All Analysis articles – Page 3
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Analysis
EVolving the network
Shell is planning to be the first fuel retailer in the UK to take out traditional fuels from an operating service station and replace them with an electric vehicle-only charging hub. An application for planning permission for the development on the company’s site in Fulham, west London, was made at ...
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Analysis
Speeding ahead
Sales of electric cars in the UK are currently minuscule compared with their internal combustion engine (ICE) cousins, but the country’s biggest-selling car maker is gearing up for a rapid change in this state of affairs. At the Frankfurt Motor Show last month, Ford announced that it expects the majority ...
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Analysis
A moving target?
In July 2017, when the government published its long-awaited clean air strategy and its Road to Zero transport policy, its confirmation that it would ban sales of conventional internal combustion engine cars and vans by 2040 met with very little opposition. Just the fact that it had set a firm ...
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Analysis
We should be ’celling’ the future
A future where battery- powered and hybrid vehicles are superseded by vehicles running on hydrogen fuel cells was predicted by Jon Hunt, manager, alternative fuels, at Toyota. Speaking at a conference organised by the Westminster Energy, Environment & Transport Forum, he explained why the company that produced the ...
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Analysis
Emission impossible
Government indecision over the introduction of E10 a blend of fuel with up to 10% ethanol content compared with the current limit of 5% in E5 is nothing new. It was just after the London Olympics in 2012 when the then Transport Minister Norman Baker wrote to industry ...
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Analysis
C-store growth rate set to soar
New market analysis by HIM, revealed by insight director Gareth Nash, predicts that the growth rate in the convenience sector in 2019 will accelerate, with overall turnover up 3.5% to £41.7bn, compared with a growth rate of 2.7% last year. He said the growth rate had been slowing slightly over ...
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Analysis
Fuelling the future
The UK is lagging behind the rest of the world in terms of automotive hydrogen development, with countries such as China, Korea and Japan pushing ahead at a rapid rate, according to Charles Purkess, business development manager at ITM Power. He was part of the ’Fuelling the Future: On the ...
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Analysis
Last throw of the dice
When the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) published its damning provisional findings on the proposed merger between Sainsbury’s and Asda on February 20, many commentators thought the deal was dead. The CMA said it was concerned the deal would lead to a substantial lessening of competition at both a national ...
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Analysis
A year of upheaval
This year has seen massive upheaval in the Top 50 Indies listing, compared with 2018 when not only were the Top 10 companies all the same companies as the previous year, but they were all in the same order too. Not least among the changes is that, for the first ...
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Analysis
Evading the issue
When a Parliamentary Committee of MPs announced last year that it was launching an inquiry into the hand car wash sector it appeared that a long campaign was finally paying off. For years the PRA and its sister organisation, the Car Wash Association (CWA), have been highlighting the explosion in ...
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Analysis
Competition for growth still intense
We’ve just had a year of seismic events with the second largest operator, MFG, buying its larger rival MRH, and Sainsbury’s agreeing a deal with Asda that would make it the UK’s number one road fuel retailer. And while one deal has cleared all its regulatory hurdles, and the other ...
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Analysis
Turning the tide
For many years the government has turned a deaf ear whenever the PRA and the Car Wash Association (CWA) have highlighted the scourge of illegal hand car washes springing up in towns and cities across the UK, but finally it has been presented with evidence it can’t ignore. The Commons ...
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Analysis
The police have got it wrong
As police services across the UK have cut the number of frontline officers in response to funding pressures, chief constables and politicians have been looking for ways to ease the burden on the remaining crime fighters. One way that has been repeatedly suggested is downgrading the importance attached to forecourt ...
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Analysis
Turning the tide
The sell-offs of large tranches of their forecourt estates by some of the biggest oil companies has changed the structure of the UK market for most of this century. No one would argue that MRH, MFG, Euro Garages and Rontec would not have been the dominant groups in the Top ...
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Analysis
Deals that dominate the market
After its predecessor, the Office of Fair Trading (OFT), gave the road fuels market a clean bill of health in early 2013, the Competition & Markets Authority (CMA) has ignored calls for a fresh inquiry and left the sector well alone. But two major deals mean it is now assessing ...
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Analysis
A rocky road ahead
The Road to Zero strategy is nothing short of the government’s blueprint to phase out two of the bed rocks of the forecourt sector petrol and diesel. While the ’zero’ it refers to is emissions from road vehicles, its method for achieving this is prohibiting the sale of all new ...
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Analysis
Targeting the cowboys
Years of campaigning by the PRA and Car Wash Association paid off last month when their chairman, Brian Madderson, was invited to give evidence to MPs on the damage unregulated hand car washes are wreaking on the legitimate trade, and the environment. The House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee has ...
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Analysis
Conundrums for retail managers
Facing change and challenges are major aspects of the job of a retail manager in the fuels marketing and forecourt retailing sector. Looking at the market now compared with where it was five years ago, there has been significant change and upheaval. There are, however, some things that never change ...
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Analysis
Fuel for thought
None of the pontificating politicians in Westminster, who are currently debating forcing forecourts to install electric charging points, appear to have given any thought to the practical issues involved. Had they attended the launch of the fourth edition of the Blue Book they would now be having second thoughts. John ...
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Analysis
Turning the tide
With the National Crime Agency investigating links with organised crime and drug smuggling, and raids almost on a daily basis looking for slaves among their work forces, illicit hand car wash operators were probably wondering when MPs would wake up to the problems they pose. What few were expecting, however, ...