This has absolutely nothing to do with cars, except that it’s the Top Gear team. It’s quite funny, however, and might lift your spirits on a Monday.

The team attempt to play a song for Rednose Day (it’s a charity thing that began with Comic Relief) - and it’s quite good, amazingly enough. Just don’t ask me who Justin Hawkins is - I’m far too old to know things like that.

Anyway, here it is!

Only those as ancient as I am will remember that indicators were once little arrows that swung up from between the doors to show which way you were going to turn. They might have been a logical development of the old hand signals but were not exactly highly visible from either end of the car, even when supplied with lights.

It was inevitable, therefore that designers soon came up with a better solution to the problem - the flashing lights at front and rear that joined the main lights in a cluster. According to research published in the Journal of Applied Cognitive Psychology, however, the idea needs refinement, even though we have used it for fifty years. The question is: do the indicators go inside the main lights or outside?

Their research has shown that indicators placed between the main lights are less easily identified and reacted upon by other road users. Much clearer is the system whereby the indicators are close to the corners of the car and outside the headlights. It seems a fairly obvious conclusion after a few seconds’ thought but many designers may not have considered the problem, judging by the numbers of cars with indicators in the “wrong” place these days.

So the Lotus Elise up there would be a no-no to the psychologists, whereas the Audi immediately below would receive the seal of approval. A designer’s lot is not an easy one…

After all this stuff about saving the planet, it would do us all good to have a breath of fresh air in the form of something totally irresponsible. A Lamborghini, for instance - they’re always good for a fantasy or two.

Or are they? According to Top Gear’s Jeremy Clarkson, the company’s take-over by Audi has tamed the wild excesses of the Italian original. He seems somewhat disappointed in the Murcielago LP 640, apart from its power and speed, and I detect a certain nostalgia for the fins, scoops and protuberances usually associated with a Lambo. But I think it’s successful, in the looks department, at least. That dose of German seriousness has taken the edge off the usual Italian flair maybe, but it still looks like a Lamborghini.

So you have to drive it carefully? Isn’t that true of all supercars?

In an earlier post I mentioned that, sooner or later, we are going to have to get serious about electric cars. Fossil fuels will not last forever and will have to be replaced by an alternative, most likely hydrogen or electricity. GM’s Hy-Wire is an elegant combination of both that may well show the route to the future, but Tesla have the best answer yet from the electricity side of the debate - their roadster is completely electric and powered by their own design of battery.

The electric motor has obvious advantages in that it is clean, light and quiet; but it also presents us with great problems. Power similar to that provided by the internal combustion engine is necessary before we will consider it as a valid alternative; a big problem in the past has been that any practical electric vehicle will have to have a similar range to gasoline-driven cars before we will be persuaded to swap; and the origin of the power that recharges the batteries remains a stumbling block as long as we continue to get most of our electricity from power stations burning fossil fuels.

Tesla have solved the first two of these problems - their roadster accelerates to 60 mph in 4 seconds, surely enough power for anyone, and has a range of 250 miles, which is very close to the average for a standard production car. As for the power stations, I guess that will have to wait until we face the fact that nuclear power is the only viable answer.

If you want to learn more of the technical ingenuity behind the Tesla, visit the engineering page on their website. And, if you want one of next year’s model, get your order in now - the 2007 batch sold out in four months.

Update:

Here is a link to a video of the Tesla being driven. It also has more detail on features of the car but listen to it when in motion - that is the sound of tomorrow!

And another video just for the Brits…