Great Panacea - 1 September 2020

FOLLOW UP: INEOS SET TO BE SMART ABOUT THEIR FACTORY

Ineos is in advanced talks with Daimler, over purchasing their Smart factory in France. A bid has been tabled, with the expectation that a deal will be reached soon. This means that the Portugal and Bridgend plants will be shelved. To read more, click the CarScoops article here.

FOLLOW UP: CYBERSECURITY FIRM HIRED TO TEST NISSAN IN 2018

Hari Nada, Nissan Senior Vice President, brought in French cybersecurity firm Waveform, to run a pentest on Nissan in 2018. This is being made out as an attempt to hack Ghosn’s emails, which it is not. When running a pentest you keep as few people as possible in the loop. Question marks will be raised if this invalidates Nissan’s submitted information, as this happened at the same time as Nada was helping authorities. To read more, click The Drive article here.

MINI OXFORD REDUCING WORKFORCE

The Mini plant, in Oxford, is shedding nearly 400 agency staff due to a reduction in demand. As the chaps have discussed before, this is a typical move by car plants, to reduce agency workers in times when demand dips. However, in this instance, there will also be a small number of MINI staff who will be offered redundancy and early retirement. To read more, click the BBC News article here.

GREEN NUMBERPLATES GO ON TRIAL

Nissan dealers are trialling the use of the green segment of numberplates of EVs. The Government will be fully introducing the scheme before the end of the year. Other countries which have adopted this claim that it encourages others to buy zero-emission vehicles. To read more, click the Fleetworld article here.

EU GAINS POWERS TO ENFORCE CAR RECALLS ACROSS EUROPE

The EU has taken the step of adding the power to over-ride an individual country’s vehicle authority and demand recalls. To read more, click the Reuters article here.

SCOTTISH LOW EMISSION ZONES TIMETABLE

The Scottish Government has released information on their proposed timetable to introduce low emission zones to Glasgow, Aberdeen, Dundee and Edinburgh, in 2022. This had been paused due to the pandemic, however, the clear expectation in this announcement is that life will be more or less back to normal by early 2022. To read more, click the Scottish Government article here.

DVSA SITE CRASHES AFTER SURGE OF TEST APPLICATIONS

Learner drivers attempting to book practical tests have been struggling to do so as the site has crashed by the sheer volume of those visiting. There are only a limited number of slots available, which get released in batches. To read more, click the Autocar article here.

Driving licenses, that are due to expire, up to December 2020, will automatically be extended for 11 months from the date of expiry. To read more, click the...

FOLLOW UP: INEOS SET TO BE SMART ABOUT THEIR FACTORY

Ineos is in advanced talks with Daimler, over purchasing their Smart factory in France. A bid has been tabled, with the expectation that a deal will be reached soon. This means that the Portugal and Bridgend plants will be shelved. To read more, click the CarScoops article here.

FOLLOW UP: CYBERSECURITY FIRM HIRED TO TEST NISSAN IN 2018

Hari Nada, Nissan Senior Vice President, brought in French cybersecurity firm Waveform, to run a pentest on Nissan in 2018. This is being made out as an attempt to hack Ghosn’s emails, which it is not. When running a pentest you keep as few people as possible in the loop. Question marks will be raised if this invalidates Nissan’s submitted information, as this happened at the same time as Nada was helping authorities. To read more, click The Drive article here.

MINI OXFORD REDUCING WORKFORCE

The Mini plant, in Oxford, is shedding nearly 400 agency staff due to a reduction in demand. As the chaps have discussed before, this is a typical move by car plants, to reduce agency workers in times when demand dips. However, in this instance, there will also be a small number of MINI staff who will be offered redundancy and early retirement. To read more, click the BBC News article here.

GREEN NUMBERPLATES GO ON TRIAL

Nissan dealers are trialling the use of the green segment of numberplates of EVs. The Government will be fully introducing the scheme before the end of the year. Other countries which have adopted this claim that it encourages others to buy zero-emission vehicles. To read more, click the Fleetworld article here.

