Goggomobil - more than modern 60 years ago

What you see here under a Christmas tree is a Goggomobil T 250 from around 1957. This was a very small (less than 3 meters long), light (around 415 kg) two door four seat limousine favored for its good performance, excellent handling and state of the art economy.
Mind, that this little thing could do more than 50 miles per hour, but it was more economical than a Smart today.
Now, the point I want to raise is, that with this tiny vehicle people were able to commute, to take a vacation trip with their family and to even start at hillclimbs or circuit races. It satisfied all transportation demands. Today, people buy a two ton vehicle accelerated by a 300 hp engine to basically do the same. And they wouldn't arrive much earlier with their SUV than they did with a 50ies Goggomobil. Great progress, isn't it?
Anyway, merry christmas!
P.S. If you want to know more about the Goggomobil and you read German, then here's a worthwhile article to read.

Does the Volkswagen XL1 stand a chance?

Volkswagen has presented the VW XL1, a car doing almost 100 km with 1 litre of diesel fuel. So yet another prototype. Let's turn the page. But stop, Volkswagen also announced that they will be producing this car in two years and everyone can buy one. Surprise! If Volkswagen really is able to produce this prototype style sports two seater then I will be putting it on my wish list. Honestly, it looks good and stylish, it has the gullwing doors I love and I can drive it to save the world. Great, isn't it? Of course it's a question of pricing too. I would not want to pay more than let's say 40'000 Euros for a car with the performance of an 80ies saloon car despite all the styling bells and wistles. But clearly this is the most advanced thing Volkswagen has presented in a decade and I will follow its progress closely

New Lotus Evora S - is this the Evora we dreamt for?

Finally Lotus revealed details about the coming Lotus Evora S (presented at Paris Auto show soon). It comes with 350 hp and active exhaust, meaning it will provide the noise we tunnel addicts usually go for. And of course it will show better performance. It's still heavy however and compared to other super sportscars is still underpowered and fairly heavy, a Corvette brings 500 hp and more at roughly the same weight. Here's what Lotus gives as performance data:
0-100 km/h: 4.8 s, power output 350 hp / 257.5 kW @ 7000 rpm, max torque 400 Nm / 295 lb ft @ 4500 rpm, maximum speed 172 mph, fuel consumption - urban 14.5 l/100km, extra urban 7.4 l/100km, combined 10.0l/100km, CO2 Emissions 235 g/km.
Not bad, but good enough? It all depends on the price ....

Forgotten cars - the Standard

Few people probably remember this car, the Standard 8, a British car built in the 1940ies. It came with 4 cylinders, 28 HP and a compression of 6.7:1. With four gears, of which three were silent, it was quite modern at that time. Thanks to a low weight of 800 kg the car was pretty economical with 6-8 liter of fuel per 100 km, while offering 4 seats in its 3.5 m long limousine body. It used about 0.1 liter of engine oil per 100 km and there was of course the need to grease the chassis. All in all quite a modern car that could reach almost 100 km/h (96 km/h to be exact). Looking at this you may wonder how much progress we really have seen.

The BP disaster will not kill the Classic Car scene

The other day I read a newspaper article arguing that with the BP disaster in the south of the USA oil prices would increase as the approach to get the oil deep down from the sea wouldn't be anymore allowed because of the risks involved. Let's assume this is true for a moment. And let's assume the price for gasoline would go up by 100% due to this over the next two to three years. For purely selfish reasons I asked myself what the impact on the vintage and oldtimer car scene might be. Would this kill our cherished hobby? Would this decrease the value of the many car collections? Honestly I doubt and I did some simple calculations.
When you own a classic car from the 60ies for example, you spend probably money for a number of things, i.e. insurance, garage/place to leave the car when you don't use it, maintenance and repairs and yes, for gasoline. If you drive your car for 1'000 kms per year, then gasoline is probably 6-10% of your budget, if you go to 3000 km - and few do more than this - then you may end up with 16-25% of your budget for gasoline. If we now double the price of fuel, then of course these percentages go up too. And the total cost will increase by 11%, respectively 26%. On an absolute level this is not that much, especially compared with the total value of your investment. And, you can compensate the extra cost by driving a bit less, i.e. 2'000 km instead of 3'000 km. So if you really love your car, doubling the price of gasoline will not change this and you will be able to deal with it. Even tripling the price of oil will not make you changing your mind. Good! If this calculation is correct then we are save and prices for classic cars will not plunge. The issue though may be that not all owners of classic cars really do it for passion and we may observe some price drops when they get rid of their now more expensive hobby. But this will not make the hard core of the classic car scene tumble. I hope.

