Jargon

A “Growth Partnership Company (which) works in collaboration with clients to leverage visionary innovation that addresses the global challenges and related growth opportunities that will make or break today's market participants,” makes me suspicious. It “supports clients by addressing these opportunities and incorporating two key elements driving visionary innovation: The Integrated Value Proposition and The Partnership Infrastructure. (This) provides support to our clients throughout all phases of their journey to visionary innovation including: research, analysis, strategy, vision, innovation and implementation. (It) is entirely unique as it constructs the foundation upon which visionary innovation becomes possible. This includes our 360 degree research, comprehensive industry coverage, career best practices as well as our global footprint of more than 40 offices. For more than 50 years, we have been developing growth strategies for the global 1000, emerging businesses, the public sector and the investment community. Is your organization prepared for the next profound wave of industry convergence, disruptive technologies, increasing competitive intensity, Mega Trends, breakthrough best practices, changing customer dynamics and emerging economies?”

How do they expect to be taken seriously with such cliché-ridden verbiage? It almost goes without saying that it’s an agency engaged on selling us electric car stuff. It claims “the European Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure Market is Becoming Increasingly Self Sustaining. Market to be bolstered by improved strategic access to charging stations and development of robust business models. The electric vehicle (EV) charging industry in Europe is in the midst of transformation, with the focus on ramping up EV charging infrastructure for the rapidly expanding EV market. Significant growth is on the cards as participants from various verticals such as industrial automation, utilities, parking operators and infrastructure operators enter the fray. This development is also set to help the EV market wean itself off government subsidies and incentives, while becoming increasingly self-sustaining.”

“I have seen the future, and it works,” trilled American journalist and social activist Lincoln Steffens (1866-1936). He had been to Russia in 1919 and the Revolution was still new. Many dotty luminaries followed, persuaded by Soviet minders that collectivism was a success, fulfilling their Fabian visions.

Well, Russia was not the future. It didn’t work.

Idealists only want their prejudices approved and electric car enthusiasts who only think that after a bit of research the battery “problem” will be solved are as deluded as the promoters of the electric car vehicle charging infrastructure. I’ve lost count of the Great Electric Car initiatives that have come and gone. Some have failed expensively and publicly once their glib opportunistic entrepreneurs have soaked up subsidies and investments by stupid governments and Greenie authorities.

“New analysis, Strategic Technology and Market Analysis of Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure in Europe, finds that the market for EV charging stations is expected to grow rapidly from 7,250 charging stations in 2012 to over 3.1 million by 2019 at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 113.3 per cent over the period 2012-2019. France, Germany, Norway and the United Kingdom are expected to lead the market due to the high adoption rates of EVs in these countries. The availability of charging infrastructure plays a vital role in ensuring that EVs maintain their growth momentum. This, in turn, means easy access to charging stations to eliminate range anxiety and ensure that EV users have the freedom to drive for longer periods of time.”

I won’t bother you with the identity of the growth partnership purveyor. It wasn’t Elektromotive, whose charging stations are featured in the pictures. Search 360 degree, comprehensive industry coverage, career best practices, global footprint.

I see the “annual” London to Brighton electric car challenge has been cancelled.

Blaming speed.

Blaming speed for car accidents is a bit like blaming altitude for aircraft crashes. A stationary car, like an aeroplane that never leaves the ground, is perfectly safe. Speed of some sort is inseparable from both, cars can do a lot of damage at 10mph, and lowering speed limits (like lowering altitude) does not always remove danger. It would be nice to think that 30mph is safe, and the slower you go the safer you are, but road behaviour is subtler than that.

Enforcing current limits is difficult enough, experience shows drivers generally go along with those they believe fair and necessary, but trying to decrease them may be counter-productive. I once talked to a traffic policeman, who patrolled a notorious A-class highway on which nine fatal accidents occurred in seven years. Progressively lessening speed limits made no difference. Limits were enforced vigorously yet a tenth death only served to emphasise authorities’ bafflement. All the available expertise seemed to offer no solution.

