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Motorists benefit as industry offers deals of up to 18% off to attract buyers for petrol, diesel and electric models If you are considering buying a new car, now might be the time to act as new data shows manufacturers and dealers slashing prices by more than 10%, with the average discount close to £6,000. The typical discount available across all petrol, diesel and electric cars sold in the UK is 11.4% of the on-the-road price – the equivalent of £5,911 – according to Insider Car Deals , which sells discount data to people looking to buy. Continue reading...

Federal transportation regulator to investigate after child in Santa Monica sustained minor injuries from incident The US’s federal transportation regulator said Thursday it had opened an investigation after a Waymo self-driving vehicle struck a child near an elementary school in southern California last week, causing minor injuries. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said the child in Santa Monica ran across the street on 23 January from behind a double parked SUV towards the school and was struck by the Waymo autonomous vehicle during normal school drop-off hours. The agency said there were other children, a crossing guard, and several double-parked vehicles in the vicinity. Continue reading...

Waymo cars have been earning their stripes by getting used to zebra crossings while awaiting a government green light American robotaxis due to be unleashed on London’s streets before the end of the year have been quietly undergoing training to understand the city’s quirks, not least the zebra crossings, their promoters said on Thursday as they showed off one of the UK-specific driverless cars for the first time. The US self-driving ride-hailing company Waymo has a fleet of about 24 cars in London, each rigged with cameras, radar and lidar (light detection and ranging) censors. Continue reading...

Popularity of EVs in country is part of global trend of emerging markets spurning fossil fuel cars at surprising speeds When Berke Astarcıoğlu bought a BMW i3 in 2016, he was one of just 44 people in a country of 80 million to buy a battery electric vehicle (BEV) that year. By the time he bought a Tesla in 2023, BEVs were no longer a complete oddity in Turkey, making up 7% of new car sales. Fast-forward two years and electric cars are selling so fast that Turkey has caught up with the EU in its rate of adoption. Its market is now the fourth largest in Europe, behind Germany, the UK and France. Continue reading...

Electric van sales are behind government targets, but those fleets that have switched are seeing a real difference Swinging a fully laden electric van around a training centre in Bishop’s Stortford feels easy, with instant acceleration that belies the racks of heavy equipment in the back. Perhaps too easy, as the sudden shriek of its proximity sensor suggests the Guardian was a whisker away from a bill for some new paintwork. The van in question belongs to Openreach, BT’s fibre broadband subsidiary. It is one of 6,000 electric vans out of 23,400 in Britain’s second-largest commercial fleet – and a further 1,000 are expected to be added by March. Continue reading...

Campaigners believe evaluations have been suppressed as they cast further doubt on safety and economic benefits UK politics live – latest updates Road campaigners and motoring organisations have urged UK government ministers to immediately release a series of “withheld” safety assessments of smart motorways – some dating back to 2022. Designed to increase capacity, smart motorways have the hard shoulder converted into a live lane of traffic, relying on occasional laybys and electronic overhead signs to close lanes in emergencies. Continue reading...

The long-running series in which readers answer other readers’ questions on subjects ranging from trivial flights of fancy to profound scientific and philosophical concepts • This week’s question: How can we learn from unrequited love? What’s the point of having speed limits if camera-warning signs and apps allow drivers to slow down in advance – then just continue speeding? Maybe the UK government in its new consultations on road safety should add the question of hiding speed cameras to their list of concerns. I’m a driver, but also a pedestrian and cyclist and get fed up with seeing cars zooming down local roads at way more than 20 or 30mph. There are flashing lights that tell drivers what speed they’re doing, but there’s no penalty for going over at those points. Amy, Cornwall Send new questions to nq@theguardian.com . Continue reading...

Institute for Public Policy Research thinktank report calls on chancellor to pursue policy of ‘securonomics’ Tens of thousands of jobs could be lost if the UK’s clean energy supply chains were to suffer a shock as a result of an over-reliance on China, a left-leaning thinktank has warned. A year-long disruption to the supply of essential battery components used to manufacture electric vehicles could wipe out production of more than 580,000 electric cars and endanger 90,000 jobs, according to the Institute for Public Policy Research. Continue reading...

Federal government issues recall notice for Volvo EX30 and urges owners to keep charge below 70% Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates Get our breaking news email , free app or daily news podcast Almost 3,000 electric vehicle drivers will be asked to keep their car less than fully charged while the manufacturer develops a solution to a serious fire risk. The federal transport department has issued a recall notice for Volvo EX30 electric vehicles sold in Australia during 2024 in a move that will affect 2,815 motorists. Continue reading...

The long-running series in which readers answer other readers’ questions tackles a road safety issue • Read this week’s replies: Can you really fake it to make it? What’s the point of having speed limits if camera-warning signs and apps allow drivers to slow down in advance – then just continue speeding? Maybe the UK government in its new consultations on road safety should add the question of hiding speed cameras to their list of concerns. I’m a driver, but also a pedestrian and cyclist and get fed up with seeing cars zooming down local roads at way more than 20 or 30mph. There are flashing lights that tell drivers what speed they’re doing, but there’s no penalty for going over at those points. Amy, Cornwall Post your answers (and new questions) below or send them to nq@theguardian.com . A selection will be published next Sunday. Continue reading...

