CES: Welcome to the four-ringed, self-driving future

According to Ricky Hudi, the head of electronics development at Audi, "Ninety percent of automotive innovations today are due to electronics." He should know. He's working on that final piece of the puzzle that elevates our Traffic Assist and Lane Assist and Park Assist and Whiz-Bang Assist into a cohesive package that, yes, gives us the self-driving cars our commuters and slackers have always wanted. Audi believes that we will be saved by technology.

Top Gear’s Clarkson & May run out of charge in a LEAF & iOn

Jeremy and James look for somewhere to plug in the LEAF and iOn Top Gear and electric cars don’t really mix. Unless of course they build the electric car themselves, and then you have a world-beating product in the Hammerhead Eagle i-Thrust. But Top Gear and Tesla wasn’t exactly a success story.

New Range Rover & 2014 Range Rover Sport diesel hybrid at Frankfurt 2013

But Land Rover did tell us the 4.4 litre TDV8 will be joining the range later in the year and that a diesel-electric hybrid would be on offer too. And now we know that the diesel hybrid Range Rover Sport – and a Range Rover Hybrid – will both debut at the Frankfurt Motor Show in September. Stuart Frith, LR’s head programme engineer for the new RRS, has confirmed to Car Sales in Australia that the hybrid Range Rover and Sport will arrive in September – as will the TDV8 RRS – but that the 2.0 litre EcoBoost petrol engine for the RRS is still a way off, even though Land Rover are already running it and believe it still offers all a real Range Rover Sport should.