Women more likely to fiddle insurance
Women are lying more than men on car insurance claims, a survey has found in Britain. Website eCar, part of the eInsurance Group, wanted to find out why young men were being charged twice as much as women for car cover. The survey came after the company, which handles 280,000 insurance applications a month, found that 20 per cent of claims in one month alone resulted in fraud investigations. The upshot: 51 per cent of rejected claims were from women. The top three lies were:
* Not disclosing convictions (64 per cent male, 36 per cent female).
* Misleading about licence history (32 per cent male, 68 per cent female).
* Lying about possessing a no-claims bonus (47 per cent male, 53 per cent female).
British motorist dishonesty has added about 38 per cent to the cost of premiums in the past year, driving 1.3 million people off Britain's roads.
Clarkson's comments rile them down in the valleys
Top Gear host Jeremy Clarkson has put his foot in it again, ranting against languages other than English. He said in a newspaper column: "I think we are fast approaching the time when the United Nations should start to think seriously about abolishing other languages. What's the point of Welsh, for example? All it does is provide a silly maypole around which a bunch of hotheads can get all nationalistic."
Welsh MP Jonathan Edwards said a "senior representative" of the BBC shouldn't be making such comments. The BBC released a statement saying it "will not comment on comments made by Jeremy Clarkson in his column".
VP gives battery power a plug
US Vice-President Joe Biden says one of the things he is most proud of is the Obama Administration's US$2 billion ($2.4 billion) investment in battery technology.
He told Car and Driver magazine: "In the next decade, we'll have batteries that are one-third to one-tenth the weight of today's. You'll be able to go 1000 miles [1600km].
"They're making breakthroughs in the lithium-ion batteries packing more power.
"They're on the cusp of a follow-on to the lithium-ion battery. You'll see this leapfrog present technology."
Biden's pride and joy is a 1967 Chevrolet Corvette 327. "It's 350 horses with a rear-axle ratio that really gets up and goes. The Secret Service won't let me drive it. It's the one thing I hate about this job."
Lancia barnstormer goes up for auction
A 1954 Lancia Aurelia B20 GT Coupe found in a barn in Britain is going up for auction. The rear-drive Aurelia was considered the most advanced production car around at the time and introduced the world's first mass-produced V6 engine; an all-alloy unit which grew in capacity from 1.8 litres to 2.5 litres. The B20 GT Coupe was one of the standout Aurelia models - race greats Juan Manuel Fangio and Mike Hawthorn each owned one. Restored B20s have been selling for between $100,000 and $200,000.
Google this ... Merc's brakes are best
Google senior executive Vic Gundotra was so impressed with the electronic brake system in his Mercedes-Benz S-Class that he wrote to the German carmaker thanking it for the technology.
Gundotra wasn't paying attention in heavy traffic and the system stopped him from running into the car in front.
Mercedes-Benz in turn asked Gundotra to plug the system publicly.
He did, going on TV in a Mercedes-Benz commercial - for free.
Rumours of a V6 on BMW's drawing board gain ground
BMW is the only big-wheel carmaker to stick with straight-six engines, a design known for smooth operation and ability to rev while producing some of the sweetest sounds. It's all to do with the inherent balance of an inline configuration, long held to be superior to the V design, even though the longer straight-six takes up crucial engineering room in the engine bay.
BMW, of course, also builds V8 and V10 engines. Now, however, it appears to have a V6 on the drawing board. A German website has uncovered a patent application that shows a turbocharged V engine design with six and eight cylinders.
European analysts say that BMW may only be protecting intellectual property it has developed for a turbocharger design. But they all agree that the patent application goes a long way to supporting rumours of a V6.
