Dacia enters UK van market with Duster Commercial

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Dacia has reversed a previous decision not to import the van version of its Duster 4WD into the UK and announced that it will now be available in right-hand drive format, with first deliveries expected at the end of June.

Dacia Duster van

The Dacia Duster Commercial van model will soon be available in the UK.

Interstingly, the firm says that one of the main factors behind the decision was demand from Dacia Ireland, where car-derived vans account for 30% of the van market — suggesting that the Irish van market is very different to that in the UK.

Getting back to the Duster Commercial, this van — which offers a similar loadspace to the old Astravan — will be available in 2WD and 4WD format and will offer a loadspace of up to 1,150 litres and a payload of 550kg. The flat cargo deck will be almost 1.4m long and more than 1m wide between the wheel arches.

Dacia Duster Commercial load compartment

The Duster Commercial has a payload of 550kg and loadspace of up to 1,150 litres

Dacia has sold more than 16,000 Dusters in the UK since launching the car here in January 2013, and the Commercials will add to the sales potential of the range.

The Duster Commercial is available solely with a 1.5-litre, 107 hp dCi 110 diesel engine, but offer buyers the choice of Ambiance or Lauréate equipment packages, each with the option of two- or four-wheel drive.

Standard equipment on all models includes roof bars, a chrome grille, chrome interior highlights, a toughened plastic floor with two anchorage points, electric front windows, a height-adjustable steering wheel and driver’s seat, luggage area lighting, a four-speaker radio/CD player with MP3 compatibility, Bluetooth, AUX and USB sockets, ABS with Emergency Brake Assist, Electronic Stability Control and Traction Control and four airbags. The Lauréate specification adds distinctly un-Dacia like items such as door sill protectors and a seven-function trip computer.

Dacia Duster Commercial interior

Inside the Duster Commercial: what’s not to like?

Because the Duster Commercial is classed as a van, owners can reclaim the VAT on the purchase price, and they attract flat-rate benefit-in-kind taxation for users.

Prices for the Duster Commercial will start from £9,595 +VAT for a 2WD Ambiance model and rise to £12,545 +VAT for a 4WD Lauréate model. For my money, the pick of the range will be the Ambiance 4×4 at £11,295 +VAT: buying a Dacia and then paying extra for luxury fripperies seems to defeat the purpose of buying a budget brand in the first place.

Shocking safety record of van operators revealed

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Busy motorway at twilightVan operators have long benefited from a light-touch, self-regulatory regime that leaves them largely free to operate as they wish, without any of the costly regulation with which lorry operators must comply.

The problem is that having been given an inch, van operators appear to be determined to take a mile, according to industry body the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT).

For example, 63% of the 10,800 vans stopped by the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA) at the roadside each year have a serious mechanical defect, while 93% are overloaded. You may say that the DVSA’s roadside inspectors are skilled at cherry-picking the most troublesome vans — and perhaps they are — but they really shouldn’t find it this easy to spot non-compliant vehicles.

Van operators’ sloppy and careless attitude extends to maintenance, too: 50% of vans fail their MOT test at the first attempt, compared to just 22% of HGVs, whose operators pay a hefty fee each year for an operating licence, which they can lose if their vehicles incur too many violations.

Currently, goods vehicles under 3.5t are exempt from these operating licence requirements, but if the UK’s 3.2m vans were to be made subject to the same £401 licence issue fee and £275 licence application as HGVs, the cost could run to £2.1bn.

Although there has been no move so far to make Operator Licensing rules apply to vans, the regulations and safety records around light goods vehicles are facing increased scrutiny. Van operators owe it to themselves and to other road users to improve their record in these areas, before the government decides to force them to — perhaps in the wake of a particularly horrific accident caused by an illegally-operated van.

In the time it takes you to read this, someone will buy a Ford Transit

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Ford Transit and Ford Transit CustomThe Transit nameplate celebrates its 50th anniversary this year, and according to Ford, more than 8 million Transit and Transit Custom units have now been sold, meaning that on average, one new Transit has been sold every 180 seconds for the last 50 years!

Lined up end-to-end, 50 years of Transits would circle the globe, but the latest expanded Transit line-up features four all-new models – Transit, Transit Custom, Transit Connect and Transit Courier — not just one.

As a two-time Transit owner myself, I’ve done my bit — but collectively, these vans are boosting demand for Ford commercial vehicles, with sales at an all-time high in March up 43 per cent at 16,497, compared with March 2014.

“The Ford Transit has touched the lives of most of us,” said Mark Ovenden, chairman and managing director, Ford of Britain. “From house moves to moving people, the Ford Transit is an essential tool to get the job done. It has become a mobile office or workshop for some – and loved by us all.”

