News and Opinion in Black and White

Issue 98 of EVO magazine contained a test of hand held sat nav units to see which one was the daddy. The units that were tested were the TOMTOM GO 710, Roadstar Angel Navigator 6000, NAVMAN ICN 720, Indago Syrius, Garmin Nuvi 360, Fujitsu Siemens Pocket Loox N100, Sony NAV-U and the TOMTOM ONE Europe. The TOMTOM ONE Europe came out on top as it was found to be quick and easy to use, it does everything you expect a nav unit to do, had excellent routing facilities and good introductory tutorials. An EVO recommended product. Units were tested and the write up done by Henry Catchpole, photos by Amy Cole.

Looks like the British motorist is going to get pasted again by the government. What do they think they are doing? If you look at the motorist as a customer of the government, then the service absolutley stinks. With all the millions that the motorist pays into the government pockets you would think that we would get something back in return, but this is not the case.

If Gordon Brown really wants to do something to help the environment then he should look at slashing congestion, not reducing it, slashing it. Nobody benefits from sitting in a traffic jam, except maybe the fuel companies. There has got to be some intelligent research done into sorting these congestion problems out.

Trying to get people out of cars and onto public transport? Sounds like a communist philosphy to me. If you can’t go out and buy a nice car which gives you the freedom to travel anywhere you want went you want, in comfort, then it reduces the motivation for earning more money which is what capatilism is all about, is it not?

If traffic problems are sorted out you not only get a more efficient economy, people will be happier and the country will be greener. The root of the problem should be tackled not the symptom.

An article in Turbo and Hi Tec performance magazine suprised us this month. It was about Bonneville Speed Week and specifically a GM team that had entered an Ethanol powered car. What suprised us what not the fact the car was powered on Ethanol but that Ethanol is already available to buy from petrol stations. While its not widely available its good to see that this fuel is available to the general public. To our knowledge Ethanol fuel is not available on a commercial basis in the UK, but if it were, we think it would be a massive success, not least the fact that it has a race fuel octance rating. NEVC has an excellent website containing information on all things E85 related.

While we are on the subject of cleaner fuel sources we are also interested in the potential of the use of flywheels to store energy from the braking process. Heres a link to a brief summary.