Nearly one less China Girl.

But fortunately not the case.

This looks scary...

The full story is here - make sure you watch it and you will see why it is so scary.

Although the full story doesn't give the full story.  For starters, it isn't a cabin scooter.

If it were a cabin scooter it wouldn't have four seats and four doors.

And what the hell was the driver up to?  There's also someone sat in the back.

I've tried to identify the vehicle involved.

The nearest (and it isn't one of these) seems to be a Lingbao Box - which is, according to this advert, a "Mini Taxi New Energy Vehicle for Ladies."

Can't tell whether or not this example is being driven by a lady.

And if it was being a taxi then I suspect no tip.

Taxi for Idiot

If you are going to steal a car, it's probably not a good idea to choose one that can be controlled from elsewhere with lots of cameras in it.

And if someone in control of the vehicle tells you to get out, then it's probably a good idea to get out.

The twerp in this story got arrested.

Yet another adventure in the life of San Francisco's self-drive taxis.

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?

A Cruise in San Francisco

A queer story...

...from NBC.

About a Chevrolet Bolt very much like this one:

Owned by GM subsidiary Cruise, it was an autonomous taxi undergoing testing.  And it was driving about at night with no headlights on.

Which piqued the interest of the local constabulary.

So they pulled it over only to discover that it had no driver.  It then drove off - through an intersection - before stopping again.

Notice that I used the phrase "it was driving" not "it was being driven"

Now a car with no driver might not need lights itself - but other road users and pedestrians might like to see it coming. Apparently, when it got pulled over, rather than calling its lawyer, it alerted staff back at base - or "Cruise Control" and one of them decided to move it to a "safer location".

If you have Facebook and want to see the brilliant Trevor Noah's take on this - click here.

There'll Be Bluebirds Over...

...at the charging points.

Remember back in April when I quite liked the electric Hyundai Pony?

Well Nissan have done the same thing now with The Bluebird.  Here's Autocar with the story.

Although it's not really Nissan who have done it - they got a local company who do such conversions to do it for them.  It's to celebrate 35 years since the first car was built at their Sunderland factory - seems a strange number to celebrate.  I must have missed the celebrations for the 35 years since the completion of the M25.

I do like it:

I wouldn't have given it a second glance in the '80s even with the garish paintjob and it's only the lights that would make you suspicious today.

Unlike the Pony, the interior is very stock if you ignore the ugly plate where the gearstick should be:

But there does seem to be an issue if you want to get home from the airport and fancy ordering a nostalgic private hire ride:

Moggie Minor Accident

This is actually about a Toyota Auris Private Hire taxi not a Morris Minor but the cat reference doesn't work otherwise.

Here is what happens when a Toyota Auris driver swerves to avoid a cat at 4 o'clock in the morning:

The rather brief BBC story is here.  It doesn't answer much.  For example, Was there really a cat? If there was a cat, what happened to it? and, How fast was the driver going to end up parked like that on a Jeep?

There were no injuries.

If you clicked on this story looking for a Minor bump, then these next two pictures should sate your desires.  If you were looking for a minor bump, then they will distress you.

This one was full of scrap en route to a Scrapyard in 2018:

This one allegedly rolled on the M20 in 2012:

In both cases, injuries to the drivers were minor.

I Don't Watch "I'm A Celebrity"

Well, I did briefly when Johnny Rotten was in there.

But that's just the sort of anarchic rebel I am.

 

Anyway, this year they've got Harry Redknapp, the scary woman from The Chase and Noel Edmonds.

 

Or, as I prefer to call him, former Top Gear presenter Noel Edmonds.

 

Unusually, the BBC are covering an IACGMOOH story today.  Here it is.

 

It is how Noel may have got himself in trouble with Bristol City Council for a second time for driving in their bus lanes.

 

Here is an actual Bristol Bus Lane sign:

It's on Highwood Road in Patchway, quite close to the Coniston Road junction.  It was a Sunday.

 

Now that sign clearly has a picture of what is allowed to be in that lane - a bike, a bus and the word "taxi" because whoever designs these signs couldn't differentiate between a taxi and an ordinary car so gave up.  It's one of those things like motorway matrix signs not being able to animate fog so they just have the word "Fog"

But I digress.  Back to Noel.

