Alastair Sloane: Keep your eyes on our road

The new 'Driven' section. Photo / NZ Herald

You, the readers, have certainly given Driven the green light. Response to the Herald's bigger and brighter motoring brand has been overwhelmingly positive.

Emails have flooded in since the first Driven appeared last Saturday. "Wow!" said one. "The new tabloid looks fantastic." "Really enjoyed Driven - well done," said another.

An Australian who picked up the Herald from Auckland airport on Saturday emailed from across the ditch on Monday: "Driven looks as good as anything we've got over here. And our car market is huge compared with yours. Great effort."

Today's Driven is our smaller midweek edition. We will be back on Saturday with more from our pool of motoring writers, backed up by photo and video galleries, at www.nzherald.co.nz/motoring.

Bumper reading this coming weekend includes a review of the Fiat 500 Abarth, a two-door flyer that redefines the term "pocket rocket."

There will be something for Mother's Day, too, as carmakers look for selling points that aren't linked to burning fuel.

Luxury companies are adding internet and smartphone access to their vehicles as environmental concerns and consumer addiction to mobile devices shift the emphasis to high-tech gadgetry from horsepower.

"Mobile connectivity is playing an increasing role in all our lives," says global BMW sales chief Ian Robertson. "These services will continue to grow. It's a component of a competitive advantage."

The carmakers were slow to link their cars to the internet because of concern about safety and allowing unfiltered data into their vehicles. The proliferation of mobile devices like Apple's iPhone is changing that.

Mercedes-Benz is experimenting with new ways to interact with the increasing amount of data in cars and showed a concept vehicle last year that tracks the driver's hand movements on a screen located on the centre console. BMW is experimenting with filtering data based on moods, such as selecting music within a range of emotions spanning from joyful to hopeless.

"Customers are accustomed to having these connectivity benefits in their everyday life," says one US analyst. "There's no reason why, when they get into their car, they might have to be isolated from what's happening around the world."