ARC360 News – Friday 09 January 2026

ARC360 2026 announced as leading industry figures and insurers confirm participation

ARC360, the UK’s premier forum for the vehicle accident repair sector, has officially launched its 2026 event – set to take place on Thursday 21 May 2026 at the British Motor Museum, Gaydon – and it’s already shaping up to be one of the year’s most impactful industry gatherings. Read more

Repairers are invited to join a live ARIES Webinar on 21 January 2026, 3.00pm to 4.00pm. The  session offers a valuable opportunity to explore the key elements of the new ARIES Standard and ask questions. Read more

The Vella Group has announced a new strategic investment led by Ama Capital, in partnership with Keyhaven Capital Partners, to support the next stage of its growth journey. Read more

Vizion Network Ltd, the UK’s largest repair network, has joined ILC as a Motor Corporate Partner. Read more

Fix Auto Basingstoke has relocated to a new, purpose-built 24,000sqft repair facility as part of its long-term growth strategy. Read more

iRG Repair Group has scored a perfect 10 after being named as an Approved Repairer for the Stellantis Group. iRG is now authorised to undertake repairs on vehicles representing the manufacturer’s 10 brands at its Cardiff site. 

XL Motors Ltd, Coventry, has recently celebrated over 18 years of BS10125 Kitemark certification with a clean sheet at its last surveillance audit. 

Tom Butterworth has started a new position as Group Procurement Director at Precision Repair Group.

Mark Bushell has started a new role as Head of Client Relationships at Fix Auto UK. 

Darren Griffin has started a new role as Service & Maintenance Manager at Steer Automotive Group. 

Jordan Ashmore has joined Fastech as its new Operations Director.

Thatcham Research has introduced the Automotive Risk Intelligence LIVE 2026 Series. A year-long events programme designed to immerse you in the science and strategy behind automotive risk. 

China’s BYD overtakes Tesla as world’s top EV seller 

China’s BYD has overtaken Elon Musk’s Tesla as the world’s biggest seller of electric vehicles (EVs), marking the first time it has outpaced its American rival in annual sales. Read more

Volkswagen is UK’s number one for fifth year running

Volkswagen is once again the most popular brand with UK car buyers. Figures released by the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) confirm the German brand is the UK’s best-selling new-car brand for the fifth year running. A total of 178,607 new Volkswagen passenger vehicles were registered in the UK in 2025. Read more

BMW Group UK leads the premium segment in 2025

BMW Group UK has delivered a strong performance in 2025, reporting 170,051 registrations, with 28.1 per cent of these vehicles being battery electric (BEV). The BMW brand recorded 122,723 registrations (2024: 125,265), maintaining its position as the UK’s leading premium automotive brand. MINI registered a total of 47,328 units with almost one third fully electric (31.7 per cent). Read more

Volvo Cars reports December and 2025 sales

Volvo Cars reported global sales of 75,049 cars in December, up 2 per cent compared to the same period last year. For the full year 2025, Volvo Cars’ global sales stood at 710,042 cars, down by 7 per cent. China, followed by the US, UK, Germany and Sweden were the five largest markets in 2025. Read more

NIO celebrates production of its 1,000,000th vehicle

NIO’s 1,000,000th vehicle rolled off the production line at NIO Factory Two in Hefei, Anhui Province, marking another significant milestone for the company. Read more

Lucid, Nuro, and Uber Unveil Global Robotaxi at CES, Announce Autonomous On-Road Testing

Lucid Group Inc, Nuro Inc, and Uber Technologies Inc, has unveiled the production intent vehicles that will be used in their global robotaxi service and introduced the Uber-designed in-cabin rider experience for the first time at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2026. Read more

XPENG-Peking University collaborative research accepted by AAAI 2026: introducing a novel visual token pruning framework for autonomous driving

XPENG, in collaboration with Peking University, has had its paper “FastDriveVLA: Efficient End-to-End Driving via Plug-and-Play Reconstruction-based Token Pruning” accepted by AAAI 2026, one of the world’s top conferences in artificial intelligence. AAAI 2026 received 23,680 submissions, with only 4,167 papers accepted, an acceptance rate of just 17.6%. Read more

JLR Q3 sales impacted by cyber incident as previously indicated

JLR today reports its wholesale and retail sales for the third quarter of FY26 (three‑months to 31 December 2025). Production returned to normal levels only by mid‑November post the cyber incident. Read more

Thousands of lives to be saved under bold new Road Safety Strategy

The first road safety strategy in more than a decade will save thousands of lives on the nation’s roads by tackling drink driving, improving training for young drivers and introducing mandatory eye tests for older motorists. Read more

Rising costs to pose biggest challenge for 9 in 10 repairers in 2026 

The UK’s service and repair sector is set to face a convergence of challenges this year, according to The Motor Ombudsman’s latest annual survey of independent garages and franchise dealer workshops. Read more

AA Accident Assist reveals what drivers crashed into during 2025 

As people reflect on the ups and downs of the last year, some 67,000 customers who used the AA’s Accident Assist service, may be thinking about the crashes they’ve been involved in. Unsurprisingly, the most common incident was colliding with another vehicle while driving (40%*), but there are many other crashes which may have been avoided. Around a fifth (19%) of crashes involved hitting a parked car, whereas one in 10 incidents involved driving into the back of another vehicle in slow moving traffic. Read more

UK car insurance premiums continue to slide with 13% annual fall

Comprehensive car insurance premiums have fallen by 13% (£111) during the last 12 monthswith UK motorists now paying £726 on average, according to the latest Confused.com Car Insurance Price Index in association with WTW, a leading global advisory, broking and solutions company. Read more

Good Practice of the Month – January 2026, awarded to EURO NCAP for establishing the project Euro NCAP Safer Trucks Programme 

Our January spotlight features the project, ‘Euro NCAP Safer Trucks Programme,’ established by Euro NCAP in the EU (with the organisation based in Leuven, Flemish Brabant, Belgium). The project aims to improve the safety performance of heavy trucks across Europe by encouraging the adoption of advanced technologies and standards that help prevent, manage and reduce the severity of road crashes. Read more

Advertising watchdog targets motor CMCs in latest crackdown

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has banned misleading adverts aimed at victims of car accidents as part of a new crackdown on claims management companies (CMCs). Read more

CDP awards BASF leadership status

The non-profit organization CDP (formerly the Carbon Disclosure Project) has rated BASF as one of the world’s leading companies in the areas of forest and climate protection and sustainable water management. Read more

David Morris has started a new position as Director of Business Development Northern Europe at Bdeo. 

Abi McSorley has started a new position as Business Relationship Manager at Cogent Hire. 

Nissan has announced a series of senior management changes in its Africa, Middle East, India, Europe & Oceania (AMIEO) region, designed to strengthen delivery of the Re:Nissan transformation plan and enhance operational efficiency, speed and customer focus. Read more

Genesis Motor Europe has appointed Timo Thomé as Head of Sales as the brand prepares to grow presence in Europe from three to seven markets this year and launch GV60 Magma, its first high performance electric model. Read more