May 21, 2010
Nissan’s Leaf to cost £10,000 more than its competitors
Nissan announced today that the world’s first mass-market electric car, the Nissan Leaf, will cost nearly £10,000 more than its equivalent petrol and diesel rivals.
Nissan were quick to add that the new fully electric car would actually cost £23,350 when the government grant is taken into account.
“At first sight it looks expensive,” said Edmund King, president of the AA, “but we estimate a Ford Focus or similar car in that category would cost about 14p a mile, where the Leaf would cost something like 0.3p per mile depending on your electricity tariff. If you do 10,000 miles you save around £1,500 a year. Over three years you almost make your money back on the premium.” The car is also exempt from vehicle excise duty and London’s congestion charge.
With a range that is double a G-wiz of 100 miles, the Leaf will be able to go without the plug socket and should avoid drivers being worried they will become stranded after running out of power.
Ben Lane, editor of What Green Car, said Nissan would likely be losing money on the first sales of the Leaf but said, “It could do for electric cars what the Toyota Prius did for hybrids.” Toyota has sold over 1m units of the Prius since it launched 1999.
Toyota buys stake in Telsa
The world’s largest automaker, Toyota has announced that it is to buy a $50 million stake in the Californian electric-car maker Tesla Motors Inc.
Tesla will also buy a closed Toyota joint-venture factory in California to build its Model S and other vehicles, Tesla Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk said yesterday.
The companies said they’ll cooperate in developing electric cars, parts, production systems and engineering support.
The deal may help Toyota, the world’s biggest carmaker, compete with Nissan Motor Co. and General Motors Co. in selling electric cars in the U.S., where regulations on greenhouse gas emissions and fuel efficiency are pushing them to offer advanced vehicles.
It may also help the Toyota City, Japan-based company’s image, battered by recalls, by reviving the New United Motor Manufacturing Inc. plant in Fremont, California, known as NUMMI.
May 20, 2010
Nurburgring 1 Vauxhall VXR 0
Vauxhall’s Astra VXR is bit of a mad car – 240bhp all through the front wheels can be a dangerous cocktail, especially if you take it on a race track – after all, understeer often equals bad times.
And to prove a point a chap took his pride and joy a VXR Nururgring edition to its namesake track and got himself into a spot of bother.
Needless to say the VXR was a write off. Thankfully, nobody was seriously injured. But let this be a lesson dear readers: VXRs are mad, and the ‘Ring is a cruel mistress…
Rumour: someone buys 10 Aston Martin One-77′s for 10 million
According to rumours circling the inter web, a mystery buyer possibly a oil sheik has order 10 Aston Martin One-77′s at a total cost of 10 million.
Ten One-77s? Ten? Or, if you prefer, 13 per cent of the hypercar’s total production run. Or 7,000bhp. Or 120 cylinders. Yowch.
Details of the mystery buyer remain entirely mysterious, but it’ll come as no surprise he’s believed to be of Middle Eastern origin.
Aston confirmed recently that 65 of the 77 cars are already spoken for, but it’s not clear whether that includes the hefty order from our mystery man. Or whether he even exists.
Snaffling a significant proportion of one of the world’s most exclusive cars might seem a bit, well, greedy. But we shall say only this: that’d be one hell of a taxi fleet.
May 18, 2010
Ashes to Ashes fires up the Quattro
Following the massive success of Ashes to Ashes the prices of used Audi Quattro’s have more than doubled in recent months.
DCI Gene Hunts red Audi Quattro has become something of icon in recents years and this seems to have caught the imagination of the nation.
But be warned: don’t expect the four-wheel drive Quattro to re-enact the show car’s lairy sideways action. According to the crew’s chief mechanic Guy Bostock, their Quattro stunt car has been heavily modified by the guys behind the Bond films, who have converted it to two-wheel drive.
Their are apparently 3 quattro’s on sale on Autotrader – happy hunting.
Police hire ‘Guardian Angel’ to stop speeding drivers
Police in Switzerland have taken to a novel way to get drivers to slow down and stop speeding by hiring an angel.
The actor – who is dressed all in white with a rather fetching set of feathery wings – patrols the streets waving at speeding drivers.
