#BrownCarGuy – News, Views & Reviews!
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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.
These are the books up for grabs:
Whether you love motorsport, classic British legends, off-road icons or modern automotive history, there’s something here for every petrolhead. Enter below now!
Continue reading “GIVEAWAY! Awesome Car Books Courtesy of BrownCarGuy & Veloce Books!”
Every now and then, the car world delivers a story that feels less like automotive news and more like the opening act of an apocalyptic techno-thriller. The latest example arrived courtesy of Porsche owners across Russia, who discovered one morning that their pride and joy had transformed into a glossy, German-made paperweight. No warning, no recall, not even the courtesy of a “Sorry, mate, I can’t come out today.” Just… click, whirr, nothing. A perfectly fine engine that refused to start because the car couldn’t “phone home”. We used to worry about flat batteries or water in the distributor. Now we worry about satellite outage. Progress, they call it.
