Flying Cars – Not Science Fiction Any More

When the year 2000 rolled around amid fears of the Y2K bug making computers and civic systems crash (remember that?), we heard a few people asking “Where are the flying cars?” in a reference to all the guesses that people had made back in the 1950s or so about what transportation would be like in the 21^st Century.

Well, the wait is over. The flying car is here, or at least it’s in the USA. This doesn’t mean that Ford Falcons are really able to soar on thermals like their namesakes or that the wings on the Mazda logo are still anything other than metaphorical.

But a flying car has been invented. Or perhaps one could call it a road-worthy light plane.

Surprisingly enough, it’s not Saab that’s put out the first real flying car, in spite of the fact that there are more things with the Saab logo in the air than there are on the roads (that’s just a guess and don’t quote me… but Saab does make everything from fighter planes down to little light planes and is primarily an aircraft company).  Instead, it’s a company called Terrafugia that has put wings on cars… or road-legal wheels on a plane.

“Terrafugia” means “escape from the earth” and that’s pretty much what these flying cars are designed to do. And they’re more than just a dream. One was demonstrated at the recent Oshkosh air-show, the Terrafugia Transition. OK, they cost more than a modest family home to buy, but there probably are people out there who are interested and are going to take them on.

So what can the Transition do? Obviously, it can fly and it can go on the road legally. On the road, it looks a bit peculiar – it looks more like an amphibious vehicle with the wings tucked up beside it like the legs of a cricket or praying mantis.  A touch of the button extends the wings and the propeller on the back gets ready to spin into action.  Hey presto – the car is airborne (watch it here).

Obviously, the Transition isn’t massive. It can carry two people and possibly a set of golf clubs or a wee bit of luggage.  The official website says that it can cruise at 160 km/h, although I guess that this is in the air rather than on the road.  As a plane, the torque is fairly juicy, of course, as the Transition has to accelerate fast enough to generate the lift needed to get off the ground, and it needs a shade over half a kilometre of runway to get airborne.  Once in the air, it has a range of 660 km.

There are dual steering controls – the regular steering wheels and brakes for when the Transition is on the road, and a stick and rudder pedals for steering in three dimensions (i.e. when it’s in the air). There aren’t a lot of other bells and whistles – all the thingummybobs pilots need to fly legally take up the rest of the dashboard.

The Transition fits into an ordinary single garage, so it’s likely to appeal to the sort of pilot who doesn’t want the hassle of carting out a trailer every time they want to take the plane out for a little spin.  Obviously, two licences are needed: a PPL (private pilot’s licence) and a driver’s licence.

Don’t look out for these in our car reviews page just yet, though. Maybe in 50 years’ time.

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i30 SR Is here

The i30 SR was designed exclusively for the Australian market.

Hyundai Motor Company Australia have lifted the lid on their new addition to the i30 line up.
The i30 SR hatch was first previewed at last years Sydney International Motor Show as a concept. Featuring a larger 125kw 2.0L petrol engine (the regular i30 houses a 1.6L), exclusively tuned sports suspension, and a host of other features, the Australian developed – Korean Hot Hatch has sparked interest in other markets including the UK.

Hyundai Australia seem to be throwing the Motorsport muscle behind the branding of the SR name plate with Aussie WRC competitor Chris Atkinson (the test driver for Hyundai’s return to the WRC In the i20) posting live pictures to Instagram from the i30 SR launch in Byron Bay.
Rumoured to be priced under $30,000 (+ORC) the SR will sit between the mid range Elite and luxury Premium models.
The SR nameplate is rumoured to expand past the i30 SR and Veloster SR Turbo to include the addition of a i30 SR Turbo to compete directly with the Golf GTi and upcoming hot hatches from sister company Kia.

The rumoured i30SR Turbo will use 1.6l turbo used in the Hyundai Veloster and Kia Cee’d GT (pictured)

Keeping Left Unless Overtaking Part 2

A couple of years ago, I had a good whinge on this blog –

http://blog.privatefleet.com.au/home/keep-left-unless-overtaking/

The crux of it was complaining about how Australians seem to ignore the ‘Keep Left Unless Overtaking’ law.  The law seems to be observed in countries overseas but not in Australia and I just couldn’t understand why…

Well, the reason became apparent to me last week.  I was gobsmacked to find out that I have been completely wrong for all these years.   It appears that in Australia on a 3-lane freeway, despite the signs, one is perfectly entitled to sit in the middle lane!!  The signs ‘Keep Left Unless Overtaking’ really means ‘Don’t use the Right Lane Unless Overtaking’.

Here’s the simplified rule as per the motoring authorities:

On multi-lane roads with a speed limit of more than 80km/h, motorists
must not drive in the right-hand lane unless they are:
• overtaking
• turning right or making a U-turn
• avoiding an obstacle
• driving in congested traffic
• driving in a special purpose lane or if there is a Left Lane Must Turn Left sign or a left traffic arrow and the driver is not turning left.

