Tesla Store in Knightsbridge, as Talulah and Elon meet and greet

Tesla Motors held a launch party at the new London Store in Knightsbridge last night. Top of the guestlist was company chief Elon Musk, who flew in specially for the event.

“He’s very good looking,” whispered my missus, politely. Annoyingly, I have to agree. He’s also made his millions many times over thanks to an internet business, and since branched out into electric sports cars and space rockets. Somewhere in his schedule he’s even found time to date young British movie actress Talulah Riley. Not bad going for a 37-year old.

“The US Department of Energy has just approved a loan to us of some half a billion dollars. Which was nice of them…” deadpanned Elon, to cheers from the throng. Not shy of his public profile, it was a typical statement from this occasionally controversial figure. Detractors have bashed Tesla from day one, arguing that Musk is a crazed egomaniac running a Ponzi scheme building this century’s Tucker Torpedo. It’s nonsense – the cars exist, the stores exist. Those grapes sour enough?

Conversely, I think Musk’s style and flamboyance are sorely needed to create interest in electric cars, which let’s face it are generally pretty uninspiring. We drove the Roadster last year, and as the Tesla rep handed me the keys, his words stuck with me: “You’ll enjoy this, it’s really a blast to drive.” Boyish glee pervades this company. And that’s a good thing.

BMW are working on this

A piece of sales blurb kicking around from a recent motor show invites me to run my car on water.

This ingenious invention, which for layman’s sake I’ll refer to as ‘Water-To-Fuel’ technology (WTF), consists of a small electrolyser that fits neatly under the bonnet. It’s connected to the car’s alternator where “otherwise wasted energy” (WTF) is used to generate hydrogen on the fly, no storage required.

This so-called ‘Brown’s gas’ is injected into the combustion chamber alongside the fuel, producing no less than: “More power and torque, 50% fewer emissions and up to 100% greater fuel efficiency.” WTF?

On paper this sounds great. It also sounds suspiciously like perpetual motion. The engine burns fuel to generate hydrogen, which is injected in with more fuel, which allows the engine to generate more hydrogen… we’re breaking the laws of thermodynamics.

Were efficiency savings really so straightforward, it seems strange that the mainstream manufacturers should decide not to fit them as standard….

I do sympathise with Charis’ blog Speechless or clueless?

Regular readers may recall I’ve had issues with Hertz in the past but in these budget-conscious times, I was tempted into “giving them another go” by a promotion on the .co.uk site which promises a 20% discount on rentals booked 30 days in advance.

I checked the prices prior to booking my airline tickets and the prices looked good. I returned to the site a week later (still well ahead of the 30-day cut-off) and went through the identical process but instead of the keen prices, I got the following message:

Not all requirements for the Rate Code - LITE requested have been met. We have removed the Rate Code from your request to provide you with the best rate returned. If you would still like to take advantage of the Rate Code, please refer to the offer details to meet all necessary requirements. [DRX142]

After trying again several times to try to work out what I’d done wrong, I filled in a query form since I couldn’t find a telephone number to ring. I was promised a reply within 2 working days. 1 week later - nothing.

My wife then found a telephone number on the Hertz.com website. The customer service chap at first told me that the promotion had ended! I pointed out that it was still being displayed on the website and then he investigated further and came up with the following explanation:

“It probably means that the particular location’s office has removed itself from the promotion…”

I can accept that the fine print in the terms and conditions covers this possibility, but the complete lack of clarity in the rate code message is in itself a customer services disaster. The absence of a ‘call me’ facility on the website which instead features innumerable FAQs is a also a failing and then the lack of contact within the stated 2 working days is abysmal.

To top this off with a customer services representative who doesn’t even know whether the promotion is running…..

Book with Hertz again? No.

Recommend to a friend? No.

Blog about the miserable service? Yes.

Hertz.co.uk - FAIL

If you are able to read a blog (which clearly you are), you must have a rough grasp of both IT and the English language. Do, please, congratulate yourself – because this is a very rare combination of skills. So rare, in fact, that the Human Resources department at my Internet Service Provider had a tough choice to make. “Do we employ someone who understands the Internet? Or do we employ someone who can make themselves understood by another human being?” Hmm. Tricky.

They went for the first option and hence, today, I received this helpful advice by email. Well, it might be advice. For all I know, it might be a warning. Or a birthday card, or something. It reads as follows…

“The bouncedrop function behaves in a similar fashion to the bounce and fbounce, when the bounedrop action sends an email it will not deliver the original message from the sender as where the bounce and fbounce will still allow the message into the inbox.”

My response was: Great! / Oh no! / Thank you! (delete as appropriate)

Great scott... you mean I won?