 

In order to speed up his journeys around Bristol, Noel bought a taxi, a proper black cab, and used the bus lanes.  The council decided that because he wasn't a licensed taxi, he should be fined so they sent him a ticket.

 

Noel said, "Fair enough", paid the fine and bought a bus.

 

But Bristol Council has now said their bus lanes are only for licensed buses - which is the argument they used for the taxi and I don't think is very fair - the word "licensed" does not appear anywhere on the sign.

 

To get around it, though, all Noel needs to do is find an old licensed bus maybe from another part of the country, and lease it for his personal use.

 

And in case Bristol City Council say it has to be a Bristol bus, he should make sure it is one of these: 

It was built by The Bristol Bus Company.

Not über Intelligent

Or even über artificial intelligent.

This BBC story tells of how Uber has pulled its self-driving cars from the roads after an accident which left one of the vehicles on its side on Arizona.

Looks nasty:

The car itself looks nice though - it must really pay to be an Uber Driver if they can afford new Volvo SUVs - especially with self-driving technology.

Uber have stated that the car was in self-driving mode at the time.

The allegation in this case is that another driver "failed to yield".

Which is why I don't like the idea of self-driving cars.  Most drivers rate themselves as having above-average driving skills.  This is actually impossible but even the best driver in the world cannot do anything if someone else acts unexpectedly and hits them.  The way things stand at the moment - self-driving cars still need someone behind the wheel to take over in the case of an emergency.  In which case that person has to be fully alert at all times to what is going on around them - I know I would want to be!  But that completely negates the point of a self-driving vehicle.

I'm quite concerned in this case as to how the car ended up on its side - was it travelling too fast?  - did it clip the kerb? - did the driver panic when the other car was suddenly in its path?

We know SUVs tend to topple a lot easier than normal cars but even so.

Is this what is known as doing a bit of taxi driving on the side?

Cool As FXXK

The Arctic Circle is pretty cool.

Or downright freezing.

And that is where they are testing the next iteration of the Black Cab.

Why? - I hear you ask.

Why? - I also hear BBC Transport correspondent Richard Westcott ask.

But he doesn't actually answer the question in that video.

Although he does in this article.

There are two reasons apparently:

• the manufacturer tests all new vehicles in extreme temperatures to see how they perform.
• it wants to sell it in polluted cities all over the world, including Moscow, which can get a little chilly in the winter.

This cab won't contribute to the pollution due to it being electric - with a little range-extender to keep it going.

Anyway, black cabs in cold places brings us, rather neatly, round to the new series of Top Gear:

and Rory Reid driving a black cab, in minus temperatures, with no heating, in Kazakhstan.

Chris Harris got to drive a Ferrari FXXK at Daytona

 

and boy did he enjoy it.

But, if only 40 were built, why did his have a number 54 on the side?

And nobody mentioned Chris Evans.

I thought they could have had a light-hearted dig like The Grand Tour boys did.  Chris himself mentioned how the newspapers said it was "better without the annoying one".

There was a mention in Extra Gear about the orginal test track being back with "all tarmac" but nothing was said about Mr.Evans.  There was a noticeable cheer from the studio audience when it was announced that the original track was back.

I agree with the studio audience and, much as I do like Chris Evans, I agree with the newspapers that it was "better without the annoying one".

Or maybe just a little cooler.

Droning On Even More

I had trouble believing the story I reported two weeks ago.

I have more trouble believing this Autocar one.

Maybe it's just a Halloween story designed to put the wind up us.

Literally.

It is another Uber drones story.  Except these ones are big enough to carry people around. Full marks to their marketing department for all this coverage.

But it couldn't actually happen could it?

Then again - Uber does mean "above".

Droning On

I'm not sure I believe this story from Car+Driver.

It comes with this picture:

And it is reported by several sites so I'm going with it's true.

Apparently Uber (the taxi people) are using Drones in Mexico to display messages to drivers stuck in traffic jams.  The one in this picture translates to, "The city is for you, not for 5.5 million cars."

