Harley Chrome Pullback Handlebars - Custom Made on 2040-parts.com

Design Contest: Interior Motives Awards 2011

Shortlisted entries have been announced for the 2011 Interior Motives Student Design Awards. After individual deliberation by our panel of renowned senior designers, students being tutored at colleges in a diverse range of countries including Israel, the Czech Republic, Australia, Taiwan, Canada and China, as well as in the established centres of Europe, the USA and Japan/Korea, have made the 68-strong shortlist of potential winners. Full details of this year's contenders can be viewed here.

Ford testing self-parking cars – with or without a driver (video)

Ford testing self-parking cars – with or without a driver It seems we’re heading to the point where cars can do more and more for the driver, and fully autonomous cars seem to be less than a decade away. On the way to the fully autonomous car, car makers will be offering stages on the way as the ability of cars to be self-controlling moves along, and Ford are heading in that direction with their new systems for parking and obstacle avoidance. Ford are running prototypes with Fully Assisted Parking, a system that manages to sense a space, control the steering, gearbox and brakes to park the car at the touch of a button, even if the driver isn’t actually in the car.

Toyoda testimony: As automaker grew, safety suffered

Toyota Motor Corp. president Akio Toyoda plans to tell lawmakers on Wednesday that the company regrettably chased growth at the expense of safety in recent years, and he will announce steps to improve Toyota's handling of customer complaints. Toyoda's written testimony to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee says the automaker's priorities “became confused.” “We pursued growth over the speed at which we were able to develop our people and our organization,” Toyoda says.