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I was going to call this post "The Number's Up!" but I've already used that.

But I missed out the apostrophe which is unlike me and somewhat irritating.

Anyway, that particular post was about 18 months ago and berating the daft naming convention of Polestar.

It still seems to be a problem for them and they are trying to deny it - as reported by drive.co.au here.

And they have changed the rules a bit too.

18 months ago they said that the Polestar 2 would not be replaced by a Polestar 2.  Now they are saying that the Polestar 2 WILL be replaced by a Polestar 2.  Which will probably come after the Polestar 7 and before the Polestar 6.

Confusion reigns supreme.

I feel sorry for the new CEO, Michael Lohscheller, who didn't come up with the idea but seems to be spending lots of time defending it.

He likens it to Apple.  Which is wrong.  He should be likening it to the company I alluded to back in April last year - Renault.

When I also asked the question, "I wonder how many years it will be before they realise the error of this strategy and change to a better system."

Renault gradually and quietly replaced numbers with names and would never speak of them again.

Until they had a big hit with the new 4 and 5.

If they follow the Polestar numbering system, the next retro electric car will be a cute version of the Renault 7:

Oh dear - I think the number's up.

Warburtons Coining it in.

 

Saw this BBC story this morning about a proposed bridge toll increase.

It is the Warburton bridge which crosses the Manchester ship canal. The story has been updated since I read it this morning - at that point they were only telling us the old price - not the new one.

Had me wondering what the horrific increase was going to be.

Turns out it was an increase of 733.33%!

So the plan was to increase it from 12p to £1.

Locals will get a 50% discount.  I presume they don't currently pay 6p to cross.

I'm guessing it is a well used bridge - it will have to be to recoup the cost of changing the signage and installing payment cameras and software.

Anyway, lot's of people have got very upset.  Although the ones doing the commenting are more concerned with the old price than the new one.

For whom the bridge tolls.

Car Horne

I am a fan of The Horne Section.  I have seen then twice and Alex spoke to me once when I was on the second row.

I had this advert by them recommended to me:

Unfortunately, it has nothing to do with cars - although there is a van in there.

So here's an advert I'm recommending to you:

Unregistered

After yesterdays rather depressing post, this is another one.

Today is September 7th - the UK new car registrations came out last Monday on September 1st.

That's not the depressing bit.

I still haven't seen one.

That's also not the depressing bit - I haven't always remembered to look out for them so they are probably out there.  But when I have remembered to look this week, I'm seeing lots of 25s and 74s but no 75s.

Maybe everyone who buys a car in September usually buys a Land Rover vehicle.

The depressing bit is that nobody cares any more.

When I was a child, albeit a car-mad child, there was much excitement on August 1st when the new registration letter came out.

Wish I could claim the credit for finding that but it was in this other Blog talking about the same thing.  He does it a lot more eloquently than me and garners quite a few comments from like-minded people.

Now we have a system that you have to be a registration plate nerd to understand - at least for the September registrations.  The March ones are not too bad as nowadays, instead of a letter, the new registrations are the actual year - so people could get excited about that, especially if it was the ONLY new registration in the year.  There hasn't been an exciting September one since 2019 - and even then not everyone got the joke.

And, given that September car sales are always lower than March ones, maybe it is time to go back to once a year only - March 1st.

It might put a Spring back into car sales.

The Emperor's new Clothes

Rather depressing news this week.

Autocar have it here.

The Ford Puma, which isn't a real Ford Puma like this one:

...remains top of the UK's top selling cars list.

Like 8 out of the top 10, it is a crossover SUV.  

Obviously being bought in large numbers by people who are not particularly interested in cars or driving.  Only the Corsa and Golf remain in the list representing proper cars.

You can't really blame them, they will be looking for decent value cars that meet their requirements and if the dealerships only have crossovers in the showrooms then people will buy those.  And the dealers only tend to be showing crossovers because manufacturers are concentrating on producing them.  And manufacturers are only producing them because they are selling in big numbers.

And now we're stuck in a depressing spiral.

Interestingly, (slightly) none of the top ten are specifically electric cars - although some are available as electric variants.

Meanwhile, in the Driven section of the latest Top Gear Magazine, where they review new cars to market, 9 out of 12 of the cars reviewed are electric (including an electric Puma) but only 6 are definitely cross-overs (including an electric Puma).  A couple it's difficult to tell...

What about this?

Yes that is a cross-over but is it much taller than this?

I've decided that that one is not a cross-over.

I think cross-overs are getting shorter in height so maybe manufacturers have noticed that, although profitable, they are not very good.

So, based on what's coming - there is a glimmer of hope - but it depends on your idea of what a cross-over actually is.