The first driverless vehicle to be tested on public roads in the Netherlands has officially been conducted. The WePod bus is the first of a proposed fleet of autonomous vehicles, and is being tested in the Dutch town of Wageningen. The first trial took place on 28 January, when it took six people on a 200m journey through the [...]

Sports Utility Vehicles (SUVs) were the highest selling cars in Europe in 2015, which meant the sector is top for the first time. The boom in SUV sales saw European new car registrations increase by 9.3% in 2015. The sector saw an increase of 24% to 3.2 million units, which was a market share increase from 19.8% in [...]

Research has found that 380 million vehicles worldwide will have some form of autonomy in 14 years time, which will have an impact on the car insurance market. In the 2016 edition of the Usage-Based Insurance (UBI) study, consultancy firm PTOLEMUS made the forecast that 380 million semi, highly or fully autonomous vehicles (AVs) will be [...]

Toyota has suspended all Japanese car production for one week after an explosion at a steel factory lead to a shortage of parts. The car maker will halt domestic production for the week beginning 8 February. Production will restart on 15 February, while international production will not be affected. The decision by the company to suspend production [...]

Nissan has launched a prototype programme as part of its goal to significantly reduce the weight of passenger cars. The Japanese car maker is engaged in a ‘Lightweighting Programme’ in collaboration with other auto manufacturers and research bodies. The programme plans to produce a material structure for the floors of future cars, and is intending to be [...]