Faurecia, the sixth largest international automotive parts manufacturer in the world, has come up with a technology advanced car seat, designed to keep drivers relaxed on the road.

The seat named Active Wellness consists of a biometric sensing system that keeps track of a driver’s physical and mental status. It is designed to tell if the driver’s energy level has dropped or if the driver is stressed, according to Reuters. After assessing the condition, the system sends a message. It is done with the help of certain patterns of air-flow through the seat’s ventilation system.

The product senses the driver’s heart rhythm and breathing patterns in order to generate data, measuring their mental and physical state. Then, a message appears on the screen to provide treatment, if the drivers receive the recommendation they will receive a massage. Along with this, they will get warm and cool sensations that relax their mind.

The company started working on this product five years ago with the motive to help people feel better after being on the road. According to the company, it is the world’s first health-monitoring car seat. It focuses on each individual in real-time state instead of just the “average” person.
The development of the seat includes cooperation with the Spine Research Institute at Ohio State University, engineers from the NASA and Hoana Medical from the U.S.

“The Active Wellness seat is Faurecia’s vision on the next level of personalized comfort,” said Olaf Biedermann, director of innovation at Faurecia, who discussed about the product at this year’s Frankfurt Auto Show, where the seat was on display.

“I think the uniqueness in this context is that we use the sensor information and have developed- together with a partner algorithms to analyze heart rate, respiration, stress and energy information of this information.”

With an aim to make driving safe than ever, the NHTSA (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration), an agency of the Executive Branch of the U.S. government and part of the Department of Transportation, has secured a commitment from a diverse group of renowned automakers, like—General Motors, Toyota and Volkswagen, to manufacture all new vehicles integrated with automatic brakes as a standard feature. This initiative is aimed at making automatic emergency braking an industry wide standard.

The NHTSA and its private-sector counterpart, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS), have reached an agreement to speed up the implementation of this promising technology without any hindrance.

The automatic emergency braking system includes sensors—radar, cameras or lasers, that could detect an imminent collision and apply the brakes automatically in no time. This crash-prevention technology could be a boon to the leading suppliers in that market, including Delphi, Magna, Bosch, Continental, ZF TRW and Mobileye.

The automakers in the pact “have committed to an important principle: AEB is a life-saving technology that should be available to every vehicle owner,” NHTSA Administrator Mark Rosekind said in a statement Friday, Sept. 11, adding: “We encourage every other manufacturer to join this effort.”

“There’s always going to be a need for regulations to keep public safe,” Rosekind said Friday during a ceremony at the IIHS’ newly expanded research center here, and those regulatory efforts will continue. “The industry, in this case though, hasn’t waited for regulation.”

The technology is widely available on modern cars, but many automakers serve it as a part of option package that increases vehicle’s price by thousands of dollars.

The UK government has extended the £5000 grant for plug-in car buyers till February 2016. This decision is taken to encourage sales of eco-friendly plug-in cars in the UK. As per this scheme, the government offers £5000 off from the price of cars that fall in the category of being Ultra Low Emission Vehicles—commonly known as ULEV.

Initially, the grant was valid until 50,000 electric vehicles will get registered in the UK–a figure that is expected to be achieved by November 2015. Now, the government has decided to extend the scheme so that more car buyers head toward buying eco-friendly electrically run cars and vans.

As per the scheme, all-electric or plug-in hybrid vehicles having CO2 emissions of 75g/km or below are eligible for this grant.

This government-backed campaign covers a wide range of cars, including city cars and superminis—Volkswagen e-up; Renault Zoe; family cars—Audi A3 e-tron® and Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV; and sports cars—Porsche Panamera S E-Hybrid and BMW i8. The range is to encircle fuel cell electric vehicles—hydrogen-powered Toyota Mirai among others—in future.

The main motive of driving this campaign is to position Britain as a world leader in the ultra-low emission technology. A minimum of £200 million is available for further grants; such whopping grant will prove to be an impetus for more and more people to opt for low emission motoring.

