let me tell you shooting conditions are
tough this is like Le Mans plus cows, minus a
sanctioning body. Absolutely nothing
prepared me for what it's like driving
across India
I'm Alex Roy, I'm Ed Niedermeyer and
we're here at beautiful downtown Chennai
on the east coast of India about to
drive this Renault kwid almost a
thousand miles to the west coast to
Mumbai previously known as Bombay did
you know that? -- I did know that. I usually
cover autonomous vehicles for the drive
but there's no better place to
experience human driving than here in
India. To an outsider it looks like
complete chaos something that at least
today no machine could possibly learn.
Can two Americans who've never been to
India actually make it cross country
given the incredible traffic the absence
of any traffic law it seems and the
cows. This is such a bad idea. Here in
the beautiful downtown Chennai about to
go to Renault dealership to see what
it's like to get a new car. Oh wait who's
this. One of the best things about
India is that if you're an animal lover
especially a lover of cows you get this
cows everywhere everywhere
this is something else I'm the principal
of Renault
children meet the delivery coordinator
so what you first see is that they'll
first unveil the car so we'll have like
a gray satin power which is covering the
car and then we'll do a small which our
ceremony and which is basically to
welcome the new member of the family so
it's basically to give good luck and
prosperity to the family and under each
of the tyre you see and lemon so
basically our sellers we start the
engine they'll run the lemons over till
dedicate all the bad omens and bad eyes
and all of that so that's a belief of
Indians and a'right after that what we
did was we cut a cake for them to
welcome into the Renault family and then
there's a service advisor who give us a
brief about how to drive the car and
about the service of the car and so on
you ever get that feeling like these
chicanes exist only so the police
can sell advertising on the chicane
barriers.
-- I would rather cops work off the
advertising business model than the
traffic ticket model. What makes
the Kwid great, value meter absolutely 100 percent
absolutely and so, the Tata
Nano
is a $4,000 car -- That looks
like a $2,000 car -- Which of course was what its
price point was supposed to be at a
certain point when you imagine what a
car that starts at $4,000 would be like
you don't imagine this your imagine is
gonna be jump but actually try yeah I
mean like a Tata Nano exactly which we
have seen some of those on the road here
and let me tell you I would be terrified
let's talk about what you get for $4,000
so you get open an 800cc motor for the
manual transmission five speeds and a
truck and four wheels it's more like a
big hacker has twice as much cargo
capacity as like the other cars in its
price range and this is the option of
primer edition is that it has a 1 liter
engine
yep I think spelling nineties
if I lived in India I would absolutely
be happy on in this car
yeah and that's the thing is you know
the person we're driving is about $8,500
so quite a bit more and honestly
everything I like about this car you can
get with two option boxes as the 1 litre
engine is is the option box I've
acknowledged it I check first and then
AC
let me tell you shooting conditions are
tough the GoPros are all overheating
it's well over 100 degrees the in-car
power is well it's got one power plug we
have a long way to go literally any time
we make to Mumbai will be a record at
this point I just want to get there in
one piece
Check Point to somewhere a few hours
west of Chennai I can't say it's been a
tough Drive I'm suffering some kind of
ailment and Sweetie Meyers taking over
we are getting coconut water which is
probably very hygienic it's 5:40 p.m.
