Articles by Paul Gover in Germany

It is cars that cannot - and will not - crash. Instead of driving blindly into an impact, the new generation of super-safe future cars will warn the driver of potential danger and, if a crash cannot be avoided, do everything possible to minimise the impact. Test programs are already underway in Europe and the USA with the technology needed for the systems and carmakers are looking for government and industry partners to provide the infrastructure that's essential to make their dream a reality. "We're trying to avoid the accident in the first place, and then reduce the severity of any crash," says Dr Joerg Breuer, head of active safety at Mercedes-Benz in Germany. His work focusses on the systems used before a crash, not the airbags and body protection which are triggered by an impact. That means everything from the ABS anti-skid brakes and ESP stability control which are now virtually universal in Australian showrooms to the latest camera-based safety systems - active cruise control, lane departure warning and even automatic braking - fitted to upscale luxury cars. But Breuer, like his counterparts at the safety-first Volvo company, says technology will not take over completely from a capable driver. "We are mainly working to avoid accidents. If you take out the driver you reduce the effectiveness of the whole system," he says. But the long-term goal - around 2020 - at Benz is similar to the focus at the world's largest car company, Toyota, which has set an ambition that eventually no-one should die in one of the company's cars. "We have this vision for accident-free driving," Breuer says. To get from today, where head-on crashes are relatively commonplace and the road toll is a regular topic on the nightly news, to the no-crash future will take a lot of work and a lot of money. But Breuer says the technology already exists. It is built around active systems that take warnings about hazards, from roadside transmitters or other cars, and converts in into a warning to the driver or, in a potential crash situation, into automatic braking to stop a car before it can hit another vehicle. Carsguide first sampled a car-to-car warning system more than five years ago at BMW, which was experimenting with a system that would turn traffic into a mobile 'internet' with all cars communicating on a second-by-second basis. So if one car triggered its ABS brakes, or the driver activated the wipers, it would warn other cars of the situation. Breuer and the active safety team at Mercedes-Benz - several hundred engineers with a budget of more than $50 million a year - have a similar system but also want governments to establish an active road network. So transmitters would warn about road works, school zones, tight bends and other fixed hazards and trigger an alarm inside a car. To prevent car-to-car crashes, Benz sees a day when cars will 'talk' to other vehicles in close range and update their position to prevent potential crashes. So one car will warn another when it is approaching a junction, just in case the driver cannot see or is not paying attention. Cars will also advise other cars of their speed and direction on open roads, so drivers know if there is an overtaking hazard lurking over a crest or around a blind bend. Even without car-to-car and roadside warnings, Breuer predicts a rapid fall in crashes in coming years as camera-based systems provide better warnings to drivers. "We think we can reduce rear-end crashes by 30 per cent with radar. We will see it in a few years," he says. And Volvo already has its radar-based City Safety program, which warns if a car is too close to the vehicle ahead, and a Pedestrian Safety system that identifies pedestrians and will brake a car automatically at low speeds to avoid a collision.

Now the dream is new and every brighter again with the arrival of the Huayra - say it WHY-ra - to lead the Benz-belter supercar company.The Huayra has taken seven years to develop and goes public at the Geneva motor show next month - with a likely pricetag in the $1.3 million range, before Australian taxes.The car is a familiar recipe for Horatio Pagani, complete with a tweaked version of the twin-turbo 6.0-litre V12 engine originally developed for the Black Series version of the Mercedes SL65 AMG.The performance promises run from a 3.3-second sprint to 100km/h to a 340km/h top speed thanks to 520 kiloWatts in the tail, or 545 and a stonking 1000 Newton-metres of torque with 'sport' tuning.It's an all carbon-fibre car with a mid-mounted engine and gullwing doors, but with much smoother bodywork than the Zonda and the promise of more luxury and refinement.The car has active aerodynamics with motorised flaps at each corner of body to boost grip for acceleration, braking and cornering.The Huayra weighs just over 1000kg and its name, like the Zonda, is wind driven. This time it is named for a god of wind, where the Zonda was called after a hot wind that blows in Argentina. Apart from the go-fast gear the Huayra has one tweak for the slowest driving. It has height adjustable front suspension to life the nose over speed humps and deep gutters, and the same system is used to counteract nose dive during hard braking.The Pagani Zonda could have conquered Australia in 2007. Horatio Pagani came to Australia with a Zonda roadster for the Melbourne Motor Show in 2006 as a teaser for a planned sales campaign. The idea was developed by Ross Meyer, who was the head of MG-Rover Australia at the time.Both Meyer and Pagani believed there was a chance to sell a handful of cars to people who were in the mood for a supercar with something special, and there was a solid response to the Melbourne teaser campaign and a round of interviews by Zonda himself. But the plan crashed with the collapse of MG-Rover. 

