An electric car in 1899, is it real ?

Actually I wasn’t planning to write for today but ideas kept coming to my mind!

Recently Charlie Chaplin’s one of the movie turn into a global phenomenon for time travel. A lady is passing in front of the camera and she is holding something to her ear and seems like she is talking with that thing. Interestingly this video revealed just couple of weeks ago, since 1920s nobody ever noticed this fact. I don’t wish to talk about the possibility of time travel but I would like to warn for a similar situation.

Nowadays electric cars promoted as something “new” and many people think that they are new technology. Actually they are not! It is a really old technology older than the mobile phone in Chaplin’s movie. In 1899 Ferdinand Porsche produced the first hybrid vehicle on earth. The wheel were the engine, there is no transmission. And it was producing around seven horse powers in 1899! Also it was four wheel drive!

The system is very basic; wheels are the engines, energy comes from battery and battery is charged by petrol engine. Very simple and effective technology. Interesting the Audi A1 e-tron uses the same technology platform. 110 years has passed and this car is not available yet!

If one day a video appears in YouTube and tells, there is a time traveller in Ferdinand Porsche’s video, don’t believe it. We just forgot what have done in 110 years ago!

Note: Toyota Pruis uses a different system, petrol engine can engage with during the drive and also acts as a generator. Ferdinand’s Porsche concept excludes petrol engine from the drive train.

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Charlie Chaplin, Porsche

Which will extend more? Porsche vs. Louis Vuitton

Car and fashion brands share similar symptoms in terms of marketing. They all try to charge more for with new products, prices are over-priced and they love to extend the product line. When it comes to product line extension nobody can compete with Porsche 911 range. Thanks to Porsche AG, 911 is the most extended car line on earth. Now there are 20 different 911s, I know that each model is targeting some particular customer group. Each car expresses a different feeling and etc, etc, etc. Basically, Porsche has lots of potential customers and Porsche does not wish to lose them :) So they introduce every kind of 911 to catch each niche segment. Actually they are pretty good at this though! Even though I don’t like it in terms of emotions but it works well to generate cash.

I noticed the same thing with Louis Vuitton also, they have lots of hand bags. Come one they do the same thing! And some of them are really ugly and expensive, who is buying those things !?! I am sure if I ask LV or anyone interested in fashion will give very good reason for each bag like reasons for twenty different 911s. From the LV perspective; whatever you do, do it with LV bag! Reasonable and good strategy and turn product range into mass :)

In my opinion the best 911 is the Turbo and the best LV is the suitcase :)

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Porsche, LV 

What is torque?

Everyone knows what horsepower means is (actually we don’t, and we just pretend we knew it), but there is a big speculations about the torque! Most of the people define it as that’s something, doing something and that something turns that thing and something moves this thing. Actually many people has no idea and that’s normal because it has a very complicated definition for most of the people. (The definition of torque is the tendency of a force to rotate an object about an axis, fulcrum, or pivot. Just as a force is a push or a pull, a torque can be thought of as a twist.) I know you are more confused!

Eventually I found something which describes the meaning of torque and its advantage. Thanks to Fifth Gear team (Jason Plato and Tiff Needell) you can understand what torque really means. This time in their dog-fight session, they drove Porsche Cayenne Turbo and Audi Q7 V12 TDi. The Q7 has a lot of torque, 1000 nm! This means, it is clinically powerful, thanks to diesel engine. Porsche Cayenne Turbo has only 700 nm of torque. This might sound small but it is still huge amount.

If you are planning to pull a car with brakes on, try to pull with Q7 V12 TDi. Actually this is the only Audi which can be buyable :)

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Audi, Porsche, Fifth Gear

A detailed explanation for the problem of German Cars

For very long time I was trying understand what is wrong with German cars. I didn’t make mistake while writing, German cars. There is always something missing with them, I could not understand but German cars never have the same taste with Italian cars. Of course, I am not licking cars to identify their differences. I am pretty sure that all German cars would taste the same :)

And recently I found the problem with German cars. The huge problem which irritates me for very long and irritates many other people, I am using sales figures of Italian cars as a proof! German cars are offering everything; perfection, design (not all of them), efficient, luxury, perfect, gray, very gray, light gray, very dark gray and this goes forever. Germans cars are doing what you told them to do! Actually if a German car goes wrong, it terribly goes wrong. This happened in 2003-2004 with Mercedes E Class, electronic brake system and electronic control modules of C Class. Anyway, they don’t cause trouble anymore. The main thing is German cars are doing what they are supposed to do and they do not questionize. They just are doing it!

A German car always handles well, the automatic screen wipers always works with the same amount of rain, engine always makes the same sound, all the parts inside the car have the same millimetric distance within each other. This combination of perfection obsession is not matching with human being because we are not perfect and we want things different. I think the best explanation for German cars is they are like trains. They are doing what they are supposed to do, trains cannot change travel anywhere else than railway and they always follow a route.

The Italian cars are like pizza, each pizza is a unique dish. It is nearly impossible to have the same pizza, even if you manage to have the same one you cannot eat in the same way. All the mozzarella cheese will try to go somewhere else, you will try to make some weird moves to eat the slice and some vegetables will fell on your trousers while you are trying to clean your trousers, your elbow will hit to pizza. Basically each time you try to eat an Italian food, you will have a new adventure like in Italian cars. Each Italian car is totally unique, I don’t know how they manage to do it but they are excellent at producing each car unique. There is no identical twin of a Ferrari 458 or Alfa Romeo MiTo or Fiat 500. Even if the factory is robotized, their supplier may not be robotized and their production technique might be influence the employees emotional conditions.

