Mazda CX-3: <b>car review</b> | Martin Love | Technology | The Guardian |
- Mazda CX-3: <b>car review</b> | Martin Love | Technology | The Guardian
- Suzuki Vitara – <b>car review</b> | Technology | The Guardian
- Tushek Renovatio T500 <b>Review</b> | Autocar
- On the road: Vauxhall Adam S – <b>car review</b> | Technology | The <b>...</b>
- Vauxhall Viva: <b>car review</b> | Martin Love | Technology | The Guardian
- Why Self-Driving <b>Cars</b> Must Be Programmed to Kill | MIT Technology <b>...</b>
| Mazda CX-3: <b>car review</b> | Martin Love | Technology | The Guardian Posted: 14 Nov 2015 10:00 PM PST Seeing red: the Mazda CX-3 is a small car which drives and handles like a much bigger one. Price: £17,595 They say being a parent is all about letting go, and last month we did just that. More than let go, in fact, we gave our boy a great long shove up the M1 – and off into a world of his own. Taking him to university isn't exactly chucking him naked into a loveless void, but that's what it felt like to us. "Out you get, sonny, you're on your own now." But there were upsides to abandoning him in Edinburgh. One was that it gave me 900 miles and 21 hours at the wheel to really get inside the skin of this all-new Mazda CX-3. Another was that when coming home we followed the winding A701 for miles as it snakes alongside the River Tweed to Moffat – the soft rain, purple heather and scree-scarred slopes a perfect backdrop to our melancholic mood. The Mazda CX-3 is a compact crossover – which sounds like a miniature mongrel, but is in fact the fastest-growing class of car in Britain. And it's easy to see why people like it. Neat, nimble and capable, yet with a big-car presence, it has the driving position and comfort of a much larger SUV. We jammed three adults and an entire year's worth of student clobber into it. You'd have been astounded how much we got in. I can't say it wasn't a squeeze. It was like a game of sardines and when I opened the boot at the other end I thought duvets, laptops and toastie machines would jump out like a jack in the box. And then there's the drive. Despite the added weight, the car is a real performer. Buyers have a choice of two engines: one petrol and one diesel. I drove the 2-litre petrol version, which in two-wheel mode produces 118bhp. This was more than ample: it was smooth and responsive and was as happy negotiating narrow inner-city roads as it was blasting the length of the country. There is a more powerful 148bhp model, but that comes only as a four-wheel drive which reduces the remarkable economy: over 900 miles I averaged almost 50mpg – real-world data. In order to showcase the CX-3's many talents – its agility, its strength and its endurance – Mazda has produced four short films in which they enter the vehicle in a series of car v dog races. There's the start torque of the greyhound, the agility of the collie, the power of the mastiff and the reliability of the Labrador. The Mazda wins hands down in every race and I'm not sure it proves anything other than how fun it is to watch dogs doing things in ultra slo-mo. However, I do object to one thing: does my Dalmatian not have any qualities that a car would need? Email Martin at martin.love@observer.co.uk or follow him on Twitter at @MartinLove166  |
| Suzuki Vitara – <b>car review</b> | Technology | The Guardian Posted: 13 Nov 2015 10:00 PM PST The Suzuki Vitara is the reverse of the tardis, looking larger and fancier, only from the outside. Inside, the displays are maddening: slow touchscreen, slower satnav, a radio that stops and starts for no reason, a parking camera in permanent panic mode and a "you're about to crash into the person in front of you" alarm. I figured out that's what it was only because of the illustration: one car, another car and a giant comic-book star between them. I would say this feature makes you more, rather than less, likely to crash. And how would that crash come about? Certainly not through a sudden burst of speed. It's 0-62mph is 12 seconds, far faster than anyone but a getaway driver would have call for, yet nevertheless the most sluggish I've driven for months, and you can feel a certain reluctance from the minute you turn on the engine. I could hear its Eeyore voice as I pummelled it into second gear, "Really? Driving again? Wouldn't you rather just stay at home?" The steering feels really cheap, almost like a fake steering wheel, mounted for effect on a driverless car; I waggled it from side to side just to check that it was really connected to the wheels. The car jerked, with more duty than enthusiasm, across the lane. In a battle of the components to see which could feel the cheapest, the gear box aced it. The housing, particularly in reverse, was imprecise: you might get it in, you might not. You might move when you hit the accelerator, you might have to try again. Who knew? Again, I tell you: do not choose it if you're a getaway driver, or even if you're simply a prideful person who would find it embarrassing to take a long time to park. On the upside, it's pretty thrifty and it looks far more expensive than it is, particularly if you don't let anyone inside it. The sunroof is fun; fully grown people complain about headroom in the back, but I say (pace Margaret Thatcher): a person over 17 still using the back of a car has to ask in which direction their life is headed. It is high off the ground, which people with that peculiar, modern yet ancient status anxiety – wanting to be above others – will enjoy. The engine is actively fun on a motorway, confident and cruisy. The least-polite version of this verdict is: fur coat, no knickers; for people who want to look classy from a distance. The most polite is… There isn't a polite one.