... and promise the biggest cut to the road toll since seatbelts and ESP stability control. They can warn about roadworks, upcoming red lights, crashes more than a kilometre away, icy conditions and even traffic jams using a system that promises the next major safety breakthrough and a massive boost to motoring efficiency. "It is safety and efficiency. It is both," the safety guru at Mercedes- Benz, Dr Ulrich Mellinghof, tells Carsguide in Stuttgart. "We say that if you know what is happening at a distance, where you  cannot already see, this makes driving extremely much safer." Mercedes-Benz, the world's original car company and one that  celebrated its 125th birthday last weekend, is helping to drive development of the 'connected car' in a partnership with other makers and governments in Europe. Its work mirrors efforts in the USA by a number of companies, including Ford, on cars that are permanently linked and able to warn drivers about a range of safety hazards. Cars can be advised about delays from fixed sensors beside the road, or by other cars - perhaps using Bluetooth - that have already come past a dangerous corner, or had their ABS brakes activated, or had their wipers working in rain. Benz says its 'connected car' could be ready for the road inside three years but warns there are significant obstacles in the cost of infrastructure to run the system and the need to have at least 15 per cent of cars linked so they can report dangers and communicate  directly with each other. "The system works perfectly. So, I think from the technical side we  could start very shortly," Mellinghof says. "The question is if could we find enough people and enough organisations which will help to introduce this. The people from Mercedes, from Volkswagen, from Porsche, we are very successful." Mellinghof says there are many benefits from the 'connected car' project. "For example, you get the information that after the next curve there is a red light and you have to stop. Then you know it much earlier, or you get the information there is any icy road or something. You can then guide the traffic around such jams and give early warnings."

The baby Benzes were created by the same company that put the world on wheels in 1886 and are powered by the type of hydrogen fuel-cell technology developed to put a man on the moon. The F-Cell world drive will cover more than 30,000 kilometres in 125 days, including a run across Australia with a stopover in Canberra to allow the Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, to sample the new-age automotive technology. "The era of electric mobility is dawning. The automobile, on its 125th birthday, is in great shape and the best years are still ahead," said the head of Daimler, Dr Dieter Zetsche, during a gala celebration in Stuttgart.  The F-Cell cars - painted in symbolic light green - were driven into the 125th birthday party by Formula One heroes Michael Schumacher, Nico Rosberg and David Coulthard and then driven away by three female Mercedes-Benz engineers. They are fueled by hydrogen and have no tailpipe emissions beyond water.  The 125th celebration included the announcement of a new green technology that Daimler claimed could be as important as the original automotive patent filed by Karl Benz on January 28, 1886. It is the design for a radically-improved lithium-ion battery suitable for large-scale automotive use, which promises far better efficiency than any existing battery. It is called a 'bipolar flat-cell frame', and will be developed over the next five years for full-scale production. Daimler plans a year of celebrations to mark the biggest milestone yet in its history, including the unveiling last night of a sculpture - Aesthetics 125 - intended to point to the future design direction of Mercedes-Benz cars.  It also announced it would share a 125 million Euro windfall ($A171 million) with its 125,000 employees around the world, as well as supporting 125 sustainable projects in Germany. The round-the-world F-Cell drive will require a giant hydrogen tanker to tail the Mercedes-Benz B-Class cars used for the event, because the infrastructure needed to refuel the cars does not exist in most of the world. But Mercedes-Benz Australia is planning a major 4000-kilometre support package for the three cars, which will travel from Sydney to Perth in March and April.  The highlight of the visit is a lobbying visit to Canberra to show the fuel cell technology to Federal politicians. "We're hoping to have the Prime Minister, the leader of the opposition and the leader of the Greens all drive one of the cars at Parliament House in Canberra," said David McCarthy of Mercedes-Benz Australia.

