News - Page 2306

DAEWOO has delivered six of its new range of Lanos, Nubira and Leganza models to one of the first fleet customers to place an order since the launch of the vehicles. City-based IT consultant MMT Computing has operated a fleet of 45 Nexias and Esperos, from Daewoo's previous model line-up, for more than a year, but has now opted to replace the remainder of its fleet with the new models.

MOBILE phone specialist Ericsson has signed agreements with two leading voice-processing companies, Vocalis and Brite, to integrate voice-activated dialling services which allow users to dial by saying either the name or the telephone number of the person they wish to call. This service is said to be particularly suited to drivers using mobile phones, bringing new levels of safety to hands-free phone kits.

MAJOR UK fleets are demanding a cast iron guarantee from their suppliers that they are millennium compliant, and threatening to strike them off supply lists if this is not forthcoming. Insurance giant GAN has written to its suppliers, including Lease Plan, asking what procedures they have in place, or are putting in place to ensure there is no disruption to services following the year 2000 date change.

MITSUBISHI has won a £1.13m fleet order for 40 Shoguns. Town and Country 4x4 Self-Drive, which has a contract hire division and leisure interests, including a hotel, already operates 40 Shoguns. The order is for 40 new-shape long wheelbase 2.8 GLS Turbo Diesel models.

PUBLIC sector contract hire specialist Automotive Leasing has been awarded a five-year contract to supply 52 vehicles to Kettering Borough Council. The building maintenance vehicles include 31 Ford Transit vans, 11 Transit tippers, three Escort vans and seven Iveco Ford Turbo Daily tippers.

BMW has sent a stern warning to competitive manufacturers vowing to 'match them every inch of the way' in the battle for market supremacy. The message suggests BMW is no longer prepared to see such manufacturers as Audi and Saab significantly increase sales in the premium upper medium and executive segments.

MERCEDES-Benz is fitting £800 worth of special stability equipment and new tyres to the A-class after Swedish journalists managed to turn over a car at less than 40mph. The incident happened when the testers were performing the so-called 'elk avoidance test' - a series of severe swerves through cones on a test track. Mercedes-Benz said the exercise was an extremely severe test which no driver would perform under normal conditions and that it was perfectly satisfied with the safety of the A-class, but announced immediate modifications to the radical supermini.

COURTESY cars are a timebomb which could trigger a wholesale collapse in the bodyshop sector - reducing competition and pushing up fleet repair costs. Leading accident management companies are predicting that the larger, well-established outfits could be the first to go to the wall unless courtesy car provision is placed on a more formal footing.

WHOLELIFE costs of alternatively-fuelled vehicles are the key concern of fleet managers and not the environmental benefits they offer, according to delegates at a three-day conference. More than 60 delegates attended the seminar on alternative fuelled vehicles organised by Transport Helpline in Blackpool, with the majority of delegates being fleet and transport managers in the public sector.

NEW calls for the Government to introduce urban road pricing to combat traffic congestion and reduce vehicle pollution have been made in three new reports. Two of the reports have been written with the backing of The Centre for the Management of Traffic and the Environment, but another member of the group has called for a sense of balance amid the anti-car hysteria.

DRIVER training for company car drivers will not be taxed as a benefit-in-kind, the Inland Revenue said this week. However, skid-pan training or an off-road driving course, perhaps offered by companies as a prize to top-performing sales staff, would be taxed. The latest Inland Revenue edict on the tax implications of driver training follows an investigation by Tony Leigh, chairman of the Association of Car Fleet Operators, after an ACFO member was told by a local tax office that company car drivers who underwent driver training would be taxed.

THE Office of Fair Trading has called for new powers to be put in place to stop unscrupulous second-hand car dealers. Its report, 'Selling Second-hand Cars', adds weight to the growing campaign against clocking, which OFT estimates cheats consumers out of £100 million a year, and calls on all those who deal with information about vehicles to make the details available to database companies.

A CASE of alleged sexual harrassment against Cowie Group chief executive Gordon Hodgson has been dropped following a payment of £4,000. Hodgson consistently denied former secretary Debra Bamborough's claims that he had kissed her twice seven years ago and, following the case, a Cowie spokesman said: 'The company does not feel anything untoward happened and does not accept liability.'

VAUXHALL'S next Frontera model took a bow at the Tokyo Motor Show - on another car maker's exhibition stand. Wearing Isuzu 145 badges, the new model is lower and wider than the current car and began production in America two months ago at a factory which is jointly operated by Isuzu - it has links with Vauxhall parent General Motors - and Subaru.

EU proposals to give car manufacturers a monopoly on selling spare parts have been overturned by the European Parliament. The Council of Ministers wanted to stop independent companies supplying parts - unless the member country they were trading in adopted its own 'repair clause' allowing free trade.

