Ford is moving with the times with its iconic Transit van. Businesses and organisations trialing the new PHEV (plug-in hybrid) model have given it the thumbs up.
Participants included Addison Lee Group, Autoglass, British Gas, DPD, Heathrow Airport, the Metropolitan Police, Royal Mail, Sky, Transport for London and Vodafone. Each organisation ran one of the 20 vans for 12 months.
Some of the figures from the trial are interesting. The vans covered 150,000 miles over the course of the year, with 75 percent of the driving in Central London completed in EV mode. Likewise, 49 percent of the driving in Greater London was done in full EV mode.
Cleaning up London’s commercial vehicles
If PHEV and EV vans like the Transit proliferate, it will go some way to cleaning up the eight million miles of driving covered by commercial vehicles in London every day. It’s thought around 7,000 vans are driving every hour during peak times in Central London. If three-quarters of that driving can be electric-only modes like the Transit PHEV can achieve, London’s air quality should improve.
A production version of the plug-in hybrid Transit will appear towards the end of the year. Ford’s learnings from the 12-month trial run are being used to refine the production model right now.
“We also know that businesses still have legitimate concerns about the range of fully-electric vehicles, as well as their cost-effectiveness and reliability,” said Mark Harvey, director of the urban electrified van programme.
“These trials have helped Ford and its customers to investigate the extent to which PHEVs can help to achieve urban air quality goals, whilst not compromising on productivity.”
Ford Transit PHEV, and a Transit EV on the way
The PHEV has a target zero-emission range of 31 miles. The electric motor is helped by a 1.0-litre EcoBoost petrol engine, with a total system range exceeding 310 miles. Ford says the battery under the floor doesn’t compromise load space.
The PHEV is just the beginning for electrified Transit vans. An all-electric version is due to join the lineup in 2021.
“This trial is the first time Ford has given such early prototype vehicles to customers, and we’ve been able to incorporate their feedback directly into the production van,” Harvey continued.
“The response has been overwhelmingly positive – operators don’t want to give them back.”
A new feature that the iOS 13 update brings to Apple CarPlay won’t work in any car. At least, not yet.
The ability for your iPhone to project CarPlay onto two different screens simultaneously was one of the major updates for the facility, but can’t yet be adopted by any current production cars.
Apple CarPlay dual screen: explained
Don’t get confused with a split-screen display. The new feature allows different apps to work on separate dashboard screens, as fitted to some modern cars.
Thus you could have Spotify on the central screen while your digital dashboard handles Waze or Google Maps. ‘Virtual Cockpit’ has been fitted to Audis for four years now, so one would hope for an instant level of compatibility.
“Automakers can develop CarPlay systems that show information in a second screen, such as in a cluster or HUD,” Apple explains.
The Verge questioned 11 major car manufacturers that offer CarPlay about the updated version, to see if it would work. But while compatibility and the ability to make full use of the new feature will come eventually, it’s not happening yet.
Fiat-Chrysler and General Motors replied, saying: “More info on that at a later date” and “Stay tuned…” respectively. The rest either dodged the question, or said outright it wouldn’t work.
Cars generally lag behind handheld devices and computers in terms of technology. Now, with the release of iOS 13, the same is again true.
This sticking point is perhaps best exemplified by Tesla: a startup electric car company that’s clawed much of its market ground from existing manufacturers thanks to bleeding-edge tech.
To tech-savvy car buyers, that’s the battle already won. Over-the-air updates and infotainment systems that are up to the standards of the tech industry have put Tesla on the map.
Hopefully, new cars like the Porsche Taycan and Volkswagen ID.3 are the first moves by older manufacturers in a long-overdue game of automotive industry catch-up.
The maker of London’s New Routemaster ‘Boris Bus’ has gone into administration, report unions, after a downturn in the market caused losses to spiral.
Wrightbus, based in Ballymena, Northern Ireland, is one of the region’s largest employers, with 1,400 staff. It is the last UK-owned bus manufacturer.
The firm is well known as the producer of the New Routemaster, which was launched in 2012 after being championed by Boris Johnson, who was then London Mayor. This earned the machine its ‘Boris Bus’ nickname.
Johnson’s successor as London Mayor, Sadiq Khan, cancelled further orders of the New Routemaster in 2016.
Wrightbus was founded in 1946, initially producing trucks. Recently, it has innovated in future fuel and, in May 2019, received an order from Transport for London (TfL) for 20 hydrogen fuel-cell double-decker buses. Each cost £500,000.
So-called ‘range anxiety’ remains foremost in the minds of many electric car buyers. To help, engineering and testing consultancy Horiba Mira reckons an overhaul of how range is calculated is urgently needed, with more realistic figures the intended goal.
