Colin’s Challenge and Chats
Colin Furze, British YouTube personality and inventor, returns as part of Future Rider: a new Shell Eco-marathon Challenge. Watch him and K.I.T.T. from NBC’s Knight Rider discuss the next car of the future with special guests in Dashboard Chats.
Dashboard Chats with K.I.T.T., Colin Furze and Rich Benoit
Title: Dashboard Chats with K.I.T.T., Colin Furze and Rich Benoit
Duration: 3:05 minutes
Description:
Interview by Colin Furze and K.I.T.T. featuring Rich Benoit.
Background music plays
Futuristic synthesizer music, the theme to NBC's 1980s hit TV series Knight Rider.
Video
We see a wide shot then a frontal shot, a back shot, and a side shot together of a futuristic car driving on an open road.
Voice
Hi there. I'm Colin Furze and this is Dashboard Chats, part of Future Rider, the new Shell Eco-marathon Challenge.
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A close up of K.I.T.T.’s (the car) blinking lights and dashboard are seen. A rotating wireframe of the vehicle is seen on the dashboard.
Voice
This is the show where K.I.T.T., the car of the future from NBC's Knight Rider
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Voice
and myself talk to brilliant guests about the next car of the future. And that brilliant guest in this episode is Rich Benoit.
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Rich is seen on screen speaking.
Voice
How are you today?
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Colin is seen on screen speaking.
Voice
Excellent. Absolutely excellent.
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A close up of K.I.T.T.'s voice modulator is seen blinking as it speaks.
Voice over
According to my data, Rich is also known as Rich Rebuilds,
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Rich’s photo montage slide show is seen.
Voice over
an auto enthusiast with a massive
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A close up of K.I.T.T.'s voice modulator is seen blinking as it speaks.
Voice over
following on YouTube.
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Colin and Rich are seen on K.I.T.T.’s dashboard. Colin is speaking.
Voice
Exactly. So Rich, Shell Eco-marathon students have been using their STEM skills to think about design,
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Colin is seen on screen speaking.
Voice
the drivetrain, the energy supply, interfaces, connectivity, and more. But we're excited to know what your thoughts are on these same topics.
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Colin and Rich are seen on K.I.T.T.’s dashboard. Colin is speaking.
Voice
So then, Rich, if you were competing in Future Rider, what would one of your brilliant unexpected ideas about the car of the future be?
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Rich is seen on screen speaking.
Voice
In the future, I don't think everyone's going to own a car. I think in a lot of cases a lot of people are going to share one vehicle. So what would happen is when someone goes to work in the morning, the car would drive them to work and while they're at work, the car would drive to the next person and drop them to work. Instead of idle time, the cars will be out driving and just helping people.
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A close up of K.I.T.T.'s voice modulator is seen blinking as it speaks.
Voice over
Driving all day sounds good to me.
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Colin and Rich are seen on K.I.T.T.’s dashboard. Colin is speaking.
Voice
How far in the future do you think that is? Do you think that's going to happen pretty soon or are we still quite a few years away?
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Rich is seen on screen speaking.
Voice
I would say probably within the next like seven years or so just so manufacturers can really nail down the autonomous driving portion of things.
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Colin is seen on screen speaking.
Voice
How do you think refuelling will get factored into this and into the schedule?
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Rich is seen on screen speaking.
Voice
I think in a lot of cases, cars will be driving over a sensor pad and have an inductive charging, almost like a toothbrush.
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Colin and Rich are seen on K.I.T.T.’s dashboard. Rich is speaking.
Voice
You drive over that spot and it automatically starts charging your car.
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Colin is seen on screen speaking.
Voice
What do you think about that one, K.I.T.T.?
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A close up of K.I.T.T.'s voice modulator is seen blinking as it speaks.
Voice over
This is a most remarkable idea.
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Rich is seen on screen speaking.
Voice
Thanks, K.I.T.T.
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Colin is seen on screen speaking.
Voice
So then, Rich, what do you think these shared cars would look like? Would they be like taxis, buses, normal cars, or would they have some unique shape so to kind of point them out as being a shared car?
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Rich is seen on screen speaking.
Voice
Remember like 20 years ago what we thought cars of the future would look like? I think these cars would actually look like that. They would be very oval and generically shaped; oval to actually cut through the wind.
