F1 technology being relevant again to road cars? Surely not! An interesting series of press releases:

First application of mechanical ‘kinetic energy recovery system’ with major Formula 1 team

On the 5th June 2007 Torotrak Plc announced a licence agreement with Xtrac Ltd to use Torotrak’s traction drive technology to develop highly efficient and compact continuously variable transmissions (CVTs) for application in a new mechanical kinetic energy recovery systems (KERS) proposed for Formula 1 (F1) motor racing.

Further to this, Torotrak Plc is pleased to confirm that a major F1 racing team has become the first customer for the mechanical KERS system. This F1 team will be supplied with KERS technology through Silverstone based Flybrid Systems LLP, an innovative engineering company focused on research and development of hybrid vehicle technology, who will source Torotrak’s full-toroidal CVTs used in their KERS systems directly from Xtrac Ltd.

Dick Elsy, chief executive at Torotrak, stated: “the rapid movement from concept to application with a significant F1 racing team highlights the benefits of the mechanical KERS system and its ability to contribute to improved performance. This is also a significant step towards acceptance of Torotrak’s technology for use in mainstream road cars to provide improvements in performance, fuel economy and greenhouse gas emissions.”

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To:

Tiffanny Junee
Manager, Corporate Communications and Media,
Hyundai Motor Company Australia

Tiffanny,

Re today’s telephone conversation in which you expressed unhappiness about this blog post http://blog.autospeed.com/2007/10/05/the-gravy-train/#comment and suggested that as a result of the post, you would need to carefully consider before deciding whether or not to make available a previously booked press car.

I believe that all that is written in the blog post is factually correct. I take note of your point that the iPod contained the i30 media kit (something that was not apparent when it was switched on); however, since the same material was available on the provided CD, I still believe the gift of an iPod to attending journalists was completely inappropriate. I have added a ‘PPS’ to the blog post to cover this matter.

Your expressed perspective that, as an independent journalist, I am free to write whatever I wish appears at odds with your apparent horror at my blog post. You said to me that you thought the blog post was an attack on Hyundai; I consider it to be utterly appropriate that readers should know how your launch was conducted.

That other new car launches may be held in a similar manner simply confirms to me that journalists are doing their jobs poorly by not communicating such corporate behaviour to their readers. I am certain that all readers would like to know when journalists are presented with gifts and other benefits.

If you believe it appropriate that on a new car launch journalists should be given an iPod nano to communicate your press package, and be treated to a four-course, chef-prepared lunch, then clearly you would have no problem with my disseminating these points to readers.

Regarding the long distance drive in a Hyundai i30, a proposal that was discussed at the launch and in a subsequent phone conversation. After giving this some consideration, I have decided to withdraw my offer of undertaking an 8000 kilometre test drive in your car. Simply put, after our conversation this morning, it would leave a bad taste in my mouth.

I stated to you at the i30 launch that I believe Hyundai is likely to achieve great success in the next five years. That remains my perspective, at least on its cars.

Julian Edgar B. Ed, Dip T (Sec), Grad Dip Journ
www.autospeed.com
www.autoweb.com.au

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Yesterday I reckon I spent more time eating than driving.

I attended the launch of the Hyundai i30 in Sydney, an event paid for by Hyundai. And ‘paid for’ meant flying me down to Sydney from Brisbane (normal class), bussing me to the Sebel Pier One hotel for an overnight stay, giving me breakfast (normal hotel dining room), walking to a reinvented warehouse, watching a presentation on the car, driving it a short way before food and drink refreshments, driving it back to the starting point for a 3-course celebrity chef prepared meal, taking a stretch limo back to the airport, and then flying home.

I have real problems with this approach to launching a car. If a car company wishes to gather journalists at one location – and there were something like 20 present – then I guess paying for the flights is fine. But for a single day event, surely an overnight stay is not needed. Maybe even the refreshments at the drive stop are acceptable – although it seems to me that if the stop was placed near a shop, anyone who needed food or drink could buy them for themselves. After all, if they weren’t attending a Hyundai new car launch, everyone there would still need to eat.

