Why Ford Econetics break the rules May 31, 2009
Posted by richard in : Green cars , 3commentsTO be eco, you need a small, tiny engine. Yeah, right.
That’s Politician’s logic at work. Look for blacks and whites in things they don’t understand. Big is bad, small is good, always and forever more. Smile, smooch baby, job done.
If only they spoke to engineers, such as the engine chief at Ford’s Dagenham plant. He’d tell them, like he told me, that Ford eschewed the smaller, ‘more eco’ 1.4-litre TDCi for its Econetic models.
Fitted the 1.6-litre TDCi instead. Which, as it’s bigger, is clearly ‘not as eco’.
Wrong.
Yes, he said, in ideal conditions, the 1.4-litre might use a smidgen less fuel. But, real world, the characteristics of the 1.6-litre make it far more suited to the Eco treatment. Traits such as:
• Very low rev torque ramp-up: the turbo wakes up at 1200rpm, meaning much lower revs (and, conversely, taller gearing) can be carried
• Torque curve shape: the step between non-turbo lethargy and meaningful torque delivery is much better profiled to eco driving – it’s not ‘switch-like’
• Part-throttle characteristics: allow ECU software to be massaged so fuel delivery can be turned right down
• On-throttle immediacy: small throttle inputs elicit immediate, meaningful response, making it feel ‘bigger capacity’.
The demands and characteristics on the 1.4-litre mean it would be swamped. It would have to be worked too hard in practice, negating any eco benefits a lab bench revealed.
Light loads work best for eco driving. Hence, the development of the ‘bigger’ engine here.
Luckily, there are no tax disincentives to stop him following what he knows, rather than what politicians tell him should be true. Imagine if, say, the engine size-based company car tax rules of a decade ago were still in place…
If Ford played chess, don’t take it on
Ford gloom hides people carrier revolution
Why car scrappage is now inevitable
Citroen top (3) engine revelation May 29, 2009
Posted by richard in : Green cars , add a commentCITROEN wants to become Europe’s third-largest brand.
No, I’m not sure how, either. Right now, it’s seventh-largest.
Sixth? Its partner, Peugeot. So, a right old odd statement for new chief Jean-Marc Gales to make, then. I’m still puzzling over it. But what also caught my eye in the Automotive News interview he gave was another revelation.
That Citroen doesn’t need to produce 6 or 7 million cars to survive and thrive. Because, instead, it enjoys economies of scale from compnents alliances with other car makers. Meaning it can make big-number money on smaller-number car production.
Take engines. Citroen co-operates with Ford and BMW on them. Which, Gales tells Automotive News, are the most expensive parts to develop in a car. Pair up, share the costs with a partner or two, and that’s a whole heap of cash you don’t have to claw back in higher-volume efficiencies of scale.
But yet something else grabbed my attention in what he said. Engines remain the most expensive bit of all, aye? Well, I’ll be.
Explains a lot, mind. Why the VW TDI is omnipresent. Why car makers are so willing to sign up to co-opt deals. Why the Ford 1.25-litre Zetec is a decade and a half old.
And why electric or fuel cell cars can’t be that far away, surely.
Yes, they’re expensive. But if developing tomorrow’s combustion engines is also heinously dear, won’t car makers soon consider designing a new generation of IC engines to be economically unviable?
Car brands always look to the future. And, Lord knows, it ain’t in fossil-fuel-hungry ICs. Developing a new range to meet, say, 2012/2015 emissions legislation won’t be easy. Or cheap.
Whether Citroen will indeed be in the EU Top 3 by then is, of course, another matter entirely.
bmwblog and UK car dealer agree
Image of the week: 4 April 2009
Fuel economy economical with the truth?
BMW Z4 has 3 Series Convertible to thank May 29, 2009
Posted by richard in : Uncategorized , 5commentsLEARNING how to do folding hard-top roofs with the 3 Series Convertible served BMW well.
It meant it could launch a folding hard top Z4 relatively easily – simply because it had acquired so much knowledge.
What’s more, the shift over to the folding tin top is another reason for the car’s production relocation to Germany.
The Regensburg plant where it’s built has now become BMW’s official ‘centre of excellence’ for folding hard-top roofs.
It’s so well geared up, the supplier is even located there on site, an engineer insider told me.
‘This gives us the best possible means of achieving high quality levels.’
Engineering a folding hard top isn’t the work of a moment. Even one such as the Z4’s, whose lower 2-panel count reduces the number of joins and joints to worry about.
The problem come in areas you probably don’t even think about. Such as?
• Packing the roof into the boot without the lardy bum of a Peugeot 307 CC. ‘A close working relationship with the designers is vital.’
• Making it watertight – ‘this is the key. The biggest challenge is not to get the roof moving, it’s to keep the water out.’
• The need to like coffee. ‘I was able to work closely with the expert from the 3 Series Convertible project – we could have coffee, chat about our weekends, and how to get the Z4 roof watertight. We did this a lot…’
‘Once you’ve got it watertight the first time, you then need to do it again. Repeatability is of huge importance.