Transport minister Andrew Jones said: “The UK is now the fastest growing market for electric vehicles in Europe. We will continue to invest to help make this technology affordable to everyone and to secure the UK’s position as a global leader.” Now, citizens’ support to securing the Mother Nature is the last element that is required to make the project a remarkable success.

The nonpartisan National Bureau of Economic Research, an American private nonprofit research organization, undertook a study stated—on a per-mile basis, gas-powered vehicles are far eco-friendlier than their electric-run counterparts.

The study concluded that on an average per mile, gas-powered vehicles were half a cent beneficial to the environment than electric ones. As a matter of fact, the study states the importance of surroundings that affect an environment. For instance, in Los Angeles, electric vehicles performed 3.3 cents better per mile than gas-fueled ones. On the contrary, gas-powered cars performed 3 cents better than their counterparts when tested in Grand Forks, North Dakota.

As per the Washington Examiner, an electric vehicle definitely lowers air pollution, but the power has to come to fuel its engines. And, in this case, the power comes from power plants that run on coal.

“Rather than simply accepting the assertion of environmental benefits from electric vehicle use, this paper conducts a rigorous comparison of the environmental consequences of gasoline and electric powered vehicles, specifically by quantifying the externalities (both greenhouse gases and local air pollution) generated by driving these vehicles,” the authors of the study wrote.

“Because electric vehicles, on an average, generate greater environmental externalities than gasoline vehicles, the current federal policy has greater deadweight loss than the no-subsidy policy,” authors mentioned in their study.

The authors of the study believe that the government should tax vehicles on a per-mile basis for curbing carbon emissions.

The authors also emphasize that this is an important distinction, especially when taking into account the federal government that pays a $7,500 subsidy for every electric car purchased.

The study was carried out by four business and economics professors, including Erin Mansur of Dartmouth College, Nicholas Muller of Middlebury College, Stephen Holland of the UNC Greensboro and Andrew Yates of UNC at Chapel Hill, according to the Washington Examiner.

Vehicles have always been a prime source of carbon emission. As per a study, automobiles account for nearly 15% of Europe’s total CO2 emissions. According to a report that was released by a Transport and Environment NGO, Germany and Poland have been listed as the countries having the highest CO2 emissions. Even the motor vehicle tax policies in these two countries are the weakest.

In order to check the raising level of CO2 in Germany, the country’s environment agency slammed the German automobile sector. The agency stated, “The German transport sector needs to step up efforts to combat climate change.” The agency blamed that the high rise in CO2 emission is because of a trend of owing more powerful and heavier cars and an increase in freight transport through road.

According to German’s Federal Environment Agency (UBA), the area’s transport sector—the only sector that has not managed to meet carbon emissions standards compared to 1990—accounts for almost a fifth of the country’s overall greenhouse emissions.

“Because more and more freight is being transported by road and the trend is going towards heavier cars with more horsepower, more economical engines have served little purpose for climate protection,” said UBA president Maria Krautzberger.

As the number of goods transportation by road has increased by a third between 2000 and 2013, the agency demanded more freight transport to be made through rail and ships. The agency is also planning to extend a road toll on Lorries and vehicles that are heavier than 3.5 tonnes.

And due to all these developments, the transport sector is obliged to cut CO2 emission by 10 million tonnes by 2020 under a climate action program that was laid by the German Government last December.

This time Honda chooses its high-tech research laboratory in Silicon Valley to unveil its technology-packed 2016 Honda Accord instead of traditional car debut venues, i.e., Los Angeles, New York and Detroit. The company is the first major automaker to introduce a high-volume model of a car in Silicon Valley.

The Japanese automobile manufacturer used the event to unveil the latest Accord model, marking the grand opening of its sprawling 35,000-square-foot research and development center in Mountain View. The lab has been built with an aim to proliferate research on Internet-connected cars, in-car apps and others.

