Big congratulations to Jenson Button on a fantastic race and winning the championship.

As well as being Jensons first championship, it was the first back to back World Championships for British drivers since Graham Hill (1968) and Jackie Stewart (1969). Who’ll take Lewis or Jenson for 2010 champion?

Hummer has been bought by the Chinese Company Sichuan Tenzheng Heavy Industrial Equipment Co for a rumoured US$150.  This will apparenly buy them 80% of the company The remaining 20% being bought by Hong Kon entrepreneur Suolong Duoji

This falls someway short of the US$500 that GM were apparently looking for.

GM has been looking for sometime to either sell off or wind up some of its brands. It has already announced that the Saturn brand would be wound up following the collapse of the deal with the Penske Automotive Group.

GM has also announced that it is discontinuing the Pontiac brand.

Digital radios should become standard in new vehicles from the beginning of 2014 after motor manufacturers agreed to adopt the technology.

Manufacturers and broadcasters have signed up to proposals made in the Digital Britain white paper published in June, which allow for FM stations to be turned off from 2015.

Installing digital radios in vehicles is seen as a key step to ensuring that digital becomes the principal way in which Britons listen to radio. Although a third of British homes have a digital radio, only a handful of vehicles on the road have digital receivers.

However, more than a fifth of all radio listening takes place in vehicles so broadcasters view the agreement as a crucial issue for the industry.

Digital Britain’s goal is to ensure that all new cars either have digital radio as standard from 2014, or can be upgraded cheaply. What is less clear is how older vehicles will be brought into the scheme.

Lets just hope that Digital Radio technology is better than Digital TV which is inconsistent in quality and availability

Drivers who leave their engines running could be penalised with a fixed penalty fine of up to £300.

Nottingham City Council is planning a series of fines under ‘quality of life’ measures as the council aims to cut emissions by 10% by 2010.

The council plans to use its civilian community offices to hand out penalties for ‘day to day annoyances’, which also include abandoning a vehicle.

Taxi drivers who leave their engines running for more than three minutes will also be targeted.

The UK government is asking for impossible commitments over Vauxhall’s plant at Ellesmere Port, according to Carl-Peter Forster, chairman of the Opel supervisory board.

Mr Forster says that Lord Mandleson, Secretary of State for Business Innovation and Skills, is asking for undertakings to build the next-but-one generation Astra at the plant.

The Astra plant at Ellesmere Port, which employs 2,166 people is, along with all European Opel/Vauxhall factories, under review by the prospective new owner, Magna International, which plans to axe at least 10,000 European jobs.

With the new Astra only just being launched this year, its replacement is at least six years off, which would mean the company giving undertakings about production at Ellesmere Port beyond 2016.

“This would be impossible and dishonest,” says Mr Forster. “You cannot guarantee these sorts of things in the modern motor industry.”

So far the talk has been of building Vauxhall’s Astra-based, extended-range battery hybrid, the Ampera, at Ellesmere Port, but Mr Forster says that the Ampera is a sideshow and that the real debate is about keeping conventional Astra production at the plant.

“The Ampera is not the point at issue,” he says. “I think that Peter Mandelson is frightened about the plant closing, but we are still working on the deal. We are working hard on the details and the next thing we have to deal with is the EU decision on that enquiry.”

Drivers of convertible cars could be risking permanent hearing damage from wind and road noise, according to new research.

Road surface, traffic congestion and the wind combined to produce noise levels of between 88 and 100 decibels at speeds of around 70 mph.

Long or repeated exposure to sounds of 85 decibels is widely recognised to raise the risk of permanent hearing loss.

A top Russian official has said that Renault had expressed willingness to invest in Avtovaz although the French company said it had no plans to inject cash into its ailing Russian affiliate.

The remarks by Igor Shuvalov, Russia’s first deputy prime minister, come a few days after prime minister Vladimer Putin said Renault needed to invest in the turnround of Avtovaz, or see its 25% stake diluted.

Mr Shuvalov said: “They [Renault] confirmed that they have a strategic interest in Avtovaz’s development, and they are prepared to invest in the company’s growth.”

He said the level of Renault’s investment had yet to be determined and would only be clear after ‘the necessary evaluation’.

Renault said it was reviewing several options to help Avtovaz.

The EU has pledged to ensure that job cuts and closures at Vauxhall and Opel plants are not affected by the levels of state aid given to the firm.

Following the German governments offer of a £4 billion loan offer to Magna the UK, Spain, Poland and Belgium are concerned that they will bear the brunt of the job losses.

Magna is planning to cut 11,000 jobs from the current 45,000 strong workforce. Magna have already said that they are committed to the Ellesmere Port plant, but Luton remains a big doubt

The Chinese owners of MG have confirmed that production of the TF sportscar has stopped until Spring 2010. It would not be drawn on rumours that at least 20 members of staff were to be made redundant.

With an ageing design you do wonder where MG are going. New product desparately required

Jaguar Land Rover has secured further funding worth £175m in the form of a loan from the State Bank of India, the carmaker has said.

The firm is struggling against falling sales during the downturn and has been looking at a number of refinancing packages in recent months.

The UK government had offered support but the Indian owner of Jaguar, Tata, said the terms were too “onerous”.

The carmaker has now secured £500m of new funding this year.

It has come from a number of different sources, including Standard Chartered Bank, Bank of Boroda, and Burdale Financial Limited – a subsidiary of the Bank of Ireland.

“We are pleased our funding plans are progressing and appreciate the confidence shown by our banking partners in our business,” said Jaguar’s chief finance officer Kenneth Gregor.

Big losses

Last month, the carmaker announced that would close one of its West Midlands plants by the middle of the next decade – either the Castle Bromwich plant in Birmingham or its factory in Solihull.

The closure is part of a cost-cutting exercise to make the carmaker more efficient.

It lost £280m in the 10 months to the end of March, during which sales fell by almost a third.

Tata bought Jaguar Land Rover for £1.7bn in June 2008 from Ford.

It currently employs 14,500 people, having made 450 redundancies at the start of the year

The firm is based in Gaydon, Warwickshire, and has a factory in Halewood, Merseyside, as well as the two in the West Midlands.