Diesel - The fuel of Satan

It goes like change a gear-torque arrives-torque goes-change a gear- more smoke- lung cancer!

That guys is the daily chores of every diesel car driver ever. I remember that around 2005 a strange thing happened. Everyone started not liking petrol and bought themselves a diesel car even though the were an unknown number of experts who said that petrol cars are faster, cheaper and more fun to drive. I say unknown because now they drive a diesel car themselves. These experts said diesel burns more slowly and has like a million filters in the exhaust which doesn't emit Carbon dioxide hence they are cleaner.
They obviously forgot about the particle matter and nitrogen oxide that comes out which is highly dangerous.

                                  

Is diesel bad?
Asking diesel is bad right now is like asking that is being stabbed really a bad thing? With all the scandals and governments of cities like New Delhi, Paris and many cities in the U.S. banning it Diesel as it is right now is going through a rough patch but I think diesel is important. There are people in Delhi who drive through the misery of traffic jams, corny radio presenters, cows and lots of pollution and do many kilometers and run their business and ultimately keep the economy going. From trucks to water pumps use the cheap hesitant to ignite fuel and we ultimately eat the same produce but then again they do cause fog and cancer.

So diesel is a horrible fuel? I honestly don't think so. Sticking to road cars they are pretty fun to drive in the city, require less trips to the fuel station and cost us less money. So what is the catch? Why is diesel the official fuel for satan's kitchen? Well there is the whole Volkswagen diesel fiasco, ever increasing air pollution leading to lung cancer and the amount of complexity associated with diesel engine is immense hence increasing the cost. I say diesels are not that bad because the amount of nitrogen and all the bad stuff that 50 cars emit today is equal to the emission of a single car in 1970. Even right now there is a solution available which is injecting urea into the exhaust so that it cleans up all the nitrogen but that is very expensive to fit into all cars and trucks out there. But I believe if we can engineer our way from what we had in 1970 to the present state which we are in, then we can most certainly make it even better.

Indian companies like Tata, Mahindra and Ashok Leyland (makers of trucks and SUVs) are the worst in terms of selling trucks and cars that pollute. So why is there no "Dieselgate" in India? Because they have a very valid excuse. They say we follow all the requirements by the national government. They are correct. They do... But the thing is that our government has set the standard so low that even a retarded horse can make a diesel engine that follows the Bharat Stage as it is nowhere near to what is there is Europe and America. No wonder there are no scams in India related to these car companies and still cities like Bangalore and Delhi are the most polluted.

                                    

Now Mr. Arvind Kejriwal rather hastily introduced the odd-even car scheme i.e, number plates that are divisible with the number 2 will commute on even dates and vice versa. Which by itself is an idiotic idea. It is the sort of idea that is contributed by a 12 year old who has recently consumed a lot of chocolate. To be fair he had to do something as the air quality in Delhi is getting out of control. Honestly you don't even need to smoke a cigarette to get lung cancer. The city does that for you.

As I said this plan by itself isn't up to any good but what if you combine this with a little bit of, what people call these days "Smart innovation" or " Intelligent Road Management System" and all other shite name they give to almost everything. I like to call it common sense. The traffic situation is bad and it is bad because there is no monitoring of cars. The cars just come in like a flood. Whereas cars should come out of a pipe. In controlled and short bursts. Red lights and traffic police are okay at doing this but there is only so much that 3 light bulbs and a frustrated aam admi who wanted to be a policeman but now is standing on the road dealing with idiots who think the red light is for pussies and Samajwadi Party is their favorite political party. You get the picture don't you!


Now the solution is fit every car and truck as standard from the factory with a Radar. This radar much like your credit card or metro card will be activated when you go through certain area at a certain time. Every congestion prone area will be fitted with a gate effectively that can scan the radar fitted in your car. Similar to what is the Delhi metro. Whenever your pass through the gate you are charged with what is effectively green tax and will be on your drivers license. If you do not pay your last three due green tax the radar it will automatically send signal to the authority and send a lovely note on your address reminding you to stop being a cock and pay the fine and use public transport.

                                            

 For example people go to Connaught place for shopping on a Saturday evening and obviously they use their car instead of using the metro which is present almost every where now and drops you directly into the heart of Connaught place. Now if citizens are posh and that they think they don't travel with other pesky humans in the metro or the bus they can very well pay the congestion charge and enjoy their drive.

