News - Page 2137

BEING easy looks set to become a lot harder in the daily rental industry as a host of companies lock horns in the courts over who can use the name.

FORD of Britain recorded a pre-tax loss of £119 million on turnover of £6,292 million last year, according to figures released by the company on Friday.

FUEL prices are set to rise by 13.6p-22.7p a gallon (3p-5p a litre) over the summer as oil companies look to cash in on the annual surge in fine weather motoring, it was claimed this week.

BUSINESS mogul Sir Richard Branson proclaimed 'the death of the fleet car as we know it' with the launch of his Virgin branded car purchasing internet site.

ROVER Group corporate sales director Trevor Houghton-Berry (pictured) is leaving to take up a new role within BMW. Houghton-Berry joined Rover from Mazda and replaced Steve Harris, who was promoted to regional director African sales for the BMW Group at the end of last year.

CHANCELLOR of the Exchequer Gordon Brown - the man who annually raises the price of a gallon of fuel by increasing the tax take - does not know the pump price of a litre of petrol.

ROVER'S Longbridge plant added an extra shift to its four-day shift pattern last Friday to keep up with increased sales of the 25 and 45.

FORD and General Motors are front-runners to buy struggling Daewoo, according to Korean press reports. They are finalising proposals to be submitted by the end of June - the 'due diligence' deadline extended because of the complexity of the Daewoo Motor financial set-up and political pressures to keep it Korean.

HSBC's Business in the 21st Century Survey has revealed that 36.1% of the 4,725 companies which responded used hire purchase and leasing to fund its vehicles.

AFTER an absence of 20 years, General Motors' engineering development for vans and recreational vehicles has moved back to the UK, with the official opening of a new facility at Millbrook Technology Park, Bedfordshire.

MORE than 700 Mercedes-Benz S-class and CL models are being recalled to have the fan control unit on the automatic climate control system checked. It has been discovered that the unit can overheat, and in a few isolated instances customers have reported a burning odour.

PEUGEOT says it remains committed to convincing the Government of the environmental credentials of clean diesel technology. The manufacturer has restated its intention to reverse The Government's decision to penalise oil-burners in the new carbon dioxide-based company car tax regime.

EUROPE'S biggest car maker Volkswagen AG is poised to take full ownership of Skoda Auto by buying the Czech Government's 30% stake in the Volkswagen subsidiary.

ROVER will not be exhibiting at this autumn's British International Motor Show in a bid to save money. The company, sold by BMW to Phoenix - confirmed it had pulled out of October's British show in Birmingham, with other shows, including Turin and Paris, likely to be affected.

PARAGON Car Finance saw car loans increase by 88% to £96.4 million last year, but its contract hire fleet remained steady at 2,500 vehicles.

THE automotive internet trade exchange announced earlier this year and to be formed by General Motors, Ford, DaimlerChrysler, Renault and Nissan will be called 'Covisint' - a name made up from the words connectivity, visibility and integration, which the exchange is designed to represent as it seeks to cut million of pounds of cost out of the component supply chain.

TOYOTA has announced a growth in net profits of 14.2% to 406.7 billion Yen in its year end results. The company's overseas sales exceeded three million for the first time helped by the launch of the Yaris in Europe and increased production in North America. W

FORD has finalised its acquisition of Land Rover from BMW this week - subject to regulatory agreement. The due diligence process was completed yesterday, with the US car giant adding another premium British brand to its growing portfolio for £1.85bn (US$2.7 billion), after weeks of detailed negotiations with Rover's former owner BMW.

A STEEL car safe has been launched by Independent Technology to deter would-be laptop computer thieves.

TRAFFIC on Britain's roads is taking longer and longer to get moving again following a snarl-up or accident - and it's costing British businesses millions of pounds. New research carried out for the AA has examined the impact of over 750,000 incidents in the last three years with figures showing that the average time to clear incidents and their impact on traffic is growing by 10% each year.

CONTRACT hire brokers face a boom or bust future as the internet allows fleet managers to shop around for the best quote without seeking help. Brokers which focus on supplying an added value service on top of the service offered by the funding supplier should flourish.

TRAFFICMASTER has thrown down the gauntlet to other fleet management system operators with the launch of its own cut-price hi-tech management package. Trafficmaster's Fleetstar management system, which uses cellular and satellite technology, is being sold for £29.95 a month - half the price of the equivalent system provided by GE Capital Fleet Services - and was launched on Monday.

THE fall of used car values has accelerated with residual values tumbling on average 7.7% this month year-on-year - the worst performance of the secondhand market for many years, according to the CAP Motor Research Index. The residual value fall started around July 1998 and has continued on almost a monthly basis due to a lack of confidence fuelled by rising interest rates and a hold-off because of the Competition Commission Inquiry.

USING expensive executive cars to lure highly-skilled new staff could backfire on fleet managers, costing them thousands of pounds. Industries where employees are in such demand that an expensive car can clinch the deal are also more likely to be left to pick up the tab because employees move on more quickly.

COMPANIES could be hit by annual workplace parking charges of £365 per space within a year in some areas as local authorities gear up for the go-ahead to charging from Parliament.

THE Government stands to fork out £30 million for its parking spaces if workplace parking charges are introduced, according to Conservative MP James Gray.

A LANDMARK legal ruling which was expected to end disputes over hundreds of millions of pounds in credit hire continues to cause confusion in the hire industry.

NISSAN has vowed to return to profit within 12 months, after announcing net losses of £3.94 billion for the first quarter of the year and unveiling a programme to close five plants in Japan and shed 21,000 jobs. Nissan's losses last March were recorded at £0.16 billion.

THE residual value gap between single-fuel and bi-fuel vehicles is closing, according to Glass's Information Services.

AN explosion in demand for sports wagons - a blend of estate car and sports utility vehicle - is expected over the next five years. The Economist Intelligence Unit predicts that while SUVs account for just 5% of the market in Europe, Japan, Australia and the Middle East, global demand will grow by 19% up to 2005 with the biggest growth stemming from western Europe.