New car sales accelerate again

NEW CAR SALES could be back to pre-recession levels by the end of this year after a good start to 2014. Latest figures from the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) show there were 176,820 new vehicles registered in April - an 8.2% rise on the same month last year. Last month's figure took the total for the year so far to 864,942 - a 12.5% increase on the first four months of 2013.

Volvo V40 teased again ahead of Geneva [w/video]

Volvo has released an unusual cartoon teaser video for its new five-door V40, together with an additional image. The animated video features a flock of birds perching on power lines before all but one fly off. Being left on its own to dance on the lines, before fading to black with the words 'Be One of a Kind' appearing before advertising the car's imminent arrival.  Meanwhile the image (left), showing the car in silhouette, gives little away about the design, unlike Volvo's first sneak peek (right), released in December last year.

ICEM Style creative design software launched

ICEM Ltd, known for its ICEM Surf Class A surface development software, has launched ICEM Style, a new software product developed specifically for use by creative designers in the transportation design and industrial design industry. The launch presentation highlighted the integrated workflow from concept development in ICEM Style, through to refinement in ICEM Surf, enabling designers and engineers to share the same model data throughout the design process. According to ICEM, it is now possible, for the first time in a concept design tool, to design in a photo-realistic modelling environment, without using third-party visualisation products, or to wait for a static rendering to be generated.