Price £20,299 |
| Tushek Renovatio T500 <b>Review</b> | Autocar Posted: 10 Jul 2012 01:24 AM PDT It's Slovenia's first supercar, or, in other words, the Tushek Renovatio T500. It's from a brand new company, it is not a totally ground-up design, yet costs, wait for it (drum roll), €300,000. Quite a lot, yes? Yes. But give it a chance.  Road test editor A spot of history. Actually, a lot of history, because too little might not be helpful. Aljosa Tušek used to race cars (euro tin tops) and when he stopped, he decided for a living he'd assemble and sell high-spec variants of a car (available in component form) called the K1 Attack. So he bought one and set about it, before realising that, although he liked the look of it, the engine was too lazy and tall (a Ford V6 with the gearbox beneath it) and the (glassfibre) body was too heavy and imprecisely moulded. Truth is, it wasn't the car he wanted to make. So, now, although it retains a tubular spaceframe chassis, more than 80% of it is different to the K1. It's a lot longer, a bit wider and lower. Power comes from a 4.2-litre Audi RS4 motor and drives the rear wheels via an S5's 6-spd manual gearbox. The body is carbonfibre. Slovenia doesn't have a rich heritage in supercar manufacture, it's true: but Ferrari's composite body panels are made here, as are Ducati panels and Porsche's ceramic brakes, while it's home to Akrapovic exhausts. So there are experts in carbonfibre, ceramic composites and titanium. Tušek works with them all. The Renovatio makes a modest (by supercar standards) 444bhp, but here's the thing: dry, it weighs only 1090kg. Tušek thinks most supercars aren't particularly suited to track use because they're too heavy. I'm inclined to agree. And the Renovatio is pitched at the track-oriented end of the scale, which makes it additionally unusual in supercar circles. Anything else unusual? Yes. A refreshing lack of over-ambition on the part of the people who build it. They're modest; the claimed top speed starts with a one; the 0-62mph time is a believable (if it gets there in first gear) 3.7sec. Tušek isn't exactly out to shake-up the establishment, either. He only plans to build 30 (a successor is already on paper, looks good, and would satisfy his output for the next ten years), and is pleasingly open about progress so far: two early prototypes were made and sold. This is the third (it isn't for sale) and, as I write, there are another two paid-up orders. Tušek wants to make another five this year. Those cars will get an R8 rather than RS4 motor because it's dry sumped, while there's also a stylish coupe roof option. It takes a couple of minutes to manually remove the roof you see in some of these pictures. It's a less slick operation than in all of its rivals, but the thinking is that the weight saving is worth it. The Renovatio could be one of those cars that's easy to dismiss. But sometimes there are exceptions, and I'm inclined to think and hope that this is one of them. It's the details, as much as anything. The quality of the body mouldings is excellent. The interior is sweetly finished, which is all too often a rarity among start-ups who let people see, feel and touch cars before they're ready. Tushek has even made its own windscreen wiper assembly. It gives you a good feeling about quality of the engineering. The hardware is pretty straightforward. There's no bluff and no nonsense. Double wishbones all round with inboard dampers at the front, the engine in the middle, slight rearward weight distribution, hydraulically assisted power steering and servo assisted (but non-ABS) carbon-ceramic brakes. The driving position is a bit off, for me: the seat is too short in the squab and set too high, too. "No problem," say the Tushek lads. "Customers can be seated how they like." That's the key to making these cars work, I think, by offering a level of bespoke tailoring that the accepted supercar establishment can't match. There is a list of options as long as your arm. Telemetry and a sequential Hewland race gearbox (which will shave another 30kg or so) are among them. My first taste of the Renovatio comes on the road, where it shows itself to ride very firmly, but not harshly. The dampers can be slackened if you want. It also has a pretty raw drivetrain, but in a good way. With fluids this is still only an 1133kg car, so it gets along pretty nicely. Makes a good noise, too, and, because of a lack of sound proofing, a very audible one. There's quite a lot of heat soak, perhaps inevitably. But it feels very honest. We take it to an airfield where a small circuit has been set up and where we're encouraged to give it the lot. Frankly, it'd be rude not to. Wound round towards the 7900rpm power peak the T500 feels about as quick, to me, as a Lamborghini Gallardo Superleggera. I don't ever remember thinking one of those needed more power. What the Lamborghini could sometimes use, and what the Tushek offers, is increased agility. The Renovatio gets hydraulically assisted steering of middling weight and fine accuracy and speed. There's less hyperactivity than in a Ferrari 458 Italia, albeit a touch less