Guest Blog

Dealerships must act immediately to rapidly increase sales of electric vehicles ahead of January’s zero emission vehicle (ZEV) mandate. Manufacturers will already be setting much higher EV targets for dealerships to avoid potentially eye-watering fines. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has already announced that, despite diluting net zero policies, the government still requires more than half of new cars in the ...

Attention of late has mainly been on the larger players in our sector – the long drawn out sale of Pendragon, the UK dealer group to an even larger group (probably Lithia, but we don’t yet know for certain). There is the continuing saga of would-be used car disruptor Cazoo desperately trying to cling on to what is left of ...

There’s a lot of chatter about the pros and cons of electric vehicles (EVs) at the moment, but there’s still an elephant in the room with EV ownership: We don’t have enough technicians to fix them when they go wrong, or to maintain them for the future. The Institute of the Motor Industry (IMI) issued a report in June which ...

Although my blog relates to one of the main headlines to hit the UK news last week, my point is relevant to readers of this blog everywhere – so read on, I’ve not turned UK-centric! The big news story was that the UK Government confirmed rumours that have been building for a while that the ban on the sale of ...

Very quickly following Wednesday’s late afternoon pronouncement by the Prime Minister, the light dawned on those of us working in automotive that there was a serious disconnect. A sector that had already been working hard to overcome a lack of any clear strategy for the 2030 deadline now finds itself caught between a rock and a hard place. The shift ...

News that US dealer group Lithia has agreed to buy Pendragon’s UK auto retail and leasing operations represents the latest significant development in the UK car retailing landscape. Lithia’s move, which follows on from their purchase of the 50 outlet Jardine business, and last week’s news that the Financial Conduct Authority had given the go-ahead for the takeover of Lookers ...

Interesting news this morning which has ramifications beyond the UK concerning Pendragon, ranked the seventh largest dealer group in Europe in ICDP’s 2022 rankings. The business has been ‘in play’ for some years, since the Hedin Group first bought a stake in 2019, subsequently attracting formal offers from both Hedin and Lithia. Although still subject to shareholder agreement, Pendragon announced ...

The motor industry is going green. In all areas of life, we have a moral obligation to reuse, recycle, upcycle and to look after what we have in order to reduce waste and mitigate the environmental impact of manufacturing new single-use products. The motor industry is no different, and is already working hard to cut its carbon footprint.   In 2022 ...

The first significant class action type legal case against motor finance providers over commissions has started, with a ‘collective actions’ application filed in early August at the Competition Appeals Tribunal. The claims are against loan providers Black Horse, Santander Consumer and MotoNovo Finance, for used car agreements between 2015 and 2021. Here’s five key points about the case, which – ...

Dealers can offer long-term care packages on 73-plate cars to avoid part-exchange workshop meltdowns. Some franchised dealers are turning away retail repair and maintenance work to process the volume of part-exchanges generated by the introduction of the new 73-plate. We believe this year’s improved supply of new vehicles could see a return to pre-Covid sales volumes for the September plate-change ...