According to a report, the high cost of insuring an electric car in Britain and a lack of competent repairers will jeopardize the emerging market for EVs unless urgent action is taken. The report, from automotive risk intelligence company Thatcham Research and the British government agency Innovate U.K., said there are several significant challenges to battery electric vehicles (BEV). The nature of the report suggests these problems will also be faced across Europe and the U.S. “The majority...

“demand will be stimulated by government programs, but if this doesn’t happen, significantly higher declines can be expected” British car and SUV sales plunged nearly 45% in March, in data reported Monday, slightly worse than Germany’s reported 38% drop in the month last week, although not nearly as bad as France’s 72% shortfall compared with the same month last year. Sales in Britain in March fell 44.4% to 254,684, according to the Society of Manufacturers and Traders. Expect a renewed...

“we are temporarily halting production at our main continental Europe manufacturing sites” Ford Europe said it is temporarily suspending vehicle and engine production at its manufacturing sites in continental Europe, in response to the growing impact of the coronavirus. Effective March 19, it is expected that this action will continue for a number of weeks, Ford Europe said in statement. The World Health Organization has designated Europe as the new epicentre of the coronavirus epidemic with...

“Uncertainty is everywhere, but we commend BMW for attempting to quantify (the virus) impact and guiding through the uncertainty” BMW said it expects profits to maybe halve in 2020, as the impact of the coronavirus hits sales, economies and consumer confidence. BMW said the impact of the coronavirus made it difficult to accurately forecast its results in 2020. “Group profit before tax is expected to be significantly lower (in 2020) that in 2019,” BMW said in a statement, with the automotive...

“Aston Martin has a challenging future, and we believe that operational issues will mean the rally is short-lived” Aston Martin declined comment on reports China’s Geely Automobile Holdings, which owns the Lotus sports car company, wants to take a stake in the financially troubled luxury car and SUV maker. Cash-strapped Aston Martin’s stock price jumped 15% Friday after the reports of Geely’s interest were published, and was close to another 3% higher Monday. Aston Martin, which cut its...