Getting Hacked Off

Suddenly, the ending of the brilliant video in my post from earlier this month makes more sense.

The car that fascinates the two Spocks is this self-driving Audi TT:

This car raises two important questions: 

• Do self-driving Audis tailgate other self-driving cars?
• Will a 14-year-old from Indonesia one day be able to hack into self-driving cars?

 Actually, that second question raises even more questions.

 

The question itself, was first asked by a US senator as told to us by Autoguide today.

 

It's a bit scary when you think about it - especially if you live in Indonesia where most 14-year-old Indonesians come from.

 

Imagine you're on you way home from work, reading the evening newspaper or playing Tetris or having a quiet doze while your self-driving car is doing the important stuff when you suddenly find yourself driving through your local branch of Sainsburys (or Wal-Mart or Hero).

 

Technology in lots of modern cars will make them vulnerable for hacking whether it is upgrading the e.c.u. for more power or something more sinister altogether.

 

Self-driving cars themselves have progressed in leaps and bounds in the last decade with some help from the DARPA Grand Challenge with cars like this VW Passat...

 ...through to Google's self-driving Toyota Prius...

Such cars are now legal on the roads in several US States.

I'm rather glad they aren't here in the UK yet though.

Not that we aren't working on the same thing - check this out.

But, apart from nervousness about a computer controlling a ton or two of metal on the loose, I actually enjoy driving and don't want to ever lose out on that.

Plus, what about those Indonesian kids?

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly...and The Beautiful and the Blobby

All, and when I say "All", I Mean "ALL" of the car press today are going on about the 2013 Geneva Motor Show.  The show opens on Thursday in, of all places, Geneva.

But they've let the press in already.

Very much as I'd love to be there with them, I cannot be for various reasons including work commitments, family commitments, finances, logistics and the fact that I'm not a real journalist.

So I have to pick apart what they are all reporting.

Let's start with the good. That would be The Mitsubishi CE-MiEV.

This is the much-better follow-up to the i-MiEV.  Autocar cover it here.  It is an electric car with better range and recharging times than the i-MiEV but still not as good as the Silex Power Chreos.

 

Most importantly, though, it doesn't look stupid like the i-MiEV - actually, I think it looks a lot like a Prius.  But not as good looking as Mitsubishi's other offering at the show, the GR-HEV:

A futuristic- looking  hybrid pick-up with a one-tonne payload.

 

OK, so that's the "good", evironmentally friendly and all that, now for the "bad".  I don't mean "bad" as in "not good", I mean "bad" in the Michael Jackson way.

 

Now, I don't mean "Michael Jackson way" as in the dodgy allegations that saw him in Court, I mean the "Michael Jackson way" as in the 1987 album he called "Bad".

 

Now that's clarified, I expected the "baddest" car at Geneva to be the McLaren P1 but it seems to have had the headlines taken off it by the Rolls-Royce Wraith. 

Here's one of Autoguide's stories on it. It is described as the most powerful Rolls ever. I'd say it would be a bit of a Bentley-worrier. They claim it's in a different price-bracket but I think it's a lot more attractive and should appeal to the Cheshire set - it's only the suicide-doors that I don't like. It also has a neat headlining inside which looks like a starry sky at night. It has been done before but will give that "out in a cabriolet on a warm Summer's evening" feeling that everyone loves so much.

 

Don't they?

 

Oh well, even so, it does look appealing.

 

Which brings me neatly round to...

 

...THE UGLY!

Not sure what the man in the photo is doing.  That thing is a Toyota i-Road.  It's an electric three-wheeler, two-seater much in the vein of the Renault Twizy.  And the glass doors means it shares a problem with the Twizy in that people will be able to see you driving it.  I've read a few reviews of the Twizy being tested in the UK and each time the reviewer has commented about derogatory remarks being shouted at him.  Now I can't possibly condone such action. 

 

But I can well understand it.

 

Now to "the beautiful".  When I read this article in caradvice.com.au about the ItalDesign Giugiaro Parcour concept, I immediately thought of  the Silex Power Chreos in as much as it is a pretty, computer-generated car:

However, if this is vapour-ware, it is very solid because here are some people having a good, close look at it...

I think it is gorgeous and very reminiscent of the supercars of my childhood in the '70s.

 

That was a time when ItalDesign were doing their only other work that I am aware of - ie, the squaring off of the Morris Marina to produce the Morris Ital:

Also, the peak time for Ford to be producing the Escort.  I keep thinking they've started again because I keep seeing stories about this car at Geneva:

It's the Ford EcoSport - which looks like "Escort" when you're flicking through car stories.  This car looks nothing like an Escort, though. It looks like a tall Ford Kuga - the Ford Kuga it will be replacing as opposed to the bigger "World Car" Ford Kuga that seems to have replaced the outgoing Ford Kuga here in The UK.  Confusing eh?

 

So, in summary, that's the 2013 Geneva Motor Show.  You don't need to go now.

Carpool

I'd never heard of this before but a new series starts on the Dave channel this Thursday involving Robert Llewelyn (Red Dwarf, Scrapheap Challenge) driving a different celebrity guest around in a Toyota Prius each week whilst interviewing them.

It's actually not that new because he's being making these shows for ages as Internet-only shows. I found his site and found a whole load of them to view. I watched the Phill Jupitus one and the David Mitchell one which were enjoyable - the PJ one was too sweary for inclusion in my Blog so I've embedded the one where Robert interviews my favouritest smarmy person - motoring journalist Quentin Willson:

There's a lot of pro-electric car stuff in that episode but it's done in such a way, by at least one petrol-head (Willson), that you can actually see the logic in the arguments and if the loony eco-mafia types had this sort of mentality instead, there'd probably be a lot less scepticism and disdain and milk-float references aimed at the whole electric car movement.

The previous guests on his show seem to be a varied mix of people with Sir Patrick Stewart probably the most famous. There's also nearly the full set of Robert's colleagues from Red Dwarf - so next time I've half-an-hour to kill, I may just give this a go.