Is clockwork better than electric?

Saw the first episode of a new sitcom last night.

Although it's really a spin-off from an older sitcom.

Motherland has spawned Amandaland.

According to the Guardian, it is aimed at "strung out middle-aged mums" so shouldn't be of any interest to me.

And it perpetuates two tropes about electric cars - one real, one bunkum.

The real one is that you don't have off-road parking, they are a bugger to charge up locally and cheaply.

The bunkum one is that they keep running out of charge.

Here is Amanda in her Tesla.

As it is, the bunkum one doesn't bother me in the slightest.

For two reasons...

• It was essential to the storyline - and it is a VERY FUNNY sitcom.
• It makes Teslas look bad.

I don't like Teslas partly because of their lack of switchgear but mostly because of their odious CEO who I seem to be obsessed with - old Elon.

And it looks like I am not alone.  Here are a couple of very interesting stories about sales plummeting in Europe and the States:

• The Independent
• Motor 1.com

And one about how the Chinese brands are taking sales from Tesla over there.

• CNBC

The Chinese angle is interesting because Musk's current pal Donald is imposing tariffs on Chinese goods coming in to America (maybe he's found someone in America now who can make his MAGA hats) so that will probably include Tesla Model Ys.  And China is putting on reciprocal tariffs which will affect sales of the US built Teslas.

The American angle is also interesting though because the Americans who are not fans of Trump will not want to buy Teslas now. And Trump is very pro-oil and anti-electric so I suspect the bromance won't last too long.

Apparently, only Toyota owners are more likely than Tesla owners to say they will buy the same brand when they come to change their vehicle.  Wonder how long Tesla will hang on to that Number 2 spot?

Now go and watch episode 1 of Amandaland and you may realise that this post should have been called "Is clockwork better than chocolate?"

Stop Shouting!

I knew that Audi was formed from four German car companies and that one of them was Auto Union so assumed that was why the first two letters of Audi are AU.

My assumption was incorrect and my knowledge was a bit incorrect.

The company name is based on the Latin translation of the surname of the founder, August Horch. Horch, meaning 'listen', becomes audi in Latin. The four rings of the Audi logo each represent one of four car companies that banded together to create Audi's predecessor company, Auto Union.

Thank you Wikipedia.

Audi have now teamed up with SAIC of China to produce a Chinese-only sub brand aimed at "younger, tech-oriented Chinese EV buyers." This sounds a little bit like what Toyota did in The States with Scion - that didn't really work out for them in the end.

Autocar have the Audi story here while Auto Express have an opinion piece on it here.

The Autocar piece has pictures of what looks like an attractive car:

Auto Express opinion pieces tend to be right-wing rants nowadays so maybe it explains why they have only had one response to their question in it, "What do you think Audi should have called its new Chinese sub brand?"

If you have read either of those articles you will now know that it is not to be Audisaic.

But it is to be AUDI.

Not to be confused with Audi - who have sold cars in China for many years now under the name of...

...Audi.

At least the new shouty version will tie in better with the image of your typical Audi driver.

Solid State Drive

This, I reckon, is a game-changer from Nissan.

And just like the solid state bit means you have solid stuff where the moving stuff should be in a disk drive, solid state batteries have solid stuff where the sloshy stuff should be.

Autocar have an interesting piece on it today.  The technology in there today but Nissan claim that they will be able to mass-produce them at a reasonable cost. 

And it would mean lighter EVs with longer range.

That cost less.

And EVs using them could be in production by 2028.

But are they less damaging to the environment that the current lithium-ion EV batteries?  And less prone to igniting?

The article doesn't tell us.

But this one from New Scientist last October does.

Apparently, they are less damaging to the environment that the current lithium-ion EV batteries and they are less prone to igniting.

And Toyota has made a breakthrough that will allow “game-changing” solid-state batteries to go into production by 2028.

Look away now!

Two stories have caught my eye so far this year.

One from my default Aussie site which is about yet another Tesla crash.  This one is unusual though for two reasons:

1. It seems to be the first one involving a Cybertruck and...
2. It wasn't the Tesla's fault

They've reversed the picture for some reason - maybe to appeal to a right-hand-drive audience:

But this is good news for Tesla in that their vehicle has come out of it considerably more unscathed than the Toyota that crashed in to it:

Although it does raise questions about safety for any other vehicles, or indeed pedestrians, who do get entangled with them.

The other story with something to look away from was one I found in Autocar but I can't view it on my laptop because they won't show it to me unless I switch off the ad-blocker that I don't have. They instead rather unhelpfully show me how to switch off various ad-blockers that I don't have.  I found the story here on Just-Auto instead so Autocar can sod off.

