Car News

BMW will buy cobalt from Australia and Morocco to ensure the mineral is responsibly sourced, shunning the Democratic Republic of Congo and its questionable mining practices. According to Bloomberg, the decision coincides with a London Metal Exchange review into whether its cobalt is linked with child labour. Andreas Wendt, BMW board member responsible for procurement, told media the decision will affect the next generation of battery-electric models, set to arrive in 2020.

According to an investigation by the EU's anti-trust regulator, BMW, Daimler and Volkswagen worked together between 2006 and 2014 to stymie competition in developing emissions cleaning technology. The so-called "circle of five", which included engineers from Audi and Porsche, are said to have "coordinated their AdBlue dosing strategies, AdBlue tank size and refill ranges ... with the common understanding that they thereby limited AdBlue-consumption and exhaust gas cleaning effectiveness".

Volvo will add sensors to detect drunk drivers and distracted drivers, announcing all vehicles on the SPA2 platform will be fitted with advanced driver monitoring technology from the early 2020s. Subaru already has a driver-monitoring camera in the Forester, designed to force owners who take their eyes off the road to pay attention, but Volvo is promising to take things a step further, by using the semi-autonomous systems in its vehicles to take control.

Tesla has added two new software features to the Model S, X and 3, thanks to one of its over-the-air updates. The first is Sentry Mode, designed to deter potential thieves. If someone leans on a car with Sentry activated, the car switches into an 'Alert' state and shows a message on the central touchscreen, warning the potential thief the car's cameras are turned on.

New York Police Department (NYPD) has written to Waze, one of Google's mapping services, calling for it to remove 'DWI checkpoint' locations from its app. Unlike regular Google Maps, the Waze app lets drivers report obstacles, traffic, mobile speed cameras and 'DWI checkpoints', known locally as random breath test (RBT) stops or booze buses.