There’s some interesting bits in this Bloomberg article regarding Japan’s older drivers. After a high profile road accident last year involving an 89 year old former senior bureaucrat that resulted in the death of a mother and child, safety features have taken even greater importance amongst the Japanese car manufacturers. As an aside, it was also interesting to read that in the wake of the accident, roughly 350,000 drivers…
Chinese EV maker and NYSE-listed Nio announced to much fanfare the launch of its first battery powered saloon at the company's annual "Nio-Day" event in Chendou this past Saturday. The car is aimed squarely at Tesla's Model S and also hopes to eat some of Mercedes-Benz's S-class and BMW's 7-series lunch, too. The unimaginatively-named ET7 is set to be priced at £50k for the entry-level model with…
Just before Christmas Apple announced that they intend to make an electric vehicle with a target date of 2024. This isn't Apple's first foray into car building, having initially launched the idea back in 2014 before scrapping it and relaunching it again 2019. Also, Apple has shifted back and forth between focusing their efforts on building an EV versus focusing on just self-driving technologies. What makes the…
Over the last couple of weeks I've seen an uptick in articles highlighting the issues we face in the wake of the Government's recent announcement for the abolishment of new car sales of both petrol and diesels by 2030. The Guardian newspaper had this to say about the extraction of lithium - a key material used in EV batteries - while a Sunday Times article writes on…
This article from the Guardian highlights two separate owners of an identical VW Passat GTE who both experienced problems related to the hybrid systems. In both cases, VW refused to shoulder the cost of the very expensive repairs based on the fact that their respective 3 year warranty's had expired. In both cases the warranty had literally JUST expired, too. Ouch. Thankfully the Guardian was able to…
Covid19 has undoubtedly wreaked havoc on new car sales year to date, and sales figures for this past September certainly reinforced that: just 328k new cars were registered here in the UK which was the worst September this century. This represents a -4.4% drop from last September while year to date, we’re down -33%. Ouch. The writing has been on the wall for a while - August…
An op ed was recently posted on the BBC website suggesting that Elon Musk's most important business would not be his car, Space X, public transport or tunneling companies but his somewhat more boring involvement in the advancement of battery technologies. Batteries - rechargeable or otherwise - have always had a love hate relationship with anything electrical. For older folk reading this, you will recall the days…
Barron's reports that Americans are getting back behind the wheel with a vengeance. Good news for all the manufacturers and dealers out there but also good news for parts companies, automotive insurers and rental car companies, too. Wall Street analysts are now in agreement that various sectors of the car industry offer good opportunities for investors to dip their toes. While Car Sleuth isn't in the business…
June 1st marked the day that car dealerships up and down the country could re-open as part of the Government’s phased “re-boot” of the economy. This is contingent on car dealerships showing that they can meet the COVID-19 secure guidelines to protect shoppers and workers. This includes one-way systems, hand sanitising stations, protective screens and more frequent cleaning/de-sanitising of each car. All visits to showrooms must be…
As has been widely reported, the Government is being lobbied by the car industry to re-enact a scrappage scheme (or "cash for clunkers" as I like to call it). The proposal is pretty straight forward and is similar to the one introduced back in 2009; an older, more polluting car can be traded in at any dealer with £2500 off the sticker price of any new car.…