White remains the UK's best selling colour for the fourth year running.

• White UK’s favourite new car colour for fourth consecutive year, but demand falls for the first time since 2005 – down -2.1%.
• 2016 sees highest number of black cars registered in the UK since 2007 – 542,862.
• Yellow back in top 10, with 12,431 cars registered – double the figure from five years ago.

White maintained its position as the UK’s most popular new car colour for the fourth year in a row in 2016, according to data published today by the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT). 

More than half a million new car buyers chose the colour last year – a fifth of all registrations – although figures show its popularity is starting to fade with demand falling -2.1%, the first drop since 2005.

White and black are the nation’s two favourite car colours – of the 2.69 million new cars registered in 2016, white (552,329) and black (542,862) took more than 40% market share. 

While white maintained its lead in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, in England it was overtaken by black as the new car colour of choice.

Nationally, the third and fourth most popular colours were grey and blue, both gaining market share. Meanwhile, yellow cars appeared in the top 10 for the first time since 2013 at the expense of mauve, which dropped to 11th place.

Regionally, black topped the chart in the South East while also overtaking white as the favourite new car colour in East Anglia and the West Midlands. 

However, white continued to be most popular across the rest of the country, with buyers in the South West, East Anglia, East Midlands, Yorkshire and the North all following the national trend.

Car colours: Biggest winners and losers in 2016

Going up

• Pink may still be a niche colour choice, but last year demand grew 82.7% to 3,527 units.
• A 44% rise in demand for Bronze cars saw a record 8,902 people spec the colour in 2016.
• Turquoise’s popularity grew fourfold last year, from just 792 registrations in 2015 to 2,718.

Going down

• Is brown’s time in the top 10 coming to an end? Demand fell -40.1%, dropping it one place to ninth.
• Appetite for beige fell -27.6% to under 10,000 for the first time since 2000 with 8,426 cars registered.
• Silver saw the biggest volume decline, falling 22,209, with 273,220 buyers choosing it compared with 843,870 in its heyday back in 2004.

Five national winners awarded Land Rover Discovery Sport for a year to help develop their countryside careers

• Five national winners awarded Land Rover Discovery Sport for a year to help develop their  countryside careers
• Young people aged from 21 to 34 from England, Wales and Scotland to benefit from annual bursary
• Winning projects including start up microbrewery, and rare breed wool business demonstrating diverse rural careers being pursued by young people in the UK in 2016

Land Rover and The Prince’s Countryside Fund (PCF) have announced the five winners of their 2016 bursary, which offers a year’s loan of a Land Rover Discovery Sport vehicle to support young people in the development of their countryside careers.

The winning entrants, including 21-year-old Lewis Steer, who runs a rare breed wool business and 28-year-old Steven Holmes, founder of a new microbrewery in Lancaster, were selected for their entrepreneurial spirit and passion for making a difference within their rural community.

The five winners were awarded the vehicles at Loseley Park in Surrey alongside vehicle handling training from Land Rover Experience to prepare them for all terrains and weather conditions, and teach them about the vehicle’s range of on and off-road features and towing capabilities.  

Land Rover has supported The Prince's Countryside Fund since 2013, contributing to the Fund's grant giving programme in addition to the annual bursary scheme.

The Land Rover Discovery Sport is the world’s most versatile compact SUV providing beneficiaries with seven seats, towing capability of 2.2 tonnes and Land Rover’s legendary Terrain Response making it capable whatever the weather or terrain.

One winner, Ashley Stamper, 24, Contract Hill Shepherd said, “The loan of the Land Rover Discovery Sport is going to really boost my ambition to become a self-employed shepherdess. 

Coming from a family of beauticians, setting up in agriculture and generating capital has been challenging, however the more I am able to travel around and build a reputation for myself, the more successful I will be. 

I’m really excited for the year ahead and to get my trailer licence, making my work more efficient and a lot more enjoyable!”

Jeremy Hicks, Jaguar Land Rover UK Managing Director said, “We are really excited to announce the five winners of this year’s bursary with The Prince’s Countryside Fund. 

UK farming is a crucial part of our economy and the breadth of different careers our winners are carving for themselves demonstrates just how important diversification is becoming for young people to prosper in the industry. 

They are also showing other young people that farming is an exciting, multi-dimensional career choice. 

We hope that each one of them will truly benefit from the loan of the Discovery Sport, with the vehicle and the savings made on other transport costs, helping to take their projects to the next level.”

Claire Saunders, director of The Prince’s Countryside Fund said: “We’re delighted to be able to support five ambitious young people who are making huge strides in their rural careers. These entrepreneurs are great ambassadors for young people making a difference in their rural communities. 

Our partnership with Land Rover has provided a great opportunity for people who live and work in the countryside and everyone involved with The Prince’s Countryside Fund is excited to follow their journey this year and see the difference these vehicles can make.”

The 2016 Prince’s Countryside Fund Land Rover Bursary list of winners includes:

Lewis Steer, 21, Lily Warne Wool, Chudleigh, Devon: Alongside studying Rural Estate and Land Management at The Royal Agricultural University, Lewis runs his own wool business, taking sheared wool from his flock of rare breed Greyface Dartmoor sheep. 

