Driven: Renault Twizy

Adopting usual road-testing principles, there’s plenty to dislike abut the Renault Twizy. The milkfloat whine from the electric motor is irritatingly loud and the driver’s seat is uncomfortable, lacking any support in the right places. The brakes don’t have ABS and or power-assistance and so need a firm shove to work and then you might skid. Ventilation and audio systems have been sacrificed to keep weight and cost down, and the ride is pretty harsh. Space for the one rear passenger is very tight. The basic Twizy is an eye-watering £6,690 and I could get the critically acclaimed Volkswagen Up! for about £2k more, and that has doors on the list of standard kit. And yet despite all that, I want a Twizy. At the coffee stop after 30 miles of the test drive yesterday, every journalist was grinning from ear to ear. Why? Because driving the Twizy is a hoot. Even if you have no intention of buying one, go to your local Renault dealer – they will all have a demonstrator by the end of April – and convince him you need to have a go.

Remember the British Motor Show?

Motoring hacks like myself used to get very excited about the British Motor Show. We always wanted it to be like Geneva or Paris or Detroit, but since the late Nineties it wasn’t. Gimmicks were tried – stunt shows and the like – but it made no difference. Punters didn’t come in sufficient numbers for the manfacturers to back it, and the 2008 recession effectively killed it off. I can say with confidence that it will never return. How do I know? Because when you’ve got events like Goodwood Festival of Speed, a ‘cars on carpets’ show at the NEC or ExCeL looks dull. There’s a reason for that. It is dull. I’ve been writing about another event which illustrates the point perfectly. In May comes the fourth stageing of MINI United, the brand’s occasional celebration of itself, its cars and its community of owners. Live music from top performers, motorsport action, test drives, exhibitions, activities and stalls. If you were a MINI owner or even just a fan, it sounds like fun. A weekend ticket is €45… and that’s the problem. It’s in Euros because it’s in the South of France. The last MINI United was in 2009 and at Silverstone, but now the carnival has moved on. Road trip anyone?

So, the Budget...

Unsurprisingly, the planned rise in fuel duty of 3p per litre – previously delayed – goes ahead from 1 August. Here’s what I think. It will make people think about their car use, which can only be a good thing. Far too many drivers simply get behind the wheel for shorter journeys – taking the kids to school, visiting the local shope – when there’s a free alternative such as walking or cycling. But those are the trips that cost buttons in the grand scheme of things. I firmly believe the vast majority of drivers do think about their car use, and about half a second later realise they have no choice. If you live at A and you need to get to B for work, chances are the car is your solution. Those that can take the train or bus probably already do. For milllions of drivers, August’s price hike will just be accepted. It means there will be less money in the kitty for other stuff, so not going into the local economy. Is that what the Government really wanted?

Hurrah for another great transport policy idea...

Fabulous that David Cameron wants everyone but the Government to pick up the bill for improving the UK’s ailing road network. Thrilled that road-tolling is only being considered for new sections of tarmac, rather than existing ones. Overjoyed that the PM picked on the A14 in Cambridgeshire/Suffolk – which runs about a mile from my house and is my only link with the rest of the UK – as an example of somewhere which could benefit from this exciting new proposal. And chuffed that he wants more people to use the trains instead of the roads. I imagine the commuters who stood from Ipswich, a key A14 town, to London Liverpool Street this very morning, and who had paid £75 for a return ticket, will be thrilled at the prospect of more people to share the threadbare aisle carpet with. I was one of them. Cheers David. Another splendidly thought-out policy. It makes me want to emigrate.

Driven: two new VWs

Attended a VW event yesterday and got behind the wheel of the all-new Beetle and the Up! city car (what is it with punctuation marks in model names? First we had the Kia Cee’d, then the Pro_cee’d for the three-door version, and now the Up!. I’d love to be a fly on the wall when that particular debate was going on). Both cars are excellent and drive exceptionally well. The Up! in particular sets new standards in small car handling. It’s very composed for something with such a small wheelbase and deserves its What Car? Car of the Year honour. The Beetle is also very good on the road, but to the buyer that’s all but irrelevant. People will choose it for the way it looks, as they do with the MINI – with handles very well – and the Fiat 500, which doesn’t. The Beetle’s predecessor, launched in 1999, quickly earned the reputation of being a car for the ladies. That wasn’t helped by the narrow vase on the dashboard. That’s gone now – it’s not even an optional extra – and one of the marketing slogans is ‘less flower, more power’. The car’s styling is certainly more macho, but whether VW can overcome people’s prejudice is another matter. Time will tell.

