Mercedes Benz W126, W124 Climate Control Unit 1268300585 on 2040-parts.com

17,000 solar panels to power Toyota’s Derbyshire plant

Toyota’s manufacturing plant at Burnaston in Derbyshire, where the Auris and Avensis are built, will install the biggest solar panel system yet seen in a UK car plant.  British Gas, which will stump up the £10 million cost of installing the solar panels, and Toyota are working together to save 2000 tonnes of CO2 emissions a year. Once the solar panels are installed, they claim it will save enough energy to build approximately 7000 cars a year.

DAB radio in cars and the digital switchover

Britain's motorists face a £1 billion+ bill to fix their car radios so they work after the digital switchover, a CAR Magazine investigation reveals. The Government plans to switch off the FM signal and move the UK's broadcasting industry to DAB digital radios - mirroring the switchover from analogue to digital televisions. The official target for the digital radio switchover is 2015, but many commentators predict that date will slip as there is a great deal of work to be done before Britain is ready.

Volvo’s self-parking car will park your Volvo for you

Volvo’s self-parking car will do parking for you It’s rapidly getting to the point where drivers will need to do little more than be in the car to ‘drive’ it, with technology taking away control of tasks like parking. But a new technology from Volvo means you don’t even need to be in the car to park it. Volvo has been working on an autonomous parking that uses Vehicle 2 Infrastructure technology – which is basically sensors built in to the road – where the sensors guide the car to a vacant space.