The good oil: Follow that taxi

A British cab driver drove 4000km from Northampton to Barcelona and back to pick up six holidaymakers stranded by the ban on flights after the Icelandic volcano blew its top. "We got the call at 9.30am on a Tuesday and were on the road within an hour," said cabbie Garry Smith. "I took my son so we could share the driving and booked the Eurotunnel crossing en route." They arrived in Barcelona in their Hyundai people-mover on Wednesday morning and made it back to Britain 24 hours later. The cab's meter read £4600 ($9700) - but Smith had agreed on a return fare of £1850, or $3900.

The final frontier

Classic sci-fi writers like American Robert Heinlein defined adulthood for mankind as not being bound to a single planet. Tesla CEO Elon Musk thinks the same way. The man who started internet service PayPal before moving on to an electric car based on the Lotus Elise, is looking at the post-earth destiny of the human race. Musk also runs SpaceX, a pioneer in commercial spaceflight. He's got a contract to deliver eight loads of cargo to the International Space Station.

Happy birthday

It slipped by without a mention. Toyota has been having a hard time of it of late, what with worldwide recalls and allegations that it has told a few porkies here and there. But on April 22 - Earth Day 2010 - the true Toyota faithful celebrated one of the events that has made it the world's No 1 carmaker, in terms of production numbers. It was on Earth Day in 2000 that Toyota announced the Prius would be available in the United States.

Class rivalry

Europe's Automotive News asked readers where the so-called premium brands belonged in the market. Should Alfa Romeo, Lancia, Saab and Volvo, for example, be placed in the same segments as models from BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Audi? Or, do they belong in segments with nameplates such as Volkswagen, Ford and Renault? A Portuguese reader said the use of a common platform should not stop a car from being considered premium, "because one day all carmakers will share the same platform in each market segment". An English reader proposed a three-level segmentation that includes Elite: Aston Martin, Bentley, Bugatti, Daimler, Ferrari, Lamborghini, Maybach, Porsche and Rolls-Royce; Prestige: Audi, BMW, Cadillac, Jaguar, Land Rover, Lexus, Lotus, Maserati and Mercedes-Benz; and Premium: Alfa Romeo, Honda, Jeep, Lancia, Mitsubishi, Peugeot, Renault, Saab, Subaru, Volkswagen and Volvo.

Nissan/Mercedes alliance

Having BMW and Audi as common rivals made it easier for Nissan's premium brand Infiniti and Mercedes-Benz to form the recent alliance. "There is cross-shopping between Infiniti and the other German brands but not with Mercedes," said Renault-Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn. Daimler CEO Dieter Zetsche added: "Our people are open to sharing information because they are not afraid of it coming back into the marketplace." Infiniti will use Mercedes-Benz diesel engines across its range.

We are the world

Among the items on display at a luxury goods fair in Verona, Italy: a hand-crafted billiards table covered in gold sheets; an armchair topped with the skin of 20 crocodiles; a 24-carat gold racing bike; a speedboat boat with a Ferrari engine; a golden coffin (with cell phone); and a diamond-studded wedding gown in pink chinchilla fur.

alastair.sloane@nzherald.co.nz