They seem to be nagging messages - I'd have gone with one of the following:

• money generating advertising messages like "Cheap power tools at Home Depot - this week only"
• pro-Uber messages like "Share an Uber to cut down on the number of cars here"
• useful messages like "This tailback lasts for 2km and is due to an idiot driving into a lamp-post"

It doesn't say who creates the messages or where the drones take off from.  Do Uber drivers carry a drone, a piece of card and a marker pen with them?

Local take-aways could use them to get food orders, deliver the food and take the money - if you're stuck in a jam, you don't want to go hungry now, do you?

Or, if you're just bored in the jam, you could always do some shopping:

Arthur Daley, Little Dodgy Maybe?

And I'm not just talking about the awful cardboard cut-outs:

 

Two stars of Minder are up for sale.  The story is here.  There's no doubt about the Capri - I remember it played a big part in the opening titles. But that isn't the reg no. of Arthur's Daimler that I remember.

Now I'm not sad enough to remember all the number plates from the cars of my TV youth.

But I'd know them if I saw them again.

And I knew this one when I Googled "Arthur Daley Daimler":

I ran a quick MyCarCheck on DYO979V and it isn't on the books.  VDU342X is.

So then I tried the Government's MOT History Website. I have been aware of this site for a while and tried it out once on my Jag when I saw a link on Facebook.  Then a blogging chum of mine inspired me to look at a car I used to own.

I found out that my old Merc is now a taxi.

And still has a lot of the niggling problems that Mercs built around the turn of the Century had that made me get shut of it.

And it confirmed that DYO979V is not on the road.

Although VDU342X only seems to have been around since March 2014 when it's Front Exhaust had a minor leak of exhaust gases.

However, I found a fan-site which seems to offer a solution to the mystery.

Now, even though I'm a Jag man, I'd rather have the Capri that Dennis Waterman drove in the series.

Actually, I 'd rather have the car he drove in New Tricks:

 I could be so good for you.

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...

That Idle Lot in Westminster

And that's just the ones that turn up:

Actually this isn't a political story - it is one of two unrelated motoring stories that caught my eye on the BBC News Website this week - the newly revamped BBC News website.

Which I don't like.

It's not as good as the one it replaced.

Which I didn't like when that came about because it wasn't as good as the one it replaced.

And so it goes on - but then you get used the latest one and everything is good again.

Anyway back to the story - it appeared yesterday.  It's about how motorists sitting in their vehicles in Westminster will be liable for £20 fines if they leave their engines running if they aren't actually going anywhere.  I think I'm in favour of this - it is irratating to see exhaust fumes belching out of a parked car and the thought of fuel being wasted.  I don't see how they could police this rule though.

The taxi drivers aren't happy.  The article quotes Steve McNamara, general secretary of the LTDA saying that the fines were "absolute tosh" and a public relations and money raising exercise from the council. He went on: "It is not going to do anything constructive to tackle the pollution crisis in London. When was the last time you saw someone idling in the city? It doesn't happen."

OK then, if it doesn't happen you've got nothing to worry about, have you Steve?


The other BBC story that grabbed my attention today was this one.  It is about how a group of descendents of Confederate soldiers wanted to have the following design on their Texas State licence plates:

This request was declined as it was deemed offensive to a large number of people affected by or ashamed of Slavery.

So the battle was taken to the US Supreme Court with advocates saying that banning it was in contravention of the First Amendment because it restricted their right to free speech.  The State argued back that licence plates are Government property and therefore not subject to the First Amendment.

I was intrigued to see how Fox News was covering this - expecting a lot of right-wing bile against the ban but after searching using the American spelling license, I was pleasantly surprised to just find a sensible article putting both sides of the argument.

I had always liked the Confederate Flag and didn't realise its associations until I saw The Dukes Of Hazzard movie.  The movie just didn't live with the TV series which was my favourite show as a child of the '70s & '80s but the real reason I mention it is an excuse to show this picture of the flag on the roof of the car:

Now, there are plenty of better pictures showing more of the flag - but they show less of Daisy Duke.

Appently, a decision on the confederates' licence plate is due at the end of June.  Meanwhile, a quick Google Images search for funny licence plates caused me to put together this little collage:

iPods

Lots of stories this past week that are linked but we are getting into the realms of fantasy - I hope.