Yes, your Corvette Z06 can save a lot of fuel!

Fuel consumption of fast and large cars looks often very bad, looking at the ECE measured average consumption. The magazine Auto Motor und Sport in Germany has introduced their own fuel efficiency lap, which every test car has to do. The differences are interesting, also the extremes. While it's obviously possible to drive a Ferrari 612 Scaglietti oder a Covertte Z06 at emission levels 40% lower than anticipated by the ECE measurement cycle, other cars like the Toyota iQ actually use 30% more fuel than measured in the ECE cycle. Obviously fast and heavy cars are penalized, but funny enough also the Dacia seems to look to bad.

Do Sportscars and Hybrid contradict each other?

Among the car manufacturers to push for hybrid technology there are also a number of sportscar companies, i.e. Porsche, Ferrari and others. But, does the combination of a sportscar with hybrid engine technology really make sense? There are quite a number of reasons against it:
(1) Hybrid technology makes a car heavier, easily 50, but most commonly 100-150 kg extra weight. Weight is bad for handling and performance
(2) Hybrid technology only really makes a car save fuel if it allows to shift earlier or to run without the gasoline engine. However, the fun of driving a sportscar often comes with revving the engine and listening to the noise the car makes
(3) Driveability often suffers due to the effect when you use the electrical engine to slow down the car. This has also been a huge issue with KERS in formula 1.
Of course there are also a number of good reasons why adding hybrid technology to a sportscar can make sense, as for example the successful 997 GT3 Hybrid has shown or the future 918 spider will maybe illustrate, but I stay with my opinion that we should rather save weight and come up with simple efficient sportcars that are fun to drive!

Gas station yesterday and today

Where are these men of Texaco today? In the 60ies and 70ies service was a key word at gas stations. The friendly men cleaned your screen, looked for your engine oil and of course filled the tank. Today? Well you do it all yourself, if you actually can do it. More and more gas stations become little shops and people get their bread or meat there, or just beer, mineral water, chocolate or ice cream. And while they shop you can't get to your petrol and you wait and wait and wait. I really wonder whether this is the purpose of a gas station and dream about the good old times as visualized in this commercial from the 50ies.

Is the Tesla changing the world?

There are more Teslas in Switzerland (per capita) than anywhere else in the world. Actually, you now see them quite often. I have been writing about the Tesla before. It's based on a great car (Lotus Elise) and has been able to retain its donor car's handling excellence despite the extra weight. Combine this great basis with an ecological drivetrain and a courageous choice of battery technology and you actually have a pretty good car. The fact that you now see a Tesla besides an Audi R8 or a Ferrari 458 Italia at the airport lottery (win a great car for just 20 £) supports the assumption that owning a Tesla is quite hip. What do people use the Tesla for? I have no clue. They probably don't use it for traveling (range to narrow) and neither on a race track (you will not be able to complete a lap at the Nurburgring with the Tesla before the battery is empty) and for shopping it's probably not practical neither. So it's rather an item to own (and show) than one to use. Good so, if you can afford it. But there are not enough people in this segment to make Tesla a true success.

GoCycle - the best e-bike yet?

I just stumbled upon the GOCYCLE e-bike. It's not that new, but it's still fresh. So what does it have to do with cars, you may ask. Well, it has been designed by Richard Thorpe, coming from McLaren. It's pretty clever with its moulded magnesium frame, cleandrive fully sealed 3-speed sequential gearbox and integrated floating disk brakes. And it looks good and very stylish. And it's light, 16.2 kg is something in the e-bike world. I haven't yet had the opportunity to test drive one, but I will. There are things already though I don't like. The price lists looks like what you are used from Mercedes or BMW, everything costs extra and the add-ons are quite expensive. The bike as such is fairly affordable with £1'272 excluding VAT.
So, I am tempted, but not fully convinced yet ...