But I can see no reason for a three-course lunch (In fact, when I think about it, four courses – there were deep-dried dates wrapped in some pastry or other to start with), waitresses at hand, preceded by a spiel from the chef. I think that this clearly falls into these categories warned against in the Australian Journalists’ Code of Ethics:

4. Do not allow personal interest, or any belief, commitment, payment, gift or benefit, to undermine your accuracy, fairness or independence.

7. Do your utmost to ensure disclosure of any direct or indirect payment made for interviews, pictures, information or stories.

And if you think a swanky lunch could not be construed as a ‘gift or benefit’ and certainly not as an ‘indirect payment’, you might also want to know that every journalist that attended the launch was handed, as a gift, a 4GB iPod nano.

So if you’d like to win a brand new iPod nano, tell us below how you think a 1-day new car launch should be run. I’ll announce the winner after a week.

PS: And the car? The diesel version looks like a genuine groundbreaker – and one that we’d like to do a long drive in…

PPS: Read widely and see how many journalists who covered the launch of the i30 disclose the gift…

PPS: When switched on, the iPod shows itself to be empty. However, when plugged into a PC, the full press pack for the i30 appears. But as far as I can see, the entire contents were also on the provided CD…

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EBay is a weird and wonderful place. As I’ve implied previously, I love it. I bid on eBay probably every day of the week – and my greatest love is buying books. Unlike so many other secondhand (and, for that matter, new) goods, at least with books you’ll know that they’ll ‘work’ and the freight bill is unlikely to be huge.

I especially like automotive books – or, more generally, transport books – and so when I come across a cheap gem, my fingers bid as fast as I can strike the keys. But unfortunately, over the last few years, the starting price of many car books has risen dramatically.

When I am selling a book on eBay – any book – I figure the minimum price needs to be around $5; if the books are clearly worth less than that, I bundle them. So I am not expecting books to start at 50 cents. But when books are listed with a starting price of fifty bucks – and the next week another vendor has the same book at $10 – you start to wonder at the book’s true value.

This was the situation when I first saw on eBay The Last Onslaught on Detroit. The book, which appeared to be about the demise of car maker Kaiser-Frazer, appealed to me in much the same way that books about the demise of the British car industry in the period after WWII fascinate me. The subtitle – An Intimate Behind the Scenes Study of the Postwar American Car Industry – looked promising… more than a marque history; perhaps context and manufacturing pressures and commercial competition.

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Those of us who are not full-time workers on cars, but instead are enthusiasts who don’t get their hands dirty on a daily basis, are most likely to benefit from this product.

So what is it? It’s an antiseptic liquid that you dispense from a pump-pack and then wipe over your hands. The stuff dries quickly and doesn’t leave a sticky residue.

I find it particularly effective when I cut my hands (looking now I can count six minor cuts, three of which are open) as very often heavy duty hand cleaners have the unfortunate side-effect of infecting cuts.

So you’re working on brakes or an engine or bodywork and, at the time you inflict a minor cut on yourself, your hands are filthy. If the cut or abrasion is of little consequence, you leave it and then later clean your hands with a heavy duty soap or dedicated hand cleaner.

And if that’s all you do, it’s likely the open wounds will get infected.

But if after cleaning your hands, you give them a wipe-over with Dettol Instant Hand Sanitizer, the later infection is avoided.

There may well be other products that work in the same way – it’s just that I haven’t come across them. For minor cuts and abrasions it’s much better than the antiseptic cream you might apply to a more serious wound – you can quickly and easily spread the sanitizer over both hands by just squeezing some of the liquid onto a palm and then rubbing your hands together. It doesn’t need to be wiped off – it then evaporates.

The product costs $5 or $6 and it’s available at supermarkets.  Note that it’s highly inflammable, so use it on your hands only after you’ve left the workshop…

(And no the sample wasn’t a freebie – I bought it just like anyone else.)

