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Having been in this industry for over 35 years I’ve managed to get a reputation for being hugely critical of leasing companies. I fight with them regularly in an effort to get customers treated fairly, you only have to google Graham Hill PCP and see how outspoken I am about the way that PCP agreements are sold. But today I heard from one of my customers with proof that not all leasing companies are simply heartless businesses.

I had a call from one of my long-serving customers a few weeks ago explaining that his wife was terminally ill. Very sad news indeed and quite sudden. We got onto the practical subject of his wife’s car that was leased through me and what would happen? The agreement was with VW Finance and was just over halfway through.

The legal position was quite simple, if you early terminate a car you must pay an early settlement fee which is usually about 50% of outstanding rentals. In this case it was £4,300. Whilst expectations were not high it was decided to contact the funder to see if they would take a sympathetic view.

After asking for some proof of his wife’s condition the leasing company contacted my client and said that given the very sad circumstances they were prepared to waive the termination cost in total and when the car was collected the collection agent, with no knowledge of my client’s condition, kept the refurbishment charge to an absolute minimum.

Whilst the circumstances were incredibly sad the actions of the leasing company, VW Finance, proved that they aren’t just money-grabbing businesses but a business with a heart. Well done VW Finance, you are my leasing company of the year. Commiserations and best wishes to my clients, both the husband and his wife, our prayers are with you. By Graham Hill

A point I make every time I read a doom and gloom story about a driver who bought a used car then find out that they have a fault that leads to an unaffordable repair. Choose a new car and finance for 3 years (unless the manufacturer’s warranty lasts for longer) and you are pretty much assured that you will be covered for any faults unless you haven’t looked after the car.

In a What Car report I read about Alistair Hill (no relation) who bought a used Vauxhall Astra GTC VXR 276bhp. from a dealer. The car was no longer covered by a warranty when the engine started to misfire. As the car had only covered 29,000 miles he believed the fault would be minor buit when the dealer checked the engine they found that it had a split piston.

This meant a new engine was required. He complained to Vauxhall who offered to contribute 30% towards the replacement engine which still left Alistair with a bill of £5,000 that he couldn’t afford. What Car got involvd and as usual provided little advice but in this case there wasn’t much in Alistair’s favour.

He had assumed that the car had been serviced when he bought it but it wasn’t and in fact the car was due its regular service but believing a service had been carried out he missed a service. You wouldn’t have this confusion if the car was new when you got it.

He is now without a car that needs an engine that he can’t afford. Vauxhall refused to increase the amount they would contribute as the car hadn’t been serviced properly and he had no warranty on the car. He may have a case under European law but whichever way you cut it he is stuck with a lot of agro in his life because he bought a used car. Point proven yet again! By Graham Hill

It’s obscene the way that some law firms advise dealers on what to do to deprive consumers of their legal rights. If you are a regular reader of my news items you will have read how dealers are advised to repair faulty cars during the rejection period of 14 days ‘under warranty’.

This is because if you reserve your right to reject the car but allow the dealer to fix the problem he only has one chance to fix it. But if he repairs the car ‘under warranty’ that does not count as his one chance so in law if the car hasn’t been fixed he can have another attempt.

So what are they now saying to dealers to deprive customers of their rights? Again it is to do with faulty cars just after ‘purchase’. I say purchase but what I mean is financed on a PCP or Hire Purchase agreement. They are telling dealers to forcefully explain that if there is a problem with the car it is their responsibility and to bring it back for them to sort out.

The reason for saying this is that if you have a rejectionable complaint you should take it up with the finance company and not the dealer as it is the finance company that owns the car and is responsible for the quality of ‘the goods’. But if you complain to the finance company according to the lawyers they are more likely to roll over and agree to a rejection or a repair than the dealer would.

If a consumer doesn’t get satisfaction from the finance company they can refer the case to the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) which will determine the case not on the law but whatever he deems to be ‘reasonable’.