oily slickness than I think you'd find in a Noble M600 or a McLaren MP4-12C. All told, it's an honest rack, with plenty of feel, and a weight that reflects the amount of effort going through the front tyres. Its tyres are of a particularly high performing compound, incidentally, and they hang on gamely. There's a bit of body movement under braking and cornering, but body control is always very tight. Then, on a steady throttle, a touch of understeer is telegraphed superbly through the rim. Lift and the nose will drop back into line. Lift and wait and the rear might get a touch involved. Lift on the way into a corner, or trail the brakes in (allowed by superb pedal feel) and the back will engage even more willingly. From that point on, the Renovatio displays a superb balance. There's enough power to kick the rear wide and hold out a slide, and it's more predictable and approachable than most cars with their engine amidships. No mistake, there's a thoroughly sorted chassis underneath the T500. I'd be happy to lap one on a track for hour after hour. That it's relatively light, that its brakes resist fade seemingly interminably, mean that it has a track demeanour more like a GT Porsche or the latest Lotus Exige S than a traditional supercar. I'm not sure I understand supercar buyers. As I understand it, most buyers of modern ultra-exotics already have garages filled with modern ultra-exotics, and many of these cars seem to do the same thing. So from where I'm standing, it looks like the Renovatio offers something truly unusual in the class: it's a track-biased supercar whose consumables should wear out or overheat less quickly than an alternative that's carrying a few hundred extra kilos. And I think I buy into that idea. No, it's not going get the Italian establishment looking over their shoulders, but it isn't meant to. It's novel, it's interesting. It seems nicely put together. The people who make it are sensible, modest and intelligent. Me? I'd tick the 'Hewland gearbox' option and indulge myself. Tushek Renovatio T500 Price £241,000; Engine V8, 4163cc, petrol; Installation Mid, longitudinal, RWD; Power 444bhp at 7900rpm; Torque 316lb ft at 3200rpm; Power to weight 391bhp per tonne; 0-62mph 3.7sec; Top speed 193mph; Gearbox 6-spd manual; Kerb weight 1133kg; Economy 24.6mpg (combined); CO2 NA |
| On the road: Vauxhall Adam S – <b>car review</b> | Technology | The <b>...</b> Posted: 06 Nov 2015 10:00 PM PST The Vauxhall Adam Grand Slam was a variation on the Adam, designed to be more appealing to men; then, manliness being such a difficult quality to pin down, they changed the name to the S. Everybody knows that men love initials, especially consonants. You cannot fault it on performance. Its 1.4-litre, turbo-charged, four-cylinder petrol engine could get a tractor to a decent speed over time; a car this size is at 62mph from cold in the time it takes you to wonder how long it will be before you have a panic attack and jump out, shouting, "I don't need an MRI! I'm fine with a brain tumour – I'll get it treated homoeopathically!" (This, if you really want to put a number on it, is 8.5 seconds.) No, seriously, guys, I actually don't mind a small car. I prefer a small car. I love the confident, quicksilver movements I can make while parking, like a fast-forwarded video about car culture in 1950s America. It's the first car I've driven in months that doesn't have a parking sensor, and that's probably because it would be an outright insult to suggest you needed one (especially if you were a man). But when even a six-year-old is complaining about leg room, you know you are dealing with a pretty unusual design. As in all man-focused items – the Honda Civic, Coke Zero, Catwoman – the exterior styling is mainly black with flashes of red on the piping and spoiler. It is so nippy that it took my brain some time to adjust, during which I steered all over the road, like a person who doesn't drink auditioning for a part as a drunk driver. With the driver's seat extended as far back as it'll go, the seating position is racy but cosseting; late-night, solo driving on deserted A-roads is truly fun, the hard suspension and grippy feel putting you and your Adam in perfect harmony. Truly, this is for more than a man: it's for the man manly enough to say, "I'd love to give you a lift, but unfortunately I have read too much Ayn Rand and now I really have to prioritise that point at which my pleasure meets my destiny." I, conversely, was a woman, with two children and another adult in the car. My knees were touching the steering wheel, my feet were bent backwards like a ballerina's cruel stretching exercise, the gear stick in reverse actually rubs against the passenger seat, and still the six-year-old complained that the flip-down mechanism on the front seats (it's three-door, of course) was poorly made, and her knees couldn't move. In the final analysis, I think a small- or medium-sized man would feel like a giant in this car, which will make it more appealing still. If you have some driving aims other than feeling like a giant and going extremely fast, you may want to think again.
