Archive for March, 2017
2017 Lexus IS200t & 2017 Lexus IS350: A Private Car Review.
Lexus released in late 2016 an update to their IS range. It’s available with a two litre turbo petrol, two point five litre petrol with a hybrid system, or a three point five litre V6 and a sole eight speed auto, across three trim levels, being Luxury/F Sport and Luxury Sport. The stylish and sleek looking cars have received some mild exterior tweaks and interior renovations. Private Fleet drives the Lexus IS200t Luxury and Lexus IS350 Luxury back to back.
In profile, the IS is a long bonneted, short tailed, beauty. In essence, it’s not unlike a car dubbed the most beautiful in the world, with that ratio, with Jaguar’s E-Type seen as such by one Enzo Ferrari. That profile has been a design highlight of the IS since its release and the 2017 version carries that on. It sits low, too, at just 1430 mm. LED powered lights fore and aft for running lights and tail, plus the IS350 has LED headlights and they look great bracketing the familiar angled hour glass grille motif. There’s a stylish, almost shoe branded, swoop from front to rear that rises from the sills to the rear wheel arch within the overall 4680 mm length, which is up 15 mm from the preceding model thanks to a new front bar design. The IS200t is on 17 inch diameter wheels with the IS350 on 18s, and both look as if they struggle to fill the wheel wells. Overall, however, it’s a handsome look.
Inside, it’s a different story between front and rear seats. In the back there’s enough leg and hip room for most thanks to the overall 1810 mm width, and plenty of head room too. It’s leather aplenty, and there’s the added bonus of sensibility, with heating and venting for driver and passenger seats. The onboard satnav is effective but has the annoying habit of telling you, 24/7, that you’re coming to a school zone. Surely a bit of software work can be done to change that to the days and hours required?
Back to the front and it’s here where the IS trips up. Totally at odds with the sleekness of the exterior and looking like a throwback to the 1980s, is a angular and messy mix. Protusions and curves collide to provide an unharmonious mix, plus there’s an odd gunmetal sheen to the plastic itself. It lets down the presentation as there’s otherwise reasonable ergonomics, great audio with DAB (with the 350 getting a Mark Levinson system), the mouse and touchscreen combination (both of which were slightly overhauled, with the screen going up from seven inches) which becomes quite intuitive, and easy to read screens (also redesigned).
A console mounted a dial for drive modes (which shows on the dash screen) and steering wheel buttons from the Lexus RC line of vehicles which are soft touch and simple to use again at odds with the pyramids of the dash. If there’s a highlight amongst the seeming jungle of jumble, it’s the analogue clock, proudly sited right in the centre of the upper dash. It’s a metallic look by day but glows a soft white in the darkness. There was also a (optionable item) full glass roof fitted to the IS350 .
Engine wise it’s a pairing of turbocharged four cylinder and naturally aspirated 3.5L V6, both with a close ratio eight speed auto and Stop/Start technology. There’s 180 kW or 233 kW, and 350 Nm or 378 Nm, delivered at 1650 rpm or 4800 rpm. These last two give each car utterly different driving characteristics; the IS200t will launch well and continue to pull through to over 4000 where the power band comes in.
The IS350 will pull hard but doesn’t have the same feeling of urgency. What it does have a far, far, better soundtrack than the smaller engined version. Planted hard, the right foot has that 3.5L V6 go from a bellow through to a howl to a metallic keen that sounds fantastic and intoxicating. The turbo four lacks the ability to caress the eardrums the same way but is a more user friendly drive. With the torque coming in so low and available over a wider range, the IS200t becomes the better choice as a driver.
The steering ratios feel different,and each has variable ratio geometry which tightens up a turn or so either side. The IS350 feels less wieldy, more leaden, compared to the more responsive and nimble IS200t. Yet the conundrum is that, according to the Lexus website, the IS200t is 35 kilos heavier, at 1680 kg, than the 1645 kg IS350. Put it down, perhaps, to the broader range of torque, the seat of the pants saying that the IS200t is somewhat more dynamic than the IS350 although there’s a dedicated performance damper setup in the front for both along with aluminuim lower suspension parts.
Therein lies the rub. As of March 2017, driveaway pricing has the IS200t at just over $65K and the bigger engined version at around $7K more, with a hybrid version slotted in between. As an overall drive, the IS200t has a touch more finesse, a touch more conversational ability, a slightly better ride but neither match, to be blunt, the ability of the Megane GT tested just a week or so before. Then there’s the fuel costs…both are rated to run on a minimum of 95RON, for starters. There’s a reasonable fuel capacity of 66L, and the IS200t is rated at 7.5L/100 km, against the 3.5L’s 9.7L/100 km (combined cycle quoted).
