Gossip, Gossip and more Gossip

These days you’ve got no reason not to love driving, if you’ve got a long journey ahead of you there are so many gadgets and gizmos to keep you comfortable, entertained and safe any car journey should be fun.

First in any list of car accessories is the MP3 player. This isn’t really essential for your journey but it’s definitely going to make it more fun. Gone are the days when you were stuck with just the radio for company on that long commute home, gone are the days when you had to spend hours recording your favourite songs off the radio onto a cassette tape and gone are the days when you’d burn your favourite songs from iTunes onto a blank CD. These days music is digital and your car needs to keep up with the times. The chances are if your car is only a few years old you can plug your MP3 player straight into the console but for everyone else, one simple little device plugged into your cigarette lighter gives you instant access to thousands of your favourite songs.

Next on the must have list of car gadgets and gizmos is the sat nav, yes we’ve all heard the stories about the lorry driver that got directed off a cliff or into a river but there’s a simple way to get around this one. Common sense! If your sat nav is about to navigate you into a river simply apply the brakes and turn around, this isn’t rocket science. For the most part sat navs these days are fairly reliable just make sure you go for a well known name like a Tom Tom or a Garmin Nuvi sat nav and you should be fine. They eliminate the need for paper maps which are always impossible to read when you’re hurtling down a duel carriage way at 70mph at midnight (because when we’re in a rush we never actually pull over to study the map). They get you from A to B and back to A again afterwards and they’ll do it in the most cost and time efficient manner possible.

If you’re planning a particularly long journey or if you’re a naturally busy person always make sure you’ve got your Bluetooth device ad it’s always on. If you get a phone call you might not be able to find somewhere safe to pull over and take your phone call and the Bluetooth device keeps you safe and legal.

The parking sensor isn’t necessarily needed for the journey but they’re great at helping you park in that last tight spot. If you’re one of these people who always seem to end up just gently knocking the lamppost or even the car behind this is the must have car gizmo for you. These little wireless sensors are fitted to your car and make a beeping noise which gets closer and closer together the closer you get to another object. You’ll never have trouble making that tricky reverse park job again.

Volvo car corporation have announced that they plan to shed around 10% of their suppliers by the end of 2009. Bernt Ejbyfeldt, senior vice-president of purchasing has said that the move was part of restructuring plans in his division.

He went on to say that the first step in reducing the number of suppliers was to cut back by 10% this year. 

Bernt Ejbyfeldt was appointed last year to establish a purchasing department that would enable Volvo to stand independently from Ford, its parent company. He established a quality hub in the Czech republic which is closer to the companies suppliers. This has brought about a marked improvement in quality as each supplier is assessed every month and they must achieve an acceptable level of quality in order to continue to receive orders.

Volvo are responsible for having already introduced 191 new variants so far this year. There is currently a high demand for low CO2 emitting vehicles, partly prompted by the UK governments tax incentive for low emission vehicles. 

If you are looking for a new car I can strongly recommend that you consider leasing a new Volvo as you will not only be doing your bit for the environment but you will also save yourself some useful cash.

The French government recently announced a €6.5bn loan to support the country’s struggling car industry. It is the latest in a long line of similar measures taken by authorities around the world to protect jobs and the economy through the recession. A worldwide slump in car sales has left even the most established car manufacturers struggling, and millions of workers are in danger of losing their jobs.

In the UK there have already been a number of job losses despite the government lending large amounts of money to help keep business afloat. A number of factories have had to close temporarily and the Japanese carmaker Nissan has just become the latest to announce that it will be cutting almost 10% of its global workforce, including 1200 positions in its UK factories.

In these times of recession, it’s difficult to see how the car industry will ever recover. With things as they are, most people are feeling the strain and need to keep a close eye on their finances. It’s safe to say that buying a car is the last thing on most people’s minds, and until the economy starts to improve the motoring industry can’t do much more than bide its time.

But direct sales are not necessarily the only option for car dealers. If the problem is that people don’t have enough money to buy cars upfront, the answer could be to offer more car contract hire deals where customers lease their car on a monthly basis until the cost has been paid off. The availability of these deals means that buyers have more choice when it comes to cars – they can choose a car that may normally be out of their price range, which means more money for the car manufacturers in the long run.

Contract hire is a great deal for the consumer too, not only does it mean you get a wider choice of more desirable cars but the payment is in manageable instalments and there are often loads of other benefits thrown in. The contract will often include extras like servicing costs and road tax in the monthly price, so there’s less for people to worry about. Basically, it’s a win win situation!