Search Results for: cars

A top Volkswagen official refused to acknowledge to a European consumer organization (BEUC) conference in Brussels yesterday (September 28) that the company had acted illegally in Europe in fitting defeat devices to its cars, despite apologizing for doing so. Imelda Wander-Lamé, Volkswagen’s director of group after sales, told the ‘Fitness check on the car sector in Europe’ conference on the dieselgate scandal and its aftermath: “We are truly sorry for this inconvenience and loss of trust that we caused to our customers.”…

BIG marketing stunts can boost sales of technical textiles and maybe one of the biggest examples in Europe this year was created by world renowned artists Christo. He created ‘The Floating Piers’ on Lake Iseo, near Brescia, in northern Italy.…

THE PARIS conference of the parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) last December, of COP21, made a commitment to create a carbon-neutral world between 2050 and 2100. This means that governments and international organisations must devise policies to ensure the amount of greenhouse gases emitted by human activity equals the amount that that trees, soil and oceans can absorb naturally preventing the build-up of CO2 in the atmosphere.…

JUDGING by the initial responses to the final guidance on net neutrality released on August 30 by European regulators group BEREC, these new rules are too restrictive for the taste of telecoms companies, and will hinder commercial progress. Free internet campaigners, however, are happy – regarding the new system as an effective protection against the privatisation and Balkanisation of the web.…

Autoparts researchers are developing the use of grasses, such as hemp or flax, to make tough bioplastics that are lightweight and also help reduce a vehicle’s carbon footprint by using a renewable resource as an input.

A key innovator is Bruce Dietzen, president of Renew Design, a Florida, USA-based company that produces custom-ordered cars whose body components are made from processing the outer stalk of hemp plants through combining it with a synthetic resin and placed in a mold.…

Vigorous expansion of export-oriented manufacturing and construction in 2015 spurred the fastest GDP growth in Vietnam in seven years, at 6.7% year-on-year, according to the Asian Development Bank. And although coatings consumption correlates generally well with economic growth, in Vietnam the 2015 year-on-year coatings production increase outpaced general economic expansion – it rose 11.1% year-on -year in 2015, to Vietnamese dong VND13 trillion (USD587 million), according to market researcher Euromonitor International.…

Paint and varnish manufacturers in Japan experienced a disappointing 2015, with sluggish purchasing from the construction and automotive sectors translating into meagre 0.3% growth over the fiscal year. Analysts predict that growth will pick up in the short term, in part as a result of a spike in demand from the construction sector ahead of Tokyo hosting the 2020 Olympic Games – although industry players are concerned about the longer-term outlook for the sector.…

Thailand-based automotive original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) are set to benefit from the expansion of an existing auto tariff-free zone to Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) members Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam in 2018. These would then join this ASEAN-linked trading zone’s member countries Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand to forge an ASEAN-wide automotive market bloc.…

GESTAMP, a Spanish multinational specializing in metal vehicle components, is researching ways to make lighter and safer cars after acquiring funding from the European Investment Bank (EIB).

“The project activities aim at further reducing vehicle weight (contributing to lower fuel consumption and emissions) [and] improving vehicle safety, while enhancing manufacturing productivity and reducing average production cost,” a Gestamp spokesperson told wardsauto.…

The European Union’s automotive manufacturing and telecommunications industry trade bodies July 7 unveiled plans for a joint test project in connected and automated driving, due to launch 2017. The European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association (ACEA), the European Association of Automotive Suppliers (CLEPA), the European Telecommunications Network Operators’ Association (ETNO), the European Competitive Telecommunications Association (ECTA) and the global association for the mobile telecoms industry (GSMA) will operate the research scheme.…