Finance companies don’t like dealing with the FOS as it costs them money so better to accept the rejection then go for the dealer who is then over a barrel as most dealers wouldn’t have the resources to fight the legal team of a lender.

The agreements between the dealers and the finance providers are generally heavily stacked against the dealer so the lenders are less likely to fight the consumer if they know they can pursue the dealer for the costs.

So the point I’m making is if you have a complaint about a car that you bought on a PCP or HP agreement take it up with the finance provider NOT the dealer, you ar more likely to get a result. By Graham Hill

A must read report whether you are an employer or you drive your own car on company business, even if it is only to drop off the post at a local post box or post office!

According to this report in Fleet News one in six at-work drivers says they have been involved in an accident when taking a call from a colleague, new research suggests.

The study, commissioned by Driving for Better Business (DfBB), also revealed a worrying lack of checks for employees driving their own car for work, the so-called grey fleet.

It showed that half of business leaders polled (49%) expect their employees to answer their phone at any time, including while driving for work.

Almost half of employees (45%) said they experience stress when they receive a call from their boss while driving for work. One in six employees who drive for work (17%) said they have been involved in an incident when driving for work due to a phone call from a colleague.

Despite it being illegal, one in 20 executive directors and one in eight employees thought the hard shoulder was a safe place to take a phone call.

Meanwhile, six in 10 (61%) employees admitted they do not always, or only sometimes, find a safe place to make or receive a work call when driving for work with just over one in eight (13%) thinking it safe to take a phone call while parked on the hard shoulder of a motorway.

The findings also showed that despite three quarters (75%) of executive directors claiming to ensure employees are aware of their legal obligations in relation to driving for work, nearly half (45%) of employees surveyed who drive their personal car for work said they have not been given a copy of their employer’s driving for work policy.

It found that managers were not performing checks on grey fleet drivers and 60% of respondents said they were unsure if any or how many employees use their own car to drive for work purposes.

Furthermore, nearly a half of employees who use their personal car for work purposes (45%) said they have not been given a copy of their employer’s driving for work policy.

The survey reveals that 90% of drivers used their personal cars for work journeys, 75% doing so at least once a week, yet a third of these drivers (33%) were not insured to do so – saying they do not have cover for business use on their vehicle insurance. Only a third (34%) said their employer had checked their driving licence.

The survey also found a poor approach to vehicle checks and maintenance by employees. Nearly three quarters of employees who drive for work (74%) said when they check their tyres they simply take a quick glance to see that tyres look ‘OK’.

Simon Turner, campaign manager for Driving for Better Business said: “The report shows a disparity between what employers and employees are saying when driving for work.”

He says senior managers are failing to communicate and implement a robust driving for work policy to keep those who drive for work safe, particularly for the grey fleet.

“Leaders are failing to carry out basic due diligence checks such as ensuring that all employees have a driving licence or vehicle insurance,” he said.

“At the same time, the study highlights employees are putting themselves at risk while driving for work, not checking that vehicles are roadworthy and exhibit reckless behaviours when using their mobile phone.”

He continued: “Leaders must implement a driving for work policy that enforces legal and ethical obligations on all employees that drive on work-related journeys.

“Regular checks need to be put in place to ensure that employees have read and understood the guidelines laid out in the driving for work policy. In doing so, the associated risk to road users and pedestrians is reduced.”

Driving for Better Business promotes a free seven-step programme of action to reduce occupational road risk. Organisations that introduce the DfBB programme have experienced significant operational, financial and employee benefits.

Turner concluded: “A good practice driving for work policy ensures that at a minimum, organisations are compliant with all relevant legislation and guidelines.

Once implemented, these policies complement more general employee safety and wellness programmes as well as introduce efficiencies that reduce costs associated with employees that drive for work purposes.”

DfBB surveyed 1,006 employees and 255 executive directors from the UK. The survey was conducted by Censuswide. By Graham Hill with thanks to Fleet News.

Many moons ago my dad bought a brand new Cortina and one of the options at the time was electric front windows. I asked if he was going to have the option as it looked pretty cool and his answer was – why? What problem did electric windows address? And besides which it was something else to go wrong.

