Its not easy being green, as my pal Kermit once said/sang. And it’s even tougher when you are in a recession. Could this be why sales of electric cars have fallen by more than half this year, according to figures released two days after the Government’s climate change advisory body predicted a huge increase! Only 156 electric cars were sold from January to October, compared with 374 for the same period last year (there’s about 1,000 in total on British roads). And the industry has had its first casualty: Nice Car Company, one of the two main British distributors of electric cars, went into administration yesterday after sales dropped to fewer than 1 car week. The Committee on Climate Change said on Monday it expected electric and hybrid vehicles to form up to 40 % of cars on the road by 2020. Really? It seems that most of the major manufactures are holding off on the release of their version of electric cars, but I wonder if that could spark (no pun intended) the rebirth of the car industry?

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.

Earlier this year Toyota was about three cars away from overtaking GM to be the world’s biggest car maker, and given their concerted efforts to make the ugly but ethical Prius the roller of choice, we were quite happy with that. Black hats on then as the firm has announced it is cutting production at its British car factory in Derbyshire. With an output of 277,000 cars last year, it was Britain’s second-biggest car producer after the Nissan plant in Sunderland. But the firm is reducing the number of daily shifts on the plant’s Auris production line from two to one, cutting production by 15,000 vehicles, over the next five months, when Toyota will review the market and hopefully get things back on track. None of the 3,800 permanent staff will go. They’re a smart bunch, Toyotans, and the industry will no doubt take note of their rightly cautious strategy.

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.

Nearly 300 workers at Land Rover in the West Midlands have been moved to the nearby Jaguar factory because of a lack of work. The staff have agreed to move from the Solihull factory to the Jaguar plant in Castle Bromwich where they have been guaranteed two years work on the Jaguar XF model. A spokeswoman for Land Rover said it was just “good business” practice and the moves were voluntary. The brands were recently bought from Ford by Indian motor giant Tata (them again) for £1.7bn. It seems like sensible business practice, as brand demand fluctuates, simply shift the workforce. I wonder whether we’ll see the headline, “300 staff move back to Land Rover,â€� or “300 staff made redundant from Land Rover,â€� in 2 years time? Oh…who cares?!