Road test of the Tesla Roadster Sport - fast, expensive but good

The German car magazine "Auto Motor und Sport" did one of the first comprehensive road tests of the Tesla Roadster Sport. I was expecting that they would trash it, but actually they were much more positive than what I expected.
Here's what they measured:
0-100 km/h: 4.3 sec
0-180 km/h: 16.3 s
Max speed: 200 km/h
100-0 km/h: 37/35 m
Max range: 328 km
Min range: 200 km
Energy consumption: 20 kWh/100 km, 4 Euros per 100 km. For 4 Euros you could roughly buy 3 liters of gasoline, so no Diesel is going to beat this economy.
So what do these results tell us? The car is fast and can compete with many similarly priced sports cars such as a Maserati or an Aston V8 Vantage if it's about these measures.
Price wise the car is expensive, roughly 130'000 Euros. And regardless of all the new technology it's an Elise at the end, but with much more weight (1'267 kg versus roughly 900 kg). The handling of course suffers due to this and obviously the steering got quite heavy. On the other side this car offers more power and especially torque than any Elise or Exige.
My take? An expensive Elise, but a "cheap" electrical super car. Nothing for me, as I still like good engine sound, something electrical cars will never be able to provide except through the stereo.

Picture of the week - Porsche 924 Carrera GT at the gas station

This is not a particularly good picture, but it's certainly one you can't take often, for three reasons: First, the Porsche 924 Carrera GT was only built 406 times in 1980, roughly 300 to 350 of these cars do still exist. Secondly, while 75 cars have been manufactured in right hand drive form for the UK (and Australia/Japan/etc.), this one is a left hand driven car with UK number plates. And thirdly, these cars are quite fuel efficient, driven on public roads. You only need to refuel the car every 700 to 900 km.
So the probability that you meet one of these cars at a gas station is really quite low, isn't it?

1400 km in a Porsche 924 Carrera GT in 1.5 days

I just came back from a 2 days trip to pick up the Porsche 924 Carrera GT. It took me 1'400 km roughly to drive it back to my home. So, as you would expect, I got an impression of this car. And, I am impressed. The car now is roughly 30 years old, but it is still a joy to drive and you feel both safe and well supported in this car. I must say, almost everything I read about this car, is true. The engine sound for example is not what you would dream of. It's a bit like the sound of the Alpine A110 1600 S, but I like the raspy note between 2'500 and 3'500 rpm. The handing feels absolutely state of the art, even today! I have mainly done highways and a few A and B roads, but the cars handles really nicely.
The performance is good, but what really makes your day is the boost when you reach 3'000+ rpm, the turbo wispers and off you are! That's really a sensation. I never liked turbo engines for daily driving, but if you drive for the driving's sake, then it's quite cool!
What stroke me though is the fuel efficiency of this car. I filled the thank (roughly 83 liters capacity) in the North of France and at home there was still some left after 880 km. I was able to get 70 liters in. So despite some fast touring the car stayed below 10 liters per 100 km, that's quite good!
Gear change isn't really perfect, but after some practicing you have it under control.
And it doesn't take you more than a tunnel trip to read the complete car operating manual. The various Volkswagen sourced buttons create no mysteries.
I can really understand why so many people loved this car and kept it for quite some time.

Comparing Mercedes SLS AMG and Peugeot RCZ

They couldn't be more different, you think, right? The supercar Mercedes SLS AMG, heavily marketed and much sought after (you are wanted to think), and the Peugeot RCZ the Audi TT competitor with its hot design and acceptable price. They clearly are different!
The SLS is 6-7 times more expensive than the RCZ but has a worse drag coefficient and of course more air resistance. It's of course heavier too. It's slightly quicker in the slalom disciplines (looking at the Auto Motor und Sport test results) and can get faster into the VDA fast lane change, but comes out slower! Everything that is about economics though, the Mercedes is much worse. Everything that is about power to weight ratio or absolute power, the SLS beats the RCZ by factor 2 (almost).
The good thing is that there's barely anybody who has to decide between these two cars. Two market segments, two cars. But both cars certainly can be great fun, because fun is not a function of budget, it's more a function of expectation and engineering.

Fiat Mulipla - to ugly to survive?

