You can't buy taste.

Only in the land of Donald Trump would you get a Rolls Royce commissioned to honour a dog.

Auto-Express have the story under the brilliant headline,

"Sit, stay, Rolls over: One-off Rolls-Royce Spectre pays tribute to beloved dog."

I can't tell if the dog is deceased or not - don't think it is but it is a "Labrador-Golden Retriever mix" - two breeds that seem to be so similar that I can't see the point of mixing them.

The dog is called Bailey and they've rather sycophantically named the car colour "Beautiful Bailey"

The inside is worse.

What really surprises me though is that there are no comments under the story - at least not right now - early Friday evening.

Would it have made more sense if it was a Rover?

No - it's just stupid.

Now if it had been a cat...

Little Dog

That rather cute image has nothing to do with the story of what used to be called the Ark Zero.  But then again, when I posted about the Ark Zero last November - the Ark Zero had nothing to do with dogs either.

Although, I decided that the Ark Zero looked a lot like a dog.

I guess they must have agreed with me because it is now called the Dogood Zero.  Jack Scarlett pronounces it (presumably correctly) "Do good" in his report for The Fully Charged Show.

When I first came across Jack's work, I thought I wasn't going to like him - he seemed like he was trying too hard to be funny - but now I think he's brilliant.

Here's his latest enjoyable vid...

How Big is The Dog?

Autocar are reporting on the latest Quadricycle to start deliveries in the UK.

And when I say "start deliveries" I mean it is being delivered to customers not that it is making deliveries.  I think it is a trifle too small to be used as a delivery vehicle - unless perhaps you want to deliver trifles.

It is called the Ark Zero - maybe its successor will be called the Ark One.

And the models draped over it at motor shows will be called Ark Angels.

It's all very clever and it is aluminium - the website is here.

But it looks like a certain beagle.

The one on the right is the car - the one that looks cross-eyed.

It is a two-seater like its rival the Citroën Ami but has the more antisocial "tandem" layout of its other rivals the Renault Twizy and the Messerschmitt KR200.  The Ami is probably the only one I'd a want to have a go in.

The interior looks, let's just say "cosy".

Which brings us back to dogs. Ark claim that this car is big enough for two adults and a dog - hence the title of this post.  You'd never get a Saint Bernard in there though.

But it does remind me of  a quote from nearly six years ago now in this post.  It is why I rather maliciously included the Messerschmitt as a rival:

"at the back there is a bench which will hold a small wife and child, or a larger wife and a shopping basket."

Or a huge wife and a Yorkshire terrier.

And why on Earth does it need a reversing camera?

Dead Dogging

An interesting story came to me from America via Australia today.

San Francisco and drive.com.au to be precise.

Now San Francisco is famous for The Golden Gate Bridge, Alcatraz and homosexuality - I have experienced at least two of these.

And it is also famous for Autonomous Robo-Taxis.  One of which ran over a dog.

Apparently, people get up to naughty things in these taxis.  There are rules that you can't smoke or drink alcohol in them but there isn't anything specific about sex acts.

Since one of the main robo-taxi companies is called "Cruise" I think they should have been specific.

Especially as they have cameras inside to make sure people aren't smoking or drinking alcohol.

Now, in Cornwall, rather than using AI to drive the cars, they are using it to spy on persons within the cars.

The BBC News story is here.  It'll be a good thing if it gets some dangerous driving habits discouraged.

So, at some point in the probably not too distant future, you could have AI watching people dogging while being driven about by AI and maybe running over an escaped canine - and no other humans would be any the wiser.

Would that negate the enjoyment for those doing the dogging?

Or just negate the dog?

Florida Man Not Allowed to Hang his Dog out of the Car Window

Another brilliant Ezra Dyer piece.

A new bill proposes, amongst other things, changes to the laws of what you can do with dogs in cars.  They haven't called it the Dogging Bill though - they've gone with SB932.

(In case you're wondering, section 6 of the Bill is the one that updates section 828.126 - Sexual activities involving animals)

But that bit, unlike another chuck of the Bill, doesn't affect the canine non-sexual pleasure of sticking their heads out of a car window:

Now, I accept that this dog doesn't look like he is enjoying it, but apparently it suffers from motion sickness so it is sticking it's head out to get some air.

Meanwhile, here are some dogs on the commute in to work...

Pet Patent Pending

Ford do like to come up with interesting patents.

A couple of weeks ago, Fox reported on a Ford patent which involved using in-car drones to spy on autonomous hire-cars.  The idea is to hide an inspection drone in the boot or glove compartment that would be deployed between rides to get a look at the vehicle.

I'd be tempted to lock the glove box.

Today, Car+Driver are reporting that Ford will have a "Pet Mode" - this would be similar to the Tesla version I reported on back in January 2020.

The full patent application is here.

