Connect with us

Published

on

Interest in new electric vehicles may be declining, data from the UK’s largest car sales website suggests.

The volume of new electric car searches, ad views and messages to retailers on the Auto Trader platform was down nearly two thirds (65%) from the beginning of last year to March this year.

Auto Trader has attributed this to the high cost of electric cars, higher borrowing rates and more expensive electricity, all amid a cost of living crisis.

The company called on the government to introduce tax incentives to improve affordability.

In January 2022, electric vehicles (EVs) made up 16.3% of new car ad views on the website but by March 2023 it had fallen to 10.54%, Auto Trader said.

While 27% of all new car enquiries related to EVs in the first month of last year, the number dropped to 9% for last month.

Disinterest may be growing as the company said new EVs are 37% more expensive than petrol and diesel cars and there are now fewer new electric models between £20,000 and £30,000 than there were in 2022.

More on Electric Cars

The number of petrol and diesel models costing less than £30,000 is nine times bigger than the number of EVs, Auto Trader said, and a new electric SUV costs an average of £22,290 more than a petrol one.

Analysis by the company suggests that the savings drivers can make in running an electric car, as opposed to a diesel or petrol car, have reduced as the cost of oil has come down from the highs after the invasion of Ukraine.

While EV owners with a home charger can save up to £130 for every 1,000 miles by charging at off-peak overnight rates, savings reduce to just £40 for those drivers using public chargers, the analysis says.

Auto Trader noted there was still strong interest in second-hand EVs and in fleet sales, where a company would buy cars for employee use or for renting.

EV sales have broadly increased in recent years as the government’s 2030 ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel cars approaches.

The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) reported 76,233 new battery electric car sales in the first quarter of this year, up 18.8% on last year’s levels.

To increase the interest in and buying of EVs, Auto Trader called on the government to reduce VAT on used EVs and said lenders should offer lower or interest-free rates on EV financing deals.

Adopting common standards on battery health and charging terminology should also be a top priority for government and industry as Auto Trader said battery health is one of the top concerns purchasers have when buying an EV.

“These are difficult times for the UK’s road to 2030 ambitions and we are in danger of veering off-track,” Auto Trader’s commercial director said.

“If the government is serious about achieving its ambitions, it needs to do more. For example, it cannot be right that those who don’t have the option of charging at home are forced to pay substantially more to charge their vehicles,” Ian Plummer added.

“While the extra £380m announced in March to improve charging infrastructure will help, the goal of mass adoption is at risk unless we use the tax system inventively to spur on EV purchases and accelerate demand.”

Continue Reading

Business

Italian restaurant chain Gusto on brink of administration

Published

on

By

Italian restaurant chain Gusto on brink of administration

The intense financial pressure facing Britain’s casual dining sector will be underlined this week when Gusto, the Italian restaurant chain, falls into administration.

Sky News has learnt that Interpath Advisory is preparing a pre-pack insolvency of Gusto, which trades from 13 sites.

Sources said that a vehicle set up by Cherry Equity Partners, the owner of Latin American restaurant concept Cabana, was the likely buyer.

Money latest: Supermarkets report further food price hikes

It is expected to take over most of Gusto’s sites although some job losses are likely.

A deal could be announced in the coming days, according to insiders.

The collapse of Gusto, which is backed by private equity investor Palatine, follows a string of increasingly heated warnings from hospitality executives about the impact of tax rises on the sector.

More from Money

Kate Nicholls, who chairs UK Hospitality, said this month that the industry faced a jobs bloodbath amid growing financial pressure on operators.

This week, Sky News reported that the restaurant industry veteran David Page, a former boss of PizzaExpress, was raising £10m to take advantage of cut-price acquisition opportunities in casual dining.

Mr Page is planning to become executive chairman of London-listed Tasty, which owns Wildwood and dim t, and rename it Bow Street Group.

A placing of shares in the company is likely to be completed this week.

Interpath declined to comment on the Gusto process.

Continue Reading

Business

Tide turns as TPG leads talks to lead digital bank fundraising

Published

on

By

Tide turns as TPG leads talks to lead digital bank fundraising

TPG, the American private equity giant, is in advanced talks to take a stake in Tide, the British-based digital banking services platform.

Sky News has learnt that TPG, which manages more than $250bn in assets, is discussing acquiring a significant shareholding in the company.

Sources said that Tide’s existing investors were expected to sell shares to TPG, while a separate deal would involve another existing shareholder in the company acquiring newly issued shares.

The two transactions may be conducted at different valuations, although both are likely to see the company valued at at least $1bn, the sources added.

The size of TPG’s prospective stake in Tide was unclear on Monday.

