Category
A staged licensing system based on age and power, which is deliberately structured so that access to more powerful machines is earned progressively — and the route you take depends heavily on what
Considerably more than charging at home, and the gap is large enough to change the economics of running an electric car depending on where you charge — which is the single most important thing
Several standards exist because charging split along regional and AC/DC lines before anything converged — and the practical consequence is that your car has one or two sockets, and not every public
A child must use a correctly fitted child restraint until they are 135 cm tall or 12 years old, whichever comes first — and the more important point is that the legal minimum and the safest practice
An endorsement is a record of an offence added to your driving record, carrying a number of penalty points — and the two things that matter most are how long points count toward a ban and how long
Each category is a letter code on the back of your licence specifying a class of vehicle you may drive — and the codes matter because people routinely drive things they are not entitled to,
By checking the recorded mileage history against the odometer and against the vehicle's physical condition — and mileage adjustment is easier than it has ever been, because digital odometers are
By checking the vehicle identification number against the manufacturer's and the regulator's records — and it is worth doing, because recalls are frequently unactioned on used vehicles that have
A warranty covers failures; a service plan covers scheduled maintenance. They are frequently sold together and cover entirely different things, and confusing them leads to expensive surprises.
Owing more on the finance agreement than the car is worth — which happens easily, is entirely normal early in an agreement, and becomes a problem only when you need to change the car. Why it occurs.
Whether you end up owning the car, and what you are actually paying for during the agreement — three arrangements that look similar as a monthly figure and differ fundamentally. Hire purchase (HP).
A rating from 1 to 50 indicating how expensive a vehicle is expected to be to insure — assigned by an industry body and used by insurers as one input among many, rather than as the price itself. Who
A defined area where vehicles failing an emissions standard are charged or restricted — and compliance depends on the vehicle's emissions standard, not on its age, fuel or how it looks. The standards
By a system that has changed several times, so the rate depends on when the vehicle was first registered — which is why two apparently similar cars can cost very different amounts, and why advice
Through a DVLA process attaching a registration to a vehicle — and the key concept is the retention document, which lets you hold a registration without a vehicle while you buy or sell. The two
No — and this is the single most important thing to understand about the document, because it is routinely misunderstood in ways that cost people money. What the V5C is. The vehicle registration
Because the entire ecosystem of automotive electrical components runs on 12 volts, and the high-voltage traction battery is deliberately disconnected whenever the car is not in use. What the 12V
Three graded measures plus a snow and ice marking — and the first of them affects your fuel consumption every mile you drive, which few buyers realise. Fuel efficiency (rolling resistance). Graded A
They are driver assistance systems, not automation — they help within narrow conditions and expect you to be driving throughout, and the gap between what they do and what people assume they do is
Because aerodynamic drag rises with the square of speed, and the power needed to overcome it rises with the cube — so going faster costs far more than the speed difference suggests. The arithmetic.
Brake fade is a loss of braking effectiveness from heat — the pedal may still feel firm, but the car does not slow as it should. It is the reason repeated hard braking on a long descent is dangerous
Relay theft exploits the fact that a keyless entry system only checks whether the key is nearby — and thieves can make the car believe it is, by extending the signal. How keyless entry works. The car
Nose weight is the downward force the trailer's coupling applies to the towball — and getting it right is the single most important factor in whether a trailer tows stably or begins to snake. Why it
Three different figures that get used interchangeably and are not interchangeable at all — and getting them wrong is how people end up driving overloaded, which is an offence. Kerb weight. The weight