Are Petrol Heads Are Hiding When It Comes To Sales

Diesel Is Winning The Battle For Used Car Sales. _ But EV May Be Forced On Us!

Drive Tribe may be the spiritual home of the ‘Petrol Head’ so this might sound a little like ‘The Adhan’ playing outside St Paul’s Cathedral, but where car sales are concerned; and this is predominantly about volume of sales, petrol is losing the battle to diesel, despite the perpetual hate campaign against it.

However, Drive Triber Jeremy Clarkson, wrote in 2014 about Diesel, and his point remains true, new diesels, especially 4 years on from the ubiquitous Jeremy are actually ok and not the problem when it comes to air pollution, I also agree with his last point in this quoted article too, but that’s not the point, I’m making. Diesel cars, aren’t the work of the devil, but ARE less favoured by the real, true petrol head.

Despite this, they are seriously popular given sales reports issued this week for April 2018. With Auto Trader revealing that despite wider market challenges, diesel was the UK’s fastest-selling used vehicle car fuel type in April, going on to state that of the 13 regions and countries tracked, seven diesel-powered vehicles featured as the fastest-sellers.

Karolina Edwards-Smajda, director of Retailer & Consumer Products at Auto Trader, was quoted saying: “It’s hugely reassuring to see that at a time when diesels are under growing pressure within the new car market, second hand diesels continue to show their resilience.” Going on to say with sellers in mind “And despite the negative headlines, diesels still offer excellent profit potential.”

So is the Petrol Head dying being replaced with the Diesel Block? Or simply that Diesel still offers good value for the buyer and seller combined and we are all collectively ignoring the plea to drive something powered by witch-craft? EV if it is a solution needs to step up a gear or two soon, if it is to attract both Petrol Heads and Diesel Blockers, as currently it is fighting a losing battle.

The sizeable shift to Diesel might though be a last hoorah for the farmer’s choice of fuel as drivers look to establish a final top up on MPG before being forced to take EV, a Hobson’s choice which might arrive sooner than we think. As (news and announcements have been less than well publicised but) in just 11 months you will NOT be able to drive in some parts of London unless you own either a Pure electric vehicle (EV), a Plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV) or an Extended-Range electric vehicle (E-REV).

As from April 2019 the Ultra Low Emission Zone [ULEZ] will replace the T-Charge and operate in the same area, alongside the congestion charge but (unlike the T-Charge and Congestion Charge, which are only in place on weekdays) it will operate 24 hours a days, seven days a week, 365 days a year. Watch-out the rest of the UK, as it will spread as the idea is latched onto by other councils bereft of their own.

So an EV it will be (eventually) for all of us!

But as I’ve said previously the choice is not massive (unlike the costs) and many buyers and dealers, not to mention the government are confused as to what is good and what is bad, so until then the tide has turned (again) towards Diesel, and unless another VW Diesel-gate appears on the horizon Oil-burners might stay around a while.

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Comments (2)

  • "So an EV it will be (eventually) for all of us!"

    Respectfully, I disagree. EV as a concept is riddled with half-arsedness, expense, assumed ecology where none exists and problems with both storage and delivery of electricity. Even a diesel in the worst case scenario of no residual value makes better sense from both a financial and convenience viewpoint.

    Let's wait for a few years to see how the early adopters cope when their shiny iCar needs a new cell pack before we start predicting an en-masse shift to the battery powered electro-jalopy paradigm, assuming the lights stay on long enough to charge the bloody things for the five years it's going to take for the cell pack to die. All the regulations can do is artificially narrow the financial gap between ICE and EV to the detriment of those of us who can see the emperor is committing indecent exposure, which will become apparent when the millennial cutting-edgers realise that their EV "one moving part" rhetoric is a crock of horse-feathers and the most expensive and environmentally toxic non-moving part is a consumable item.

    You Prius puritans can sit back down, too, because once your cell pack is dead you're driving a petrol, except that it is still trying to use the dead battery and sending all that energy into a black hole, so the little Fiat 500 Air, which probably has the worst efficiency in the history of three-potters... ...in the world, if the consumption figures are to be believed, is more ecologically sound than your smugmobile with a duff PP9. Certainly anything with a conventional drivetrain is more efficient at this point, down to and including that clapped-out Sierra with no door the same colour you wish your neighbour would get rid of. You know what else? Those cell packs will never be replaced after the first time a Pious driver gets a quote for a new one. It's much easier to just rely on the badge to get the admiration of the deluded.

    Note that Mr May's assertion that diesel-electric is hybrid technology¹ is comparing apples to oranges. The reason why diesel-electric works for railways is that a) it can distribute the power between more driven wheels than a direct drive without complex transfer mechanisms and b) railways tend to be flatter than Norfolk.

    ¹ Geoff/Eagle-i HammerThrustHead thing episode.

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