) agree or partly agree that electric vehicles could replace their family cars. In fact, 23% of this figure agreed that electric and hybrid vehicles could fully replace their household’s cars, whilst the remaining 37% said that electric and hybrid vehicles could replace their second cars.

When asked about the future of electric cars, 53% thought they were the “future of motoring” however 28% thought they were just a “marketing gimmick”. But crucially, just 9% of motorists said they would actually consider buying an electric or hybrid as their next car (0.5% for EVs and 8.7% for hybrids). In addition, when the respondents were asked if they could name any model or make of electric or hybrid other than the Toyota Prius, 57% could not.

However the others named the Tesla (8%), Honda Insight (7%) followed by the G-WIZ and Honda Civic Hybrid both with 5%. Other cars mentioned were the Lexus RX400h/450h (4%) and the Honda CRZ (3%).

Toyota is offering a free water pump repair to any Prius produced between August 2003 and May 2007 as part of its ongoing customer satisfaction programme. They have assured customers there is no safety risk at all with the problem and this should affect about 15,500 vehicles in the UK.

The problem is that the water pump malfunction could cause the vehicle to lose power and in this condition, the temperature of the coolant could become high and result in illumination of the Malfunction Indicator Light. Toyota has reported no issues, accidents or injuries from this pump problem and you should contact your local dealer to arrange repair.

Diesel Car Magazine has announced the winners of its annual car of the year awards 2010 with the Peugeot 5008 grabbing top spot as Car of the year 2010.

Experts at Diesel Car Magazine put over 275 different diesel cars through their paces to come up with the winners in ten classes. There were also three new awards this year- best crossover, best sports car and best eco car. The Awards issue of Diesel Car Magazine goes on sale in newsagents from the 12th May and the list of winners is below.

Diesel Car, Car of the Year Award Winners 2010 

• Best small car - Ford Fiesta
• Best medium car – Volkswagen Golf
• Best large car- Skoda Superb
• Best executive car – Jaguar XF
• Best estate car- Skoda Superb Estate
• Best MPV - Peugeot 5008
• Best crossover – Peugeot 3008
• Best 4×4- Land Rover Discovery 4
• Best sports car – Peugeot RCZ
• Best eco car – Toyota Prius
• Car of the year 2010 – Peugeot 5008

Business contract hire pricing on all models is available on the site now.

Toyota Prius

According to latest figures from automotive analysts Clean Green Cars, Toyota continues to lead the UK motor industry in bringing down CO2 emissions across its entire motor range.

The figures from Clean Green Cars show that for the first quarter of 2010, the mean figure for new Toyota cars sold in Britain was 124.55g/km which is well below the EU target figure of 130g/km set for 2012.

Central to the Toyota achievement has been Toyota’s Hybrid Synergy Drive, which powers the Prius and is soon to be seen in the Auris HSD and of course Toyota Optimal Drive technologies.

The new Auris HSD is set to deliver CO2 emissions from 89g/km and added to the range of Aygo, iQ, Yaris, Urban Cruiser, will help Toyota maintain their position below the key level of 130g/km. Contract hire on the Toyota Prius and all other Toyota models is available now.

Volkswagen Polo

With 59 0ut of the top automotive journalists voting, the Volkswagen Polo has been named as the World Car of the Year 2010 after receiving 29 nominees. The World Car of the Year Awards were held at the New York Auto Show and the Polo was chosen on merit,value, safety, environmental impact, significance and emotional appeal.

Worldwide more than 230,000 customers have placed orders for the newest version of Volkswagen’s popular compact car. In a separate award, the BlueMotion product brand, consisting of the Golf Passat and Polo, was also declared the 2010 World Green Car award, beating the Honda Insight and the Toyota Prius.

BlueMotion models

The jurors commented,”It is not necessary to add an electric motor and a heavy battery pack to achieve class-leading efficiency. Based on Volkswagen’s common rail diesel engines, the BlueMotion models are among the most fuel-efficient vehicles on the market. In fact, the Passat BlueMotion can travel just about 1,000 miles on one tank of fuel in the European cycle”. If you are looking for the most fuel-efficient vehicles, the Super Shopper can sort your Volkswagen contract hire rentals by combined mpg so that you can choose the best model for you.