Hand-cranked windows rarely went wrong and if they did a sharp bang on the inside of the door seemed to sort it out. So when you read daily of car crime increasing because of crooks being able to break into keyless car technology and nick cars and contents on an industrial scale I find myself asking the question – why? Why does the technology even exist?

What problem does keyless entry solve? I understand remote controls, one of the best things ever invented for TV’s and cars. With respect to cars, you no longer have to fumble in the dark to find a hole in which to stuff your key or breath on the door lock to defrost it enough to insert the key and gain entry on a frosty morning.

No more fumbling in the rain and with some diesels, remotely unlocking the car from a distance actually activates the pre-heaters which should be activated before starting the engine. So why this obsession with keyless entry? What is the problem it is solving over and above a remote key.

A remote key is capable of transmitting around a trillion variants of its generated code that allows the car to be locked/unlocked/boot opened etc. The only time the code can be accessed is when you push the button to transmit which is then changed the next time you lock or unlock the car making it incredibly difficult to break into the car.

On the other hand, a keyless device is transmitting constantly making it easy for crooks to harvest the code and unlock then start the car using a handheld computer device to gain entry. The fact is that it isn’t like my iPhone with either fingerprint or facial recognition you need to carry something so why not a remote key?

Personally, I don’t think my life will be in any way enhanced by having keyless entry so with a higher risk of theft and no doubt higher insurance premiums give me a remote control. My Audi is even more dopey. I have a remote control to open and lock the car and boot but when I’m in the car I have to press a button to start it with the remote control taking up space in one of my cup holders. Crazy!

In order to overcome the security issues faced by those with keyless entry I’ve scanned the solutions introduced by manufacturers and found that most either overcome the problem by using a Faraday bag that encases the signal or the remote can either be deactivated (a bit like pressing a button on a remote control) or it will deactivate itself if there is no movement. My solution is much easier, revert back to remote controls!

If you are concerned about keyless entry with your car some manufacturers have allowed for the keyless entry to be disenabled either yourself or by a main-dealer. Call their customer services or call into a dealer to find out. By Graham Hill

In a recent piece I wrote about the grave lack of charge points that will prevent people from buying or leasing Electric Vehicles (EV’s) along with the lack of range and the ridiculously high cost to buy an EV compared to a petrol or diesel car – we have another factor. Batteries.

Despite everything, we are starting to see a rise in EV sales this year that has taken manufacturers by surprise. One would think that the solution would be simple – up the production of EV’s and solve the problem. On the face of it, that should be the solution but it would seem that increasing the supply of steel or say plastic components would be simple, increasing the supply of batteries isn’t so straight forward.

This increased production needs to be planned years ahead so the fact that Hyundai sold its whole year’s allocation of Kona electric models by March and has a waiting list of 2,000, Kia has also sold out of its year’s allocation of 1,000 e-Niro models it’s put pressure on battery supply. And there simply isn’t the production capacity.

And the increased demand isn’t just the UK, global demand has shot up making the problem even worse. EV’s have suddenly moved from being in the doldrums to higher than expected demand causing car manufacturers to up the investment stakes into battery development and production. Nissan, whilst suffering low sales of their Leaf has now reached ‘Inflection Point’ according to Roel De Vries, corporate vice president, global head of marketing at Nissan.

In other words, demand has outstripped expectations. But, as he pointed out, increasing supply of batteries isn’t as simple as increasing order quantities or place additional orders with other suppliers. The global suppliers are at capacity and if new suppliers are to come online it will take two years to get from plans to production.

In order to address the problem Nissan has taken a stake in Automotive Energy Supply and Toyota has signed an agreement with Panasonic to develop and make Lithium-ion, solid state and next-generation batteries. Other manufacturers are following suit. Kia has partnered two battery producers in order to avoid future bottlenecks in battery supply.

