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Elsewhere on the website you'll find a Road Test of the Chevrolet Spark, Chevy's all-new city car.

A simple car. Straightforward to assess, you'd think. It's nearly all about objectivity at this level. .

Even so, very few cars in my memory have given us such cause for debate about our verdict on them.

What's unusual for Autocar, and unique in my time on the mag, is that the Spark is a new, fresh-from-the-box product to which we've given a lowly two-star rating.

I believe it's the right verdict. During the past year we've tried to make more of our star ratings – to stop being afraid to open up low scores to poorer cars.

Usually, though, it's older cars that fail to paint in the higher stars. So I'm sad the Spark is among them.

A hell of a lot of hard work went into this car. It rides and handles competently. It's roomy enough. The people who engineered and built it did so in the best faith; they made the wisest, most prudent decisions they could; and I have too little knowledge about the constraints their time and budget placed on them.

Hence our consternation. Maybe it's worth an extra half star, we pondered?

Thing is, though, Autocar (as all motoring mags should) reports to its readers, not the industry, and the Spark is a car we could never imagine recommending to somebody.

An examination of the trim, a look at the price list or a listen to the engine is telling. To experience the Hyundai i10 is to seal any doubt: the Spark is off the pace.

But I'm sad that I'm content that we've reached the right verdict.

We’re yet to drive the new Cayenne S Hybrid but impressions from the passenger seat reveal Porsche’s first series production petrol-electric model will be a clear thorn in the side of rivals such as the BMW X6, Lexus RX400 H and Mercedes-Benz M400 Hybrid.

With performance – both off the line and through the gears – on par with the 400bhp naturally-aspirated 4.8-litre V8 Cayenne S, the new four wheel drive displays exceptional levels of mechanical refinement without any indication of the complex processes taken by its advanced driveline, which was developed in a joint venture between Porsche’s own Weissach based engineers and their counterparts at Volkswagen’s engineering centre in Braunschweig, Germany.

Porsche Cayenne Hybrid – full details

Step off is typical strong, with the electric motor and its 184lb ft of torque providing primary propulsion from standstill up to speeds of 50km/h or until the energy level of the battery runs low.

The only indication of the introduction of the petrol engine – the same unit used by Audi in the S4 – to the drive process from the passenger seat is when the needle on the rev counter – now placed in the centre of the instrument binnacle as with Porsche’s more sporting models – springs to life.

At loads under 2500rpm, the supercharged 3.0-litre V6 is so well isolated from the cabin its operation is barely audible. Under greater throttle load there is a low level growl as acceleration builds but it is never over bearing.

Out on the motorway the over riding impression is of wind noise around the large exterior mirrors. The decoupling of the clutch at speed occurs seamlessly when the driver backs off from the throttle, allowing the Cayenne S Hybrid to coast at zero revs in a state not dissimilar to a bicycle when it is freewheeling with the engine fully disengaged.

Further to the mechanical aspects of the new Porsche, there has been a wholesale improvement in interior ambiance. The new dashboard, similar in style to that gracing the Panamera, is of a much higher quality than that of the first generation Cayenne.

The question that now remains is: how much will Porsche charge for it?

Most of us probably won’t be too disposed to sympathising with Bugatti Veyron owners over the maintenance costs they’ll face when running one of these magnificent machines – you practically have to be a billionaire to afford one – but you can understand why anyone might wince at some of the bills that Volkswagen’s finest can run up.

A routine service, for instance, costs £12,866 or the price of a middling Polo, whereas an annual service for a Ferrari Enzo is £1680, which seems like a bargain by contrast.

Bugatti Veyron vs Bugatti EB110

Buying new rubber for the Veyron will produce similarly heart-freezing bills, a set of four tyres costing £23,500, in part because they have to be capable of 253mph, more than 100mph faster than Concorde’s landing speed.

Worse news still is that at every fourth tyre change the Veyron’s rims must be stress tested for cracks – a sensible precaution in a car this fast – and replaced if they are found wanting at a cost of £7050 per corner.

For all these reasons, it’s not surprising to learn that one owner has taken to having his Veyron trailered to his favourite roads and following it there by executive jet, an arrangement that works out cheaper than driving the Bugatti several hundred miles to reach the dream Tarmac.

All of which is guaranteed to keep the Veyron out of reach of 99.9 per cent-plus of all car buyers, even if it should depreciate colossally. And, despite these maintenance costs, even that looks unlikely.

What with all this talk of winter tyres we thought we’d do our own little investigation while the snow is still around. So today we ventured down to our nearest snow bound test track to experiment with two RWD diesel BMWs. One with its regular summer tyres, the other fitted with a set of Continential Cold Weather tyres. 

This wasn’t a proper scientific test, in no small part down to the fact the two test cars were different models. BMW's press garage is snowed in, so we had to make do with what we already had at the office and a 118d, borrowed from Conti.

Watch the winter tyre test on video

So not exactly a fair test, but still we thought it might tell us something interesting.

On a level icy surface our long-term 635d on summer tyres could just about get going, but introduce any sort of incline or angle and it just struggled massively. While the 1-Series with winter tyres still slipped around a bit, it found traction much more quickly and generally felt ten times more secure. It even managed to keep going through thick fresh snow. Conditions that had us pushing the 6-Series. 

Talking to the people at Conti here’s the really interesting thing -  winter tyres aren’t just for snow, they can be used on slush, ice, frost and even wet roads. In fact any time the temperature dips below +7deg you’re better off on winter tyres. Apparently.

Also there’s no real reason you can’t use winter tyres all year round in the UK. There is some trade off in dry braking in really hot conditions, but this balanced with better braking in the wet and cold.  Likewise the softer compound might wear more quickly in the summer, but this is balanced with better wear rates in the winter. 

So why aren’t winter tyres more widely used in the UK?  According to Conti, they account for just 0.5% of UK sales.  Mostly it’s down to the fact that we just don’t have the culture or infrastructure here to encourage people to switch between summer and winter tyres. And in my opinion it’s about time that changed.

If for no other reason than it means you can continue to enjoy the benefits of rear wheel drive even when the roads get a bit snowy.

LG took out a quarter page advert in the Financial Times yesterday to announce that it was ‘globally searching’ for 5 of its Chocolate phones, with the serial numbers: 802KPAE821224, 803KPBF578597, 803KPXV578330, 803KPVH578503 and 803KPJP923836.

In what could be the most expensive mobile handset global hunt ever, LG offers a $10,000 reward per handset returned to them. The advert refers readers to the LG Mobile web page for more information. You can click here for more details.

However, the company remains cryptic as to the reason of the recall and even imposes a deadline for returning the wanted handsets by the 30th September 2009, somewhat unusual for a product recall.

The mystery remains over LG’s unusual advert, with observers torn between it being a rather unorthodox marketing ploy or a quest to recover experimental microprocessing chips accidentally inserted into the handsets in question.

Published by Ric