In the UK, half a million or cars or motor vehicles are stolen every year, most of these are written off or vandalised. On top of this there are a large number of accidents each year and you could be the next person to see your vehicle written off.

If your vehicle is written off your motor insurer will only pay the current market value for your vehicle!  So what happens if the current market value is not enough to replace your vehicle or pay off your finance or contract hire agreement?  Simple, there is a financial gap that you will have to pay out of your own pocket, an example of this is as follows:

Imagine you buy a car for £10,000 – you put down a deposit of £1000 meaning you have to take out a loan of £9,000.  One year on, the car is involved in an accident and written off.  The insurance company pays out only £3,500 yet you have £6,000 still to pay off on your loan – meaning there is a financial gap of £2,500 which you would have to cover yourself.

A Gap Insurance policy will cover you against financial loss should your car be stolen and/or written off.

Following our previous posts concentrating on the Frankfurt Motor Show 2009, one thing that we haven’t really mentioned is the one that most motor shows are all about, the Concept Cars.  The chance for designers, developers and the engineers to show off, go a bit crazy and put new ideas out there.  Audi, BMW and all the big companies produce concepts, they’re not just produced to boost the ego’s of the designers.

Rarely do concpet cars ever make it to production, but many have influenced the next stage designs for motor companies.  From body shapes to interior trim many ‘concepts’ have been taken through to final designs and appear in the cars we drive on the road today.

Personally I think concept cars provide an important outlet for development teams to show what they can do and to be creative.  Letting off the design shackles does lead to some very dodgy looking cars with little mainstream appeal, but in those cars there may be a gear stick or dashboard that everyone will love.

They are, by their nature seen as extravagent and we’re not sure if they are always given the respect they deserve.  One thing we are sure of is that they drive innovation and that surely can only be a good thing.

Further to our last post on Friday regarding the Frankfurt motor show, this post is a bit of a follow up and is concentrated on the topic of electric cars.

The phrase ‘electric car’ conjures up all sorts of images in most peoples minds – form super futuristic cars to the more down-to-earth realistic ones that are so ugly they could scare a young child.  The debate as to how clean electric cars really are rages on, (we still don’t have that many renewable sources) and still there are no electric cars that fit the needs of the average driver in terms of looks and performance.

Until now…  Unveiled at the the Frankfurt Motor Show 2009 is an electric Audi R8 (and it’s not one that comes with a remote control either).  It’s full size and looks as good as the petrol version.  Specifics as to how good the performance is going to be are not available, but at this moment in time we can all be happy that there may be at least one electric car that is worth owning and actually looks good!