The Paris Show 2008

The Paris Show this week was marked by financial and economic gloom. European car manufacturers have been unable to escape tough targets on emissions for new cars and the credit crunch means fewer customers. They are pleading with us to buy their new models and are gearing up to sell us little cars to suit our shallower pockets.


Life style vehicles such as SUVs, 4x4s and cross over vehicles – I’ve never really understood this term – are falling rapidly and interest is now in small cheap cars that don’t pollute. The aspirational Chelsea tractors of the noughties “said something about you as a person”, such as like you’re such a lard arse you can’t get out of a car with a seat height lower than your hips and that you want to look adventurous when the only reason you drive a 4x4 is because you’re too fat to walk anywhere and had to drive there.

I see this as a good thing. The conspicuous consumption that was spoken of just before the internet bubble burst (remember that?) happened anyway. The gap between rich and poor widened dramatically. It will probably continue to do so but a more resource aware approach seems inevitable.

It’s just that having seen so many riches can we stand with being poor. Having enjoyed the summer of ’76 can bear these gloomy rainy summers?

The Paris Show is marked by the numbers of electric city cars. The technology has come in the last few years but the range is still only about 50 miles. Battery technology doesn’t allow much more. Bentley’s chief exec Dr Franz-Joseph Paefgen says that battery technology has advanced by only 50% since the bad old days of the ’73 fuel crisis when it needs to advance by 500% if it’s to offer a realistic alternative to internal combustion engines or hybrid cars, about which he is more enthusiastic. So it seems that we can expect to see some hybrid Bentley’s in the future.


If you think about it, 50 miles is probably far in excess of most of our daily mileages. The thought of running out of charge and becoming stranded is as valid as running out of petrol. Hybrid petrol electric cars offer a safety net to those who don’t like the idea of cordless motoring. And who would really want to drive on the end of an extension cable? They’d just get tangled up.

Coachbuilder Pininfarina is even getting onto the electric band wagon these days. But holy writ from Detroit is “small cars, small profits”. The car manufacturers have to charge a premium of some sort and the smell of burning martyrs is hardly aspirational in our secular society, no matter how environmentally conscious we wish to appear to be (when we are not really, not if anyone looks too closely).


They’re doing it by loading these space efficient, fuel efficient little cars with all manner of goodies. Concept cars like the Audi A1 and the BMW X1 are weighed down with the gadgets that bigger cars offer but this pushes up the weight. The added value from which the car manufacturers make a living makes their products less fuel efficient, more complicated, more difficult to fix (since there’s more to go wrong) and less environmentally friendly.

As for the electric cars all this new battery technology leaves me rather suspicious. I have a Sony Handy cam and the battery for this is unique. As soon as it goes wrong I'll have to buy another and they are very expensive. My digital camera uses rechargeable AA size batteries but that's a year older.

Do you spot the trend that I see? Our cars are becoming more like computer accessories. Until we get pattern replacement print cartridges and video camera batteries there's a question mark over the life span of the new batteries in electric cars.

But if you live in a city, why aren’t you using public transport?