UK’s car manufacture output is seeing its best November since 2020. The trend is helped by a rise in production for the overseas market and ease supply chain challenges, as industry data showed this week.
Production rose nearly 15 percent, with 91,923 cars rolling out last month.
Mike Hawes, CEO of the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders, said UK car production is firmly back on track following the tough COVID years and resulting supply chain challenges.
What else is noticed?
Export volumes increased by 15.2 percent, solidly driven by demand from the European Union, China and Turkey.
The demand for electric vehicles (EV) continued its upward trend in November, with volume up 20 percent to 35,169 units.
The European Union Council on Thursday approved a plan to give electric vehicle (EV) makers in the EU and Britain until the end of 2026 to comply with local content rules, delaying the imposition of tariffs on EVs traded with the UK.
Petrol is very costly now. The latest administration in Nigeria has removed subsidy, and the cost of a litre of petrol rose from 97 naira to almost 600 naira.
As such, you’like to know how you can manage fuel in your auto tank and save more money while using your car.
Take note of the next few quick tips that can help you economize.
1. When you’re driving, fuel consumption is less with airconditioner on, provided you maintain a speed limit of about 80km/hr.
2. Driving with the windows down at high speed, which causes wind resistance, leads to more fuel consumption. So, try to avoid that.
3. The more loads in the car, the more it consumes fuel. Refuse to add materials you don’t need in the car. Clear your booth of junks.
4. Maintaining a steady speed of 50 to 90km/hr on the highways gives you optimal fuel economy.
5. If the tyres are under-inflated by 10 psi, it could reduce fuel efficiency by up to nine to 10 per cent.
6. As much as you can, avoid stop-start traffic because it can put a lot of pressure on your engine, thus increase fuel consumption.
7. Avoid hard acceleration when moving your car from complete stop or climbing hills. This can increase fuel consumption too.
8. Don’t leave the engine running idle for more than three minutes.
9. Regular car servicing keeps your car in good shape, and this helps to maintain its efficiency.
Hybrid cars are rapidly gaining popularity in India overtaking battery electric vehicle sales for three straight months this financial year.
New car buyers are taking a penchant for the handful of hybrid vehicles currently on sale in the Indian market such as Maruti Suzuki Grand Vitara, Toyota Urban Cruiser Hyryder, Honda City and Toyota Innova Hycross. The increasing demand for fuel-efficient hybrid cars ..
Sales of strong hybrid vehicles totalled 24,062 units in the three months to November, compared to 21,445 electric vehicles sold in the same period. This, despite the availability of a larger number of electric cars currently – 16 EVs compared to 4 strong hybrids.
Read more at: https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/industry/renewables/hybrid-cars-surpass-electric-vehicles-in-indias-auto-market/articleshow/105663878.cms?utm_source=contentofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst
Depending on which late-model vehicle you own, your car might be watching you – literally and figuratively – as you drive down the road. It’s watching you with cameras that monitor the cabin and track where you’re looking, and with sensors that track your speed, lane position and rate of acceleration.
Your car uses this data to make your ride safe, comfortable and convenient. For example, the cameras can tell when you’ve been distracted and need to bring your attention back to the road. They can also identify when you are speeding by verifying the speed limit from your GPS position or traffic signs along the road and warn you to slow down. Some carmakers are also beginning to incorporate similar features for convenience, such as unlocking your car by scanning your faceor fingerprint. Your car may also transmit some of this data to the manufacturer’s data centers, where the company uses it to improve your driving experience or provide you with personalized services.
In addition to providing these benefits, this data collection is a potential privacy nightmare. The information can reveal your identity, your habits when you’re in your car, how safely you drive, where you’ve been and where you regularly go. A report by the Mozilla Foundation, a nonprofit technology research and advocacy organization, found that carmakers’ privacy policies are exceedingly lax. The study identified cars as the “worst category of products for privacy that we have ever reviewed.” U.S. Sen. Ed Markey wrote a letter to U.S. automakers on Nov. 30, 2023, asking a lengthy set of questions about their data practices.
Cars collect a lot of information about drivers and passengers.