As far as the new model of Accord is concerned, it will be the first Honda model and first high-volume car to feature Apple Car Play® and Android Auto™. The company will reveal about pricing and fuel economy later this year. It is also loaded with Honda Sensing™, which helps driver reduce workload and avoid the severity of a vehicle collision. This feature is a future to the highly automated cars.

With the grand launch of the Accord Model, the automaker has also announced to open a new innovation R&D initiative—Honda Accelerator—to provide resources for breakthrough technology innovators to enhance the automotive experience.

Further, the Honda’s Silicon Valley is focused on researching and prototyping game-changing innovations. It is now concentrating on the concepts of novel human-machine interfaces, connected mobility, and supporting-developing apps through Honda Developer Studio and computer science research for enhanced vehicle intelligence.

“As an industry, we are on the verge of some major transformational changes brought on by the convergence of what have been, to this point, largely disparate technology disciplines,” said Honda R&D Americas President, Frank Paluch. “Honda will embrace and help lead this convergence. Our operations in Silicon Valley are a testimony to our focus on this new direction in our product and technology development efforts”, he added further.
Skipping typical new car debut venues such as Detroit, Los Angeles and New York, Honda unveiled its latest Accord model Thursday at a high-tech research laboratory in Silicon Valley.

Although an unusual place to introduce Honda’s 2016 version of the mild-mannered family sedan, California’s best-selling car last year, the announcement symbolized the region’s growing importance for auto industry innovation.

Leaving the entire automotive fraternity amazed, Alfa Romeo has created a buzz with its all-new Giulia saloon. The car was unveiled to the speedsters across the world at an event in Milan on 24 June 2015, pronouncing exciting surprises. More details about the car’s surprises are supposed to be announced at the Frankfurt Motor Show in September. Here is the outline of astonishing features and facts revealed by the program’s chief engineer Philippe Krief in an exclusive interview with a renowned car magazine.

The car was developed in two-and-a-half years by a bunch of 10 technocrats.

As per the automotive industry’s standard, a car needs four to five years to be engineered. But Alfa Romeo Giulia was built in two-and-a-half years by a team of 10 specialists. Together, they set the parameters for the programme of coming up with a new Alfa.

The Giulia has plenty of Aluminium and Carbon fiber.

This Alfa Romeo’s masterpiece—Giulia—has a lot of aluminium and carbon fiber. The suspension arms, front and rear, engines, doors and fenders are built in aluminium. The boot in the car (the cloverleaf), the roof, the structure of the seats and the prop shaft are made of carbon fiber.

The Giulia’s chassis dynamics has a little bit Maranello magic.

There is a little bit of Maranello magic in the chassis dynamics of new Giulia. Philippe Krief, who has worked as a senior engineer at Ferrari, told to the magazine that he had contributed in the making of the 458 specially. He implemented the learnt know-how while engineering the Giulia, which is why it drives fantastically and gives a feeling of precise, quick, agile, stable rear-wheel drive (that’s found in Ferrari).

The car’s active aero changes shape as you drive.

This wonder integrates the most of everything, from the best engine, weight, suspension, tyres and torque, vectoring to aerodynamics.

Krief told to the magazine, ‘You have to create down force; it increases the performance of your tyres. So we’ve developed this device to increase down force in corners. We start from the basis where the car has natural down force, but then we increase it in a bend: so in curves, the splitter is working to give you more down force; go back to a straight line and we want low Cx, low drag. The Giulia has two electric actuators linked to the ECU that understands if you’re in a corner or a straight line, whether you’re in an under steer or over steer situation, and in respect of that decides how to move the splitter.

Putting an end to a yearlong wait for car enthusiasts, the world’s largest auto show—Frankfurt Motor Show—will unveil the most awaited cars this September. The show is two months away, but it has created a buzz in the international automobile industry; the frenzy is because the event will showcase the most yearned cars from automobile giants. The 66th International Motor Show is going to bear the “Mobility connects”.

