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Toyota reveals safety research car at CES

One day before the International Consumer Electronics Show opened its doors in Las Vegas, Toyota took the wraps off the highest-tech Lexus LS ever made. The car -- with spinning sensors and probing lasers galore -- is meant to demonstrate safety features that could be coming to production cars someday soon. Called the Advanced Safety Research Vehicle, it sure looked like some of the autonomous self-driving vehicles we saw at the DARPA Challenge, but Toyota stressed that a robot car is not the goal.

News watch March 2010: today's auto industry news

Tuesday 30 March 2010• Mercedes has dismissed claims that its Maybach brand is for sale, after reports in the Chinese media claimed Chinese car company BYD was considering a bid for the upmarket offshoot. BYD has also denied the claims (Reuters)• Toyota president Akio Toyoda has promised his company will listen more carefully to customers and react faster in a bid to regain credibility after the Japanese car manufacturer was forced to recall millions of vehilces over safety fears (BBC)• The Obama administration is expected to unveil its finalised fuel economy and tailpipe emissions through to 2016 this week, to coincide with the opening of the 2010 New York auto show (Detroit News)  Monday 29 March 2010• Toyota has agreed to licence the hybrid technology in the Prius to Mazda, which will combine the electric system with its next-gen Sky engines. It’s part of Mazda’s plans to increase the average fuel economy of its vehicles by 30% by 2015 (compared to 2008 levels) and it hopes to have its first hybrid vehicle on sale in Japan by 2013 (Mazda)• Ford and Chinese car company Geely have signed a stock purchase agreement that will allow the latter to acquire 100% of Volvo (along with related assets including intellectual property rights).

Driving licence costs to be cut by almost a third

The cost of a driving licence is going down Actually the cost of applying foe a driving licence is a drop in the ocean compared with just about every other motoring cost, but the news that the Government are planning to cut the cost of anything is always welcome news. The Roads Minister, Stephen Hammond, has announced that the Government is planning to cut the cost of applying for your first driving licence from £50 to £34 if you process your application digitally and by 15 per cent if you do a paper application. That will also see the 10 year renewal of photo licences fall from £20 to £14 and driver tachograph card – for commercial drivers – will also drop from £38 to £32.