If you want a taxi with no handbrake, look no further...

When you drive a new car for the first time, there are always things you have to get used to. With this one it was the absence of a handbrake. After parking, and successfully not bumping into the cars on either side of the space using the beep…beep…beep… beep... beep… beepbeepbeep audio parking aid, I reached automatically for the handbrake. Not there! Instead I found the Meriva's "flexirail system", a sliding track with various cup holders, coin holders, etc. Lovely, but not what I needed at that point.

The plug-in Prius makes local journeys uber-green and ultra-cheap, and the only real drawback is boot space. Green cars are going to be bigger than renewable energy, we heard yesterday. HSBC reckons 8.65m electric vehicles and 9.23m plug-in and hybrid electric vehicles will be sold globally in 2020, up from around 5,000 and 657,000 respectively last year.

If you want a taxi with no handbrake, look no further... When you drive a new car for the first time, there are always things you have to get used to. With this one it was the absence of a handbrake. After parking, and successfully not bumping into the cars on either side of the space using the beep…beep…beep… beep... beep… beepbeepbeep audio parking aid, I reached automatically for the handbrake. Not there! Instead I found the Meriva's "flexirail system", a sliding track with various cup holders, coin holders, etc. Lovely, but not what I needed at that point.

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Price £10,875
MPG 48.7
Top speed 114mph