The world of greener motoring and alternative fuels can be a complex and confusing place. As such you may often be left with the feeling that you could do with a handy guide when making that all-important vehicle choice or when you are looking for maintenance tips to help your current car run cleaner.

Well, at last the RAC has come to the rescue, publishing a new guide, entitled; ‘The Efficient Driver’s Handbook’ which provides ‘everything today’s driver needs to know about choosing and using a car in an economical and eco-efficient way’.

Covering everything from electric, hybrids, LPG ‘dual fuel’ and other alternatively fuelled vehicles to the most fuel-efficient diesel and petrol cars, author Dave Moss provides a complete overview of the market for ‘greener’ vehicles while also providng handy driving tips to get the most to the mile from your car.

To celebrate the release of this new comprehensive guide, priced at £9.99 RRP, we have blagged five copies to give away absolutely free.

All you have to do to be in with a chance to win is signed up to receive our newsletter during September (see left hand side of the web page, click on the Subscribe now button) and you will automatically be entered into the competition. The competition will close on midnight, September 30, 2010 and is open to UK residents only. We’ll email the lucky winners, selected at random, to ask for addresses to send the books out after the competition closes. Winners need to respond within 10 days to claim their prize, otherwise another winner will be selected.

So get signing to win!

Competition as featured on ThePrizeFinder – UK Competitions.

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Foton Motor, of China, and Freescale Semiconductor have joined forces to create the Foton-Freescale Automotive Joint Lab with the aim of exploring joint development efforts in areas including electric and hybrid vehicles and relevant electronic control technology.

The Foton-Freescale Automotive Joint Lab is committed to co-developing silicon, software and system-level solutions for use in the next generation of Foton vehicles with future collaborations to look at powertrains, chassis and safety technologies.

Part of the collaboration will involve a wide range of microcontroller platforms, which will include Freescale’s 32bit Power Architecture MCUs, 16bit S12X and 8bit S08 devices along with analogue power management ICs and sensors.

According to Wu Xuebin, the Foton motor vice president and director of the Engineering Research Institute, automotive electronics technology has greatly enhanced the safety, emissions and economic performance of vehicles. Now Foton is committed to promoting energy and environmental technology in the industry and has provided continuous breakthroughs in new energy driven vehicles over recent years.

Reza Kazerounian, the senior vice president and general manager of Freescale’s Microcontroller Solutions Group, commented that through close collaboration the companies hope to drive breakthroughs in cost effective electronics, powertrains and hybrid electric vehicle solutions. It hopes to help Foton maintain its leadership in the area of commercial vehicles while also enhancing research and development in green cars.

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Toyota is to begin retailing a new electronic humming device this month, for its Prius cars to help make the models noisier and easier for pedestrians to hear it approaching.

The carmaker will begin selling the new speaker system in its home country of Japan from August 30. Costing 12,600 yen (£96), the speaker system fits under the bonnet of the car and emits a synthesized noise of an electric motor. The noise is designed to be around as loud as the noise of a regular car, to prevent it from becoming annoying to drivers, the firm says.

It will be available for retrofitting to existing Prius models while the carmaker also intends to make the new device available to other hybrid, electric as well as fuel cell vehicles planned for launch.

The development of the new device follows on from complaints from pedestrian groups-particular those with sight problems-that hybrid vehicles are difficult to hear approaching and as such pose a threat to them. Recent research from the University of Cailfornia, Riverside reported that hybrid vehicles came 40 per cent closer to pedestrians than their combustion engine counterparts before pedestrians could detect their direction.

The problem occurs when hybrids such as the Prius run at low speeds. At such speeds the petrol engine is not engaged and the vehicle runs on super-quiet electric mode only. As such, Toyota has designed the new device to operating at electric speeds up to approximately 25 km/h.  The sound emitted rises and falls in pitch relative to the vehicle’s speed, thus helping indicate the vehicle’s proximity and movement.

The device is designed to meet new Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism guidelines.

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Many of the top federal agencies in the US will soon be running on hybrid power.

That’s after the US government’s General Services Administration (GSA) took delivery of more than 5,600 hybrid vehicles under lease agreements.

It’s not the first time that the GSA has bought hybrid vehicles as it has used the revenue from the sale of older vehicles the agencies exchanged last year to bring in 1,600 hybrid vehicles after receiving funds through the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act.

