There’s more bad news for the automotive industry and just as GM are beginning to claw their way out of bankruptcy on the other side of the Atlantic.  The latest bad news comes from Aston Martin as they prepare to make 95 of their 1200 employees at their Warwickshire plant redundant.  These cuts come after Aston Martin made 600 staff redundant in December and production line staff were put on a three day week, apparently a recession isn’t the best of times to buy a luxury car.  Have no fear though Aston Martin have their new sensibly priced limited edition The One-77 in the pipeline to turn the company’s fortunes around…it’s only £1million!

Changes to the Kyoto protocol due next year will force many companies to take the climate change more seriously – or face huge fines. So if these companies don’t go green, their business will be worth less money. So say the tree huggers at the Carbon Trust. They looked at firms with a combined worth of $7trillion, and found they could be worth even more if they took steps to tackle emissions – with automotive firms set to gain the most by reaping the benefits from techy advances in the field of hybrid and electric cars.

You heard it here first: After giving our lawyers the fidgets claiming that one of India’s biggest firms, Tata, had used thugs to seize farmland for the factory to build the world’s smallest and cheapest car, the Nano, we seem the claim was not a conspiracy or flashback. In fact the opposition party in West Bengal has called for an indefinite siege of the factory building in protest. The party leader, a tough old dame called Mamata Banerjee, wants 400 acres of land returned to local farmers and is in no mood for a compromise. In such a stand you soon find out who your friends are: a number of other states in India have come forward and said they are more than happy to build the Nano. That will worry the state government here who are desperately trying to attract investors who for years have been put off by its communist policies. If Tata are forced to move, what message will that send out? The world’s cheapest car, yes. But at what cost? Hanson St Hansen-Hansan, News at Ten, Bengal.

What have Matt Damon, Brad Pitt and George Clooney all got in common? No, not prostate cancer, they’ve all reserved the new £92,000 Tesla Roadster - the new sports car from the US company, being made right here at the Lotus factory in Norfolk. Why is this of interest, because while the roadster is a high performing penis substitute like every other sports car, unlike the rest it is entirely electric. It takes three hours to charge up and can then run for 220miles. The company is already working on a four-door family version, while developing a more affordable vehicle with an unnamed major manufacturer. One thing this boy’s toy lacks is noise – it’s completely silent when running, so no throaty revs at the traffic lights. It also means, if you’re a passenger in one of the 250 available in Europe, you’ll have to listen to the driver drone on about how green he is, and how small his cock is.

No one said that getting to be in snapping distance of the world’s largest car maker was going to be easy, but let’s get some perspective people: one of Toyota’s senior car engineers died from working too many hours, a Japanese labour bureau has found – or karoshi as it is called. That’s right, the Japanese work ethic is so strong that as long ago as 1987 they invented a name for death-by-overtime. The 45-year-old man was developing a hybrid version of Toyota’s successful Camry line at the time of his death, averaging more than 80 hours of of overtime per month (kerchiing!) In a statement, Toyota offered its condolences and said it would monitor the health of its employees. That sounds too much like hard work to me!