Lewis, who does not come from a farming background, shears his flock by hand and takes his fleece to the local wool mill where it is spun into yarn before returning to the farm. Lewis’s entrepreneurial spirit and passion for agriculture has led to some exciting business opportunities. 

His Lily Warne Wool (named after his great great grandmother) is one of the only in the country to carry out the entire woollen process ‘from farm to yarn’, and focuses on reconnecting people with British Wool. 

He will use the Land Rover Discovery Sport for his day-to-day shepherding, moving the sheep between rented land and to access other farms to buy wool and skins through the co-operative he has set up, supporting other local farmers to gain more from their stock.

Steven Holmes, 28, Farm Yard Ales, Cockerham, Lancaster: Based on his family’s farm in Lancaster, Steven is doing something truly different within agriculture. He is in the early stages of creating a new microbrewery enterprise on the farm, which will be erected this summer. 

Steven is passionate about supporting other small enterprises and once trading, plans to support other independent breweries through a system known as cask swapping. 

This is a co-operative process that involves sending full casks to other breweries who then sell on your behalf, allowing each breweries product to travel further and sell on a national level. 

The casks are then returned full and the process is reciprocated, reducing the logistical costs of collecting empty casks. Steven will use the vehicle to pull a flatbed trailer to assist with deliveries and collections of the craft beer in and around Lancashire in the early stages of his start-up business, whilst conveying the British farming heritage behind Farm Yard Ales.

Ashley Stamper, 24, Contract Hill Shepherd, Northumberland: Ashley, who lives and studies Agriculture in Edinburgh, is a contract hill shepherd working in Northumberland covering 9,000 acres of land. 

Breaking away from the family beauty business, Ashley is paving her own career in sheep farming, taking on tasks including lambing, dosing, crutching, and foot trimming. Her dream is to one day be a self-employed contract shepherdess. 

Ashley will use the Land Rover Discovery Sport to transport her sheepdogs and feed down farm tracks that are inaccessible in her current car. She plans to get her trailer licence during the course of the year and use the vehicle to tow livestock for farmers within her community.

Helen Reeve, 34, Dairy Farmer from Alburgh, Harleston: Helen works full time on a dairy herd, looking after over 300 Jersey cows, which involves milking, calf rearing and cleaning. As well as this, she owns her own herd of pedigree Dexter cattle that are reared for breeding and beef production. 

In her spare time, Helen is a member of a number of clubs and societies and uses her experience to give talks and presentations to various groups about her chosen profession and life as a young female farmer and is committed to helping young people understand more about the career opportunities available in farming and agriculture. 

Helen will use the vehicle to transport feed for the cattle through tricky terrains and across dirt tracks in her area. She will also use it to transport the cattle themselves which she is currently unable to do in her current compact vehicle. 

Tomos Evans, 29, Sheep Farmer from Carmarthen, Wales: The retirement of Tomos’s parents led him to take up the family farming business and continue to lead their livestock enterprise. 

Since 2012, he has developed a successful flock of pedigree Texel sheep, pedigree Coloured Ryelands, Black Limouosins and 150 Welsh Mules. Tomos is a member of the South Wales Texel Club and currently Vice Chairman and a member of the Royal Welsh Show's Youth Forum. 

Tomos will use the Land Rover Discovery Sport to access his rented land in eight different locations and to tow the animals from field to field for grazing, as well as to shows and sales.

Jeremy Hicks, Jaguar Land Rover UK Managing Director said, “We are really excited to announce the five winners of this year’s bursary with The Prince’s Countryside Fund. 

UK farming is a crucial part of our economy and the breadth of different careers our winners are carving for themselves demonstrates just how important diversification is becoming for young people to prosper in the industry. 

They are also showing other young people that farming is an exciting, multi-dimensional career choice. We hope that each one of them will truly benefit from the loan of the Discovery Sport, with the vehicle and the savings made on other transport costs, helping to take their projects to the next level.”

Claire Saunders, director of The Prince’s Countryside Fund said: “We’re delighted to be able to support five ambitious young people who are making huge strides in their rural careers. 

These entrepreneurs are great ambassadors for young people making a difference in their rural communities. 

Our partnership with Land Rover has provided a great opportunity for people who live and work in the countryside and everyone involved with The Prince’s Countryside Fund is excited to follow their journey this year and see the difference these vehicles can make.”

The iconic London Taxi is being reborn with the TX5, and a $400 Million Investment Program to expand the product.

London's iconic black cabs aren't waiting for the U.K.'s vote on European Union membership, seeking their own Brexit by pitching an electric version for Paris and other major European cities.

London Taxi Co., a U.K. subsidiary of Zhejiang Geely Holding Group Co., 

showed the TX5 prototype in Paris last Thursday.

The car is powered by electric motors with an on-board gasoline-fueled generator for extra range. The goal is to offer the vehicle to cabbies in the French capital by 2018 and then expand to cities such as Barcelona, Oslo, Amsterdam and Berlin.