Bearing in mind the performance aspects of each, and that the IS350 seemed more responsive and performance luxury oriented only when really given some stick, those figure would very quickly be broken. As it was, the IS200t finished at around 8.5L/100 km and the other closer to 11.0L/100 km. The range for the bigger engined car was also less than the smaller and did in fact require topping up twice before returning the vehicle.
This is even with (both vehicles) the drivetrain slipping automatically into Eco as a gauge after acceleration, but will remain in Sport until told otherwise. And there were times when Sport did actually make the drive better by providing sharper throttle response and acceleration. The IS200t did feel, too, as if it moved around more than the IS350, but overall felt just that bit more engaging to drive. Braking? Neither felt as if the pedal wasn’t connected, with bite straight away and a beautifully progessive response as you press harder, allowing the driver to judge precisely just how much was needed for the stopping distance.
To offset this, Lexus do offer a standard 48 month/100,000 kilometre warranty, and 48 months roadside assist, plus a bucket load of standard equipment. There’s a full leather interior, a pedestrian sensing bonnet that fires up should a human intrude, Lane Change Alert, Blind Spot Monitoring, Emergency Brake Light (rapid brake light flashing), and the obigatory reverse camera with lane guidance. You’ll also get the Lexus Safety System+, which consists of a Pre-Collision Safety System, Active Cruise Control, Lane Departure Warning+ with Sway Warning Systen and Auto High Beam. There’s also a Tyre Pressure Monitoring system on board.
At The End Of The Drive.
There’s pluses and minuses with these two. A better sound system in the IS350 (which is an optionable item, by the way, in the F Sport Enhancement pack) against a more frugal and better handling IS200t. Hard core dedicated LED headlights in the IS350 and a far more aurally attractive soundtrack aren’t enough, in this comparison, to overcome the cheaper to buy and run and seat of the pants better handler IS200t. Head across to 2017 Lexus range. for more info about all cars in the Lexus lineup for 2017.
Alternative News: The Hyperloop.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. Famed and distinguished author and scientist Sir Arthur C. Clarke has this as the third of his three laws, much like “The Three Laws of Robotics” his equally distinguished fellow writer Isaac Asimov postulated. To that end, Elon Musk is offering something that could almost be seen as magical because of the technology involved and if it comes to fruition will change the way mass public transportation is undertaken. Welcome to The Hyperloop.
In actuality, the technology is the hard part, the concept is simple. In essence, it’s a pod that will contain passengers (or cargo) that will be inside a tubular structure, with that tube largely evacuated of air and with the much talked about magnetic levitation system to propel the pod.
The basic idea has been around for some time, perhaps two hundred years, however Musk reinvigorated the idea in 2012. A concept of design was shown in 2013, paralleling the highway in California between Los Angeles and San Francisco. The distance between the two is something around 560 kilometres and the concept estimated a travel time of just over a half hour, meaning travel speeds would be in the order of over 950 kilometres per hour. Top speed would be 1200 kph, so that travel time would allow for the initial acceleration process, travel, and deceleration.
Musk first raised the idea at an event hosted by a website dedicated to technology, in Santa Monica, in July 2012. Describing it as a “fifth mode of transport”, Musk said the Hyperloop (so named because it would be a closed system in a loop) would be “a cross between Concorde, a rail gun, and an air hockey table”. He also pointed out the benefits of such a system, being it would be a 24 hour, all weather, collision free, system.
The original concept had the pod riding on a cushion of air barely 2 millimetres in depth, with each pod having an air transfer system, moving high pressure air as speed built up, to the rear. By moving to a very low pressure setup, the transfer system was deleted. A set of linear induction motors would propel the pods and because of the vastly reduced friction, the pods would be able to coast along without losing much forward velocity. The pods themselves would be around seven and a half feet in diameter, enough to comfortably have a two person side by side configuration.
Musk threw open the design rules and in 2015 his SpaceX group announced a one mile test loop close to their main facility. Several university groups have joined in, including MIT, which unveiled their concept in mid 2016. With the T in MIT standing for Technology, MIT went on to demonstrate, for the first time in the world, a working prototype in January of 2017.