It seems to be controlled by the car key fob.  Surely a mobile phone app would be a better option - otherwise, given all the options available, it could end up looking like this:

The fob instructs a selected group of the systems under the control of the car computer to operate in a specified manner so as to create a comfortable environment for a pet within the vehicle.

"For example, in pet mode, the vehicle computer may cause one or more windows to lower, the sunroof to open the trunk lift gate to pivot open, and the seat backs of one or more rows of seats to tilt or fold down."

I wonder if it will check as to whether or not the pet is under that row of seats at the time.

Apparently it can also check whether or not the pet is inside or outside of the vehicle which is presumably quite useful just after the trunk lift gate has pivoted open.

You will have observed that the pet in question - item 106 in figure 5 - is a dog.  I can't think of any other pet that might be left in a car but they couldn't call it "Dog Mode" for two reasons:

1. Tesla have already got that one.
2. People in Britain would expect the car to take them to secluded car parks.

Woof Rack

Some good car news and some bad car news out of The States over the last week or so.

I was in two minds about commenting on both until the above Post Title came in to my head for the second story and I just couldn't waste it.

But first, from Fox News of all places, some good news - unless you are a racist motorsports fan.

NASCAR's flag ban opens sport to diverse new crowd.  It seems that having less symbols of oppression at a sports event means that you get more people turning up.  The Confederate Flag has been banned from the circuits - the theory being that "for every fan who complained about lost heritage, someone new would discover a sport far more inclusive than initially perceived."

Turns out the theory was borne out - probably much to the annoyance of your typical Fox News viewer.  Good.

The second story, from Car+Driver, is bad news - but only if you like to let your dog ride loose in the back of your pick-up in Utah or six other US States.

In Utah, Letting Dogs Ride in Pickup Truck Bed May Be Illegal Soon.  A proposed bill, from a Democrat, "would make it illegal for people to drive faster than 40 mph with unrestrained dogs in the back of their truck. There are exceptions for working farm dogs and hunting dogs or if the sides of the bed are at least 46 inches tall."  Apparently, there have been some horrific cases of dogs falling from vehicles killing themselves and injuring other road users.

I envisage Fox News reporting on this the same way that they reported that "Barack Obama wanted to ban all guns" - when he actually was trying to make their usage safer - for example by preventing terrorists from buying them.

There is another solution:

Dogging

"Animals loose in cars are never a good idea. Goats are generally the worst, but until you've had a tortoise stuck under your brake pedal, you've never known the meaning of fear."

That is my favourite Terry Pratchett quote.

Meanwhile, Caradvice.com.au are telling us that "People drive more carefully when their dog is in the car".  They really do like their surveys.

Although that may just be an excuse for them to show some cute doggie pictures:

According to a study here in the UK, 54% of respondents of the 2000 "dog-owning licence holders" who were asked, claimed to drive more carefully when they had their pet in the car.  Since we don't have dog-licences any more, I'll assume they mean driving licences.  Could be TV licences though.

Also, they don't say how many did actually respond.

If everyone responded, then that is 1080 pooch owners.

But if only 24 responded then that is just 13 pooch owners.

Now, I don't know about you, but I tend to try and be equally careful whenever I drive irrespective of who or what is in my car - this 54% are saying they are more slapdash about their driving habits when Fido is not watching them.  Or should that be "Rover?"

Not that this really affects me.

I'm a cat person.

Doggy Style

I found this satisfying story and video on the Car+Driver site today.  It's about a couple of thickos attempting and failing to break in to a Tesla in Las Vegas and then trying and failing to vandalise the charging unit.  Meanwhile, the car is filming it all in high quality and it ends up on YouTube where they are quite rightly ridiculed.

At the end of that story, I was pointed at another Car+Driver Tesla story which I thought was new but turned out to be from last October.  This is about how Teslas now have a mode whereby you can leave your dog safely in a car with the windows shut because it will keep the temperature within a sensible limit - until the battery goes flat at which point it will alert the driver by text.

That would never work with a cat.

 

A cat would steal the car.

 

But my favourite recent Car+Driver Tesla story comes from the festive period.  They have one as a long-term test vehicle.  The driver received a message to say that his car, which was parked outside the house on Christmas Day, had developed a fault which made it undriveable.

 

Rather impressively, a tow truck came and collected the car within half an hour.

Less impressively, there was no information about what the fault was and how long it would take to repair.  And, unlike in their previous experience, there was no offer of a loan car, or a rental car or the Uber credits that have been offered to other customers in similar situations.

 

However,

 

UPDATE 12/31/19, 10:00 a.m.: Although it’s possible the timing is purely coincidental, the service department at Tesla’s Toledo, Ohio, facility contacted C/D within three hours of this story's initial publication, offering a loaner car, a rental, or $100 per day in Uber credit while our Model 3 is in the shop. They also said parts are on the way and the car will be ready for us on Thursday (January 2).

 

Funny that.