The inconvenient truth about electric car sales

HERE’S some shocking news you probably weren’t expecting – sales of electric cars have gone through the roof!

That’s the message from the Department for Transport, which is proudly trumpeting the fact that sales of what it calls Ultra Low Emissions Vehicles are up 366 per cent from this time last year. That’s plain English for not only the likes of Nissan’s LEAF, which run on electricity alone, but plug-in hybrids like Toyota’s Prius, which lace the eco-friendly cocktail with a spot of petrol power to spice longer journeys up a bit. It’s a huge rise, which is why the Government’s just committed to chucking half a billion quid at boosting ULEV sales.

But – surprise, surprise – there’s a catch. Dig a little harder into the figures Whitehall would rather you didn’t read and it turns out it’s not quite the miracle you’d think.

Yes, sales of the sort of eco-friendly offerings that get Whitehall’s official stamp of approval – and for that, you need fewer than 75g of carbon dioxide to escape from your tailpipe, or preferably none at all – are three times what they were a year ago. In the first four months of this year, Britain took 9,046 of them to its bosom. To put that into context, the total for all vehicles – cars, vans, buses, bikes, the lot – was 872,000. In other words, even with the huge surge in popularity the eco-friendly ones the Government’s so keen to push make up barely one per cent of the total.

It’d be tempted to sign off in the same way my Maths teacher used to when I tried to pull a statistical fast one – a terse ‘must try harder’ – but that’d be skipping an even more inconvenient truth. You shouldn’t dismiss the eco-friendly offerings as sales also-rans, because they’re getting ever better.

The prototype electric MINI I remember driving five years ago – which had batteries so enormous they took up the back seat area and made the whole car feel weirdly leaden – has evolved into the brilliant BMW i3 and its i8 supercar sibling, the latter of which surely qualifies as the first truly cool plug-in hybrid. The Nissan LEAF might not be my cup of tea but you can’t fault its ability to do humdrum hatchback things on volts alone. Best of all, the pub argument credentials for my favourite electric car – the mildly wacky Renault Twizy – has been strengthened by the fact Sir Stirling Moss has recently bought one. Oh, and it’s mid-engined, rear-wheel-drive and tuned by the same people who do the Renaultsport Clio.

If you’re seriously thinking of getting a ULEV, don’t do it because it ticks the bureaucratic boxes. Do it because – once you get past the environmental flim-flam – some of them are actually really good. That’s the real shock behind the sales figures.

The answer to car accident cold callers is in the air tonight

IT MIGHT be the middle of summer but it’s a frosty January night that’s haunting me at the moment.

Regular readers might remember that about 18 months ago, my misfortunate Mondeo got pranged up the backside by a BMW that failed to stop in time. The crumpled repmobile was a write-off, but I was unharmed and got a cheque in the post for the damage. To be honest, I’d totally forgotten about it. Unfortunately, as it turns out, the world of telemarketing hasn’t.

It used to be occasional but now different call centres are calling – sometimes as often as four times as day – demanding to know why I haven’t taken out the compensation I’m owed for something that happened 18 months ago. They’re not interested when I politely explain I wasn’t injured. Nope, my neck doesn’t creak in pain when I get up in the morning, and I definitely don’t want to make my insurance – and yours, for that matter – even more expensive for claiming compo for an injury I clearly don’t have.

Not good enough, they reckon. So they ring back, over and over again, hoping I’ll change my mind. It is infuriating, particularly when their numbers – which usually purport to be from call centres in Manchester and Liverpool – don’t accept calls coming back the other way.

Seeing as I’ve asked them to remove my number from their database – which they’ve point blank refused – I’ve got creative instead. Sometimes I’ll read them extracts of poetry or road tests from Auto Express. Sometimes I’ll slip into my schoolboy French and test my ability at ordering baguettes from the nearest boulingerie. My latest wheeze is to regale them with my cover versions of Phil Collins’ greatest hits. In The Air Tonight is particularly good at getting personal injury compensation firms to hang up!

In all seriousness though, I know I’m not the only one being harassed and hounded by these companies – a quick straw poll of my fellow Facebookers the other day revealed a litany of fellow motorists whose lives are being made a misery by cold callers who’ve been given access to your insurance details.

They are rude, won’t take no for an answer and insist on going over what can be very unpleasant motoring memories, over and over again. Their nasty brand of pressuring people over the phone is also part of the reason so many spurious whiplash claims are being chased – something even the Transport Committee down at Westminster reckons is a big problem.

The best advice I can offer to anyone in the same boat is get your number registered with the Telephone Preference Service.That or brush up on your karaoke skills for when the call inevitably comes. I think next week my friends at the call centre will be treated to The Human League’s back catalogue!