As mentioned, the concept is not new. A British engineer named George Medhurst took out patents in 1799 and wrote a book in 1812 detailing propelling people and goods through air-tight tubes. The fabled Crystal Palace building in London had a railway, using fans 22 feet in diameter to move a module in a tunnel, whilst in America an underground tube system was trialled for three years in the early 1870s. Rocketeer Tobert Goddard described a system, vacuum trains, in 1910, and physicist Gerard O’Neill wrote a fictional book which incorporated trains on magnetic levitation in tunnels with almost 100% vacuum inside…
Naturally cost is a factor, including some plans for having a terminus outside of the final destination, neccessitating a further transportation method. One costing had $20USD of a one way ticket being enough to cover the costs over twenty years for the mooted SanFran-LA route. That presumed 7.4 million riders per year, however some have already questioned that that cost would be suitable. Some figures of $100 billion USD for the initial system have been mentioned, with a proportion of that cost being pylons to raise the Hyperloop above the surrounding area.
Apart from cost, the Hyperloop system does, in fact, seem feasible, with many engineering studies confirming the validity of the concept. For Australia, the eastern seaboard would be, much like the U.S., a like location, between Melbourne and Sydney, perhaps via Camberra, and from there to Brisbane with, again, perhaps a stop at Newcastle and Port Macquarie or further. Much like the much discussed Very fast Train proposal, however, it’ll need a true visionary and an economic commitment to reduce our reliance on four wheeled transport and aircraft.
How Does An Airbag Work?
Airbags – they’re in every single new car coming out and if your car doesn’t have at least one airbag somewhere, it’s probably old enough to just about qualify as a classic. It’s probably just about getting to the point that Millennials (or the children of Millennials – whatever trendy label you slap on that generation) will probably take airbags for granted much the same way that Gen X takes seatbelts for granted. (Boomers and Busters probably remember a time before seatbelts were compulsory back and front – I’m Gen X and I’ve got vague memories of cars with no rear seatbelts. They weren’t common.)
The airbag concept has been around since the early 1950s, with patents being granted just about simultaneously in the US and in Germany to two different inventors, Walter Linderer and John Hetrick (which makes me suspect a little idea swapping was going on during the post-war Allied occupation of Berlin). However, airbags didn’t really become popular until the 1970s, which was when Ford decided to give them a try. This was about the time when legislating bodies around the world were taking a long, hard look at what was happening on the roads and were really getting serious about road safety, although it wasn’t until 1984 that the US made seatbelt use compulsory. It was also in the 1980s that saw vehicles of all marques installing airbags in an attempt to pick up accreditation from the newly established EuroNCAP.
Now, of course, airbags are everywhere: front airbags for the driver, front airbags for the front passenger, side airbags, knee airbags, curtain airbags – even “pedestrian airbags” that deploy on the outside of the vehicle in some Volvos.
Most of the time, if we’re driving properly and everyone around us is driving properly, we won’t see diddly-squat of the airbags. So it should be. This means that how they work can be something of a mystery.
Any airbag, no matter where it’s located, has three parts to it: the bag itself, the sensor that tells the airbag to deploy (you don’t want the airbags firing at the wrong moment) and the inflation system. The airbag itself is somewhat uninteresting: it’s a bag of nylon fabric that can pack up nice and tight, withstand the forces of sudden inflation, is airtight enough to actually inflate but has enough holes so it can deflate afterwards. They also come lubricated with ordinary talcum powder to help them move easily and stay supple. It’s the sensors and the inflation system that are a bit more fun.
The sensor picks up any force that’s equal or greater to the car going head-first into a brick wall at about 16 km/h, meaning that if you nudge the back of the garage at a crawl, if you ram the front bumper with a shopping trolley or if the cat jumps onto the car to enjoy the warmth of the bonnet, the airbag won’t deploy. The sensors usually sit in the crumple zones and the typical modern vehicle will have about three of them. The sensors are simple affairs, consisting of a ball in a tube as the main trigger. If the ball is jolted out of the tube, this sets the inflation system off.
The inflation system is, quite literally, rocket science. In other words, it uses the same technology as solid fuel rocket booster systems. One of the early teething troubles they had with airbags was finding a method of inflating the bags that didn’t take up too much room or create an additional hazard (canisters of compressed gas had storage problems), deployed quickly enough and didn’t save your life but leave you deaf thanks to a thunderous explosion. Nasty toxic gases were also to be avoided. No point saving your life from the crash if it’s going to asphyxiate you as the gas dissipates.
