Nissan Leaf – Driven To Write

Some German Car News

A man walks into a bierhalle… hilarity ensues.

The English language can be difficult enough to understand for those born to it – what chance the hapless non-native speaker dicing with the contrafibularities of cultural differences? How perfidious, Albion.

Comedy is a difficult mare to ride – relevance at risk to hosts of material becoming lost in translation. Anglophile German comedian, Henning Wehn, by example, once extoled upon the difficulties of learning such English idiosyncratic words as Gubbins (meaning possessions or the antecedent to ‘thing-y’). Contrary to that hackneyed old saw, our German friends are not only adept at comedy, they can also mine that more difficult vein of irony for good measure, as a (fairly) recent trawl through AutoCropley laid abundantly and amusingly bare.

In no particular order, since comedy can be dark just as well as light hearted, we look to our Stuttgart stooges, Mercedes-Benz and their G-Wagen. Well, not directly, since the German tuning firm, Posaidon (their spelling) have deemed it necessary to Continue reading “Some German Car News”

Amping It Up

European EV sales are on the rise, but the internal combustion hegemony remains for now at least, unassailable.

The electric age is just around the corner, just as it has been for some time now. Despite the fact that it patently is the legislative-default future direction of travel, and that regardless of whether we are early, late, enthusiastic or reluctant adopters (or should that be adaptors?) of the automotive EV, we’re getting them anyway. But not quite yet.

Over the first six months of 2019, sales of dedicated electric cars have been on the rise, as one might expect, illustrating (it is said), greater acceptance from customers than the plug-in hybrid model currently favoured by most of the auto industry, at least until they can place their electrified ducks in a row. (A clumsy and frankly dangerous metaphor, for which I apologise).

But is not my intent today to Continue reading “Amping It Up”

Leading the Charge

Electric cars are coming. But when are we going to be presented with one we might actually want to buy?

Coming never to an Audi dealer near you. AiCon. Image: autoblog

During a recent conversation with an automotive design commentator and critic I pointed out that motor manufacturers had so far failed to create a truly desirable electric car. He agreed, suggesting they appear stuck at the Blackberry phase and that their i-phone moment has yet to occur. He isn’t wrong, as this week’s deluge of concepts and production cars illustrates. On one extreme we have Audi’s Frankfurt-fodder Aicon, which as implausible flights of conceptual fancy go, is about on point and on the other we have the 2018 Nissan Leaf, which takes retrenchment to new levels of jaded whatever.

One of the advantages of a pure electric car is that by taking the engine and powertrain out of the equation, the entire architecture of the vehicle can Continue reading “Leading the Charge”

Social Signifiers

Which cars are for today’s ophthalmologists, vets and professors of Medieval law?

For Prof. Castiglione (c) lautomobile.aci.it

About three decades ago certain makers sold cars for easily identifiable groups in society. Saabs were for well-paid university lecturers. Citroen could appeal to the Francophile and arty middle-class man. Lancia sold to intellectuals and business men who probably saw their work as a vocation. Humber appealed to bank managers of the bigger branches. But today, these brands are gone or unrecognisable

I was trying to Continue reading “Social Signifiers”