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A close up of K.I.T.T.'s voice modulator is seen blinking as it speaks.
Voice over
Sorry, I don't look good in oval.
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Colin is seen on screen speaking.
Voice
Oh, here we go.
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Colin and Rich are seen on K.I.T.T.’s dashboard.
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Colin is seen on screen speaking.
Voice
So then, Rich, what do you think of K.I.T.T. here?
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Colin and Rich are seen on K.I.T.T.’s dashboard. Colin is speaking.
Voice
What innovation of this car of the future do you admire the most?
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Rich is seen on screen speaking.
Voice
The delicate balance between man and machine
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K.I.T.T. is seen driving on an open road.
Voice
back then was really neat. It wasn't just something that the owner would tell the car to do,
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Colin and Rich are seen on K.I.T.T.’s dashboard. Rich is speaking.
Voice
K.I.T.T. would actually interact back with the owner and make suggestions based on his request. And I think that was really cool.
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A close up of K.I.T.T.'s voice modulator is seen blinking as it speaks.
Voice over
Thank you, Rich. I very much enjoy helping my driver.
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Colin and Rich are seen on K.I.T.T.’s dashboard. Colin is speaking.
Voice
Rich, thank you for joining us in the Dashboard to chat about the car of the future. I know Shell Eco-marathon teams will be excited to hear your thoughts.
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Colin is seen on screen speaking.
Voice
K.I.T.T., anything else?
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A close up of K.I.T.T.'s voice modulator is seen blinking as it speaks.
Voice over
Good thinking, Rich. These are all wonderful ideas.
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Rich is seen on K.I.T.T.’s dashboard.
Voice
Shell Eco-marathon teams, I cannot wait to see what you all come up with.
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A wide shot of K.I.T.T. driving away on an open road is seen.
Voice over
Colin, will Rich rebuild the future?
Text displays
Follow the journey at #ShellEcoMarathon
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Shell logo
Dashboard Chats with K.I.T.T., Colin Furze and Garima Avtar
Title: Dashboard Chats with K.I.T.T., Colin Furze and Garima Avtar
Duration: 2:57 minutes
Description:
Interview by Colin Furze and K.I.T.T. featuring Garima Avtar
Background music plays
Futuristic synthesizer music, the theme to NBC's 1980s hit TV series Knight Rider.
Video
We see a wide shot then a frontal shot, a back shot, and a side shot together of a futuristic car driving on an open road.
Voice
Hello there. I'm Colin Furze and this is Dashboard Chats, part of Future Rider, a new Shell Eco-marathon Challenge.
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Video
A close up of K.I.T.T.’s (the car) blinking lights and dashboard are seen. A rotating wireframe of the vehicle is seen on the dashboard.
Voice
This is the show where K.I.T.T., the car of the future from NBC's Knight Rider
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and myself talk to some brilliant guests about the next car of the future.
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Colin is seen on vehicle’s dashboard screen.
Voice
In this episode, that brilliant guest is Garima Avtar.
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Garima is seen on the screen speaking.
Voice
Hello. Hello, there.
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K.I.T.T.’s voice modulator is seen blinking as it speaks.
Voice over
My data indicates that
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Garima’s photo slide show is seen.
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K.I.T.T.’s voice modulator is seen blinking as it speaks.
Voice over
Garima is a professional extreme rally driver, car enthusiast and auto journalist.
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Colin and Garima are seen on K.I.T.T.’s dashboard. Colin is speaking.
Voice
So Garima, Shell Eco-marathon students have been using their STEM skills to think about the design,
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Colin is seen on screen speaking
Voice
the drivetrain,
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Garima is seen on the screen.
Voice
the energy supply,
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Colin is seen on screen speaking
Voice
interfaces, connectivity, and more, but we're excited to know what your thoughts are on these same topics.
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Colin and Garima are seen on K.I.T.T.’s dashboard. Colin is speaking.
Voice
If you were competing in Future Rider, how would your background in the world of motorsports inform your ideas for the car of the future?
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Garima is on screen speaking
Voice
From the perspective of motorsport that I have been involved with,
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Garima is seen on K.I.T.T.’s dashboard speaking
Voice
I would like to see better weight management.
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Garima is on the screen speaking
Voice
Lightweight construction has obvious gains in performance and it puts lesser strain on the moving parts, which ultimately leads to enhanced life cycles.
