Your views Why we need the Range Rover Velar
Crossover and out
I think the crossover is the worst thing to happen to the car industry. Now even Ferrari is planning to make an SUV. SUVS by design are never going to be as dynamically competent or fun to drive as a true sports car, so why on earth are car manufacturers insistent on making SUVS that ‘handle like sports cars’?
Here’s an idea: make a sports car and an SUV separately (if you must), but please end this boring obsession with crossover cars. They’re neither truly sporty nor even particularly practical. Liam Cooke via email
Dink driving
I fail to see how the BMW X2 can be labelled as an SUV. The vehicle is far too small for lugging flatpack gear from Ikea or hosting a mountain bike. No, this vehicle is clearly a ‘dink’, which is short for Dual Income No Kids. Audi is usually credited with starting the dink category and BMW seems to be travelling the same path. A true SUV can be a very flexible vehicle, which sadly a dink is not. Marketing departments can try but it is difficult to put lipstick on the proverbial pig. John White via email
A cracking idea
There is a fair bit of discussion about how battery, fuel cell, hydrogen and autonomous will be able to work in practice. Most of this assumes we still have the same infrastructure pattern as today, with an emphasis on a national grid and network system. This ignores the major opportunity for local application of infrastructure.
Those solar panels sitting on roofs suddenly come into their own if they are being used to fill the car up each night. They’ll need a storage battery so they can generate during the day for a fill up at night, but that’s simple. But if we are moving on to hydrogen and fuel cells, as we inevitably shall, the battery will need to be replaced
by the home hydrogen cracker. So the solar power (aided by the grid if needs be) cracks water to generate hydrogen, which is stored ready to fill the car up at home. No need for massive infrastructure or expanding electricity grids.
Once units are being mass-manufactured, the cost will be eminently reasonable: cracking water with electricity is not complex technology. So almost every home can make its own fuel and hydrogen cracking similarly solves the issues of energy storage, so cover when the wind isn’t blowing and the sun has gone on strike.
How long? We are now ten years since the first iphone was launched. It was the advent of the iphone that caused the social media revolution, putting it at your fingertip wherever in the world you are.
It will be a similar local revolution that ties the technologies we see emerging into a coherent whole. Nigel Greening Kingsbridge, Devon
Back to the drawing board
Having recently driven across the Cotswolds on a dark, wet and misty evening during the local rush hour, I was struck by how dangerously distracting many modern light patterns are. I refer in particular to the varying layouts of running lights or sidelights. These have so many patterns as to be totally confusing – surely some degree of regulation would be sensible on safety grounds.
On a more general note, when such features as large air intakes under the headlights, or wide rectangular exhaust pipes, first appeared on highperformance cars, they had a certain cachet that befitted the car – now they seem to have been plagiarised by the most mundane of vehicles and lost any exclusivity that they may once have had. They now appear as silly as people buying designer jeans with the holes already in the knees.
Finally, our pet hate: at the rear, the mock diffuser or undertray. Again, when they first appeared on a few cars, they added to the appeal. Now every Tom, Dick and Harry has them, usually as a cheap plastic addon – they look faintly ridiculous at best. My wife calls them incontinence pads – enough said! George Koopman Bloxham
Rage against the machine
The interview with Ford chief executive Jim Hackett (“We need smart vehicles for a smart world”, 25 October) left me asking the same question as other motorists I have spoken to: “Who actually wants an autonomous car?” It seems to me a very expensive trend that will remove the pleasure of driving while making cars more expensive and somewhat vulnerable to computer glitches. Bob Bull via email
Burt is a fuel fool
In his long-term update on the Mercedes E220d Estate (Our Cars,
25 October), Matt Burt reported that he averaged an indicated 48.7mpg and 52mph over 556 miles. In my 2016 Mercedes E350 Estate, I averaged 53.3mpg and 54mph over 453 miles. After 352 miles, my figure was 54.3mpg. Coincidentally, this tallies with the now-redundant New European Driving Cycle (NEDC) official combined figure. Burt wasn’t trying hard enough.
However, the new Worldwide Harmonised Light Vehicles Test Procedure (WLTP) figure for the E220d is an exceptional 67.3mpg, so it’s a double fail from Burt.
The WLTP figure for the sleeker, more efficient 2017 E350d is 46.3mpg. Hopefully, my figures indicate that the new WLTP test results for all cars could be realistic aims for anyone with an economical driving style that keeps up with traffic flow. Michael Williams via email
If the cap fits
From your road test, the Honda Civic Type R looks very good indeed (25 October). The trouble is you couldn’t be seen in one without your baseball cap on backwards. George Wright Histon
Type R negative
I enjoyed reading the Civic Type R road test. I have driven the car on the track and the new NSX on the same day but the Civic Type R stood out as the more of a surprise for me.
It’s a capable car, I agree, but has missed the point for the following reasons:
In order to excel, they built a track car and as usual created an ugly stiff road car. In order to compete in the market, they went for torque to show impressive lap times. But so what? With a 0-30mph of 2.6sec and a 0-40mph of 3.5sec, it’s no quicker than a Golf GTI at the traffic lights.
The spoilers and bodykit make it look like an ‘ASBO car’. If someone came to pick up my daughter in that, I’d have to pretend she wasn’t at home. Azeem Sharif via email