“Increasing the number of people willing to switch to EVs will largely depend on a positive change in customer perceptions; particularly in tackling ‘range anxiety’,” said Ben Gale of Horiba Mira.
“It is therefore imperative that government and EV manufacturers respond accordingly, to accelerate EV adoption.”
A report by the company says conventional ways of testing how far a charged EV will travel need to be reviewed. At the moment, a car that is claimed to have a 300-mile range might manage 250 miles in the ‘real world’.
Horiba Mira considers current testing conditions to be unrealistic. Temperature, driving style, the type of journey and other factors all have a dramatic effect on range. Jaguar has recognised this with its online tool for I-Pace owners, which helps estimate range in varying conditions.
“At present, the use of insufficient range data in real-world conditions is playing a part in fuelling range anxiety, putting many motorists off making the switch to EVs,” Ben added.
“Globally, vehicles are tested at just one temperature – one that is considered the ‘optimum’ for vehicle comfort and lithium-ion batteries – but when you add in air conditioning or heating requirements, additional battery power is required, depleting the published range of an EV at an alarming rate.”
A new penalty system for drivers will be introduced at Heathrow Airport to coincide with the opening of the third runway in 2026. This, to an end of getting its third runway operating at capacity, without adding any cars to the road.
The charge is expected to yield around £1.2 billion a year. That’s if the expected 65,000 vehicles a day pay the predicted £50 daily charge (accounting for inflation) by 2040.
The charge is to be levied on all cars, from hulking gas guzzlers to whisper-quiet electric cars – Heathrow’s congestion charge will not discriminate. The aim is to incentivise the use of public transport by those wanting to fly from Heathrow.
Thus the amount of Heathrow-related traffic will remain the same at the very least, or decrease. It expects 55 percent of passengers will use public transport to get to the airport by 2050. This, by comparison to the 40 percent that did so in 2015.
Can Heathrow’s public transport links cope?
There are worries, however, that public transport links would not be able to cope as drivers try to escape charges. Even without the extra 756,000 flights per year that the new runway will allow. A new east-west Crossrail line is planned, along with an upgrade of the Tube’s Piccadilly Line and improved bus services, to handle to extra passenger volume.
In addition, Heathrow Southern Railway is pitching to build an eight-mile link from Waterloo. There are also plans to increase train infrastructure between Reading and Heathrow.
More than 360,000 driving licences withdrawn on medical grounds
Given that the two lines are to be confirmed, with a decision ‘yet to be made’ by the Heathrow consultation, speculation is rife on whether the current infrastructure will cope.
For the moment, then, travellers could be faced with little choice than to drive and swallow the charges. Heathrow Southern Railway warns that “this will cause resentment as there will be no practicable way for people in this area of the country to avoid the charge”.
A freedom of information (FOI) request has revealed exactly what local authorities make out of parking tickets, as well as how many fines are issued.
Here, we reveal the councils that are making the most money from your parking tickets.
The £5 million parking profit club
The FOI data found that Leeds, Edinburgh, Manchester, Glasgow and Birmingham lead the country in terms of parking ticket revenue for the most recent financial year, outside of London at least.
Each earns over £5 million in the process of fining those parking where they shouldn’t, or for longer than they should.
Leeds leads, with a £6.17 million take, while Edinburgh isn’t far behind on £5.9 million. Manchester and Glasgow make £5.3 million and £5 million respectively. Birmingham just misses out on membership, taking £4.915 million, to be exact.
Overall, 24 of the listed areas earned comfortably over £1 million in parking fines. The top 10 earned a minimum of £2.5 million, each.
Which city makes the least from parking fines? It’s lowly Derby, making ‘just’ £844,907 in the most recent financial year.
Dishing out the fines
1 in 5 motorists find parking a struggle
In terms of the number of fines, it stands to reason that those in the top five for revenue would have to work for their take. All but leader Leeds feature, with Manchester in the lead having given out 545,314 fines. Leeds actually made its £6.1 million dishing out one fourth of the fines in Manchester.
Nottingham joins at the bottom of the top five, with 137,623 fines dished out. Bottom overall is Bolton, issuing just 27,787 parking fines. That’s around 5,000 fewer fines than the loser in terms of profit, Derby. In spite of this, Bolton made £1.2 million in the last financial year from parking fines. A ticket must be expensive in Bolton…
Manchester – 545,314 fines
Edinburgh – 191,563 fines
Glasgow – 147,945 fines
Birmingham – 141,687 fines
Nottingham – 137,623 fines
The freedom of information request was submitted by CompareTheMarket.
Labour has announced plans for a ‘green industrial revolution’ with an enormous focus on automotive.