The other issue is cost which needs to come down substantially. Currently, the battery pack in an EV represents 40% of the total cost of the car and this has reduced from 70% over the last 7 years. KPMG expect the battery cost to drop by another 50% by 2030 to 20% of the cost of the car as a result of cell chemistry and economies of larger scale production.

Autotrader have also pointed out that the cost of producing an internal combustion engine is around £1,000 to £2,500 whilst an electric powertrain is approximately £8,000. But in a typical contradiction whenever we discuss EV’s PA Consultancy predict that parity between electric car cost and diesel car cost will reach parity as soon as next year. Given supply and demand of batteries, I find that very hard to believe.

Tesla pointed out that under-investment in mining over the last few years has led to a situation where raw materials could be in seriously short supply. Lithium is limited and could be the first problem so mining companies are searching for areas to mine to increase supply. Nickel is also another metal that will give supply problems.

Beyond the metals we have Cobalt and other minerals that also have to be mined. And the problems don’t stop with the mining. Specialist group, Security of Supply of Mineral Resources (SSMR) have pointed out that 60% of the world’s Cobalt comes from the Democratic Republic of Congo controlled by Chinese traders who use child labour and low pay.

They warn that we need supplies from more stable parts of the world or risk being held to ransom by unscrupulous traders. Who said moving to electric vehicles would be easy? Probably the same people who predicted that leaving the EU would be a breeze! By Graham Hill

So what’s he up to this time I hear you ask? Well Mr Angry of West Sussex here is getting really annoyed that we don’t hear anything concrete from this Government regarding diesel cars vs petrol cars vs hybrids vs electric cars.

He’s called for a national scrappage scheme which I don’t disagree with. The real culprits are the very old cars and vans that can be seen spewing out thick smoke and soot which is clearly not good for the atmosphere and the health of our nation.

Having said that MOT testers now have to carry out a visual check on the exhaust of all vehicles and if they are spewing out smoke they fail – simple as. Back to Mr Khan, he’s calling for a national scrappage scheme, not to put people into newer petrol cars that would be a step in the right direction (not exactly as I’ll explain) but into pure electric vehicles.

Well, first of all, you don’t have to be a financial whizz kid to realise that people that are driving old diesel cars about are either eccentric multi-millionaires that are tight with their money but can appreciate a good deal when they see it or is it because they are financially stretched and can’t afford a newer car otherwise they would be driving one?

So expecting these people to swap their old diesel for either a hugely expensive new electric car or a used electric with a range of 3 miles, on a good day, is pure idiocy! And if we could incentivise the diesel drivers to move across to electric cars what about the infrastructure. I live in a rural Sussex town but with the remnants of an old marriage taking up space in my garage that couldn’t accommodate my car anyway (even if it was empty) and with no power to the garage – charging in my garage would not be an option.

Parking in the road is manic and with lamp posts located on the inside of the pavements, we couldn’t even mount chargers on the lamp posts. The idea that we can convert everyone into EV drivers is a pipedream and not possible until battery technology catches up. A lightweight battery pack that could be easily removed from the car and charged indoors then reconnected into the car when needed could be a solution – but we aint there yet!

In the meantime, the answer would be to get new car buyers, with the ability to charge electric vehicles, to buy EV’s or plug in hybrids, the more sold would bring down the cost of used cars and make them more affordable.

But as the Government has removed the subsidy on hybrids and reduced the subsidy on EV’s it’s hardly a move in the right direction. And even companies, keen to get their company car drivers into EV’s with zero emissions face the challenge from employees that BIK tax this year, even on cars with zero emissions, face a BIK bill of 16% of the car’s overpriced list price.

I should also mention that if you read my 3 part report into the findings by the Germans who carried out a large survey into latest generation diesel cars only to find that emissions of NOx, CO2 and particulates were less than petrol when tested on the road in real world conditions so if anything we should be moving back to diesel as an interim measure.

Sorry Mr Khan, consider the above then I would get back to the drawing board if I were you!  By Graham Hill

We all know that the more electric vehicles on our roads in the UK the greater the demand for public charge points. Even with public charge points you will need a domestic charge point as the cost of charging an electric car using a public charge point pushes up the cost per mile.

