A biweekly roundup of automotive news, good, bad and just plain weird:
Toyota takes aim at the moon
While electric vehicles tend to grab most of the headlines these days, fuel-cell powered machines have been improving by leaps and bounds. North Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»will be getting its own public hydrogen fuelling station soon, and leasing a fuel-cell vehicle is now a more practical consideration with improved vehicle lifespans.
Toyota has long been pro-hydrogen, leading many to wonder if putting the money into pure electric power wouldn’t be a better idea. As if to prove the point that electricity can only take you so far, Toyota announced this week that they’d formed a partnership with Japan’s space agency to build a fuel-cell rover, bound for the moon.
The ambitious goal for the manned rover is to be put into service by 2029, such that a Toyota vehicle could be roaming about the lunar landscape all through the 2030s. What are the odds it’ll be doing so in the moon’s fast lane with its left blinker on? I’d say pretty high.
Infiniti retreats from Western Europe
Many auto manufacturers have been blaming Brexit for their factory woes. Nissan won’t build the new X-Trail in the U.K. any more, which is a shame as the work would have guaranteed job security for hundreds of workers in Sunderland.
For Infiniti, however, there’s no passing the buck. Nissan’s luxury division just hasn’t been able to break into Western Europe. You can’t blame a lack of customer interest at the feet of a dithering British government. Much as Infiniti would probably like to.
Instead, they’re throwing in the towel. By early next year, the handful of Europeans who were interested in buying an Infiniti product will be out of luck. Looking a few years down the road, Infiniti aims to double down on the Chinese and North American markets. That means fewer small luxury vehicles, more crossovers and electrified passenger cars.
In our own market, Infiniti has really been searching for an identity ever since they got rid of the G37. Having to withdraw from a market hardly counts as a win, but perhaps it’s just the motivation needed to rebuild the brand.
McLaren F1 designer back at work
The best supercar ever made, assuming you don’t want to quibble over pre-war exotica, is most assuredly the McLaren F1. Powered by a BMW V-12, it was meticulously engineered by a company at the top of its Formula One game and, as a result, is probably the finest road car ever made.
The chief genius behind the F1 was Gordon Murray, who is apparently working on a successor to the car. Once again, it’ll have a V-12, and be spun from lightweight carbon-fibre. But that’s not the really exciting bit.
You see, Murray tends to collect sports cars that are lightweight, but not overpowered. The sort of thing that usually has a Lotus badge on the front.
Murray’s T43 Superlight project aims to be just that: super light. With a projected curb weight of 850 kilograms, it’s tinier than a Ford Fiesta ST, and it’ll get a version of that hot hatchback’s turbocharged three-cylinder engine.
Price? Figures are very rough, but Murray is aiming for around the same as a Nissan 370Z. That’s a 215 horsepower car with nimble handling, relatively narrow tires, and an ultra-rigid chassis, designed by the guy who put together a supercar that now costs something like $25 million. Bring on the new modestly powered future of the sportscar.
Toyota testing tear gas for thieves?
As we began with a Toyota designed to drive where you can’t breathe, let’s end with one that might have you choking for air. Similar to a feature available on some Mercedes products, Toyota has just filed a patent for a fragrance dispenser that activates when you drive your car.
Toyota’s system differs in that you can have a custom scent for every driver. Using a profile tied to your smartphone, the car will automatically exude whatever smell you prefer, and then deodorize upon parking, ready to go for the next user.
Now, let’s suppose the next user is a car thief with grand theft auto on his or her to-do list. Why then, Toyota says, how about a nice spritz of eau de riot control? If it detects a hot-wire attempt, Toyota’s system will release tear gas.
Obviously, all this is very much in the conceptual phase, as I can’t see a company as conservative as Toyota suddenly looking to fit tear gas dispensers to the interiors of their Camrys.
But you never know. In the future, you might need to double-check that you haven’t mixed up your keys at the office. You might get Obsession, by Calvin Klein. You might get APEC, by Jean Chrétien.
Watch this space for all the best and worst of automotive news, or submit your own auto oddities to [email protected].