He agreed that the trouble probably lay in the piecemeal nature of the road, which had open, well-engineered stretches alternating with narrow twisting, heavily trafficked ones. The change of pace and interruptions to drivers’ and riders’ concentration were closer to the root of the problem than further speed limits. They already encompassed 60mph, 50mph. and 40mph. Of course drivers ought not to lose concentration, but in such matters of life and death we have to deal with the real world, not the world as we would like it to be.

Anti-speed lobbyists have become so shrill that their perfectly worthy aim of improved safety is lost in a speeding driver scapegoat-search, with the unfortunate (and wholly acceptable to a parsimonious government) side-effect, of diverting attention from road improvements to re-engineer that policeman’s beat, giving him fewer grisly and unhappy messes to clear up.

Full marks to Honda for its support, with a CR-V, for the Scottish helicopter ambulance service.

Which? complaints

Which? claims nine drivers in ten think cars should have spare wheels. That means nine drivers out of ten are either living in the Dark Ages of the motor car, or drive something old with worn-out wheels. They think they may need to get the Stepney out and affix it by the roadside. Don’t they realise life’s not like that now?

They don’t trust tyres. They trust engines and transmissions. They don’t carry a spare gearbox or camshaft belt, yet these are as likely to fail as a modern properly inflated tyre. Dear me yes father always had a spare wheel in the boot or, in our first Wolseley, in a metal casing on the outside of what would have been the boot lid. There it got wet, rusty, and was usually flat when you needed it. Come to think of it the cleverly named Jackall (jack-all, geddit) hydraulic jacking system you worked by pumping a handle through a hole in the floor didn’t always lift the wheels off the ground. Punctures left a Bad Taste.

Which? readers are cross because rascally car manufacturers provide a repair kit which is, “more expensive if you get a puncture because you’ll have to replace the sealant and the tyre each time you get a flat.” Each time. Scandalous. Furthermore, “Tyres can’t be repaired due to the chemicals in sealants. Water-based sealants, such as Honda’s, can be flushed out to allow a repair but only a franchised dealer can do this.” Disgrace. A Vauxhall Astra canister can cost £50 and a new tyre £148. “Conversely, fixing a simple puncture costs roughly £15.”

Which planet is Which? living on? The only people who seriously repair punctures nowadays must be driving very slowly on spindly tyres. Back in the Dark Ages we did drive until the canvas showed through. (I heard a TV Formula 1 commentator say that not long ago – he must have been a Dark Ages survivor too). But it was different with skinny tyres and slow speeds. “Give me a full-sized spare wheel anytime. I’ll put up with the weight and the slightly smaller boot space,” complain Which? readers. “I recently had a puncture and found my car has no spare wheel. Having to spend £200 on a new tyre was a bit much. A total rip-off especially if the tyre has thousands of miles left in it.” How do you suddenly discover your car has no spare wheel? Do people not look? Drivers like that should be condemned to drive on skinny Dark Ages tyres that last 50,000 miles so they will skid on the wet cobbles and get killed.

Nine Which? drivers out of ten have no idea how far we have come in tyre technology.

Pictures: TOP Continental Tyres 140th anniversary BELOW Wolseley 14 MIDDLE Dark Ages. Even record breakers carried spares. In 1924 Malcolm Campbell’s Bluebird (a 350hp Sunbeam, here with stub exhausts) changed wheels between runs at Pendine. Boards prevent narrow tyres sinking into wet sands. Which? tyre test class winner. ContiSportContact3. BOTTOM Continental Tyres Cord: Moscow Fashion Designer creates a new trend. Pictures from splendid Newspress.

Louis Renault

He may not have been everybody’s tasse de thė but the fate of Louis Renault seems to have been a little severe even by the standards of 1944. After founding the great automotive empire that bears his name, he was unfortunate enough to end his days in Fresnes prison and nobody is quite sure whether the death certificate was being completely frank in claiming it was just old age. He was exhumed 12 years later and they said it was probably pneumonia, but that wasn’t counting the broken neck.