local we're less than halfway to Hubli
which is less than halfway to Mumbai
which means that we're barely a quarter
of the way and we've been on the road
for 10 hours every electronic device
I've got has overheated the kwid is an
amazing car but it has one problem it
only has one 12-volt outlet and one USB
port and it charges devices very very
very slowly other than that it's one of
the best cars I've ever driven that's a
good thing because I'm gonna be spending
the next 20 hours in it arriving at
least 12 to 15 hours behind schedule in
Mumbai
somewhere between 1/2 and 3/5 the way to
the halfway point ooh bleep we're gonna
have to stop tonight there's no way we
can go all the way to Mumbai in one shot
the traffic in India is just absolutely
too terrible
luckily our convoy which includes our
support vehicle and another quit is with
us I grew up in New York City I thought
I'd seen everything I've been in Mexico
Thailand Morocco absolutely nothing
prepared food for what it's like driving
across India 9 o'clock 13 hours after
leaving Chennai we're so far behind I've
lost track we're gonna stop in Hubli
overnight which is halfway of the entire
distance I thought I could drive alone
before I arrived in India thank goodness
Peter Meyers here and we've got support
vehicle and a guide car this is like l'm
all plus cows - a sanctioning body
indian drivers are the least law-abiding
but possibly the best in the world
definitely feels like the middle lane is
the safest doesn't it laughs lane has
people with like tractors with no lights
people and the right lane has tractors
with no lights
oncoming cars and people on scooters
yeah we literally just had someone help
me tell you the driving I just saw him
do absolutely terrified me I kilometers
which is 70 80 miles an hour which is
about the maximum comfortable speed in
this car when I say comfortable I mean I
would have I've been sleeping through it
I would have been happy that was which
you were earlier by the way let's let's
end this conversation
I'm awake now so just like the freeway
thing I was I'm so done with that this
is fresh
machine learned that a fight
hey is this it
it is
Wow we've arrived in Hubli Niedermayer
did an incredible job of driving that
last stage especially we saw it
especially after the support team lost
us and took off or disappeared and we
now have game of Google Maps which was
pretty hairy that that last thing I've
been to Morocco and Thailand and Baja
let me try I've never seen it a fight
break out in the street that almost in
Kolff the car that was some hairy hairy
intersection with absolutely zero
signage no lights or nothing just kind
of go out into it you kind of go around
giant bus and someone coming let's just
say I'm really glad you were driving
here in whom Bali India they're many
amazing things to see all of which I've
missed because I've arrived five hours
ago and I've got to leave from Mumbai
however there is this Treat in the
penthouse of the president hotel
taxidermy as you know I love taxidermy
there's no higher love of nature than
taxidermy and now it's just a big plush
toy
let me say it is not a modern country
this is a real superhighway in here like
I figure in sentence 200 kilometers from
Mumbai and I couldn't help but notice
this gas stations lovely architecture
also that this is the petrol side
that's the diesel side all you meiotic
drivers are slow car fast momentum car
use every bit of speed in road
you're talking about you've driven
anything in India on an open
I can't go back to racing I cannot
believe we're actually racing what is
going on in India literally everybody is
basically driving their cart
the South Country the last stretch
before reaching Mumbai is no less
intense as the roads improved but the
car continues to perform without so much
as a hiccup it's clear this is a car
designed and marketed to the very
specific needs of India tough minimalist
and affordable and definitely not
autonomous this is what ever a no-quit
looks like after driving a thousand
miles across India the car in perfectly
but nothing and I mean nothing could
have prepared me us to automotive
journalists with racing experience but
what it was like to drive from Chennai
to Mumbai between the cows the
jaywalkers the road conditions the other
drivers the monsoons this was absolutely
the most difficult thing I've ever done
in my life in a car and it could not
have been done without this Renault kwid
but the real hero of the story is
actually the driver of the second
Renault kwid the car that actually beat
us at every stage all the way across
India to the finish line of Mumbai and
the driver of that car is Sen seal Kumar
and let me tell you a sense he'll know
rain Karthikeyan is a coward absolutely
without a question the greatest driver
in India has to be you I've never been
beaten in a head-to-head chase like this
one all my respect all my respect
brother seriously the man
after two days in almost a thousand
miles of barely contained chaos I've
never been so sure about how good human
drivers can be in the words of yuan Musk
humans are underrated Silicon Valley is
investing billions of dollars in
self-driving cars some think they're
inevitable and I completely agree
the problem with self-driving cars are
the edge cases the things you cannot
predict things like a row of ducks in
the Sahara 48 hours in India made it
very clear to me that this entire
country is an edge case you could even
call it an edge country however long it
takes to develop self-driving cars for
the US market in India add 20 years
actually add 50 based on what I've been
told by people working on the problem
here it could be a hundred
you