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Colin is speaking on screen.
Voice
K.I.T.T., what do you think?
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A close up of K.I.T.T.'s voice modulator is seen blinking as it speaks.
Voice over
Lightweight materials? Sounds quite refreshing.
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Colin is speaking on screen.
Voice
How will the car of the future reinvent infrastructure?
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Colin and Garima are seen on K.I.T.T.’s dashboard. Colin is speaking.
Voice
How would connectivity contribute to energy efficiency and carbon reduction?
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Garima is seen on screen speaking.
Voice
I think it's going to be a circular environment.
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Colin is seen on screen listening.
Voice
Everything will talk to everything.
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Colin and Garima are seen on K.I.T.T.’s dashboard. Garima is speaking.
Voice
The traffic signals will read the flow of incoming cars, the navigation systems will get better and more advanced,
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Garima is on screen speaking.
Voice
the vehicles would talk to each other through frequencies.
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A close up of K.I.T.T.'s voice modulator is seen blinking as it speaks.
Voice over
I've waited a long time to chat with other cars.
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Colin and Garima are seen on K.I.T.T.’s dashboard.
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Garima is on screen speaking.
Voice
And all this could collectively lead to signal free roads
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Colin and Garima are seen on K.I.T.T.’s dashboard. Garima is speaking.
Voice
that will definitely turn the economy around.
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A close up of K.I.T.T.'s voice modulator is seen blinking as it speaks.
Voice over
Better traffic flow? Humans would love that. Right, Colin?
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Colin is seen on screen speaking.
Voice
I think anybody who's watching this who lives in London will definitely sign up for just being able to drive straight through everything
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Colin and Garima are seen on K.I.T.T.’s dashboard. Colin is speaking.
Voice
and not have to stop at any signals. They're going to be loving that.
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Colin is seen on screen speaking.
Voice
Do you think the future is autonomous? And as a professional driver, do you think that is good or bad?
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Garima is seen on screen speaking.
Voice
It will be a hybrid model at least for the next two, three decades.
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Garima is seen on K.I.T.T.’s dashboard speaking.
Voice
Autonomous control is going to expand across the world in commercial setups, like factories, shop floors;
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Garima is seen on screen speaking.
Voice
but in vehicles, autonomy could see a big break in commercial segment but will take time in penetrating down into the passenger vehicle market.
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A close up of K.I.T.T.'s voice modulator is seen blinking as it speaks.
Voice over
Autonomous driving should be a no-brainer as they say.
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Colin is seen on screen speaking.
Voice
Aah! Good one, K.I.T.T.
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Garima and Colin are seen on K.I.T.T.’s dashboard. Colin is speaking.
Voice
And there you have it. Thank you for joining us for Dashboard Chats. I know Shell Eco-marathon teams will be excited to know your thoughts about the car of the future.
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Colin is seen on screen speaking.
Voice
K.I.T.T., anything else for Garima?
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A close up of K.I.T.T.'s voice modulator is seen blinking as it speaks.
Voice over
Thank you, Garima. Brilliant ideas. And I must admit as a car,
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A wide shot of K.I.T.T. driving away on an open road is seen.
Voice over
I'm quite a fan of your driving capabilities.
Text displays
Follow the journey at #ShellEcoMarathon
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Shell logo
Colin Creates the Mower of the Future
While student teams from around the world took K.I.T.T. as inspiration to create the next car of the future, Colin reimagined a different iconic vehicle.
Colin Reimagines a Ride-on Mower
Title: EV Mower Conversation with Solar Charging Station
Duration: 12:44
What's up internet?
Now, cast your minds back a year
and I hosted Shell Eco-Marathon Challenge
called 'Pitch the Future'
where they got
the brightest minds
to solve real world challenges.
And this led to me creating
the solar wind powered
clothes drying machine.
Now, I'm back again with
a new challenge called Future Rider,
where the Shell Eco Marathon
teams are going to be using
TV Knight Rider's K.I.T.T.
as inspiration to design
the next car of the future
because you know, K.I.T.T. has always been
seen as a very futuristic car.
So, the teams of STEM students
are going to have to come up
with virtual designs
of what they believe is
the next car of the future.
Now I'm going to be building something.
It's not going to be a car.
I'm taking inspiration from
the Shell Eco-Marathon teams
that have built super
energy efficient vehicles
and create a solar powered
machine of my own.
