Tesla Roadster

You might remember this car from the post I did on the Popular Mechanics Breakthrough Awards. The Tesla Roadster was one of the award winners. Now this is a truly amazing car. The guys in white lab-coats have been talking about electrical cars for a very long time. Every now and then you would read about one, but normally they will have some sort of drawback. Either very slow, or very heavy or too expensive for commercial production, or the range is too short. Not this one though. Listen to this: It’s a two-seater that’s hundred percent electric, not a hybrid, full electric. It does 0 to 100 km/h in about four seconds, using 185kw of power up to 13000rpm. It has a top speed of 210km/h and has an equivalent fuel efficiency of 1.75 l/100 km. “What!” I hear you say. Yes, and that’s not all folks, if you dial now, you can’t get one until 2008 because they are sold out for 2007 at $100000 each. After about a three and a half hour charge, you have a range of about 400km. The energy system is a custom microprocessor-controlled lithium-ion battery pack that weighs about 450kg. The battery consists of 6,831 lithium ion battery cells configured in a pack that can be charged at any time. You get a home-charging unit and a mobile-charging kit that plugs into any normal wall-outlet when you’re on the road. The website says this about the Tesla: “With one moving part in the motor, no clutch, and two gears… There is no motor oil to change; no filters, belts, or spark plugs to replace… the only service we recommend for the first 100,000 miles is brake and tire service.” Wouldn’t you just love that for your car? See here for a complete list of standard features. It is more than many other roadsters out there. As far as the design goes a lot of it comes from the Lotus Elise, but just modified a little. The car will be assembled at the Lotus factory in Hethel, England.
Do you need any more reasons to like this car? Is it something we’ll see more of on the roads in the future? Most definitely. Especially with fossils fuel rapidly being depleted and pollution, this is the future of automobiles!

Dude, where's my car?

A US company called Robotic Parking systems Inc. has developed a multi million Dollar automated garage. It is quite brilliant. You drive your car onto a metal pallet structure. It then takes your car up to the next available space (be it 5 stories up) on steel wheels and tracks and lifts, slotting it in place like a huge filing system (see the picture). Before it “parks” your car, it also rotates it 180 degrees, to make it easier when you need your car again. It also uses AI to analyse trends, reshuffling cars according to customer usage, so as to reduce return times when you need your car again. It saves so much space that you can fit almost double the amount of cars that a normal parking garage can take. “Is it safe?” you ask. Well, a Jeep and a Cadillac once fell of it…! But it seems they ironed out the problem subsequently.
Here is the most amazing part: It’s run on an off-the-shelf PC with Windows NT as an operating system! It uses General Electric hardware with open source software called Simplicity.
Another positive spin-off is that it reduces car theft and robberies that normally take place in parking garages to zero, simply because drivers don’t even enter the garage. Apparently, they are looking at automating it even further, whereby as you approach the garage, a card (which you place in the windscreen) is detected by the garage’s systems, and automatically readies the pallet. Upon return, the system again recognises the card and as the driver approaches, fetches the car and gets it ready for the driver to just get in and drive off. I recall a scene from iRobot, where detective Spooner (Will Smith) parks his car (a futuristic Audi) at the pavement. The car is then taken into an automated garage, similar to what is described here! The future is here.
No more wandering around looking for your car!

PS. So as not to get sued for plagiarism, the credit for this post’s heading goes to this article.

Monsters of the road

These pick-ups (bakkies) and cars always catch attention. Some I would like to own, others would just not be worth the effort of finding parking (and paying the fuel bill). Let’s start with the Ford F250. It is definitely of the biggest pick-ups I’ve seen. Ever. It is very American, but I like it. Its impressively big.

It has a 4,2litre turbo diesel 6 cylinder engine which has a 144 litre tank and gives 132 kW @ 3800 rpm and 500 NM @ 1600 rpm. Its biiiiig! I had a look at the cab and there is enough space for you, your family and your mother-in-law with her poochie as well.

Next is the Hummer or High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle. It is also American, but jeepers!... It is even more impressive than the F250! On my way home from work, I drive past one ever so often and it grabs my attention every time. It’s a black one and it’s the colour I would go for if I had the bucks to buy one. It has such presence on the road. One drove past me the other day on the freeway and I tell you, the other cars just made way for it. The H3 has a 3,5 litre engine with an 85 litre tank. It outputs 164 kW @ 5,600 rpm and 305 Nm @ 2,800 rpm. So it has a smaller tank than the F250, with less torque. Hmm, interesting… One would think that the Hummer would have more torque for such a big body. And the tank is not much bigger than a Toyota Hilux.