Earlier this year, Sky News reported that Tide had been negotiating the terms of an investment from Apis Partners, a prolific investor in the fintech sector, although it was unclear whether this would now proceed.

Tide has roughly 650,000 SME customers in both Britain and India, with the latter market expanding at a faster rate.

More from Money

Morgan Stanley, the Wall Street bank, has been advising Tide on its fundraising.

Tide was founded in 2015 by George Bevis and Errol Damelin, before launching two years later.

It describes itself as the leading business financial platform in the UK, offering business accounts and related banking services.

The company also provides its SME ‘members’ in the UK a set of connected administrative solutions from invoicing to accounting.

It now boasts a roughly 11% SME banking market share in Britain.

Read more:
Wise set for resounding win
TalkTalk’s £100m windfall
US could lose, even if Trumps wins

Tide, which employs about 2,000 people, also launched in Germany last May.

The company’s investors include Apax Partners, Augmentum Fintech and LocalGlobe.

Chaired by the City grandee Sir Donald Brydon, Tide declined to comment on Monday.

TPG also declined to comment.

Continue Reading

Business

Trump trade war could still see America come off worse

Published

on

By

Trump trade war could still see America come off worse

It is a trade deal that will “rebalance, but enable trade on both sides,” said Ursula von der Leyen after the EU and US struck a trade deal in Scotland.

It was not the most emphatic declaration by the president of the European Commission.

The trading partnership between two of the biggest markets in the world is in significantly worse shape than it was before Donald Trump was elected, but this deal is better than nothing.

As part of the agreement, European exports to the US will be hit with a 15% tariff. That’s better than the 30% the bloc was threatened with but it is a world away from the type of open and free trade European leaders would like. The EU had offered tariff free trade to the US just weeks before the deal was announced.

Money latest: What new EU travel rules mean for you

Instead, it has accepted a 15% tariff and agreed to ramp up its energy purchases from the US.

The EU tariff on US imports will remain close to zero but Europe did get some important exemptions – on aviation, critical raw materials, some chemicals and some medical equipment. That being said, the bloc did not achieve a breakthrough on steel, aluminium or copper, which are still facing a 50% tariff. It means the average tariff on EU exports to the US will now rise from 1.2 % last year to 17%.

More from Money

There is also confusion over the status of pharmaceuticals – an important industry to Europe. Products like Ozempic, which is made in Denmark, have flooded into the US market in recent years and Donald Trump was threatening tariffs as high as 50% on the sector.

Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player

US and EU agree trade deal

It appears that pharmaceuticals will fall under the 15% bracket, even though President Trump contradicted official announcements by suggesting a deal had not yet been made on the industry. The risk is that the implementation of the deal could be beset with differences of interpretation, as has been the case with the Japan deal that Trump struck last week.

It also risks fracturing solidarity between EU states, all of which have different strategic industries that rely on the US to differing degrees. Germany’s BDI federation of industrial groups said: “Even a 15% tariff rate will have immense negative effects on export-oriented German industry.”

The VCI chemical trade association said rates were still “too high”. For German carmakers, including Mercedes and BMW, there was some reprieve from the crippling 27.5% tariff imposed by Trump. The industry is Europe’s top exporter to the US but the German trade body, the VDA, warned that a 15% rate would “cost the German automotive industry billions annually”.

Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player

Who’s the winner in the US-EU trade deal?

Meanwhile, François Bayrou, the French Prime Minister, described the agreement as a “dark day” for the union, “when an alliance of free peoples, gathered to affirm their values and defend their interests, resolves to submission.”

While the deal has divided the bloc, the greater certainty it delivers is not to be snubbed at.

Markets bounced on the news, even though the deal will ultimately harm economic growth.

Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player

‘Millions’ of EU jobs were in firing line

Analysts at Oxford Economics said: “We don’t plan material changes to our eurozone baseline forecast of 1.1% GDP growth this year and 0.8% in 2026 in response to the EU-US trade deal.

“While the effective tariff rate will end up at around 15%, a few percentage points higher than in our baseline, lower uncertainty and no EU retaliation are partial offsets.”

However, economists at Capital Economics said the economic outlook had now deteriorated, with growth in the bloc likely to drop by 0.2%. Germany and Ireland could be the hardest hit.

While the US appears to be the obvious winner in this negotiation, uncertainty still hangs over the US economy.

Trump has not achieved his goal of “90 deals in 90 days” and, in the end, American consumers could still bear the cost through higher prices.

That of course depends on how businesses share the burden of those higher costs, with the latest data suggesting that inflation is yet to rip through the US economy. While Europe determined on Sunday that a bad deal is better than no deal, some fear that the worst is yet to come for the Americans.

Continue Reading

Trending