The gist of this is what LG will be showing at the big tech show CES in Vegas next week.

They have technology that allows drivers and passengers to see different things on the same display screen.

Except Land-Rover had that over 10 years ago.

And, judging by the photo,

the LG version works by the driver looking away from the display.

This to me appears a little dangerous.

He'd better hope there isn't a Cybertruck coming the other way.

Toyota 1120000, RAM 243

If I recall correctly, two weeks ago I pointed out Tesla winning a Recall score with Toyota.

Now Toyota have fought back and, along with their posher brethren over at Lexus, recalled approximately 1.12 million cars which have airbags that may not understand if there is a child in the deployment zone or not.

This is on the same day that RAM announced it was recalling 243 RAM 1500s.

Funnily enough the RAM 1500 DOESN'T have a 1500cc engine - this differentiates it from the Triumph 1500 which did.

Anyway, it took me some time to get my head around this story.

"Due to a manufacturing defect, the locking bracket installed to secure the centre front seat in the down position may not operate as intended.

This seating position is not fitted with a seatbelt and could be used by an occupant if the locking bracket does not function correctly.

In the event of a collision, an unrestrained occupant would be exposed to the risk of serious injury or death."

So they are saying that the front-central seat lock-down bracket can fail meaning that you could use the front-central seat as a seat.

At this point, I should point out that I got these stories, like a lot of my recall stories, from Australian site drive.com.au

RAMs converted to right-hand drive for the Aussie market have the front central seat fixed down so it can't be used - don't know why - I guess it must be something to do with the conversion.

So if the lock-down bracket fails and the seat actually CAN physically be used as a seat, why not install the seatbelt?  Otherwise, rather than have a locked-down seat, take it out altogether and put some storage there.  It feels like the Yanks are mocking the Aussies - G'Day Bruce, look at this seat we won't let you sit on!

"Owners have been told to not allow occupants to use the front centre seat until the repair is completed."

At which point, they won't be able to sit on the front centre seat!

Strewth!

E-Manual

No, it says E-Manual, not Emannuelle - but I'll leave the picture because more people are likely to click on the story than if I went with this one:

I bought my car because I liked it and I wanted it.

But I'd have liked it and wanted it even more if it had a manual transmission.

Unfortunately, they don't do Volvos in that flavour any more.  In fact, they don't do saloons or estates any more either here in the UK.

Which is very irritating.

I had sort of resigned myself to the prospect of no more manuals given the rise of the electric vehicle but wasn't expecting to have to suffer all cars being SUVs too.

Good job first MG and now VW have come to the rescue with the all-electric ID7 estate:

Even if it does look a bit Toyota-ish.

But then Toyota have come to the rescue over the manual transmission problem - Autocar have the story here of a Lexus UX300e (yes, an SUV but this will be offered on the entire electric Lexus & Toyota ranges) which has a fake manual transmission fitted. You can set it up just how you want it and even "stall" it if you've forgotten how to drive a stick - a niggling fear I have now since I've not had a go in one in over 12 months.  I was particularly heartened to read this paragraph...

All the usual manual features are there: engine braking, coasting and, most amusingly, no torque when you suddenly try and accelerate in top gear, which then brings with it the synthetic sound of parts of the cabin trim rattling. It sounds like a gimmick but it’s actually all rather believable.

We are almost in fantasy territory here.

Carry on, E-Manual.

Drink-Driver caught on the M6.

He only got a £100 fine though.

It's one of two short motoring/Police videos today on the BBC News site.

He also got a telling off!

Meanwhile, over in The States, a driver managed to get into the staff room of a New Jersey Police Station.

I can't believe how non-plussed the officers are to find him there - especially since one could have been badly hurt if they were in there at the time.  He was named as John Hargreaves of Belvidere, New Jersey and is facing charges of burglary; criminal mischief; possession of a weapon for unlawful purposes; aggravated assault; harassment; and terrorism. Nice chap.  The phrase "right-wing nutter" comes to mind.

And he's damaged a filing cabinet with his car door.

This couldn't happen in Britain.

Because The Tories closed all of the Police Stations.

Black and Blue

Remember just last month when I said that Red was the new Black?

Well according to this Auto Express article, Rolls Royce say that black can be improved by blue.

Bruising.

But they must be right because their limited edition of 62 Rolls-Royce Black Badge Cullinan Blue Shadows have sold out.

Now if you think that name is a juxtaposition, take a read of this AutoGuide story.

Here are two words that should never appear together:

The original iQ wasn't brilliant either. I suspect it wouldn't be difficult to tell it apart from the Caddy version though.

Genesis Line-Up

I'm more of the Phil Collins time than the Peter Gabriel.

