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Getting About When You Ain’t What You Used To Be
The Baby Boom generation is getting older. We all know the effects that this generation has had on the world in general, including the automotive world – would the VW Beetle and the Mini have been as popular in the 1960s if families hadn’t needed somewhere to fit their Boomer children (and the older Boomers became more mobile and took the wheel)? Around the world, planners and developers are looking at this generation and are wondering what the effect will be on the roads as they hit the golden years.
One vehicle marque that has put a bit of thought into this is Toyota. To meet the foreseeable demands of an aging population that (a) isn’t quite as fit and flexible as it used to be, (b) still wants the freedom of the motor vehicle, Toyota have come up with the Welcab concept. The Welcab is not an individual model but it is a set of features that are incorporated into popular Toyota models, such as the Hiace van and others, such as the Previa and Estima. In a nutshell, a Welcab equipped vehicle is set up so that mobility scooters and wheelchairs can get in and out of them easily – or the occupant of the wheelchair/mobility scooter can get in and out without too much hassle. And yes, this does include drivers who get around in mobility scooters the rest of the time.
Of course, it’s not just older drivers who benefit from the Welcab concept. Drivers with limited mobility and drivers who act as caregivers to the disabled or otherwise wheelchair-bound are also catered to by the Welcab. The most popular Welcab is the Hiace van with a wheelchair access ramp at the rear, as commonly seen in wheelchair taxis and vehicles owned by nursing homes.
Toyota’s Welcab vehicles come from the factory floor with all the features set up for limited-mobility drivers and/or passengers, which makes them different from the after-market additions that can be fitted to other vehicles to make them suitable for wheelchair users, such as the gizmo fitted to a Subaru Legacy driven by a guy I knew with cerebral palsy – this gizmo lifted his wheelchair off the roof of his car and popped it down by the driver’s seat to be unfolded and climbed into, and vice versa.
Other vehicle manufacturers are getting into the act, especially (it seems) in Japan. Mitsubishi has the Hearty Run (one of those “use the dictionary as a dartboard” names); Honda has the Fit Sports and the Almas. Honda also has the swivel seat option in the Jazz. Other marques are getting on board, although most cars for limited-mobility drivers tend to be after-market adaptations rather than factory floor versions.
Given that none of us are getting any younger and that we’ll all be a bit old and creaky one day, it’s likely that we’ll see more cars coming off the factory floor with ease-of-access features.
In the meantime, however, if you’re finding it a bit harder to get in and out of the car, an after-market swivel seat might be the way to go – these usually look like two discs stuck together, allowing you to get in and out a bit more easily.
'Park Assist' the new buzz words
The new buzz phrase for car marketers is ‘Park Assist’. This is where your car literally parks itself, so we are going to look into this a little further. We’ll show you some very clever and amusing TV commercials later which demonstrate the totally ‘hands free’ parking ability, but first we thought we’d do a survey of all the parking aid devices available to you now.
THE BASICS
The very basic parking aid is the front/rear windows and parking mirrors (and, in some cases, an outside helper!). A good eye, some skill and patience and, hopefully, you’re happily parked in a tight spot-or you’ve driven past.
That’s all there was to help you not so many years ago. Then parking sensors became standard equipment on some luxury vehicles. The sensors were moulded into the bumper bars and emitted a more frantic buzzing noise the closer the car came to an immovable object.
They gradually worked down the option range to the most economical models today. Even if it’s not available as an option, or your car doesn’t have them, after market kits can be purchased and fitted for around $350.00.
PARKING CAMERAS
Considered an exclusive extra just a couple of years ago, the parking camera is now much more commonplace, either as original equipment or as an after market extra.
It’s now common to have the rear camera option on a new car, particularly when an in-dash sat/nav is specified.
This option is very popular as a safety measure and certainly makes parking even easier.
Don’t fret if you don’t have sat/nav or don’t have it listed as an option in your preferred car as they are now available as an after market option with a separate view screen. It will cost you around $800.00, and you’ll never have to worry about reverse parking again.
But we’re not finished yet, as the granddaddy of them all is fully automatic park assist.
AUTOMATIC PARK ASSIST
Welcome to the world of the driverless car – literally! Automatic Park Assist is what they call it, but we think the phrase is underdone – as it does virtually everything for you. You don’t even go near the steering wheel, as all you control is the foot brake and accelerator as it manouvres you into the tightest of parking spaces.
And it’s no longer just for the world of the elite car buyers, so read on!
First, let’s show you what they mean by park assist and show you a couple of really clever and amusing T.V. commercials.