London Taxi is counting on its cab's spacious passenger seating and extended range to find buyers on the continent amid uncertainty over the U.K.'s future if the country votes to leave the European Union later this month.

The traditionally styled cab is designed for urban centers, where air quality is a growing problem. Paris is set to ban vehicles more than 20 years old starting next month.

"Most of the major cities in Europe have an air-pollution problem," said Peter Johansen, head of the taxi manufacturer that was bought by China's Zhejiang Geely Holding Group Co. in 2013. The limited range of existing models "is what has stopped until now the adoption of electric vehicles as the mainstay of taxis."

App competitors

London cabs aren't the only ones going green. France's leading taxi company, Taxis G7, and Uber Technologies Inc. allow French users to order electric and hybrid vehicles on their apps. Since December, tourists also can visit Paris aboard a retrofitted vintage Citroen 2CV car with an all-electric engine.

The rollout of the TX5 is part of a $400 million program that includes a new factory near Coventry, England. In addition to targeting traditional cabbies, London Taxi also plans to offer the car to ride-sharing apps such as Uber and its competitors.

London Taxi said the cost of owning the vehicle will make it attractive but declined to provide details about price or range.

"We are offering a global product that will be a global beater," said Johansen, who says the car can reach European markets even with a Brexit. The country is "so much part of Europe now

REPORT HERE

The cost of pot holes in the United Kingdom just gets worse, and we the driver end up paying out again.

The poor condition of the nation’s roads has hit drivers’ finances hard over the last twelve months, a new study reveals today.  Research for Kwik Fit, the UK’s largest automotive servicing and repair company, has found that in the last year British motorists have had to fund repair bills totalling £684million as a result of damage caused by hitting potholes¹.

Across the country, 6.3million drivers suffered damage from hitting potholes in their car, with motorists having to pay out an average of £108.60 for repairs to tyres, wheels, suspension, exhausts or other bodywork. 

The vast majority of this financial burden is falling on motorists – the Annual Local Authority Road Maintenance (ALARM) survey, also published today, reveals that only £13.5m has been paid out in compensation in England and Wales, just 2.1% of the total cost of damage².

Hitting a pothole is most likely to have caused damage in Yorkshire & Humber and London, where over a third (37% and 35% respectively) of drivers hitting a pothole had to make repairs.  Welsh drivers were most likely to be financially unscathed from the impact of a pothole, although even here, 17% faced repair bills.

Kwik Fit found that collectively, the greatest financial impact has been on drivers in the South East, who have had to pay a whopping £108,149,130 for repairs caused by potholes, followed by drivers in London, with the capital’s roads causing £91,368,450 worth of damage.

Per individual driver, the costliest damage was suffered in the east of England, where drivers had to pay an average of £163.68, nearly three times as much as drivers in Wales, where the average repair bill was £61.83.  Welsh drivers have collectively faced the lowest bill of all regions at £12.4million, less than half the cost to drivers in the north east of England, the second lowest region.

2015-16 saw the wettest November-January period on record, and surface water has been a significant factor in many drivers hitting potholes.  31% of motorists who hit a pothole in the last twelve months say they did so because it was hidden by water and they thought it was just a puddle.   

Kwik Fit found that nearly half (46%) of those hitting a pothole said they would have risked colliding with other traffic if they had swerved around it.  4% of those hitting a pothole were honest enough to admit that they were driving too fast, and couldn’t stop in time.

Region	Number of drivers suffering pothole  damage	Average cost of repairing damage	Total cost of repairs for all drivers
South East England	941,000	£114.93	£108,149,130
London	733,000	£124.65	£91,368,450
Yorks & Humber	720,000	£120.00	£86,400,000
South West England	721,000	£119.01	£85,806,210
Eastern England	457,000	£163.68	£74,801,760
North West England	687,000	£87.01	£59,775,870
Scotland	521,000	£109.02	£56,799,420
West Midlands	609,000	£87.59	£53,342,310
East Midlands	365,000	£86.33	£31,510,450
North East England	343,000	£72.66	£24,922,380
Wales	201,000	£61.83	£12,427,830
Great Britain	6,298,000	£108.60	£683,962,800

Roger Griggs, communications director at Kwik Fit, said: “We all understand that council budgets are stretched right across the country, but this research shows the financial burden being placed upon individual motorists.  And that’s purely the repair bill - it doesn’t take into account the inconvenience to people in having their cars off the road for repairs.  One pothole can cause misery for countless motorists, so it’s vital that local authorities make it as easy as possible for people to report the presence of a pothole.  But we would also encourage drivers to do their bit by reporting the ones they see and not relying on others to do it.

“Fortunately not everyone who hits a pothole suffers damage, but alloy wheels and low profile tyres make our cars more vulnerable to costly repairs when we do.  Sometimes damage won’t appear obvious immediately, so we encourage anyone who has hit a pothole to keep checking their tyres and wheels in the days afterwards.  If they have any concern that there may be damage they can come into any Kwik Fit centre and we will get their car up on our ramps to have it checked out.”