The stunt is part of a TV campaign called ‘Slow down, take it easy’, which features a singing angel who begs drivers to take more care when driving.
As you can see from the videos below, it’s really quite brilliant.
Who said the police don’t have a sense of humour.
May 17, 2010
Buyers warned of cloned cars
Consumers are still being swindled with “cloned” cars and they stand to lose their vehicle and their money, it has been revealed.
Criminals clone cars by using stolen vehicle documents to change the identity of a stolen vehicle to match that of a legitimate car.
As many as 1,300 cloned vehicles, worth more than £13 million, have been recovered since 2006, according to the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo).
It is thought that the cloned-vehicle problem could is far greater than this, and worryingly more than 100,000 stolen registration documents are still in circulation.
The problem was highlighted today, at the start of car crime awareness week, by Acpo and by car-buying assistance organisation CarEnquiry.co.uk.
Paul Boddington, founder of CarEnquiry.co.uk, said: “Buyers are at greater risk from cloned cars than ever before and it’s clear those cars recovered are just the tip of the iceberg.
“Today, it really is ‘buyer beware’, with established dealers the best way to stay safe.”
AA president Edmund King said: “Car buying is fraught with pitfalls, from rogue traders to car cloning and forged documents. It always pays to shop with your head, not your heart, and deal only with those who can deliver you genuine cars, from accredited dealers.”
BMW drivers named as the worst
According to new Compucars.co.uk a BMW may be the “must have” cars but according to a survey they have commissioned of a 1,000 drivers they are the worst drivers in the country.
According to the statistics they are constantly losing concentration and have a lack of awareness.
They were also seen as aggressive, rude and prone to road rage and often tended to drive too close to the car in front.
Drivers of Ford cars were seen as the next-worst motorists, followed by Volvo drivers.
The poll of just over a 1,000 people showed that van drivers and young people were also considered the worst drivers.
London drivers were reckoned to be the worst on the roads, followed by motorists in south-east England and the West Midlands. Sunday drivers were seen as marginally worse drivers than those travelling in the rush hour.
Only 19% of those polled considered women to be better drivers than men.
Compucars.co.uk group marketing managing manager Rob Queen said: “BMW drivers unfortunately are left tarnished with the same brush, due to a minority of bad drivers.”
Urging BMW drivers to work on their driving etiquette, he went on: “For example, just saying thanks for being let through a space by another driver will score several brownie points and takes no effort at all.”
May 14, 2010
Tories End ‘WAR ON MOTORISTS’
Tory Secretary of State For Transport Philip Hammond has confirmed the govenrment’s intention to scrap all central funding for new fixed speed cameras. Local authoriteies will no longer pocket the money from cameras and should in the future reduce there numbers as they won’t make a penny.
Hammond has also confirmed his intention to introduce the fuel price stabiliser pledged before the election, in which fuel duty paid to the treasury will rise and fall to counter fluctuations in the oil price, although no further detail has been released on the scope of the scheme.
According to a report in today’s Telegraph, Hammond has also rushed to rule out motorway tolls and other road pricing schemes (except perhaps on any privately-funded new roads).
“We will end the war on motorists. Motoring has got to get greener, but the car is not going to go away,” he says.
Radio 2 presenter Chris Evans buys Britain’s most expensive car
The Radio 2 DJ Chris Evans, who recently took over from Terry Wogan, has just spent £12million on a vintage Ferrari 250 GT.
The 44-year-old, who is known for his admiration for sports cars had to sell three cars in his collection to stump the 12 million asking price.
The car cost a measly £6,000 when it was first sold 47 years ago – Evans posted a picture of his latest motor on his twitter with a message saying: ‘The new one has arrived.”
Only 36 250 GT’s were ever made and has a top speed of 176 and will do 0-62 in 6 seconds – still impressive to this day.
Earlier this week it was announced that Evans had beaten his predecessor, Sir Terry Wogan’s record for the largest every audience for a British radio show.
His Radio 2 show averaged 9.5 million weekly listeners in his first three months in the job – a rise of almost 1.5m on Sir Terry who stepped down in December after 27 years.
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