Why Britain needs the Mitsuoka Roadster - even if you hate it

APOLOGIES if you’ve come here expecting a thorough dusting down of the new Vauxhall Astra.

As family-friendly hatches go it’s hugely important, given that it’s built in this neck of the woods and if you aren’t buying one, chances are you’ll know someone who’ll inevitably get assigned one by their fleet manager.

But while I’m looking forward to getting a go in one it’s not the snippet of motoring news that registers highest on the Simister-ometer. New Vauxhall Astras come along every couple of years. Someone deciding they’re going to import offerings from Japan’s weirdest car company, on the other hand, is genuinely curious stuff. A warm welcome, then, to Mitsuoka!

Chances are you’ve no idea who or what a Mitsuoka is, because for years they’ve been confined to the Japan. In essence what the company does it tap into the Orient’s obsession with woolly British nostalgia by taking other company’s models and then giving them the sort of radiator grille you’d normally find on a Morris Oxford. Ever seen those Nissan Micras rejigged to look a (tiny) bit like a Jaguar Mk2? That’s Mitsuoka’s handiwork. As is the Galue, a mid-range Nissan made to look like a 1950s Bentley.

Until now, these utterly Marmite and endearingly odd cars have only ventured over here through the world of unofficial imports, but now you can buy one of its cars in Britain for the first time. The Mitsuoka Roadster might very well be a Mazda MX-5 pretending to be a Morgan at a fancy dress party – and it might cost a eyebrow-raising £54,000 – but it’s that rare thing. It’s a brand new car that’s positively overflowing with charm and character.

The Surrey firm who’ve taken the brave decision to import it reckon it’ll sell because there are lots of you out there who love the look of Britain’s classic cars but can’t be bothered spending every weekend in the garage, spanner in hand. That’s why it’s got a grille clearly nicked off your granddad’s Daimler Majestic, and then nailed onto a car with a folding metal roof, ABS and automatic air con.

It’ll be a tall order flogging us Brits a Mitsuoka Roadster when it costs two grand more than a Porsche Boxster S, but I reckon after the departure of Daihatsu there’s room for another oddball manufacturer from the Far East.

No matter how horrifically retro its offerings look.

TVR is back - but patience is a virtue

IT'S GREAT news that TVR is back.

After so many rumours and false starts it finally looks as though things are looking up for my favourite manufacturer. Les Edgar, the current company boss, didn't do a Lotus and promise the world all sorts of exotic appetisers when he bought the defunct manufacturer back in 2013.

What he did instead was quietly assemble a team, worked out what he wanted to do and then went off and did it - and what he's come back with is a design partnership with McLaren F1 design legend Gordon Murray, an engine agreement with Cosworth - yes, as in Escort Cosworth fame - and plans for four new models. I'd normally say I can't wait, but in this case I - and every other sports car nut - will have to wait two years.

Which - if you're familiar with the world of British sports cars - is a rare bit of common sense.

For every MG or Morgan the British landscape is littered with defunct sports car names who undid themselves with overambitious - and not terribly well thought out - ideas. Remember the Delfino Ferroce? Or the Strathcarron SC-5A? Or the Dare DZ? Of course you don't, but I remember all of them being touted during my motoring youth as brilliant new ways of cracking the sports car nut. Of all those two-seater hopefuls that bit of history I can only think of one - the Ariel Atom - that's pulled it off.

TVR, of course, was at one point the dominant force in British sports cars but prudence wasn't exactly its strong point. Rather than honing its existing offerings - the wonderful Chimaera and Griffith - it decided to ditch its supply of Rover V8s and come with its own engines, go racing at Le Mans and create the Cerbera Speed 12, a car so powerful it broke the machine used to test it. Like all good parties, it had a colossal hangover, and the Blackpool factory closed its doors nearly a decade ago.

That's why I'm glad - from the initial signs at least - Mr Edgar isn't over-egging the pudding. He's realised he can't do it alone and teamed up with some of the best brains in the British car industry, and more importantly he's taking his time to get it right.

I'm sure I can't be the only petrolhead who'd rather wait two years for TVR to get its revival just right than to have another Delfino Ferroce rushed into the showrooms. If you've ever listened to a Griffith at a set of lights or watched a Tuscan being thrashed at a track day you'll realise those three letters mean so much more than something you order at a cocktail bar and that it's important its custodians don't cock it up.

No rush, chaps. No rush at all!

Vauxhall unveils new Astra

VAUXHALL has unveiled its new Astra, which will go into production here in the North West later this year.

The seventh-generation model – which will its predecessors will be bolted together at Ellesmere Port – is 200kg lighter than the outgoing car and is available with a new range of engines, including the company’s 145bhp 1.4-litre turbocharged petrol unit.

It’ll be officially unveiled at the Frankfurt Motor Show in September, with prices announced later this year.