Browsing Tag

motoring

Yamaha create driverless motorbike and take a shot at The Doctor

October 30, 2015 By steve In Motoring

Yamaha have recently revealed their Motorbot (coolest name ever BTW) which is a driverless (unmodified) superbike capable of lapping tracks at upwards of 200 km/h.

Yamaha, in patting themselves on the back, say that the complex task of developing a robot that can control a fast bike at speed can be applied later to the creation of greater advanced rider safety and support systems – including self-riding motorbikes.

They are even claiming that the bike can take on (and beat) the best in the world. Enter video taunting Rossi to a race.

The OPEL ADAM. Confirming a belief I’ve held for years: expensive cars are dinosaurs REVIEW

September 1, 2015 By steve In Motoring

First off, let’s point out the absolute peak of a mountain that the Opel Adam is intended to climb. Named after the company’s owner, the Adam has been told that it’s their job to take on the mighty Mini Cooper and the less mighty but still cool Fiat 500.

Over and above this, the Adam seems to be spearheading Opel’s fighting return to the cool hatch market, evident in the recently announced return of the Opel Corsa Sport. And then there are OPCs and GTC and ABCs which will no doubt follow soon.

The good news is, Opel’s flagship Adam is as impressive as Jacob Zuma’s butt-covering skills. First off it looks awesome. There are only two side doors and not a great deal of space inside, but you could say the same for its competitors.

Here’s some demographic appropriate marketing:

Performance-wise you won’t be leaving much at the lights, but you’re not in a wagon either. Three variants and two engine options. A four cylinder 1.4-litre engine complimented by a five-speed gearbox will make sure you get to where you’re going rather quickly. The other variation may only be a 1.0 litre, but it’s rocking a turbo that allegedly makes it quicker than its big brother. I only had the 1.4-litre on test, so can’t confirm but can believe. I’ve always said it: small engines with a turbo are the future.

Opel claim that the two engines have consumptions of 5.3 litres per 100km and 5.1 litres respectively, which is more or less on point with its competition in its class, and both engines have stop/start technology to keep your petrol card in your wallet just a bit longer.

To my point. Expensive cars are dinosaurs. (Some context: expensive means comparative cars in the same demographic and segment.)

So. Lets talk about Sam. Sam’s just got out of High School and her folks (execs, both of them) have agreed to buy her a new car. Options befitting her privileged birth and need for speed:

Golf GTi – R447 000
Audi A3 – R419 500
BMW 1-series – R326 500

All quick. All incredibly stylish and branded befittingly. All beautiful cars. But all also incredibly expensive, heavy on petrol and boasting two more doors on the sides than are necessary for Uni bound Sam or anyone living in a modern metropolis like Jozi or Cape Town. Two-door town cars with low emissions, tiny lengths and turbos are the way to go.

My advice to new car buyers in the past 2 years has been this:

There are no “shit” cars anymore. Everyone’s got their production quality up, their cars are reliable, their cars look good. You don’t need to buy German to be seen (I recognise Opel is German but you know what I mean).

Why don’t you opt for a brand whose marketing campaigns you won’t be footing the bill for, tick every extra box on the dealership form and drive out in a less powerful but more suited to the city customized, bespoke and gorgeous Opel Corsa or Hyundai i20 instead of signing up to be just another Audi driver?

That’s what you get when you do the same on an Opel Adam. And maybe…maybe you’ll be tickling the R300 000 mark. This is where the Adam comes into its own.

With a completely customizable interior, the Adam also comes in nine paint jobs and five customisation packs. Sitting inside you really could be fooled as to what car you’re sitting in. Leather seats, accessories galore and comfort. And these are the options. Things you don’t even need to select include Opel’s Smartphone communicating Intellilink system, Multi-function steering wheel and Bluetooth, Side Blind Zone Alert (which is incredibly helpful and safe once you get used to it. First few drives were a skriek), a full GPS system in BringGo and Advanced Park assist.

Getting these extras put into your new entry-level Audi or Beemer all of a sudden puts you in a new tax bracket. It sours the deal. It makes you feel like that brand you’re associating yourself with is perhaps costing you a bit much.

In “cheaper” brands like Opel and Hyundai, they’re nice enough to give these to you for free. No brainer to me.

PRICING:

ADAM 1.4 R189 900.00
ADAM JAM 1.0T ecoFLEX R209 900.00
ADAM GLAM 1.0T ecoFLEX R232 900.00

Robbie Madison creates motorbike that skims on top of water. Then surfs a wave with it!

