News watch August 2010: today's industry news

Welcome to CAR Magazine's news aggregator as we round up the daily stories in the auto industry. Top tip: news summaries are added from the top hour-by-hourTuesday 31 August 2010• HSBC has sold its US car loan business to Spanish bank Santander, for an estimated £2.6bn in cash and assumed debt. The move sees the bank further distance itself from the collapsed US sub-prime market (Financial Times, subsription required) • Toll roads do not improve congestion, according to the Campaign For Better Transport. Its claims M6 toll road operator Midland Expressway Ltd is losing ‘tens of millions of pounds’ each year, while conditions on the original M6 have failed to improve (Campaign for Better Transport) Friday 27 August 2010• Spyker, which bought Saab earlier this year, has posted a €139m loss after tax in the first half of 2010 it announced today (Financial Times)• Fiat CEO Sergio Marchionne says the business is performing strongly in the third quarter – and has ruled out selling Alfa Romeo.

Black cab fares to rise

BLACK cab fares in the capital are going up and could rise again as early as next January. From April 5, London taxi fares will increase by an average of 0.7%, Transport for London (TfL) announced today. TfL said the below-inflation increase was the lowest since it took responsibility for licensing taxis in 2000 and the rise equated to just 9p more on an average fare.

Blue badge fraud prosecutions up

BLUE BADGE FRAUD prosecutions have doubled in three years, with professional people such as lawyers and architects among the offenders. Unscrupulous fraudsters have been caught using a dead relative's pass or leaving a disabled parent stuck at home in order to park for free to go shopping or travel to work, said the Local Government Association (LGA) . There were 686 successful council prosecutions in 2013 - up from 330 in 2010 as councils cracked down on offenders.