News in brief: Europcar introduces Europcar Assistance web-based customer support tool; MINI to continue Oxford build; Fleets start to shun supermarket fuel

Europcar introduces Europcar Assistance for incident support

EUROPCAR Mobility Group UK has introduced an innovative new web-based customer assistance tool called Europcar Assistance.

Available to all customers hiring a vehicle from the company, Europcar Assistance provides access to incident support and breakdown assistance. It also offers vehicle support, such as definitions of warning lights and information on the specific make and model of the vehicle they’re driving.

“We want to make vehicle rental as simple and convenient as possible,” commented Evelyn Tourish, customer experience manager at Europcar.

“This new web tool puts all the information our customers need in the palm of their hand as well as giving them a simple way to instantly report damage, breakdown or an incident. In the unlikely event that a customer experiences a breakdown or incident, we believe this instant support will make a significant difference and ensure the customer gets assistance as quickly as possible.”

£600m investment by BMW sees MINI production continue at Oxford

GREAT news for UK car production was the announcement from BMW that it would continue building the MINI at its Oxford plant. The government has supported the investment.

The Oxford plant will build two new electric MINIs – at a time when BMW had switched production of its electric MINI to China. The plant will build the new three-door MINI Cooper and the compact crossover MINI Aceman from 2026. Prior to that, the plant will start producing the next generation MINI three-door and MINI five-door with combustion engines, as well as the new MINI Convertible from next year.

“With this new investment we will develop the Oxford plant for production of the new generation of electric MINIs and set the path for purely electric car manufacturing in the future,” said Milan Nedeljković, BMW AG management board member responsible for production.

Drop in fleets refuelling at supermarkets

FLEET purchasing of supermarket petrol and diesel has fallen by around 15% on last year FleetCheck is reporting using data from 430,000 transactions across its user base.

The drop in supermarket fuel spend is being reported by FleetCheck from data interrogation across its user base.

It says that the trend has emerged following accusations that supermarkets have profiteered on fuel following the Ukraine war, with the government discussing making the publication of live fuel prices compulsory in response to the controversy.

Peter Golding, managing director, said: “There has been much discussion about the pricing of supermarket fuel over the last year or more, with the RAC reporting as recently as last month that their margins had doubled and they were failing to pass on reductions in wholesale prices at the pumps.

“Fleets are clearly cognisant of these developments and they appear to have had a direct impact on fuel purchasing among our users. A 15% change such as this over the course of a year is a pretty significant shift and shows that businesses are skewing their petrol and diesel purchasing towards other sources.”