January figures for new car sales came out this past Tuesday and surprise, surprise, they’ve dropped year on year (149k vehicles sold in Jan this year, versus 160k in Jan 2019). Why isn’t this a surprise? For starters, consumer confidence here in the UK has trickled steadily lower as the uncertainty surrounding Brexit and the ramifications of a Britain not part of the EU made consumers wary…
While everyone has the noblest of intentions when it comes to the environment, the reality is that here in the UK the automotive industry – both manufacturers and policy makers - have not done a good enough job to convince us to switch to pure EV cars. Even though car manufacturers will be soon flooding the market with new model EVs, the big unknown is whether consumers…
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/james-cameron-teams-mercedes-benz-avatar-inspired-vehicle-1267592 This is kinda fun... Hollywood mega-filmmaker James Cameron - an avid environmentalist to boot - has collaborated with Mercedes-Benz to create an eco-friendly concept car that dovetails into his Avatar-based worlds of production and design. The car was first seen on Monday in Las Vegas at CES under the moniker Vision AVTR, which stands for Advanced Vehicle Transformation. Mercedes-Benz is keen to highlight that this car…
https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/autonomous-taxis-become-rough-ride-050027746.html As has been discussed in past Car Sleuth posts, the consistent push for self-driving vehicles, from California tech start-ups to European car manufacturers, finally appears to be abating. Timelines are being modified as car manufacturers and tech companies realise that fully autonomous self-driving vehicles won't be put on the roads in earnest until even more testing and tweaks have been done. As to when the necessary…
With new features being introduced all the time, it’s time to take stock and ask ourselves which are genuinely “can’t live without” and which are simply “overkill” and likely adds cost to the price of the car. I’ve chosen 5 of the best and 5 of the worst! Let me know in the comments if you agree… The best: 1 - Adaptive cruise control: On a long…
With the volume of inbounds I’m getting on whether a next car purchase should be pure electric I thought it was good timing to re-visit the subject. Let’s begin by stating that the EV landscape is changing so quickly that by the time this piece hits your inbox there could be yet more changes afoot! For convenience, I’ll break this down into the three discussion areas that…
This article in the Guardian discusses the imminent loss of nearly £30 billion as the adoption of fully electric vehicles becomes the main vehicle used by, well, everyone. For context, full EVs currently pay no road tax - this is a Government incentive to drive us to zero net emissions by 2050. And yet surely the Government will need to recoup these losses somehow to cover the…
Not to bang on incessantly about autonomous driving, but this op ed written by David Ficking and featured on Bloomberg ( https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-09-24/hyundai-aptiv-s-jv-doesn-t-put-a-driverless-future-any-closer) highlights that fact that headlines in this space can often be misleading. The piece shows us that a big automotive name (in this case Hyundai) making a purchase of a big name autonomous driving car company (in this case Aptiv) for billions of dollars (in…
https://marketrealist.com/2019/08/us-companies-urge-for-relaxed-autonomous-car-regs/?utm_source=yahoo&utm_medium=feed&yptr=yahoo The above link points to a story about legacy car and (new-ish) technology companies putting pressure on regulators to lighten the red tape that is standing in the way for more autonomous vehicle testing. This isn't that surprising simply because the various players (Google-owned Waymo, LYFT, Uber etc) have invested so much that they need to see Level 5 autonomous driving become a reality sooner rather…
https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/last-volkswagen-beetle-drives-sunset-002027161.html The writing has been on the wall for years. But yesterday saw the last Volkswagen Beetle roll off the assembly line in Puebla, Mexico bringing an end to one of the most iconic vehicles ever made. Sad, yes, but also inevitable. The VW Beetle was developed in 1938 after Adolf Hitler wanted a car that would be affordable for the people with mass production beginning in…