Sunday, October 22, 2017

1,000 Miles Across India In a $4,000 Car (With $4,000 in Options)

1,000 Miles Across
Let me tell you shooting conditions are
tough this is like Le Mans plus cows, minus a sanctioning body. Absolutely nothing
prepared me for what it's like driving across India I'm Alex Roy, I'm Ed Niedermeyer and
we're here at beautiful downtown Chennai on the east coast of India about to
drive this Renault kwid almost a thousand miles to the west coast to
Mumbai previously known as Bombay did you know that? -- I did know that. I usually
cover autonomous vehicles for the drive but there's no better place to
experience human driving than here in India. To an outsider it looks like
complete chaos something that at least today no machine could possibly learn.
Can two Americans who've never been to India actually make it cross country
given the incredible traffic the absence of any traffic law it seems and the
cows.

This is such a bad idea. Here in the beautiful downtown Chennai about to
go to Renault dealership to see what it's like to get a new car. Oh wait who's
this. One of the best things about India is that if you're an animal lover
especially a lover of cows you get this cows everywhere everywhere this is something else I'm the principal
of Renault children meet the delivery coordinator
so what you first see is that they'll first unveil the car so we'll have like
a gray satin power which is covering the car and then we'll do a small which our
ceremony and which is basically to welcome the new member of the family so
it's basically to give good luck and prosperity to the family and under each
of the tyre you see and lemon so basically our sellers we start the
engine they'll run the lemons over till dedicate all the bad omens and bad eyes
and all of that so that's a belief of Indians and a'right after that what we
did was we cut a cake for them to welcome into the Renault family and then
there's a service advisor who give us a brief about how to drive the car and
about the service of the car and so on you ever get that feeling like these
chicanes exist only so the police can sell advertising on the chicane
barriers.

-- I would rather cops work off the
advertising business model than the traffic ticket model. What makes
the Kwid great, value meter absolutely 100 percent absolutely and so, the Tata
Nano is a $4,000 car -- That looks
like a $2,000 car -- Which of course was what its price point was supposed to be at a
certain point when you imagine what a car that starts at $4,000 would be like
you don't imagine this your imagine is gonna be jump but actually try yeah I
mean like a Tata Nano exactly which we have seen some of those on the road here
and let me tell you I would be terrified let's talk about what you get for $4,000
so you get open an 800cc motor for the manual transmission five speeds and a
truck and four wheels it's more like a big hacker has twice as much cargo
capacity as like the other cars in its price range and this is the option of
primer edition is that it has a 1 liter engine
yep I think spelling nineties if I lived in India I would absolutely
be happy on in this car yeah and that's the thing is you know
the person we're driving is about $8,500 so quite a bit more and honestly
everything I like about this car you can get with two option boxes as the 1 litre
engine is is the option box I've acknowledged it I check first and then
AC. Let me tell you shooting conditions are
tough the GoPros are all overheating it's well over 100 degrees the in-car
power is well it's got one power plug we have a long way to go literally any time
we make to Mumbai will be a record at this point I just want to get there in
one piece Check Point to somewhere a few hours
west of Chennai I can't say it's been a tough Drive I'm suffering some kind of
ailment and Sweetie Meyers taking over we are getting coconut water which is
probably very hygienic it's 5:40 p.M. Local we're less than halfway to Hubli
which is less than halfway to Mumbai which means that we're barely a quarter
of the way and we've been on the road for 10 hours every electronic device
I've got has overheated the kwid is an amazing car but it has one problem it
only has one 12-volt outlet and one USB.

