Japan leads new thinking on cars

As the US companies that produce gas guzzling monsters take corporate body blows in the face of the world recession and economic downturn and US drivers start to think green after the recent spikes in petrol prices, designers in Japan, helped by a Government tax policy which promotes cars with engines under 660cc, have moved to fill a gap inthe market by producing funky new cars which are both environmentally friendly and design classics too. Some of the new cars promote hybrid fuels, some are running on electricity alone (like the Mitsubishi I-MIEV)  and some running on hydrogen fuel cells (the Honda FCX Clarity).  They look either great or whacky, depending on your taste - the Toyota i-REAL looks like a giant armchair and the PIVO2 positions the driver in capsule that ’looks like an egg’ with ‘a friendly robot peering over the dashboard’. A team at Kyoto University have gone one step further - with a single seat electric car made out of bamboo - the BamGoo -  it weighs just 60kg and can run for 50KM on a single charge.And at the end of its working life it can be … put on the compost heap!