EU GAINS POWERS TO ENFORCE CAR RECALLS ACROSS EUROPE

The EU has taken the step of adding the power to over-ride an individual country’s vehicle authority and demand recalls. To read more, click the Reuters article here.

SCOTTISH LOW EMISSION ZONES TIMETABLE

The Scottish Government has released information on their proposed timetable to introduce low emission zones to Glasgow, Aberdeen, Dundee and Edinburgh, in 2022. This had been paused due to the pandemic, however, the clear expectation in this announcement is that life will be more or less back to normal by early 2022. To read more, click the Scottish Government article here.

DVSA SITE CRASHES AFTER SURGE OF TEST APPLICATIONS

Learner drivers attempting to book practical tests have been struggling to do so as the site has crashed by the sheer volume of those visiting. There are only a limited number of slots available, which get released in batches. To read more, click the Autocar article here.

Driving licenses, that are due to expire, up to December 2020, will automatically be extended for 11 months from the date of expiry. To read more, click the HonestJohn article here.

NANTES INTRODUCES 30KPH LIMIT

Nantes is the latest French city to introduce a speed limit of 30kph, to almost everywhere, in an attempt to reduce noise, pollution and improve safety. To read more, click the Connexion France article here.

GREEN KING INSTALLING EV CHARGERS

Green King intendeds to have installed chargers to 900 premises across the UK, by the end of 2020. As the chaps have said, pubs and restaurants make an ideal place to install rapid chargers. To read more, click the Independent article here.

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GIVEAWAY COMPETITION TIME

After realising we were about to hit our 350th episode and our 5th year anniversary, almost at the last second, we joked how we are hopeless at celebrating milestones. Thankfully some wonderful people listen to us, Phil Huff (of FrontSeat fame) and James Rüppert (Mr Bangernomics) have donated prizes for a giveaway.

By answering the question in the episode, via our contact form on the site and using the word COMPETITION in the subject line, you could win a Lego Speed Champions McLaren 720S and a copy of the book Bangernomics: Rebooted.

To go directly to our Contact Form, click here.

If you like what we do, on this show, and think it is worth a £1.00, please consider supporting us via Patreon. Here is the link to that CLICK HERE TO SUPPORT THE PODCAST

FORMULA E: WHY DO DRIVERS LEAVE BMW

Sam Smith, writing on The Race, makes an interesting point, why do so many good drivers leave BMW? Sims is the latest, who we talked about last week, and is moving to Mahindra. We encourage you to read this article and share your thoughts with us, why do you think they leave? To read more, click the article here.

TOUR AUTO CURRENTLY UNDERWAY IN FRANCE

For those, who are in France, who like a classic car the delayed Tour Auto is underway. To find out if you can visit, or if you just want to follow the Twitter account, click the link here.

NEW REVS EVENT TAKING PLACE

Refuelled and Ready will be the third event set up and run by Adam Gompertz, via the REVS Facebook page, due to run from 09:30 on 12 September. Click here for the Classic & Sports Car article explaining all the details here.

LUNCHTIME READ: THE HAUNTING ABANDONED WRECKS OF RURAL FRANCE

For our Lunchtime Read we turn to Autocar, with a wonderful and at times bleak slideshow, of abandoned and rotting cars found in France. Each photograph has a snippet of information about the car rusting away. To read more, click the article here.

LIST OF THE WEEK: 50 CARS TO DRIVE AT LEAST ONCE

Again we are with Autocar and Andrew Frankel, who has compiled a list of 50 cars we all need to drive, for a variety of reasons. After running through the list, the chaps realise they can only tick off a woefully small number. To run through the list, click the link here.

AND FINALLY: TOYOTA’S LUNAR VEHICLE IS NAMED

The joint venture between Toyota and JAXA, for manned exploration of the lunar surface, has named the vehicle to be used. They will use a Lunar Cruiser, taken from the dependable Land Cruiser of Earth fame. To read more, click the Toyota press release here.

AND FINALLY FINALLY: ZOOM ZOOMERS CALL

Alan takes part in a gathering of folks from the motoring world, on a Monday night, run by Damien Cross. If you would like to see last Monday’s meet up please click the YouTube link here.