You can tell a lot about someone from the vehicle they drive, as Martin Roemers’ collection of photographs show. Introduction by author William Boyd In my novels I find that I very rarely write “a car” or “a van” or “a lorry” – I always tend to specify the marque and the model, often with some pedantic precision. Why should this be so? After all, I am a non-driver, someone who claims to be able to drive (I did learn), but who never passed his driving test. And yet, paradoxically, I’m something of a car enthusiast – a sort-of petrol-head, I confess – perhaps a consequence of spending many hours, or maybe that should be years,  in the back of minicabs that conveyed me here and there around London. In my long experience of minicab use I’ve found that most conversations with minicab drivers often end up being about cars. I’ve learned a lot. There is another reason why I like to specify. I have a conviction that the type of car, or vehicle, that you drive is as much an expression...

Cars that emit fumes closer to pavement result in pedestrians experiencing 40% more pollution Some vehicles are much more polluting than others and the design of exhaust pipes could affect how much air pollution we breathe when we walk along a busy road, research has found. Diesel vehicles still dominate exhaust pollution 10 years after the International Council on Clean Transportation revealed that many diesel cars were highly polluting , emitting far more nitrogen oxides on the road than in official testing. Continue reading...

GM says end of tax incentives and less stringent emissions regulations slowed consumer demand for EVs in 2025 General Motors said on Thursday it will record a one-time earnings hit of $7.1bn in its quarterly financial results, mostly due to its pullback from electric vehicles in light of shifting US policies. The Detroit auto giant’s fourth-quarter results will be dented by $6bn in charges connected to reversals on EV investments, according to a securities filing. The remaining $1.1bn includes costs from the company’s restructuring of its China operations. Continue reading...

Meera Naran, whose son inspired ‘Dev’s Law’, said the measures proposed by the government would save lives Government signals tougher motoring rules to reduce casualties on Britain’s roads For Meera Naran, the new road safety strategy is a long-awaited milestone after years of campaigning since her eight-year-old son Dev was killed in a motorway collision in 2018. As ministers unveiled plans to cut thousands of deaths by 2035, they paid tribute to campaigners, Naran in particular, whose son is commemorated with a pledge to mandate safety technology in new vehicles as “Dev’s Law”. Continue reading...

Jensen Huang also announces at CES new, more powerful Vera Rubin chips that will arrive later this year The billionaire boss of the chipmaker Nvidia, Jensen Huang, has unveiled new AI technology that he says will help self-driving cars think like humans to navigate more complex situations. The world’s most valuable company is to roll out the new technology, Alpamayo, which is designed to help self-driving cars handle tricky situations such as sudden roadworks or unusual driver behaviour on the road, rather than just reacting to previous patterns. Continue reading...

Electric car sales rose by nearly a quarter to a record 473,000, or 23.4% of the overall market, says SMMT A rise in the popularity of Chinese brands pushed total car sales in the UK above the 2m mark last year for the first time since 2019, figures reveal. Chinese companies accounted for 9.7% of the 2m new car registrations in the UK in 2025, or 196,000 vehicles, according to preliminary figures from the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT), a lobby group. That was nearly double the 4.9% market share achieved by the country’s carmakers in 2024. Continue reading...

London predicted to be the first UK city to go diesel-free, largely because of the ultra-low emission zone Battery electric cars are poised to overtake diesels on Great Britain’s roads by 2030, according to analysis that suggests London will be the first UK city to go diesel-free. The number of diesel cars on Great Britain’s roads in June had fallen to 9.9m in June last year, 21% below its peak of 12.4m vehicles, according to analysis by New AutoMotive, a thinktank focused on the transition to electric cars. Electric car sales are still growing rapidly, albeit more slowly than manufacturers had expected . Continue reading...

Other firms are taking advantage of Tesla’s sales slump, while technological advances mean that glitches are being left in the rear-view mirror In another era, before Elon Musk bought Twitter, changed its name to X to mark the spot of its descent into barbarism, honed Grok , a generator of far-right propaganda, swung behind Donald Trump and made what appeared to be a Nazi salute , I already knew he was a wrong ’un. The year was 2019, and I was test-driving a Tesla; while I was ambling off the forecourt, the PR told me jauntily that the windscreen was made of a material that would protect the driver from biohazards. I hit the brakes. “You what ? What kind of biohazard? Like, a war?” She misconstrued me, thinking I intended to go and find some toxic waste site to see if it worked, and said: “I’m not sure it’s operational in the press fleet.” That wasn’t my question: rather, what kind of a world was Tesla preparing for? One so unstable that an average (though affluent) private citizen w...

Sales at Elon Musk’s company slump after Donald Trump’s withdrawal of EV subsidies China’s BYD overtook Tesla as the world’s largest electric carmaker in 2025, after the US company run by Elon Musk reported a slump in deliveries at the end of the year. BYD sold 2.26m battery electric cars during the year, easily outstripping the 1.63m deliveries reported on Friday by Tesla for the same period. Continue reading...