#BrownCarGuy – News, Views & Reviews!
For years now, motorists have been told the same soothing bedtime story: “Don’t worry. You’ve got until 2030.”
Plenty of time, apparently. Time to save. Time to decide. Time to enjoy one last glorious petrol-powered hurrah before the lights go out and the chargers take over. Except… that story is nonsense.
I’ve always had a soft spot for the Toyota C-HR. When the original arrived, it felt like a small act of rebellion from a brand better known for playing things safe. It was sharp, angular, unapologetically different, and crucially, it didn’t try to hide its personality. Better still, in its early years you could even buy one with a petrol engine and a manual gearbox, complete with rev-matching. A crossover that actually wanted to be driven. That alone made it stand out.
Like these stunning, limited-edition BrownCarGuy keyrings and lapel pin badges – beautifully crafted, with gold-tone finishes, smooth contours, and unmistakable petrolhead presence. Custom-made by my brilliant friends and sponsors at Design5IT.co.uk, these shiny collectibles are everything I love – cool, car-themed, and totally exclusive.
Everything looks real. Until it isn’t. Cars, content, even people are now being designed, edited and improved by artificial intelligence – and the automotive world may never look the same again. If you’ve found yourself squinting at your phone lately thinking “Hang on… is that real?”, congratulations. You are officially living in the age of artificial intelligence.
Not the flying-cars, robot-butlers kind. No. This is the more unsettling version. The one where cars are being designed by algorithms, photos are being “improved” beyond recognition, videos are faked convincingly enough to fool journalists, and voices can be cloned while their owners are fast asleep. Welcome to the great reality wobble.
Somewhere between the fifth AI-generated video you didn’t trust and the third car launch you instantly forgot, it dawned on us: we might be living in the uncanny valley… and it’s a charged congestion zone!
That unsettling sense of digital déjà vu is where this latest BCG Podcast begins. I’m joined by Sy from Drivers Union, and together we tumble headfirst into a bonkers tangled conversation about AI, cars, car culture, Bond, books, events, identity and the creeping suspicion that none of us quite know what’s real anymore – including ourselves.
Something significant is happening at the very top of the global car industry, and it isn’t loud, dramatic or accompanied by the usual marketing fanfare. There are no slick launch events, no bold vision statements, no glossy videos promising to reinvent mobility as we know it. Instead, there is a quiet but unmistakable pattern emerging: car company bosses are leaving, being replaced, or stepping aside, and the people taking their seats look nothing like the rockstar executives of just a few years ago.
A fictional all-action political thriller (The ULEZ Files) which has had tremendous reviews on Amazon (and accurately predicted Pay-Per-Mile); a collection of 13 short stories I’ve written over 20 years – covering cars, sci-fi and the human condition (Quantum Races); plus how to do, what I do – a semi-autobiographical guide to becoming a car journalist and influencer (How to be an Automotive Content Creator). Buy them on Amazon or read on Kindle Unlimited now!
Continue reading “BrownCarGuy Books!”
There are big numbers in the car industry, and then there are numbers that make even hardened executives pause, breathe in sharply, and reach for the nearest spreadsheet. Nineteen point five billion dollars is firmly in the latter category. That is the amount Ford has just written off as it dramatically pulls back from large parts of its electric vehicle strategy, cancelling programmes, binning future models, tearing up battery partnerships and, perhaps most tellingly of all, quietly conceding that the way we were promised the electric future would unfold was always far more fragile than many wanted to admit.
For years, we were told the end was nigh for petrol and diesel cars in Europe. 2035 was the date. No debate. No flexibility. No alternatives. Except… that’s just changed. Quietly, but significantly, the European Union has performed a major U-turn on its planned ban on new petrol and diesel car sales from 2035. And while some headlines are still framing this as a “delay” or a “watering down”, the reality is far more profound. In practical terms, the 2035 petrol car ban has been scrapped.
And that raises an awkward, unavoidable question for the UK.
For decades we lived with a familiar foe on our roads. The yellow Gatso box stood tall, unwavering, unapologetic, and almost comforting in its predictability. You knew where it stood, what it did, and how it operated. It flashed, you flinched, and life went on. But those days are fading fast. In their place comes a new breed of enforcement: 4D radar, AI-enhanced imaging, behaviour-detecting systems, and roadside technology that no longer just clocks your speed, but actively analyses your driving behaviour.
