Since the fallout from the incident that brought down Top Gear as we know it, former show runner Jeremy Clarkson has kept understandably quiet. We’ve been left with bundle of questions as to what will befall our much beloved (or hated, depending on who you ask) car show presenter, and knew it was only a matter of time before he broke his silence. He did so this weekend with an article addressing his departure from the show, and what he has in store for the future.
“As you may have heard, the BBC has taken my gun and my badge,” Clarkson begins his Sunday Times article, going on to explain that the better part of the last 12 years has been all-consumed by the famous motoring program. It seems that a confluence of events played a part in his outburst. While he only refers to the “fracas” once, it’s not to explain himself or go into details about what happened, only to use it as a point of reference.
A short time before it happened, Clarkson’s loss of his mother and loss of his home due to marital turmoil was only compounded by the fact that a possibly cancerous lump was found on his tongue. With this, along with the rumors that the BBC wasn’t planning to renew his contract even without a highly public kerfuffle, it’s not hard to see that Jezza had a lot on his shoulders. It doesn’t excuse his outburst, but it does put a few things into perspective.
Clarkson describes Top Gear as “an all-consuming entity, a many-tentacled global monster that was dysfunctional and awkward and mad but I loved it with a passion. I loved it like my own child. Which in many ways it was.” He then goes on about trying to make sense of what to do with this life now that he’s in forced retirement, and that the usual fare of fishing and gardening doesn’t really have the same satisfaction if your former day job was racing Maseratis at 185 mph or being chased by Apache helicopters.
He says that his ages puts him at a state of limbo: too young to resign to retirement but too old to start anything new. Even so, the quietness of the past couple weeks had been all he needed to decide that fading into the background wasn’t for him“…I have made a decision. I have lost my baby but I shall create another.” This sounds an awful lot like a new car program headed by Jezza is on the way.
In a way, this article leaves us with more questions than we started: What will this “baby” be? Could it in fact not be a motoring show? Will the rest of his crew put away the sheep, drop the recorders, and join him in rearing this new bundle of joy? Again, only time will tell, but whatever Clarkson has on deck, we’re sure it’ll be loud and packed with exciting displays of “Powerrrrrr!”
BYD has launched the third-generation Qin Plus DM-i in China, and the first thing that caught my eye is its price. According to CarNewsChina, the plug-in hybrid sedan starts at 79,900 yuan, which is about $11,980. That’s an incredibly low price for a brand-new car, especially by US standards.
What’s even more impressive is the range. The Qin Plus DM-i can drive up to 137 miles on electricity alone, which should cover most people’s daily commutes without using a drop of gas. Once the battery runs out, the 1.5-liter engine takes over. Thanks to its 17-gallon tank and roughly 91 mpg with a drained battery, the combined range reaches up to 1,423 miles.
Apple won the PC market’s worst quarter, but that’s not the entire story. It won the race by stumbling less than everyone else.
PC makers shipped just 57 million computers worldwide in Q3, which might look good, but it’s a 21% year-over-year plunge (via Counterpoint Research). And despite Apple’s Mac shipments falling by 11%, to 5.6 million, its market share rose from 8.7% to 9.8%. How did that happen?
Update (October 22 23:54 PT): In response to our query, GM clarified that offline recording support is already available on eligible vehicles. Like Tesla's Sentry Mode, it requires owners to connect a USB drive to save incident recordings, which can be viewed on the vehicle's infotainment screen. The upcoming Connected Cameras feature will build on this by giving owners remote access to these recordings via the revamped OnStar app, allowing them to check footage without walking out to their car.
General Motors has announced plans to add a new Connected Cameras feature to its OnStar service starting next year, giving drivers a way to monitor parked vehicles remotely and capture footage of certain incidents.