EU plans to put tracking devices in new vehicles
April 16th, 2009
Paul Lewis on EU plans to put tracking devices in new vehicles
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Video: Test driving the Tata Nano
April 15th, 2009
It is nippy, has a small turning circle and the horn works. After taking the Tata Nano for a spin, Randeep Ramesh says he would buy the world's cheapest car
Sam Wollaston road tests the Honda Insight: ‘like a little environmental videogame’
March 26th, 2009
Honda's Insight is the cheapest hybrid in the UK. But is it as good as the Toyota Prius, and can its 'eco assist' dashboard really make you drive more efficiently? Sam Wollaston finds out
The new Honda Insight is not shy about publicising its green credentials. It shouts them from the rooftops - make that the treetops, the tops of the trees that will live so much longer because you have bought one of these cars instead of a filthy gas-guzzler. The little booklet that tells me all about the car is covered in paper that has seeds embedded in it.
Presumably, when I have finished reading it, I will toss it into an urban wasteland and a meadow will spring up, and we Insight drivers will be able to skip around together among the daisies we have created.
When I put the key in the ignition and turn it, a little green plant lights up on the dashboard. Good news - it means I'm in Econ mode and the car's brain will send messages out to various components to improve fuel economy. That's not the end of it. The car actually encourages me to drive greenly - the speedometer glows green if I am light on the throttle and turns an angry purply-blue if I am not.
There is still more. My multi-info display will, in one setting, show me a row of trees. Again, depending on how I drive, these trees will either shed their leaves or grow more. It is like a little environmental videogame. The trouble is, I am so obsessed with the virtual trees that I drive into a real one, killing both it and myself ... well, I could have done.
Actually, my main problem with the tree game is that it is more fun making the leaves drop off than it is to grow them. Everyone - apart from Honda, obviously - knows that the best videogames involve violence and destruction. So instead of trees on the display, they should have put a virtual Jeremy Clarkson there, on a rack. You have to drive greenly in order to tighten the rack until eventually, if you are really easy on the throttle, Clarkson's limbs are pulled from their sockets with a scream and a red splat, and then you can go to the next level, which involves taking out illegal Brazilian loggers with an eco-cannon.
Enough of the dashboard display though. What about the car itself? Well, it is a bit like a Toyota Prius, the car that has dominated the hybrid market for the past 10 years. The Insight works in the same way as a Prius - the battery boosts the power of the smallish (1.3 litre) petrol engine when you accelerate, and the energy generated when you brake, which would normally be lost, goes into recharging the batteries. And when you stop, the engine cuts out. It looks a bit like a Prius too - slightly lower and sleeker perhaps, but with the same aerodynamic profile. It has the same advantages as a Prius - good fuel consumption (average 64mpg), low CO2 emissions (101g/km), low road tax (£15 a year) and, in London, exemption from the congestion charge. You can also drive an Insight with the same smug green grin.
But it is different in one significant way: it's cheaper. A basic Prius won't leave much change from £18,000; the entry-level Insight is £15,490, not too much more than a nice Ford Focus. That has always been the problem with the Prius - you have to be Leonardo DiCaprio to be able to afford one. Now, with the Insight, some of us B-listers might consider a hybrid.
I drive my test car over to show off to my friend Andy, a Prius driver. As it happens, his mate Chris, another Prius owner (they stick together), is also there. I want the green of their envy to match the green of their greenness. Weirdly though, they give it a mixed review. It is a cheap Prius copy, they say. They mock its cheap interior. They say that the Prius has become both a statement and an icon and this imitation will never achieve that. Leo, or whatshisname from Curb your Enthusiasm, would never drive an Insight. Well, they are probably right about all of that, but for £2,380 (the actual saving), I'm very happy not to be driving what the stars drive.
A more affordable hybrid has to be a good thing. But the environmental credentials of these cars have to be kept in perspective. With all this green glowing and trees sprouting up on the dashboard, it would be easy to con yourself into thinking that you were actually doing the planet some good. You're not; you're still harming it, only less so (100g of carbon dioxide is still 100g of carbon dioxide). By my calculations, in 40km you could fill a box 2m x 1m x 1m with it, which I reckon would be big enough for Jeremy Clarkson. Death by CO2 might be a more humane, and more appropriate way of disposing of him than the rack.
The real excitement, from a green point of view, is another Honda - the hydrogen-fuel-cell-powered FCX Clarity. It's not available here yet, but Honda plans to introduce it, or something similar, in the future. Its emissions? Nothing but water vapour. That's something to feel properly smug about, and would probably make the driver and not just the dashboard glow green.
• See how the Insight's CO2 emissions compare to over 4,000 new cars
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Comfort on a budget: test-driving the world’s cheapest car
March 25th, 2009
Tata's Nano, built for functional frugality, is striking if not beautiful and does the job of people's car admirably
Taking the world's cheapest car out for its first public test drive by a journalist makes for a surprisingly smooth ride. Thrifty transport is not meant to be this comfortable. Tata's Nano purrs from zero to 40mph in eight seconds and its gearbox changes with ease. The brakes are solid, bringing the car to halt smartly.
True, its 623cc engine whines a little like a blender when pushed to its top speed of 65mph and the body leans like the Tower of Pisa when cornering at speed. But the wheels will give out before you can tip the car over, the Guardian was assured by Tata engineers.
