Posted: 10 Oct 2015 10:00 PM PDT

Turn it on: Golf's GTE is part electric and part petrol, with a promise of 166 miles to the gallaon.

Price: £28,755 (with government grant)
Top speed: 138mph
0-62mph: 7.6 seconds
MPG: 166

After the scandals in sport, food and banking (doping, horse meat, Libor and the rest), only a fool would have bet against the motor industry not cheating the system, too. But no one would have fingered Volkswagen as the culprit. A byword for trust and decency for more than 75 years and the jewel of the German automotive industry, all reduced to lousy tricksters in the space of a single afternoon. That old adage that a good name takes a lifetime to win and a moment to lose has never been more true.

It was ironic, for me at least, that the day Michael Horn, VW's US boss, stood up and said: "We've screwed up!" was also the day I found myself at the wheel of the new Golf GTE. The E in the title stands for Electric, while the GT is for Gran Turismo and tells new customers (and God knows they're going to need them) that this isn't just some dull electric buggy affair (a golf buggy!) but a full-on driver's car that shares the same sporting DNA as the brand's most famous performance badge – the GTi. It's certainly a tricky balancing act for this VW to pull off as the car has to be both parsimonious and powerful. A sort of vegan Tarzan.

Inside story: the Golf, despite its futuristic powertrain, will be familiar to all VW drivers.

The car is a plug-in hybrid with both a 1.4 TSI petrol (no diesel here) and a snappy electric engine. It has five operating modes: pure electric, electric plus, battery hold, battery charge and auto hybrid. VW has made the technology that controls each option incredibly straightforward, but like many others, I suspect, after fiddling about with the various settings, I clicked on auto hybrid and let the car sort itself out. It seemed to know what it was about far better than me, anyway. Whichever mode you select the car always pulls away in pure electric and it takes a while to get used to that sudden, silent lurch.

All the extra gubbins associated with two engines and a large battery mean that the car is 300kg heavier than the standard model. That's like driving everywhere with the Fijian rugby team's front row sitting in the back. Despite all that heft the car still feels quick and agile around the park (rather like the Fijians themselves) which is testament to the raw power of the GTE. It does 0-62mph in 7.6 seconds with a top speed of 138mph.

Inside and out the car is almost identical to every other Golf on the road. One of VW's e-mobility taglines is "The future is familiar" – and the GTE is certainly that. Within minutes of taking the wheel you feel completely at home. It's one of VW's great strengths that its cars can be totally fresh and yet familiar all at the same time.

Being a hybrid, the car's eco credentials are clearly what sets it apart. It has a range of 31 miles using its fully charged electric engine alone (and most daily journeys are a lot less than that), and it will do up 580 miles on a single tank if both systems are engaged. VW claims an average of 166mpg (depending on how you drive, of course) with emissions of just 39g of CO₂ per km. But, and a BUT could not be BIGGER, what's the point of it?

How could one arm of VW be producing such a clever, clean machine while its other has sold more than 11m motors that knock out anything up to 40 times the pollution they claim? I fear that VW's so-called "defeat device" will defeat a lot more than it was intended to.

Email Martin at martin.love@observer.co.uk or follow him on Twitter at @MartinLove166

On the road: Honda Civic Type R – car review | Technology | The ...

Posted: 09 Oct 2015 10:00 PM PDT

In my day, a Honda Civic looked like the car you would drive if you were going on an IT training course in Milton Keynes and wanted to fit in: reliable, characterless, neither large nor small, fast nor slow. At some point in the intervening decade, the designers or maybe the entire Honda brand have had a midlife crisis.

If I utter the phrase "black with red detailing", you'll think you know what I mean; you do not. The body looks like a Batmobile. The wheels look as though they were deliberately conceived as fresh wounds – a kind of Bruce Willis-esque aesthetic statement: "I'm so hard I haven't even noticed I'm bleeding." There is a spoiler at the back so substantial and proud that it would only really make sense if this vehicle could fly.

Taxi drivers give you vaudeville thumbs-ups, and young men ogle it, on one occasion at traffic lights swarming round it to touch it. It was like Suddenly Last Summer, with the Civic as Elizabeth Taylor. Another guy pulled up next to me at lights and asked me to rev it so he could hear what it sounded like.

It is insanely powerful. I felt like the Hulk bursting out of his shirt. A top speed of 167mph and a 0-62 of under six seconds are bold but entirely credible claims. It meets no definition of the word "civic" that I can think of.

The engine is pretty noisy, but there's something about it that sounds more encouraging than invasive. The handling is incredible even if you don't hit the +R button, which turns the controls an angry red, firms up the suspension so it's like driving on solid rubber and acts like a formal… no, written… no, embossed invitation to drive too fast. "Dear young idiot, listen to that horsepower! Wouldn't you like to go much, much faster? How'd you like to corner at 120mph? What do you think I'll sound like if you rev the hell out of me?" It's like a love letter from death. OK, that's melodramatic: a billet doux from irresponsible road use.

