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Electric vehicle sales continue to increase with a constant stream of new developments coming from manufacturers and providers of charging points and batteries. On the downside Electrocity, the providers of rapid charge points at motorway services, have announced a new charging scheme for those using their rapid chargers.

In future they will charge £6 per half hour to charge your car, currently provided for free. Whilst some believe this move to be premature others feel that it won’t affect electric vehicle sales as drivers only tend to use motorway fuel stations as a quick fix, waiting till they are off the motorway to fill up.

The same will apply to electric chargers. At the moment the charging points can be a little congested but by charging for charging (did I just say that) drivers will no doubt plan their journeys better. Another charge point provider, Chargemaster, is developing inductive charging, the same type of wireless connection that is used to boil our kettles. They claim that they can charge up to 10 plus cars at any one time at the workplace.

Mercedes are developing inductive charging for their cars and will be rolling out the first car to have it fitted, the S Class Hybrid, in 2018. The system will then filter down to the cheaper models. Technology giant Qualcomm, who licence the technology to Chargemaster, claim that the next generation of EV’s will have both methods available, inductive and the traditional plug in.

Formula E, the electric car racing series already use inductive charging for their medical and safety cars. So the system is already proven. For those worried about the safety of such devices when say a cat or dog walks onto the pad, that would be placed under the car at home, the unit stops charging and an alert is sent to your smart device.

I still can’t understand why the industry doesn’t standardise batteries with a quick swap facility at battery centres, you pull in, the old battery is slid out with the charge noted, a fully charged battery is slid in and the driver is charged for the difference in charge. Simples. Maybe I should patent this idea! By Graham Hill

Recently I have seen a move away from diesel cars towards petrol. Part of the reason is because petrol cars have seen an improvement in their resale values at the end of leases making them, in some cases, a little less to lease. Part is because fuel consumption has been improving as petrol engines become more efficient with some petrol engines capable of close to the same fuel consumption to that of their diesel equivalent.

Also, since the VW emission debacle people have become twitchy over the emissions credentials of diesel engines. The truth is that the new Euro VI engines are about as clean as petrol engines but with lower CO2’s so if that is your argument for moving to petrol it is flawed. But there is a new consideration, that of entering and parking in city centres.

Some authorities in London are imposing charges for polluting vehicles with a suggestion that all diesels are more polluting than petrol, which isn’t true in the case of Euro VI engines. Last April 2015 Islington Council brought in and annual surcharge of £96 if you drive a diesel car with Hackney proposing a £50 surcharge for 2017. They are thinking of increasing this further if the car is pre-2001 due to the higher emissions.

Other cities considering similar schemes are Birmingham, Bristol and Leicester along with congestion charges with a premium if you happen to drive a diesel. Maybe someone should suggest they get all the facts first! By Graham Hill

Sat. Nav’s are great, I wouldn’t be without mine having thrown out my AA map book many years ago but there are times when you wish you had your old map book in the car instead of the bloody sat nav, especially when you are just about to join the end of a queue of stationary traffic.

They are a little better these days, especially if my system has found a major delay on say the M25 (now run by NCP I believe) it will announce that due to heavy congestion it has created another route. Which is fine but the problem arises when you can see the orange cars on the screen, a few miles ahead, turn red, just as you reach a turning that should take you away from the congestion.

So off you toodle expecting the system to recalculate an alternative route. Oh no – that would be too much to ask. For the next 20 miles it constantly tries to get you back to where you turned off the original route. It will even try to fool you by not telling you to do a U turn but sends you off down a single track B road.

At this point you need to zoom out cos I’ll guarantee that it is about to send you completely round the houses to where you left the original route an hour ago! There are now parts of London that I know better than most black cab drivers!

So manufacturers who are designing undesirable things into new cars such as hair dryers and heated gear knobs please turn your attention back to Sat Nav’s because if that bloody woman keeps trying to get me back to where I’ve purposely driven away from I’m filing for a divorce! PS. Second thoughts don’t ditch the hair dryer! By Graham Hill

There is no industry that I know that surrounds itself more with mystery and ‘smoke and mirrors’ than the motor and associated finance industry. Emissions, fuel consumption, APR, PCP, warranty the list goes on. These are all provided by manufacturers, dealers and funders in ways to totally mislead you.

We are now being fed a pile rubbish as we see the growth in plug in hybrid cars. We are told that they are great for the environment and you get a zillion miles to the gallon, as a result the Government gives you a chunk of money off the new car cost as they ‘apparently’ create less carbon dioxides than diesel and petrol engine cars.

We are told that the Government applies a grant of £2,500 if the electric part of the drive unit can achieve a range of up to 70 miles. More than 70 miles and you can have a grant of £4,500 but you have to bear in mind that the hybrid car is much more expensive than its petrol or diesel equivalent in the first place, certainly much more than the grant provided as an incentive.