Talking about Toyota, they actually have an alternative to the Hummer. Well, it looks more like the H1, but still, it’s a Toyota. Its called the Mega Cruiser, and its pictured above. It’s a 4,1 litre engine that kicks out 111 kw of power @ 3400 rpm and 380 nm @ 1800 rpm. I’m a big Toyota fan, but the fact is, its not as powerful as the F250 or the Hummer. The fuel tank is 108 litres, which is what you expect from this sort of vehicle. It has more torque than the Hummer, which earns it Brownie points. I don’t think its as luxurious though. I’ve heard about a similar Russian car called the GAZ, but I can’t find enough information on it.

The last one is a real monster. It is just ridiculous. It’s a product of the same company that manufactures International trucks, those big 18 wheelers. One day, their R&D department had nothing to do, so they came up with this idea: Why not make a pick-up out of a truck! The monster is called the International XT and has about 4 or 5 models in its stable. I’ll tell you a bit about the CXT. Its 6,5 m long, 2,7m tall and weighs 6,5 tons! It has a 265 litre tank, which you apparently have to fill up every 5 kilometres or so. The engine is just as monstrous: a 6 litre which puts out 220kw of power and 1160Nm of torque!!! And the cab is as big as my living room and very luxurious. Let’s put it this way, no-one will come in your way on the roads and parking is a non-issue!

If this is your sort of thing then you will probably also go for one of those monster trucks with the humongous wheels that crush cars on a Saturday night.

Sadly, I will soon get into my 1998 Toyota Corolla and drive home while looking up at the pickup truck drivers in their air-conditioned cabs while I struggle along behind them. One can only dream….

Vorsprung Durch Technik

I was just invited to have a look at a friend’s brand new Audi Q7. It is the 4,2l V8 Quattro. I am speechless. This is the most sophisticated machinery I have ever been allowed to touch. For starters, it looks smooth and elegant. It doesn’t appear big from the outside, but it is really big on the inside. And its got everything you can think of. Name it. SatNav, built-in phone, optional TV tuner, fold-down trays behind the front seats, leg space, leather, wood-inlays, and the list is endless. It about 5m long and 2 m wide, so it’s big. Everything works with voice prompts, you press a button on the steering wheel, and say something like “phone”, and it opens the phone display on the centre of the dashboard. The same display changes to a camera when you reverse, so that you can see behind you. It also shows lines of where you are going, superimposed in the video image, so you know where you are “aiming”. The lines change angle as you turn the steering wheel. When you open the hatch in the back, there is a button you can press to lower the car when you want to load stuff. Also, there is a button on the hatch door that closes the door automatically when you press it. Inside, it has a four zone climate control system, so the passengers in the back have individual control. It produces 171 kW @ 4000 r/min and torque of 500 Nm @ 1750-2750 r/min, and it weighs 2300kg (this is for the TDI). It has a radar sensors that monitor the blind spot on the sides of the car and flashes a signal to the driver via flickers mounted on the inside of the mirrors, alerting the driver that a car is in its blind spot.

In all, a bloody technologically impressive car! You have to experience it yourself. Go out now and check it out!

New Pajero

Is it just me, or is the Mitsubishi Pajero getting uglier every year? There is a new one scheduled for release next year, and it sure as hell is no Mona Lisa. I actually prefer the older models. Since I first saw one in 1992, it has gripped my attention. Especially with the new (well, new to me at the time) technology, such as an altimeter. I thought it was great. In all fairness, I must admit that the current short wheel base one looks ok. I drove one recently, and its luxury all the way. But if I had a choice, I would still go for the older ones. Its the same as the Merc ML. Ugly as hell. I don't care that its a Merc. They have to bring beauty into the equation somehow. Ok, they have improved somewhat, but it still is not a pretty car. I would have to say that the best looking luxury offroad vehicle has to be the VW Touareg. Have a look!

Pony cars

I am kicking off this blog site with a post on pony cars. According to Wikipedia, pony cars : "... describes an affordable, compact, highly styled car with a sporty or performance-oriented image."
Now, some people might consider these cars, such as the Ford Mustang, Dodge Challenger, Chevrolet Corvair, etc, to be a bit beneath them in the sense that a S-class Merc would not be beneath them. But they are missing out on something more exciting than just a "drag-racing" car. These cars were designed to be out of the ordinary, an alternative to mundane run of the mill family sedans.
When Ford Motor Company created the Ford Mustang in 1965, that's exactly what they had in mind. The Mustang was in fact the first pony car ( or "muscle car" as they are also called). Since then there have been a few others that raised the eyebrows, but I still feel the Mustang and its cousins are the greatest. On Top Gear they drove a Dodge Charger and spoke about which was the better one between that and the Challenger, and I must say, the Charger doesn't look too bad. If you talk about what they have under the bonnet, its muscle all the way! Typically they had a six-cilinder or V8 engine.
The 2007 Ford Shelby GT500 is a 5,4L V8 and it outputs 372kw with a torque of 650NM at 4500 rpm. If the look of this beast does nothing for you, well, there must be other problems in your life as well!