I always think of Collins as a Tory sell-out.  He said he'd leave the country if Labour got in.

Rock and Roll, Phil.

But of course, this is a car blog so I am talking about Genesis the car brand.  They have entered the UK market and their line-up is here.  The G80 is featured in this month's Top Gear magazine - it gets 7 out of 10.

Genesis is the upmarket Hyundai brand.

Like Acura is Honda's, Lexus is Toyota's and Infiniti is Nissan's.

Acura never came to the UK, Lexus is very successful while Infiniti tried but gave up last year.  If they had hung on a bit longer, they could have revelled in Ash Sutton's astonishing success in the BTCC in one of their cars - and maybe sold a few more.

Car+Driver have a story about the new all-electric Genesis GV60 coming to America:

It has a fancy gear-knob described as, "an illuminated 'crystal sphere'"

Being a Korean company selling to America, they won't realise that that choice of car colour makes it look like a Citroen Cactus:

That's All.

"Toyota realizes that not everyone has access to my wife"

A brilliant quote from a brilliant article in Autoguide.  They've been very sparse with their writing lately but this one is a welcome piece from their writer Chris Tonn.

Although the subject matter is a bit concerning in a Big Brother sort of way.

Toyota are attempting to patent technology whereby cars would be able to judge your driving and limit what you are allowed to do dependent on your driving skills.

Don't know if it could stop you exiting motorways if you don't understand how indicators work.

Probably not a good idea - motorways would end up full of BMWs that had run out of fuel.

Meanwhile, the BBC of all people, have an article that is very badly written.  They cover a story about how the Mayor of Cheshire East will be getting a new car.

Mayor of Cheshire East!?

Is that even a thing?

Apparently so.

Cheshire East is half a county - how can half a county have a mayor?

Well it has.  Not just half a mayor but a complete mayor.  It also has the Bentley factory so the mayoral car is a Bentley.  Logical if somewhat extravagant.  The lucky mayor has a Bentley Continental Flying Spur. But, according to the story, not for long.

According to the story, "Bentley will soon be launching a plug-in hybrid model called the Bentayga" - this is accompanied by a picture of a three-year-old Bentayga:

Martin Smith, the council's registration and civic services manager told councillors the current petrol-driven Flying Spur emits 254g of carbon dioxide per km, and does about 24 miles per gallon (mpg) of fuel.

 

I shall stop now before I am overcome with excitement.

Would EU Believe It?

I have touched on the EU Referendum before.  It was in March.

And now I'm touching on it again.

Autocar report that Nissan are planning to sue Vote Leave over a Brexit flyer in which they claim that “Major employers have all said they’ll stay in the UK whatever the result of the referendum” which may be true but they use various employers logos alongside this statement implying by association that these employers are pro-Brexit. Nissan are pro-Bremain so don't want to be appearing on these flyers.

I suspect it will be something about use of a trademarked logo that they will get them for.

The FT have the story too.  I love the way that their website is pink to match their newspaper.  They state...
"Some of the country’s largest manufacturers — Jaguar Land Rover, Toyota, BMW and Vauxhall — on Monday issued a renewed pledge to protect jobs and investment by voting to remain.

Other major manufacturers such as Nissan and Ford have already said they would prefer the UK to remain part of the EU, although none of the companies have said they will close UK plants in the event of a Brexit."

So Nissan haven't actually said they will stay open, they just haven't said they'd close.  Toyota & Vauxhall logos also appear on the leaflet - I guess they won't be too happy either.

I could imagine a small 1970s saloon being called the Ford Brexit.  But that's just how my mind works.

Meanwhile, Jeremy has backed his up Remain views (look back to my March article) with an amusing video featuring James May.

I Asked Google for a picture of Christopher Lloyd with a Taxi

But there weren't any decent ones - despite him being a star of the brilliant series Taxi.

Here's one of him from around that time:

In this photo, I think he looks like that bloke who plays Nick in New Girl who was also in Jurassic World.  If they ever do a Back To The Future where they go back to when Doc Brown was about thirty, then that's the guy to play him.

Talking of Back To The Future, here's a picture of Michael J.Fox with a taxi.

Also talking of Back To The Future, have you noticed the date?  It's October 15th, 2015.

Which is nearly October 21st, 2015.

Which is the date that Marty & Doc travelled to in Back To The Future II.

Here's a taster for a video that Toyota will be releasing on that date next week:

And remember, Toyota's posh arm, Lexus, have been working on a Hoverboard:

Unfortunately, it uses Maglev technology so we won't be seeing it on the streets of October 2015.

