Aftermarket June 2022

24 AFTERMARKET JUNE 2022 TECHNICAL/AFTERMARKET OF THE FUTURE www.aftermarketonline.net Audi manuals longer than War and Peace Taking Steve Gooding’s point about the importance of knowing your vehicle’s capabilities, Scrap Car Comparison recently published some eye-catching research on the good old owner’s handbook. The salvage specialist analysed the manuals for 100 of the UK’s most popular vehicles. It found that Audi has by far the heftiest, with the R8 being longest at 616,064 words, followed by the e- tron at 603,649 words. To put that into perspective, at an average English silent reading speed of 238 words per minute, both the R8 and e-tron manuals take over 40 hours to complete, comparable to Tolstoy’s titanic tome, War and Peace. In addition to reading-length, the study also used the Flesch- Kincaid Reading Ease Score to rank the accessibility of each manual. It found the McLaren 765LT supercar manual to be the most difficult to digest, requiring the equivalent of a college-level education to understand it. The Vauxhall Crossland X and BMW 2 Series completed the top three for impenetrability. At the more accessible end of the spectrum, Tesla’s Model Y was found to be the easiest manual to understand, suitable for those aged 12-13 and above. Toyota also did well, taking second and third spots with its Tacoma and Tundra manuals. Follow us on Facebook @aftermarketmagazine A full-size autonomous bus took to public roads for the first time in the UK in April as the CAVForth project began a landmark two- week trial in Scotland. In an interview with Cars of the Future, Jim Hutchinson, CEO of Fusion Processing, one of the partners in the project – along with Stagecoach, Alexander Dennis and Transport Scotland – explained how Fusion was involved in the Gateway project in London, and how that led to CAVForth: “The hope is that it will go from a pilot service to a full service,” he said. “It’s being registered as a new route, providing a service that wasn’t previously there, and Stagecoach anticipate around 10,000 journeys a week. “The route includes a mix of road environments – motorway, bus lanes, roundabouts, signalled interchanges – so from our point of view it makes for a great demonstration of capability. There’s the technology side, which Fusion is focussed on, but there’s also key research around public acceptance. “It will be a very significant achievement to demonstrate a Level 4 capability on that class of vehicle – a big thing for the UK which will be noticed around the world.” Level 4 automation, according to the SAE International standard, means no human is driving and, unlike Level 3, won’t be required to take over. Around 500 members of the public have provided feedback on what would make them feel “comfortable and confident in travelling”. As a result, a decision has been made to keep a member of staff on board. The test phase will run for two weeks in preparation for the launch of the CAVForth pilot this summer. That’s when things will get really exciting, with passengers. Stagecoach plans to recruit 20 specially trained ‘Autonomous Bus Professionals’ from across its East Scotland business. When the service goes live, these experienced bus drivers will monitor the autonomous system alongside a ‘Captain’, who will move around the bus answering any questions passengers may have about the service. Part-funded by the UK Government’s Centre for Connected and Autonomous Vehicles (CCAV), five single-decker autonomous buses will operate at SAE Level 4 over the Forth Road Bridge, between Ferrytoll Park & Ride in Fife and the Edinburgh Park Train & Tram Interchange. The buses will be fitted with Fusion’s CAVstar sensor and control technology. A nugget to note here – CAVstar was developed as a scalable solution – a drive system which could go into pretty much any vehicle, from small cars up to HGV. Think about the potential. CAVForth bus project conducts public road test Neil Kennett looks at cutting-edge auto tech coming to a workshop near you soon AFTERMARKET OF THE FUTURE A commentator on the UK aftermarket since before Concorde was grounded, Neil is Editor of Carsofthefuture .co.uk , providing news and views about driverless vehicles, and Director of Communications at Self- drivingpr.com, experts in automotive/autonomous media and public relations