Nissan Leaf

Leading, Environmentally-Friendly, Affordable, Family Car.

Some good news for the British car industry - it's going to be built in Sunderland (amongst other places Worldwide) Top speed about 90mph - range about 100 miles - although obviously not both at the same time. Cost estimated at about £20K to £25K which seems a bit bit steep for something that's going to struggle once you get out of town but then again, I suppose it's the City Centre user that this is aimed at. Although City-Centre people may have issues charging it from home, they don't tend to have drives to park their cars on and charging will take about 8 hours - which seems par for the course for current (ha! "current" geddit!?) electric vehicles. Feel sorry for our American cousins with their 110V supplies - it'll take them twice as long. I'm definately not too sure about the looks. The rear looks very strange - the relatively small wheels don't help...




As for the front, it took me a while to work out what that reminded me of.

And, then it came to me...

I saw an old lady driving a Smart Car today.

I don't know why that should be strange but it was. I suppose the Smart image is that of a young or middle-aged woman - you only see a bloke driving one if it belongs to a pizza company or estate agents.

The Smart is an ideal old-person's car though, it's small, economical, easy to climb into and better looking than a Perodua Kenari or Hyundai Atoz. It does only have two seats of course so I suppose that is where the Perodua and Hyundai would win out - similarly with the Vauxhall Agila/Suzuki Wagon-R - same car different badge. This has recently been reworked and there has been a big improvement...
Before...and after





This revamp will certainly bring younger drivers to the model - I don't know if it will put off any of the older ones though.

Anyway, here's a car that BMW are hoping will appeal to the female pensioner. It's called the Gran Coupe...

Blacked Out Windows

City Stars Fined For Illegal Window Tints. Quite right too - not that £30 will have any impact on them. I've always wondered about blacked out windows - doesn't it just mean you've got an ugly family?

Eng-er-land Eng-er-land!

The England flags have started appearing on cars around here. It could be connected to St.George's Day yesterday but it's more likely a precursor to the World Cup. Although I will be cheering on England in South Africa, my car won't be sporting any such flags - not that I have any problem with people who do display them - it's a nice bit of patriotism.

I haven't yet received my first email (and I know there will be some) slagging off such people - the gist is usually that they are chavs and each flag signifies a motoring conviction or some sort of disability. I think these emails are probably started by the same sort of sad person who likes to start emails that have warnings that they say should be forwarded to as many people as possible - these emails always end up in my deleted folder.

My only problem is - I think these guys are going to win ->

BMW Zero-Series

Auto Express have reported this this week - a fiesta-sized BMW with front-wheel drive and a BMW badge. This is as opposed to the Mini Countryman which seems to be invading the same territory. Having said that, the Countryman is described as "Golf-sized", which ought to be bigger than "Fiesta-sized" unless they mean the Mark I Golf which was tiny (although not as tiny as the original Fiesta) This is getting confusing.

As for front-wheel drive, BMW have always resisted it in their BMW-badged cars, claiming that rear-wheel drive is better for handling and makes a car more of a "driver's car" - this may be true if you are Jensen Button but if you use the car to pootle about town, you're not going to appreciate doing tail-out slides around hairpin bends - in fact, RWD may just scare the wits out of you if you lose it on an icy roundabout in Swindon in January. A recent survey of 1-Series drivers showed that over half did not know that their car was rear-wheel drive - that has to irritate BMW but maybe shows why they have moved into front-wheel drive territory first with MINI and now with this.

I'm not generally a fan of BMWs, the X5 tends to be driven by complete idiots and the X6 just looks absoultely stupid when you see one in the flesh. I have to admit that the only BMW I've driven a sensible distance in was actually very pleasant to drive - and that was a six-year old 3-Series that had had a hard life. Also, the people who used to drive BMWs very badly on motorways have now moved into Audis so BMW may be able to claw back some reputation there.

Overall, I do like the look of the new Zero-Series - I suppose they couldn't call it the half-Series because that would just be daft. I'll give it 8/10 for looks but I won't be buying one - especially not at £16000.