Now it has brought in many new hybrids, the majority of which are Ford Fusion hybrids which cost around $11,214 more than the alternative “non-hybrid” 2010 Chrysler Avenger.

Speaking about the decision, Bill Toth, the GSA director of motor vehicle management, told the Federal times that he doesn’t know if hybrid purchasing numbers will continue at the same pace without a jump in capital because of the additional expense.

However, the Department of Energy still plans to switch to an all-hybrid fleet within three years. It is already leasing 753 hybrids from GSA this year including 334 Ford Fusions, 145 Ford Escape utility vehicles, one Honda Insight and 273 Chevrolet Silverado pick-up trucks.

In addition, GSA has made a commitment to buy 100 plug-in hybrid vehicles when they become available during the fiscal year 2011; and it is offering three electric vehicles on its schedule this year.

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Hybrid vehicles continue to be at the forefront of Toyota’s green car plans after it announced a manufacturing system for midsize hybrids.

According to a report in the Nikkei, start-to-finish manufacturing will now take place at a Kyushu subsidiary. Toyota Motor Kyushu Inc is an integrated producer of many Lexus models and other large vehicles but at the moment the engines for the SAI and HS250h hybrid models are shipped from its parent’s Kamigo plant.

Now however, Toyota will invest around one billion yen into retooling the idle assembly line at the Kanda plant and by the middle of 2012 it hopes to have overhauled the line so that it can take over on the assembly of 2.4 and 1.8litre engines for hybrid cars.

Capacity for the new line is expected to reach around 150,000 engines a year with Toyota also planning an integrated production model for hybrids at a factory in the Tohoku region late next year.

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Researchers at the University of Warwick are to embark on a three year study into the real-world effects of driving a hybrid car.

Using a system called Dymola, the three year project will study the impacts of real world driver behaviour on CO2 emissions and energy use of hybrid vehicles.

It’s the first time a single modelling framework will be developed for all hybrid vehicle architectures which will link individual vehicle models with driver models, transport models and city electrical energy models with the aim of enhancing understanding and promoting the reduction of energy usage in the transport sector.

The project, called Sustainable Action on Vehicle Energy (SAVE) is led by Professor Paul Jennings and Dr Peter Jones; leading the modelling programme is senior research fellow Dr Andy McGordon and post doctoral research fellow, Dr Caizhen Cheng. Using a multi-domain physical modelling and simulation tool, to study the impact of driver behaviour on vehicle emissions (especially from hybrid vehicles), the project aims to ask questions such as “how do hybrid car drivers cruise on a motorway?” and “how do we positively influence behaviour to reduce emissions?”

Vehicle emissions are currently evaluated using simple velocity/time simulations, but as Dr Andy McGordon says: “The problem with drive cycles, such as NEDC, which calculate drive cycle emissions is that no one actually drives like that. In fact it’s almost impossible to drive like the velocity to time simulation. When approaching a set of traffic lights the driver doesn’t think right I’m 20 seconds from stopping. Drivers judge in distance – I need to stop in 200 metres. Replacing time with distance is the first difference in our research.

“Where we’re headed is to be able to model the effect of real world driver behaviour, and integrate this into transport models as well as individual vehicle models. Current transport models, although they are effectively distance based simulations, do not include the effects of real world behaviour- each vehicle is effectively computer controlled and behaves in an idealistic manner. This can result in errors in predicted energy use.

The project, being carried out in collaboration with Jaguar Land Rover, Arup  and Froude Hofmann, will help create a fair assessment of the energy usage of required by different vehicle types such as hybrids and diesel engines. This should help ‘level the playing field’ by creating a single standard measurement of all energy usage and give better indication of the energy-saving potential of each type of vehicle technology.

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The brand new Honda Fit Hybrid is expected to be the cheapest hybrid car around when it launches in October.

According to a report by Kyodo, the Honda Motor Company has decided to sell its new hybrid car for Y1.59million in Japan – making it the cheapest petrol-electric hybrid car available in the country.

In fact, the Honda Fit will be 300,000Yen cheaper than the Honda Insight Hybrid when it was put on sale in February last year. It is also likely to accelerate competition in the green car sector between Honda and Toyota, which is expected to release its own compact hybrid next year that will do more than 94mpg and have a price tag of around Y1.5million.

