Seems like big changes at Renault. They are also letting 15,000 people go.

Covid-19 has fucked the car manufacturing industry. The whole shebang has been working on such tight efficiencies that a few months with less sales has pushed entire companies to the brink.

Renault’s sales have dropped by a fifth. Nissan are closing Spanish factories, dumping 3,000 jobs. McLaren have laid off 1,200 staff. Williams F1 is up for sale. VAG’s profits are down 81%.

MattyJ wrote:

Someone near me has an Alpine. Looks lovely

Yeah, they’re gorgeous cars. Best French motor since the 2CV, I reckon.

I was already into them just on looks and reputation, but after having a brief go of one I was looking up finance deals. And I’ve never considered buying a new car before.

Do we want to encourage stockpiling of cash in a slowed down economy. Shouldn't we be encouraging spending under these circumstances??

LivDiv wrote:

We should be encouraging stock piling of cash in the good times so that it can be spent in these times.

Thats what i meant

It seems like common sense, maybe all limited companies should be required to do so. You would hope some lessons would be learnt from this, wont happen. What will happen is limited companies exempt from ir35 will now go inside ir35 so the teasury can claw back more money. I know more than a few contractors who go fuck all help during this pandemic and are currently outside ir35. They have been told by their clients that they will go inside ir35 next april now. Was supposed to be this April originally

Just washed my car.
Yeah that's right I picked the one day it has rained in a record breaking dry spring to do it. What about it?

A lancer, isn't that Halo

I thought it was a bit like an Alfa.

Doesnt it get rid of dried on figs?
My parking space is below a fig tree and them fuckers are worse than wet tar.

afgavinstan wrote:

Handbrake light not turning off when disengaging it. Brake pedal as soft as a wet paper towel, not really responding until I push it right, right in. Today Gav you will learn about brake fluid...

So I get it and top it up and bleed it through. Colleague spots dripping by my rear driver side wheel. Joy.

Goin into the garage tomorrow hopefully.

Gav deffo get it a garage asap. Dont take risks with brakes. A while back with the missus and baby in the back he master cylinder went and the brake pedal got stuck to the floor on a dual carriageway. Kinda scary.

Missus car this weekend went in for a service and also needed ontop of that all 4 pads changing, two new discs for rear and two new calipers for rears. Fucking expensive. However i had a feeling the capliers had seized as it was making a horrible sound under 9/10, 10/10 breaking force. Not worth the risk.

I don't know anything about cars, just curious.

Oh yeah that brake thing was £144 and the garage (that I haven't used before) told me "there's a problem with our card machine" and didn't give me a record of work, so yeah that was a nice day off. Brakes are fine now.

I suspect that Tesla still won't have a genuinely 'affordable' car for sale worldwide within five years and, as Liv says, even with their current fairly rapid expansion in China and now starting to get things moving in Europe, it is likely that they will be struggling to meet manufacturing demand unless they partner with an existing manufacturer (which they have done in the past, albeit in a fairly low key way by helping to produce that manufacturer's product, e.g. electric Smart cars for Merc, rather than vice versa). I think they are safely past any potential failing point now though and will certainly be big in 2025!

Dinostar77 wrote:

Isnt boris supposed to be introducing a upto £6000 discount on hybrid cars sometime in july?

What I heard is that it would be £6000 for scrapping an existing vehicle and replacing it with a new electric one. Whilst I decided to cancel my unused Tesla Model 3 deposit earlier in the year (which I effectively used to justify a purchase of a Valve Index...), I am becoming increasingly tempted to grab a Tesla-approved used Model S (some of which are cheaper than a new Model 3) to provide flexibility in getting around as travel opens up again, but this discount wouldn't help me given my lack of an existing vehicle and likelihood of going second-hand. I'll keep an eye on what, if anything, is announced though. Ideally, the Model Y would be available here already because that looks like being by far the best Tesla vehicle to date...