Price £16,995 |
| Vauxhall Viva: <b>car review</b> | Martin Love | Technology | The Guardian Posted: 31 Oct 2015 11:00 PM PDT Young at heart: the new Vauxhall Viva with its cheeky smile. Photograph: David LF Smith Price: £7,995 Remember your first car? Mine was an orange Renault 5. Moss grew in its window sills and rust spread from the corner of its grille like a nasty outbreak of a cold sore. It had no heating, no stereo and we'd have had no chance of surviving a crash. But we loved it. My wife actually wept when it was finally towed to that great scrapyard in the sky. First cars aren't like that any more. They are safe and warm and have lights and windscreen wipers that actually work, they even have extras such as cruise control, fog lights and issue lane-departure warnings. It's a disgrace! How will our children ever learn to entertain themselves without spending long cold nights shivering on the hard shoulder waiting to be rescued? Today they get to drive cars like this cheerful new Vauxhall Viva. It takes its name from the original saloon that was launched in 1963: the definitive biscuit box on wheels, its straight edges and minimal design mean it has become a collectible classic. That car was built in Luton; this one is put together in Korea. But it has been designed in Europe – across the Channel it's called the Karl, which reminds me of those people who give their dogs with human names. (We have a Mark and a Dave in our park, one's a Spaniel, the other a Staffy.) The big selling point of this little car is its price – £7,995. For what you get that is incredible value. But if you are young, and this is your first car, that is still a large sum. And if you are much older, and this is your last car, you'll also worry about the price. But in both cases you'll be very pleased. The Viva is roomy, well made and a pleasure to drive. The back seats get their own doors, which isn't something you take for granted in this class. Its lines are nicely curved and it has strongly styled lights which wrap around the grille. It's impressive – and looks every bit as good as the Fiesta, which is easily the best-selling car in this category. Vauxhall is proud of the Viva's sculptured new looks and plans to roll them out across all its cars. For me – and this may not be a factor you worry about when buying a car – the Viva looks happy. It's got a cheeky smile and seems ready to accompany you on your adventures. It comes with a 1-litre engine, which produces 75bhp. The original Viva also had a 1-litre engine but only produced 44bhp. This new one is a clean-burning 3-cylinder job, which does an excellent 66 miles to the gallon: double what that 1963 car achieved. On the open road it's not as whinny and lurchy as some small engines, but where dinky cars come into their own is in the city, and the Viva with its light steering and nippy acceleration is all up for a bit of ducking and diving with its precise steering. It's amazing what you can get for £8,000 – but then my Renault 5 only cost £15. It was worth every penny. Email Martin at martin.love@observer.co.uk or follow him on Twitter at @MartinLove166 |
| Why Self-Driving <b>Cars</b> Must Be Programmed to Kill | MIT Technology <b>...</b> Posted: 22 Oct 2015 06:29 AM PDT  Self-driving cars are already cruising the streets. But before they can become widespread, carmakers must solve an impossible ethical dilemma of algorithmic morality.
