Inferior Design

Remember when BMW introduced their iDrive knob?

Lots of people hated it.

Then it evolved.

I found it perfectly useable on my 2012 3-Series.

Apple obviously weren't too bothered by its name - it was well before they had even considered making cars themselves so they wouldn't have needed it.

But now it is on it's way out...

...at least as we know it today.

Several motoring sites are reporting that BMW are at CES 2025 in Las Vegas showing the new version that will appear within the Neue Klasse electric models slated for the back end of this year.

Look! No knob!

And unfortunately, no buttons either.

Have they learned nothing from Volkswagen's U-Turn?

Now driving a BMW will be how I imagine driving a Tesla to be - just about everything involving fingering a big central screen - not exactly a driver's car any more.  But at least the BMWs will still have indicator stalks - something Tesla dropped in favour of steering wheel buttons - a horrific idea that you can only get away with if you are Ferrari.

And maybe not even then.

But, also at CES, we have evidence that someone at Tesla has seen a bit of sense.

Pretty safe bet it wouldn't have been Elon.

Drive.com.au have the specs for the all-new 2025 Tesla Model Y here.

Remember the days when a heated rear window or a rear fog lamp were proudly listed as features on the more upmarket versions of a particular model of car?

Well if you look at the features offered on the 2025 Model Y you will see...

...an indicator stalk!

Cool Grannies

 

Now that to me is the coolest type of Granny.

Not that exact model, but the Ford Granada in general.

But, according to Car+Driver, an old lady in Japan is the coolest Granny "on the planet".

She is admittedly cool, having just given up her licence due to age and selling her car to Mazda.

Her car being a third-generation Mazda RX-7.

But if we are talking about motoring grannies, how about this one on the BBC News site today?

Now, the article doesn't actually say if she is a granny, just that she has sons.  But she looks somewhere around my age and I'm well old enough to be a grandparent.

And just off the top of my head, what about Michele Mouton?  she is 73 and has at least one daughter so it's quite liable that she is enjoying granny status.

Meanwhile if you want uncool grannies, apparently crocheting covers for supercars is a thing...

Actually it isn't - it's people messing about with AI - but just in case any actual grannies are reading this...

...NOT A GOOD LOOK.

Three for All

Happy St.Stephen's Day!

If Good King Wenceslas is looking out on the feast of motoring news this Christmas, he will have spotted the big story which is the potential merger of Nissan, Honda and Mitsubishi.

The story came out with this photo:

Assuming they are standing in front of their respective logos, the Mitsubishi guy looks slightly less unhappy with the deal than the other two.

It took me a while to work out what that photo reminded be of.

At first I thought of Kraftwerk - maybe performing Autobahn:

But they have lecturns.

And there are four of them.

As I have mentioned before, here and here for example, three is the magic number - although I was talking about Top Gear at the time at the start of the Chris Evans era.

You don't hear of him nowadays.

But maybe that is a clue as to what the photo reminds me of:

Except they look too relaxed.

And they are stood in the wrong order - Hammond is definitely Mitsubishi and Clarkson is definitely Nissan.

This photo is a bit closer:

Sir Kier even has the pose right.

But this is the photo that captures the mood best:

Now, what sort of vehicle will these three automotive icons come up with?

How about this?

Dangerous electric switch.

Do people switching from internal combustion to electric crash more because of the higher speeds that can be attained quickly?

That is the question raised today by Autocar.

It's an interesting question and the commenters at the bottom of the article make some interesting points too - well done for an interesting debate - I'd like to continue it here but virtually nobody reads my Blog and I can't be doing with promoting it.

Hertz, who have got shut of 20,000 Teslas say it is because "they were involved in more accidents than the renter’s ICE vehicles."

I would dispute that the reason was their electricness though - I'd have thought it was more down to renters struggling to get used to the stupid controls and lack of indicator stalks and the distracting central screen.

Other factors making electric more likely  to crash would be they tend to be:

• heavier
• taller (bloody SUV cross-overs)
• driven by younger people
• have more distractions for the driver

The weight may be countered by the fact that they have a low centre of gravity due to mostly underfloor battery packs.

And, as well as the more distractions, there will also be more safety features.

So what do the insurers tell us?

The Autocar story quotes Howden UK&I Retail who tell us “There are 26% more accident claims for EVs than for ICE vehicles.”

That seems quite conclusive.

Except, Thisismoney (who I nicked my photo off) tell us that HPI tell us "Looking specifically at cars up to a year old, the study found that a total of 40 EVs (0.01 per cent) were scrapped out of the 334,525 on the road last year.  This compared to 701 of 2,026,146 ICE vehicles (0.03 per cent)"

And Fleeteurope.com have this story telling us that the German Insurance Association analysed data showing that electric cars are responsible for five to 10 percent fewer accidents on average than comparable vehicles with ICE engines. "responsible for" though - not "involved in"

I honestly don't know the answer to this - maybe nobody does yet.

In the meantime - just enjoy the charged discussion.

Shark Infested

The new new Top Gear Magazine (which I'm still not overly sure about) has a section called "Vapourware Files" which pays tribute to the many new cars announced by new car companies that never actually reach fruition.

I wonder if this is going to be featured in a future edition.

It's by Mika.

No, not the bloke who sang about Grace Kelly and the Bells Ending, pictured here with a Mini he's vandalised.

The "car" in the top picture is by Warwickshire based car company Mika - this Autocar story tells you more.

But in that particular hue, it looks like a shark.

Not a BYD Shark - that looks like a Ford F150.

And from the rear view, it looks worse.

The article makes a big play of the enveloping frame formed from "composite pultrusions" which "form an extremely rigid survival cell for occupants in the Mika"

I'm not sure if it is these that make the car look like an Alfa Romeo SZ that has been rear-ended.

Maybe that's the safety angle they will be going for - the probability of a car being in TWO serious accidents is extremely low.