The all-new Venga, a compact MPV in the Ford Fiesta class, is about to be unleashed on Europe but there are no plans yet to bring it down under.  The Venga could easily make the lineup here once the European plan is unrolled and running, but no-one at Kia Australia is prepared to commit despite the incredible potential of a car that is already being called the "final breakthough" in Europe. The Venga was revealed at the Frankfurt Motor Show as the second European-focussed Kia, following the cee'd, and alongside a diesel hybrid Sorento SUV and petrol hybrid Forte sedan.The Kia stand was dominated by a family of Vengas in different colours and equipment levels, all pointing to the importance of the car. But the European focus of the Venga, which will be built in the Czech Republic, could go against any moves to get it locally. "At this stage the Venga is not on our radar," says Jonathan Fletcher, spokesman for Kia Motors Australia. "It wasn't originally slated for us. There has been no indication yet of a change to that plan."Even so, he is not ruling out a backflip that would add the Venga to a lineup which is gaining more power through cars such as the Soul. The funky compact is already over-achieving on Kia's sales predictions, although it is nowhere near Toyota Corolla-style numbers. "That's not to say the Venga couldn't be on the dance card. It's just on the radar for us," Fletcher says. The Venga is 4m long but has a wheelbase stretched by placing its wheels at the corners, maximising interior space under a slightly-raised roofline. One of Kia's design tweaks is a double-decker rear luggage space. It will be sold in Europe next year with a choice of 1.4 and 1.6-litre petrol and diesel engines. While the Venga is officially not coming, Kia is already planning for four new models in 2010. "There is a new Sportage for a start. Then new Magentis," says Fletcher."We will have a five-door Cerato and another vehicle that I am not at liberty to speak about at the moment."  

Muscular motors from the madcap AMG division of Mercedes-Benz could find a home at Aston Martin as the British brand searches for new partners following its divorce from Ford.Aston still has an engine deal with Ford which provides the power for its current V8 and V12 sports cars, but is already researching new directions for the time after the blue-oval contract expires in 2012.It will not talk officially about any potential partners, and Aston chiefs from managing director Dr Ulrich Bez down say they are happy with Ford, but future regulation changes could force a new approach.Daimler has already emerged as a potential partner thanks to its work on fuel-efficient powerplants suitable for sports cars. They are vital for the next-generation AMG models as Mercedes works to cut fuel use and C02 production without losing the performance edge for cars which are currently mostly powered by 6.2-litre V8s.The upcoming Benz motors have appeal, but Aston Martin's director of product development, Ian Minards, says nothing is a foregone conclusion.He admits Aston will need a partner, but emphasises the need for powerplants — and a range of other components — which still reflect the British brand's history and products.“We don't have the expertise to do all our own development, but I know where to go to get it,” Minards says.“Our objective is to be best in class. With Aston Martin products.”He talks in general terms about engines, gearboxes and even suspension systems as areas where Aston is talking with potential partners outside the Ford empire. And he says the company has hosted a lot more visits, including one recently from Bosche, since the American giant sold the company to a private consortium led by British businessman David Richards.“A lot more people seem keen to talk with us now,” Minards says.And he emphasises the work that has gone into the Aston engines, even under Ford.“When we started the V12 was a Ford Duratec and the V8 was from Jaguar. I'd like to think that now these are Aston Martin powerplants,” he says.“The basic architecture is the same, but all of the details are Aston.“The engines are still built for us by Ford in Germany. The engine area was something they held onto after the split in ownership.”He says the latest 4.7-litre Aston V8, just fitted to a mildly reworked Vantage, shows the development done by the company.“We have done a lot of work. We have come a long way.“We are now down to 333 grams of C02 per kilometre, which is about what you would expect.” FORDING AHEADTalk of a new engine partner at Aston Martin is brushed aside by company chairman, David Richards.The longtime Aston owner, and boss of the Prodrive motoring and motorsport empire, tells carsguide at the Nurburgring in Germany there are many potential partners for future technology.“We have talk to everybody at the moment about engines. We have to decide the best direction,” Richards says.“But we still have engines from Ford until 2012.”He admits it is the same with all sorts of future development plans.But he refuses to discuss a potential deal to take Mercedes-Benz engines, or rumours that Daimler of Germany could eventually take control of Aston Martin.“The company is not for sale,” Richards says sharply.