Meanwhile, Toyota's own view of the future doesn't look brilliant for us petrolheads.  Not if you only read the headlines anyway:

TOYOTA AIMS TO PHASE OUT REGULAR GASOLINE VEHICLES BY 2050 

TOYOTA AIMS TO NEARLY ELIMINATE GASOLINE CARS BY 2050

TOYOTA: CONVENTIONAL ENGINES WILL BE GONE BY 2050

Although if you click on the links (these are just 3 of plenty) you will see that they want to concentrate on hydrogen and hybrids so there will still be some gas being burned in the hybrids at least.

And they do all state that electric cars are not a big part of their plans.

So I guess the guys at Investor's Business Daily just went by the headlines.

If only there was some way of travelling forward to 2050 to find out...

Beer Wagon

It is SEMA Time!

 

What is SEMA?  Well, SEMA stands for "Speciality Equipment Market Association" and every year they hold a big motor show with lots of pimped up cars, vans and other vehicles.  I first heard of it through watching American Hot-Rod with Boyd Coddington regularly unveiling his creations there.

 

The big manufacturers are also interested with contributions this year from Honda, Mazda and Toyota to name but three and some nicely tricked out vans from Mercedes that I particularly liked.

 

The SEMA 2014 Website is pretty good but does point out something I hadn't realised before - this is a TRADE ONLY event, mere members of the public can't go along!  I don't think writing a semi-serious car blog would class me as being part of the trade - shame.

 

Obviously, the American car press is full of SEMA at the moment but also the Brits and Aussies are also seeming quite enthusiastic.  That was acouple of links to cars that stood out to those journos.  Here's the one I like:

It started out as a standard, boring Kia Sedona but has been converted into a mobile bar selling Ballast Point products.  Ballast Point are a brewery/distillery formed during the last Century (1996 to be precise).  Autoguide have the story of this beer wagon here.

 

I like it because it combines two of my favourite things - beer and cars.

 

I had a look on Google Images to see if anything combined three of my favourite things - beer, cars and football. Plenty of interesting images did come up but none that met my remit - so here is a picture of Loic Remy: 

- a footballer found guilty earlier this year of drink-driving.

Mutually Beneficial

The BBC should become the UK's biggest mutual company to make it more accountable to licence fee payers - so says former culture secretary Dame Tessa Jowell.  The BBC report it here.

Mutual companies do not have external shareholders but all members of the company are considered owners. Money is reinvested back into the company rather than paid out as dividends.

I would like to be a member of the BBC.

If I was a member of the BBC, I might have had a say in the disposal of the F1 rights which led me to declare that I'd had it with the BBC.

I might also have a say in commissioning a new motoring show for BBC2.

But, I hear you say, BBC2 already has a brilliant motoring show called "Top Gear."

I agree - it does.  In fact Top Gear is my favourite show of any genre on television - it's even better than QI.

But I also want a show that is a bit more about the cars themselves - and accessories and racing and motoring law - and the sort of things you might read about on a car blog named after a small car from British Leyland.  I've been watching a couple of the old Top Gears from the '80s and '90s on Youtube and I want a show like that.  Or like Channel 4's Driven before they made it juvenile.

It would have to be on the BBC for two reasons:

1. Impartiality - they mustn't be afraid of upsetting motoring manufacturers who could sponsor them - allegedly Toyota refused to let Jeremy Clarkson test-drive any more of their cars after he called the Corolla "dull" in a review.
2. Profitability - I don't believe that enough people watch ordinary car programmes to make then viable commercially.  This leads to daft competitions that cost £1.50 to enter and added contrived "entertainment" like they put in the otherwise enjoyable Classic Car Rescue - this can be really cringeworthy to watch but seems to draw in the viewers.

The new show would be called "Second Gear" (or "Fourth Gear" if they showed it on BBC Four) and would need some decent presenters.  Definitely not the ones from "I Want That Car" - my review of which has garnered a very large number of hits for some reason - no comments, just hits.

I liked the old Top Gear presenters, Sue Baker, Chris Goffey and William Woollard so wouldn't object to any of them coming back although dare I say they are probably a bit long in the tooth nowadays?  William Woollard's style with a foot on the bumper of the car he was discussing has led to an Internet craze which had passed me by until I read this from the Metro newspaper (no relation).

But the lineup I'd probably plump for would be former Driven host Mike Brewer as the front man assuming I could prise him away from The Discovery Channel. I've got a leather jacket just like that by the way: 

Maybe Jason Dawe (Used Car Roadshow and series 1 of the revamped Top Gear before they decided James May would be a better fit) for the more serious, practical items:

Tom Ford (ex of Fifth Gear and still of TopGear Magazine) for road tests: 

And Sabine Schmitz for the racy stuff:

A half an hour show every Thursday evening.  Just before "Dave Allen at Large."  Sorted.