As a Brit, I find this Fox News story quite embarrassing.  It is about a fleet of driverless pods called LUTZ Pathfinders that will be ferrying people around Milton Keynes this year.  They look awful:

But fear not, "In the event that something does go wrong, the body panels are made from a flexible material to absorb much of the impact."  Oh dear.

Glad nobody ever goes to Milton Keynes.

Since this is nothing to do with Apple, it wouldn't be called an iPod.

However, most of the motoring press (and a fair bit of the non-motoring press) have been getting excited about Apple's foray into the car business.  Here is Car+Driver's take on it. I guess it won't be called the iCar though because that could upset the Information Centre about Asylum and Refugees or perhaps the International Committee for Animal Recording.

Current speculation is that Apple's car will be electric and driverless.

Ye Gods.

Presumably you would speak to it and Siri would then work out where you wanted to go and take you there.

The commenters at the bottom of the Car+Driver story are of a much higher quality than the morons you get at the bottom of Telegraph or Mail stories.  My favourite comment with which I 100% agree is "As for self-driving cars, aside from the disabled, elderly, and inebriated, it's an absurdly complex solution to a problem that doesn't exist. Engineering wankery, I say."  I wonder if that commenter is British - wankery is a very un-US term of disaffection.

But, if today's BBC story has any mileage, these self-driving cars could evolve into self-owning, self-procreating cars.  This is the prospect put forward by Mike Hearn, a software developer who is "both an ex-Google engineer and one of the leading Bitcoin software developers."  He envisages taxis that could run their own taxi-businesses getting their jobs via phone apps and being paid using, wait for it, Bitcoins!  Presumably they would need to be pre-programmed with mild-racism and a dislike of going "South of the river".

He also suggests these taxis could migrate to other cities if there wasn't enough work for them where they are.

Would we end up with UKIP complaining about UK streets being full of these?

That's a Romanian Taxi in case you were wondering.

No More Ferrero Rocher?

It could be the end of the road for the Ambassador.

No, not the Austin Ambassador, that ended in the mid '80s.  It looks like it is the end of the road for the Hindustan Ambassador: 

In its original guise as the Morris Oxford, this car has been in production since the late '40s.  The original Morris tooling was sold to the Indian company that has been manufacturing the same car (with a few updates) ever since.  They were particularly popular as taxis.  A look at Google images shows a few have been registerd in the UK too - obviously for people nostalgic about Morris cars of the past.

 

It looks like its age and 1940s design has finally caught up with it though and a couple of sites have the story this weekend of the shutdown of the Hindustan Motors Uttarpara Plant.  The Business Standard of India have it here.  They aren't saying it is the end but they are suspending production (and not paying the workforce) in order to "help the company cut mounting liabilities, restructure its finances and arrive at a situation conducive to reopening the plant".

 

Reasons for the failure are being speculated as "mounting losses, paucity of funds, growing indiscipline and low productivity". 

 

Autoweek also carry the story.  But they seem more interested in speculating about what would be the longest-running car design in production if this really is the end of the Morris/Hindustan motor.  They fail to discuss the merits of The Land-Rover but do mention the Beetle, the Morgan 4/4 and the Lotus/Caterham Seven.

 

Who could be in trouble too.

 

Autoguide say it is up for sale. Tony Fernandes wants to sell his road-car and F1 operations.  That may have more to do though with his football team returning to the English Premier League this weekend. QPR have a sizeable debt and will also need to invest big-time to stay there.

 

At the end of the day, Caterham Sevens will be more attractive than Hindustan Ambassadors so they have a better chance of winning the longevity awards.  Better than Caterham F1 getting any points and better than QPR prospering in the Premier League.

 

If you're wondering about the Ferrero Rocher reference - well they are the Ambassador's balls:

Why do Elephants Have Big Ears?

...Because Noddy wouldn't pay the ransom.

I was never really a fan of Noddy, pictured here with his cruelly-named friend Big Ears and his little yellow taxi-cab.  I'm assuming it's a private hire vehicle although I've never spotted any taxi-plates on it.  In fact, it is probably illegal because a two-seater with bugger-all luggage space is going to struggle to get the appropriate licencing - unless the laws in Toytown are particularly lax.  I'm guessing Noddy must also be bribing P.C.Plod as he always turns a blind eye when he sees Noddy working.