The Frankfurt motor show—one of the most renowned European car events of the year—will witness major launches from leading automobile manufacturers, including Audi, Bentley, Alfa Romeo, Jaguar and Maserati.

The event will host trade days from 17th September to 18th September 2015 and public days from 19th September to 27th September 2015, at Trade fair grounds, Ludwig-Erhard-Anlage 1, D-60327 Frankfurt/Main. The show timing will be from 9.00 am to 7.00 pm.

This year all the stakeholders of the automotive industry are set to be amazed with the launch of Alfa Romeo Giulia, 2016 Audi A4, Bentley Bentayga SUV, New BMW 7 Series, 2016 BMW X1, Infiniti Q30, Jaguar F-Pace, Kia Cee’d 2015 facelift, Kia Sportage and Lotus 3-Eleven.

Along with this, the first look of Maserati Levante, New MINI Clubman, Mercedes C-Class Coupe, Peugeot 308 R Hybrid, Porsche 911 facelift, Renault Megane, Smart ForTwo Cabrio, Vauxhall Astra and VW Tiguan will be revealed.

The International Motor Show is known as the Internationale Automobil-Ausstellung (IAA – International Automobile Exhibition) in Germany. This event is held annually, showcasing passenger vehicles (including some motorcycles) in odd-numbered years in Frankfurt am Main and commercial vehicles in even-numbered years in Hanover.

Since 1897, the event has been a great platform for the world’s largest automobile manufactures to display their brand new endeavors with futuristic orientations and innovative concepts.

Cars.com has revealed an interesting data claiming that the car lovers are still in fond of esteemed station wagon, even when the popularity of crossovers and SUVs are on the top. Volkswagen Golf Sportwagen, accompanied with 2015 Subaru Outback wagon, was named among the top selling cars in April 2015.

After the second month, Volkswagen’ innovative long roof series of the Golf remained on the top for an average of just two weeks earlier, before getting retorted by a cognizant purchaser. And the increased popularity of Sportwagen bodystyle resulted in enhanced sales reaching 1,228 units.

The American President and CEO of Volkswagen Michael Horn was much confident about the record sales, as he had expected that the innovative Golf Sportwagen to sooner or later outdo the regular Golf hatchback, which recorded sales of 1,739 units in the month of April. Having strong and positive indications, it seems now easy to achieve increased sales figures in coming days.

On the other hand, 2015 Subaru Outback has also attracted so many car lovers, remaining on the top chart for more than 10 days. If we see the data, both of these wagons had been considerably ahead of the automobile market, on the average of 50 days. Although the detailed data revealed by cars.com include crossovers, SUVs, and trucks, making up a combined list of 23 fastest selling cars in April 2015.

Land Rover, a reputed name in automobiles, brings good news for the SUV lovers. Discovery Sport empowered by JLR’s advanced 2.0-litre Ingenium diesel engine is now available to place order. The new arrival from Land Rover is now priced affordably compared to the present 2.2-litre Discovery Sport.

The latest Discovery Sport 2.0-litre four-cylinder Ingenium engine is now available in basically two states of tune, with either 148bhp or 178bhp. With increased efficiency and more kinetic powers, the new Land Rover Discovery Sport is now attracting so many SUV lovers have found the SUV with a 6-speed manual transmission installed as standard fixture.

A 9-speed automatic gearbox is an optional installation for the higher-powered series of Discovery Sport that offers increased 5+2 optional seating facility in combination with the increased powerful 178bhp engine. In addition, the Ingenium diesel engine is also known for its higher efficiency to lessen running cost, as the new car is now capable of 57.7mpg and 129g/km of CO2 with its best effectual system Moreover, the service breaks have also been stretched to 21,000 miles from the previous 16,000 miles.

With so much popularity with the SUV lovers, Land Rover’s new arrival has received more than 6000 orders in UK so far. And the deliveries are expected to complete by the end of September this year. Along with Discovery Sport Ingenium diesel engine, Land Rover has also introduced a new flagship HSE Black in the series.