A TRIBUNAL has allowed recovery of VAT on a personalised registration because it helped to promote a business. The registration was not directly linked to the name of the consultancy business, Shaw Associates, but the tribunal decided it helped to create the right image for the company.

SCIENTISTS have discovered what they believe to be the world's most cancer-causing substance in diesel fumes. The discovery in Japan raises new questions about the environmental impact of diesel and its use by environmentally-conscious fleet operators.

RESIDUAL value predictions for Daewoo's new range-topping Leganza reveal vastly differing views as to how well the model will perform in the used-car market - with three-year/ 60,000-mile figures ranging from 31% to almost 40%. CAP Monitor has now finalised its three-year/60,000-mile residual values for the Leganza range forecasting 31% for the Leganza 2.0 CDX auto, 32% for the 2.0 CDX manual, 31% for the 2.0 SX auto, and 32% for the 2.0 SX manual.

VAUXHALL is to set aside one day a month when employees will be encouraged to leave their cars at home. It follows a one-day Congestion Challenge in May when Vauxhall's Luton-based staff were asked to work at home or use alternative means of transport to get to work or to take part in a car-sharing scheme. It was so successful that it now looks set to become a monthly exercise, starting in January.

MORE than 60 delegates have so far booked their places at the 1997 Fleet News Roadshows to be held on December 2 at Sopwell House, St Albans, and December 9 at the Donington Thistle Hotel, East Midlands, from 9.30am-4.30pm each day. The cost is £99, plus VAT, per delegate per venue.

NISSAN is recruiting fleet staff from outside the motor industry as part of a radical new approach to developing its corporate department. More than 1,500 people from across the country have responded to a series of advertisements for business staff placed by Nissan Fleet in the Grocer, the Daily Telegraph and the Mail on Sunday. Just eight will be chosen to spearhead the company's new regional fleet operations.

AAN INDUSTRY steering group is being set up to ensure companies do not abuse the How's My Driving? scheme by using it to knock employees' morale rather than to encourage safer driving. How's My Driving?, a sticker system which invites members of the public to phone in and comment on company drivers' standards, is two years old this month and is now used by just under 20,000 vehicles from more than 200 organisations.

GREY imports of cars from Southern Ireland and Japan are threatening the residual values of some of the best performing vehicles in the used car market. Residual value specialist CAP Motor Research and Glass's Guide have both identified significant numbers of scarce vehicles arriving in recent months from right-hand-drive overseas markets.

BT has become the largest owned fleet to go live with the DVLA's electronic vehicle re-licensing system. The telecommunications giant expects to re-licence annually 30,000 of its 52,000 vehicles through the EDI link, starting this December.

TOYOTA has a won its biggest yet dual-badge contract to supply up to 2,000 cars to the Granada Group. The win wrestles a large chunk of the Granada business from Vauxhall, which previously supplied cars for the 4,000-vehicle fleet on a solus basis. It is the latest in a string of deals Toyota has signed with blue chip companies, including Kwik Save, British Telecom, Nortel and Commercial Union.

COMPANY cars could be seized by the courts as magistrates are urged to exercise powers which allow them to take vehicles used by drunk or dangerous drivers. Benches have had the right to seize and sell cars for a number of years. They have rarely done so, but the Magistrates' Association is now urging benches to take a tougher line with drivers, particularly those who have a very high alcohol reading, have refused to give a specimen or have committed more than one drink-drive-related offence within 10 years.

ROVER Corporate Finance has won its first major contract with a deal to supply Sears plc with 600 Rover, Land Rover and MG cars. This represents a renewal of a two-year-old contract for Rover Cars, but supply difficulties have seen BMW replaced by Mercedes-Benz as Sears' selected supplier of prestige models. Rover Corporate Finance will provide a full contract hire service for the Rover Group vehicles, and take responsibility for ordering Mercedes cars.

CONTRACT hire companies have rejected a claim that they are sitting on £2 billion of customers' money in unspent maintenance payments. Fleet management specialist Fleet Cost Management made the allegation after breaking down a contract hire agreement to show that fleets pay the same maintenance fee per month, despite the fact that the actual maintenance bill is weighted towards the second half of the car's corporate life.

PLANS to build another new Honda in Britain could be given approval by the end of next year. Officials of the Japanese company are considering adding a supermini to the line-up of cars produced at its European manufacturing base at Swindon, Wilts.

HYUNDAI will try to position its new Atos supermini as a low-cost alternative to the pace-setting Mercedes-Benz A-class model in Britain next year. Initial supplies of the boxy, one-litre economy car will be based on an entry-level version priced at about £7,000 and a luxury rendition - complete with air conditioning, twin airbags and anti-lock braking - will cost about £9,000, a Hyundai Car spokesman revealed at the Tokyo Motor Show.