Why petrolheads could soon be lost for words

IF PETROLHEADS thought the main threat to their full-throttle existence was low traffic neighbourhoods and green taxes, they may have to think again.

For someone in an unlikely corner – Dictionary Corner, to be precise – has sounded the death knell for their kind and a host of other motoring terms.

Countdown’s Susie Dent has predicted that words and phrases such as clutch, gears, ‘miles per gallon’ and ‘take your foot off the gas’ will disappear from our vocabulary in the next ten years amid an electric vehicle revolution.

She said we will no longer say ‘there’s nothing left in the tank’, ‘gas guzzler’ or even petrol station because we will charge our cars at home and refer to their power as ‘juice’. Instead we will become familiar with terms such as ‘froot’, a boot in the front, and ‘regen’, short for regenerative braking, when a battery is charged as a result of a car stopping.

Miss Dent, who worked with online car retailer Cinch on the motoring terms set to become extinct by 20 2, said: ‘The language of the electric car will become as familiar to us as the vocabulary of the motor car did at the turn of the 20th Century.’

■SPEED limit signs could disappear from roads if a trial by Ford that automatically slows down cars is successful. The technology uses geofencing, a virtual boundary that can stop internet-connected vehicles from going too fast in a certain area.

A warning appears on the dashboard when a car is about to slow down but motorists can manually override the command if necessary.

Ford, which is testing the scheme in Germany, said it would declutter roads and help motorists avoid speeding fines.