Like every other manufacturer, Ford is struggling to fulfill orders in the current climate of confusion but it’s worth waiting to get your hands on the latest Focus ST. The market is changing for petrol-heads but the Focus ST still remains very desirable, particularly in the six-speed manual specification we tried as opposed the seven-speed automatic option. Our test car was fitted with £2,775 … [Read more...]
Retail News
Newslines 30 September
An Aston Martin DB5 replica stunt car featured in No Time To Die (2021) has raised £2,922,000 for good causes in a charity auction at Christie’s to celebrate 60 years of the James Bond films. Two Land Rover Defenders used in the film No Time To Die helped raised £352,800 for charities and they were sold as part of 60 lots from EON Productions to mark the iconic jubilee. UK car manufacturing … [Read more...]
Britains best and worst cars listed
Britain’s most and least reliable cars have been revealed in the 2022 What Car? Reliability Survey, held in association with MotorEasy. Feedback from 24,927 car owners on 248 models and 32 brands was analysed by the country’s leading consumer champion and new car buying platform, What Car?, to find the most dependable vehicles. Four models achieved a perfect 100% score: the current versions of … [Read more...]
Young drivers hit by rising costs
A new report from Go.Compare Car Insurance revealed that the cost of getting a young driver on the road has risen to £6,574 – the highest since 2019, representing a shift backwards to pre-pandemic costs. Costs for young drivers – those aged between 17- 21 - and their families dipped to £6,394 in 2021 and £6,071 in 2020, a sharp fall from £6,846 in 2019. The research shows that, in the … [Read more...]
Eyes are focussed on BMW X1
Research by the UK's largest automotive marketplace Auto Trader has revealed the BMW X1 is the most anticipated car release of the year. Its newly released study compared the number of Google searches made in the last 12 months for over 50 popular cars which are set to be released in 2022 and 2023. The BMW X1 takes top spot, followed by the Honda Civic Type R, and the Nissan X-Trail takes … [Read more...]
Filling stations’ fears over rising energy costs
Filling stations are extremely worried about soaring energy costs, said Gordon Balmer, Executive Director of the Petrol Retailers Association. "While we are encouraged by the Government’s recognition of this issue through the Energy Bill Relief Scheme, we are concerned that it will not be enough to mitigate the long-term effects of price increases.” Earlier this month, Prime Minister Liz Truss … [Read more...]
It’s getting tougher for Welsh automotive sector
The UK Automotive industry is unlikely to return to previous high levels of production and component suppliers in Wales must look elsewhere to survive, delegates to the Autolink 2022 conference were told yesterday. The gloomy outlook and warning was given by Prof Ian Henry, managing director of AutoAnalysis and a HM Government advisor on the motor industry speaking at the annual Welsh Automotive … [Read more...]
Tradelines 28 September
The all-electric Fisker Ocean SUV will debut at the 2022 Mondial de l'Auto held at the Paris Expo Porte de Versailles from 17 October. Costing about €70,000 the 380 miles range SUV has been designed to be the most sustainable SUV on Earth, using ethically sourced, upcycled materials throughout. Volvo has developed an internal radar system to alert drivers if a pet or child is left in a … [Read more...]
Public EV charging costs rise 42%
The cost to charge an electric car on a pay-as-you-go basis at a publicly accessible ‘rapid’ charger has increased by 42% – or 18.75p per kilowatt hour – since May to reach an average of 63.29p per kilowatt hour, new data from RAC Charge Watch indicates. The increase – caused by the soaring costs of wholesale gas and electricity – means that it now costs drivers on average £32.41 to rapid charge … [Read more...]
Weekend roadtest: Audi RS3 Sportback
The latest Audi RS3 is really a supercar, for sensible money. There has been a long line of highly acclaimed Audi RS3 models, higher performance versions of the popular A3 series which launched in 1996 and included the S derivatives three years later before the original Audi RS3 appeared in dealerships in 2011. The revised RS then ran from 2015 until 2020 and in late 2021 we saw the current third … [Read more...]