Plug in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEV) look very impressive, low fuel cost and tax incentives are grabbing the attention of fleets as well as consumers but the problem is that not all drivers are driving these cars as they should be. The most common omission is the recharging of the car on a regular basis. This in itself can increase the whole life cost by 15% according to Wayne Millward, Fleet Consultant at contract hire company Arval.

For fleets the low benefit in kind tax is very attractive to employees but equally the employees aren’t that interested in efficiency. Even more so if fuel is provided as part of their employment package so they don’t ever plug in their cars to an electric charger. There are of course others who don’t have regular access to charging points, either at home or in the street where they park, making it virtually impossible to charge the batteries using the plug in option.

Either way, when the car moves over from the electric motor to the petrol engine, fuel efficiency plummets and CO2 emissions increase. So unless you or your company drivers use the cars as intended you could be vastly out of pocket. From a running cost point of view if a PHEV is not used as was intended the costs soar and the atmosphere suffers. You would be better off driving a normal diesel or petrol.

So why don’t the car manufacturers do anything to address this issue? I’ll tell you why, because the more hybrid cars they sell the lower the declared average CO2 emissions of all the cars they provide across Europe. In 2015 they had to get the average emissions down to 130g/km which most did.

However, this was based on the manufacturer’s claimed CO2 emissions for PHEV’s being included in the mix, assuming that the cars were regularly plugged into the mains. The fact is that very few were and is yet another con trick perpetrated by the car manufacturers as they know this is what happens! By Graham Hill

Now here is something really interesting that proves you can learn something new every day! And this piece of information could affect every single driver with his own insurance as well as companies running fleet cars. It all came about after I read a question regarding 3^rd party damage, following a car accident, when the damage is caused to local authority owned property.

For example if you were to hit a road sign or street light or maybe smash into a bollard or worse still damage barriers or even the road surface. I was shocked to read that a company running a fleet of vehicles was billed £46,000 for barrier repairs without realising the length of the replacement barriers.

The warning was raised by claims management company actually called Claims Management & Adjusting. They had found that in particular fleet operators were being targeted by local authorities for some obscene repair costs. As it turned out the claim mentioned was for a much shorter stretch of barrier as the authority had claimed in yards but the length was only a third as the measurement was actually in feet, not as stated in yards.

After pointing it out the claim was written off. The claims company also claimed a success when an invoice for £56,000 worth of re-surfacing work was challenged after obtaining information under the Freedom Of Information Act that showed a larger stretch of road had been repaired for £750.

It would seem that not only are there a few disproportionate claims for damage but Highways England has allowed certain contractors to decide upon charges and repairs without further reference as long as the claims were under a threshold, commonly £10,000. This caused me to look further into this situation and what a can of worms it turned out to be.

Most people are of the opinion that you only have to report an accident to the police and your insurance for the following reasons; if someone has been injured (report to police and insurance), there is a claim going to be made against you by another motorist (insurance only) or you are going to make a claim on your insurance for damage repairs to your own car or your contents/passengers (insurance only).

However, knock down a bollard and cause little or no damage to your car you may think that this is the responsibility of the local authority and simply drive off. In fact you have caused damage to a third party’s property so by driving off you could be committing a criminal offence. But then you may think that no-one saw you so where is the evidence but with CCTV cameras and people with mobile phones everywhere you may find that several weeks later you receive a bill for the damages.

But having not reported the accident to your insurance company within a certain period (see your policy) they may no longer be obliged to pay out. It seems  that it can take several months for a local authority to make a claim against a driver. Whilst I’m told that every car insurance policy will cover you for third party damage, that isn’t just someone else’s car or someone’s front wall, it also covers you for what is known as ‘street furniture’ which includes road signs, bollards, hoardings etc.

But if you fail to meet the terms and conditions of your insurance policy or they can prove contributory negligence you could be facing a hefty repair bill. In addition you are obliged to stop after an accident and pass your details to anyone involved or the owners of property that has been damaged. If there are no casualties you don’t have to involve the police.

However, if you have damaged privately or authority owned property you must report the accident to the police if the owner of the property is not available to take the details from you. So as you can see this is a bit of a minefield and what may have seemed like a minor accident could potentially leave you thousands of pounds out of pocket! By Graham Hill

Back in March of this year Ford made a fairly major announcement at the Geneva Motor Show that few newspapers or car journals picked up. They announced a new service scheme that would initially be rolled out to fleet customers but could finally be made available to all customers of Ford cars and vans both new and used.

As the manufacturers compete against large networks of independent service providers and small garages they have come up with a cheap and competitive option, mobile servicing. Specialist mobile service vans have been around for a few years to service commercial vehicles, that are often parked for hours on site or outside buildings, in which the drivers are working, saving the owners time and cost by having their vehicles serviced by a mobile unit during down time.

Initially Ford have successfully rolled out 8 mobile service units, as a pilot scheme, within the M25. They have now been operating for over a year. Ford’s chairman, Andy Barratt, announced that he plans to increase this number within the M25 to more than 100 operating out of Ford Stores and Transit centres. The scheme will be extended nationally if seen to be successful.

