Price is right for Insignia
THE new Vauxhall Insignia – due for release this summer – will be priced from £23,120, the company has announced. The initial 25-model line up will include petrol and diesel engines and the range will top out with a new sporty GSi version priced from £38,850.
Crucially for Vauxhall – now under the ownership of PSA which also has Peugeot and Citroen in its stable – those prices keep the Insignia highly competitive against the likes of the Ford Mondeo and Volkswagen Passat.
The new Insignia has cleaner lines than the current Grand Sport version, which has been around since 2018, and comes with the latest engine technology which results in class-leading CO2 emissions and fuel economy.
Four engines are available – 1.4 and 2.0-litre petrols and 1.5 and 2.0-litre diesels – with the smaller diesel the most fuel efficient of the bunch with emissions as low as 120g/km.
Overall, Vauxhall claims that the new Insignia range is some 18% more economical than before.
The two 2.0-litre petrol engines develop either 200ps or 230ps in the case of the GSi, and come with cylinder deactivation to further improve fuel consumption.
The 2.0-litre diesel will be introduced later in the year and meets the latest emisssion standards which means it escapes the 4% tax surcharge for business users.
Five trim levels are available with entry level SE Nav versions including sat nav, a seven-inch touchscreen display and full smartphone compatability.
An updated IntelliLux LED headlighting system is also available, as is a new rear-view camera system as well as a range of driver safety aids including rear cross traffic alerts and a head-up display. The performance-oriented GSi has an all-wheel-drive powertrain mated to a nine-speed automatic transmission and includes ergonomically designed front seats with heating and massaging, as well as 20-inch alloys among its standard features.
VOLVO has created a new autonomous driving software company as it continues to advance self-driving vehicles.
Zenuity, a Volvo co-owned autonomous vehicle company, has been split in two, with Volvo taking full control of a new standalone firm that will focus on the development and ‘commercialisation of unsupervised autonomous drive software’. The second part of the company will be owned by automotive safety equipment company Veoneer, which had been a partner with Volvo on Zenuity.
The move will see Zenuity staff based in Gothenburg and Shanghai, transferred to the new Volvo company. They will focus on developing self-driving vehicle software for the next generation of Volvo’s vehicles, but will remain separate from the car maker.