Monaghan & Sons, Galway’s Skoda dealership is undertaking an Eco-Drive from Wednesday, 31st January – Friday, 2nd February to assist in raising vital funds for The Sunni Mae Trust for the treatment of Lily-Mae Morrison. Monaghan & Sons are urging locals to guess how far a Skoda Fabia can travel on a tank of fuel.
Lily-Mae Morrison, a native of Claregalway, has recently been diagnosed with a rare form of cancer called Neuroblastoma which affects 1 in 100,000 children in Ireland. Lily-Mae is the four year old daughter of Galway based dancers Judith Sibley and Leighton Morrison, who are best known in Galway for their work with Chrysalis Dance and Youth Ballet West.
In order to enter, competition forms will be available in local Centra stores where people can guess how far a Skoda Fabia will travel on a tank of fuel and in turn make a donation to the fund. There will be prizes for competition winners including fuel vouchers and a weekend away courtesy of Monaghan & Sons.
A member of staff from Monaghan & Sons will undertake the challenge to maximize the fuel endurance of a Skoda Fabia 1.2 diesel from a full tank while driving to Centra Stores within a 75km radius of Galway city over the course of three days. The drive will take place on Wednesday, 31st January, Thursday, 1st February and Friday, 2nd February travelling over 1500 kilometres.
To launch the Eco-Drive, Galway Bay FM will broadcast the Big Smoothie Breakfast show with Ollie Turner from Monaghan & Sons between 6.30-9am on Wednesday, 31st. During the event Galway Bay FM will link up live with the driver at different times during the day to get updates on the progress of the journey.
Commenting, Leo Monaghan, dealer principal, Monaghan & Sons, Galway said, “We are delighted to be able to help out with the fundraising appeal for Lily Mae. It is a fantastic cause and we would urge people to get their hands on a form and donate some much needed funds. Forms are available in local Centra stores and also from the Monaghan & Sons dealership.”
In a week when rumours once again surfaced that Opel was up for sale to PSA Peugeot Citroen, the German firm's US masters at General Motors have come up with (another) new plan to turn around the loss-making car company.Interestingly, GM Europe boss Steve Girsky admits that this is the first Opel turnaround programme "not to include hope as part of the package" and the 10-year plan centres on cutting costs (Opel needs to get its fixed costs down by about €500-million, and make around €1-billion of savings in its parts-and-platform sharing agreement with PSA) and to introduce 23 new models (along with a bevy of new, more efficient engines) by 2022. The plan, rather playfully, is called Drive! 2022.
If everything works, Opel will hit break-even in a couple of years and move back into profit by around 2018. Some of the plan has already been implemented; the tie-up with Peugeot and Citroen is already well progressed, the decision to close the loss-making factory in Bochum has already been taken and several key new models, including the Astra saloon, Adam city car and Mokka compact SUV, have already been introduced.
Opel actually had quite a good year in 2012, finishing up as Europe's third best-selling brand and going a long way to winding down stocks of unsold models. Next up will be to start building non-Opel-badged models in Opel's German plants, to take up the slack in capacity. Expect to see Buicks for China (China is now a massive market for this classic American brand) and mechanically-identical Chevrolets for Europe built in Russelsheim and elsewhere. And, although the plan doesn't overtly admit it, expect too to see the next-generation of Citroen C5 and Peugeot 508 built on a common platform with the Opel Insignia in Germany.
During the upcoming Citroën 10 Day Free Fuel Giveaway, from Thursday 17 to Sunday 27 January, every customer who orders a new Citroën can drive away with €500 Free Fuel, and look forward to free trips to the fuel pump.
Retail customers who take advantage of this high value offer across the Citroën passenger range will receive, on collection of their new Citroën, a pre-loaded Topaz Gift Card to cover the cost of €500 fuel. This equates to over 9,000km* of free-driving in Citroën’s most fuel efficient engines.Citroën boasts an ever cleaner, greener and more efficient range, so even after all the free fuel has been used, future petrol or diesel costs can be kept to a minimum. Models such as the stylish C3 and New C4 already deliver impressive fuel economy of up to 3.4L/100km (83 mpg) and 3.8L/100km (74 mpg) respectively. What’s more, if you take a test drive during the 10 Day Free Fuel Giveaway you can avail of a free Winter Vehicle Health Check in any participating authorised dealership.Fredéric Soulier, Managing Director of Citroën Motors Ireland, commented; "We are committed to giving our customers more for their money with our incredible €500 Free Fuel Giveaway, and with a wide range of quality passenger cars to choose from our customers can be confident that it is a great time to buy a new Citroën.”Terms and Conditions apply - for more information or details of your nearest participating Citroën dealer log onto www.citroen.ie
Ford is planning to bring lightweight carbon parts to cars like the Focus, even though currently such parts would be prohibitively expensive.Ford is showing off this, a current Focus fitted with an experimental carbon-fibre bonnet, which weighs about half as much as a conventional steel panel. Generally, carbon is about five times stronger than steel for an equivalent weight of about a third as much. Pretty impressive, pretty expensive.
But that could be all changing. Companies like McLaren and BMW are currently at the cutting edge of carbon research and are finding ways of making carbon components, and even entire carbon vehicles, for a much more affordable price. Indeed, if the labour-intensive nature of current carbon-fibre design and build systems can be reduced, then the actual raw material cost is lower than that of, say, aluminium.
“Reducing a vehicle’s weight can deliver major benefits for fuel consumption but a process for fast and affordable production of carbon fiber automotive parts in large numbers has never been available”, said Inga Wehmeyer, advanced materials and processes research engineer in Ford’s European Research Centre. “By partnering with materials experts through the Hightech.NRW research project, Ford is working to develop a solution that supports cost efficient manufacturing of carbon fiber components.”Anthony Sheriff, MD of McLaren Automotive, the road-car making arm of the legendary F1 team, has no doubts that carbon is the future even for mainstream cars:"Basically everything that’s important to the driving experience, strength for crash safety, weight for speed and efficiency, rigidity for handling, are improved significantly with carbon fibre. That’s the case whether you’re talking about a mid-engined 200mph sports car or a city car.
"I think we already see a number of cars at lower price points that have have woken up to the point that with innovation you can drive the production costs lower. And you are going to see other sports cars, and very interestingly, hybrid and electric city cars using carbon fibre. Especially on electric cars, the weight saving has an enormous benefit because if you have a light electric car, you can have a smaller battery and therefore you save additional weight and additional cost.
"Before you find it in a Ford Focus? Well, it’s not 50 years but neither is it 5 years. I’d say its 10 year before we start to see significant use of carbon fibre in such cars."
That tallies with Ford's plans, which seek to reduce the weight of an average family car by as much as 340kg by the end of the decade.