And it is a machine I have
a particular affection with.
The lawn mower!
Mmm! Ooh! Look at it!
Lawn mowers.
Now, you know I like lawn mowers.
I got one to run off wood gas.
Yes!
Which is sort of environmentally friendly
but we need to do better.
Hmmm!
This looks like a lot of fun.
I like lawn mowing.
Now these are big ones,
these are commercial ones, obviously.
Too big for my garden.
Don't worry about that at the moment.
These all pretty much run off petrol.
So, what I'm thinking,
the lawn mower of the future,
is clearly going to be electric.
But it's not just about
the lawn mower being electric,
it's where the electric comes on.
So, this is my concept people.
We're going to convert this to electric.
We're going to make its own little shed
which is its charging hub.
It can go in at night,
it can charge up over
the next few weeks or whatever
because let's face it,
when you use a lawnmower,
you mow your lawn,
you got to wait for it to grow.
While it's growing, it could be charging up
ready for the next mow. Oh!
2021 people!
Right.
We need to pull it apart,
we need to work out what the RPMs are,
how it all works underneath
because there's various levers and stuff,
you know, ones that control the blade,
they control the mower speed.
So...
...let's get on with it, people.
Ooh!
Now, after a lot of staring
and head scratching,
I have a plan.
Now, how this thing works,
basically, one engine
this thing is set off into the crank,
this belt goes off to
the rear axle, drives it forward,
this belt goes off to the grass cutting thing
and chops the grass.
Now then. We're going electric of course.
I have one of these lynch motors.
Used one of these
in the electric drift bike.
More than enough power. Excellent.
And there's even a little disk thing
that fits in there a treat.
But I'm thinking we have some
advantages with electric power
as we can have two motors.
A lot of electric cars
these days are dual motor.
That's what I'm going to do.
So, I'm going to have a motor at the front
driving the grass cutting
and a motor at the rear
driving it forward.
First what we need to do,
mount this motor a little bit lower
which is going to mean we have to do
a little bit of drawing.
Just like the teams, they're doing
everything in the virtual world.
This is going to start in the virtual world
and then I'm going
to bring it into reality!
Oh, is that a Colin Furze notepad
and pencil kit you're using there?
Front motor mounted.
Lovely job, Colin.
Of course, we need a rear motor.
Fabricated and plasma got
a lovely mounting plate.
Fits in an absolute treat.
And then just to make it even better,
the plate that the motor bolts do
which can slide back
and forth to tension the belt
I've laser cut out a bit of felt
so it doesn't scratch it.
Oh! Doing yourself proud.
Now, a bit more fabricating
and bending later,
seemingly every bender I've got.
We've got a battery mounted under the seat.
That's the first one
but we need a lot more.
We're basically pretty much going
to fill this whole bonnet area up
with a load more batteries
and then of course the ESC controller
for the front motor.
That is the next job, Colin!
Nanaaa!
Installation complete!
Oh! What a lovely job, Mr. Furze!
Now then, we have got
six batteries in this thing.
We've got two batteries which do
the drive motor at the back
and then we've got four batteries
which do the blades at the front.
Each motor, because it's
dual motors, remember,
has its own ESC.
And if we plug the laptop in,
we can actually program them
so we can tell it how many amps to draw,
what voltage it's running on,
and we can tell them as well
if the voltage drops too much,
so once the batteries start
to get bit low, it can cut it out
and stop it running
the batteries completely dead
which of course is not going
to do them any good.
There's also throttle maps
and things like that.
If this was a racing mower you can
say how sensitive the throttle is,
how things speed up,
how quickly the blades start and stop,
all that malarkey.
So much control we don't actually need
but it's a fantastic system.
Now to control all of this, we got
these little switches down here
which basically switch the whole thing on.
We've got big ampage
battery switches in here
so we can turn everything off
should we have any issues.
And then the blade speed is run by this
wonderful little control knob up here.
Now everything appears to work just fine.
Motor works.
Let's put that back.
The gear knob still does the forwards
and reverse which is pretty cool.
I don't have to reverse the polarity
or anything like that.
And then the blade speed...
Oh no, that was my pad.
I've just chopped my pad up. Excellent!
Now of course we need
to be able to charge this.
Well, Colin, ahaha!
