Electric cars have developed a sound of their own. Not the familiar chug of an engine or the rising growl of an exhaust, but a smooth, slightly eerie hum that seems better suited to a spacecraft glidi
Close a car door with every window shut and the air inside has to go somewhere. The door pushes a substantial volume of air into an already sealed cabin. Without an escape route, pressure builds fo
Shift an automatic car into Drive, release the brake and it begins moving without a touch of the accelerator. The movement is usually gentle. Just enough to edge forward in traffic, ease into a par
Cruise control feels wonderfully precise on a flat highway. Set it to 65 mph and the speedometer settles into place, leaving the car to handle the small adjustments that a human ankle normally makes.
The engine stops. The dashboard goes dark. The radio continues playing as though it has decided the journey deserves an encore. For a driver unfamiliar with the car, this can produce an immediate r
A car left in the afternoon sun does not need long to turn into a small greenhouse. The steering wheel becomes unpleasant to touch, the seats feel freshly ironed and the dashboard claims it is 104 deg
A parked car should understand the concept of being parked. The engine is off. The keys are inside the house. The garage has been quiet for hours. Then something beneath the car begins to hu
There is no graceful way to discover how ABS feels for the first time. Something enters the road. The brake pedal goes down hard. Then, at precisely the moment when calm would be useful, the pedal beg
There is something wonderfully unhelpful about the traction-control symbol. It shows a car wriggling across the road, which makes the button beside it look like the obvious thing to press when the roa
The engine is off. You push the brake pedal once, then again. Each push feels a little firmer than the last. After several presses, the pedal barely wants to move. That sensation can make it s