Home
WOW! 20% Off a New Car- you gotta believe it.
Every so often a ‘deal of a lifetime’ comes across our desk. But, to be truthful, we’ve never had a deal like this before!
If you are thinking about buying a new BMW just have a look at this deal- it’s almost unbelievable, but true.
We can supply an almost new BMW Corporate 535i 2010 model saloon at $40,000 below retail. It’s Space Grey Metallic with Veneto Beige Dakota, has over $40,000 worth of extras, including adaptive drive, adaptive cruise control and virtually everything else you can think of. It retails for just over $190,000 but we can source it for you with a staggering 20% saving, and delivered to your doorstep.
If you are interested then contact FrankHough@privatefleet.com.au now before someone else snatches up this’ deal of a lifetime’!
Only in America – the Driverless Car.
Writers and filmmakers have always dreamed about cars that drive themselves – take Herbie, for example. Now scientists are getting in on the act and GM has come up with a “driverless car” – a car that really drives itself in much the same way that a UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) flies without a pilot.
Yes, you did read that right. GM have made a car that doesn’t need a driver. What’s more, the head of the driverless car project at General Motors, Raj Rajkumar, sounds pretty confident that this vehicle will be on our roads by 2015. So far, GM have managed to create a prototype, based on a Chevrolet Tahoe, that has been photographed whizzing around a test track. And they’ve taken it beyond the test track, apparently. This highly modified Chevy (it’s got a whole heap of gadgetry stuck on the roof) has been driven (or, more correctly, has driven itself) along public roads in California and managed to cross the Golden Gate Bridge without any untoward incidents.
The motivation behind this self-driving car is, apparently, safety. The idea is that a machine doesn’t get distracted by cellphones or kids in the back, suffer from Lead Foot Syndrome or misjudge a curve, and therefore drives within the speed limit and drives safely.
However, my personal opinion is that URVs (unmanned road vehicles – I made that term up) won’t be as popular as electric cars. Those of us who like to drive will hate these vehicles as things that spoil our fun – a self-driving car sounds about as bland and as boring as a food concentrate that delivers all the nutrients of an old-fashioned Sunday dinner straight into the stomach without the pleasures of taste and texture. And others of us who can take or leave driving are likely to be sceptical about leaving our safety completely in the hands of electronics. Electronics are wonderful when the work but I, for one, would not like to be a passenger in a driverless car that suddenly decided to go haywire at 100 km/h. And we’ve all got stories about when GPS navigation decided to send us along some peculiar route. What’s more, can these driverless cars detect and react to roos on the road, as often seen in the Outback? But then, on the other hand, we’ve all flown in planes with an autopilot function, so you could say that this is the motoring world catching up with aviation, which has had autopilot and UAVs for years. GM says that the car has got a manual over-ride, similar to the autopilot function in planes, so that is reassuring.
The brains behind the driverless car seem to be raving about how you can check your email, use your phone, read the paper and catch up with some paperwork while the car drives itself (it will alert you when it wants you to take over, apparently). Speaking for myself, I’d say that a vehicle that lets you do all this while you commute has already been invented: it’s called a bus.
What are your thoughts? Would you want a self-driving car or do you prefer to be well and truly behind the wheel?
Chery, Chery baby! Here comes another of China’s vehicle manufacturers!
At a time when the legendary Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons are actually performing a one off show live in Australia, how appropriate is it that Ateco have launched the new Chery brand. Sadly most of the demographic that they are targeted at have never heard of Frankie Valli, but go and see Jersey Boys and you will see the link, albeit a very bad play on words!
Chery is one of China’s largest auto manufacturers, making over 700,000 vehicles last year. In China, they offer 32 different models, from the very small, to sedans, SUVs and vans. Here, they are opening their account with just two models, the JI hatchback and the J11 compact SUV.
With prices from just $11990 drive away for the J1 and $19990 drive away for the J11, they will obviously attract some attention, especially given the standard features at this price level.
The J11 undercuts the most affordable SUV previously available in Australia, Suzuki’s Jimny ($20,490, plus on-road costs), by about $3000 and is also $4000 cheaper than Great Wall’s conceptually similar X240 ($23,990 drive-away).
For the startlingly low on-road price, which is at least $6000 less expensive than the lowest-priced small 2WD SUVs from mainstream brands, the J11 comes fully equipped with leather seat trim, air-conditioning, power windows and mirrors, a four-speaker CD/MP3 sound system, 16-inch alloy wheels, fog lights and remote central locking.
