£5000 off Your Next Nuclear Car in the UK

It’s the way forward – and we’re not talking about garlic bread here – it’s the electric car. Governments throughout the world have suddenly seen the light. Elastic trickery will whoosh us around the planet, silently, cleanly. The meadows will be greener, the polar bears will build new ice shelves and everyone will live happily ever after. But how will mankind achieve this? Well if the rumours in the UK and US are to be believed the first step will be to offer £5000 ($7500 in the US) off the price of a new electric car. On the strength of the huge sales that are made, technology will become cheaper and before we know it, everyone will be wondering why we ever had a dependence on oil. Happy days!

Electricity is great! We may not be able to see it but it’s there every time we want it, at the flick of a switch and it’s cheaper than oil. That is until demand outstrips supply. So what is needed is a plentiful source of electricity, a clean source of electricity. So it may come as no surprise to many, that whilst many of the world’s journalists were trying out the Chevy Volt mule and electric cars were all over the news channels, the British government announced the eleven proposed sites for the next generation of nuclear power stations. Cynical? Maybe, but we are going to need to get the power from somewhere.

Plentiful green electricity is unfortunately further away at this point than the electric car, as a result the power for our new beautiful clean rides won’t be that clean. So we have a choice, coal fired power stations, gas fired power stations or nuclear. If we choose coal or gas we negate many of the advantages of the electric car. If we choose nuclear we open a whole new can of worms, but if we are serious about electric cars it WILL be nuclear power that propels them along our highways and byways, unfortunately there are no other ready alternatives.

So are the British government using the “green” argument as a smokescreen to gain favour with the public when it comes to nuclear power stations? Probably, as with only £250,000,000 - enough for 50,000 vehicles - earmarked for the project, most of the subsidies will be taken by businesses and public bodies. The man on the street will no doubt be left just as dependent on oil as ever. Mandy, Darling and Gordon Brown may well hail the £5000 being offered off a new electric car as a “green” policy, but just how green it turns out to be may only be answered by our children and grandchildren and who knows what they will be driving, it may just be a nuclear powered car.

Scrappage scheme from Citroen

£2000 Cashbacks will apply to new cars (excluding C1, C2, C3, C3 Pluriel, C3 Picasso and Berlingo First – Car) where a qualifying Retail or Business order is declared 1st - 30th April and registered by 30th June 2009.

Citroen Announce Price Increases From 1st April

Citron have announced details of price increases that come into effect from the 1st of April. They are as follows:

C1 - £100
C2 - £50
C3 - £50
C3 Pluriel - £100
Berlingo Multispace petrol - £50
Berlingo Multispace diesel- £100
Berlingo First - £100
C4 Coupe & Hatchback petrol - £300
C4 Coupe & Hatchback diesel - £200
Xsara Picasso - £300
C4 Picasso (excl. 1.6 16V VTi 120hp LX) - £300
Grand C4 Picasso (excl. 1.6 16V VTi 120hp LX) - £300
New C5 - £500
C-Crosser - £50
C8 - £500
C6 - £50
Dispatch Combi - £200
Relay Combi - £200

BMW Announce Q2 Support

BMW have announced their support for Q2 Sales available from 1st April (not April fool's) and are as follows

BMW 1 Series E81/87 LCI - Non Edition ES / Sport Models £1,000

BMW 3 Series E90/91 LCI - 3 Series Saloon / Touring £1,000

BMW 3 Series E92 - 3 Series Coupe £1,500

BMW 3 Series E93 - 3 Series Convertible £2,000

BMW 5 Series - Non Business Edition / Business Media Package Models £ 1,000

BMW X3 / X5 / X6 - All models £3,000

Chrysler Not Viable, Sixty Days to Save General Motors

Late last year, Chrysler and General Motors received 17.4 billion Dollars from the US taxpayer to avoid the auto makers being forced into chapter 11 bankruptcy. Three months later, the two companies have failed to secure 21.6 billion in further loans from the American government. A move that now leaves both companies in a perilous predicament.

Chrysler, the smaller of the two companies, has had the most damning condemnation when it comes to its future, with the Auto Task Force appointed by Barak Obama coming to the conclusion that Chrysler is “not viable” in its current form. As a result, Chrysler will get enough working capital to last thirty days, thirty days in which it must conclude its proposed alliance with the European carmaker Fiat. If this merger fails to materialize, the future of Chrysler looks extremely bleak, with Chapter 11 bankruptcy looking like the only option for the third largest automaker in the US.

The news for General Motors isn’t much better, with the one time world’s largest car manufacturer being given sixty days to dramatically restructure and cut costs. A restructuring that has already cost the chief executive Rick Wagoner his job. Forced out at the request of the President because the White House said that the present restructuring plans were insufficient and needed to be far more aggressive if the company is to have any long term future.

Even more worrying for General Motors is the realisation that the government are thinking that a "quick court-supervised restructuring" may prove to be the best option for success. A “court-supervised restructuring” can surely only mean chapter 11 bankruptcy, a move that could decimate any future sales and as a result plunge the company even deeper into the mire. Talk of a Warranty Commitment Plan – government backed warranty schemes for both Chrysler and GM - will do nothing to increase consumer confidence and if anything may have a negative effect. If either company has a viable future, why do they need the government to back up warranties? As was seen in the UK with MG Rover, government backed schemes can effectively speed up the process of failure.

