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Toyota to unlock secrets of black-box recorders

Reacting to criticism that data from black-box crash recorders in its vehicles can be accessed only by the company, Toyota Motor Corp. is moving to ship hundreds of data-decoding machines to the United States and make them commercially available to help diagnose vehicle problems. The devices, known as event data recorders, are similar to the black boxes on airliners and record information such as vehicle and engine speed in the seconds before a crash.

Italian firm buys stake in Aston Martin

The former owner of Italian motorcycle maker Ducati has bought a 37.5-percent stake in financially strapped British car maker Aston Martin. The move means future Astons could use modern drivelines and electric architectures from Mercedes-Benz's AMG division, insiders with knowledge of the deal suggest. Private equity fund Investindustrial has signed a memorandum of understanding with current Aston Martin owner Investment Dar of Kuwait that will see it pay $240 million (150 million pounds) for the ownership stake.

Ford B-MAX off to a strong start in UK

The new Ford B-Max compact people carrier is off to a strong sales start in the UK, with 1,000 already delivered to customers. And that eye-catching advert (we’ve posted it below – Ford in Europe need all the help they can get to garner sales!) will no doubt raise awareness of the long-awaited replacement for the old Fiesta-based Fusion MPV and help make the B-Max a success for Ford in a segment they once dominated, but which they’d left to wither on the vine. But eye-catching  advert for the new B-Max or not, the B-Max is already selling well with over 1,000 cars delivered to customers in the last few weeks and orders for 2500 cars received by Ford in the UK before the B-Max even appeared in showrooms.