Category Archives: Motoring

Post-Brexit watchdog ‘ready’ to investigate flood of cheaper Chinese electric cars

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Remarks by head of trade authority come amid fears UK firms could be undercut ‘to extinction’

The head of Britain’s post-Brexit trade watchdog has said it is ready to follow Brussels in launching an investigation into Chinese companies flooding the market for electric cars, but the government has not asked it to do so.

Oliver Griffiths, the chief executive of the UK’s Trade Remedies Authority (TRA), which advises the government on trade defence, said it was keeping lines of communication open with ministers and had been in close contact with the car industry. “We’ll be ready to go if anyone does come to us,” he told the Guardian in an interview.

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France halts €100-a-month electric car leasing scheme after huge demand

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Minister says scheme to help low-income households and cut emissions is ‘victim of its own success’

The French government has suspended an electric car leasing scheme after only six weeks following a surge in demand that more than doubled the number of vehicles required.

Officials said the scheme, launched in December to help low-income households and cut carbon emissions, would be relaunched next year.

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Ulez fines scandal: Italian police ‘illegally accessed’ thousands of EU drivers’ data

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Italy’s data protection body investigates claims police shared names and addresses with firm collecting penalties for TfL

The names and addresses of thousands of EU drivers were unlawfully accessed by Italian police and shared with the company that collects Ulez penalties on behalf of Transport for London (TfL), investigators believe.

The Italian data protection authority is investigating claims by Belgium’s government that an unnamed police department misused official powers to pass the personal details of Belgian drivers to Euro Parking Collections, which is employed by TfL to issue fines to enforce London’s low emission zone (Lez) and ultra-low emission zone.

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Make used electric cars cheaper and tackle battery fears, peers tell ministers

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Grants needed towards buying EVs as well as a battery health testing standard to reassure consumers

Ministers need to intervene to boost the secondhand electric vehicle market and allay “uncertainty and concerns” over the health of their batteries, a House of Lords committee has said.

Peers on the environment and climate change committee urged the government to step up efforts to encourage electric vehicle adoption amid consumer jitters over the cost of vehicles, the longevity of their batteries and the availability of charging points.

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Parisians vote in favour of tripling parking costs for SUVs

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The referendum comes as the city aims to reduce emissions by targeting wealthy drivers in large, polluting cars

Parisians have voted to triple parking costs for sports utility vehicles (SUVs), as the city aims to tackle air pollution and climate breakdown by targeting rich drivers in heavy, large and polluting cars.

In a referendum on Sunday, which was closely watched by other capital cities, including London, 54.6% voted in favour of special parking fees for SUVs, according to provisional results. However, the turnout – at about 5.7% of Paris’s registered voters – was lower than green campaigners had hoped for.

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Hundreds of thousands of EU citizens ‘wrongly fined for driving in London Ulez’

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Exclusive: EU states accuse TfL of huge data breach over clean air zone penalties, with many given to compliant vehicles

Hundreds of thousands of EU citizens were wrongly fined for driving in London’s Ulez clean air zone, according to European governments, in what has been described as “possibly one of the largest data breaches in EU history”.

The Guardian can reveal Transport for London (TfL) has been accused by five EU countries of illegally obtaining the names and addresses of their citizens in order to issue the fines, with more than 320,000 penalties, some totalling thousands of euros, sent out since 2021.

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‘It was so worrying’: EU motorist tells of £11,000 run-in with London Ulez rules

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Driver was unaware he had to register French hire car with TfL’s collection agent even though it was emissions compliant

Christian Ducarre received three fines totalling nearly £11,000 after driving his French hire car to London to attend his son’s wedding. The car, which was fully compliant with ultra-low emission zone emissions rules, was mistakenly classed as a heavy goods vehicle and deemed to be in breach of the separate low emissions zone (Lez) and well as Ulez. Lez covers lorries, vans, buses and coaches, and fines are between £500 and £2,000 a day depending on the vehicle’s weight.

“I had checked that the car’s emissions standard was Euro 06 and so was not liable for the Ulez charge,” he said.

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UK fuel retailers to be forced to share prices within half hour of any changes

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Petrol station owners will have to provide near-live data amid concerns drivers are being ripped off

Fuel retailers will be forced to share near-live information on price changes at the pump to help drivers find the cheapest petrol and diesel, after the government accused them of treating motorists as “cash cows”.

Petrol station owners will be required to provide data within half an hour of any change as part of a political effort to bring transparency to the sector amid concerns that drivers are being ripped off.

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UK car finance: ‘millions of drivers could get payout’ as watchdog investigates

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FCA to examine whether consumers have been charged inflated prices for loans on new and secondhand cars

Millions of drivers could be in line for a payout, it has been claimed, after the UK financial watchdog opened an investigation into whether consumers had been unfairly charged inflated prices for loans on new and secondhand cars.

The Financial Conduct Authority said on Thursday that it had decided to examine whether a compensation scheme was needed to deal with alleged large-scale mis-selling in the £50bn-a-year motor finance sector.

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Have Australian drivers finally charged into electric vehicles?

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EV sales are booming and longtime favourite makes and models are being ignored in favour of Tesla and BYD

Newcomer brands and luxury marques are dominating booming electric car sales as mainstream players struggle to match the pace of a fast-evolving EV market.

