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Blog Entries from 2011
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Have electric vehicles stalled?
A year ago we published a weighty tome about electric vehicles (EVs) which we assumed at the time would go out of date fairly quickly because of fast-moving technological developments.
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Franchised workshop retention - going the wrong way
With Trend Tracker’s consumer data about car servicing now available up to the end of September 2011, the full impact of the ageing car parc on franchised workshop retention on servicing, maintenance and repair (SMR) is emerging.
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Accessorise! New car accessories research
It goes without saying that sales executives will make at least one attempt to sell accessories to new and used car customers. And as any sales executive knows, the best time to sell accessories is when a customer signs up for a car.
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More evidence for prioritising EV R&D over sales incentives
Our report EVs: Energy, Infrastructure and Mobility in the Real World broke new ground by attempting to measure the gaps between the rhetoric of the pro-EV lobbies and consumers, and between likely future EV capacity and the EV capacity required to make a real dent in oil demand.
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The horse’s mouth
Research is all about bringing together facts to help answer crucial questions. In the case of the auto retail industry, research typically means ‘market research’. It’s about the market background, customers, the supply structure, the market size and trends, and so on.
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Trend Tracker webinar
For the first time, Trend Tracker has used a webinar as a means of informing potential clients interactively about the content, purpose and delivery formats of a new research study - in this case the UK Car Buyer Brand Perceptions 2011 study. Those unable to join the live event on the day (21 September)can still download the presentation and audio discussion - Click here to download the webinar
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Emotive brands need rational benefits
Our research analyst Robert Macnab picks out a highly topical theme from the findings of Trend Tracker’s UK Car Buyer Brand Perceptions 2011 study - the need at a time of apparently interminable crisis in the Western world’s economies for premium car brands to answer buyers’ ‘right brain’ needs for affordable practicality.
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Hot, Thirsty and Crowded: Are the New Vehicle Technologies the Answer?
Dr. John Wormald, noted consultant, co-founder of the advisory firm Autopolis, author of some of the most authoritatively critical books on the car industry and an inspiration to the directors of Trend Tracker since our foundation, examines this critical question in a new free-to-download report, available here:
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MOT test regime change
When analysing the car servicing and repair market drivers, the ‘usual suspects’ include: car parc size and age profile; average car mileages; build quality trends; service intervals and content; new car warranties; labour rates …. with political and legislative factors barely a consideration. However, that could be about to change with the government’s review of the MOT test regime.
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Independents winning more work
First published in Auto Retail Network (July 2011), Toby Procter uses the newly published Castrol Professional Car Service and Repair Trend Tracker 2011 report to reveal for the first time how the independent workshop sector has
increased its grip on car servicing, maintenance and repairs (SMR) since the recession. -
Driving workshop business
A large proportion of the research for the 2011 Castrol Professional Car Service and Repair Trend Tracker report is an extensive survey of motorists. We have run some elements of this consumer survey since 1994, interviewing 1,000 motorists every month.
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Losing your grip on servicing, maintenance and repair
This month we launched the 2011 edition of the Castrol Professional Car Service and Repair Trend Tracker. It has been published in various forms since 1995 based on an array of primary research including a monthly consumer survey of 1,000 motorists.
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With a fair (economic) wind …
At the Auto Retail Network used car profit clinic in Loughborough last month, I presented our preliminary forecasts for used car market volumes up to 2016. To produce a forecast for any of the auto retail markets we create a computer model incorporating the market drivers. Usually our forecasts are quite accurate: for example, our used car market forecast in 2002 was within 6% for 2003 to 2007.
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Tesco finally makes it into the motor trade
For the past 25 years, there have been regular scares in the motor trade concerning the threat of incursion by one of the massive retailers capable, at least in theory, of combining financial clout and money lending capacity with real estate and a liking for the F&I profits associated with car sales. Tesco has been treated as the leading potential contender, if only because of its pre-eminence among UK retailers.