‘Our approach is to always take one car at random and test it for water tightness.’
Passing the tough BMW test involves putting the car in a high-pressure shower. Literally. ‘It’s a severe test. At the moment, every car is being tested. In time, tolerances will be such that we can test a certain percentage.’
What’s a watertight test pass rate for BMW? 95 percent ‘right first time’. Which means that, basically, every single Z4 has to be built to be watertight.
‘We’re almost there…’
My mum’s media mash-up May 26, 2009
Posted by richard in : Technology , 2commentsMY mum does herself down.
Doesn’t do modern technology, she always says. Which I know is plain wrong.
Revealed, this weekend, by yet another nugget she let slip.
We were watching Sky News. Seeing which were the latest MPs to be collared that morning. And, got chatting.
‘I’m always switching between the news channels to get what I want,’ she said. ‘When Sky starts repeating, I’ll go onto BBC News, ITN, Teletext… Oh, and I’m always using the Red Button. And I usually also…’
And so she went on.
Goodness! Here was a real life news mash-up, in action! My mum is employing personalisation filters I’d have to spend weeks in, say, Yahoo! Pipes replicating.
Probably even then wouldn’t approach her level of sophistication and finesse, either.
Multiple news feeds from disparate sources, all made dynamically bespoke in to-the-second real time? I know it’s happening every single day in one West Midlands house. And I’m uber-wowed by it.
Which means, that’s it. From now on, I’m going to help my mum plug into technology. Introduce yet more sources for her to plug into.
For, she ‘gets’ it. All I need to do is help feed her canny filters…
Why Renaultsports don’t have rear spoilers
Peugeot car ads give the game away May 23, 2009
Posted by richard in : News clues , add a commentI used to run a Peugeot 308 as a long-termer. Fine car, it was. Interior better built than a Golf, peachy HDi engine, and one of the nicest dial packs around.
Cost £20k, though. Bit much, I used to think, for a family hatch.
Ah, how things change. Now, 18 months on, 308s are a fair bit cheaper. Well, according to my local dealer they are. £11,995, they’ll do you one for. That’s £3700 off list – brand new.
This is cheap. And good. Unless you’re Peugeot.
See, last year, Peugeot told me they weren’t selling as many 407s, because everyone was downsizing, into 308s.
Fair enough, I thought. With prices like that, you’ll still be able to maintain profits.
But, if dealers are willingly offering ‘scrappage x2’ to customers before they even walk through the door – on new, unregistered (the ad states this – no pre-reg here) 308s, what does that say for the car’s fortunes?
Contrast this with the 107, a car so very much on the money. The saving there is £1k – which, conveniently, is exactly what the Government is asking car makers to put in to the new car scrap scheme.
In short, up to now, Peugeot’s easily sold 107s. But 308s have proven a fair bit trickier. Hence the respective savings.
The 207 sits somewhere in the middle of these two, which sounds about right to me, too. All of which means I’ve devised a new test.
You don’t need to look at SMMT figures. Find out which cars are doing well, and which aren’t by scanning the dealer offers in the local paper, instead. I’ll do this for a few weeks, then get onto the SMMT, and see how right I am…
Why car scrappage is now inevitable
Car world news on your doorstep?
If Ford played chess, don’t take it on May 23, 2009
Posted by richard in : Uncategorized , 2commentsHEAVENS, I’m admitting something here. That I used to be in Chess Club at College.
OK, not for long. And I did used to put Breeders tapes (yes, tapes) on in the background. But, partake I did. Which is why I know Ford is like a member of said Club.
The feared member. The Club player I never dared play. The champ, the whizz, the one who nobody could beat – his moves were like a perfectly-placed onslaught of brilliance from the off. The git.
Bit like Ford right now (well, apart from the git bit).
Market share is booming. The right cars are flying out of the showrooms just at the right time. The dealers find they’re still able to make all the right noises for customers.
Checkmate, rivals.
It’s almost momentous, Ford happening to launch the brand-new, brilliant, bedazzling Fiesta and pretty decent Ka, just as the country enters a major recession and switches wholesale (well, 35 percent or so, according to the SMMT) to superminis.
Think of the Blue Oval right now just as we thought of the St Georges Cross flag seller, in the 2002 World Cup. Yes, him, on the beach in the Costa del Sol right now.
Is this by chance or design? Did Ford foresee changing market conditions? Did it intentionally make the Fiesta so damn great because it KNEW the market was switching this way?
Whatever, it’s working. Historically so. Mainstream is back in vogue, and the blue collar’s fave is reaping the benefits.
Damn, it’s good. You won’t catch me taking it on. Now, where’s me Breeders tape…
The most depressing engines in esistance: Ford 1.8D
Ford gloom hides people carrier revolution?
Weller does a MINI Silverstone gig
Bentley’s bad tooth May 22, 2009
Posted by richard in : Minutiae of cars , add a commentBENTLEY’S Continental GT amazed me in many ways. Even though I’m not a Premiership footballer, I still quite fancy one.
But, in two respects, it’s bad. Very bad.