The new Fit has fuel economy of 70.6mpg and features a 1.3litre engine and electric motor.

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How successful has Toyota been in marketing its hybrid models? Well now sales have topped the one million mark – and that’s just on its home turf of Japan.

Cumulative sales of Toyota hybrids worldwide have actually reached 2.68million units although sales have declined from their peak in 2007 of 347,500 units outside Japan. However, within its home country, sales of Toyota hybrids leapt last year and continue to outpace the results elsewhere thanks in large to the subsidies on offer.

It’s no surprise to learn that the Prius has been the real show stealer, having been the top seller in Japan for the last 14months.

At the moment there are nine Toyota Motor Corporation hybrid passenger vehicle models and three hybrid commercial vehicle models sold in Japan – outside Japan there are eight hybrid passenger vehicles sold across 80 countries and regions. Toyota hopes to expand this number even further over the next few years and is also planning to introduce hybrid models of all the vehicles in its line-up as early as possible in the 2020s.

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Just how much of an impact will electric vehicles have on the fleet of one of the world’s leading car manufacturers? Ford believes it has the answer.

According to the company’s director of global electrification Nancy Gioia, speaking at Plug-in 2010 in San Jose, California, Ford expects hybrids, plug-in hybrids and battery electric vehicles to represent two-five per cent of its global fleet by 2015 and then rapidly increase to 10-25 per cent of its global fleet by 2010.

Hybrids are expected to make up the majority – around 70 per cent – of the 2020 numbers with plug-in hybrids contributing a 20-25 per cent share and battery electric vehicles accounting for the remainder.

Miss Gioia stated that electrification is a core part of Ford’s product portfolio and is embedded into the fabric of the company along with other technologies.

Ford is currently electrifying its highest volume platform including the likes of the Focus, the Transit Connect, the C-MAX and the S-MAX and hopes that by electrifying the platform and building the vehicles down the same assembly lines it will be able to seize on an opportunity during a volatile period.

The company’s approach with plug-in hybrids is to use the parallel power split architecture of its standard hybrids, which allows identical parts to be used including traction motors and power electronics.

Battery technology was also earmarked as the key to cost improvements with Ford expecting four cycles of battery chemistry improvement over the next 10 years.

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The £5,000 electric car subsidies have been spared from funding cuts by the new government.

Motorists who buy an electric or plug-in hybrid car will from next January be able to claim a grant worth 25 per cent of the car’s value (up to £5,000).

The fund for the scheme was initially announced by the former Labour government and subsequently placed on hold by the new Coalition government, while it considered where spending cuts would fall.

It was initially expected that the government, led by PM David Cameron, would announce whether the scheme would go ahead after its autumn spending review. However the government has taken the unusual step of agreeing to ring fence the £43 million fund from any cuts in advance to show its commitment to supporting the market for ultra-low CO2 cars.

Motor industry firms had been putting pressure on the government to secure the fund. The industry lobby warned the government that the UK would be significantly less attractive for new investment without the subsidy.

It was feared that the scale of budget cuts required to reduce the country’s deficit would mean that funding for transport would bear a significant brunt.

Transport Secretary Philip Hammond said:“We are sending a clear signal that Britain is open for business and that we are committed to greening our economy. This will ensure that the UK is a world leader in low emission vehicles.

“We will review the level of the incentive regularly to ensure that the UK remains competitive and taxpayers get value for money.  The first review will be in January 2012, at which point we will set the level for subsequent years.”

Energy and Climate Change Secretary Chris Huhne said:“Electric and low carbon cars are fun to drive and essential to meet our climate targets.

"That’s why we’ll need a massive increase in the number of electric and clean green cars on our roads. Because this is new technology the Government needs to step in to kick start the market which is why today’s initiative is vital.”

Assuming the fund doesn’t run out beforehand, the grants will remain in place until March 2012, giving carmakers time to introduce eligible vehicles. Initially, the Nissan Leaf and the Mitsubishi i-MiEV will be two of only a handful of eligible vehicles.

The grants will help with the cost of an electric vehicle, which can be around £10,000 more than their petrol equivalent.

The Plugged-In Places initiative, which funds the installation of public charging points remains on-going, however the final funding will be decided in the autumn spending review.

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