Silence Is Dangerous

I have been out today to the old Brooklands race track in Surrey, which is now home to Mercedes Benz World. I am no petrol head but I wanted to go and look at the latest innovations by Mercedes and Mitsubishi. You often hear the theory that motor manufacturers are secretly sitting on the successor to the internal combustion engine but won't release it for fear of destabilising the global economy. In other words they are waiting until the oil runs out and at one minute to midnight they will pull the dust sheets off an invention that they have been sitting on for twenty years. This is yet another ridiculous conspiracy theory that doesn't stand scrutiny.

From what I saw today these motor companies are pouring money into research and development of new fuel technologies like there was no tomorrow, which may well be the case. In fact they are putting in one million Euros per day, which doesn't sound much like the are waiting until the oil runs out. What they have achieved so far is just the start but it is impressive. I got to drive some of their latest offerings which include The Smart electric car, a hybrid lorry and a natural gas powered van plus a couple of vehicles that have stop start technology, which prevents fuel wasted when idling. That idling fuel amounts for one sixth of everything we use. I particularly liked the hybrid lorry because it decides whether to run on battery or diesel according to the load on the engine. You can hear it change over as you drive along

The one reservation that I have about this technology is that it is far too quiet. During the transition period when we are running electric and internal combustion vehicles I predict a sharp rise in the number of pedestrians run over simply because they didn't hear these new vehicles coming. Despite the fact that we all know that you must look right and left before crossing the road many of us step off the kerb depending solely upon our hearing to tell us whether traffic is coming. Every cyclist knows this to be true.

Old habits die hard but the young iPod generation may already be better equipped for the new electric vehicle age, because they have already given up using their ears to cross the road or do anything much other than receive the relentless beat of
music. For them looking is the natural option, as is lip reading, so they stand a far better chance of surviving.

It isn't often that you see natural selection or Darwinism in action before your very eyes, or ears come to that.


Roger Bisby
www.selfbuilder.net