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Time to plug in the bus.
It’s great to see Sydney on the ball with
offering Australia’s first public on-street electric vehicle charging station
in Derby Place, Glebe. What a great
advancement. And I’m sure that this will
be the first of many you’ll find around Australia in years to come. The idea of cheap transport and no emissions
has to be a good one. Any new car buyers
in Sydney now have an opportunity to look at making use of this charging
station. One way of doing this might be
by buying a new electric powered vehicle or hybrid. Certainly, the electric cars are becoming more
populous amongst the new car lists at the back of good car mags. We really are entering a whole new world of
transportation.
On the topic of electric transportation,
electric trains and electric buses have been around for a little while now, and
I notice that General Motors has found a viable option for plug-in public
transport buses. Investments into this
form of electric transport have already been made – approximately $30 million
US. The EcoRide BE-35 battery electric bus,
made by Proterra, needs as little as 10 minutes to charge. I wish my AAA battery recharger was as
efficient as this! With a 65-kilometre
range for the fast charge option, this is a bus that could easily replace
diesel powered buses for any typical transit and shuttle services around a city.
The bonus of running public electric transport
and private electric transport, particularly in a city environment, is that would
be a very big reduction in smog, greenhouse gas pollution, congestion and noise
inside the city boundaries. As long as
the production of the electricity at the primary stage is clean, then we’re in
a win-win situation. It’s not so cool if
the production of the electricity for running the electric vehicles has been
performed by employing belching coal stations or nuclear reactors! If this was the case, then the electric form
of transport isn’t so clean – and definitely not such a hot trend, after
all.
A greater demand for electricity would
create greater emissions from a coal powered station. If your source of power is coming from
hydro-power stations or wind or solar energy, then the greater demand for
electricity has nil effect on the environment – in fact, it would be better
because you’re reducing emissions into the atmosphere by taking the petrol and
diesel powered options off the road as people turn to electric vehicles for
getting from A to B.
With Sydney now getting in on the
charging stations, they have joined other cities such as Amsterdam, San
Francisco, Philadelphia, Detroit, Houston, Vancouver and London who have
installed a charging infrastructure for electric vehicles.
Do you think it’s timely to buy an
electric vehicle, yet? Or do you think
we should hold fire and see if time will tell whether electricity will continue
to be a feasible means of clean green transport?
Whilst Shopping in London…
Groan! She wants to go to Harrods- the iconic department store in Knightsbridge. Well, that’s not on your itinery, is it? Until now, that is.
“Yes, dear, I’d be happy to take you to Harrods. You go and shop and I’ll just wait for you outside”. Brownie points galore, but there’s a hidden agenda.
Just around the corner there’s the Berkely Hotel.
Yes, that’s where Ferrari have just opened up their stunning new London showroom (or ‘Atelier’ as they prefer to call it in Ferrari speak). Currently displayed are a Ferrari 458 Italia, a Ferrari California and a rather special racing Ferrari 512S from 1970.
Absorb yourself for an hour or so before flitting back to Harrods for some more brownie points.
What’s Cooking At the Nurburgring?
Lately, there has been a number of interesting lap times set at the famous Nürburgring circuit. I’ll let you in on a few of these. I’m guessing you know where the Nürburgring is, so I won’t diverge onto whereabouts it is and onto its interesting history info. Google it if you’re not sure.
One of the quickest everyday production cars to have completed the Nürburgring has been the 2011 Subaru Impreza WRX STI prototype. In the hands of the rally legend Tommi Mäkinen, the WRX was flung around the circuit in a very slick 7 minutes and 55 seconds. This was, at the time, the quickest production sedan to date. Who did it beat? Subaru was able to edge out the mighty quick Porsche Panamera Turbo, which clocked a (still unofficial) 7 minutes and 56 second lap time.
What about the quickest front-wheel-drive production car, to date? Again, in the hands of an expert, the Renault Megane Sport has the quickest time for the track at 8 minutes 7.97 seconds.
So who is the quickest at ‘The Ring’? The car comes from the USA, and is none other than the very potent 2012 Corvette ZR1 prototype. What I like about this car is that it is not a jazzed up race car, per se. As it is a production going car, the
phenomenally quick lap time of 7 minutes and 19 seconds is incredible.
Not far off the Corvette’s pace is the Nissan GTR.
Just recently Lexus powered their 24 Hr race car: the Lexus LFA around the track to keep Corvette honest. 7 minutes and 22 seconds isn’t that much slower than the time set in the production Corvette ZR1.
I guess I’ve always enjoyed seeing how my favourite cars get around the Nürburgring. If you’re interested
you might like to take a look at the Nürburgring web page.
I wonder what sort of time an FPV or HSV machine would set for getting around the Ring. In my hands
it would be a little slower, however in the right hands they would probably give a few of the top sedans a run for their money.
A great You Tube watch is Russia’s version of how Top Gear should be done. They were able to take an
automatic version of Hyundai’s rear-wheel-drive Genesis 3.8-litre V6 Coupe around the Nürburgring – and pass some quick Porsche GT3 cars along the way.
If you are keen on seeing how quick your car is, why don’t you get in touch with your local race circuit and arrange a time to smoke your wheels over their tarmac, so to speak.
They are generally more than happy to accommodate a few hot laps in a time that suits their schedule. Besides,
everyone needs to experience how to control a slide; wouldn’t you say?
Honda Cuts Prices
No, we’re not claiming credit for this! But call it a co-incidence that our price comparison survey preceded Honda’s announcement of a considerable price cut on some of the models in its range.
The popular Honda Jazz has been reduced by between $1400 and $2000, the CR-V has been cut by $2900 to $3400 and the Odyssey people mover has been reduced by a very substantial $2890 to $3570. That’s good news for the Australian car buyer. Let’s hope others follow suit!
Level 2, 9 Help Street