Posts Tagged ‘wheel’
Driving a Tata Nano in Mumbai
February 13th, 2010 | 
Author: Over Christmas I optimistically nominated the Tata Nano as my car of the decade, even though I hadn’t actually driven one. It’s social significance and engineering achievement was what appealed to me.
I put that straight yesterday, though, on a half-hour adrenalin-charged drive through Mumbai’s crowded streets. To be honest it wasn’t the car raising my pulse to a steady 150bpm, it was the crazy driving conditions here. It’s like being bombarded with one of those tennis ball serving machines or being on the top level of a video game; things come at you so randomly and so fast that you’re just fire-fighting to stay out of trouble.
Chas Hallett blog: A taste of India
Thousands of pedestrians, other cars, street traders, cows, buses, taxi cabs and the odd dog are all sharing the same space.
Timidity means failure though; you’ve just got to grit your teeth and go for it or else some crazy cabby will be occupying the piece of tarmac you’ve got your sights on. And keeping his hand glued to the horn whilst he does it. Then again, while such a system shouldn’t really work, here it kind of does.
Anyway, most of my time in the Nano was spent preserving it, me and the lads from Autocar India in the back. I did find out, however, that it’s way better than a £1500 car deserves to be. The ride is surprisingly good for such a short car that has to bounce over Mumbai’s chronic roads. The two-cylinder motor is not the quietest device but its low-down grunt is ideal for town work – and quick squirts to get out of the way of slower obstacles. It also feels stable and well-planted on the road. The unassisted steering, too, is sweet and communicative if predictably stiff at parking paces.
Best of all though is the Nano’s space. It’s barely bigger than a Smart but four big blokes can easily squeeze in. And four of us did in search of yet another amazing Indian meal. It also feels extremely well made. Sure the cabin is basic and the driving position too high for my tastes, but I reckon that our 4000 miler will still feel solid in 10 years time.
The main consideration with the Nano though is that it was Ratan Tata’s vision to get some of his less fortunate countrymen away from transporting their entire families on a scooter (you see thousands of them) and into four-wheeled transport. Yet, it’s far from being just utilitarian transport – it’s way too good for that.
So anyone who voted for the Range Rover, the eventual winner in our poll, or anything else – sorry I think that you were wrong.
The price of Veyron ownership
A routine service, for instance, costs £12,866 or the price of a middling Polo, whereas an annual service for a Ferrari Enzo is £1680, which seems like a bargain by contrast.
Bugatti Veyron vs Bugatti EB110
Buying new rubber for the Veyron will produce similarly heart-freezing bills, a set of four tyres costing £23,500, in part because they have to be capable of 253mph, more than 100mph faster than Concorde’s landing speed.
Worse news still is that at every fourth tyre change the Veyron’s rims must be stress tested for cracks – a sensible precaution in a car this fast – and replaced if they are found wanting at a cost of £7050 per corner.
For all these reasons, it’s not surprising to learn that one owner has taken to having his Veyron trailered to his favourite roads and following it there by executive jet, an arrangement that works out cheaper than driving the Bugatti several hundred miles to reach the dream Tarmac.
All of which is guaranteed to keep the Veyron out of reach of 99.9 per cent-plus of all car buyers, even if it should depreciate colossally. And, despite these maintenance costs, even that looks unlikely.
4WD v FWD – a surprising result in my snow test
The problem with four-wheel drive is it lulls you into a false sense of security, as the mate of mine who’s just binned his Honda CR-V will attest. Modern four-wheel drive systems are so good at finding traction where there is none, you only realise just how lethal the conditions are when you have to make even a slight turn and continue straight on, or need to stop. By contrast, with front wheel drive you always know where you are grip-wise and will never miss that moment when your journey becomes a fool’s errand.
Watch our winter tyre test video
Of course four-wheel drive can be a life-saver as all those who have been rescued by off-roaders in the last few weeks know well. But these cars will tend to be Land Rovers and the like which have not only four driven wheels but, just as importantly, tyres designed to cope with these conditions. But modern soft-roaders come with road tyres whose treads clog at the first sign of snow, leaving you little better than four driven slicks.
The point is this: if conditions are too bad to provide safe passage for modern front drive cars with sophisticated electronics, perhaps they should be considered too bad to drive on at all, unless you have the right specialist equipment.