August 4, 2015 By steve In Motoring

It’s taken him two years and a lot of staring “it’s impossible dude”-ers in the face, but finally, pro Motorcross racer turned stuntman turned most gnarly dude in the world Robbie Madison has done it: he’s ridden his motorbike on water. And if that wasn’t enough, he decided, while he was treading liquid to ride in and surf the world famous Teahuo’po wave in Tahiti.

Watch this:

Trsnaworld was there to watch the entire making and before and after and it’s really worth a read. Check it here

All electric ATX8080 urban scooter makes lane-splitting more fun and even easier

July 21, 2015 By steve In Motoring

Austin Electric Powersports based in the US are proud to announce the “ATX 8080” all electric urban scooter capable of 80 km range at 80 km/h. Obvs being electric there are no emissions except for the ones produced in getting your electricity from coal, into a power plant, through the countryside and over to your outlet.

ANYWAYS…

The electric motor propulsion and the generating system into one moving part with no gears, filters or belts for maintenance. This means it’s simple and incredibly rugged to suffer through your urban lifestyle.

Samsung have sponsored the power source on board that plugs directly into a wall socket for a 4 to 5 hour charge time.

One look at that low centre of gravity and you can just tell how well this thing lane-splits. On the down side, sitting so low down does mean you’re pretty less visible to Jozi drivers. Not like they’re looking for you in the first place.

Funding on Kickstarter for this one has been cancelled. Dunno why!?! Let’s blame Donald Trump.

From: http://www.atx8080.com/

Martin Jetpack makes personal flight a possibility

July 2, 2015 By steve In Motoring, Technology

Although it’s taken them 34 years to get it off the ground (get it?), FINALLY the Martin Jetpack personal flyer or whatever you wanna call it is a reality.

Hailing from New Zealand (no shit!), the creators have built their jetpack out of carbon fibre and aluminum alloys making it light weight enough to fly in tight spaces and remain easily maneuverable. More maneuverable than a helicopter anyway. Good thing this since one of their main target markets is the emergency responder market and government agencies. Imagine getting chased down the M1 North by a Metro cop on one of these. Bril.

(WARNING: the vid is a bit long in the tooth)

The vehicle itself is powered by a 200 hp V4 petrol engine that drives two fans for up to 30 minutes of flight time. Top speed is 74 km/h and you’ll be able to go as high as 1km in the air.

Take off and landing happens straight up and down and pilot qualifications are said to be easily attainable. The way I see it, this is just another means of Bashar al-Assad to skip out of South African airspace unarrested.

Control is reported to be a breeze thanks to the ‘fly by wire’ system which is straightfoward to operate and comes with its own ballistic parachute system. I should bloody hope so when you consider the price of the bloody thing.

Get it: R2 million plus
From: www.martinjetpack.com

Google’s self-driving Buggies, coming soon

May 19, 2015 By In Motoring, Technology

Self-driving cars. We know the techs not fully there yet, but Google have gotten the go-ahead for their self driving cars none-the-less. And it’s Google. They know what they’re doing. Right?

Whatever the readiness, there’s no denying that there’s something sexy about being able to finish that episode of Game Of Thrones during your commute to work.

Google’s new buggy is small, has only two seats and is about 3/4 the size of a regular hatch, and more impressively, Google has built them from the ground up. No more Priuses or Lexus SUVs, Google is now a car manufacturer.

They dertainly don’t look very good, but they’re not supposed to. Rumours have been circling that the cars will be used to provide a service akin to Uber, rather than being able to buy one for yourself.

Since the cars are only in the testing phase, they will need a human driver inside at all times. But, as an indication of their plans, the steering wheel is removable and the brake and accelerator have been attached on specifically for the test cars.

The cars will still run autonomously, but the driver is inside just to make sure no malfunctions happen. All the data gathered from Google’s fleet is being programmed into the buggies, so we doubt anything will happen.

Google currently claims that every accident their fleet has been involved in has been due to human error, so we imagine countries will soon be falling over themselves to give the Google Buggy the go ahead soon. And when asked why would anyone get into a car without a steering wheel, Google is insisting that these new Buggies will surely reduce accidents, cut down traffic congestion, help those with mobility problems and offer many more adaptations.

After you Google.