Ford Transit Supervan 3The Transit has evolved considerably over the years, with a range of bodystyles, plus technical advances such as side-loading doors, radial ply tyres and halogen headlights, to direct injection diesel engines, high security locks and standard anti-lock brakes.

In addition to this, there have also been a number of one-offs and specials, most notably the Cosworth V8-powered Supervans (Supervans 1 and 2, 3 and 4).

The success of the Transit has seen production expand beyond Europe, including facilities in Nanchang, China.

In 2014 the Transit entered North America for the first time, with the all-new two-tonne Transit being built in Kansas City, Mo, as part of Ford’s drive to standardise its model range across the globe.

Van operators could save £2.6bn per year by switching to electric, says manufacturers

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Nissan e-NV200 electric van at CV ShowThe cost of running almost half (48%) of the vans of the UK’s roads could be reduced if the vans’ owners were willing to switch to ultra-low emission electric and hybrid models, according to a new campaign backed by leading vehicle manufacturers*, the Office for Low Emission Vehicles and the SMMT.

Go Ultra Low has been setup to demonstrate the money-saving benefits of choosing low emission vehicles to the UK’s business owners. According to the group, UK commercial vehicle operators are currently missing out on up to £2.6bn per year in fuel savings alone.

The survey’s findings are an uncanny echo of a 2013 Nissan campaign, which also suggested that, er, 48% of operators could save by making the switch to electric. Nissan’s e-NV200 electric van is one of the most successful electric models to date and the firm is, of course, a member of the Go Ultra Low campaign. I do wonder just how new these calculations on potential savings are, however — not least because diesel prices are significantly lower than in 2013…

Anyway, according to Go Ultra Low, millions of operators running small and medium-sized vans as back-to-base or short-haul vehicles (a very common scenario with vans) could profit by switching to pure-electric vans (e.g. the Nissan e-NV200 and Renault Kangoo Van Z.E.) and plug-in hybrids (e.g. the Mitsubishi Outlander 4Work).

This is a song I’ve sung on these pages many times before, and I remain convinced that the numbers add up despite the fall in diesel prices we’ve seen over the last six months. If you’re still not convinced, it’s worth noting that the typical fuel saving from switching to an electric van is £1,459 per vehicle, per year, based on an annual average mileage of 20,000. That’s not small change and equates to nearly half the annual fuel bill for a van doing 20,000 per year, based on my calculations.

On top of this, ultra-low emission vehicles (ULEVs), with CO2 emissions of less than 75g/km, all exempt from road tax. and pay no congestion charges in London. There’s also a growing national network of free recharging points and a government grant of up to £8,000 towards the initial purchase price, which effectively makes electric vans as cheap to buy as diesel models.

If you’re still on the fence, visit www.goultralow.com for more information.

*Audi, BMW, Mitsubishi, Nissan, Renault, Toyota and Volkswagen.

Used van prices remain below peak as CV registrations hit new record

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New 2014 Vauxhall Vivaro front

The new Vauxhall Vivaro was the second biggest seller in the van market during the first quarter of 2015.

The average price of a used van at auctioneer BCA rose by £84 to £5,616 in March, but prices remained below their January peak of £5,870, and once again both average age and average mileage fell, diluting the effect of the price rise.

Interestingly, the average sale price relative to the CAP book price fell from 104.03% in March 2014 to 101.50% in March 2015, suggesting that buyers are less willing to pay over book than they were — or that the improved choice of stock means they don’t need to.

Comments from BCA’s Head of Commercial Vehicles, Duncan Ward, suggests both factors could be relevant:

“We continue to see rising volumes of poor condition or similar model vans reaching the used market, which is creating some pressure on average values. We have been predicting a tipping point in used values for some time and both fleet/lease and dealer part-exchange vans averaged lower values in March 2015 than a year ago.”

Surge in new registrations

Certainly the new van registration figures suggest that an influx of used vans to the auction market may be likely: new commercial vehicle registrations hit an all-time record of 108,456 during the first quarter of 2015. This puts the CV industry on-track to edge ahead of last year’s full-year total of 384,120 registrations, although it is of course still too early to be sure.

Van and truck registrations 2005-2015

Van and truck registrations 2005-2015 (courtesy of SMMT)

In the van sector alone, 97,775 new vans were registered during the first three months of 2015 — 22.3% more than during the same period last year, according to the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT), which provided these figures.

