News - Page 2193

BRITISH Telecom says company cars will remain an essential business tool despite launching a project to enable thousands of its staff to work from home. The company is offering all its office-based staff grants averaging about £650 to allow them to equip themselves for 'home-working' in a response, BT says, to employee demand, and a wish to reduce commuting time and costs.

A GROUND-breaking initiative to provide an at-a-glance guide to a car's wholelife emissions created by the Environment Agency has sparked interest at top Government levels. And the system could revolutionise the way the agency's 5,000-strong fleet, which covers more than 50 million miles a year is chosen.

DEPUTY Prime Minister John Prescott has pledged that by 2003 the Government Car Service's fleet of 130 vehicles will have been converted to alternative fuels 'where possible'. His commitment came as he revealed the biggest improvement in air quality since records began in 1993.

PARCELFORCE Worldwide has completed a £15 million deal to replace and expand part of its 7,700-strong delivery fleet. The expansion will see the fleet grow by about 300 vehicles, taking it up to 8,000, with a further 300 vehicles replaced.

THE Treasury is expected to make its first major announcement on the implementation of a carbon dioxide-based graduated Vehicle Excise Duty system - announced in this year's March Budget - on Monday.

FLEETS are being called upon to become the driving force behind a 'buy British' campaign to protect the UK motor industry and the 790,000 workers who depend on it. The Amalgamated Engineering and Electrical Union is hoping to give the UK car industry a boost by persuading a switch to home-grown vehicles.

VAUXHALL has revealed the multi-media car of the future equipped with Night Vision - a hi-tech night-time driving aid. It also has an on-board PC with voice control allowing internet and e-mail access, individual information terminals with TV/video screens for front and rear seat passengers and state-of-the-art audio, navigation and mobile phone technology.

NEC Group, Birmingham, has become the first exhibition venue to introduce electric vehicles to its fleet. Three Peugeot 106 electric vans and one car will replace four diesel-engined vehicles and will be used by the NEC Group's cleaning, engineering, health and safety and traffic departments.

FORD is to launch a road-going version of its Puma ST160 Puma revealed in concept form at this year's Geneva Motor Show in March.

AUDATEX (UK) has signed a partnership agreement that will see its AudaWorkstation system become the operating standard across Balfour Beatty's 30-strong bodyshop network which looks after 6,500 of the company's 7,000 cars and commercial vehicles.

AUDI has confirmed prices for the saloon and Avant versions of the new Audi S6 quattro which makes its world debut at the Frankfurt International Motor Show.

VOLKSWAGEN has added a 1.4-litre 16v 100bhp with Sport trim model to its Lupo range costing £11,295 on-the-road.

BMW has revealed that it is to build a new car plant in the UK, creating about 2,000 jobs, to build Rolls-Royce cars. From January 1, 2003 the BMW Group takes full responsibility for the luxury marque - it acquired the rights to the name in 1998 - and says the new luxury line-up will be built in Great Britain.

AUTOGLASS'S corporate customers have the chance to become football managers for a season with the kick-off next week of the second Autoglass Fantasy Football SuperLeague. Fleet 'football experts' must enter their team by Thursday, September 9, with the first point-scoring matches on September 11.

NISSAN is accelerating its restructuring process following the purchase earlier this year by Renault of a 37% stake in the company. The Japanese manufacturer says details of the three-year restructuring plan and how it will impact on the UK market will be announced In October.

A REVOLUTION is taking place in the diesel market as a wave of new technology tempts fleets with petrol-like performance, high economy and low emissions. With a radical change to benefit-in-kind tax on the horizon for April 2002, basing all company car tax on a vehicle's emissions, manufacturers are predicting diesel power will come to the forefront of many fleet attentions.

INCREASING pressure from fleets on manufacturers to introduce new-technology diesel cars has seen Honda make a U-turn on its no-diesel policy, announcing that it is considering re-introducing diesels to its Accord line-up. This comes after the manufacturer announced the 2.0-litre direct injection Accord diesel model available elsewhere in Europe would not be coming to the UK.