The first cars that will be included in the scheme will be the Ford premium brand, Vignales, sold through their 68 Ford Stores. It’s an interesting concept that other manufacturers will be looking at very carefully. By Graham Hill

The number of plug in car grants could reach the Government’s latest target much quicker than expected after 11,000 applications were made in February. The surge came about because the £5,000 Government grant was to be replaced by a new grant structure for Ultra Low Emission Vehicles (ULEV) as of 1^st March.

The new structure, consisting of 3 tiers, is now in force. For cars with zero emissions and a range of more than 70 miles (category 1) there is a grant of £4,500 on offer from the Government. Vehicles with a lower zero emission range than 70 miles (category 2 & 3), such as plug in hybrids, with either a petrol or diesel engine there is a £2,500 grant.

There is also a price cap, so category 2 & 3 cars costing more than £60,000 will receive no grant although category 1 cars with a zero emission range of over 70 miles will attract the full £4,500 grant. According to the Office of Low Emission Vehicles (OLEV) a total of 16,000 low emission plug in vehicles were ordered in January and February compared to 14,500 for the whole of 2015.

So clearly zero and low emission cars are gaining acceptance helped along by some very attractive deals from the leasing companies. OLEV explained that the new grants are set to run till March 2017 or until 40,000 sales of category 1 vehicles and combined sales of 45,000 category 2 & 3 vehicles have been reached. To date a total of 67,000 grants have been provided and on current trends the Government targets could well be reached before the end of the year.

The Department for Transport would not confirm that due to the increased pace of hybrid and zero emission car sales they would review their targets but given their ultimate objective that all vehicles should have zero tailpipe emissions by 2050 it is highly likely that they will continue to encourage the sale of low emission vehicles with grants, albeit that they are likely to reduce in time.

On the other hand support is likely through improving lease rates as manufacturers aim to hit their lowering emission targets across their vehicle ranges. So if you are looking to help save the planet keep an eye out for my great hybrid deals as a preference to buying outright. There could be even greater savings than the grants offered by the Government. By Graham Hill

In the town in which I live they have been building houses like they are going out of fashion. Virtually every piece of free land is being built on which I guess is pretty good news, especially if you’re a first time buyer. But the downside is that each new development needs electricity, water, phone and sewage facilities which means roads have to be dug up.

This in turn means that temporary traffic lights are erected and currently at the end of my road is a set of 4 way lights. As you can imagine I can wait what seems like 10 minutes to get out of the end of my road. I then have at least 1 if not more sets of temporary lights to contend with before I reach my destination elsewhere in the town.

My complaint isn’t that we have temporary traffic lights but that no bugger ever seems to be working on the bit of road that the lights are protecting, especially at weekends. As a result the Government is going to take action. They plan to fine local councils and utility companies £5,000 a day for road projects left unattended at weekends that unnecessarily inconvenience motorists.

So work would have to continue at weekends or the roadworks lifted at weekends until work resumed on the following Monday. Also fines will be imposed when lights are left in place after work has been completed. Arguing against this Peter Box, a spokesman for the Local Government Association, said that there are often reasons why roadworks are left unattended, for example when concrete has been laid it takes time to dry.

He can see that if the rules come into force people will be employed at weekends to watch concrete dry rather than receive a fine. As a final word, before you get over excited about driving freely around at the weekends the rules will only apply to A roads and not rural B roads or residential streets – damn. By Graham Hill

The EU Commission had already made it clear that emission testing would be tightened up from 2017 but they have now announced that they will be going several steps further. As a result of growing mistrust of the emissions testing procedures which were to reflect real life motoring conditions by 2017 the Commission has announced a number of additional rules.

First of all, instead of randomly selecting cars off production lines to test they will in future be selected from cars that are already on sale as well as cars from production lines. Recalls will be issued if cars are found to emit different levels of regulated emissions than those suggested by the manufacturer. Financial ties between European test centres and the manufacturers will be cut (I didn’t know there were any), thus making the system fairer.

It seemed that testing could be carried out in any country within the EU in the past for it to be accepted across the EU. So manufacturers were having cars tested at centres where they knew controls were more lax. This is being address with greater controls being imposed upon the test centres.

The Commission is also applying for additional powers to suspend, restrict or withdraw the number of services that a test centre can offer if it is performing at a less than acceptable level. The Commission is also pushing for access to new car ‘software protocols’ and the ability to restrict the use of such devices as the ‘defeat device’ used by VW. I’d have thought these sorts of devices should be banned rather than just restricted!

Whilst it seemed to be a move in the right direction there were some observers who believed the new rules still ‘lacked teeth’. In a damning statement Greg Archer, green vehicles director at campaign group Transport & Environment said, ‘Without the threat of future EU sanctions, it will be  mission impossible to break the strong bond between national regulators and their car makers that has protected the industry but at the cost of higher emissions.’

And I thought I was outspoken! The EU Parliament is now considering the proposals ahead of a debate and vote. If approved the new rules will come into force immediately = as if that could happen! Ridiculous! By Graham Hill