Day in the hills, Taiwan

Test drive: Toyota new Prius Spirit 1.8 CVT Hybrid

Automatics have always left me a bit cold when it comes to driving experience. An odd thing to say, sounds like marketing talk, but it is true.

Being involved with the car or rather being in control of the car is very important from a number of perspectives. We don’t want to crash or fall asleep (or both). When it comes to the new Toyota Prius, I feel I would probably fall asleep. Not because it is really quiet or has gentle acceleration but that even as the driver you feel like a passenger, just there to push a pedal.

You could busy yourself with the vast array of buttons or see exactly how much fuel you are not using – how eco can you go – but then you are likely to forget you are actually supposed to be looking where you are going. Of course the heads up display (HUD) will take care of some of that meaning you don’t have to try and find the speedo in the dash, which has the feel that it has come from some futuristic power station that men in white coats should be checking from time to time.

On the drive we played around with the three drive settings, EV (Electric only) Eco (default – limits the amount of power you can put through the wheels) or Power (guess what that does).  To keep it in EV which will run for 1.2 miles on a full charge is incredibly difficult. I tried to pull away at some lights and it disengaged EV and went back into Eco.  The Power setting was only slightly less underwhelming. I’m certainly not the sort of person that goes screaming round corners, not since we had the kids, but you feel detached.

Space is good inside, but for the size of the vehicle it has the opposite feeling to a tardis. Those batteries have to go somewhere and so the boot level is very high making it quite shallow.  You can remove to boot floor which has more space underneath and it also carries a (baby) spare wheel, not just a puncture repair kit. But it still seems unsatisfactory for a car of this size.

The standard seat upholstery is seems incredibly flimsy and probably not up to the task of two kids, ice creams and orange juice. You would need to go for the leather upgrade, it’s only another £1800 or so. (gulp)

The rest of the kit is good though, great big hard drive for saving music on, a huge sat nav screen, (which btw won’t let you input post codes for your destination) and the usual electric windows and gubbins, but then at over £22,000 you would expect some of that.

I hope I haven’t slagged it off too much, it is a nice car, but perhaps not for me. When other cars without a hybrid system are now getting very close to the same sort of economy and emission output I’d expect a bit more for the price.

Test drive: Golf 1.6 TDi SE

I just went for a quick test drive in the new Golf, 1.6 TDi SE. I really wanted to tryout a Bluemotion but I’ll have to wait a month before the dealers get hold of them, but you can order one now.

The first thing that hit me, it was very quiet. I’ll always remember when I got into that later version how loud the engine was, the common rail engine in the latest version is much, much quieter – oddly though not when you stop at traffic lights.

The loud engine didn’t put me off the MKV and so this is only going to make things better.  Overall, the drive is very smooth, gear changes are solid. It feels familiar but new. Like the instrument layout and dials, not something I tend to pay much attention to but the large dials really make a difference and I noticed that even this version recommends which gear you should be in, which I thought was only on the Bluemotion.

What I really like about the Golf that not all cars get close to is that the best driving position is easy to find. Especially as the reach and rake on the steering is much further than found elsewhere.

The ride is a little firmer, but that also gives you a little more feeling as you corner. The old version did feel very soft but that is great for the kids in the back.  However, I don’t think it is going to have them banging heads on the roof.

The model I had didn’t have a leather steering wheel, just the basic plastic thing which is truly awful. You probably get better steering wheel on a Sega racing game at your local games arcade.

The external styling I wasn’t sure of when I first saw it at the start of the year but it grows on you (well me at least) and is much more interesting that the last version. And as for space, it always surprises me that this is called a small family car. The space in the back for passengers is vast. I looked at a number of other cars which are much larger and none of them come close to the leg-room you get here.

Overall, same as the old version but better. More detail, better finish and quieter.

It’s not just social media where it can go wrong

I was in the supermarket at lunch-time to get a few things as I’ve hardly been at home this week.

Make sure you send the right message (Image by bindermichi)

One of the assistants came up to me and asked me to read a label for her as she didn’t have her glasses. I imagine she was retired and working in the shop to get out the house. Good on her.

“Pork lunch meat,” I said.

Then she went on about the person that gave her the packet, “Why didn’t he just take it back to where he got it?”

I smiled and thought well it is your job and mumbled something, hmmm.

Then just as I thought she was going she swung back round and said, “Bloody foreigners.”

Racism is alive and well and living in your local supermarket.  I have to say I was quite shocked, almost felt like I was being punched. Why was  this woman, seemingly nice saying something like this to?  The fact that I’m white seemed to mean it was ok, so do lots of people come across this sort of thing?  I have never heard it at work and most of the time when I’m out at the weekend it is with the family.  So do people think this all the time?

Now she may have  thought it was ok to say that to me because I’m white and male but she is unlikely to know that my wife is one of those “bloody foreigners.” I’m not sure what she would make of our children.

My point

While all the attention has been on social media in business over the past 12 months or so, the risks, the danger of getting caught up in something, this just goes to show that it is the content with which employees interact with the public not the tools they use in that interaction.

Employers can block employees from Facebook but if they go and tell their friends that the management are useless, that message is still getting out – the issues still needs to be addressed – not the fact that the employees are saying these things to friends, but why do they think that management is useless.

Likewise if your employees are making racist remarks to customers you can expect someone to write about on their blog and tell their friends. The employer needs to make it clear that this sort of behavior will be dealt with.

I have no idea if this supermarket chain has a set of values and guidelines for it’s employees but it should start there. Then it wouldn’t need to worry about the tools it’s employees  use because it will be clear on what content is acceptable, no matter what.