Bridgend Engine Plant is crucial to the future of Ford’s long term business plans, claims a Welsh-based economist.
Michael Wynn-Williams says that now Volvo also appears to be up for sale as well as Jaguar and Land Rover, the end is nigh for Ford’s Premier Automotive Group.
Writing on the AutoCognition website, he said that Ford is not simply selling the family jewels in auctioning off its car making capabilities, it is consuming its own flesh in order to survive.
“The key to the long term might lie in the retention of PAG’s powertrain plant at Bridgend in South Wales. Is Ford holding on to this crucial source of technology in order to maintain the option of buying back its subsidiaries at a later date?”

Gwent Police are using “rat trap” cars fitted with hidden cameras to snare sat nav thieves.
The cars will be parked at different locations and have satellite technology to notify officers when they are being tampered with.

Welsh-based Admiral Group plc has decided to hang on to its price comparison site confused.com after terminating talks with private equity investors, according to a report in the Daily Telegraph.
 The company had considered offers for a minority holding in confused.com, which equated to over £600 million (884 million euros) for the entire business.
However the board of Admiral Group was worried by the loss of control.

Europe’s latest emissions targets are not attainable, says the president of the car makers’ body, ACEA.
President of the European car makers body Sergio Marchionne, CEO of Fiat, said a target for the vehicle industry of 130 g/Km of CO2 by 2012 is not feasible.
He said, “The industry will continue to take many incremental steps, again delivering significant CO2 reductions in the coming years. But additional requirements on the car industry cannot be implemented before 2015.

Cars are given the status of family members in some households, according to researchers.
Buying a car is an emotional purchase. It takes time, effort, and often a lot of money to secure the motor car of your dreams, and for most people it is probably the second biggest investment they are ever going to make after property.
However, the love for the car doesn’t stop there because, just like pets, it seems like it is slowly working its way into the family tree.
This was echoed in a recent survey conducted by Motorpoint, the UK’s largest car supermarket, which found that 73% of respondents consider their vehicle to be part of the family.

Trafficmaster has won a three-year contract to help the Department for Transport identify and ease congestion hot-spots.
The company will share journey time information combined from its real road speed data, provided by its 50,000 Smartnav customers, and traffic incident data generated by its nationwide sensor network.

Britons are backing Britain for breaks this year.
Despite the slow start to the British summer, the domination of low-cost airlines and discount packaged foreign holidays, over 30 million1 Britons will take at least one holiday in the UK this year according to latest research from Kwik-Fit.
Nearly half admitted that the desire to explore their own country rather than a foreign land will drive them to do so.