PG Carz World

The time limit for free parking is two hours but I had to wait 30 minutes just to get the use of a charging point I stopped at Abington services on the M74 to charge my electric car. I had to wait over half an hour for a connector to become free, then spent an hour and a half charging. Ten days later, I received a £100 penalty charge for exceeding the two-hour free parking period. Like most people, I’ve never spent more than two hours in a motorway service station and it didn’t cross my mind to buy a ticket. Others should be warned that when charging, it’s easy to run over the limit. DW, Cupar, Fife The mandatory free parking period, which applies to service stations across the UK, belongs to a different era when two hours was ample to use the lav and buy a meal. The rationale was that without a parking limit, the public would embrace service stations as a destination for a delightful day out, rather than as a pit stop. Continue reading...

Musk’s comments, echoing other CEOs, are accompanied by plan to lay off 10% of Tesla’s salaried staff Elon Musk has warned that a US recession is “more likely than not” to come soon as the Tesla chief executive confirmed plans to cut 10% of salaried staff at the electric carmaker over the next three months. The world’s richest man said a recession in the US was inevitable but would most probably come in the short term. Continue reading...

The use of synthetic data is a cost‑effective way to teach AI about human responses. But can it help eliminate bias and make self‑driving cars safer? You’re at the wheel of your car but you’re exhausted. Your shoulders start to sag, your neck begins to droop, your eyelids slide down. As your head pitches forward, you swerve off the road and speed through a field, crashing into a tree. But what if your car’s monitoring system recognised the tell-tale signs of drowsiness and prompted you to pull off the road and park instead? The European Commission has legislated that from this year, new vehicles be fitted with systems to catch distracted and sleepy drivers to help avert accidents. Now a number of startups are training artificial intelligence systems to recognise the giveaways in our facial expressions and body language. Continue reading...

DfT says it wants to focus funding on expanding the public electric chargepoint network The UK government is ending the last remaining subsidies for electric cars, arguing it will to free up funds to expand the charging network and support other battery-powered vehicles. In a controversial move, the government has closed the £300m plug-in car grant scheme to new orders on Tuesday, the Department for Transport said . Continue reading...

Future EV designs offer drivers more space and leisure, with fewer parts making production more sustainable Take any petrol car sold today and show it to a mechanic working on a Ford Model T 100 years ago and there is a fairly good chance they would understand roughly how it works. An internal combustion engine at the front turns the wheels, carrying a driver behind a steering wheel, some passengers and luggage. The advent of electric cars changes everything. No longer will the shape of the car be defined so rigidly by bulky engines, exhaust gas handling or driveshafts. At the same time, digital technology promises to replace everything from rear-view mirrors to the human driver. Never has the car industry had to cope with so many changes all at once. Continue reading...

In this week’s newsletter: Apple’s CarPlay updates put a dizzying amount of information at a driver’s fingertips – for good or bad. Plus, Elon Musk continues to try not to buy Twitter Apple’s annual developer event, WWDC, is in full swing. “Dub Dub”, as it’s known, is about more than the company’s regular product launches, which are focused on the physical devices soon to hit store shelves – it is a chance for Tim Cook’s team to shape the conversation more broadly: focus attention where they want it, guide the eyes of the world to the next big thing, and steer developers towards working on the products and services necessary to enable the hardware still in the pipeline to flourish. In previous years, that has included a strong focus on augmented reality technology, encouraging developers to adopt the company’s tools for building AR experiences. That has had both a short-term and a long-term advantage: Apple has included increasingly advanced Lidar sensors (think radar but with light...

Supply chain issues cause unprecedented demand and wait times for used cars pushing dealers to contact private sellers directly Follow our Australia news live blog for the latest updates Get our free news app ; get our morning email briefing Australia’s used car market is in overdrive with a shortage of vehicles leaving dealers chasing former customers to offer competitive buy-backs as they scramble to fill their lots. Others are scouring online marketplace websites and social media sites to contact those wanting to sell used cars privately. Continue reading...