News - Page 2202

FLEET diesel sales dropped for the sixth month in succession despite manufacturers ploughing billions of pounds into launching new diesel engine technology. Although total new car diesel sales increased from 25,553 in June last year to 26,560 last month, fleet diesel sales dropped 2.9% year-on-year from 15,455 to 15,005. In the first six months of this year, total diesel sales were 8.1% down at 164,139 with fleet sales down 11.9% at 92,670.

BUDGET Rent a Car and Vipre, part of the Budget Group, have teamed up to launch a new type of commuting solution called driveshare. The scheme is based on the use of a luxury minibus by groups of up to eight for their daily journey to and from work. One member of the group becomes the nominated driver and is responsible for looking after the vehicle when it is not is use. He or she usually travels free while the others share the expense of operating the vehicle.

FLEET managers are being told they must champion the cause of training at boardroom level in order to stop their profession being under-valued and their companies losing money through avoidable inefficiencies. The call has come from fleet consultancy Fleet Audits which has had to postpone an intermediate fleet management course, due to take place this month, until September because only one person had signed up to take part.

THE Retail Motor Industry Federation has called on dealers to record vehicle mileages at every service as part of a major new industry-wide campaign to stamp out 'clocking'. The RMI Mileage Scheme will help to build more detailed vehicle mileage histories, using data collected at every opportunity during servicing, MOTs and repairs.

AUDI has announced that the A3 can now be ordered in five-door format for delivery from mid-August, excluding the S3 quattro, at a price premium of about £650 over the hatchback. All five-door models include rear electric windows, third head restraint and child-proof door catches, in addition to the hatchback specification. The 90bhp diesel also joins the 110bhp in the engine line-up and the 110bhp range is having its price cut by 6%.

NORTHGATE Motor Holdings' parent company Goode Durrant, the van hire group, has announced plans to double the size of its fleet and outlets as it revealed pre-tax profits of more than £27million. Despite a loss in the first half of the year for the group of £900,000 - blamed on falling residual values - it believes the worst is over and the company is now ready to implement a five-year growth strategy helped by stability in the vehicle hire market which has seen rental rates stabilise.

DEBIS Car Fleet Management has announced the shape of its new management team following the acquisition of Masterdrive Leasing & Rental. The new board - which faces the task of doubling the company's fleet size over the next five years - will be led by the former managing directors of the two companies, Hubertus von Zastrow and Bob Rider. They become joint managing directors, with von Zastrow responsible for finance and operations, and Rider responsible for sales and marketing.

Mitsubishi importer Colt Car Company is to make a U-turn from the traditional fleet market as part of moves to head back to profitable trading. It will make a progressive retreat from daily rental business under plans aimed at changing the way the company operates in the corporate sector. Instead, smaller fleets and user-choosers are being targeted in a new drive to channel every business sale through the company's dealer network.

A COMPANY car driver who was caught by police reading a newspaper while travelling at 80mph behind the wheel of his Vauxhall Vectra on a motorway has been fined £850 in Stirling and banned from driving for two years. Charles Slorach, accounts manager with Dundee-based wholesale grocers C.J. Lang and Sons, overtook an unmarked police vehicle on the M9 near Stirling with the Daily Record on his steering wheel.

RENAULT is to produce its Kangoo car in right-hand-drive for the UK market. On sale in the UK from October, it will be available with a choice of two engines - a 1.4-litre 75bhp petrol or 1.9-litre 65bhp diesel. Prices and specification will be announced closer to launch but it is expected to cost less than £11,000. The van version was introduced in the UK in April and more than 8,000 unit have been sold. Renault is confident of selling up to 10,000 of the car variant in a full year.

LYONS Sleeman and Hoare, the world's fourth largest firm of architects in the retail sector, has awarded Venson Professional Contracts the contract to supply its 70-strong fleet. Venson Professional Contracts, an off-shoot of Esher-based Venson Group, has clinched a number of key contracts already this year following the appointment of managing director Samantha Medley.

THE widely forecast explosion in the popularity of in-car satellite navigation systems is creating new opportunities across Europe for live-time traffic information provider Trafficmaster. The Milton Keynes-based firm believes that the twin offer of dynamic traffic information and satellite route guidance will bring new levels of efficiency to driving and prove a successful sales formula for manufacturers.

THE AA has called for a national review of speed limits on all roads, coupled with an overhaul of speed signs to include information on why the maximum speed is set as it is. The call comes following an 18-month study which claims almost all drivers - not just company car drivers and 'boy racers' - admit to speeding regularly because they can't understand the reasons for limits imposed on many UK roads.