The Affaire Renault was re-examined several times, and was the subject of a book in French by Jean-Paul Thevenet, which suggests that he was not so much a collaborator as merely imprudent, suffering the fate of many Frenchmen at the end of the war meeting his end at the hands of political enemies paying off old scores. The result, so far as France was concerned, was the creation of the Regie Renault with annual losses that reached £lbn in the 1960s.

Renault got into business with his brothers Marcel and Fernand in 1898, when he took the 1.75bhp engine off his De Dion Bouton tricycle and put it to better use in a four wheel car of his own (above). They set up in Billancourt, and between 1899 and 1901 won lots of town-to-town races. Louis was rather better than Marcel, not only winning more often, but managing to keep out of trouble on the 1903 Paris-Madrid in which Marcel got no further than Couhé-Vérac before being killed. (Marcel on the Paris-Madrid)

Fernand died in 1908 so Renault Frères became SA des Usines Renault with Louis in sole and somewhat autocratic charge. One of his engineers Maurice Herbster said he spoke little, made no jokes, didn’t smoke or drink indeed his only passion, apart from the factory was women, of which he seemed to enjoy a lot.

He hated administration, reduced offices to the minimum, and practically forbade tables and chairs, which he regarded only as an incitement to laziness and idle chat. Supervisors were allowed only a small desk on the factory floor with no chair. Where it was noisy they were allowed a box round the desk, but not big enough for two to stand and talk. Even the toilets were made small to discourage reading the paper.

Louis Renault was arrogant and obstinate. He disliked officialdom, and often quarrelled with it, for example when discussing with the army whether it should have 23 tonne or 13.5 tonne tanks. The army wanted the heavier, Renault favoured the lighter. “Je m’en fous, j’en fais un.” - I’ll make them anyway. And he did.

He was also imprudent. At the 1935 Berlin Motor Show he made no secret of his fascination with Hitler and the power he wielded. He had a two hour interview with The Führer which led to comment in France Soir. As late as 1938 he was talking to Hitler about entente between France and Germany, and was enthusing over the concept of the VW, which he wanted to adopt for France.
(Renault tank assembly - the Wehrmacht used thousands) (Reinastella of 1929, when Renault was up-market)
His reputation as a hard- liner with labour followed an ill-judged attempt to beat a strike in 1936. He tried to persuade the workers that he was going to plough the profits back into new plant and it was not in anyone’s interests to have pay rises or shorter hours. L’Humanité denounced him as an exploiter and he had to concede paid holidays, wage rises, and shorter hours.

Renault’s quarrel with the army was remembered in 1939 when Daladier, then Minister of Defence, bought trucks from the United States and Italy. His factories were requisitioned and in view of his suspected Nazi sympathies, he was dispatched to America. The image of Renault as pro-German was taking hold.

Following the occupation he was able to return and set up a tank repair service for the Germans. He was reinstated at Billancourt and the factory was geared for war production. Thevenet claims it was no more than his obsession with keeping things going that made him do it, but the left-wing movement in France, which made up the core of Resistance fighters, thought otherwise.
(Billancourt head office)
He made the mortal mistake of turning down the idea of a discreet Resistance cell within Billancourt. Told that De Gaulle, then leading the Free French from London, would like one, he remarked unforgivably, “De Gaulle, connais pas,” or roughly translated to modern English, “De Gaulle — Who he?”

Well into his 60s, Renault was now exhausted by the war. The Germans wanted more lorries, he didn’t want to be bombed again and suggested Renault trucks be made with Ford cabs to disguise them. He even tried to organise a strike, but the workforce refused, “Le Patron déraille” — the boss is unhinged.
(Bomb damage, Billancourt)
Following the Liberation, L’Humanité was after Renault again. It recalled the 1936 strike, and claimed that while France had been unable to make any weapons for itself, Renault had been producing them for the enemy since 1940. Under a new decree, L’Ordonnance sur Ia repression des faits de collaboration, L ‘Humanité demanded justice against traitors and profiteers of treason. An anonymous letter in the paper called for his arrest and the removal of his Grand Croix de la Legion d’Honneur.