Some of the areas which this can be applied could be Connnaught Place, Tilak Nagar, Chandni Chowk, Dhaula Kuan, Karol Bagh market, Gurgoan in the evening. What this will do is encourage people to use public transport, make the markets car free, reduce pollution and most importantly divides traffic like a pipe with water coming out of it would do. Controlled and in short bursts! If you reduce cars that go to these major choking points of the city you will reduce the traffic on the roads that lead to these places which then leads to less pollution

The money generated by this should be used by the government to build more roads, employ more people as traffic police, make BRT corridors (which can be extremely successful if it is done properly) and most importantly plant more trees.


Now I know very well that this idea will get criticism because there is the pride of people and money involved, but you won't have your pride or money if your health is on the line. Also it will be quite a tough job for the government to pull this off because it will require investment and honest management of money. Building new and updating existing data centers, drastic improvement in DTC buses and the Delhi metro working at the sort of capacity and efficiency by which a Japanese rail manager would be impressed. This is a long term and hard to digest plan and will require commitment from authorities and citizens and at the end of the day it is the least we can do for our city which has done so much for us!


  

The BMW i8 and Fallout 4

PROPINQUITY

Well let us talk about the relation between a car and a video game! Especially a new video game. An Open World game. The most hyped game of the year. Welcome everybody to Fallout 4. This game has a pretty good history and honestly the only thing that BMW i8 doesn't.

But BMW and Bethesda are known for creating some fantastic products. For BMW their "M" cars and for Bethesda Skyrim. I'm not saying that the German automotive giant is similar to bunch of enthusiast based in Maryland, USA. But there are some similarities in the hype that is associated with their products, in this case the BMW i8 and Fallout 4.

First introduced as a concept in 2009, BMW wanted to show the world that they weren't only about V8 powered M3's and Nurburgring developed hats and jackets. BMW showed the world that they acknowledge the future, the future filled with electric cars and as a pioneer in chassis BMW wanted to make a electric sports car to rival the Porsche 911. When the car was shown to the world in the International motor show, Germany every car enthusiast or even just a average person had to keep a track on the the time and ensure that they don't spend half the day just gawping at the thing. It was so futuristic and when finally released in 2013 was probably the purest concept car on the road. Now you'd expect me to say the it burst out to the road from factory and ripped a hole through time! But it didn't.

I loved the previous Fallout games, the Fallout 3 and New Vegas. When the trailer of Fallout 4 came I was very very excited because the environment, character and of course dogmeat look on point and the game was supposed to be large (which it is). With many new feature like dynamic characters, infinite possibilities, enormous map and customization the game was primed to be an absolute hit. Inevitably there are some problems. It feels like the graphics are entirely based on Fallout 3. The game has some serious stability issues and along with some weird bugs leave you wantin for more.

This is where these different product meet together. They leave you wanting for more. When I heard the i8 had a 3 cylinder engine I was disappointing and not because of more power, we all know those clever Germans can extract 300 horsepower from a washing machine! I was disappointing because of the sound it made. It was just too fake. A little bit of fake sound going through the interior of a car is fine but in the i8 just sounds artificial.

Like a video game.

And that is the common problem with both of these product. I know the i8 is great to drive and I also know that Fallout is a fantastic game. But I have the suspicion that they could've done more. It feels like both the companies who made the product bite off more than they can chew. I find that they both started with enormous ambition and worked very hard but by the end of it because of the demand had anxiety issues.

Maybe that is how it should be. Maybe companies nowadays need to make revolutionary cars like the i8. The world is changing and so are the products and this is the best time to be alive.

     

The torque is immense.

The torque is immense.

The obsession of the current generation with instant gratification is just crazy. Every thing in the modern world needs to be instant and full of many "things"....
From mobile phones to laptops and so on, frankly I won't even begin to describe how quick and easy all these modern gadgetry are and honestly I don't have a problem with that because firstly I'm using one! Secondly it is genuinely helpful and most importantly modern tech is offensively quick compared to the good old days. 

Now while all this is good at some level but there is also a flip side to this, the biggest example is just how we do our school/project work. How do we do it? Well...Google. The decline in sales of novel over the last ten years is also an indicator that we want information instantly without much effort. Even I'm guilty of this. Honestly for me it is so hard to read more than 20 pages in one go with checking my Insta-book-chat-tube once. You will be thinking that how does this have anything common with pulling capacity of a car - "Torque" but don't forget the behavior of a car is very similar to our behavior. The fascinating and never ending rivalry between what is more important  Horsepower or Torque is going on for ages and every car has a tilt towards one or the other that is for sure.