But what about safety? Yes, it is an issue and Ateco are saying that these initial offerings are 3 star safety rated. They only have two front airbags and they do not have electronic stability control (ESC) so they will not be initially for sale in Victoria as this is now mandated as a standard feature. However their 45 dealers spread across the nation are expecting to sell around 5000 Cherys this year, along with a 3 year , 100,000 klm warranty. That would be an amazing effort from a standing start.
Later in the year we will have a Corolla sized ‘J3’ which I am told will sell for under $25K with every option including leather and heated seats and I have no doubt that the next generation will have all of the expected safety features offered by their Japanese and Korean rivals and they will be snapped up.
Interestingly in Sydney, there are only 3 Dealers, all currently in the West, which shows they have done their demographic marketing and the vast majority of Dealers are in country areas, where Ateco believe the buyer is more frugal. Probably right!
Their marketing slogan is ‘Why would you pick anything else?’ and let’s face it, who wouldn’t prefer a brand new car with that new car smell, instead of the 5 year old Yaris or RAV4? Watch used small car resale values drop again as a result of this predatory pricing!
I think, barring any build quality disasters, Chery will very quickly get to where the Japanese did in 40 years and the Koreans have in 25. I firmly believe that if you build good looking, quality, safe, well specced, well priced cars the market will come to you. Ask Mazda and Hyundai!!
More on rising fuel costs
I filled up with fuel at the weekend and to my horror my turbo charged VW Eos demands 98 RON fuel and I paid a staggering $1.67 per litre! Since when did premium unleaded become 17cents more than normal unleaded?!
When 98RON fuel was first introduced it was around 6 cents a litre more than the standard stuff and fuel was around $1.15 per litre. So can anyone tell me what justification there is for this massive hike? Or is it just another example for the Oil companies taking us for a ride. Yes, there are more and more high performance cars demanding higher octane fuel, so are the Oil companies seizing on this to make even more profits? Surely not? They wouldn’t would they?
However, on the day, even normal unleaded was $149.9 per litre, albeit ‘down’ to $1.38 today and we are told that the situation in the Middle East, particularly Libya will see these numbers head towards $1.60 in the near future, making my fuel $1.77 per litre! Where will it all end? Remember our dollar is at near record levels against the US$, so if that went down as well we would be very quickly near the $2 mark. Our friends in New Zealand are already paying over NZ$2 per litre, so don’t think it won’t happen here.
What can you do about it?
Well, you can ditch the gas guzzling 6 or 8 cylinder, if you haven’t already, and do what the vast majority of us are doing now, drive a car with an engine smaller than 2 litres. The Poms have been doing this for 25 years. A 2 litre car is a big engine there, mind you there fuel is already well over $2 per litre and has been for some time.
You can ditch you existing high performance turbo 2 litre and buy something even more frugal and smaller, like a Ford Fiesta, Suzuki Alto or, dare I say, a Toyota Prius (don’t do it!). Actually all manufacturers are hell bent on reducing fuel economy and some of the new cars have previously unheard-of of fuel economy figures, down into the 4 litres per 100 klms, approaching 70 miles per gallon on the old scale.
Buy a modern diesel car, you will get fantastic economy and torquey performance without the rattle of a London cab, and better resale than its petrol equivalent, believe it or not.
How about driving more frugally? Now there’s an idea! A few simple tips will save you a fortune:
Keep your tyre pressures up. Low tyre pressures not only reduce tyre life, but increase fuel economy dramatically.
Take your golf clubs out of the boot, unless you are actually on the way to or from the golf course.
Take off from the lights smoothly; it is not a race and you will not get there any quicker, but you will save fuel if you accelerate smoothly. Look ahead and anticipate speed changes rather than hurtling up to the next traffic jam and slamming on the brakes. You will be amazed how much fuel you will save.
There are other tips as well, I think they are best noted on the NRMA site here http://www.mynrma.com.au/images/Motoring-PDF/NRMA_Top_Tips.pdf
Like it or not, I think these levels of fuel costs are here to stay, China and India’s thirst for oil, a reduction in supply, the Middle East crisis all point towards prices going up, so it is best to get used to it and do something about your personal fuel costs. Oh and you may even help the environment as well as your wallet!
Level 2, 9 Help Street