JustBritish

After 10 years of trying, a British engineer has broken the land-speed record for a wind-powered vehicle.

Pushed by 30-mph winds over two miles, Richard Jenkins reached 126.1 mph yesterday in his Ecotricity Greenbird car on the dry lakebed of Ivanpah Lake, south of Las Vegas. That’s 10 mph faster than the previous record, set in 1999 by American Bob Schumacher.

As the Daily Mail put it, that makes Jenkins the fastest naturally powered human on the planet.

“It’s great. It’s one of those things that you spend so long trying to do and when it actually happens, it’s almost too easy,” Jenkins told the BBC.

The Greenbird is made of carbon fiber composite and powered only by the wind. The only metal is in the wing bearings and the wheel units. For photos, video and audio of the car, go here.

British car sales for the month of March are expected to have fallen by about 28 per cent in stark contrast to other leading European markets that have recently bounced after government “scrapping” incentives.

The predicted drop in the sales for last month will reignite calls for the UK to offer incentives for drivers to scrap old cars and buy new, or nearly new, ones. The move has been urged by the car industry and unions for several months amid plunging sales and lengthy factory shutdowns to cut production.

The Retail Motor Industry Federation (RMIF), the UK car industry’s retail division, stepped up calls yesterday for a scrappage scheme to be introduced in Britain. Paul Williams, the chairman of the federation, said: “Measures to help to revive new-car sales in the UK, including the introduction of a vehicle scrappage scheme, must be enacted as soon as possible.”

He added: “The RMIF will be presenting the Government with a framework outlining how vehicle scrappage could work in practice. The paper will be delivered to the Government in the next few days.”

Germany, Europe’s biggest car market, published figures yesterday showing that sales rose 40 per cent last month against March 2008. About 401,000 new cars were bought in Germany last month. The market rose by slightly more than 20 per cent when adjusted to match the working days of March this year and last year, when Easter fell early.

Germany is offering €2,500 (£2,286) for drivers with cars that are more than nine years old to scrap them and buy new ones. The scheme will be extended until the year end after fears that it would run out of cash by the end of this month because it has proved so popular.

Yesterday the French market rose 8 per cent, Italy experienced a minor rise of 0.24 per cent and Spain lost some of its decline with a 38 per cent fall against a 48 per cent drop in February. UK car sales fell 31 per cent in January, but that steadied slightly in February, when sales lost 22 per cent compared with February of last year.

The number of cars built in Britain slumped 60% last month as manufacturers slammed the brakes on output. Just 65,647 cars and vans rolled off production lines compared with nearly 110,000 in February 2008, according to the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT).

This is the biggest fall since 1970 and the fifth month in a row that output levels have been in reverse. The grim figures were released 24 hours after the industry scrapped the British International Motor Show due to take place in London next year.

SMMT chief Paul Everitt said canceling the show was a tough decision but stressed it would be revived in future. “The global credit crunch has placed the industry under unique pressure and created a level of uncertainty that deters manufacturers from committing to large-scale international events.” In January, Business Secretary Lord Mandelson announced a £1.3billion package of support for the car industry.

But manufacturers have been pressing for more help from Government to stimulate demand. In particular they would like to see the introduction of a “banger bonus” which would give drivers an incentive to ditch older, high-polluting motors for new models. Without this they fear it may be so long before sales pick up that thousands more jobs will be lost.

Earlier this month, Toyota’s 4,500 UK workers agreed a 10% pay cut, expected to last a year, as an alternative to redundancies. The firm has already halted production for an extra two weeks due to the lack of buyers. Honda has taken even more drastic action mothballing its Swindon factory until June. 60% fewer cars were built in Britain in February.

The Mirror News

In an attempt to turn Land Rover an environmentally friendly shade of British Racing Green, the U.K. government is giving the SUV-maker £27 million ($38 million) to defray the cost of developing a compact SUV based on their LRX concept.

Land Rover says the new two-door (which they call a “cross coupe”) will be the “smallest, lightest, and most efficient” the company has ever produced. With the exception of the County Classic, we think it might be the most attractive as well. Whatever superlatives it claims, it could very well show up as a 2011 model after it gets an official go-ahead from management. “We welcome the Government’s support for this project, which would form a key part of our future product plans and which we very much want to put into production,” Land Rover Managing Director Phil Popham said in a statement.

That news really stings for those of us across the pond. After all, Chrysler got $4 billion and they’re still churning out Sebrings. At least the Brits got to spend their tax dollars on a car that’s desirable.
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British sports car maker Aston Martin expects to sell fewer cars this year compared to last year due to the economic crisis, the company’s chief executive told German newspaper Die Welt in an interview.

Aston Martin sold 5,800 sports cars last year, which was the second-best year in the company’s 95-year history, Ulrich Bez told the paper in an article published on Saturday.

“In light of the current weakening in consumer spending we expect 4,500 to 5,000 unit sales this year,” Bez said.

Islamic investment firm Investment Dar (TIDK.KW) owns a controlling stake in Aston Martin. The fund was part of a consortium that bought the automaker for about $950 million from Ford Motor Co (F.N) in March 2007.

Three hundred managers will be made redundant while 150 salaried agency staff will also lose their jobs.

The firm, which was bought by Tata from Ford for £1.7bn last year, said the action was to combat the credit crunch and a “severe reduction in demand”.

Based in Gaydon, Warwickshire, it employs about 15,000 people in Castle Bromwich, Coventry and Solihull in the West Midlands and Halewood, Merseyside.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s spokesman said the government was “disappointed”. He added: “Jaguar Land Rover’s decision today reflects the continued downturn in the market and that is a reflection of what is happening more generally in the global economy.”

Business Secretary Lord Mandelson confirmed the government was looking into a possible rescue package for the car industry.

Jaguar Land Rover chief executive David Smith said he did not expect sales to return to normal levels “for some time”.

He said the firm needed to become more efficient so it could invest in new models and technology when the market improved.

He added: “It is only right and proper that our response to the unavoidable impact of the credit crunch and a severe reduction in demand includes actions across all grades and functions in the company.

“It is critical that Jaguar Land Rover becomes a more efficient and dynamic organization to face up to the challenges that we will meet in the years ahead.”

The company said managers would not receive any bonuses in 2009 and management pay increases had been deferred until 1 October “at the earliest”.

It said it had begun consulting with unions on the proposed redundancy program.

Derek Simpson, from the union Unite, said: “One hopes it’s not the tip of the iceberg and that we don’t see a constant drip of job losses. Of course the great fear in everyone’s mind, particularly with the state of the car industry, is that we see any major closure.”

Jaguars are made at Halewood and Castle Bromwich while Land Rovers are produced at Halewood and Solihull.

A wood veneer plant at Coventry supplies both marques while the company has two research and development centers in Coventry and Gaydon. Managers are spread across all the sites.

Last November, the firm axed 850 agency IT and engineering staff and said it was in talks with the government over a possible bail out. Tata has also said it will inject tens of millions of pounds into the company. The annual Christmas break was extended last year due to the fall in demand.

Land Rover sales were down by 30% throughout 2008 although Jaguar’s sales rose by almost 9% over the same period, which the company put down to its new XF model launched last year.