Piers Daniell

With the Geneva motor show into full swing it is obvious that the whole car industry has gone mad. While it was funny to watch ‘green’ people go out in their thousands and buy Toyota and Hondas with a hybrid engine, I was much more impressed with the likes of BMW being able to demonstrate better economy, emissions, acceleration and cost without the need to move to hybrid. Now however, even they are looking it at it, along with the likes of Ferrari and Porsche. I would have thought these companies would understand the complex design make them expensive, and with anti 4×4 campaigners saying SUVs are too heavy as they carry around all their four wheel drive bits, a car with two engines is equally ill-conceived.

Unfortunately, the word ‘hybrid’ sells, and while politicians jump on the bandwagon the idea of having city centres emission free starts to become a reality. And these performance brands know if they don’t innovate the will be stuck with cars that people can’t buy because they won’t be allowed to go anywhere. It is all moving towards an electric future and even a hydrogen fuel-cell future, where cars wiz around emitting nothing apart from water vapours. I’ll skip past the point that water vapour is not very kind to the atmosphere, and get straight onto the practicalities. Electric cars can’t go very far, and while improvements are being made, it is still an issue that will last many years, along with the time consuming refuelling process. Hydrogen on the other hand delivers an immediate refuelling process, although it has to be stored below minus 270 degrees and we have no infrastructure with which to support it. This brings me onto a different technology that has been around for generations, one that solves all these problems, but seems to have been forgotten about.

Methanol was demonstrated by Lotus four years ago as the fuel of the future. Being a liquid at room temperature it can be stored like petrol and even has a higher octane level (100). It can be burned in engines or used in fuel cells (to keep the greens happy) but ultimately could be very easily supported by our existing infrastructure. And as Lotus can demonstrate, you can even use it at the same you’re your car is filled with petrol, giving us a better solution than carrying around two engines. It can be produced in vast quantities from natural gas (still much lower carbon than oil), or made by mixing hydrogen and carbon from the atmosphere making it carbon neutral. The problem is that none of the big car makers have got behind it and so it remains a rare and undeveloped opportunity. Let’s hope someone out there makes them see sense.

As we are in the depths of another snow storm I thought it would be a good opportunity to discuss the merits of my car again! I have covered the engine and DSG gearbox in previous posts but now there is another part which is making a real impact at the moment. Audi has always had a reputation for rallying and one of their major developments out of the sport in 1980 was their Quattro technology.

By delivering power only to the wheels that have the most grip means it is one of the most intelligent four-wheel-drive systems currently available. Driving back from the Cotswolds on the weekend I was wondering if it was working as I hadn’t seen any flashy lights on the dash, until I got out of the car and promptly slipped over. I honestly struggled to get back in the car and had driven, at not an insignificant pace, across the country without realising exactly how treacherous it was.

The secret behind Quattro is the Hadlex clutch which moves power between the front and rear axles as required. ESP and other systems then brake each wheel to ensure only those with grip actually spin. It is a similar system deployed on soft roaders from VW and other manufactures, Volvo for one, I know have used this technology extensively with their AWD and XC cars. It is a brilliant piece of technology and one I am surprised more people don’t invest in. Mercedes for example have ‘4matic’ and BMW ‘xdrive’ which are available in all their salon models on the continent but unavailable, for some reason, in the UK.

If as a country we aren’t going to switch to winter tyres during these now wintery months then I believe there is going to be more of a demand for four-wheel-drive in our regular cars. It is incredible what a difference it makes and now will reduce my choice for future cars when I look for a replacement – happily though both the R8 and Bugatti have this system in place as standard.

I recently hired a BMW 1 series while visiting Austria and surprisingly liked the car. As an avid reader of anything car I had perceived it to be rubbish and badly designed. However after spending a good half an hour trying to start it (and I would consider myself somewhat of a techie so god help those who aren’t!) I found it a great car to drive. It is pretty tight inside because of the rear wheel drive packaging but I could live with that because the technical advances were very impressive. Remember this is a standard 1.8 diesel but still manages to outperform a hybrid car such as a Toyota Prius in terms of performance but also real world mpg. The whole week cost me €30 in fuel and I wasn’t hanging around.

Features such as the engine turning off when stationary, clever aerodynamics and low resistance tires help, but most advances must be accredited to the diesel engine. Ultimately I didn’t have to drive like an eco warrior, which made me happy, and it gave me confidence that cars are still going to be fun. Next time I’ll be a little bit more open-minded when reading the reviews…