 

Oh, and can we have "Gardener's World" followed by "One Man and His Dog" on a Friday again please?

Lots of Fun

Car lots of fun? This amusing article on the Car&Driver site highlights the secret language used by salesmen working on America's car Lots.

Now Arthur Daley here also had his own patois used on his car lot:

But that was just Cockney - Corblimey Mate! Luvaduck. Beales - Don't talk to me about Beales!

I've been meeting a few car salesmen lately.  Never a car saleswoman - do they exist?

My wife is after a new (or newer) car - it all follows on from the little yellow light that appears in a photo in my earlier post about the MOT test.  So far we've visited (in order of appearance) our local Toyota, Mazda, Hyundai and Ford dealers for test drives.

At the moment, my wife is being "up" while I am being "Third Baseman".  However, I'm not very good at this.  When she has finalised her choice, I will switch to being "Paperboy" - a role I recently played while purchasing our new family computer.  I wasn't very good at that either.

I have seen a couple of "Lot lizards" and would wish them well with "de-horsing" given the condition of my wife's current car - but that doesn't tend to happen in Britain anyway - if they want to keep you in the place, they make you a hot coffee and you are supposed to feel guilty if you don't finish it.

If you want to understand the past two paragraphs, and this clever illustration...

...you will need to read the article.

However, if you want to understand Arthur Daley, and maybe spend some sausage and mash on a new jam-jar, then this site may be more useful.

Silex is Golden

Welcome to the Silex Power Cheerios - sorry, Chreos.

This is a start-up based in Malta and the initial publicity and drawings remind me of the early releases from Eterniti with their Hemorrhoid, which eventually transmogrified into the re-jigged Porsche Cayenne that is the Artemis - so nothing like they were initially claiming - and with most of their setting up done by Porsche.

Another thing that makes me sceptical about the Chreos is that everything shown so far is computer-generated.

And some of their claims seem highly optimistic:

This is an electric car with a range of 1000km (620 miles in real money) and a full charge time of just 10 minutes.

It can also do 185mph and has a sub 3 second 0-60 time.


Fisker must be very worried.

If the claims are to be believed, then this will be an electric car that could be used in the real world in place of a petrol car.


GM, Ford, Toyota etc. must all also be worried.


Silex Power's Website has a promotional video that looks OK:
although the font they use is a bit tricky to read. The car looks like a Bugatti Galibier from the side and an Alfa-Romeo from the front but since it's all CGI that doen't really mean much yet.

They are being very cagey about their batteries but say it is just a development of existing technologies, They also say that the recharge uses something called Hypercharging - there is some information on their site about how this will work but it involves lots of numbers and talk of inverters and kilowatts and amps that went over my head.

They say that they will build their first full-size prototype in July and be selling the cars in 2015.


If they are right, then this is a very big deal. Fox News have picked up on the story but, apart from them, I'm not seeing a lot of coverage.

Is it too good to be true?

Ask a serial optimist...


...or a cereal optimist.

Geddit!?



Oh well, cheerio.

Toyotas Rear-Ending - LOL!

What the hell are Toyota playing at?Everyone's just about forgotten about the stories of Toyotas not stopping and now they are encouraging their customers to do just that. Maybe the stories last year were just an excuse (after all, many were deemed unfounded) so that their customers could say it was the car's fault while they were actually busy texting from their dashboard. The picture is of the new Yaris entertainment system and is due for inclusion in the rest of the Toyota range.

The story is covered in Auto Express.

It shows the customer demographic they are going for with the new Yaris as does their awful TV advert.

To Infiniti and Beyond

What could be beyond Infinity?

Eternity?

Nah. And what happens when you spell them wrong?

Infiniti are Nissan's answer to Toyota's Lexus - luxury well-built cars but a bit boring. I mean look at this G37...It even looks quite Lexusish.

Infiniti have stated that they want to seriously up the numbers they sell in the UK next year. Up to now they've gone for the exclusive angle with a minimal number of dealerships hidden around the country - next year they're opening a few more.

But would anyone want to copy them?

Apparently so.This child's cardboard cut-out of a Peugeot with big wheels is supposed to be the new Eterniti luxury British car launching at the Frankfurt Motor Show next month. It's supposed to be an SUV - a posh Cayenne-type for Aston Martin money.

Lots of motoring sites including Autocar and me are mentioning it but I'm not sure why - I doubt if it will ever exist in the metal.

Unless Mattel do a Hotwheels version.

In fact, that looks like who they've nicked the wheel design from.