Topping the popularity list was the Ford Transit Custom, and all three of the most popular vans came from the medium van segment, suggesting that this remains key in the UK market:

UK Top 10 New Vans Jan-March 2015

Model Registrations
1 Ford Transit Custom 12,627
2 Vauxhall Vivaro 7,449
3 Volkswagen Transporter 5,765
4 Peugeot Partner 5,611
5 Ford Transit 5,276
6 Citroen Berlingo 5,207
7 Mercedes-Benz Sprinter 5,012
8 Ford Transit Connect 4,096
9 Renault Trafic 3,368
10 Peugeot Boxer 2,844

(Data compiled by SMMT)

Highlighting strong interest in the sector, this week’s Commercial Vehicle Show at the Birmingham NEC is expected to be one of the biggest and busiest for some years. A raft of new models will be unveiled at the show, including new vans from Citroen, Dacia, Fiat, Mercedes-Benz and Peugeot.

What’s next?

I expect to see more of the same this year, with the used van market weakening (or rather returning to historic norms) and the new van market remaining strong.

Later this year, or perhaps next year, I expect new volumes to flatten out somewhat, which should be reflected in improved stability in the used market.

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You could get behind the wheel of Thatcher’s bullet-proof battle bus

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As the general election gets underway, the main party leaders will be spending an increasing amount of time on their battle buses — modern, high-specification coaches with room for the media pack as well as senior politicians and their spin doctors.

Back in the 1980s, of course, things were a little more basic, as these shots of Margaret Thatcher’s armoured battle bus — thought to have been used when she visited Northern Ireland — show.

Margaret Thatcher battle bus

An armoured campaign bus, thought to have been used by Margaret Thatcher when she visited Northern Ireland in the early 1980s.

This armoured, 18-tonne Foden-based bus is now up for sale, courtesy of military vehicle dealer Nick Mead, who says that the beast has now outstayed his welcome and needs a new home.

The bus was built by military vehicle specialist Glover Webb and is based on Foden running gear. It is powered by a 12-litre, supercharged V12 Rolls Royce diesel engine that can propel the coach to a top speed of 80mph.

The cockpit: high tech it ain't

The cockpit: high tech it ain’t

The windows are made of two-inch thick, bullet-proof glass, while the two-foot thick, honeycomb macrolite floor is capable of withstanding a landmine blast.

Inside the Thatcher battle bus

With seating for 36 people and space at the rear for an office desk, the coach even had its own auxiliary, roof-mounted motor that could pump clean, carbonised air to the sealed cabin in the event of a chemical, biological or nuclear weapon being deployed.

With just 22,000km on the clock, the bus was used to ferry passengers on the dangerous Derry Airport – Belfast route during the 1980s. It was also previously owned by the Met Police, used as transport for the Royal Marines band and as a viewing platform at an MoD research facility.

The asking price for the bus is £25,000. Mr Mead plans to list it on eBay US and believes the bus might end up in America, but hopes it will stay in the UK.

Van demand soars as registrations climb 23.6% in March

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New van registrations have continued the upward trend seen for a number of months, rising by 23.6% during March, compared to the same period last year, according to the latest figures from the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT).

Van registrations have risen by 22.3% so far this year, compared to the same period last year, while truck registrations have overcome their Euro 6-induced slump and are up by 41% so far in 2015.

Commenting on the figures, Mike Hawes, SMMT Chief Executive, said:

“Demand for commercial vehicles remains buoyant in 2015, with both vans and trucks achieving a strong first quarter performance yet again. This continued upturn, and the third month of consecutive growth, can be attributed to higher levels of consumer and business confidence.”

As in previous months, rising van registrations are being driven by sales of larger vans, with gross weights between 2t and 3.5t:

SMMT March CV registrations - van weights

March light commercial vehicle registrations:

However, I’m not sure this trend is as informative as the SMMT suggests: there are very few sub-2t van models, anymore. Even some variants of so-called ‘small’ vans, like the Citroen Berlingo, now weigh more than 2t, meaning that the number of vans sales in the 2t category is naturally dwindling.

In fact, the fastest growing van segment in March was the sub-2t category, where registrations rose by 24.6% to 8,353 units. However, running close behind was the 2.5-3.5t segment, where registrations rose by 23.8% to a whopping 34,007 units — large vans are the highest volume area of the LCV market.

Budget UK launches new van rental service

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Budget van rental in LondonWell-known car rental firm Budget has launched a new van hire service in London, extending its existing national van rental operation.

The new service is aimed at small and medium business users and is backed by a new fleet of 100 Volkswagen Transporters, based across London.

The vehicles will be packed with handy features including Bluetooth, folding mirrors and parking sensors; making it the perfect partner for moving large loads with minimal stress through the busy capital.

Mark Servodidio, Managing Director, Northern Europe, Avis Budget Group, commented:

“We’re confident the new service, which will offer small and medium businesses across the capital a truly flexible and cost-efficient alternative to a permanent fleet of vehicle, will further strengthen our position as a partner to London’s businesses using Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles.”

Budget also offers a van rental service to personal customers from branches across the UK, and as part of a wider fleet renewal, Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles will also supply a further 300 Transporters and 100 Caddys to bolster this national van rental fleet.

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