VOLKSWAGEN
The first one is from Volkswagen. It’s for the Tiguan in Sao Paolo, Brazil.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-wya3lz52M
That’s a simple and clever ad that illustrates a remarkable piece of car technology, but that’s in South America!
The good news is that you can get it here too with your new VW.
For Australia a slightly simplified version (VW call it Park Assist 1) can be specified in a new VW Golf. However, the brand new Passat also has the full version (Park Assist 2) for an extra $1800.00 which sounds pretty good value for such an enhanced safety aid..
FORD
A Ford TV commercial also caught our attention. This one is for the Ford C-MAX and was shot in Paris.
http://www.bestadsontv.com/ad/37979/Ford-The-Dog
That’s a very different approach to VW and features a dog parking the car! The bad news is that the C-MAX is not available in Australia – but there’s good news too.
Ford Australia have told us that this really clever technology is available as standard equipment in the brand new Ford Focus Titanium. They tell us that the price on-road will be around $33,000 – $34,000 and deliveries start in September.
Clearly “Park Assist” is no longer just in the realm of the wealthy and exotic, and will rapidly be adopted by more and more car makers and be made much more approachable in retail prices.
Have you tried it? If you have – or if you have any thoughts on this new driverless technology, let us hear from you below.
Towing it right.
Every now and then, most of us have need of a trailer. There are many different trailers and loads one can tow. There’s the camping trailer for the weekend away; or what about the caravan, instead, for a little more luxury. Perhaps some of us will have a horse and will require a vehicle to tow the horse float. Most of us could do with a small trailer to get rid of household rubbish to the dump. One thing that’s very easy to do, particularly if you have little experience, is to mismatch a heavy load to a small tow vehicle. Now there’s no way a Mini is going to pull a tandem trailer full of wood without straining. What are some things to look out for?
Firstly, do you have the right vehicle to tow? Some of the very small cars on the market are, in fact, not well equipped for towing. A lightly built vehicle is going to struggle to tow much more than 500 kg and sometimes the vehicle manufacture will actually state in the car’s manual that it is not fit to tow. Do check whether your Ford Festiva or your Fiat Punto is actually recommended for towing. Sometimes it comes down to the car’s structural integrity being too light to cope with the stresses that a trailer will put on the car’s bodywork and chassis – and the manufacturer will state this.
When considering towing, make sure that your car has good brakes, plenty of torque and power, is preferably rear-wheel-drive or four-wheel-drive and has a suitably rated towbar for the task at hand. Light trailers are, generally, fine for any type of car.
Front-wheel-drive cars with a load on the back are ok for light towing that is done on the flat; however, for heavier trailers front wheel-drive cars are not ideal. Their front wheels can sometimes struggle for traction and cause a lot of stress on the car’s driving componentry – particularly when going uphill on gravel roads. In some cases, the gradients on gravel roads will be too steep for a front-wheel-drive car to cope with and you’ll get nowhere. It’s very funny for bystanders to watch but not so great for the driver of the car, and the repair bills.
A little trick to remember when towing a trailer: Make sure that your load is well distributed on the trailer. Have the heaviest part of the load sitting over the trailer’s axle/axles. If you don’t distribute the weight correctly on the trailer, the unbalanced weight can greatly affect the vehicle’s handling, making driving dangerous. Numerous times trailers that have too much weight behind the axle have caused the tow vehicle to jack knife. Also, with too much weight sitting in front of the trailer’s axle the tow car can be pushed heavily down at the rear which lightens up the front end grip and steering characteristics – tow vehicles can sometimes keep going in a straight line instead of going around the corner when this is the case.
Do check that the bulk of the load is sitting over the axles and is secured so that the load does not move.
Try a bit of practice at backing! It’s not always as simple as it might seem. Do master it before heading down to the dump. Many times I’ve seen plenty of people smiling at the driver who is trying to back the trailer with little success.
Google Self Drive Car Crashes – but don't panic.
We wrote about the amazing driverless car from Google a couple of months ago. We’ve just heard the embarrassing news that it’s crashed! But relax. It seems that it was not in the ‘driver free’ mode, so the ‘driver in control’ is probably a lot more embarrassed than the boffins themselves.
Auto blog site Jalopnik posted a photo on their pages that shows the car having shunted into another Toyota Prius near Google’s Californian headquarters. The legal system hasn’t kept up with the concept of a driverless car, so a ‘driver’ is still required to sit behind the wheel on public roads – even though he is redundant. But according to Google he was not being redundant at the time of the bingle, but was actually driving it……(hmm!)
Level 2, 9 Help Street