THE Metropolitan Police Force's decision to fit black boxes to its rapid response vehicles will see drivers come under second-by-second scrutiny. The force is investing £250,000 in fitting the technology to 500 of its Rover and Vauxhall cars which are used in emergencies and also those used by the armed response units in an effort to reduce the number of road accidents involving police cars in London each year.

VODAFONE and the AA have teamed up to develop the congestion-busting device Personal Roadwatch 1800 - a system that warns drivers of potential delays up to 15 miles or three junctions ahead on all of Britain's motorways, trunk roads and major A roads. Ray Combs, general manager of AA Fleet Services, said: 'Tthe increasing amount of traffic on our roads means that delays occur all too often, disrupting and wasting valuable time for the business driver. Personal Roadwatch 1800 takes away the frustration of being stuck in traffic by alerting company car drivers to problems well in advance during their journeys.'

THE Fleet News Directory, produced by FNN publisher Emap Automotive, is now available on disk. The on-disk version contains more than 10,000 entries covering dealers, tyres, windscreens, service, auctions, contract hire and rental.

FORD'S hi-tech subsidiary, Visteon, has developed a Vehicle Emergency Messaging System which will come to the market at the start of next year. VEMS combines communication and location technology to link motorists to a call centre and the emergency services, via satellite and mobile phone.

NATIONAL Grid has awarded a contract to train 1,700 of its drivers to the AA Driving School. The AA beat competition from other driver training organisations for the contract to provide an initial programme of day-long driver assessments for the National Grid's vehicle users and company car drivers. National Grid owns and operates the high-voltage electricity transmission system throughout England and Wales. It owns and operates more than 2,000 cars and commercial vans.

THE Conservative Party has launched a 10-point motorists' charter in which it opposes 'unfair' congestion charges and Government plans for workplace car park space charging. As transport becomes one of three key battlegrounds on which the next General Election will be fought - Europe and taxation are the other two - the Tories also say they would abandon the annual fuel duty escalator which, at present rates, could see the £7 gallon by 2004.

SUPERMARKET chain Tesco is buying 200 Toyota Avensis and Corollas for its 900-vehicle essential use, high mileage fleet. Tesco's is one of the largest UK car fleets in which vehicles are purchased outright and its 'need' cars make up 40% of the company's 2,200 vehicle strength. The remaining 1,300 are management user-chooser cars.

FLEET discounts were restricted by 'a disgraceful' price-fixing cartel operated by Volvo dealers, it has emerged following a year-long investigation by the Office of Fair Trading. Volvo Car UK has now admitted supporting secret agreements to fix its UK car prices which saw dealers collude with the manufacturer not to offer discounts beyond fixed levels to both fleet and private customers. It is believed these restricted fleet buyers to a 5% discount.

VAUXHALL is not to follow Ford into an aggressive pricing war following a shake-up within the Mondeo line-up in which more than £1,400 is slashed from some models. Ford's pricing review not only resulted in the base-model Aspen being scrapped and the 1.6 LX becoming the entry level vehicle at the new price of £14,400 - £1,450 cheaper than its original on-the-road price of £15,850 - but also saw specification improved throughout the range.

A JUMP in the share price of the Silver Shield Group has led the company's directors to announce to the London Stock Exchange that the company 'has received a preliminary inquiry about the sale of its windscreen replacement business Silver Shield Screens Ltd'.

MERCEDES-Benz is to build the SLR sports car in Britain at McLaren Cars' factory in Woking following a £135million investment with first sales scheduled for 2003, making the model the first UK-built Mercedes.

THRIFTY Car Rental has retained its status as primary supplier to fleet management company CLM by re-signing the company to its Silver Bullet corporate account programme for a fifth successive year.

MITSUBISHI Motors has opened its latest franchise - Dobies in Workington - taking to 119 its UK dealer network as it expands to 150 by the end of next year.

KWIK-FIT Fleet has stressed the importance of child seat checks in the wake of comments made by the Consumers' Association following the recent MPV crash test results under the European New Car Assessment programme.

GREENHOUS, whose motor centre in Hanley, Stoke-on-Trent, is the largest volume Vauxhall dealer in the UK, has bought Randles Vauxhall in Newcastle-under-Lyme for an undisclosed sum.

IDEAS In Action, the transport consultancy specialising in driver and rider education, is supporting Brake, the non-profit making road safety organisation, through a donation scheme.

THE Renault Sport Clio, which has a 3.0-litre 250bhp V6 24-valve engine, will be going on sale in the UK at the end of next year at about £30,000 on-the-road.