Advancing Technology
From water-cooling to the
self-driving car
by Roger Moroney
O
nce upon a time the only way to cool
an engine was by using the air. And of
course designing fins around the barrels
to spread the heat and drag cooler
air closer to the cylinders within.
And basically it worked except in extreme
climate cases (like crossing Death Valley in mid-
summer) I am sure there would have been, shall
we say, issues. But air cooling was the way it was
until the arrival of basic radiators and liquid-cooling
systems aboard machines like the early Scotts.
Yep, fins were effectively the way
to go, and even the GP outfits chose
to use Mother Nature’s wind despite
some building machines with a line
of six cylinders across the frame.
I can remember some of the
early two-strokes when they
adopted radiators, and the
niggles they had. All part of the growing process I
guess. And I also remember the sensation on the
streets called the Suzuki GT750 — a three-cylinder
giant of a thing which had a radiator up front which
appeared the be the size of a small garage door.
For the very early 70s, the GT750 was a real
eye-opener... the first Japanese motorcycle
to hit the shelves with a liquid-cooled
powerplant, and it accordingly drew taglines
like the “waterbus” and (rather unkindly but
given the size of it) the “Water Buffalo”.
It was a breakthrough in cooling and year-by-year,
factory-by-factory, the radiators took centre
stage on the cooling landscape. Today, they
are simply accepted... and when I see a finely
restored old air-cooled unit parked up I usually
stop and take a look. All part of the thing they
call evolution and advancing technology.
A thing I suspect, and fear, is getting just a little out
of hand in the world of four wheels. It costs a lot of
money to pursue technology and develop new systems
and test them and refine them, so manufacturers
88KIWI RIDER
have to make cost cuts somewhere to allow them to
do that. So something has to go (apart from another
30 jobs as another robot is bolted to the floor).
And it appears that something is a steering wheel.
For cars that do not require a driver do not need
steering wheels...although maybe they’ve bolted
one in the boot beside the spare tyre just in case
there is a solar flare or a global hacking strike
with ‘Made in North Korea’ written all over it.
Now I realise I am labelling myself as a bit of a
Luddite here... one of those people who does not
embrace rapid advancements of technology and
job-swallowing automatons, but I am not only
suspicious of self-drive cars but I am afraid of them.
We who spent all our riding lives up at the front end all
know what it’s like to ride pillion. I was a dreadful pillion
passenger. I wanted the control grips thankyou very
much. A bit the same in a car. I was not designed to be
a passenger. Only aboard a bus or an aircraft or a boat
am I comfortable with the notion of having
someone else do the thinking, equating and
driving. The big players in the automotive
world are at it though and several are now
involving time frames in their development
and those times are not far away.
However, I was delighted to read recently
how a kangaroo threw a huge spanner
into the development process, because it seems the
sensors on the test self-drive car, which was being run
through its paces in the otherwise isolated outback
of Australia could not determine how far away this
potential barrier was...b ecause it keep hopping on and
off the ground and it therefore could not get a fix.
Marsupial 1, Automotive Technology nil.
This is where motorcycles win because you can’t
have a self-drive one... you just can’t. They need a
pilot, therefore they will become the saviour of the
human race. I can see the scene from 2031 now...
A silly looking car with three bored and
grim-faced people strapped inside it... all on
iPads, or whatever, and all being taken to their
destination by a robotic system which has
caused the extinction of the driving licence.
But the riders going by on their motorcycles
will have cheerful faces. Because they can
stop when they want to and they can actually
beep the horn when they want to.
And blip the throttle (just a little) at the Stop sign.
Motorcycles 1, Automobiles nil.