Today’s smart cars present drivers with a trade-off between convenience and privacy, assuming drivers have the option of improving the data privacy of their cars. As a computer scientist who studies cybersecurity and resilience in transportation, I see several technological routes to getting the best of both worlds: cars that make use of this collected data while also preserving users’ privacy.
Driver data
Today’s cars use a wide range of sensors to understand the environment, analyze the data and ensure the safety of passengers. For instance, cars are equipped with sensors that measure brake pedal position, vehicle speed, driver’s movements, surrounding vehicles and even traffic lights. The collected data is transmitted to the car’s electric control units, the computers that operate the car’s many systems.
There are two types of sensors that continuously monitor and predict a driver’s drowsiness. The first is vehicle status monitoring sensors such as lane detection and steering wheel position tracking. This data is not directly related to a specific person and can be considered not personally identifiable information unless it is correlated with other data that identifies the driver.
The second type of sensors tracks drivers themselves. This category includes things like cameras to track the driver’s eye movements to predict fatigue. This second group of sensors is directly related to the driver’s privacy because they collect personally identifiable information, such as the driver’s face.
Protecting privacy
There is a trade-off between the quality of the driving experience and the privacy of drivers, depending on the level of services and features. Some drivers may prefer to share their biometric data to facilitate accessing a car’s functions and automating a major part of their driving experience. Others may prefer to manually control the car’s systems, sharing less personally identifiable information or none at all.
At first glance, it seems the trade-off of privacy and driver comfort cannot be avoided. Car manufacturers tend to take measures to protect drivers’ data against data thieves, but they collect a lot of data themselves. And as the Mozilla Foundation report showed, most car companies reserve the right to sell your data. Researchers are working on developing data analytics tools that better protect privacy and make progress on eliminating the trade-off.
For instance, over the past seven years, the concept of federated machine learning has attracted attention because it allows algorithms to learn from the data on your local device without copying the data to a central server. For instance, Google’s Gboard keyboard benefits from federated learning to better guess the next word you are likely to type without sharing your private data with a server.
Federated learning is a technique for training AI models that keeps people’s data private.
Research led by Ervin Moore, a Ph.D. student at Florida International University’s Sustainability, Optimization, and Learning for InterDependent Networks laboratory, and published in IEEE Internet of Things Journal explored the idea of using blockchain-based federated machine learning to improve the privacy and security of users and their sensitive data. The technique could be used to protect drivers’ data. There are other techniques to preserve privacy as well, such as location obfuscation, which alters the user’s location data to prevent their location from being revealed.
While there is still a trade-off between user privacy and quality of service, privacy-preserving data analytics techniques could pave the way for using data without leaking drivers’ and passengers’ personally identifiable information. This way, drivers could benefit from a wide range of modern cars’ services and features without paying the high cost of lost privacy.
Most retirees live on relatively fixed incomes that don’t allow for much flexibility in terms of financial emergencies. This is why it’s important as a retiree to steer away from any potential money pits — like picking the wrong car.
While you’ll never know for sure if a car is going to conk out on you, resulting in pricey fixes, there are certain makes and models that have shown a tendency to be more expensive for owners over time. These types of cars — along with ones that come with a high MSRP to begin with — are best avoided for most retirees.
Mini Cooper
The Mini Cooper has no lack of charm and style, but it’s missing a few things that make it a good car for a new retiree. First, it can be somewhat impractical. Retirees often lose flexibility and mobility over time, and the small size of the Mini Cooper can make it hard to get into and out of.
But that’s not all. According to Jacob Carter, the owner of the Engine Rev Up blog, the Mini Cooper line is plagued by mechanical problems ranging from oil leaks and turbo failures to electrical and suspension problems.
Fiat 500
The Fiat 500 suffers from some of the same problems as the Mini Cooper when it comes to cars for retirees. While the car’s small size is part of its Italian charm, it can be a difficult car to own for mobility-limited seniors.
But the line also has its share of mechanical problems to worry about, which can drive up its cost of ownership. Specifically, the Fiat 500 is known for engine problems and oil leaks, and its tiny profile can make it harder to work on.