'The right car in the wrong clothes'

Renault is in a mess in the UK. Just before Christmas it axed several of its best known models, including the Laguna and Modus, and is in the process of closing 40+ dealerships. The reasons are many and complicated, but in short they come down to exchange rate issues and poor sales. At Geneva I had a fascinating chat with Stephen Norman, Renault’s senior vice president for global marketing. As a bullish Brit he clearly cares enormously about what’s happened and reasons behind it. “It was a difficult decision, but Renault was no longer willing to support losses in the UK from other country’s profits,” he explained. “We’ve put in place a plan that will allow the UK to break even by 2013 and be in profit thereafter.” The biggest problem was the Laguna, which should be popular with company car drivers and private buyers. It was neither. Norman believes a French upper medium car can succeed in the UK, but that particular one couldn’t. He admits the problem was the design, which is what I wrote after attending the launch. Norman labelled it “the right car in the wrong clothes”, adding: “People expect a car to say something about their social status and it didn’t. Citroen got it right with the C5 and more so with the DS5. Is that the direction we will go in? Yes, in terms of the success they’ve had.”

Geneva hits and misses

Back home after the busiest Geneva Motor Show I can ever remember. Some amazing new metal – both production and concept – in the two halls, so here’s my pick. In a totally bonkers way, the convertible version of the Lamborghini Aventador was truly astonishing. Ford’s B-MAX was a popular attraction, and with the lack of a B-pillar it’s easy to see why. It’s very practical, and makes the Vauxhall Meriva’s rear-hinged door look clumsey, especially for getting kids in and out. The Jaguar XF Sportbrake was a welcome sight, and talking of estates, the wagon versions of the Kia Cee’d, Hyundai i30 and Chevrolet Cruze are all heading for showrooms soon and will find buyers. The Range Rover Evoque cabrio was very striking, and I’ve no doubt that car will get built. Ferrari’s most powerful road car ever, the F12 Berlinetta, is a stunner, but I suppose my star of the show was the Nissan Invitation (pictured). It’s a really smartly styled supermini, won’t affect Micra sales as they’re aimed at different customers, and as the firm used Geneva to announce it’s being built at Sunderland, it’s good UK plc story as well. Disappointments? Main one was the Fiat 500L. I think the proportions of the brand’s first four-door car are all wrong. It’s not a 500, it’s a larger car with a 500 nose grafted on. It’s right to try to cash in on the 500’s success, but I don’t think that’s the car to do it. General consensus was the Bentley 4x4 was a bit of an eyesore and would have Mr B redlining the revs in his grave. It's a big old beast and not massively pretty as Bentleys should be, but I'm not sure I'd call it a miss. The firm will built it and it will sell, mostly to people with more money than taste.

Geneva fever builds

And still they’re being announced! This year’s Geneva Motor Show looks like being one of the most product-packed for years. I’ve just received an email from a website which reckons there are in excess of 90 debuts at the exhibition’s press days, Tuesday and Wednesday. Reveals over the weekend include Jaguar’s XF estate – badged the Sportbrake and pictured above – a revised version of the Volksagen SUV concept from the Tokyo Motor Show that’s now capable of 157mpg, and an all-new Hyundai i20 supermini. For someone like me – a freelancer working on my own – it will be impossible to spend as much time as I would like with every one of these new models. The vast majority of them I will see, spend 10 seconds looking at, then move on to the next one. I have to prioritise and work out which ones I can actually make money from. Here’s an example; the Lodgy is a new MPV that might come to the UK when Renault-owned Dacia launches later here from next January. It’s hardly sexy, but I’m having dinner with a senior executive from the firm tomorrow night so I need to be up to speed on the car to get the best out of him. I’m sure it’s lovely, but it’s no XF Sportbrake.

Plain sailing ahead? Nope

The crisis in car manufacturing is obviously over. The list of new production models and/or concepts that will be on display at next week’s Geneva Motor Show is as long as I can ever remember. And that’s just counting the mainstream brands which subscribe to the popular automotive media services; there will scores of other smaller firms who will have as-yet-unrevealed hardware in Palexpo’s show halls. And yet the crisis clearly isn’t over at all. Geneva is the glossy sticking plaster, set to music with flashing lights and dancing girls. UK new car registrations stood at 1.94 million in 2011, down close to five per cent on the year before. There’s still huge over-capacity in vehicle production and at some point factories are going have to close. Some will be in the UK. GM, which has operations at Ellesmere Port and Luton, has already hinted at this. Yesterday it announced it was forming a global alliance with PSA Peugeot Citroen to help both become more profitable. It used to have a similar arrangement with Fiat but that’s didn’t work out. There will be more bad news for the global car industry, but it won’t be next week in Geneva.