The Berliet family had also been arrested and their truck factory taken over, De Gaulle managing to overcome his distaste for nationalisation by simply looking the other way. Louis Renault was taken to Fresnes prison “for his protection”, where he was guarded by the FTP resistance fighters, his traditional adversaries, not by the regular authorities. It was a brutal regime in Fresnes and his wife found him on several occasions suffering from beatings. By October 1944 he was seriously ill and two psychiatrists diagnosed senile dementia, yet there were inexplicable delays in getting him to hospital.

The official account of what happened to him is vague; the pages in the prison records dealing with Louis Renault are missing.

He died on October 24th.
(Post-war Quatre Cheveaux - the French were so keen on it they kidnapped the imprisoned Dr Porsche to help with the design)
Louis' family remained dissatisfied over the cause of death, and in 1956 his body was exhumed. Forensic evidence suggested pneumonia; there were no skull fractures even though his wife testified he had suffered severe head injuries. It was confirmed however, that there was a fracture of the cervical vertebra, consistent with a rabbit-punch to the back of the neck.

In 1949 an official enquiry found little evidence against Renault himself conceding that he had had little choice but to work for the Germans, and probably his worst fault was his obsession with his factory. A former colleague Fernand Picard observed wryly after Renault’s death, “He was hard, almost inhuman, he was so determined and his lifelong passion was the Usine Renault. Nothing else mattered to him.” Forty years later, he confided, “To have accused him of loving the Germans is absurd. Louis Renault never loved anyone.”
(Racing Renault. Later version of the 1906 grand prix car)

Hyper

Spin doctors and politicians – they are practically interchangeable. With such media hype it’s a wonder we ever get to the truth. Patrick McLoughlin the transport secretary told Sky News yesterday that electric cars were “fantastic”. Nobody contradicted him. Nobody said, “Get a life. It’s not true. It is a myth invented by greenies and political fellow-travellers. Electric cars are dead.”

He claimed: “They’re not town cars at all. They are fantastic cars; they’re built to a very high specification. Take one out and drive it.” Patrick McLoughlin aka Jim Hacker. Yes Minister was no comedy. It was a real life documentary. McLoughlin will be at the Ministry this morning making sure Sir Humphrey saw him on television, announcing a £37 million giveaway for plug-in chargers in homes, streets and railway stations.

The minister trumpeted that people would be increasingly attracted to electric cars, because charging batteries at home would be cheaper and faster than buying fuel at a filling station. What claptrap. He admitted confidence in electric cars would take time but the same was true of unleaded petrol.
“Buying a car is expensive, but I think if you look at the overall time and money you save by not having to put fuel in them, they are very serious competitors,” he said. “I’m pretty sure there will be a market. It’s a lot cleaner technology as well.” Who spun him all this rubbish? We have been listening to such bleats for a quarter of a century and there are still only a handful of electric cars.
He was careful to backtrack on numbers, “I’m not going to make a prediction of exactly how many cars are going to be on the roads or whether they’ll be electric or petrol. It’ll take a while to get the confidence about battery life. But it’s coming. They are fantastic developments and fantastic achievements by companies operating in Britain and being built by British engineers.”

Poor McLoughlin. He warbled on that since Nissan and Toyota are investing “huge amounts of money” in electric vehicles they would not be doing so if they did not believe a potential market existed. He obviously had no idea a Prius is a hybrid, and nobody told him Toyota has just scrapped plans for an electric minicar. Toyota said it had misread the market, didn’t believe battery technology was up to it and will go for hydrogen instead.

Right dress

Brussels motor show was told to put more clothes on its girls. Last year, it seems, there was some lewd behavior by visitors, prompting Belgium's equal opportunities minister Joelle Milquet to address the organizers protesting about women in body-hugging outfits. “We have to question the stereotypes we are passing on to children and young adults." The organisers passed on the complaint, inviting carmakers to ensure appropriate dress. "We asked them to be responsible and sensible and we hope that everything will go well," a spokesman said. See GT Spirit.com, and below to confirm the result. Above right: Geneva 2008. Surprising what you find underneath wheel arches.