2013 Skoda Octavia Estate revealed

Ahead of a debut at the 2013 Geneva Motor Show, Skoda has revealed the estate version of the new Octavia with a pair of photos. The 2013 Skoda Octavia Estate takes the already capacious Octavia hatch to a new level, with a boot that will swallow 610 litres of stuff with the seats up and an impressive 1,740 litres with the seats down, a significant chunk more than the competition can offer. The extra capacity comes courtesy of extra length compared to the Octavia hatch, with the estate growing by 110mm in the wheelbase – with an extra 73mm for rear passengers’ legroom – and 90mm longer overall.

Michelin Challenge Design competition celebrates 10 years

Michelin has released a short video documenting the last ten years of the Challenge Design competition. With excepts from jury members Freeman Thomas, Director of Advanced Design at Ford; Victor Nacif, VP of Design at Nissan Design Europe; Geza Loczi, Director of Design at Volvo Monitoring Concept Center; Dave Marek, Advanced Design Director for Honda North America; Steward Reed, Chair of Transportation Design at ACCD; Frank Saucedo, Design Director of GM's Advanced Design Studio in California and Chris Chapman of BMW Designworks USA, the video outlines some of the 2700 entries Michelin has received since the competition's inception in 2002. That year, the MCD display at the NAIAS in Detroit featured cars from European design houses.

Interior Motives China Conference to explore new design directions

Chinese consumers are driving new design directions, and CDN's Interior Motives China Conference in Beijing next week is set to explore how. Titled ‘New brands and the search for a design identity', the conference features an impressive speaker line-up that blends the international (Chris Bangle and VW's Wolfgang Muller Pietralla) with the regional (GM PATAC's Friedhelm Engler, Ford China's Chelsia Lau and PSA-Peugeot/Citroën China's Robert Walker), with the domestic (Shan Wei of the Beijing Automotive Technical Center (BATC), and Ken Ma of SAIC). The annual conference is the third in China to be hosted by CDN's magazine Interior Motives, and will be held on Wednesday 21 April, and Thursday 22 April, just in advance of the opening of Auto China 2010 in Beijing on Friday (23 April).