Bankruptcy though, may be the only way GM can survive. Talks with the unions and bondholders have been painfully slow, leading many analysts to think that the only way GM can be restructured is through the courts. With the inevitable backlash that suppliers would feel if either company went bankrupt, hopes are that both companies can meet the demands of the government. A failure to do so will no doubt lead to job losses on a massive scale, job losses that would not just affect GM and Chrysler, but may also drag Ford further into the picture.

So with 30 and sixty days left respectively, Chrysler and GM find themselves in a position where they will have to comply with the Auto Task Force recommendations. Failure to do so can only result in one outcome. An outcome that would have repercussions throughout the world, not just America.

Will the Obese Save the American Auto Industry

There is a feeling in the rest of the world that “Everything is bigger in America”. There is a certain amount of stereotyping involved that is obvious to all, however there is also a feeling of “there’s no smoke without fire” and the announcement by the Volkswagen Group of America’s CEO Stefan Jacoby that the Volkswagen Polo is still too small for the American market and therefore will be specifically tailored for it, will do nothing but fan the flames of the fire.

Now surely this cannot be down to the relative size of an Americans posterior. Are they really that big that they can’t fit into a European specification car? Even here in Britain (often referred to as the sick man of Europe) with obesity rates of 23%, we can still mange to shoe horn our way into the smallest of European cars. The Fiat 500, the MINI, the Renault Twingo, all small cars that we don’t have to have optional patio doors fitted too in order to get in them. So why does the American market need cars designed specifically for the American consumer? And is this yet another reason why the American auto industry finds itself in the position it is in today? After all America only makes up just over 4.5% of the worlds population.

Just by looking at the U.S. versions of car manufacturers websites it’s hard for a lot of Europeans to recognise many of the vehicles on sale. It would appear, on the face of it that America builds big cars and sells big cars for the American market. Any other worldwide sales are just a bonus. Why not – and this may seem crazy – make cars that the rest of the world want to buy and any sales in the U.S. are a bonus. Surely the global marketplace is where the future of the automotive industry lays, design cars for the world, not just for Americans and there may be a chance America has an automotive industry going into the next decade.

The Volkswagen Polo is a small economical car that has seen phenomenal success throughout Europe, indeed the Bluemotion model achieves a staggering 74.3 mpg (62 mpg US) on the combined cycle. What impact will supersizing the Polo have on its economy figures? And that’s assuming the Bluemotion model even makes it over the pond. An aversion to diesel technology and the fact that it would have to be built in Mexico to be priced viably will no doubt mean the average American looks upon the Polo with a certain amount of disdain, so why bother? Surely a fat Polo is just a Golf (Rabbit).

So does America need cars designed for Americans? The answer must surely be no, that is, unless it is true and they have become so huge they physically can’t fit into a average European size car and if that is the case the American car industry may be saved anyway, as us portly Brits are going to need all the Lincoln Navigators we can lay our hands on.

Tata Nano. Great Car or Great PR

There was a time, especially here in the UK when the name of Tata didn’t even show on the radar. Then the Indian company bought out Corus, the Anglo – Dutch steel firm, the largest Indian takeover of a foreign company. If this wasn’t enough this was followed two years later with the acquisition of Jaguar and Land Rover from Ford. The resulting column inches in the press ensured the Tata name would become recognised worldwide.

Fast forward to the 23rd March 2009 and Tata launch the long awaited Nano. The cheapest car in the world priced at a measly 100,000 Rupees (around £1,400). To say this car is basic may be a slight understatement, it is however a car and it gives millions of Indians the opportunity to move up from a scooter into their first proper car. Or so the marketing machine would lead us to believe.

With the PR that has been generated, there is a good chance the Nano may be a victim of its own success. The proposed factory in eastern India that would have built 250,000 Nano’s annually had to be relocated due to violent protests by local farmers delaying the initial launch of the car. As a result annual production will be 60,000 units from its factory in Pantnagar in northern India. Tata have however guaranteed the price for the first 100,000 customers, who will be picked using a lottery type draw. After that it may be a waiting list of around a year, depending on demand.

Assuming the demand is there production will have to be increased markedly for the Nano to break even, with some Indian analysts believing sales figures annually will need to be around the 350,000 number for a period of three years before that magic mark will be realised (others are forecasting six years). With the hype that has been created however, there should be no problem with demand and with the opening of a new factory located in Sanand in Gujarat production could be increased to 250,000 units annually by the end of the year.

So will the Nano have the rest of the car manufacturers quaking in their boots? At this point, probably not. However, there is a huge market out there in the developing world, a market that could see the Nano becoming the biggest small car in the world and if this scenario proves to be true Tata has plans to introduce the Nano in both Europe and the U.S. around 2011. Don’t expect to pick one up for the same price as the Indian model though, as to get the car through safety and emission controls will obviously add a premium. That said it may still be as cheap as £4,000.