Car News-Global and Domestic

[mickthemaverick]

I came across this video this morning which I was quite pleased to see!

[Hell Razor5543]

This is not good news;

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/cars/news/bmw ... 5f8ba541f1

[NewcastleFalcon]

This is not good news;

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/cars/news/bmw ... 5f8ba541f1

Totally agree. Losing manufacturing industry and then to add insult to injury, having them made in a China, with its coal-burning dominated grid, contributing to their economic growth and then shipping them back to Europe in large vessels with huge two-stroke diesel power plants run on bunker fuel. Meanwhile over in Germany the spiritual home of the parent BMW, and Europe supposedly on a strategy to to manufacture more at home, while hardly taking the gloves off as much as the USA is on that score (where the likes of Hyundai and far east battery manufacturers are building factories in the USA), BMW's move goes completely against that grain.

Its a good job Stellantis are still the backbone of the British Car industry...

Regards Neil

[Gibbo2286]

It's our fault, if Herbert Austin hadn't built the 'Seven' for them to work from BMW might never have got off the ground.

[Paul-R]

I blame Major Ivan Hurst.

https://www.hagerty.com/media/automotiv ... fter-wwii/

[Gibbo2286]

Well that's VW of course Paul BMW was there long before the war making tarted up Austin 7s.

[NewcastleFalcon]

I've watched a couple of "the Electric Viking" videos recently. He's a talking head, an Australian but you do get used to him. Not exactly in the "Dave" mould, covers the subjects pretty well but maybe a bit more biased and opinionated.

He isn't that convinced on VW's or Nissan's prospects. VW due to recalls likely for ID3 and ID4 on a scale to mimic Hyundai and GM's recalls for battery manufacturing defects, and their inability to nail software problems in their vehicles. Nissan for their minimal offerings in terms of model range, and what they do offer falling behind in tech and range, as well as a huge indebtedness hampering development. Toyota also get a dishonourable mention in passing.

Only time will tell if his misgivings turn out to be prophetic. Still, it's what youtube thrives on, pontifications from people who are convinced they know what's what.





Regards Neil

[NewcastleFalcon]

The world’s largest oil exporting nation targets 150,000 EV exports in 2026

Starting off most likely at the top end. They already have a large investment in LUCID.

Lucid revealed in 2018 that Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) invested over $1 billion in the EV startup, with rumours later swirling that the investment was contingent on Lucid building a manufacturing facility in the nation.

Regards Neil

[mickthemaverick]

This is worth a scan if you want to be up to date with speeding laws!!

https://www.confused.com/car-insurance/ ... _v1_winner

[Gibbo2286]

This is worth a scan if you want to be up to date with speeding laws!!

https://www.confused.com/car-insurance/ ... _v1_winner

Gloucestershire isn't in the list Mick, I got my ticket according to them for doing 36mph in a 30, my only ticket in my lifetime.

[mickthemaverick]

Obviously Gloucestershire were one of the forces that didn't respond to the survey. I have a pending ticket gained in France but I'm told since Brexit they have no procedure for enforcing it so we'll wait and see what happens!!

[myglaren]

[NewcastleFalcon]

Rumour has it that..

BMW may be changing their mind on the Mini EV. I guess they expect it to be a big seller in the Chinese market so are in partnership with Great Wall to produce the next gen Mini EV based on a Great Wall Platform in China. They also have plans to produce it in Leipzig but anticipate now that demand will exceed the capacities that China and Leipzig will allow. Maybe other forces are at work and the levelling of playing fields on Chinese EV's coming to Europe (yet to manifest itself), may even extend to European car making royalty (BMW!) if boatloads of made-in-China electric Minis arrive on the shores of Europe from China.

BMW considers manufacturing EVs in Oxford

Regards Neil

[NewcastleFalcon]

I have neglected gardening this thread for a while and it has gone to seed since November 2022. No matter there really was no car news to report...Quickish summary.

Global...
China and Europe have a bit of a relationship problem to sort out. On the one hand "European" Car Makers have, and currently do, make a large part of their profits from making and selling mainly ICE cars in China. China leads the world in EV manufacture and battery production and tech by a country mile.

On the other hand, European legacy car makers whinge to the EU that they can indeed save the European Car industry if only they had the famous "level playing field". Easy Just put up some trade barriers with China, stop the imports. Not so of course. The Legacy Car makers are dependant for their short-term survival on new ICE sales in China, which in any case are falling, and Chinese firms easily outcompete them in their home Chinese EV market.

Various views are expressed across the internet of course of the scale of the turmoil in the Automotive Industry, and the potential casualties along the way. The way forward could well be partnerships with the Chinese Automakers to manufacture on European soil, the reverse of the history of the build up of the Chinese Automotive Powerhouse on the back up of the traditional European, American and Japanese car makers.

Domestic...
Its just a consultation paper, but highly likely this will change the landscape of the new car buying market in the UK from 2024. Like it or not something like this is going to be enacted whoever is at the helm. Already trailed in the Car clubs thread here, but the major implications will be for new car sales in general.

A zero emission vehicle (ZEV) mandate and CO2 emissions regulation for new cars and vans in the UK

Its a long read but in summary sets targets for proportions of new Zero Emission Vehicles (at exhaust) required to be met by any Car maker Selling more than 1000 new cars and vans in the United Kingdom from 2024, with severe penalties for non-compliance, and tagging on some kind of scheme for trading credits.

Neil

[ChrisRobin]

Electric vehicle SMR (Service Maintenance Repair) price hike warning for fleets.

Fleet has paid peanuts for serving for decades, we got to a point where we had to get Parts Manager to override prices for booking out on certain fuel filters, certain sparks and most sump plugs as the price fleet where paying eventually came to 5p/10p above cost, £6.10 per ltr on oil, we fought for over 4 years on this, which turned quite nasty and ended up with us telling one of the fleet Companies we no longer want to service your vehicles.
We were not getting enough out of the service to turn the lights on let alone pay a tech and everyone else, Fleet have always been quantity not quality, get em in get em out as we make virtually nothing from them so the more the merrier but even that got t =o a point it wasn't worth our effort.
It then turned very nasty very quickly, VW told us we are not allowed to turn brand service work away, I believe we said we are, as we are not into pouring dealership money down the loo, VW threatened to take the dealerships off us, we said HAVE THEM, and closed them all down.
We survived as the only VW dealership as we had Audi attached, as well as vans, Skoda and Seat, so to dump VW we would have to sell the site as all 5 brands are fixed here and not allowed to separate, Audi, kept us our jobs, the site was put up for sale but due to its size and running costs nobody wanted it.
Now we are the bees knees again and being watched by VW as a model for future dealers, the big worry is not enough service work will come in from EV's and smaller single dealerships will fold, so by putting them altogether like us they can support each other (is the theory)....
So we are now back in the Company good books as the flag ship to the future.
And fleet still pay us peanuts.....