If elected, Labour will introduce interest-free loans for prospective electric car buyers and billions of pounds worth of charging points to support them.
On top of that, it wants to team up with car manufacturers to build battery ‘gigafactories’. Finally, to power it all, it wants to commit a massive investment for a fleet of wind turbines at sea.
The long and the short? More electric cars, more places to charge them, cheaper batteries and renewable power to keep them going. From the top…
Labour’s £60bn interest-free loans on electric cars
Labour wants two thirds of cars on sale to be electric by 2030. To support the necessary growth in popularity, it wants to offer 2.5 million prospective buyers of electric cars interest-free loans of up to £33,000. That’s a total investment of up to £60 billion during its first parliamentary term.
These loans would be for low-income households, small businesses and sole traders specifically. In theory, they would get the last people that would ordinarily have the capacity to make the change, to the front of the queue.
The scheme would come with a caveat for those taking advantage of the scheme. They’re to take a more active part in Britain’s ‘green industrial revolution’ beyond buying the car – owners will be required to take part in a mass trial of Vehicle-2-Grid technology.
Britain is one of the CHEAPEST places in Europe to own an electric car
It allows electric cars to effectively be a part of the grid, when they’re plugged in, storing excess energy. This, to an end of smoothing supply from renewable sources. It would ease the mass requirement for power banks, at least in the short term.
Roughly £3.5 billion would be lost in interest profits. However, a would-be Labour government reckons it will save, at least in part, on easing a steep immediate requirement for behind-the-scenes infrastructure. Funding for the loans would come from a £250 billion ‘national transformation fund’.
£3.6billion on charging points
With 2.5 million electric cars set to hit the road, Labour will need a charging infrastructure that can support them. It plans to invest £3.6 billion in the rollout of rapid-charging stations, with the ability to support the anticipated 21 million electrified car population on the road by the end of the next decade.
The investment would create 3,000 skilled jobs for electricians and engineers, and the result would be an answer to the question of infrastructure that’s supposedly stopping so many from making the change.
£5.8billion investment in electric cars and ‘gigafactories’
The shadow business secretary Rebecca Long-Bailey revealed Labour’s intention to invest £5.8 billion in the motor industry to assist an acceleration in the development and production of electric cars. How? State-controlled ‘gigafactories’ and metal reprocessing plants, and a stake in the manufacturers of electric cars.
Around £3 billion of the above figure would go toward assisting the development of new models and technology. In return, Labour wants shares in the business.
“If we want our automotive sector to flourish, we need a government that is not afraid to intervene,” and intervene it plans to. Long-Bailey cites France as an example with its 13 percent stake in the home-based Peugeot Citroen PSA group.
Around £2.3 billion is to go towards the so-called ‘gigafactories’, with the government owning a 51 percent stake in each one. They would create 3,000 jobs, with sites planned in Swindon (think the to-be ditched Honda plant), Stoke and South Wales.
“We need to accelerate the shift away from fossil-powered cars if we are to tackle the climate emergency. Labour’s support package will offer a lifeline for a new clean era of manufacturing.”
The elephant in the electric car room is batteries. The production of them is addressed above, but the disposal of them is a point of contention. Labour wants the remaining £500 million to go towards four plants for the reprocessing of batteries for their rare metals and minerals.
Labour’s renewable power for an EV-driving Britain
So we’ve got the electric cars, the capacity to produce the batteries within them, the incentive to buy them and the infrastructure to charge them. Now we need to power it all.
To that end, Labour wants to build 37 new offshore wind farms via a new public-private venture, in which it would have a 51 percent stake, generating power for 57 million homes. It wants to shake our reliance on foreign firms for wind power. Labour says the venture would create 67,000 jobs in East Anglia, Scotland, Yorkshire and the North East.
The ‘people’s power fund’ will be the result of profits taken from the energy harnessed and sold with the new facilities. This would allow £1 billion every year to be invested in struggling seaside communities.
When you add up the cost of fuel, insurance, road tax, MOTs and cleaning, along with extra outlays like parking tickets and road tolls, how much does your car really cost to run? These are the top 12 most expensive brands, according to a survey by MoneySupermarket. Some of these might surprise you.
12. Hyundai
This might come as a shock, but one of the greatest proprietors of value on four wheels isn’t so cheap when it comes to running costs. Hyundai kicks off our list with a typical £1,592 annual bill. Over the 326 times an average Hyundai is driven per year, that equates to £4.88 per journey.
11. Nissan
Nissan is next, with an average £1,622 annual bill. What’s interesting is that, on average, a Nissan is driven 288 times a year – nearly 40 times less than a Hyundai. That ups the per-drive cost to £5.63.