One of the most controversial designs of the last 10+ years probably is/was the Fiat Multipla, built between 1999 and 2004. It was quite unique with the lights just below the front screen and with the wheels basically at every corner. Also the six seat configuration was somewhat special. But it was at the same time a pretty practical cars, kids loved the middle seat in the front and the handling of the car was much better than it looked! After all the critic Fiat decided to smoothen the car in 2004 and with this destroyed the design in my eyes. The Mk2 Multipla is just an ordinary car and lacks the uniqueness of the Mk1. I almost had bought one in the early 2000s, but I didn't. I would like to see more brave designs and concepts on the street, just like the Fiat Multipla!

New 2011 Lotus Elise with ultra low CO2 emission

Lotus has just announced that the new 2011 Lotus Elise has been awarded an outstandingly low emissions figure of 149g of CO2 / km which represents a reduction of 16% over the previous Lotus Elise S.
This figure means that the Elise has the lowest CO2 for its performance level for any gasoline sportscar in the world. Fuel consumption is ultra low too, with 5.04 litres per 100 km (extra urban). Where are the savings coming from? Aerodynamics have been improved by 4% and new super efficient, 1.6 litre 4 cylinder VVT-I engine has been installed which is not only is 200 cc smaller than the engine for the outgoing Lotus Elise S but also produces the same power. And the bottom line performance figures speak for themselves: 0-100 km/h 6.5 seconds! Who said that driving a green car can't be fun?

BMW C1-E - electrical bike that actually could make sense

It hasn't generated that much noise in the press landscape, but what BMW presented last November (2009) was actually quite convincing! They took their BMW C1 bike with roof and seat belts and replaced the dull gasoline engine with an electric motor and batteries. The result has a number of convincing attributes:
It's zero emission (if you don't include the production of the energy).
It can be parked like a motocycle - so you don't need to look for a parking space!
It can be driven without a helmet, if you want (in most countries), so less of a hardcore vehicle compared to real motocycles.
I know a number of people who loved the C1. Obviously though it didn't bring the sales figures expected and BMW stopped production after only 3 years. With the BMW C1-E we could have seen a resurrection, but obviously BMW decided to not produce this one. Big mistake in my eyes, as for marketing purposes this would be at least as convincing as the Mini-E.

Chevrolet Corvette Z06 Carbon Limited Edition - stereoids on a budget

Chevrolet (GM) just announced the Chevrolet Corvette Z06 Carbon Limited Edition. It's a limited production run of the popular Z06 with some improvements coming from the ZR1 (braking, cooling, wheels). It's only available in special colors and probably will be sold out quickly. Part of the improvement package though can also be ordered with regular Z06s. Which brings me to the point that I do actually quite like the Corvette. It represents good things such as lots of power for fairly little money (an entry level Corvette can be yours for a bit more than 50k USD), good looks, lightweight body/chassis design, great sounds and impressive performance. This is combined with acceptable fuel economy. Of course neither the interior design nor the build quality are a global benchmark, but hey, it's okay.
The current Corvette brings supercar performance (Z06) at the price of a normal BMW street car, or it is able to compete with the fastest Ferraris and Lamborghinis at half the price (ZR1). And it has more racing pedigree than most of its competitors, having won its class in Le Mans multiple times.
Even from a collector's point of view it's something to be considered. Old Corvettes (C1, C2 split window Stingrays, C3 Stingrays) fetch high prices, and race versions are sought after. So in many years people will look for well maintained C6 Z06 or ZR1 and thanks to the substantial volume produced there should be enough specialists and good parts availability to keep them running.
I have never owned a Corvette, but had it on my list from time to time. Remember what I said about the Audi RS5? It's the wrong compromise. Rather buy an A4 Avant and a Corvette on top. At the end you will have more performance and driving pleasure AND more practicality for your money, just incorporated in two instead of one car.

Adaptive Cruise Control - is this the start of the auto pilot for cars?

