Bus of the future:

Bus of the future: Sir George Young, Secretary of State for Transport, trying out Volvo's new "environmental concept bus" in central London yesterday.

The ECB - which the company claims is cleaner, greener, safer and more comfortable than its predecessors - is the fruit of Swedish motor engineering, but powered by a British-designed engine: a gas turbine fuelled by ethanol. This drives a generator and recharges the battery pack used to propel the bus around town. The idea is that the bus will use battery power for zero emissions in town and gas turbine power to recharge the batteries on longer runs.

Photograph: Nicholas Turpin