Hi Ian I have just been digging around and as far as I can see, if it has 3 wheels and is over 410KG then an SVA is required.

The following is from the driver and vehicle licensing Agency site.

"Will SVA affect you?
Your vehicle will need SVA inspection if it is not already type-approved to UK or EU standards, and is a car or light passenger vehicle (including dual-purpose vehicles) with:
- 4 or more wheels and 9 seats or fewer including the driver's seat; or
- 3 wheels, 9 seats or fewer including the driver's seat, and a maximum gross weight of more than 1000kg; or
- 3 wheels, a maximum gross weight of 1000kg, an unladen weight of more than 410kg (i.e., not a motorcycle), and either a design speed of more than 50kph (31mph) or an engine capacity of more than 50cc."

Now this is for the SVA, I am not sure if the rules for the Low Volume Exemption that the MMC will need to go for are the same, but I would expect them to be pretty similar. I also have no idea whether the need for an SVA will present an issue for the MMC a quick scan of the regs would suggest that it would be challenging, but I would have thought that the MMC should be aware of the issues? However if an SVA or similar is required then the comments by Simon after his discussion with the MMC "The issue with weight would seem to be affecting road tax, rather than anything else; however, I am waiting for further comment on this" would seem key.

I would have thought that if the thing had already passed the relevant type approval than the MMC would have said so?

Lots of conjecture, but as I said earlier time will tell.

Brian

I seem to have inadvertently caused a bit of a flurry. In defence, I was virtually quoting a letter from a Southern England dealers letter. Bined it already, otherwise I would be keen to have published it.

As for MogWire, I have no idea who they are (being new to the Morgan community). But I have to say, that website has been ahead of the curve on M3W news by some distance. Not in a negative way, but generally factual and neutral.

Morgan perhaps should have communicated better with their dealers about the delays in a more transparent manner and these apparent misunderstandings would not have arisen.

Regardless, looking forward to delivery. Perhaps by the Spring ?

Maybe they got their information from here?

Hi Brian,

Thanks for that clarification.

Reading the documents at both the DVLA and "Vehicle Certification Agency" it seems to me the SVA issue is a red herring. SVA is a low volume alternative to Type Approval but the rules for both SVA and Type Approval are the same (that's a first!) Surely the vehicle will have to be submitted for one or the other, which one doesn't matter.

So I guess that's it. MMC want to avoid having it approved under car C&U regs for taxation reasons.

~iw

That would be an interesting project, to build the most bizarre and impractical vehicle capable of being approved

Morning Ian, Not too sure if I have clarified anything. For reasons I am not too sure of I have been interested in the low-volume exemption rules for a while, though every time I have a troll through the rules they seem to get harder to follow and more diverse, so any views I have based on a an awareness of 10% of the information, interpreted with no skill,,,,



As far as I can see (But see above) SVA, as the name implies, is for a single vehicle - a kit car, a substantially rebuilt car, some foreign imports etc. Type approval is for the big boys - crash testing and soon pedestrian protection, ABS air bags etc.
Then we have the Low Volume Vehicle exemption (LVV) the LVV rules used be at around 200 vehicles a year, but i am sure that i read that the level had been raised to 1000 vehicles a year but can no longer find it. I would also guess that the standard for SVA is the one that applies for LVV - but for the range. But as I say that is a complete guess.




Well that must be part of it I guess, but I would think that the main reason is that they wanted to avoid the need to adhere to the SVA construction requirements. This requirement may not be a problem - whether it is is the current issue I would have thought. I do suspect that they may have to add some appendages to the front for pedestrian protection.

We will soon find out

I'm a bit confused here! Surely all the three wheelers they have built so far as test vehicles have had to pass the SVA or equivalent to enable them to be registered for on road driving? So they must meet the construction requirements.

Whether the weight issue takes them out of the motorbike category as far as road tax is concerned is surely neither here nor there.....based on the purchase price of the car the annual saving is totally irrelevant to most people. OK...there is the issue of providing consumption and CO2 figures but that shouldn't be too much of a hurdle to get round.

Well the one thing that is clear to me is that the whole business is a complete minefield.

The "Vehicle Certification Agency" UK Fact Sheet has this paragraph (in red):

Note that due to the frequency of change, all EC Directives listed throughout this document are referred to by their base level number. In many cases they will have been amended since the creation of this document.

Makes you wonder what chance anyone has!

Time will tell as you say. In the meantime I'm getting on with my 8 seater!

~iw

Agreed, that is the conclusion I have come to as well. No real issue.

~iw