Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/712794
maltatoday, SUNDAY, 17 JULY 2016 IV Motoring A little over a week after leaving the show, former "Top Gear" U.K. frontman Chris Evans has opened up a little about his brief time helming one of the BBC's most successful exports. "Yes, I promise, I really did try to make the best show I pos- sibly could," Evans wrote in a piece for the Daily Mail. "Some things, however, simply don't work out. It seems I may well have been a square peg in a round hole. "Which is fine if you keep on hammering it in, but the mo- ment you leave it to do its own thing, the universe will quite rightly pop it back out again." The BBC's pick of the long- time radio and TV host seemed like a safe play at the time, and his car-guy credentials could hardly be faulted; Evans maintains a collection of clas- sic Ferraris worth well north of eight figures that he exercises and rotates frequently. And Evans filled the show with an impressive roster of car-related celebrities – pretty much everyone not named Clarkson, Hammond or May. But right from the start of production, rumours swirled around Evans being difficult to film; a couple persistent rumours faulted him for having issues reading lines while driv- ing and being filmed. "I think the phrase is 'not meant to be,'" Evans wrote. "One way or another, however, the 'Top Gear' ship has been steadily refloated, a new pro- duction team and presentation team established and I, for one, will continue to be a huge fan." Evans heaped praise upon Matt LeBlanc after leaving the show, saying that he would be the perfect "captain" for the show, but throughout filming of the first season the working re- lationship between the two was said to have been frosty. Evans was reportedly upset about the burnouts in the Hoonicorn Mustang near the Cenotaph memorial that one of the film- ing crews did with LeBlanc on board. But upon departing the show, Evans had nothing but kind words for the American cast member. "The Top Gear gang are the most driven (forgive the pun) and dedicated I have ever worked with," Evans writes in the Daily Mail. "There is nothing those guys won't do to make every second of on-air content shine to its maximum potential." Chris Evans admits to having been 'a square peg in a round hole' on 'Top Gear' Departing frontman opens up about his brief time on the show in Daily Mail column Evans abruptly announced his departure from the BBC show two weeks ago Nissan ProPilot: Automated driving for those in the cheap seats AS promised, Nissan is rolling out its first semi-autonomous driving system this year, and the company is calling it ProPilot. But before its launch in the US, Japanese families interested in a new minivan will get first dibs. The ProPilot system makes its debut on the funky-fresh Serena, which is undoubtedly cooler than our market's larg- er, bottom-selling Quest. The system is a highway assist. Like semi-autonomous assists from Audi and Honda, ProPilot can steer, brake, and acceler- ate automatically. But Nissan's system is fully automated, including around S-curves, and yet it doesn't rely on radar or lidar sensors. Instead, Nissan claims a single camera—as opposed to the twin cameras in Subaru's EyeSight system or the combo camera/radar/ultrasound in Te- sla's Autopilot—can accurately judge both lane markings and the preceding car's distance in "three-dimensional depth." It is not certain how one video camera operating only in the visible light spectrum can do that, but there it is. It's certainly a cheaper method of going about the self-driving business, and like Volvo's current Auto Pilot, the system needs a car ahead to function. Mostly. Under 31 mph, ProPilot can't work without tracking another car in the lane. But in constant traffic, the system works be- tween 19 mph and 62 mph (Ja- pan's current maximum speed limit), although, when it does come to the U.S. at a later, as yet unannounced date, Nissan probably will want to enable ProPilot to go faster. A steering-wheel button engages ProPilot, the driver presses the cruise control's speed set but- ton, and that's it. Unlike current systems that require steering inputs, ProPilot, at least in Japan, is designed to be a fully au- tonomous system that likely will disengage only without a preceding car, when the driver falls out of the speed range, or when it can't read the road. Tesla's semi-autonomous Autopilot system is now under federal investigation, and Nis- san may want to find out the outcome of that inquiry before launching ProPilot in countries like the USA.