UK car makers are expected to produce about a million cars this year, well above an earlier forecast, following a recent round of investments in the sector, an industry body has just revealed.
The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) had earlier forecast production of 860,000 cars in 2023. That has changed now.
The latest projection is 18% higher than the output in 2022, the worst year for UK car production since 1956, but goes below the 1.5 million or more cars produced pre-pandemic.
Easing supply chain issues and a rapid transition to electric vehicles (EV) have been aiding the UK’s car industry, a significant driver of manufacturing and exports.
A total of 91,521 units rolled out of factory lines in the country in October, SMMT said, up 31.6% year-on-year.
The UK committed 2 billion pounds to the car industry over the course of the next five years to support the move to zero-emission vehicles.
Earlier this month, Japanese automaker Nissan (7201.T) said its plans to make electric versions of two of its cars at its British plant would require a total investment of up to 2 billion pounds ($2.54 billion), including a third battery plant in Britain and infrastructure projects that partners would help to finance.
In July, India’s Tata Group said it would build its first gigafactory outside of India in Britain with an investment of 4 billion pounds.
If you’re planning on buying a car in 2024, the best way to start is to look for ways to cut down on costs. For example, you might consider buying a used car instead of a new one.
An auto-buying expert made the following observation:
“Prospective buyers should look to see if they can purchase a used car with a reliable car report and parts history,” Meniane said. He said that today, many pre-owned vehicles offer excellent performance at a fraction of the cost. This may be the same thing for next year.
It’s also important to be an informed buyer when heading to the dealership.
“Make sure to do your research,” Meniane said. “There is a lot to consider when purchasing a vehicle, and buyers should leverage online resources like car comparison tools, customer reviews and expert opinions to make the most informed decision.”
Finally, the advice is – be realistic about how much car you can actually afford and all of the factors that play into that cost.
“Be mindful of the total cost of ownership, including maintenance, fuel efficiency and insurance rates,” Meniane said. “Some cars may have a lower sticker price but higher long-term costs because they use more fuel, require more frequent maintenance or are known to have worse security/anti-theft protections.”
Sometimes, the problem is that we fail to ask questions. The best tip here is that you should ask enough questions to help you make the final best decision.
Used Car Market faces new challenges. New data emerge this week for October that shows wholesale used-vehicle prices continue to slide and have reached the lowest levels since April 2021. The data was published by Auto research firm Cox Automotive.
Used Vehicle Value Index stood at 209.4 in October, down 2.3% from September. The index is down 4% from a year ago. These wholesale prices filter into the retail side of the market with a slight lag.
Cox Automotive released a statement regarding this: “October revealed some not-so-spooky price moves, namely a reversal of the gains that were seen during the prior two months.”
Lately, Bisimoto has entered into a new partnership to enhance the world of drag racing.
The world of drag racing is about to experience a jolt of electric excitement as Bisi Ezerioha, also known as Bisimoto, returns to drag racing at the wheel of a 2022 Tesla Model S Plaid on a mission to dominate the drag strip.
How sure is that?
In this electrifying endeavor, he is making use of the expertise of Unplugged Performance, the frontrunners in Tesla modification, to maximize the performance of his electric powerhouse.
The partnership kicks off with massive strength… Unplugged Performance-supplied staggered 20″ UP-03 lightweight forged wheels, for which Bisi paired with 305-wide Toyo R888R tires in the rear and 275 in the front.
Unplugged Performance has also provided their billet adjustable rear camber and toe arms to nicely dial the alignment for optimized traction. This comes along with their tow hitch kit, and a specially designed parachute mount that anyone would admire.
That is pretty much in harmony with the requirement of the NHRA and IHRA for cars that exceed 150 mph in the quarter mile.
We have learned that this dynamic partnership between Bisimoto and Unplugged Performance is just the beginning because there’s so much more fans can enjoy.
The duo plans to team up further on product development in a bid to further enhance the drag racing capabilities of the Model S Plaid.
Bisimoto will be documenting every step of this electrifying journey so that interested individuals will be able to keep their tabs on every progress made.
Racing enthusiasts and electric vehicle aficionados alike can follow this captivating journey on Bisimoto’s YouTube and Instagram channels.
