Volvo has the key to end your car starting woes

IT WAS one of those mornings when I wished I’d stayed in bed. I’d been given the key to a freshly restored Ford Capri – and managed to break it clean in half before I’d even started it!

My face recoiled in horror as a clearly very brittle slither of steel snapped in my hand. Happily, the car had a spare key so it wasn’t a case of stopping play, and the people who owned this 44-year-old car were very nice about it to the red-faced and hugely apologetic journalist. I’m sure I can’t be the only person it’s happened to but it’s definitely up there in my list of all time automotive fails.

If only it’d been sometime next year and a brand new Volvo instead. That’s when, if the Swedish carmaker gets its way, you won’t need to bother with keys at all.

The manufacturer that gave you seatbelts, The Saint’s wheels of choice and slightly mad 1990s estate cars now reckons all you need to start a car up is an app on a smartphone. Simply bring it with you, strap yourself in and your brand new V90 will faithfully fire up, ready to whisk you to your destination.

Interested? It gets better. Volvo says you can share the app with your wife, husband, delinquent teenage son, or your dog, so they can drive your car down to the garden centre without needing to physically pick a set of keys up off you. I can see it working a treat where I work, where I’m forever having to traipse to the other end of a rather long office simply to pick a set of keys up. All I’d need is the app and permission from the car’s owner.

It even works between different cars so that you won’t need a set of keys if you go on holiday and rent something, although whether you’d need to insist on borrowing only Volvos isn’t yet clear. It all sounds a bit Tomorrow’s World but I like the idea enormously – it’s a bit like wondering why we signed for payments in a world before chip and pin or how society ever functioned without the barcode.

All we need now is for Volvo to make the system as foolproof and boringly safe as its cars are. It will still make keys for nostalgic types who remembered starting up cars back in 2016 by twisting a quaint piece of metal, but the real challenge is to make it impossible for someone who steals your phone to also to steal your car. It’ll also need to make it a doddle to use, and not just for people who understand how LinkedIn works. Everyone knows how a key works – so to replace it successfully Volvo’s app will have to be unbelievably easy to master.

Oh, and Volvo must ensure that in no way can David Simister find a way of accidentally breaking it. Nail that last part and the future of motoring is secure.

Originally published in the 24 February issue of The Champion

Not everything about the Calais crisis is bad news for motorists

CALAIS used to be about cheap booze and going on holiday. Yet you’d be forgiven for thinking it’s now a rolling news story rather than somewhere you wave your passport.

I’ve just got back from a long weekend of driving on the continent and I’m glad I sailed out of Harwich rather than Dover. The seemingly endless footage of lorries parked end-to-end on the motorways and Gendarmes arresting people desperate to sneak into Blighty doesn’t exactly do the idea of nipping over to France any good.

It’s a horrible situation, and certainly not one that’s down to the Border Force chaps on either side of the Channel; if the grilling they gave a colleague and I for attempting to depart Dover in a smoky old Austin Allegro was anything to go by they’re definitely on the ball.

I’ll let the cabinet ministers, the frustrated truckers and the readers of The Daily Express argue about the one thing ruining motoring holidays more than anything else this summer – but it’s not all bad news. One thing that’s come out of it is a nifty invention that could have all sorts of motoring implications.

The Freight Transport Association – an organisation that represents about half the nation’s truckers – is encouraging Scania Man to fit his lorry with a carbon dioxide detector before chugging into Calais. The idea’s a simple one – as we all chuck out a bit of CO2 every time we inhale the gadget will let you know if anyone’s stowed in the back, helping you avoid a £2000 fine. Clever stuff, and the car world should be taking note.

Suppose your slightly dotty relative leaves Fido in the car while he pops into the shops. Normally if it’s a sunny afternoon our canine chum would be in trouble, but the carbon dioxide detector used to help those frustrated lorry drivers could save the day. If a car was fitted with one that worked in conjunction with its temperature sensors, it could detect the doggy distress and lower the windows before it’s too late.

There’s more. Suppose you leave your car overnight and it gets some unwanted attention. If the car detects the carbon dioxide of an intruder it could immobilise and alert the police. Alternatively, it could lock them inside and set the stereo to play Chesney Hawkes’ 1991 hit The One and Only on a loop as punishment.

Obviously, it would need to be cleverly programmed to work alongside all the other gizmos you get in the Astra, the Golf and so on – but if cars are clever enough to park themselves then they’re definitely clever enough to know if a dog or burglar is inside when they shouldn’t be.

Sadly it probably won’t solve all the grief at Calais but – and I hope I’m right on this one – it might save your canine chum in years to come.