The top three selling electric vehicles in Australia in 2023 were from Tesla and BYD, between them accounting for two-thirds of the 87,217 electric cars sold, according to figures released by the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries.

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Electric car sales in UK flatline, prompting calls for VAT cut

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Stalled growth in electric vehicles comes despite government goal to phase out petrol, diesel and hybrid vehicles by 2035

The number of new cars registered in the UK has jumped by nearly 18% but electric vehicle demand is flatlining, prompting the industry to call for a VAT cut to stimulate sales.

Annual figures released by the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) on Friday show 1.9m new cars were registered last year, well up on the previous year’s figure of 1.6m and the highest level since the 2.3m registrations of 2019.

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‘Amazing’: Queensland mum uses electric car to ‘save’ son’s life with dialysis during power outage

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Kristy Holmes always knew she could use her electric car for ‘good things’, but when storms caused a blackout, it proved life-saving

An electric vehicle owner has used her car’s emergency power system to run her 11-year-old son’s lifesaving dialysis machine and another has ridden to the rescue of his neighbours after devastating storms cut power in south-east Queensland.

When the power went down following storms and flash flooding on Christmas Day, many residents immediately felt the consequences: electric gates did not work, septic tanks began to fill, air conditioners could not run and fridges began to warm as a heatwave followed.

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‘It feels very fun and freeing’: US sees ebike boom after years of false starts

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Sales surge as cities and states look to cut pollution from cars and improve options for Americans to get around

After several years of false starts, electric bikes are finally entering the American mainstream, amid booming sales of a multiplying number of models on offer and as more states offer incentives for people to ditch their cars and shift to two, motor-assisted, wheels.

This year could be considered “the year of the ebike”, according to John MacArthur, a transport researcher at Portland State University. Ebike sales in the United States leaped by 269% between 2019 and 2022, with the market size expected to have grown further in 2023, to be worth $2.59bn.

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UK’s Christmas getaway traffic will peak earlier than usual, AA predicts

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Friday 22 and Saturday 23 December expected to be the busiest days on the roads

Festive getaway traffic is expected to peak earlier than normal this year as Christmas Day falls on a Monday.

The AA predicted that Friday 22 December and Saturday 23 December will be the busiest days on the UK’s roads in the festive period.

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Bomb attack on Ulez camera ‘grotesquely irresponsible’, says London mayor

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Blast in Sidcup not being treated as terrorism but counter-terror officers are leading investigation

The London mayor’s office has condemned a “grotesquely irresponsible” attack in which a camera enforcing the city’s ultra-low emission zone (Ulez) was damaged with what appeared to be a homemade bomb, saying lives were put at risk.

There was no immediate reaction on the incident from Downing Street or the Home Office, with No 10 saying it could not comment amid a police inquiry, but that it condemned “criminality more generally”.

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Europe is ‘miles behind’ in race for raw materials used in electric car batteries

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EU and UK carmakers have secured just 16% of lithium, cobalt and nickel needed to hit 2030 targets, says study

European carmakers have secured less than a sixth of the key raw materials they will need by 2030 to make electric vehicle batteries, according to analysis that highlights the expected scramble for green-tech resources.

Carmakers have secured contracts for 16% of the lithium, cobalt and nickel required to hit their 2030 electric car sales targets, according to public disclosures analysed by Transport & Environment (T&E), a Brussels-based campaign group.

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Vehicle breakdowns due to potholes hit record level in 2023, says RAC

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Calls over pothole incidents hit 6,000 in usually benign summer months amid ‘substandard’ roads

Vehicle breakdowns caused by Britain’s pothole-ridden roads reached record levels this year, according to the RAC.

The motoring organisation said it received almost 6,000 calls for pothole-related incidents from July to September – its highest total for the relatively benign summer period since it started collecting data in 2006.

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Ulez expansion: 45% fewer ‘dirty’ vehicles now on London’s roads, says TfL

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Sadiq Khan hails ‘huge progress’ as progress report finds more than 95% of vehicles are now compliant

The number of the most polluting vehicles driven in London has fallen by almost half since the capital’s ultra-low emission zone (Ulez) was expanded, taking almost 80,000 older cars off the roads.

About 77,000, or 45%, fewer non-compliant cars and vans were detected on average a day in September, the first month of operation of the expanded zone – compared with June 2023.

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UK drivers make claims of ‘dangerous’ electric car faults

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Motorists locked inside their cars, while an NHS doctor said her BMW iX accelerated to 65mph and then crashed

An electric car owner has claimed her vehicle’s autopilot engaged without warning and accelerated to 65mph, zigzagged across the road and caused a serious crash, the Guardian can reveal.

The alleged incident involved a doctor, Ravpreet Kaur, who was travelling in Buckinghamshire with her son in the family’s £80,000 BMW iX. Her husband said they were lucky to escape unhurt.

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Toyota sales chief says EVs ‘impractical’ for Australian drivers as Tesla retaliates against ‘cynical’ attack

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Sean Hanley says hybrid vehicles are ‘better fit’ in Australia but Electric Vehicle Council says brand’s comments could undermine lithium industry

Australia’s most popular car brand, Toyota, has launched a stinging attack on electric vehicles claiming they are not ready for our roads, not as green as they seem and remain “impractical for the vast majority of Australian motorists”.

But Australia’s most popular electric car brand and industry groups claim the argument is a “cynical” attack by a company “too slow off the mark” and at risk of losing the future automotive race.

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