Built for functional frugality, the Nano is a striking if not a beautiful car. Flashing through the dusty streets outside the Tata plant in Pune, southern India, the Nano's distinctive look turns heads. Many people, especially those who are riding motorbikes, break into smiles and thrust thumbs into the air when its jellybean shape appears.
Its perky ride is partly down to the lightweight all-steel frame that keeps the car's weight at just 600kg. Bumping up and down Pune's older potholed highways proves that the car's suspension can take on India's decrepit infrastructure.
The Nano resembles Doctor Who's Tardis. Outside it is just three metres long – smaller than hatchbacks such as the Fiat Panda and the Toyota Yaris and only a tad longer than the original Mini. Inside, the Nano is big enough for four 1.8 metre-tall (6ft) adults to sit in comfort. At 5ft 10in, I had plenty of room. What is amazing is the Nano's turning circle – its tiny wheels can spin it around in the same space as a London black cab.
The car for the common man is an ode to the ordinary. Priced at 100,000 rupees or just £1,350, the Tata Nano appears on the surface the most under-engineered car for decades. The dashboard has just a speedometer and two simple gauges for fuel and mileage. In the Nano only the essential is allowed to exist.
Tata built the car to put the developing world on wheels – leading some to smirk that the automobile would be little more than a rickshaw with windows. That is far from the reality. The Nano looks and feels like a real car, remarkable given that costs less than a high-end laptop.
On the more expensive models the air conditioning provides welcome relief from the hairdryer heat of an Indian summer. Irritatingly, to save money, the switches for the electric windows are placed at the foot of the gear stick – which means you have to reach down to bring down the glass.
Tata began with a blank piece of paper: the only taboo was that the price could not be more than 100,000 rupees. Engineers toyed with designing a car with no doors, or a vehicle made of plastic. These were rejected, however, and the Nano is made out of a single sheet of steel, aerodynamically moulded, with a rear-mounted engine.
The team behind the car say they went back to the drawing board with every component – cutting cost and minimising weight without sacrificing performance and comfort.
The car is being subtly re-engineered to meet US and European safety standards. Those new versions will see airbags added as well as updates that will meet western regulations for crash protection for people inside and outside the car.
The sparseness of the Nano is in some ways a welcome counterblast to costly add-ons found in the west, where cars are becoming almost as intelligent as their drivers. A range of increasingly sophisticated vehicles has hit the market, packed full of video screens, internet connections and adaptive cruise controls, pushing prices into the stratosphere.
The Nano is about innovation at lowest cost. The fuel efficiency is remarkable. It manages 67 miles a gallon (24km a litre) and emits only 101g of carbon dioxide for each kilometre driven. Those figures make it among the cleanest, greenest automobiles in the world. Despite this, it is hard to see how India's already congested roads will bear what could be an extra million cars a year.
True, the Nano is designed to do for India what Ford's Model T did for America almost a century ago. Here in India it is not factory workers who will be its buyers but families who want to upgrade from a 125cc motorbike to a motorcar but could not previously afford to.
Having made a dream real, Ratan Tata, the chairman of Tata group, wants to sell a European version by 2011 and an American one by 2012. And an electric version of the Nano is already in the pipeline. Few would bet against Ratan Tata. He is a man who appears to have the knack of timing. The Nano is the right car at the right time at the right place.
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Leo Hickman: The cancellation of this year’s British International Motor Show signals the end of the road for petrolheads
March 21st, 2009
The cancellation of this year's British International Motor Show should signal an end to our onanistic car culture
It won't shock you to learn that I'm neither surprised nor saddened that the 2010 British International Motor Show has been cancelled. The concept of building a temporary temple to the car each year, in which thousands of people pay considerable sums to pray and give thanks to the car industry, never did make sense to me.
Judging by the line-up of last year's accompanying Motor Show Music Festival – UB40, Alice Cooper, Status Quo, Squeeze, Deep Purple, Blondie, Bananarama, Toyah, Midge Ure, Meat Loaf, Belinda Carlisle, Chicago, Jools Holland – the organisers had a pretty specific target audience in mind, and I wasn't among them. The British International Motor Show is the leather jacket-clad, piston-pumping 1980s in mind, body and soul.
In 2009, where we are waist-deep in a recession that has led to thousands of job losses in the car industry and witnessed unsold cars being measured by the hectare, the organisers recognised that this particular show could not go on. Stir the environmental crisis into the mix, too, and such a celebratory event seemed entirely misplaced.
As many people have already commented, this year will hopefully come to be seen as a historic turning point for the global car industry. Any financial handouts that come the way of the ailing car industry must have thick ropes – not strings – attached that demand that this dinosaur sector greatly improves the fuel efficiency of all its products and urgently develops much cleaner alternatives to the fossil-fuelled combustion engine that, for a century, has gifted us great mobility but at such a huge cost to the environment. If any company refuses such conditions then we must let them go to the wall, however harsh the human cost might be in the short-term. We just can't afford the luxury of sentimentality any more.
Bringing a close to our onanistic car culture – typified by events such as the British International Motor Show – must be part of this gear change. The Top Trumps mentality, where we all aspire to a bigger, better, faster, newer model, must end. The penis-extension jibes aimed at petrolheads are cliched, but true. It's time we all grew up when it comes to both discussing and building cars.
So let's hope when the British International Motor Show returns – as it surely will – it has been remoulded and redesigned to reflect this new era. The organisers could start by booking some contemporary bands.
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