Therefore each Italian car is like a sculpture, you cannot find the same one. And Italian cars do not react as you wished, try to control a Ferrari 599 GTO. Jeremy Clarkson tried to do it in “Italian Job” and he failed, try to control an Alfa MiTo diesel. The electronic systems will help you but the car will control you. You will do what the car is ordering you!

And lastly British cars; very basic definition, there is always something is missing. In order to proof this, just look at British taps! They have separate taps for hot and cold water. You cannot find this in other part of the world. British engineers never connect hot and cold water together, you either burn your hands or freeze your hand. There is no balance and you can face with this ugly truth even in the most prestigious hotels or in houses. Everything looks excellent, suddenly you want wash your hand, and you burn your hands!

You can find this in British cars also, everything is excellent. Design, materials, engines but you cannot have a door closing aid in a Bentley Azure. This is a very basic technology from Germans, when your door is not fully closed the hydraulic system closes for you. But you cannot have this in a Bentley Azure! This car costs more than a country and you have to close your door properly by yourself. But still I like British cars they are combination of Mr. Bean and Paul Smith shirt!

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Mercedes, Pizza Express, Aston Martin, Deutsche Bahn, Maserati, Paul Smith

Porsche Design Hollywood movie

A short movie from Porsche Design. Starring Karel Roden and Titanic's star Billy Zane. All the objects used in this movie are available in Porsche Design stores, if you can afford them :)

Form and Function

Symbol of Wealth in 21th Century: More buttons in Porsche Panamera

The symbol of wealth is an important incentive for people buy particular brands, I know this sounds very marketing lecture book but this is the reality. In every time era, people found a way to express their wealth and this is quite easy when you have lots of money to spend. During 18th century, there was something called "window tax" in UK and I am pretty sure that money people had window just to show their purchasing power! In 19th century, there were lots of new inventions to buy and you had chance to travel US by cruise ship called Titanic. But this was not a very effective way to show your wealth.

Anyway, now you can buy Vertu phones, shop from Harvey Nichols grocery and literally you have infinite opportunity to show your wealth!

During my last London visit, I have been to Porsche dealer to satisfy pleasures! I did not have chance to check Panamera and Cayenne. Thankfully the Porsche stuff was very kind and I have adequate time to play with the cars. And I noticed something!

If you pay more, you get more buttons in Porsche! Especially in Panamera! Even though some of the buttons do not mean anything but you have extra buttons to push.

There are 23 different buttons in both sides of the gear lever! I did not count the ones above the lever. Just left and right sides. Climate control, suspension firmness, suspension height, exhaust pleasure, traction control off, auto start/stop off, sport, hard core sport, I want to show my rear wind button, rear window something, heated seats and that's all. I am sure that if you put these buttons in driving license examination half of the candidate would definitely fail!

What we learn from this? If you see more buttons in a Panamera, the owner has money than you have :)

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Me, Porsche

What is this?

Unfortunately I did not buy a Porsche Panamera. Instead of that, I decided to start from buying the key. Actually that's not a key, that's a USB stick. And with interesting box label, please focus on "date of experation: unlimited". What is this??? Does Porsche produce goods expire dates on them. 911 Turbo, best before 31.12.2010 !

What is this?

What is this?

A new gladiator to arena: Lotus

British sports car manufacturer Lotus is trying to gain its position back. Proton owned (Lotus is owned by Proton, ugly truth!) revealed five (Esprit, Eterne, Elise, Elan and Elite) new models to compete with Italian and Germans and Aston Martin. After being away from the German vs. rest of the automotive companies gladiator games. Now with four new models Lotus is trying to enter the Colosseum.

What Lotus has done is a miracle, they revealed five different types of cars at the same time. We see this with Germans but Lotus is not that wealthy like Germans. Therefore I consider this as a great success. However sales may not be that successful! The CEO of Lotus declared that they are heading directly to Aston Martin, Ferrari, Porsche and Mercedes AMG territory. It is very easy to spell but extremely hard to achieve.

All these brands have their very royal and fanatic customers. People desire to have those brands and that’s a way to achieve their dreams. However Lotus is not a dream car anymore. I know for some people still a dream car like Pamela Anderson is a dream for people over 30 but new generation consider her as their mother! This is the same with Lotus. People don’t really know what really is Lotus.

I know that Lotus is excellent in handling and car engineering but trying to have a place in gladiator games is more than handling and engineering! Lotus has to create a dream but it won’t be very to achieve. I am sure some people will buy their new cars but Lotus should not have focused too many cars at the same time. Like Rolls-Royce, Lotus should have revealed news cars in a scheduled time frame.

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Lotus

Again a new Porsche 911

I have been complaining about the Porsche 911’s wide ride of variation. And they made it worse! Now Porsche offers twenty different 911s. You might a classic or S or four wheel S or plain four wheel or Turbo or Turbo S or GT3 or GT2 RS or GT3 RS or cabrio or GTS and this goes forever. Recently they revealed the 911 GTS with 408 horsepower and now they revealed 911 Speedster with 408 horsepower again but texturing of classic design bits. However they are not that fast like 911 GT2 RS with 620 horsepower! But they are better than plain 911s; and we can assume that if you are buying a 911 Carrera you will be one of the most boring rich person! Because, you did not buy the more exciting models. May be you don’t want to be exciting, you only wish to drive a 911 without any unnecessary features.

I really get bored of writing about 911s pointless product line extension. I really wonder when they will notice this is not going anymore! In Porsche everything is based on perfect engineering but Porsche let engineers to involve with marketing department and offers vehicles even the dealers have no idea what really the differences are! And I found the reasonable person, August Achleitner. I think I won’t be writing about 911’s complicate structure :)

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Porsche