laderoboter

Though the deployment date for these units is still to be determined, Volkswagen has developed a concept for a seamless, mobile electric-vehicle charging scheme for use in parking garages and similar spaces that will automatically locate and re-fuel cars in need, carrying their banked power in battery wagons to where it’s needed.
Once ready to integrate the system in a given location, it would be relatively easy to set up without much change to existing infrastructure and electric-vehicle owners wouldn’t feel the need to compete for a limited number of charging points or fight over a reserved parking space.  Such helpful robots could even patrol metered-parking in urban centres from the sidewalks, searching for automobiles in need of topping-up.

model-t

Via Kottke, we learn that in 1966 that the Ford Motor Company developed a concept pickup truck called Ranger II, whose chassis not only bears a passing resemblance to the Cybertruck (previously here and here) but also included features like an unbreakable windshield. Hopefully Tesla’s design will emerge successfully from the drawing-room and on to road-worthiness.

racing stripes

A clever artist at a forum dedicated to the aesthetics of Vaporwave (previously) has made the Cybertruck a bit friendlier and less severe with a splash of Solo Jazz, a 1992 teal and purple design pattern created by Gina Ekiss, having since achieved cult status, for paper cups and plates.

low poly

In addition to the all-terrain mobile unit as an accessory to Elon Musk’s newly released prototype Cybertruck—which people joke looks like a computer rendering from a time when graphics processing with polygon mesh (see also) wasn’t nearly so advanced as it is presently—will have the optional package outfitting the cargo bed as a pop-up camper for exploring the actual outdoors and not CGI side-scrolling.
What do you think? Critics are bashing the design, forgetting about the experimental wedged wonders of the Italian automotive tradition that were all the rage not so long ago, but we’d seriously support getting such a car for our next vehicle—especially considering a range of nearly eight hundred kilometres to a charge and over-engineered performance that allows the truck to zip about faster than finest luxury cars, not to mention the target price that’s half of the suggested manufacturer’s asking-price.

ampelmännchen

Introduced in East Berlin on this day in 1961, the “little traffic light man” was the product of extensive research and experimentation on the part of safety planner and vehicular relations psychologist Karl Peglau (*1927 – †2009), whom had wanted to make stop lights differentiated not only by colour but also by shape to provide cues to the not insignificant portion of the population who were colour-blind—seeing his vision realised in one aspect at least.
Modelled off a candid image taken of the then Politbüro member who organised the building of the Berlin Wall, future long-term general secretary Erich Honecker, sporting a jaunty straw hat, the icons’ two poses, walking briskly and arms akimbo signalled to pedestrians when it was safe to cross. After reunification, East German street and traffic signage was dismantled in efforts to standardise typefaces and the Ampelmännchen nearly succumbed to the same fate but was saved (with many tributes—here and here for example) due to the intervention of a soap opera and the symbol was made a mascot of East Germany and Ostalgie.

a proper miniature car

On this day in 1959, the British Motor Corporation (BMC) launched its iconic, signature Mini, conceived by Greco-British automotive designer Sir Alec Issigonis (*1906 – †1988), commissioned to produce a domestic “proper miniature car” in response to the import of German and Italian bubble cars.
Aggressively marketed with celebrity-endorsement and some two-thousand exemplars exported to a hundred countries to coincide with the premiere of the Mark I—meant to satisfy demand for a stylish car responsive to the need for fuel economy set off by the Suez Crisis a few years earlier, the original model and later iterations acquired dozens of monikers and pet names including the Morris Mini Minor, the Wolsesey Hornet, the Riley Elf, the Innocenti Mini and the Austin Panther.

wedged wonders

We really enjoyed reviewing this alluring photo-session from Docubyte (the moniker of James Ball) who captured the aura of the golden age of Italian avant-garde automotive design in the collections of the carrozzeria of Turin, Milan and Marese.  Many of the profile vehicles were never put into mass-production, like this angular Ferrari 512 Modulo by Paolo Martin that debuted at the 1970 World Expo in Osaka, and represent one-of-a-kind experimentation.

ferrari veicoli speciali

Messy Nessy Chic directs our attention to the adorable off-road Ferves Ranger.  Introduced at the 1966 Salone dell‘Automobile di Torino, the four-wheeler (there was both a passenger and a cargo version) with an open chassis and Fiat motor notably had a left-hand drive and six hundred models were produced until the manufacturer ceased operations in 1970.

