BAC’s Mono police car may be fast, but where do the perps go?

By Stephen Edelstein May 26, 2017

The BAC Mono is an automotive anomaly. It comes from a small company in the U.K., but looks like it was designed by aliens. It has just one seat, no doors, and no roof. So it should be perfect as a police car, right?

Police departments around the world have added sports cars to their fleets, but the BAC Mono might be the most impractical of these stunt cop cars yet. BAC (short for Briggs Automotive Company, named after the brothers who founded it), provided a Mono to the Isle of Man police force. It will be used primarily for promotional purposes.

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The Isle of Man is a small island located in the Irish Sea between Great Britain and Ireland. It’s self-governing, but still technically part of the U.K. It’s know for great driving roads and a love of speed, expressed annually in the form of the Isle of Man TT, a motorcycle race that also sees the occasional automotive competitor as well.

BAC recently brought a group of customers to the Isle of Man to test out its cars, and got full cooperation from the local government, which closed some roads for the event. The automaker is more or less returning the favor with the Mono police car, which will be used primarily to promote road safety. Having such an eye-catching car makes it easy to get people’s attention, Isle of Man police reason.

Exotic police cars are nothing new. While nothing beats a traditional sedan for standard police work, flashy sports cars are great for public relations. A California police department recently took delivery of a Saleen Mustang, which will be used as a rolling memorial to fallen officers. The Dubai Police maintains an impressive fleet that includes many supercars. Italy’s Highway Patrol even uses Lamborghini Huracáns for emergency medical transport.

BAC doesn’t view police cars as a growth area, but it does have big plans for the future. The company is planning a hybrid supercar to rival the likes of the Ferrari LaFerrari, McLaren P1, and Porsche 918 Spyder. It may also build an all-electric version of the Mono.

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Stephen Edelstein

Contributing Editor

Stephen is a freelance automotive journalist covering all things cars. He likes anything with four wheels, from classic cars…

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Tesla posts exaggerate self-driving capacity, safety regulators say

Beta of Tesla's FSD in a car.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is concerned that Tesla’s use of social media and its website makes false promises about the automaker’s full-self driving (FSD) software.
The warning dates back from May, but was made public in an email to Tesla released on November 8.
The NHTSA opened an investigation in October into 2.4 million Tesla vehicles equipped with the FSD software, following three reported collisions and a fatal crash. The investigation centers on FSD’s ability to perform in “relatively common” reduced visibility conditions, such as sun glare, fog, and airborne dust.
In these instances, it appears that “the driver may not be aware that he or she is responsible” to make appropriate operational selections, or “fully understand” the nuances of the system, NHTSA said.
Meanwhile, “Tesla’s X (Twitter) account has reposted or endorsed postings that exhibit disengaged driver behavior,” Gregory Magno, the NHTSA’s vehicle defects chief investigator, wrote to Tesla in an email.
The postings, which included reposted YouTube videos, may encourage viewers to see FSD-supervised as a “Robotaxi” instead of a partially automated, driver-assist system that requires “persistent attention and intermittent intervention by the driver,” Magno said.
In one of a number of Tesla posts on X, the social media platform owned by Tesla CEO Elon Musk, a driver was seen using FSD to reach a hospital while undergoing a heart attack. In another post, a driver said he had used FSD for a 50-minute ride home. Meanwhile, third-party comments on the posts promoted the advantages of using FSD while under the influence of alcohol or when tired, NHTSA said.
Tesla’s official website also promotes conflicting messaging on the capabilities of the FSD software, the regulator said.
NHTSA has requested that Tesla revisit its communications to ensure its messaging remains consistent with FSD’s approved instructions, namely that the software provides only a driver assist/support system requiring drivers to remain vigilant and maintain constant readiness to intervene in driving.
Tesla last month unveiled the Cybercab, an autonomous-driving EV with no steering wheel or pedals. The vehicle has been promoted as a robotaxi, a self-driving vehicle operated as part of a ride-paying service, such as the one already offered by Alphabet-owned Waymo.
But Tesla’s self-driving technology has remained under the scrutiny of regulators. FSD relies on multiple onboard cameras to feed machine-learning models that, in turn, help the car make decisions based on what it sees.
Meanwhile, Waymo’s technology relies on premapped roads, sensors, cameras, radar, and lidar (a laser-light radar), which might be very costly, but has met the approval of safety regulators.

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Scout Motors Traveler SUV in a forest

Scout Motors has made a big comeback, now under the guidance of Volkswagen Group. Not only is the Scout brand being reinvigorated but it has already announced two new models in the form of the Scout Terra truck and the Scout Traveler SUV. The Scout Traveler SUV in particular is an interesting vehicle, but it has an uphill battle ahead of it thanks to competition from the likes of Rivian.

The Rivian R1S is often considered to be the best electric SUV out there right now, and while it's not cheap, it offers an excellent set of tech features, a long range, and more. So how does the Scout Traveler SUV compare with the R1S? We put the two vehicles head to head to find out.
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The exterior designs of the Scout Traveler and the Rivian R1S are similar in many ways, though there are some major differences. Both vehicles offer a relatively blocky shape characteristic of a traditional SUV. The Traveler is a little more traditional than the Rivian in that it has a spare tire on the back, which is both practical and gives it a rugged vibe.

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Robotaxi operator Waymo says its partnership with Nexar, a machine-learning tech firm dedicated to improving road safety, has yielded the largest dataset of its kind in the U.S., which will help inform the driving of its own automated vehicles.

As part of its latest research with Nexar, Waymo has reconstructed hundreds of crashes involving what it calls ‘vulnerable road users’ (VRUs), such as pedestrians walking through crosswalks, biyclists in city streets, or high-speed motorcycle riders on highways.