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Weekly Wheelspin: Fuel fury, Leaf life, rapid reviews and duct-tape tyres

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Author: | Updated: 01 Jun 2018 16:12

Amidst European Cup heartbreak, a Bank Holiday bonanza, commuter chaos, trade tariffs and back-from-the-dead journalists, it’s safe to say this week has had it all.

The automotive goings on haven’t been much different, albeit far less bombastic. So what have you missed?

Weekly Wheelspin: Fuel fury, Leaf life, rapid reviews and duct-tape tyres

In the news

Nobody likes to start the week off on a downer, but unfortunately that’s just the way the news falls sometimes. And with fuel prices increasing every day since March that’s how we kicked off this week.

The study by the RAC revealed that the average price of a litre of unleaded rose from 116.66p per litre to 124.74p per litre. Diesel also increased from 119.35p to 127.69p over the same period at UK supermarkets.

The study by the RAC revealed that the average price of a litre of unleaded rose from 116.66p per litre to 124.74p per litre

The rise has been put down to two main factors – oil prices increasing to more than $80 per barrel and the unfavourable pound/dollar exchange rate.

Oh well, at least we won’t have to worry about that in our imminent EV future. Unless our electricity supply starts rising monthly, in which case we’ll be borrowing our kids’ Cozy Coupe to get around in.

Volkswagen e-Golf and Zipcar 1 (1)

With this in mind, this future is looking closer than you might expect. Just this week car-sharing company Zipcar added 325 all-electric e-Golfs to its fleet for motorists to drive around London, while Audi revealed some more details on their upcoming e-tron SUV including the key to its impressive range – aerodynamics.

And with their commitment to going all-electric from 2019 onwards, Volvo certainly has momentum on their side with the Swedish manufacturer crowned Car Brand of the Year at the 12th annual Which? Awards.

Volvo SUV line-up

This is on top of the XC40 winning European Car of the Year and the XC60 winning World Car of the Year. So forget the exciting 2019 they’re projecting, it’s safe to say Volvo is having a pretty amazing 2018.

On social

We’re gonna go ahead and assume this is the English summer we’re currently experiencing, and hopefully this won’t be all the sunshine we get *touch wood*.

With the warm weather, comes the age old question for motorists: Windows down or air-con on?

Battle-lines were drawn between Facebook and Twitter, with different choices proving more popular depending on which social network you were on.

We wonder which choice Ford opted for when they took the new Mustang for a drive on one of the best roads the UK has to offer. You can follow their amazing journey via Twitter Moments:

Leasing dealhunters

The latest government figures show that the average UK motorist drives 7,900 miles every year. But forget about the average person. What about those of you who aren’t average?

“My granny does more miles than 8k a year,” we often hear from our mile-munching Facebook fans.

With this in mind we’ve pulled together some of our favourite deals with high mileage allowances and low one-month initial payments. Win-win.

Latest reviews

Continuing the electric theme from this weeks news, we reviewed the all-new Nissan Leaf.

Nissan Leaf

What did we think of it? The long and short of it: It normalises the electric car in every conceivable way. Read the full review here.

Aside from the conventional car review, the team also put the Nissan Leaf to the test to see how practical the electric car is as an everyday vehicle. See how they got on in this day-by-day blog.

Ford Fiesta ST 2018 details

Want something more conventional and sporty from your review? Phil Huff was recently in the new Fiesta ST and now we want to drive it too.

From the archives

Its safe to say automotive advertising has come a long way since the first vehicle showed up.

Dispense with a horse

In this retrospective feature, we look back at how automotive advertising has evolved from print and TV to where we are now with the internet.

And finally…

Don’t have a spare tyre? Try this! Or, well, don’t actually…

duct tape wheel

Yep, the boys at Life OD on YouTube decided to make a tyre out of duct tape recently. You can view the whole experiment here.

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