powertrain

Among the items and lots going under the hammer this summer, auction-watcher Messy Nessy Chic reports is this pristine 1964 Peel Trident, a British microcar and a product of Manx engineering, the estimated forty-five to fifty-five models made mostly going to the mainland.
Originally priced at £190 and with fuel efficiencies of just under three litres per one hundred kilometres and touted as nearly cheaper than walking, the smallest car in the world was perhaps a little ahead of its time and interest waned among the driving and dashing public (the car had a detachable shopping basket and was primarily meant for quick city errands). Manufacturing operations resumed in 2011 in Nottingham, creating custom electric and petrol models for individual clients. Learn more and inspect other lots and properties up for auction at the link above.

hello light

Attempting to reform and reclaim its reputation after the misleading missteps that influenced the purchasing decisions of many drivers, going for diesel-fuelled models believing that they were far cleaner and more efficient than they were in reality, Volkswagen is acknowledging its past transgressions and lack of candour with an advertising campaign that references its older reputation—making lemonade out of lemons.
The new series of commercials debut the long-awaited production of the microbus (see also), reborn as a fully electric vehicle. I hope that the company has learned a valuable lesson in transparency and can again lead the industry towards better transparency and accountability and that they are earnest in their new direction. What do you think? Just the other day, however, I caught the tail end of a comment from company executives reportedly pressing governments to reverse the mothballing of nuclear plants (a fraught decision in itself but also a pledge) so they’ll be sufficient energy to power its electric fleet, which was a bit discouraging to hear and might be yet another wedge that big business can hold up as an excuse not to reform or take responsibility.

konzeptfahrzeug

Debuting at the 1970 Geneva Motor Show (Genfer Autosalon), this transalpine-influenced concept vehicle, the 2200 TI Garmisch, designed by the legendary automotive free-lancer Marcello Gandini (the Lamborghini Miura, the Countach and the Lancia Stratos as well as the original 5-series) was seemingly shelved in favour of other projects by BMW—until, that is, its recent revival with a limited-production run at a car show in Villa d’Este, Tivoli.
The minimalistic dashboard and instrumentation panel belies the cutting edge of technology, sleek aluminium frame and namesake of town of Garmisch-Partenkirchen, part of the Bavaria Motor Works home state but exotic and a part of that spirit of Alpine exchange evokes adventure. See more at Design Boom at the link above.

invisible hand

In an act of solidarity, drivers who are working a side hustle for the major ride hailing companies exploit the algorithm of supply-and-demand and simultaneously cut off communication to make their dispatchers believe there’s few to no drivers available and thus creating a surge in fares—the drivers’ only means to eke out a profit in what would otherwise be a money-losing errand. This particular union serves travellers at a Washington, DC airport, timing their walk-out to coincide with incoming flights and reconnect after letting dispatch sweat it out for a few minutes and boost the fare price. It is unclear how long such a scheme can continue to take advantage of the tariff model or whether such methods are effective or encourage more grift and graft.

kestää käytössä

We enjoyed watching this early 1970s commercial from Finland for the new Lada 1200 (domestically known as the ВАЗ-2101 or as “Kopeyka,” one one-hundredth of a ruble) but take heed as replaying it may summon a demon.

uncanny cruiser

Via the always intriguing Things magazine, while we are still trying to adapt to and come to terms with the idea of wholly convincing composite people generated by a neural network enforced through machine-learning, we discover a slightly less menacing though disorientating all the same nuance with hypothetical motor vehicles (relatedly) that only exist virtually and are the product of robot day-dreams. At the same time this roadworthy experiment was being conducted, the neural network tried its hand at a dataset of images of hotel, bed-and-breakfast rooms to create the ideal, average guest accommodations—mostly bedspreads and mountains of pillows. The programme is still learning and we are not sure of the parameters but perhaps once this algorithm gets fantastic coaches right, it will be able to engineer concept vehicles that surpass passenger expectations. Much more to consider and to explore at the links above.

no₂

With the season of annual superlatives upon us, we quite enjoyed this curated gallery culled from the submissions to the National Geographic Photography Competition. The grand prize went to Jassen Todorov, violinist, photographer and flight instructor, who snapped this stunningly tragic image of thousands of automotive exiles, mothballed in the Mojave Desert.
An aircraft boneyard is just out of the frame and the assembled field of cars represent just a fraction of the millions that had to be idled. These Volkswagens and Audis from the model years 2009 to 2015 were not only not compliant with US Environmental Protection Agency and EU emissions for nitrogen oxides and carbon dioxide standards but the engines were moreover designed to cheat—with so called defeat devices—during trials to pass testing. This is certainly a powerful and iconic reminder on how we all pay dearly for something so cheaply underestimated. See more stirring winners and worthies at the link up top.