10. Citroen
It’s £25 a year more expensive, typically, to run a Citroen for a year than a Nissan, at £1,647. Although Citroens are used 30 times more per year, making the per-drive cost £5.18.
9. Kia
Another shocker as Hyundai’s good-value Korean stablemate is even further up the list in ninth. Costing £1,755 a year to run, it’s significantly more expensive, too. With 300 uses per year on average, a single journey has an average cost of £5.85.
8. Ford
Another mainstream brand finds itself on the most-expensive list. A Ford costs just £1 a year more than Kia to run, however, at £1,756. Being used 31 times more on average, the per-use cost is much lower, at £5.30.
7. Vauxhall
Ford’s arch-rival Vauxhall is up there, too, with a yearly cost of ownership of £1,779. Being the third most frequently used marque on the list, that cost is spread over 346 journeys, for a per-drive cost of £5.15.
6. Peugeot
But Vauxhall loses out to Peugeot on per-use value. Even though it costs £1,785 every year, on average, to own a Peugeot, that is spread over 374 journeys. That makes the per-use cost an impressive £4.77.
5. Renault
Renault opens the top five (or should that be the bottom five?), with a £1,834 per-year cost of ownership. It comes second to its fellow French marque in terms of usage, though. With 355 drives, Renaults have a £5.17 per-use cost.
4. Volkswagen
German cars are often pricier to buy, so it stands to reason they’d be pricier to own. Volkswagens, on average, cost £1,900 to own a year, with a £5.92 per-use cost.
3. Toyota
Another surprise, sandwiched between the Germans. Where’s Mercedes-Benz? Nope, in its place comes Toyota. It’s the first marque on the list to exceed £2,000 per-year to own, at £2,085. It costs £6.26 over each of the average 333 drives.
2. Audi
Vorsprung durch expensive, Audis cost £2,214 per year to own on average. Over just 264 uses every year, each journey costs £8.39. It’s the most expensive car per-use to own. You can bet fuel, insurance, tax and cleaning play all play a big part.
1. BMW
Overall, however, BMW is the most expensive brand to own, at £2,411 per year. Over 292 uses, each drive costs £8.26. It’s not all servicing, fuel and tax, however. BMW owners spend an average of £136 a year on cleaning alone. According to MoneySupermarket, that’s 127 percent more than drivers of other cars.
The new Volkswagen Golf Mk8 will be revealed in a matter of weeks. To make sure the current car keeps selling as it enters its runout phase, VW has boosted features even further with three new ‘Edition’ trims.
Match Edition, GT Edition and R-Line Edition variants replace respective non-edition versions. They cost £400 more than the outgoing models – but add equipment worth £1,910.
Call it a £1,500 boost in value, for what remains Volkswagen’s best-selling car in the UK “by a comfortable margin”.
Each now comes as standard with dual-zone climate control, LED headlights, heated front seats, headlight washers and a low washer fluid level warning light (every little helps).
Deliveries of the new Edition models will begin in October – and everyone who ordered a Match, GT or R-Line after 16 September will automatically be upgraded to the new Edition variants.
Volkswagen also reminds us the value boost isn’t just for these three cars. Earlier in the month, it chipped £2,765 off the price of the all-electric e-Golf, for those eager to get into an electric VW ahead of the ID.3’s arrival.
Nearly half a million drivers could be priced out of their cars and off the roads. The warning from the AA comes in relation to ‘eco taxes’ such as London’s new Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) charge.
The ULEZ costs drivers of non-compliant vehicles £12.50 to enter the zone, and applies 24 hours a day, seven days a week. It also elapses at midnight, so somebody working a night shift could incur a fee of £25.
With the ULEZ set to expand in October 2021, and similar pay-to-drive low emission zones being proposed for urban areas across the country, hundreds of thousands of drivers face higher costs for the privilege of staying on the road.
Birmingham, Glasgow, Edinburgh and Newcastle may all emulate London’s ULEZ scheme. The former could hit a further 100,000 drivers, according to the AA. When the ULEZ does expand, it’s expected that more than 300,000 drivers will be affected.
The ULEZ targets older cars that do not meet with certain emissions criteria: Euro 4 for petrol and Euro 6 for diesel. There are even worries that some Euro 6 vehicles will fail road-side emissions tests.
After just three months of operation, the London ULEZ has seen upwards of 100,000 drivers hit with charges. And the AA reckons 40 percent of these are some of the worst-off drivers.
ULEZ life hack: Londoners are renting out their driveways for parking
“[Drivers] are being run off the road,” said AA president Edmund King. “It is wrong to discriminate against one section of the community”.
The AA is urging local councils to divert revenues from motoring convictions towards subsidising the move to compliant vehicles for those who can’t ordinarily afford it, but rely on their cars.
So-called ‘r