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I needed to pick up a press car in Brisbane and drive it home. Living inland from the Gold Coast, that seemed easy enough. Get dropped off at the railway station. Hop on the train from Helensvale to Bowen Hills in Brisbane, then walk to where the new car was. Trouble is, that walk is about 10 kilometres…

So, rather than walking, why not take the Brompton M6R Plus with me?

This small wheeled bike, that folds into an incredibly compact package, had arrived in the Edgar household the previous week. A demonstrator for my wife’s business, I’d ridden it only a few hundred metres, long enough to find the seat rather uncomfortable (but perhaps that’s after the luxury of a recumbent trike seat!), that there were six gears and that the frame felt surprisingly stiff on the road. Oh yes, and despite having rear suspension, the actual available travel is pathetically small.

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The other day I had to drive a car without a clutch.

Now you might do that every day but usually the car in question has an automatic transmission. But this one didn’t – it was my (now departed) EF Ford Falcon 5-speed. And the clutch gave way just as I exited a set of traffic lights, 6×4 trailer in tow. I bumped the gearlever into neutral and sidelined myself into a providentially located parking lane.

Hmm, I thought, what now?

I sent an SMS to my wife and considered. The presence of the trailer made things rather difficult – a flatbed truck to take the car back to my home some 30 (mostly country) kilometres away would certainly add up in cost when it had to be big enough to carry the trailer as well.

And that would be a major problem when, right now, we were flat broke.

Then I thought about the route home. One, two, three, four sets of traffic lights; two roundabouts; a very steep (and slow) section of country road; then some local streets. Could I do it without a clutch? I didn’t know – I’d never tried driving such a car. Let alone one with a trailer on the back.

Well, first things first. I waited until the traffic had cleared, selected first gear and then cranked the starter. The Falcon lurched forward, grinding along with the starter – and then the engine came to life. I roared forward, then reached the next set of traffic lights (very close to the first set – I was just passing under a freeway). The car continued to power forward as I lifted the throttle (no quick dipping of the clutch!) but thankfully the traffic cleared and I was able to make a turn through the green.

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BorgWarner Turbo & Emissions Systems has developed a new turbo speed sensor.

The eddy-current design is mounted on the compressor housing, with the end of the probe flush with the inside of the compressor cover. Designed to measure turbo rotational speeds from about 1000 rpm to 350,000 rpm, the sensor is non-contact and so wear-free.

A smart sensor that takes a 5-volt supply and includes internal electronics, the sensor body can withstand 180 degrees C and the exposed tip up to 250 degrees C. The sensor has a service life of 1.6 million kilometres.

BorgWarner suggest that a primary use of the sensor is in providing over-speed protection but the regulation of turbo speed by a feedback loop is another obvious application. As an input into the engine management system, along with temperature and ambient pressure, turbo speed measurement would allow the turbo to be run much closer to the surge line without danger. Bigger compressors and smaller turbines, allowing better low-down boost, would be the result.

Along with electric assist turbos the future of turbocharging looks bright.

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Most of our Australian readers won’t be old enough to remember the release of the 1978 VB Commodore – and to be honest, at the time I wasn’t taking much notice of cars myself. However, it was common contemporary lore that the VB represented the new, small and modern family Holden while Ford, with the XD Falcon, persisted with the larger, outmoded type of traditional family car.

With the increasing price of fuel, it appeared that Holden was onto a winner with the Commodore.

But in fact they weren’t onto a winner at all: the VN model of a decade later went to a larger – especially wider – body, initially perched on the narrow track of the previous series.

Most pundits would have thought – and in fact did think – that Holden was heading in the right direction with their smaller original Commodore. It seemed the correct car for the times and in comparison, the face-lifted XC that became the XD looked like a big mistake. (In fact, a few years after this, I can remember looking at an open XD wagon and wondering who on earth needed a load area so enormous.)

But new car buyers didn’t agree with the smaller VB-VL Commodore strategy – Holden would have sold more Commodores if they’d stuck with the larger body all the way through.

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