So, I’ve been wrong all these years.  All this wasted anger and frustration directed to these ignorant law-breakers who it turns out were doing the right thing all along (in a legal sense)!  So let me hold my hand up and humbly apologise to all those who have been the subject of my angry feelings and/or glares.  I’m sorry.

Meekly, I will make a defence that I learned how to drive in the UK and have driven extensively in Europe where ‘middle lane hogging’ is clearly outlawed.  Further I will add that the signs used in Australia contributed to my mistake – why refer to the left lane at all when it is the right lane that the law refers to?

However, saying all that, I am now even more astounded.  It’s not ill-informed motorists doing the wrong thing but the government!  What on earth were they thinking?  Many road rules in Australia have been adapted from overseas so why take this one and then snip off an important part for no apparent reason.  Why on earth did they do it?

Let me put forth an objective list of reasons why I think the European model works better:

3-lane freeways become 2-lane freeways

• Traffic Flow. The rate of traffic (cars per hour) is increased reducing congestion. Of course, once it hits a point where all 3-lanes are crawling, you’re stuffed but it takes longer to hit that level if ‘left lane discipline’ is observed. If drivers stick steadfastly in the middle lane, it tends to turn 3-lane freeways into 2-lane motorways. In general drivers will (sensibly) prefer to overtake on the right fearing meeting some particurlarly slow traffic in the inside lane and getting ‘boxed in’. So the left lane gets under-utilised – the only users being the most diverse groups – the very slow and the very fast and impatient.

• If everyone keeps to the very left, there’s no need for undertaking (passing a driver in the left lane).  This increases safety for all drivers as there’s now only one side that you need to anticipate drivers passing you rather than two (notwithstanding the facat that a good driver should anticipate hazards from all angles and situations but you get my drift)

• Speed Differential.  This is the big one in my opinion.  Think about any accident and you’ll see that two objects travelling at different speeds is what caused the accident.  The bigger this difference the more dangerous it is (eg a car at 80km/hr hitting a tree at 0km/hr).

We’ve all had the experience of coming up to the crest a hill and having to brake relatively hard as a heavy vehicle crawls up the hill at snails pace.  Traffic entering main roads from side roads is often a high risk accident zone for example as the car entering may not always attain the prevailing speed fo the main road in time.

So when you allow middle lane hogging, and left lane overtaking, you combine some of the fastest speeds with some of the slowest!  You have speed freaks mixing with flat-capped, caravan pulling Sunday drivers in the same lane!

Look at the example of the right to see what I’m talking about – as the speeding car passes the truck, there’s a needlessly dangerous 20km/h speed differential.

Does the above sound right to you?  Or am I missing something?  The following pieces of evidence do seem to support this argument:

1. Traffic seems to flow better overseas in developed countries.  It just does and anyone who has driver overseas will no doubt have noticed it.  Simply put it takes a lot more cars to clog a 3-lane motorway than it does here.
2. Further illustrating the ‘speed differential’ argument.  If you are on a freeway and overtake a car doing 105km/h while you are doing 110km/h, it’s relatively straightforward.  You slowly move past them even though there may only be a metre or s0 between the wing mirrors of the two cars.  But would you be so comfortable cruising past a row of trees that close doing the same speed?

Now, how about an argument for the current rules.  Thinking hard, I can only come up with one… and that one is dubious too.

1. There is less lane changing when drivers are allowed to sit in the niddle lane.  Yes, I can see that in low-traffic scenarios (remember those?) – a car driver for example may just sit in the middle lane avoiding slow trucks etc in the left hand lane.  However sooner or later, a faster driver will come up behind and be forced to change lanes tothe far right lane to overtake whereas with the strick keep left model, he may not have to.  Also, the dangerous practice impatient drivers are ‘forced’ into of darting to to the left to undertake and then quickly scoot two lanes to the right to overtake the next two vehicles may mean that this isn’t the case after all.

So, I’m still confused and still frustrated but should I be?  Is this even an issue worth talking about?  Let us know in the comments below if you agree or disagree. http://credit-n.ru

Car Industry Support: Who's Right?

It’s red face time at Holden, Toyota and Ford as it’s been revealed a secret report commissioned by Australia’s three remaining local car makers, intended to back their calls for extra funding, is contradicted by a report compiled by a company formed as a merger between the original company used and another. Allen Consulting Group was asked to look into how the automotive industry impacts here in Australia and found that a loss of $23 billion would hit the economy between 2018 and 2031 if all three closed shop, stating the loss would be far higher than the amount of funding supplied. Unfortunately for the companies, Allen Consulting merged with ACIL Tasman to form Allen ACIL and a report issued by them says that taxpayer backed funding should be withdrawn. It was stated that the support is effectively a tax on the rest of the economy whilst the more successful industries prop up the less successful.

Initially released in April of this year, the three car makers have had to commission a revised report, after benching the initial one at a cost of around $100, 000 dollars, with the findings now expected for later this year. So it begs the question; who is right? Are our car makers truly in need of continuing funding in such a competitive market (it’s said there’s over sixty manufacturers available in Australia) or would it be better to cut the losses and have them as mainly import only? http://credit-n.ru/potreb-kredit.html