7x7

font specimen: a look at the vintage typeface “Choc” that’s come to dominate storefronts all over—via Slashdot

ionic wind: world’s first solid-state aircraft takes flight

southern exposure: the Moon’s orientation flips depending on whether a terrestrial viewer is north or south of the equator

gas, food, lodging: business rules for US interstate next-exit signage—via TYWKIWDBI

wysiwyg: digitally editing reality by Vladimir Tomin

franksgiving: for those of you for whom the holiday snuck up on you, the year of multiple Thanksgiving observances

blue note release: crafting the iconic covers of 1950s and 60s jazz albums 

oldtimers

Previously H and I had enjoyed touring the sister campus in Speyer where a 747 and the Buran, the Soviet version of the Space Shuttle, are on display and recently redeeming one of H’s birthday gifts, we got to take a look at the sprawling museum, amusement park and cinema das Auto- und Technikmuseum Sinsheim, the largest private exhibit in Europe that curates some three hundred classic automobiles (Oldtimers auf Deutsch), forty racing cars, thirty locomotives, one hundred and fifty tractors, dozens of player pianos and calliopes plus over sixty aircraft, including the two supersonic commercial planes built the Anglo-French Concorde and the Russian Tupolev Tu-144, visible when passing by on the Autobahn.

The vast halls contained a really impressive amount of Mercedes (including some infamous ones custom-made for Benito Mussolini and Heinrich Himmler) and some extraordinary Maybachs produced for the anonymously, forgotten well-off, with a significant portion maintained in fully-function condition.

Also on display for inspection were an original model DeLorean and a motorised unicycle from 1894, whose time has come around again. Of course the exhibits are worth marvelling at and pretending to sit in the driver’s seat and quite a few are up for demonstration, but moreover it’s something inspired to think about the level and depth of engineering that went into each of these machines, some three thousand all told.

type 57

Last week, we were taken for a test drive in a porcelain Bugatti called L’Or Blanc (White Gold) and now we are given a demonstration of another fully-functional Bugatti model—a Chiron supercar—that was almost entirely built from LEGO Technics pieces, over a million assembled by hand.
The car is a legacy brand first founded by Ettore Bugatti in the city of Molsheim in 1909 that produced a line of high performance luxury and racing automobiles through the 1950s when the company went bankrupt and the factory acquisitioned for the aviation industry. Bugatti saw a comeback in the 1990s when the name and distinctive chassis style saw a revival, with Volkswagen engineering the Chiron, two-seated sports car, which was revealed for the first time at the Geneva Motor Show in 2016. See footage of both cars in action at the links above.

иж 2125

Arms manufacturer Kalashnikov is apparently diversifying its business and has presented its version of an electric automobile capable of speeds upwards of eighty kilometres per hour and a range of three hundred and fifty kilometres per charge called the CV-1.
The chassis is based on the classic IZh 2125 (ИЖ-2125), nicknamed “Kombi,” which was produced in the Soviet Union from 1973 until 1997. Considered the country’s first hatchback, the “Комби” stood for combination but referenced the Combi coupé make and model, which in German signifies a station wagon (an estate car) though the Russian term for that design of body is universal (универса́л).

horseless carriage

Although very much retold from an America perspective, it was nonetheless interesting to consider the etymological journey we embarked on to get to the colloquial term car (from cart)—automobile, a French convention ultimately with Greek roots, being a technical, industry term (similar to the formal German PKW—Personnen Kraftfahrzeuge) that’s only used in North America. Of the early trade names suggested before reaching a critical mass and adopting a standard name, early media coverage referred to prototypes as the Motorig, Buggyaut, Tonneau, the Diamote and the Mocole—among others.  Be sure to visit Jalopnik at the link above to discover more car-related cul-de-sacs and points-of-departure.