When the fuel stations started to introduce fast chargers they were charging an introductory rate which was roughly half price. Once they increased the rates the cost per mile was higher for an electric car than a petrol or diesel car. Whilst local authority installed charge points should be cheaper they will still be more expensive than domestic chargers.

However, London has decided to assist motorists and encourage the purchase of electric cars by converting lamp posts into EV charge points as part of a £300,000 project. The points can deliver charge rates of up to 7.7Kw, and are being installed at 50 lamp posts in Southwark.

The charge points are being supplied by char.gy and funded by Go Ultra Low City Scheme. The chargers can be accessed by EV drivers on pay-as-you-go basis. Poppy Welch from Go Ultra Low said she wants to see, ‘All new street lighting columns include charging points’ in areas with on-street parking. By Graham Hill

Over the last few years, we have seen more company car drivers opt for car allowances rather than replace their current company car with another. For many companies, this is a nightmare. Because whilst an employee is using his own car for business it becomes part of what is known as a grey fleet.

This means that at the time the employee is driving on company business it is the responsibility of the company to ensure that the car is safe and legal along with the driver (health and safety at work). This makes life difficult for businesses who have to ensure that cars are serviced properly and on time. That they are legal with legal tyres and current MOT if applicable. The car must be properly insured for business use and for the carrying of company tools, stock or equipment.

Companies also have a problem with car selection as employees are more likely to use their car allowance for a used executive or maybe a sports car than a car selected by the company that often equates to the status of the employee or the use for which the car is to be used. Some employees would be happy to drive an old car allowing them to take some of their allowance and use it to pay for holidays. This may not portray the correct company image.

The company, therefore, has to decide whether the payment of a car allowance should come with conditions such as type, make, age, safety levels etc of the car selected by the employee. It can become an administration nightmare.

Company responsibilities apply even if an employee drops off post each evening and receives a mileage allowance. From the Government’s point of view, whilst they collect income tax against car allowance payments they are currently losing fortunes as drivers opt for used cars. The vast majority of company cars are new cars which means that the Government can collect VAT, first registration tax, from employees Benefit In Kind Tax and from employers NI.

This ridiculous situation has come about because of the greed of the Government when setting BIK tax levels. In 2018/19 if you drove an electric or hydrogen-powered car emitting no CO2 whatsoever you would still have a BIK bill of 13% of the list price of the car. In the current year 2019/2020 that actually increases to 16% with most petrol cars falling within a band of 19% – 21%. In 2020/2021 we finally see zero-emission cars drop to 2% but petrol cars will increase to 21% – 25%.

Worst of all is the fact that the Government hasn’t released rates for 2021/2022 so if you were to take a company car now on a 3-year lease you wouldn’t have a clue as to what you would be paying in that tax year.

The whole thing is a disaster for both the Treasury and for companies that run company cars. It’s about time the Government got its focus back on the day to day running of the country than Brexit and electing a leader. By Graham Hill

Having just posted huge losses of £3.6 billion and with Land Rover languishing at the bottom of the reliability charts and Jaguar not far behind they are now into more expense as they issue a major recall of 44,000 cars that may be emitting more Carbon Dioxide than was recorded in Official certification.

The recall covers versions of the Jaguar XF, XE, E-Pace, F-Pace and F-Type as well as the Land Rover Discovery, Discovery Sport and Range Rover Sport, Evoque andVelar, made between 2016 and 2019 with petrol and diesel engines.

JLR will contact owners to book their cars into their local dealer for repairs to be carried out free of charge. The recall came just weeks after the Land Rover Discovery TD6outperformed a number of other cars in independent real-world pollution tests thanks to the impressively low levels of nitrogen oxide emissions it produced. By Graham Hill

Incorrect emissions tests could attract some massive EU fines, hopefully, this action will avoid the possibility of the added pain of fines. By Graham Hill