Volvo's green car that can earn you cash

• Volvo concept generates own electricity
• Use it to power your own home, says Volvo
• Recharge concept is 10 years from reality

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How do you fancy owning an electric car? If that sounds a bit dull, perhaps the idea of it earning you money might sweeten the pill.

That's one possible benefit of Volvo's Recharge concept car - Volvo reckons it could earn you about £1000 a year by selling electricity back to electricity companies.

The Recharge has an electric motor at each wheel, but charges its own batteries by using a 1.6-litre diesel engine running at a constant speed.

You can also plug it into your mains electricity at home to recharge it - but this process can also work in reverse, and you could use the generator to power your own home and even supply the National Grid.

'Even now, at the Detroit motor show, we plan to have meetings with US government officials to discuss this,' said Ichiro Sugioka, science officer at Volvo's California-based motoring and concept centre.

Although there's a driveable version of the Recharge in Sweden, it's going to be a long time before we see cars like this. In fact, Sugioka reckons it'll be 10 years - so keep paying your electricity bill for now.