The interior has perky elements: I like the sparkling steel of the pedals, the sporty posture forced by the bucket seats and the noisy reds of the seatbelts and suedette. Oddment stowage is pesky – the shelf between driver and passenger sits at an awkward height and the glove compartment sheers away in a style that is meant to suggest dynamism (I'm guessing) but makes it quite hard to reach. The economy is better than you'd expect but, at 38.7mpg combined, nothing to boast about; commensurately, emissions are such that you'd have to park round the corner if you were visiting eco-warriors. You'd have to do that with most people, though: it would be hard to arrive in this car without raising questions about your ego.

Price £32,295
Top speed 167mph
Acceleration 0-62mph in 5.7 seconds
Combined fuel consumption 38.7mpg
CO2 emissions 170g/km
Eco rating 6/10
Cool rating 8/10

Apple Might Not Build a Car Itself | MIT Technology Review

Posted: 08 Oct 2015 09:00 PM PDT

Apple could subcontract the manufacturing required to produce a car and focus on the software, which is becoming ever more important.

By Will Knight on October 9, 2015

Automobile production might seem a stretch for a company more accustomed to making handheld electronic gadgets and software.

While Apple has yet to make any official announcement, or even to comment on the speculation, mounting evidence suggests the company is at least exploring the development of automotive technology.

But how would an Apple car be manufactured? Industry experts say the company could produce vehicles in much the same way that it makes iPhones and watches: by outsourcing the production of components and contracting with existing manufacturers. What's more, as cars become more electrified and computerized, Apple's existing expertise in software, user interfaces, and batteries may become an increasingly valuable asset.

Apple has hired robotics engineers with expertise in the sensing and control capabilities needed for self-driving vehicles. One industry source recently told MIT Technology Review he met with engineers at an Apple-owned subsidiary to discuss automated driving technology. And according to sources quoted recently in the Wall Street Journal,the Apple car could become a commercialized product by 2019. Apple and some automotive suppliers contacted declined to comment for this article.

"It seems hugely aggressive, but not necessarily impossible," says David Keith, a professor at MIT's Sloan School of Management who studies the way new technologies proliferate through the automotive industry.

Keith adds that the car industry has seen a glut of production capacity, meaning Apple could quite easily take over an existing factory somewhere. And he suggests that producing an electric vehicle would be simpler because batteries and electric motors are already fairly commoditized. "If you aren't building an engine, it is really putting all the parts together and painting it," he says.

Others agree that Apple could most certainly manufacture a car but say it may prove difficult to do so efficiently and cost-effectively.

"I've always thought that making cars was a little tougher than most realize," says Jay Baron, CEO of the Center for Automotive Research (CAR), a nonprofit organization based in Ann Arbor, Michigan. "Anyone can make a car, but try making one every few minutes that people want to buy, and that allows you a profit without significant government support. There's the challenge."

Apple already makes software that transports an iPhone's interface to a car's infotainment system.

Even though most carmakers currently operate their own factories, a few vehicles are produced through contract manufacturing. For example, a major Canadian auto supplier called Magna produces the G-Class on behalf of Mercedes and the Mini for BMW. Google has made prototype driverless cars using components from several suppliers, with contract manufacturing performed by an automotive company called Roush.

Joseph Lull, a project manager at Denso, another large major supplier of car components and technology, pointed out that upstart carmakers such as Tesla, Detroit Electric Cars, and Phoenix outsourced their first models. "You could potentially pull together enough suppliers to do it," he says. "The biggest challenge would be the logistics."

In this regard it may be relevant that Apple's CEO, Tim Cook, has built up a reputation for being able to understand and manage complex electronics supply chains. Lull, asked if his company is currently working with any major consumer electronics firms, said: "None that I can talk about."

All the experts contacted by MIT Technology Review agreed that the big opportunity for Apple lies in creating the software that will shape drivers' future experience behind the wheel. Cars are already heavily computerized, but their computer systems are now becoming more connected, both internally and wirelessly to the Internet. And software companies are arguably well placed to develop technology such as automated driving.

Already a car's interface is becoming an important distinguishing factor, and both Google and Apple are also making a foray into automobiles through software that puts the capabilities of a smartphone in the dashboard of a vehicle (see "Rebooting the Automobile"). This raises the prospect that existing carmakers could become more akin to hardware suppliers in the PC and smartphone world.

"Many existing automakers are very worried about Silicon Valley doing exactly this to them," says MIT's Keith. "They worry that Uber or Google or Apple will have the relationship with the customer and provide the value-added services, while the traditional automakers just become part of the supply chain."

An existing car company, then, might be interested in partnering with Apple rather than be overtaken. Some experts say such a partnership would also help Apple produce high-quality vehicle hardware to go with its software.

Bert Bras, a professor in the mechanical engineering school at Georgia Tech, says it would also cost many billions for Apple to go into manufacturing for itself. "Apple has lots of money," he says. "But rather than starting from scratch, I suspect they would partner with a foreign, perhaps Chinese, automaker."

However, Bras warns that the complexity of the challenge should not be underestimated. "Just take a look at Volkswagen," he says. "They could not get their own diesel engine to work like they wanted, and they are experts in engines and cars."

Gain the insight you need on cars at EmTech MIT.

Car Reviews

Wednesday, 21 October 2015

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