Your views Battery bobbies on the beat
I notice that the Government has removed the benefits that were being applied to the sale of hybrid cars, much to the annoyance of the those who bought them. The excuse given was the huge take-up of these vehicles. Upon investigation, I think that you will find the main reason is that owners of these vehicles are receiving all the benefits of ownership but not bothering to charge up the battery at all.
Can we expect to see battery inspectors lurking round every corner? I do hope so. John Williams Denbigh, North Wales
Dyson about to hoover up
A revolution is coming in electric cars and it has nothing to do with Tesla. A game-changing, world-beating new car is on the way that will transform our lives as much as Henry Ford did with the Model T. It won’t be made by Mercedes or BMW or any established car maker because this new car will be a bona fide disruptor.
Remember when Apple first made a mobile phone and changed the lives of everyone you know with a single device? That kind of event is coming to the motor car. The new car will be battery-powered, weigh 250kg, charge fully in 15 minutes and seat four in comfort over a 150-mile range. This can all be achieved right now with carbonfibre and off-theshelf mountain bike components, for everything from the motor to the suspension and gear system. An off-road e-bike weighs 30kg and can carry a 100kg rider up to 30 miles. Scale that up et voila, it’s the real car of the near future.
Everyone will buy one because £25,000 is genuinely affordable and we will wonder whatever happened to the global car giants and their obsessions with mindless complexity and endless performance we can never use. It might be made by Dyson, but the world is about to change forever because this car will be electrifying to drive. It won’t be long either… now where do I sign? Ben Adams London
Limited options on options
Had the pleasure of receiving the Mercedes-benz A35 e-brochure and price list. It has presented me with a dilemma. Due to Mercedes UK allowing only specific pack upgrades, the car quickly heads over the £40,000 car tax threshold if I want the options of my choice.
Is it just me who wants nice alloys and premium sound with a good sat-nav and can leave all the other non-essentials packaged that make you spend more money? My choice is to either shut up and pay the extra road tax or have a car I’m not happy with. Think I will keep my Audi S3.
You would have thought manufacturers would have the intelligence to recognise the sensitivity of the £40,000 threshold. What happened to the bespoke options list? Anybody else had this problem since the Government decided to introduce the extra tax? Paul Large Via email
Put a brake on assistance
I had to respond to Joe Oldaker’s letter in Your Views (7 November).
He is spot on: the situation on drive assistance has now become silly. He specifically mentions brake issues caused by the Emergency City Braking system. It is bad enough having brake assist which is far too sensitive and deadens the feel of the pedal under braking. Some cars even snatch as it comes in. Now we are told that Emergency City Braking is the answer to safer motoring.
The system just does not work properly in the real world. I have had it deploy unnecessarily on several cars on test and, yes, it does cause a hazard when it activates. Thank goodness it can be switched off like stop/start on some cars, including a model I have on order. If it didn’t, I wouldn’t be buying it.
I totally agree too that we are being used as test mules for the autonomous era now on its way. The manufacturers need to allow motorists to buy cars today that are good to drive and not ruined with unnecessary tech. They can keep it in storage for the driverless cars and the dummies of the future. Simon Watson Via email
More V8 rumbles
Having owned both a Triumph Stag and a Daimler Dart, I can confirm Mike Bacon’s comments (7 November) that the Stag’s burble was totally unsurpassed, but the Dart was less so.
However, having also owned a number of Jaguar XK8S, my neighbours comment that the XK has a very pleasant V8 sound. You just can’t hear it in the car, even with the roof down.
I hope I am dead and buried long before the demise of the V8 and nothing on earth will get me inside a hybrid or an EV.
My lifelong passion for Jaguars (17 in 48 years) is waning fast. John J Duffy
Falmouth, Antigua
When a deal is no deal
There have been plenty of reasons bandied around to answer why new car sales have been falling for more than a year. Concerns for Brexit and the UK’S growing disillusionment over diesel-powered vehicles are commonly quoted.
One area not touched on, though, is the fairly dramatic increase in PCP prices over the past few years. We have a number of vehicles, including a Mercedes C-class estate, and its present three-year PCP contract runs out next March. On approaching Mercedes for a quotation last week for an identical car, we were staggered to receive a quotation that demonstrated a monthly rate increase of 65%.
Yes, the new car has increased in price compared with 2016 and there has been an uplift in the interest rates, but that isn’t the whole story.
The Mercedes’ values haven’t held up over the intervening period and they appear to have altered their contribution figures as well.
We have spoken to Mercedes’ immediate rivals such as Audi and BMW and they are quoting a similar pricing structure for their respective vehicles, so clearly it is market conditions rather than Mercedes taking commercial advantage.
It would be interesting to know what drivers are actually doing when their current PCPS are ending. I assume the data/research must be out there somewhere. Martin Ellis Via email
A heavy price
There are several reasons given for the slump in Jaguar Land Rover sales that do not seem to be affecting other premium manufacturers to the same extent. JLR’S range consists solely of large and expensive vehicles that are not affordable for the average working person. However, Audi, BMW and to a lesser extent Mercedes have also produced small, economical and affordable vehicles that have become a sales success.
As for JLR’S first electric vehicle, only the top 5% of the population could possibly afford one. Ray H Dover
Via email
Don’t believe the hype
Reading your piece on Italdesign (7 November), I think a word was lost in translation. You wrote ‘hypercar’ instead of ‘supercar’.
I know we are spoilt rotten these days with performance but this ¤1.5 million so-called hypercar is a joke: 602bhp, 413lb ft of torque and a 0-62mph time that doesn’t start with a two! An AMG E63 has 604bhp, 627lb ft and a 0-62mph time that is 0.2sec slower. It weighs 550kg more.
Just take the back seats out and watch it spank that Italian. That’s just a saloon car, not even a supersports car that would give it even more trouble.
Stunning blue, though. Tom Piggott Via email