What we know as "Cruise Control" (other terms are Tempomat, Tempostat, etc.) has been introduced by Chrysler in 1958. Mercedes-Benz was the first European manufacturer adding cruise control to a car in 1962. For years the cruise control mechanism mainly controlled the throttle. With the enhancement of modern electronics mechanical approaches to do this were replaced by sensors, electronic steering signals and computer control. And after controlling the throttle car manufacturers added the controlling of the brakes. Which makes a lot of sense, as when you go downwards it would nice to still keep the speed. In 1998 Mercedes-Benz added radar to the equation and started to measure the distance to the cars in front of the controlled car to adapt the speed based on traffic flow. These systems are called Adaptive Cruise Control (ACC). The version of Volkswagen is displayed in the picture. So, it took 30-40 years to get from throttle control to brake and throttle control and another 10 years to add traffic flow and advanced computer control. But what's next? And what is the disadvantage of ACC systems?
First, let's start with the disadvantages: ACC doesn't increase the capacity of highways and streets it actually rather decreases it. ACC tries to always keep the preset distance to the car in front of you. This leads to a lot of breaking and acceleration, which is bad for street capacity usage, but also for fuel consumption. In certain situations the systems even interpret the traffic context wrongly.
There are of course advantages too. For the driver it can be relaxing to not having to think about speed, throttle and breaking. And ACC systems can prevent accidents, as the can brake down a car completely if the driver doesn't react quickly enough himself.
But what would be the perfect solution? Imagine a traffic lane with all ACC controlled cars and computers actually talking to each other so that the car behind knows already that the car in front of him will brake before actually "seeing" it. With this you could decrease the distance between the cars and increase the capacity of the lane. For the car drivers it would almost be like riding on a train. The cars could even take over the steering, the technology is already out there.
Of course this would mean that non ACC cars could not play the same game and of course driving a car would be a lot more boring than today. Which is why I wouldn't be a fan of such a system. I actually do not really like the ACC. But cruise control clearly is a necessity today, as it's the only way to make sure you do not speed in cities and on heavily monitored highways (speed cameras).

Looking back over 28 months of Toyota Prius driving

The Toyota Prius has gone. We sold our family vehicle and so it's time to look back and think about the strengths and weaknesses of this car.

Let's start with the strengths:
The Toyota is an affordable high tech vehicle. The technology works really well. We didn't face any breaking or acceleration issues similar to the ones recently discussed in the press. It's pretty economical too with minimum fuel consumption of around 4 liters per 100 km if you really try hard. It beats most Diesels in terms of emissions, not specifically for CO2 but for the other stuff like NOx. The car can seat four to five people with acceptable comfort and it comes well equipped with lots of gadgets like keyless go or a pretty impressive JBL loudspeaker system.
The car never let us down, reliability is certainly very good. Servicing isn't expensive either. Insurance premiums and road taxes are acceptable too, some states even have lower taxes for hybrid vehicles. So from an operation's cost point of view the car is good.

There are some weaknesses too:
Fuel economy is only good if you help the car. Short distances are bad, especially in the winter time and high speed driving on highways is bad as well. The hybrid unit will not help in these situations. You need to understand that when you break hard you still burn energy and that optimal recuperation only happens when you break softly or let the engine break on its own. We observed fuel consumption of 8 liters and more per 100 km in suboptimal conditions. The seats are not really good and the offer only limited lateral support. Usability could certainly improved and some things are not thought through. Let me give you one example: In Switzerland we tend to drive with the lights on also during daylight. Now, when switching on the lights, the display dims down, because it assumes it's dark. Therefore you can't read the display very well any more during the day. You can influence the brightness, but not enough. There's not enough space in the boot, certainly not for a complete family. I don't understand why the pure electrical mode has to be limited to speeds below 49 km/h. Most European cities have a speed limit of 50 km/h and this always turns the gasoline engine on. The beeping of the reverse gear is annoying. And there are a few additional little things I could mention here, but to be fair, none of these is a major problem.
The recent issues around Toyota and the fact that (at least in Switzerland) the market has been over-flooded with second hand Prius had a bad impact on the reselling value. We lost much more on this car than we did on the previously owned VW Touran for example.
But what is really the biggest minus in my eyes is the way how the car drives. If you consider yourself as a engaged and sporty driver you will not become happy with this car! The noise is annoying when you rev the car, the handling isn't really fostering fast driving and the performance is sub standard.

So here's the verdict:
If you look for an economical family car with good behavior and a green image and you don't have any aspiration to drive fast and sporty, then the Toyota Prius may be the right car for you. There's clearly an eco premium to be paid, but it's compensated by the fun of driving in fully electrical mode. Reliability is good and emissions are very low. There are many cab drivers in Switzerland who drive Prius now and for them it probably really makes sense.