We've got these two trailer adapters,
the same things you get
on the back of a car
if you're plugging a caravan in.
There's seven pins in them.
Six of those pins of course we're using.
Each individual battery
is powered and charged
individually from these ports.
But of course, Colin,
we need a charging station,
somewhere that we can drive this into
and the power of the sun harnessed
charges this little bad boy
in between grass cuts.
Oh, look what I've made.
So, this is the charging station.
Now, I was just going to buy
a normal garden shed
but they're all out of stock.
So I thought, wait a minute,
this is a green project.
The whole thing is made
out of recycled pallets
and I think it looks
a hell of a lot better.
Now of course the roof
is completely made of solar panels,
also makes a pretty fine
looking roof if you ask me.
Basically, they're all connected
to these electrical boxes.
There's eight of them, eight boxes,
and they all link up to these cables.
This one is the positive
and this one is the negative.
Of course, you drive your mower in
you pop these into the little
connections on the bonnet,
it charges up,
and then when it's
completely fully charged,
off you go, you cut your lawn.
Why hasn't this been done before?
This is a brilliant idea.
Right, so I say we give it a charge
and go out and do some grass mowing.
And in between then
I think I want to give everything a name.
Hmmm.
Okay, she's charged up.
And look, I've given it a name,
the Solar-Mowar.
Yeah, and the charging shed
is called the Solar-Mowar-Chargar.
I know! I came up with that one myself.
I'm pretty proud of that.
Right, it's going to cut some grass.
Now I changed the gearing at the back
because it was painfully slow.
But it could do with still going faster.
How long are the batteries going to last?
I'm making a brilliant job of this.
It's so weird being on
such a big lawn mower
that doesn't make any noise.
Get right in there under the edges, boy.
Okay, obviously my garden is a bit
too small for this mower.
We need to test its range.
Now the batteries are 70-amp hours.
I've got the motor set to draw 68 amps.
Does that mean it's going
to run for an hour?
I don't know.
I've done all this. Probably been doing
this for about 15 minutes.
Hard to tell because I keep
switching the camera on and off.
So, I need to go and find
some more grass now
and just see how long it lasts.
Biggest problem now is it doesn't
fit through my gate.
Beautiful.
Right, we've got ourselves
a nice big lawn to cut.
Blade speed up.
Off we go.
We just cut all that
and he's still got battery.
So, I'm going to do some more mowing.
The batteries have lasted so long,
I'm fed up with mowing now.
It's still going.
It's done all this...
...extra.
It's still going. It has come
down to a snail's pace,
but it's still going.
You are doing a lot better
than I thought you were going to.
I am generally impressed with this.
I thought it was going to run
for like 20 minutes
and then just stop.
But it was going well over an hour.
We've cut about
1500 square meters of grass.
I didn't think it would do that.
Now then, of course, it needs to go faster
but I'm thinking we can take
some power away from the cut in,
and give it into the drive in.
It'll go a bit quicker.
It will last all the same,
but you'll probably cover more area
and cut even more grass.
Also, these are lead acid batteries.
This is not the future
of battery technology.
We need to be running this on lithium.
So if there's any companies out there
that do lithium battery kits
so I can make a bespoke battery for this,
please get in touch.
Now charging, it charges back up again
in about a day and a half,
two days, maybe even less.
I can't really tell because ever since
I've stopped filming this,
it's just blimming been raining.
But now that we've got eight panels
on top of the shed charging
six batteries, I got two spare,
I've fitted some lights in the shed.
And to be fair, we could
probably charge this thing up
on two panels over a longer period of time.
There's no point
charging it up in two days,
your grass wouldn't have grown.
There is just so much
potential in this machine.
Now then, of course, the Shell
Eco-Marathon Challenge Future Rider.
Check out what's going on,
link in the description and on screen.
These STEM students are basically
coming up with car designs of the future.
Go and support them because they are
going to be designing our future.
All these people coming up
doing this fantastic work.
It is all good.
This is the Solar-Mowar.
Very impressed.
I'll see you in the next video.
Hosted by
Future Rider: A Shell Eco-marathon Challenge
Learn more about this new challenge where Shell Eco-marathon teams reimagined the next car of the future.
Learn more about the new Shell Eco-marathon ChallengeKnight Rider © 2021 Universal City Studios, LLC. All Rights Reserved.