When it comes to automotive technology, self-driving cars are all the rage. Standard features on many ordinary cars include intelligent cruise control, parallel parking programs, and even automatic overtaking—features that allow you to sit back, albeit a little uneasily, and let a computer do the driving. So it'll come as no surprise that many car manufacturers are beginning to think about cars that take the driving out of your hands altogether (see "Drivers Push Tesla's Autopilot Beyond Its Abilities"). These cars will be safer, cleaner, and more fuel-efficient than their manual counterparts. And yet they can never be perfectly safe. And that raises some difficult issues. How should the car be programmed to act in the event of an unavoidable accident? Should it minimize the loss of life, even if it means sacrificing the occupants, or should it protect the occupants at all costs? Should it choose between these extremes at random? (See also "How to Help Self-Driving Cars Make Ethical Decisions.") The answers to these ethical questions are important because they could have a big impact on the way self-driving cars are accepted in society. Who would buy a car programmed to sacrifice the owner? So can science help? Today, we get an answer of sorts thanks to the work of Jean-Francois Bonnefon at the Toulouse School of Economics in France and a couple of pals. These guys say that even though there is no right or wrong answer to these questions, public opinion will play a strong role in how, or even whether, self-driving cars become widely accepted. So they set out to discover the public's opinion using the new science of experimental ethics. This involves posing ethical dilemmas to a large number of people to see how they respond. And the results make for interesting, if somewhat predictable, reading. "Our results provide but a first foray into the thorny issues raised by moral algorithms for autonomous vehicles," they say. Here is the nature of the dilemma. Imagine that in the not-too-distant future, you own a self-driving car. One day, while you are driving along, an unfortunate set of events causes the car to head toward a crowd of 10 people crossing the road. It cannot stop in time but it can avoid killing 10 people by steering into a wall. However, this collision would kill you, the owner and occupant. What should it do? One way to approach this kind of problem is to act in a way that minimizes the loss of life. By this way of thinking, killing one person is better than killing 10. But that approach may have other consequences. If fewer people buy self-driving cars because they are programmed to sacrifice their owners, then more people are likely to die because ordinary cars are involved in so many more accidents. The result is a Catch-22 situation. Bonnefon and co are seeking to find a way through this ethical dilemma by gauging public opinion. Their idea is that the public is much more likely to go along with a scenario that aligns with their own views. So these guys posed these kinds of ethical dilemmas to several hundred workers on Amazon's Mechanical Turk to find out what they thought. The participants were given scenarios in which one or more pedestrians could be saved if a car were to swerve into a barrier, killing its occupant or a pedestrian. At the same time, the researchers varied some of the details such as the actual number of pedestrians that could be saved, whether the driver or an on-board computer made the decision to swerve and whether the participants were asked to imagine themselves as the occupant or an anonymous person. The results are interesting, if predictable. In general, people are comfortable with the idea that self-driving vehicles should be programmed to minimize the death toll. This utilitarian approach is certainly laudable but the participants were willing to go only so far. "[Participants] were not as confident that autonomous vehicles would be programmed that way in reality—and for a good reason: they actually wished others to cruise in utilitarian autonomous vehicles, more than they wanted to buy utilitarian autonomous vehicles themselves," conclude Bonnefon and co. And therein lies the paradox. People are in favor of cars that sacrifice the occupant to save other lives—as long they don't have to drive one themselves. Bonnefon and co are quick to point out that their work represents the first few steps into what is likely to be a fiendishly complex moral maze. Other issues that will need to be factored into future thinking are the nature of uncertainty and the assignment of blame. Bonnefon and co say these issues raise many important questions: "Is it acceptable for an autonomous vehicle to avoid a motorcycle by swerving into a wall, considering that the probability of survival is greater for the passenger of the car, than for the rider of the motorcycle? Should different decisions be made when children are on board, since they both have a longer time ahead of them than adults, and had less agency in being in the car in the first place? If a manufacturer offers different versions of its moral algorithm, and a buyer knowingly chose one of them, is the buyer to blame for the harmful consequences of the algorithm's decisions?" These problems cannot be ignored, say the team: "As we are about to endow millions of vehicles with autonomy, taking algorithmic morality seriously has never been more urgent." Ref: arxiv.org/abs/1510.03346 : Autonomous Vehicles Need Experimental Ethics: Are We Ready for Utilitarian Cars? |
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