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The cautious used car buyer
Our new report on the used car market will be published later this year. We have started the research which includes a consumer survey of 10,000 motorists - a brand new addition to the used car report we have completed biennially since 1994.
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Been here before? Precedents for EVs and energy upheaval
A new WWF report, ‘Electric avenues: driving home the case for electric vehicles’, calculates that ending the UK’s dependence on fossil fuels means at least 1.7 million electric vehicles on the country’s roads by 2020, and around 6.4 million by 2030.
Obtaining the effect on climate change urged by the WWF also entails decarbonising the power supply these EVs would be using, a task made no easier by the effect of the Japanese nuclear disaster on planning for the replacement of coal fired power stations. -
SMR market down, petrol costs up less than you might think
A reflection on topical news was prompted by the work under way to complete the 2011 edition of the Car Service and Repair Trend Tracker report, of which more anon.
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New thoughts on re-manufacturing?
Recently we had an invitation to visit the China International Remanufacturing Forum to be held in April in Hangzhou, 100 miles southwest of Shanghai. The seminars available over the two-day conference emphasise China’s leading role in automotive parts remanufacturing and include reviews of European market demand for remanufactured parts.
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Modec in administration
On 4 March R K Grant, S J Appell and A C O'Keefe of Zolfo Cooper were appointed joint administrators of Modec Ltd., the Conventry-based electric truck maker whose factory David Cameron MP, then opposition leader, opened in June 2007. Modec has a sizeable number of corporate and municipal fleets among its customers, including Tesco and Fedex.
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EVs by the mile: Renault & Better Place launch in Denmark
Towards the end of this year, Danes will be able to buy a Renault Fluence Z.E. battery-electric family car priced at 205,000 DKK (£23,518.95) including 25% VAT but no registration tax (EVs under 2,000kg are exempt) - and no battery.
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Rising Leaves: Nissan Leaf
News that could take a Leaf or two out of Nissan’s (pre-order) book: Unfairly perhaps, Automotive News this week greeted as “a troubling sign” a £2,000 increase in the UK list price of the Nissan Leaf. Nissan’s own prognosis has been that government sales incentives will be needed only for three years or so from the Leaf’s launch; EV total costs of ownership are projected to become competitive that soon as costs reduce, following the downward price trend of consumer electronics. Most other EV proponents, with lower targets and market penetration forecasts, have been less optimistic.
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Polls apart from reality
One in three motorists would consider buying an electric car in the next 12 months, according to the release on a new survey by Motorpoint issued on 17th February.
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All right on the night?
Before our latest report on electric vehicles (EVs) was released in January, it fell to me to proof read all 282 pages. Although proof reading is a very detailed activity, you don’t lose sight of the big picture and the picture is very ‘big’ for EVs.
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Needed for EVs to save the world: more R&D, less wishful thinking
In December 2010 the UK government’s advisory Committee on Climate Change recommended cutting the UK's GHG emissions by 60% relative to 1990 levels (46% relative to current levels), by 2030. The UK would then require a further 62% GHG emissions reduction from 2030 to meet the 2050 target already legislated for in the UK’s Climate Change Act.
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The Weather Effect
It’s difficult to imagine how research can be affected by the weather, but we experienced two serious delays to our schedule in December. Throughout the month we had appointments to analyse service job cards at independent garages and franchised dealerships – working towards the April 2011 edition of the Car Service & Repair Trend Tracker. Quite simply, snow prevented us from driving to workshops and we have now fallen a month behind.
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Electric vehicles: Are we serious?
In November I visited the inaugural ‘eco2’ transport show at London’s Earls Court, where I found the hall on the third and final day sadly empty of visitors. Soon after our visit to Earls Court, Bosch released its research report ‘Bosch: Driving Green Britain’.
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EVs: The challenges ahead for retailers
Auto Retail Network (www.auto-retail.com) published a feature by Trend Tracker's Toby Procter in the January 2011 issue of Auto Retail Bulletin, on the likely impacts of EVs on franchised dealers charged with selling and fixing them. You can see the article here, with the publisher's kind permission.