 

Maybe Noddy's had enough now anyway because his car appears to be up for sale.  the Telegraph have the story today.  I think the author may be getting Noddy mixed up with Pinocchio though - I didn't think Noddy was made of wood.

Apparently, this is worth £25000.

 

It is actually a 1969 Fiat Gamine Vignale - a car I'd never heard of that is based on a Fiat 500 - the original one.  If you see the rear of the car it is quite obvious it is based on a Fiat 500 - the original one.

 

If you put that registration number into mycarcheck.com, though, it says it is a Fiat Coupe.

 

No it isn't, mycarcheck - THIS is a Fiat Coupe...

A much more attractive proposition than the Noddy Car and a lot cheaper too.

 

Now, with £25000 to play with, Noddy should be able to afford something a bit nicer to take Big Ears out into the woods in - not that there's anything dodgy about their relationship - just ask Noddy himself.

Take Your Penguin To Work

This drawing (for it is only a concept) of a very short underground train carriage is a Rinspeed Micromax.

You will observe that it has plenty of room for a driver, three passengers sort of standing up, a baby-buggy/wheelchair/shopping cart and a penguin. Not sure why you would want to take a penguin but that definitely looks like Pingu in the front there.

This concept will be appearing at The 2013 Geneva Motor Show and the story is covered by most of the online motoring press including AutoGuide and caradvice.com.au who advise you to "Stand up and strap in" - kinky!

Needless to say in a modern-day Car Show concept - it is all electric and, given it's obvious commutey taxi-cab urban madate, that is the sensible powertrain to be using.

For those not familiar with Rinspeed - they are not a Belgian Dishwasher manufacturer - they are a Swiss vehicle design-and-manufacture outfit. They have produced many vehicles usually taking a familiar product of a mainstream manufacturer and upgrading it - or coming up with a completely new take. Here is one of my favourites:

Pity it's called the ZaZen - daft name.

To learn more, check out their Website or look at their Google Images.

and if you don't want to pick up a penguin...

...you could always grab a Taxi...

Yellow Peril

Last weekend, the lovely Susanna Reid on BBC Breakfast Time mentioned a survey that stated that yellow cars had most problems when bought second-hand. I found that slightly interesting but have had to wait all week to find any further mention anywhere else of that survey. It was the Telegraph who eventually came up with this article. It claims that "14 per cent have some kind of defect such as covered-up repairs, 'clocked' mileage or inadequate paperwork"

My first car was sort of yellow. British Leyland called the colour "Sandglow" but I called it "Vomit Yellow" - it was a Dolomite very much like this one...I didn't have any such problems with it - but then again it was my father's before it was mine.

I still don't see car colour affecting used-cars that much except - this survey was a global survey, so maybe it's been skewed by a load of used examples of these things getting onto the market...

Taken For a Ride

For quite a while now, probably since the demise of Reliant, it has been widely accepted that the largest British-owned car-maker was LTI who make the black cabs that grace our city streets. How irritating for them, you may think, that the Chinese manufacturer, Geely, who are very big in the rip-off of popular European cars market have produced this...



Although it's not quite as blatant as some of their earlier work...
Geely Mercedes anyone? Geely Roller?
How about a Geely Skoda, then?


The sad news here, though, is it isn't simply just a copy. This story from Autocar explains that Geely have actually bought out the parent company of LTI and shipped production to China leading to further job losses in Coventry and another nail in the coffin of the once-gigantic British car industry. I don't understand how this story seems to have slipped under the radar of so much of the motoring media, maybe it's something to do with the election but I'd have thought the Tory press would have picked up on it at least - if for no other reason than to print pictures of Geely fakes.


Like I did.

Looking at the pictures on the Autocar site, the Geely Taxi seems to be quite a bit smaller than the LTI cars making them more manoeurverable, manourverable, maneurverable, handy in town but with the capacity to take only four passengers rather than the usual five which, I imagine, would actually make them less popular with taxi-drivers and late-night parties of drunks wanting to get home.

OK, that's the end of the article, someone call me a cab.

"You Sir, are a cab."

Thank you and goodnight.