The legendary Ferrari 458 is associated with the elite club of 9000 rpm redline and hangs out with the horsepower big boys.



As you can see here is the 488 GTB the successor to the 458 and also turbo-charged and with a lot more torque. Sadly it doesn't rev as high, only revs to 7500 rpm unlike the brilliant naturally aspirated 458.

Two faces of the same coin yet they both feel so different. Now horsepower is like spending time with your favorite novel and a hot cup of chocolate. It is like the old classics by Lata Mangeskar. It's like masticating your favorite North Indian dish. What I'm trying to say is it has something amazing to offer, it has a climax, it builds up to a crescendo of absolute awesomeness. You have to wait for it. the revs climb and you hit the power band and you are smiling ear to ear like a child, the engine howls and that is when you experience a naturally aspirated engine's horsepower and it is the elixir of motoring for me.

Well torque is different ball game. It is Mr. Turbo-charger who makes the torque curve flatter and fatter! Torque is like listening to what some call music(trance, EDM)  which is full of computer generated sounds and starts from zip with no emphasis on lyrics in any way whatsoever. It is the automotive equivalent of instant gratification. Torque that you experience never builds up, instead it it served to you on a plate of mid range punch right in your gut. Quite similar to getting all the information available on Wikipedia. No fun. 

There are two sides to this. Torque isn't always bad, the ease by which you just waft along in the cement jungle and the amazing towing capacity torquey engines have which just getting to out of the way, but again it won't last long.
I just think that that nowadays there is an over emphasis on "getting stuff done" as quickly as possible and we sort of miss out on the fun. I guess for everything worth having you have to wait a bit and there will be delays but eventually you'll get there with a huge smile on your face!   

  

Crossing over Delhi

CROSSING OVER DELHI

The automotive industry in India is one of the largest automotive markets in the world and here in Delhi we love cars as much as we love to swear when talking among our friends, you know in the "Dilli wala" style.
Thing is that as much as we love our cars, there is a situation going on here in Delhi/NCR. Firstly as you'd expect people here have passion for cars in the same way and with the same intensity as they would have for a mobile phone or a sofa. It is the utilitarian kind and honestly there is nothing wrong with that.
 I totally understand people who think of cars like that because not every one is a petrolhead like me and this is the trend around the World too. I guess that's why Crossovers are a favorite now. I don't see much going on with the crossovers as a utility vehicle because it's not much bigger than a hatchback in terms of seating. Yeah you might be able to fit another goat in the boot but apart from that there isn't much to get excited about. Most certainly you cant get excited about the looks because a hatchback looks petite, chic, even European and stunning, like a future supermodel in her teenage years. But a crossover looks like the sort person who tells you that you could've got that fridge for half the price AFTER you bought it. Basically an irritating liar. The classic example of this is from the the Japanese giant Nissan. I give you the Nissan Cube -

Pretty isn't it? Whatever you think you are the one who is demanding this sort of car.

It's not ,as the Aussies would call it, "Ute" or a utility vehicle and its not as large and comfy as an SUV.

This is a hatchback. It looks stunning, it is definitely quicker than that and it returns more km/l because of better aerdynamics.

Now I'm obviously not targeting or promoting any brand here but what I'm saying is that there is a weird trend in the car industry and in Delhi about there crossovers. I'd rather have a pickup truck and Donald Trump as the president than owning and driving a crossover! 

Well all my above rant leads to the demand prevailing in Delhi. The obsession with a hatchback on Viagra, with the false perception that a crossover design makes you car look big and muscular and will somehow compensate the lack of other things.

Well if you really want large boot space buy an SUV and it's not like the olden days that SUV's are expensive.

I simply don't get it! What happened to those long and absolutely stunning Saloon/Sedans of yesteryear. Those great mile-munching, cool looking, slightly spy-ish stanced, quick and agile cars that we used to drive. Cars like  Maruti Baleno, Skoda Octavia, Mitsubishi Lancer, Opel Corsa and ofcourse the daddy of them all the Honda City/Civic. They looked appropriate and the driving/seating position wasn't 19 feet of the ground! You were right there with the car sitting in it's loving arms of a researched and developed chassis moving along like the Euro-star though the Channel tunnel (only you were on the NH24 at 90 kmph). Now you might say the market has moved on but moving in a direction doesn't mean it's the correct one.

Ciao.