Fuel economy.
Obviously so on this one. It does, after all, have a huge W12 engine, fed by turbos, hauling along a hugely heavy car that’s encumbered with four-wheel-drive. Mighty, it sure is: here’s the price.
But there’s more.
Bluetooth. Yes, it has it. But it’s staggeringly bad.
I tried it out. Went like this:
• Find Bluetooth on menu. Eventually.
• Decipher how to pair Bluetooth with phone. Eventually.
• Set Bluetooth to discover phone. Does so. Eventually.
• Find you’re presented with 12-digit pairing code between phone and car.
• Use torturous turn-and-scroll wheel to do this. Eventually.
• Be presented with an error message.
That’s right – a heinously complex process, that didn’t work! I was staggered. Particularly as Bentley is, somehow, having the brass neck to charge big for this.
Contrast this to my Volvo long-termer. There, I paired the phone with the car with ease. Took 30 seconds, simple as pie.
And then? Every time I now get in, it pairs automatically. So long as Bluetooth’s activated on my phone, it pings up in the car. Calls fed through speakers, controls mastered by steering wheel buttons, the lot.
This is technology that works. That someone’s thought about, and a team of engineers have tirelessly perfected.
Bentley? That smacks of a box-tick. A plug-in module that the marketing team said had to be fitted, so was done so, but with no understanding or consideration.
You get this a lot on cars. But, £130k ones? That’s a surprise. Bentley needs to give this bad Bluetooth a tug.
Bentley Continental GTC Speed photo stream on Flickr
Just how loyal are the super-rich?
Fuel economy economical with the truth?
Audi A6 3.0T photostream on Flickr May 17, 2009
Posted by richard in : Minutiae of cars , 2commentsThis week’s road test car is one I’ve put a load of miles on – now, check out my Audi A6 3.0T S line photo stream on Flickr.
It’s my way of bringing my driving impressions to you.
So nip on over there and see what you think.
Oh, and feel free to let me know!
Audi Q5 economy enough to tyre you out
Fuel economy economical with the truth?
Secrets of the new Toyota Prius
The most depressing engines in existence: Ford 1.8D May 17, 2009
Posted by richard in : Minutiae of cars , 4commentsA Fiesta van made me think of this. Droning its way along, like a git.
Causing plain aural offence.
No wonder diesel was a dirty word within Ford for years. When it was making clunkers like this, I pity for the poor durability engineers who had to put 150k miles on the things.
It’s just so droningly raucous, the 1.8D. In anything it’s in, from Fiesta van, to Escort LX hatch, to Orion Ghia saloon. Clattery, like kettles packed into a cement mixer – yet, totally ineffective with it.
Sans turbo, this thing is dog slow. Not particularly torquey. Simply, old school diesel.
No hill will defeat it, say old school diesel stalwarts. As if the ability not to grind to a halt up a hill is something to boast about. My mum’s old 950cc Fiesta could do that, without the need to proudly compare itself to a Sherpa.
I drove one in a Fiesta, which revealed to me something else about this idiot of an engine. Not only is it clattery and slow, it also resonates, horrendously. Drones, moans. Buzzes. Is, basically, an irritating fool.
Not even those in the sanctity of other cars can escape it. No Euro V here – you’ll often spot them by the smoke they emit. Plumes. Lovely.
Ford put a whole lot of ghosts to bed when it common-rail’d this unit back in 2001. Transformed it, natch.
Shame the brands popularity mean there are still far too many of these on the road, depressing me.
The Alpina that’s faster/greener/rarer than a 325d
bmwblog and UK car dealer agree
Volkswagen looks to history for GTD inspiration
Westfield not far afield May 17, 2009
Posted by richard in : Uncategorized , 3commentsYOU can’t get auto stories closer to home than a car company 3 miles from your door.
Westfield Sports Cars is based in Kingswinford. Or, down the road from me. Just because they’re close, though, doesn’t mean I have connections there. Alas.
Maybe this is because their sights are set further afield. See, in yesterday’s local paper came a story that the firm’s upped its exports by 80 percent.
80 percent!
Westfields, it seems, are now being distributed in the Middle East, France, Holland and Malaysia. There’s an international dealer network. And, says the company, it’s not stopping there.
See, Westfield now has European Small Series Specification – homologation for kitcars. This means they’re an even more consumer-friendly proposition, meaning Westfield could see production nudge up to 2 a day.
14 a week, 56 a month. Big numbers for someone the size of Westfield.
UK Trade & Investment cash is helping this foreign expansion. Apparently, at all international motor shows and track days, the cars carry UKTI logos – because the Government body is providing the company with the necessaries to develop this expansion.
Seems there could be a rumble down the road soon, too. (Not to mention a permanent Police presence on Tansey Green Road). That’s because Westfield is expanding its model range.
Soon, the company will start building The Bil Saperas. The what? A modern day AC Cobra. Whew.
With that in the pipeline, maybe this stay-at-home won’t be so hard after all. Now, Westfield MD Julian Turner, you know my email address…
Totally random used car: MG ZT