Surfing meets golf in the GolfBoard

April 28, 2015 By steve In Motoring

The original idea came from snowboard addict Don Wildman who initially took his electric skateboard on to his local Malibu course to ride the hills and “get in some turns” while catching his weekly 18 holes. As soon as he befriended surfing legend Laird Hamilton, it wasn’t long before surfing met golf and the GolfBoard was born.

The GolfBoard is made with both young and old in mind, the only requisite in fact is that you wear high socks and completely ridiculous looking pants. Such philosophies ensure that the ancient game and all its’ traditions are safe and preserved. They’ve just invented a more fun to play.

The GolfBoard has a 4WD posi-traction setup which means it is driven by gear boxes front and back, rather than unreliable chains and belts. A first on boards, they claim it’s safer and requires less maintenance. Coupled to 4-inch Turf tyres which guarantee stability, no-spin traction, and off-roadable ground clearance and you’re carving paths around off road tracks.

Speed, you’re looking at about 5MPH with a max of 14MPH and control comes in the form of a wireless handheld controller or the on-board thumb-throttle sitting on the bag pedestal that gives new riders extra stability. Wheels lock automatically when stationary.
Battery-life they say will get you an easy 18 holes on some of the roughest and toughest courses in the world. It’ll have to or you’re dragging a heavy piece of machinery back to the clubhouse.
Get it: R1750 per month (only available in the States)
From: www.golfboard.com

Autonomous cars are still 5 years away but car sharing programs are going to solve Africa’s transport issues #FordMWC #MWC15

March 4, 2015 By steve In Motoring

Autonomous cars are a bit of a double edged sword. The techie in me can’t wait to be driven around like Jay Z on the way to the Oscars, while the petrol-head in me curses these interferences in the enjoyment of acceleration and hard cornering. Thankfully it looks like my petrol-head will be looked after at least for the foreseeable future that is according to the Ford big wigs in R & D who reckon the tech to run autonomy in cars just isn’t there yet.

Ken Washington, vice president of Ford’s Research and Advanced Engineering and his team have been filling me in at the Mobile World Congress about the future of autonomous cars as well as some of the concept-like projects they’re working on around the world that are gonna solve South Africa’s transport issues. But everyone is going to have to play nice.

With the growth of cities into megacities and the number of people increasing and space for cars decreasing, you’ve got to be worrying about people moving to bikes and scooters.
Is this the reason for your Smart Mobility bike project playing such a big role at your presence here at Mobile World Congress 2015?

Not really. We simply thought that this was the perfect platform for this project to accompany our theme of mobility. Our vision is to bring alternative modes of mobility to the masses, to bring experiences and solutions that they are asking us for. We’re being told that the combination of a bike and a vehicle is the solution.

We opened this question to our employees and what you see outside are just two of the over 100 projects that came back to us from them. There are some amazing things that didn’t even make the cut.

Is it not cannibalising your own market by encouraging biking to people who buy cars?

Not really. The truth is with our Smart Mobility, the goal is to learn about all forms of mobility within the city. We want to own and enhance both. People know about cars and people know about bikes, but few know anything about how the two interact with each other. That’s what we’re trying to do with these. The idea is simply to capture data from bikes by using Bluetooth.

That is where our Info Cycle experiment comes in. This is an open-source research initiative that we’re using to gather information from thousands of bikers about how bikes are used in different urban areas.

How are you planning to use this big data that you’re collecting from bikers?

Well the first step will be to see what comes out of the data. We fit a sensor box on the frame of the bike which is retro-fittable and has an accelerometer, a gyroscope, a humidity, cadence and light sensor. This box gathers data such as wheel speed, acceleration, weather and altitude.

From there the goal is to start a conversation with the bike manufacturers who are working within an ecosystem that we see as quite underserved by this sort of data. Neither industry is thinking about the other. This is something we’d like to change.

We’re thinking that the actual application of this technology could be in the form of a box or a clip or a Google-like service that could connect to any existing hardware or software. We’re starting with a small group of riders in a city and we’ll use their feedback to develop and build the application. We have no decided date on when this could come to market.

What sort of business solutions are you aiming to cater to with your MoDe:Pro?

We’re looking at providing solutions to business owners who operate within a very congested, big city environment. For example, we’re thinking of satellite delivery. One solution would be a delivery by van and skill by bike. So an emergency crew show up on the scene and the skilled members of the team who can save lives can cut through the congestion and traffic and get to the scene on time to be effective. Also think about courier companies who can cut on costs dramatically by delivering on bikes.

