Car News

Volkswagen has announced new three- and five-year service plans across its range, helping lower costs by five and 10 per cent respectively. The new program, inventively dubbed Volkswagen Service Plan, sits alongside the Assured Service Price program. Where the new plans are paid for upfront, the Assured Service Price quotes are what it'll cost for owners without a pre-paid service program. It's available across the brand's entire range, and is transferable between owners.

Jaguar Land Rover has recalled the Range Rover Sport and Land Rover Discovery, over concerns about the autonomous emergency braking system. According to the company, AEB won't be available when required on some 2018 Range Rover Sport and Discovery models, and no warning message will be displayed on the instrument cluster. If the system doesn't activate when called upon, there's an increased risk of an accident.

Jaguar took the XE to its logical extreme with the Project 8, squeezing a 5.0-litre supercharged V8 engine making 441kW and 700Nm under the mid-sized sedan's body. Unfortunately, very few were built. Just 300 left-hook examples rolled forth from the factory, making it a seriously rare cat.

Infrastructure Victoria has revealed its advice on what's needed to support the rollout of highly-automated and zero-emissions vehicles, arguing autonomy could improve the efficiency of our roads by 91 per cent. According to the report, the rollout of self-driving cars could support $15 billion in economic growth by 2046, while the transition to zero-emissions motoring could deliver $706 million in health benefits by the same time, reducing greenhouse emissions by around 27 million tonnes.

Mini Australia has launched the Kensington Edition based on both the Cooper and Cooper S Hatch range, available in very limited numbers. Only 15 examples of each variant will be offered – Cooper and Cooper S 3 Door, along with Cooper and Cooper S 5 Door – making for a total of 60 units allocated locally out of 800 examples worldwide.