Going out in terrible weather because you have four-wheel drive is not safe: not going out in the first place because you haven’t got four-wheel drive is safe. This is why I like the choice provided by the Peugeot/Mitsubishi arrangement so much: I drive in front drive, relying on ESP and traction control to provide due warning of slippery conditions, leaving the selection of four-wheel drive as a last resort.
But if I had to choose between the two, I’d stick with front-wheel drive.
Just how good are winter tyres?
What with all this talk of winter tyres we thought we’d do our own little investigation while the snow is still around. So today we ventured down to our nearest snow bound test track to experiment with two RWD diesel BMWs. One with its regular summer tyres, the other fitted with a set of Continential Cold Weather tyres.
This wasn’t a proper scientific test, in no small part down to the fact the two test cars were different models. BMW's press garage is snowed in, so we had to make do with what we already had at the office and a 118d, borrowed from Conti.
Watch the winter tyre test on video
So not exactly a fair test, but still we thought it might tell us something interesting.
On a level icy surface our long-term 635d on summer tyres could just about get going, but introduce any sort of incline or angle and it just struggled massively. While the 1-Series with winter tyres still slipped around a bit, it found traction much more quickly and generally felt ten times more secure. It even managed to keep going through thick fresh snow. Conditions that had us pushing the 6-Series.
Talking to the people at Conti here’s the really interesting thing - winter tyres aren’t just for snow, they can be used on slush, ice, frost and even wet roads. In fact any time the temperature dips below +7deg you’re better off on winter tyres. Apparently.
Also there’s no real reason you can’t use winter tyres all year round in the UK. There is some trade off in dry braking in really hot conditions, but this balanced with better braking in the wet and cold. Likewise the softer compound might wear more quickly in the summer, but this is balanced with better wear rates in the winter.
So why aren’t winter tyres more widely used in the UK? According to Conti, they account for just 0.5% of UK sales. Mostly it’s down to the fact that we just don’t have the culture or infrastructure here to encourage people to switch between summer and winter tyres. And in my opinion it’s about time that changed.
If for no other reason than it means you can continue to enjoy the benefits of rear wheel drive even when the roads get a bit snowy.
Broadband: Recession and competition are creating uncertainty in the US market, forcing operators to concentrate on customer value
New analysis from Frost & Sullivan (http://www.ipcommunications.frost.com), North American Residential Broadband Services Markets Tracker, finds that the market earned revenues of over $36.7 billion and estimates 78.9 million subscribers in 2008.
“The saturated market has encouraged cable, telco, and satellite operators to concentrate on customer value, and heavy emphasis is placed on retaining existing customers and obtaining new ones,” says Frost & Sullivan Research Analyst Gina Villanueva. “Providers are strengthening their retention efforts by invigorating customer value through service bundling to create an alluring price for consumers and generate a higher attach rate for the provider’s services.”
Bundling packages enable companies to acquire access line subscribers. Besides bundling, providers are promoting two-year price guarantees, and some are offering lifetime price guarantees. They are rejuvenating customer service and training employees to efficiently resolve queries. Cable and telco operators are reducing contract rates with customers to provide optimized services without frustrating their subscribers.
Vendors are also unleashing a slew of new, value enhanced products to reinforce their hold on the customer base. Furthermore, operators are optimizing their networks to speeds of up to 100 Mbps, creating a variety of options for broadband Internet packages. Though slower net additions to both cable and telco operators are expected during 2009, subscribers will benefit from higher speeds, more robust features, and lower prices. This will help oil the wheels of the market and guarantee a steady revenue stream for participants.
Cable still holds its position as the technology leader in the broadband segment, although its market share declined due to the advanced technologies for telcos, such as FTTx, which has increased its market size during the past two years. For the fourth quarter 2008, Verizon posted the highest net additions compared to that of all other providers in North America.
At a technology level, DSL providers’ growth rates will witness a downslide year over year as subscribers migrate to higher bandwidth fiber technologies. Satellite is a growing market in small towns, rural markets, and cities where terrestrial broadband is nonexistent.
Fiber technology is the weapon used by traditional telecommunication providers to counter cable operators’ deployment of their next generation DOCSIS 3.0. The Canadian market is a growing market, offering huge potential. Similar to the U.S., Canadian telco operators have unleashed their fiber optic networks to compete with cable providers that offer speeds up to 100 Mbps downstream.
Posted in Communications | 
Tags: amp, ash, blog, blogs, broadband service, Communications, consumers, Customer Service, Internet, market share, Marketing, Network, research, Technology, wheel, wheels | 
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