New car sales crash....

lostinrates

Realy wrote: »

Hydrogen is the future if we can extract it cheaper.

Problem with the semi-electric cars is the disposal of the batteries they are no where near green.

Hydrogn....and deal with the storage!

Re disposal...I think thats really rather the point, for a greener world car sales figures would STAY down, people replacing when the car is really defunct, or not fit for purpose, what ever the fuel source!

lostinrates

Snooze wrote: »

I've finally got rid of my Mondeo after 4 months of trying to flog it. The car market is seriously on its @rse.

I fell into the house-selling trap of chasing the market down because I didn't want to believe that it really wasn't worth what I thought it was worth. In the end I lost £3600 in 6 months between the price I paid and the price I sold it for :eek: .

Rob

I was advertising mine for around six months at half of cheapest list value (ono:rolleyes: )three years ago (its a smallish car and I was moving abroad in the car and a biggr car would have been useful) I got only on bite from a young chap who found th insurance would b too high for him and it worked out 'cheaper' for him to buy new, on 0% financ with his insurance paid:rolleyes: :rolleyes: So I kept my car and put a roof rack on it

Microstar_2

I own an independent used car dealership. We're finding that anything small and economical still makes fairly strong money. Anything above medium size (bigger than Focus/Astra) is struggling. Performance segment (Subaru Impreza, Honda Type-R etc) is very weak and 4x4/SUV is pretty much dead. Lifestyle cars like Mini and RAV4 have also taken a bad knock.
The franchised dealerships are saddled with massive costs (meeting manufacturer standards) and new car sales have dropped off a cliff. There is a lot of self-registration going on (i.e. new car 'real' sales are even lower than being quoted) and there are a lot of these cars in the system which are depreciating fast and will need to be pushed through sooner or later. The big car storage centres are full of cars at the moment.
I think that sooner or later there will be a once in a lifetime shakeup of the franchised dealer business model. Its not working. Dealers are spending a fortune on premises and overheads and making 1-2% on new car sales. They have milked servicing for all its worth (which is why you pay £100+ hour for servicing), but customers are now baulking at that and as service volumes fall a lot of dealers are pushing labour rates even higher to compensate!
I guess the only thing worse than being a franchised dealer at the moment is being an estate agent.

Really2

lostinrates wrote: »

Hydrogn....and deal with the storage!

Re disposal...I think thats really rather the point, for a greener world car sales figures would STAY down, people replacing when the car is really defunct, or not fit for purpose, what ever the fuel source!

Hydrogen is explosive but at least its slightly better than burning to death.;) They have already done Hydrogen fuel cell cars. I think you can buy liquid hydrogen in some places (or was that a dream).
Just to produce it uses electrolysis which obviously uses electricity = burning fossil fuels.

lostinrates

Its not just the risk Really2, its the insurers opinion of the risk......

Really2

lostinrates wrote: »

Its not just the risk Really2, its the insurers opinion of the risk......

I don't think hrdrogen cars pose any greater risk.

Link on one of the cars.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/driving/features/article2744803.ece

Insurance risk is usulay based on the driver than the nature of the car.
Fuel is Fuel 1ltr of petrol and 1ltr of hydrogen will both make a mess.
But they make the fuel cells very hard to Break

lostinrates

Really2 wrote: »

I don't think hrdrogen cars pose any greater risk.

Link on one of the cars.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/driving/features/article2744803.ece

Not to the cars, to the storage. Only reason I know this is an issue is one of the things my father was doing recently was working out if it was a viable option for who he works for. (They currently hold a reasonable sized traditional fuel store, but were thinking of thisfor a new site) and he was muttering in a blue fashion about insurance.

Really2

lostinrates wrote: »

Not to the cars, to the storage. Only reason I know this is an issue is one of the things my father was doing recently was working out if it was a viable option for who he works for. (They currently hold a reasonable sized traditional fuel store, but were thinking of thisfor a new site) and he was muttering in a blue fashion about insurance.

See what you meanknow. I dont think the risk would be that much more but the cost of new tanks, the cost of those I should imagine would cost a fortune as it has be stored under high presure (thus pushing up insurance)

I am not sure if existing LPG tanks would be able to store hydrogen I should imagine they could.

lostinrates

Really2 wrote: »

See what you meanknow. I dont think the risk would be that much more but the cost of new tanks and the cost of those I should imagine would cost a fortune as it has to be stored under high presure (thus pushing up insurance)

I am not sure if existin LPG tanks would be able to store hydrogen I should imagine they could.

Have no idea what they would store it in...

Sorry for being unclear re-the insurers costs at first.