Latest Auto Headlines

All the headlines from our Auto Topic Page, ordered by recency.

Usage-Based Auto Insurance, Slow at First, Picking Up Speed

May 12 2016 // Usage-based auto insurance will explode globally in the next seven years, a new industry analysis asserts. IHS Inc.’s IHS Automotive predicts that 142 million customers will sign up globally for the...

Two-Car Crash On Rainy Texas Highway Kills 5

May 11 2016 // Five people are dead following a two-car crash on a rainy Texas highway on Mother’s Day. The Texas Department of Public Safety tells the Austin American-Statesman it happened Sunday afternoon near the town of...

Workers at Ohio Auto Glass Plant Warn of Unsafe Conditions

May 11 2016 // Workers alleging unsafe working conditions at an automotive glass manufacturing plant in southwestern Ohio have filed a complaint with the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration. The complaint filed this...

Allstate Absorbed Higher Catastrophe Losses, Lower Investments in Q1

May 9 2016 // Catastrophe losses including those from two severe hailstorms left their mark on the Allstate Corp. in the first quarter, with net income during the period plunging more than 65 percent. Echoing trends from other...

White House Urged to Protect Wireless Spectrum for Connected Vehicles

May 6 2016 // More than 50 automakers, state transportation agencies and other groups urged the White House and other federal policymakers on Thursday not to open a portion of the wireless spectrum reserved for connected vehicles in the...

Arkansas Regulators: In Separate Cases 2 Plead Guilty to Auto Insurance Fraud

May 6 2016 // Arkansas Insurance Commissioner Allen Kerr announced two recent guilty pleas resulting from separate criminal investigations of insurance fraud. On May 2, Becky Brand, 34, of Lonoke entered a guilty plea to one count of...

How Driverless Cars Could Disrupt Investors

May 5 2016 // The development of self-driving cars is a good example of how, and why, the future may be a less profitable place for investors. Volvo Cars, one of scads of technology and automotive firms working along the same lines,...

Utah Doghouse Highway Death Results in Wrongful Death Lawsuit

May 4 2016 // A northern Utah woman whose husband and 4-year-old daughter were killed when a doghouse fell out of a man’s truck and caused a highway pileup has filed a wrongful death lawsuit. Alyssa Chambers filed the suit last...

Vandal Causes $400K in Damage at South Dakota Construction Site

May 3 2016 // Police in Sioux Falls, S.D., are looking for the vandal who damaged construction equipment to the tune of $400,000. Police spokesman Sam Clemens says the vandal was able to turn on a backhoe and tipped over a pickup truck,...

Commercial Auto Insurance Remains a Loser on the Whole: Fitch

May 3 2016 // While the property/casualty industry has reported three consecutive years of significant underwriting profits, the commercial auto market as a whole reported an underwriting loss for the fifth consecutive year in 2015. In...

State Auto Financial Q1 2016 Results Fall, Combined Ratio Rises

May 2 2016 // Ohio-based State Auto Financial Corp. announced first quarter 2016 net income of $3.0 million, or $0.07 per diluted share, versus net income of $24.7 million, or $0.60 per diluted share, for the first quarter of 2015. Net...

The Feds, the States and Self-Driving Cars

May 2 2016 // A big question looming is whether the federal government or state governments will play the primary role in setting standards for self-driving cars. Historically, the federal National Highway and Transportation Safety...

The Hartford Profit Fell 30% in Q1 Due to Higher Auto Losses, Lower Investment Income

Apr 29 2016 // The Hartford reported disappointing personal lines result for the first quarter of the year, which along with decreased investment income contributed to a 31 percent drop in profit for the quarter. First quarter 2016 net...

Young Consumers More Trusting of Autonomous Vehicles: J.D. Power

Apr 29 2016 // Trust in automation technology including driverless cars is very much age dependent, as younger consumers have a notably higher level of confidence in the technology than their older counterparts, according to the J.D....

AAIS Offers Its First Personal Auto Program for Insurers; Includes 60 Endorsement Options

Apr 28 2016 // The property/casualty insurance advisory organization AAIS has unveiled its first standardized personal auto insurance program for use by insurers that it says is the first new auto program available to the industry in...

Volvo to Launch Autonomous Driving Trial in London in 2017

Apr 28 2016 // Swedish car maker Volvo will begin an autonomous driving trial in London in 2017. Called “Drive Me London,” the UK trial will use real families in semi-autonomous cars. Starting with a handful of AD cars next...

Robot Cars Complain About Humans’ Poor Roads, Lane Markings, Signage

Apr 28 2016 // Volvo’s North American CEO, Lex Kerssemakers, lost his cool as the automaker’s semi-autonomous prototype sporadically refused to drive itself during a press event at the Los Angeles Auto Show. “It...

Alabama Jury Orders Dollar General to Pay Injured Truck Driver $925K

Apr 27 2016 // A jury in Lauderdale County, Alabama has returned one of the largest personal injury verdicts in the county’s history, finding Dollar General at fault for injuries sustained by a Kentucky delivery driver five years...

Reuters Special Report: How Google Is Winning Acceptance of Driverless Vehicles

Apr 27 2016 // The Alamo Drafthouse Cinema Plaza in Austin, Texas is a strip mall with a pet-accessories store, a Thai restaurant and a yogurt shop, an unlikely venue to display the high-tech future. But one Saturday morning in March,...

New York Among States With Highest Rate of Motorcycle Theft

Apr 27 2016 // The New York Insurance Association (NYIA) advises that motorcycle thefts in New York increased by 23 percent from 2014 to 2015. According to a report from the National Insurance Crime Bureau (NICB), motorcycle thefts...