peter's blog

Seeing as there is so much hype surrounding the iPad, I'm almost afraid to write anything about it, for fear that I'll be misunderstood as simply trying to join in. But, given that what I'm going to write will largely be viewed as a negative assessment of Apple's new product, I'll risk it.

So why am I writing this? Well, mostly because I think there is so much hype, and I want to try and balance things out and help people gain a more balanced perspective.

What is the iPad?

The iPad is a tablet computer. It is not magic, it is not revolutionary, it is simply a tablet computer.

While this is a car site, I'm also a nerd. So, in this blog section I decided to post up this little computer related article. Hopefully it'll be useful to someone.

The reason I'm sharing this one is because it seems odd how quickly the hydrogen fuel cell has been forgotten. But not that I'm complaining about that. In the CNN article below you will find the same stuff rehashed over again, but thankfully the fuel cell doesn't feature.

Of course there are the die-hard internal combustion engine loving folks surviving high up in the auto industry, but they will eventually be overturned by sense and reason.

Now this is a totally expected turn of events. GM is back and to the outside world it is pretty hard to understand what all the fuss was about. Even management seems to be pretty much as you were. Oh well, let's see if they can get things back on track. Good luck to them.

Of course government stimulus packages can be credited with this statistic, but let's be fair, this day was always going to come. And it's not the US government isn't trying to stimulate car sales either.

There is an interesting article in this week's Bangkok Post Motoring section that raises the issue of needless oil and tire changes, under the advice of those supplying these products.

Check it out. You could save yourself a few baht.

Sometimes you hear that there are people powering cars on water, and sometimes you hear that there are folks working on flying cars, and indeed there are some of those around.

But what about a flying car that is powered by water? Russian technology has made this a reality.

You'll see some strange accidents if you spend some time in Bangkok, but this one is about as strange as it gets. How did this happen?

Just wanted to share this short video in which Steve Coogan does a wonderful job of reminding us that there can be nasty consequences to driving fast!

It's from a British show so the speeds he is talking about are MPH.

Life was so much easier when I was a kid. I think most of you will be able to relate to this, as I am pretty sure life was easier when you were kids too. One area that life was easier was regarding the environment. Back then environmental concerns didn't go much further than making your bed in the morning and not littering.

Ignorance allowed me to dream of growing up and driving fast cars without feeling like I was a bad guy. Now we are aware of the pollution that is coming out of our cars exhaust and it serves to curb our enthusiasm for driving to some extent. Doesn't it?

I'm trying to follow the Eco-Car issue as closely as possible, and since I'm quite opinionated regarding it, I've chosen to put this sort of stuff on my blog rather than clutter up the main news area with my ranting.

If you've been reading my recent posts regarding it you might have learned that automakers in Thailand would seem to be less than receptive to the idea. At least that is what the Bangkok Post has been reporting. I found it hard to understand the reasons for the lack of enthusiasm for the idea. After all, the potential is there to sell more cars in a new segment, without overly impacting on the current model lines.

This weeks Bangkok Post Motoring section contains a trimmed version of my letter. I can't really complain much considering that they did contact me first and offered me the option to edit it down a bit myself. Still I feel that they missed out on a few points.

Here is the version of my email that they published:

The Bangkok Post runs a motoring section each week. I look through it for items that may be of interest but each week I am disappointed. Why? Because I find the writers focus on vehicles that are outside the scope of most of us, I mean if we want to drool over pictures of flash expensive cars that we'll never be able to afford to own, we can search Google images for them, or buy a glossy mag with colour images throughout.

What got me going today however, were the articles about the EcoCar project, one of which suggested that the EcoCar was not realistic.

Here are those articles, followed by my email to the Post. I welcome feedback, so if you think I've been too harsh, or if you have other thoughts on the EcoCar project and can shed some light on this, please do get in touch, or post a comment.