So it’s for the small to medium business. SA businesses like these might have trouble affording such a solution. Are you open to possibly working alongside government to take on subsidies and make these projects available to these businesses?

This is definitely something we can look at.

Owning a car is an expensive exercise and you’re addressing this with your Global Mobility Projects, particularly your Share-Car project in India. What other projects do you have that address the buyer who can’t afford their own car?

That’s a great project, isn’t it? At the moment we’re simply seeing what works in India for example and scaling it to places like South Africa from there.

Our goal with this project is to learn, which is often seen as a dirty word, but this is something that is helping us improve and adapt.

Our Dynamic Shuttle Service running in London is also aimed at reducing emissions and allowing everyone to enjoy transport solutions without owning a car of their own. In fact, in that project, the more people that the shuttle picks up, the cheaper the ride becomes for the riders. So it encourages people to message or tweet their friends and say “hey, I’m getting the shuttle to work today, why don’t you join me?”

And obviously you get some marketing out of the tweets?

Of course. Also, we’re getting future Ford buyers in to our vehicle to experience them.

On your autonomous vehicles, Mercedes Benz announced theirs and you said you’re not in a rush to compete. You’d rather get the technology right before you rush something not ready to market.
What do you have planned?

Yes. The technology required for autonomous vehicles is not yet there. We do have a very active research program to develop the right sensors and the correct system that will fit on to the vehicle at a low enough cost to get the tech to the masses within next 5 years.

This technology needs to deal with all the complexities a vehicle will see on the road: like snow, low light and pedestrians.

We have an ongoing development program on semi-autonomous systems which includes Active City Stop bringing a vehicle to a complete stop from 50km/h to avoid a collision and Pedestrian Protect. The goal is to make safer, better drivers.

Your full Electric Ford Focus is being launched in your spring in to the European market. What is your response to critics of electric vehicles who complain about the range issues, the time to recharge and those that say we need to rely on renewable energy to recharge vehicles and not plugging in to the grid?

Well we’re working on multiple fronts. One is that we’ll continue to manufacture fuel efficient Internal Combustion engines and diesel engines.

We’re also continuing to develop enhancements in our electrification powertrain, to bring the cost down, to make it available on multiple platforms and third in the longer term we have a research activity to develop a fuel cell option for the future which we’ll bring out and scale when the time is right.

Along with electric we’re seeing a trend towards smaller engines like your 1-litre Ecoboost one. Are we seeing the likes of the V8 and anything over 3-litres resigned to the dinosaur graveyard?

We see a need to improve consumption so we’re focusing on the right combination of feel, performance and fuel efficiency depending on what our consumers require. We know that these are engines that even the enthusiasts will enjoy. We offer a full range of engines for everyone and we’ll continue to produce the performance ranges like the Mustangs and the RS range.

New Honda Civic Type-R advert takes watching Youtube to the next, interactive, level. Nice @HondaSA

October 31, 2014 By steve In Motoring

Honda have gone on the tease of their new Type-R Civic with this completely innovative and interactive Youtube ad.

In an attempt to show off the dual-nature of hot hatches like the Civic Type-R, Honda have created two pretty identical adverts and shoved them into one Youtube video. You as the viewer decide (by pushing “R”) which advert you want to watch as the ad goes on: the safe, Eco-Drive Honda family hatch or the pepped up, hot-as-hell hot hatch Honda.

Watch the ad here.

Here’s a trailer to the ad, but you really need to hit the link above to get the full experience

Some pics from the ad.

Ferrari Sergio is rare, expensive and not for sale because you weren’t invited

October 28, 2014 By steve In Motoring

Take a deep breath in. Now take another look at this absolutely stupendous and exclusive Ferrari designed by Pininfarina and sold by Ferrari.

The Ferrari Sergio concept was originally shown off at last year’s Geneva Motorshow as an homage to Sergio Pininfarina, and now news is out that the Italian car maker is putting the concept into production…sort of. Only 6 will be made, and they’re all already spoken for by ultra-wealthy Ferrari clients who were INVITED to buy one.

The Sergio is based on the 458 and the production version will probably be too. That means specs of a 4.5-litre V8 that puts out 562hp and does 0-60mph in 3.4 seconds. The Sergio is also likely to weigh less and cost in excess of $2.5 million.