Monroe/expert Series 40013 Suspension Strut Assembly on 2040-parts.com

Exclusive: Laurens van den Acker to replace Patrick le Quément at Renault

The wheels of change are continuing to turn within the automotive design industry, with yet another new appointment being made at the director level. According to industry insiders, Laurens van den Acker is set become the new Design Director at Renault when Patrick le Quément retires later this year. One of the most pre-eminent car designers in the world, Patrick le Quément began his design career at Simca, worked at Ford for 17 years and did a brief stint at Volkswagen before taking the top design job at Renault.

College Exhibition: Umea Institute of Design Degree Show 2004

Students at Sweden's Ume? University Institute of Design presented their work in the annual Degree Show in June, which included work from the Masters programmes in Transportation Design, Advanced Product Design, and Interaction Design along with the final thesis projects from the Bachelor level graduates. Go to Photo Gallery250 photos The degree students from the three year bachelor programme showed their 10 week final degree projects in Industrial Design, and the two year Masters Programmes presented their 20 week final degree works.

Street View not good enough for Google's self-driver

If anyone can bring the self-driving car to market, it's Google. Not only does the company have the necessary funds for such an undertaking, it has the necessary data -- at least one would think. In a Wired article on Tuesday, Google said that even though it has mapped much of the world with Google Street View, those maps won't help its self-driving car.