SECURICOR Omega Express's introduction of a further 42 liquefied petroleum gas-fuelled Ford Transit HiCube vans to its fleet now makes it the largest commercial LPG fleet in the country. The 5,200-strong parcel delivery and collection fleet now includes 100 LPG-fuelled vehicles, 58 of which are based at its Vauxhall branch serving central London.

POWERMARQUE has clinched a three-year deal with the Environment Agency to manage its 450-strong commercial vehicle fleet, plus its 45-strong boat fleet, for the north east region district. The deal sees the Huntingdon-based contract hire and fleet management company manage all of the vehicles and boats on a contract maintenance basis.

COST-cutting has resulted in parcel delivery company Business Post gradually changing the colour of its entire 1,500-strong van fleet from yellow to white. Chief executive Peter Kane said that the vehicles arrived in white and were repainted yellow to match the Birmingham-based company's yellow and black livery, at a cost of several hundred pounds per vehicle.

USED car values are down by more than 4% for the sixth consecutive month, but upper medium sector vehicles are bucking the downward trend, according to the latest index from CAP Motor Research. Year-on-year trade prices fell last month by 4.4%, while month-on-month values registered a 4.3% rise due to a change in letter as cars in the used car price index were registered in August 1996.

GREY imports have gone under the hammer at a UK trade auction for the first time. Import Motor Auctions, which was set up just three months ago, staged its first auction at its centre in Telford, offering 118 used cars imported directly from Japan.

FLEETS which have extended replacement cycles will qualify for a new cut-price servicing package from Peugeot aimed at enhancing residual values. Peugeots between four and nine years old now qualify for Peugeot Four Plus at the manufacturer's 350 dealerships in the UK and Northern Ireland.

THE USED commercial vehicle market has performed far better than expected this summer, with record sales recorded at the auction centres of rival disposals giants British Car Auctions and Manheim Auctions. They both believe the increase is as a direct result of an increase in confidence from small businesses in the state of the economy.

MOTORAUCTIONS, Leeds, has expanded the number of dealership groups which have contracted it to handle the re-sale of traded-in vehicles following Wednesday's registration change to V plates.

DUAL-fuel vehicles will be obsolete within five years because they will not keep pace with the environmental improvements offered by traditional petrol and diesel engines, according to shock predictions from leading industry figures. The controversial forecast made at an international forum on alternative fuels will send shockwaves through fleets and manufacturers which have invested millions in 'green' vehicles.

BOSSES at Rover and parent company BMW have admitted for the first time that the two manufacturers' fleet strategy was 'uncoordinated and overlapped'. As Rover begins to turn around almost a year of gloom with the recent launch of the all-new 75 and the imminent arrival of facelifted versions of the 200 and 400, Henrich Heitmann, BMW board member responsible for sales and marketing, admitted 'we got it wrong'.

A GROUND-breaking private finance deal between Lex Vehicle Leasing and the Ministry of Defence has come under fire from a parliamentary spending watchdog for falling well short of expected savings' predictions. The National Audit Office has criticised the five-year contract won by LVL in 1996 for the supply of the Royal Air Force's 2,750-vehicle 'white fleet' of administrative cars and vans.

BRITAIN'S top fleet chiefs are backing a call by the Association of Car Fleet Operators for a campaign to urge the Government to give a clear message on how the proposed carbon dioxide-based company car tax system will impact on their fleets and drivers when it is introduced in 2002. ACFO has called upon all fleet managers to write to their MPs and insist answers are given as soon as possible to how the system will operate and give companies the confidence they need to write contracts now that will still be in place when the new tax regime is brought in.

HONDA has made driver training compulsory for hundreds of its office staff and is considering rolling out the programme for all its UK employees. Every member of Honda's dealer support and finance department staff must undertake a day's training provided by the AA Driving School and driver instruction is now part of the staff induction process.