Port and it charges devices very very
very slowly other than that it's one of the best cars I've ever driven that's a
good thing because I'm gonna be spending the next 20 hours in it arriving at
least 12 to 15 hours behind schedule in Mumbai somewhere between 1/2 and 3/5 the way to
the halfway point ooh bleep we're gonna have to stop tonight there's no way we
can go all the way to Mumbai in one shot the traffic in India is just absolutely
too terrible luckily our convoy which includes our
support vehicle and another quit is with us I grew up in New York City I thought
I'd seen everything I've been in Mexico Thailand Morocco absolutely nothing
prepared food for what it's like driving across India 9 o'clock 13 hours after
leaving Chennai we're so far behind I've lost track we're gonna stop in Hubli
overnight which is halfway of the entire distance I thought I could drive alone
before I arrived in India thank goodness Peter Meyers here and we've got support
vehicle and a guide car this is like l'm all plus cows - a sanctioning body
indian drivers are the least law-abiding but possibly the best in the world definitely feels like the middle lane is
the safest doesn't it laughs lane has people with like tractors with no lights
people and the right lane has tractors with no lights
oncoming cars and people on scooters yeah we literally just had someone help
me tell you the driving I just saw him do absolutely terrified me I kilometers
which is 70 80 miles an hour which is about the maximum comfortable speed in
this car when I say comfortable I mean I. Would have I've been sleeping through it
I would have been happy that was which you were earlier by the way let's let's
end this conversation I'm awake now so just like the freeway
thing I was I'm so done with that this is fresh machine learned that a fight hey is this it
it is Wow we've arrived in Hubli Niedermayer
did an incredible job of driving that last stage especially we saw it
especially after the support team lost us and took off or disappeared and we
now have game of Google Maps which was pretty hairy that that last thing I've
been to Morocco and Thailand and Baja let me try I've never seen it a fight
break out in the street that almost in Kolff the car that was some hairy hairy
intersection with absolutely zero signage no lights or nothing just kind
of go out into it you kind of go around giant bus and someone coming let's just
say I'm really glad you were driving here in whom Bali India they're many
amazing things to see all of which I've missed because I've arrived five hours
ago and I've got to leave from Mumbai however there is this Treat in the
penthouse of the president hotel taxidermy as you know I love taxidermy
there's no higher love of nature than taxidermy and now it's just a big plush
toy let me say it is not a modern country
this is a real superhighway in here like I figure in sentence 200 kilometers from
Mumbai and I couldn't help but notice this gas stations lovely architecture
also that this is the petrol side that's the diesel side all you meiotic
drivers are slow car fast momentum car use every bit of speed in road
you're talking about you've driven anything in India on an open I can't go back to racing I cannot
believe we're actually racing what is going on in India literally everybody is
basically driving their cart the South Country the last stretch
before reaching Mumbai is no less intense as the roads improved but the
car continues to perform without so much as a hiccup it's clear this is a car
designed and marketed to the very specific needs of India tough minimalist
and affordable and definitely not autonomous this is what ever a no-quit
looks like after driving a thousand miles across India the car in perfectly
but nothing and I mean nothing could have prepared me us to automotive
journalists with racing experience but what it was like to drive from Chennai
to Mumbai between the cows the jaywalkers the road conditions the other
drivers the monsoons this was absolutely the most difficult thing I've ever done
in my life in a car and it could not have been done without this Renault kwid
but the real hero of the story is actually the driver of the second
Renault kwid the car that actually beat us at every stage all the way across
India to the finish line of Mumbai and the driver of that car is Sen seal Kumar
and let me tell you a sense he'll know rain Karthikeyan is a coward absolutely
without a question the greatest driver in India has to be you I've never been
beaten in a head-to-head chase like this one all my respect all my respect
brother seriously the man after two days in almost a thousand
miles of barely contained chaos I've never been so sure about how good human
drivers can be in the words of yuan Musk humans are underrated Silicon Valley is
investing billions of dollars in self-driving cars some think they're
inevitable and I completely agree the problem with self-driving cars are
the edge cases the things you cannot predict things like a row of ducks in
the Sahara 48 hours in India made it very clear to me that this entire
country is an edge case you could even call it an edge country however long it
takes to develop self-driving cars for the US market in India add 20 years
actually add 50 based on what I've been told by people working on the problem
here it could be a hundred you.

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