It’s not all bad for General Motors. Sure, they may be busy selling off the family silver, but the trophy cabinet isn’t completely bare thanks to the What Car? Technology Award for the Vauxhall Ampera. What car? you’d be justified in asking, as the Ampera (in America it’s called the Chevrolet Volt) isn’t due to commence production until 2011 at the earliest.

In handing over the award, What Car? described GM’s Voltec series hybrid system as “simple, should be effective.. it’s pretty future proof, too.” Er yeah, should be.

Look, on paper the Volt is a very exciting car. But when no-one’s even seen it working yet, let alone driven it, dishing out the awards seems somewhat premature. This is an extremely complicated machine and big question marks remain over GM’s perilous financial state, the anticipated 40000 dollar cost, the fall in oil prices, battery longevity…

In related news, the NCN Award For Most Impressive Future Transport Design goes to… Emmett Brown, for his flux capacitor DeLorean! Applause!

Emmett can’t be with us tonight, as he’s currently visiting ancestors in the year AD85.  

I seldom listen to the radio when I’m driving, but on a really long journey I might break the silence with a few bars of Marriage of Figaro. But I can’t sing to save my life, so I eventually put on a Mozart CD instead.

Mozart was a genius, and few have since been equal to this inspired tunesmith. However, this generation has a near equal – the trumpeter Wynton Marsalis - whose eclectic performances range from classic baroque to home-spun jazz compositions from his own prolific pen. He’s not a bad poet, either, and his latest album ‘He and She’ explores in a myriad of jazz forms, the lines and themes of his poem of the same name.

He reads snatches of the poem throughout the recording, which concludes with the whole piece as a single track. Marsalis has a mellifluous, hominy grit voice that sounds for all the world like that of the big coloured guy that used to wander about in an overcoat and a floppy cap telling us in a poetic manner why we should bank at Barclay’s. (I think).

Somebody bought me the He & She album as a birthday present (I am six and a quarter, today, June 12) and I would love to play you the whole thing. However, the best I can do is point you at this YouTube trailer and invite you to taste a morsel of the Marsalis genius.

You will hear only a snatch of the poem, and miss one of the best bits: “One plus one make two, Like you and me before becoming we.” I wish I could write like that.

You would hardly know it was there

There I was, nursing a coffee in the evening sunshine, minding my own business in a pub garden, when from round the corner I heard these three noises: a revving engine, screeching tyres, a loud CRACK!

A CRACK? I put two and two together and to my dismay it made five, at least. Some muppet in an Audi, showing off to his mates, had dropped the clutch in reverse and barrelled across the car park straight into my hitherto oh-so-pretty Lotus Elise Type 49.

“Sorry, mate,” he slurred, viewing the Lotus’s cracked clamshell with an unfocused eye. “I didn’t see it.”

What’s red, white and gold, sticks out in a car park full of silver cars like a red balloon at a Tory conference, and now is in bits?

“I’m really sorry, said Mr Audi. “Send me the estimate, and I’ll pay it straight away.” I did, and he didn’t. Watch this space.

The A29 in West Sussex

Those of you familiar with the A29 will know that north of Billingshurst there are several stretches of ruler-straight road along the line of Stane Street – the old Roman road from Chichester to London.

During the day, the A29 is often all but deserted, and so when I came up behind a Toyota Boring pottering along at about 40 mph in a 60 limit there was no problem in overtaking – the road was otherwise entirely clear. Another car was driving behind me and just as that went to overtake as well, the driver of the said Toyota at the very last moment swerved to the right to block the road.  This he did three or four times although there was no approaching traffic and the national speed limit applies to the entire stretch of road in question.

Both of us were driving sports cars, so the second overtake would have been as swift and painless as the first. Instead, the Toyota driver’s sanctimonious enforcement of an imagined speed limit created unnecessary danger and the risk of a major accident.

If you happen to be reading this, Mr. Smug Toyota Boring driver, I was driving the Lotus that first passed you. Please get in touch, as there is something I should like to discuss with you; as would my wife, who was driving the other car.

Main image: CARS by Stephen Bayley. Inset: Sparing a Panda its blushes.

Despite the title, let me assure you that this post has nothing to do with the untimely demise of actor David Carradine. No, this is a different kind of auto-erotic experience - the type that you get from Stephen Bayley’s latest book: CARS - Freedom, Style, Sex, Power, Motion, Colour, Everything.

This gorgeous book has already been described in the Sunday Telegraph as ‘autoporn at its most lascivious’ so I’m not ashamed to say that I have spent some quiet me time lingering over the pages which are set off so beautifully by Tif Hunter’s photographs.

During a recent coffee break browse however, I have to say that my state of bliss was suddenly ruined, nay spoiled, by the sight of a disgusting protruberance on page 347. For whatever reason, the Fiat Panda featured is fitted with some kind of nasty aftermarket spoiler which completely destroys the purity of Giugiaro’s original design.

The appendage in question is simply too shocking to display here so the image has been censored.