The solution came in the form of two very reactive chemical compounds: sodium azide (NaN3) and potassium nitrate (KNO3). Don’t play with these in the chemistry lab at school. When the trigger goes off, these two are ignited so the reaction begins. And does it begin or what! These compounds burn fast and release a heck of a lot of nitrogen gas in a very short space of time. This gas inflates the airbag super-fast so the bag deploys out of wherever it’s stored at over 300 km/h. The nitrogen gas isn’t going to harm anyone as it goes back into the atmosphere – which is about 90% oxygen anyway. Some mechanisms use slightly different chemicals but still work on the same basic principle and produce an equally harmless gas, such as argon.
In summary, the system works like this:
1 The force of a collision knocks the ball out of the tube (the most basic version of the accelerometer that detects a massive slowdown – there are other types out there).
2 The trigger flicks an electric switch that heats up an element.
3 The heat sets off a very, very fast chemical reaction.
4 The reaction produces heaps of gas very quickly, which fills the bag.
Can you get an airbag to deploy if you brake hard enough? No. In spite of urban legends and speculations tossed around by younger drivers, emergency braking in itself won’t set off the airbags. Brakes just don’t generate the sharp, short force needed to set them off – even emergency braking is more gradual than that. The airbags also won’t deploy if you are rear-ended (you’re being shoved forwards, not brought to a sudden stop) or if you use the bull bars on the front of a 4×4 as a DIY bulldozer (unless you try to get a running start into whatever you’re trying to push). They will probably deploy if an enraged bull or ram takes a dislike to your car and charges it head-on, although I doubt this has been tested. The popular amusing video of an elderly pedestrian setting off the airbag on the car belonging to an impatient driver is probably a fake, meaning it’s been carefully staged with a vehicle that has had the sensor system adjusted, then hit in exactly the right place. But it’s still funny.
Airbags are not without hazards of their own. Yes, they have saved thousands of lives. However, anything that is moving at over 300 km/h is going to pack a lot of punch, even if it is only air and cloth. Anyone who’s been on the receiving end of a well-flicked tea towel while drying dishes with siblings knows that “just” cloth can draw blood if it goes fast enough. Not that an airbag will draw blood. It can break your glasses as your head flies forward to meet it and it’s still going to hurt. It will hurt even more and probably will draw blood and worse if you have anything on your lap that gets between you and the airbag – another reason not to try hiding your cellphone on your lap!
The force involved in a deploying airbag is too much for small children, which is why it’s best to put little kids of an age to sit in a booster seat in the back. However, we know that sometimes, you just have to put a small person in the front (although this isn’t likely to happen unless you have three other littlies already in the back). This is why some vehicles have occupant seat detection for the front passenger seat that has a weight sensor, so the airbag won’t go off if whatever’s in that seat is below a certain weight.
Airbags should never, ever, ever be used as a substitute for a seatbelt. It’s a case of “both–and” rather than “either–or” and why would you want to skimp on your personal safety anyway? It’s not as if an undeployed airbag is going to get in your way, limit your fun or restrict your freedom of movement or ability to drive well. Don’t be a silly muggins – wear your seatbelt!
2017 Renault Megane GT & Renault Megane Zen: Private Fleet Car Review.
Renault‘s Australian renaissance continues to build momentum, with the all new Koleos and Megane range attracting plenty of positive comment. It’s fair to say that the GT and Zen Megane cars should be on your radar, and here’s why, as Private Fleet drives the Renault Megane GT and Renault Megane Zen.
The Megane is a sweet looker, with a curvy overall shape and an extra bit of sheetmetal at the rear to emphasise the profile. Both have LED running lights in a hockey stick shape, LED rear lights and the GT takes that further with LEDs powering the main front lights. It’s compact outside, at 4359 mm in length and runs on a 2670 mm wheelbase, which offers 180 mm of rear seat knee room. 
Shoulder room for the 1814 mm wide (mirrors folded) pair is 1441 mm up front and 1390 mm in the rear. Front and rear track are almost identical at 1591 mm and 1586 mm. It’s a slightly bigger car, this fourth generation Megane, than the previous version, with the wheelbase 29 mm longer for an increase in overall length of 57 mm.
Up front there’s a duet of petrol engines, with the Zen packing a mere 1200 cc four cylinder, with 97 kilowatts and 205 Nm. The turbocharged GT has 151 kilowatts at 6000 and a hefty 280 torques at 2400 rpm from a 1.6L powerplant. Both run on standard 95RON and power down via a seven speed dual clutch auto. From the fifty litre tank, Renault quotes a combined fuel consumption figure of 5.6L/100 km and 6.0L/100 km. Around town it’s just 6.8L/100 km or 7.8L/100 km.
