VW group design future

By Adam Towler Motor Industry 23 June 2008 19:01 VW Group’s Design Director Walter De Silva shed light on the future direction of Volkswagen design during a lecture earlier this week at the old Fiat Lingotto factory in Turin. Extolling his own thoughts on design amid the current world – “constraints are what promotes creativity” - he described VW as being immersed in a process of defining their design language as Audi had already done to achieve the quality and diversity necessary. Audi design DNA was “understood by everyone in the company” he said, “right down to the smallest details”.

Citroen DS5: Official

Citroen DS5 - another convincing DS Citroen We had the arrival of the Citroen DS5 trumpeted as long ago as 2009 when we revealed that the DS5 would arrive in 2009, complete with hybrid diesel powertrain. Despite the official debut of the DS5 being just days away – and Citroen teasing the DS5 with a photo of a headlight last week – the powers that be at Citroen have decied that we ought to at least have a few photos and some detail ahead of Shanghai. How kind.

Volvo testing new safety features

Volvo outlined three new technologies that it says will help make the Volvos of the future a good deal safer: autonomous driving, “Intersection Support” and animal detection. Volvo says it's tailoring technologies to the way people drive, by which it means poorly. The company claims that “surveys from three different research institutes in the United States reveal that modern drivers spend 25 to 30 percent of their time behind the wheel doing other things, such as focusing on mobile communication.” Volvo's new technologies are said take this into account and “provide the driver with the right support at all times.” By using a camera and radar, future Volvos will be able to follow the car in front while driving in slow traffic using an autonomous-driving function.