The GT is marked as 4Control, with subtle badging on the B pillars. This makes one wonder if it’s four wheel drive; no, it’s four wheel steering, with a rear wheel steering setup adding to the amazing agility of the five door hatch. It’s engineered so it’ll turn the rear wheels in the opposite direction to the front at either 80 kph or 60 kph, depending on which drive mode you’ve selected.
Above those speeds the rears will turn in the same direction as the front. Does it work? Oh yes sir, it does. So do the brakes, in that unlike too many there’s real feedback, real bite, as soon as the pedal is touched. Distances between you and the car in front can be more finely judged with a variation of pressure, not relying on something to happen with a depression of an inch or so before action happens.
With the car riding on GT specific springs, dampers, and roll bars to the rest of the range, and combining with a super responsive steering system, lends the GT a sporting prowess that isn’t at odds with its seemingly cheapish $38K price. Turn in is crisp, sharp, and understeer is relegated to the file marked “No Longer Applicable”. This is thanks to a computer system that analyses steering angle and input 100 times per second. Not only is the GT a sharp handler, it rides better than the Zen. 
The lower spec car has 16 inch alloys, the GT rolls on 18s. Rubber is 205/55 for the Zen and 225/40 for the GT. The GT is sometimes jittery, but rides across imperfections better than the Zen, with the Zen more prone to bump steer and road intrusions, plus just that little more float from undulations. It’s by no means a bad handler in its own right, but backed against the wall by the brawnier GT, the differences are apparent.
Naturally the GT is better at getting underway, particularly with the dual clutch auto’s habit of thinking momentarily before engaging Drive from Reverse or from a standstill. Having said that, the Zen gets up and runs well enough for its engine size once the transmission has hooked it. There’s a faint buzz from the drivetrain as it does, the sound of the engine rising and falling along with the almost imperceptible changes, and suddenly you’re well and truly at highway speeds. Then the GT takes that and increases the grin factor with Launch Control…
Rorty is a word used to describe a mechanical noise that emanates from the engine bay and also the exhaust. The GT has it in bucketloads. As good and as enjoyable as the Zen is in its driveability and handling, the GT amplifies that, enhances it, sharpens it, to the point that the smile you have becomes a grin of sheer enjoyment, visible from Mars. Turn in is precise, accelaration is electics, the aural sensation is sexy, the support of the blue trimmed bucket seats is amazing, and all come together to provide a drive experience for the senses. The Zen isn’t off in the aural caressment stakes, though, with enough of a growl to please most.
When not fanging the cars around, you can enjoy the interiors. There’s proper soft touch materials on doors and dash, lacking, for example, in Jaguar’s much vaunted F-Pace. There’s adjustable screens for the dash and the centre touchscreen, satnav for the GT, a bigger 8.7 inch screen in the G as opposed to the Zen’s 7 incherT. Both have touch sensitive aircon controls; touchscreen for the GT and the same setup in the Zen as seen in the Koleos, with a strip built into the console. There’s heating for the seats in the GT which is unneccessary given their blue suede and cloth covering. Bluetooth? Natch.
The Zen is simple black and charcoal cloth with contrasting white stitching, with a plastic trim on the doors not unlike the spotted pattern as seen on a whale shark. Both also have the quirk of placing audio on a separate stalk to the lower right of the steering column and cruise control in the centre console. The GT raises the stakes by having LED strip lighting and it’s at a level of intensity to not overwhelm the eyes during a night time drive. 
Both equal up in items such as Auto headlights, rain sensing wipers, 434 litre cargo which maxes at 1247L with seats down, push button Start/Stop and all four windows one touch up and down. Audiowise, both get great sound, with the GT a 12 speaker Bose system. There’s plenty of punch in the Zen’s 8 speakers though, with DAB available here as in the GT.
Renault now offer a five year, unlimited kilometre, warranty, five years roadside assistance, and fixed price servicing for the first three services, providing the best of peace of mind.
At The End Of the Drive.
Renault are well poised in Australia to make a seriously positive impact on our crowded market. The Megane range has been spearheaded by a (soon to return to Australia) RS version however there’s more than enough in the 2017 range to appeal to drivers across the board. Up against tried and true entries from Korea, Japan, and European rivals, the Megane stands out as a worthwhile consideration. And starting at a sub $25K driveaway price, it enters this hotly contested market with plenty of value to back up a great driving experience. Go here Renault Megane for 2017 for the info you need to know.
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