Hummm ?

[Who2]

This electric Porsche nearly ran me over last week, so quite it stunned me.


Anyhow between here and my local street market 5 min, one can see dozens of dead e-scooters.


So, some bright 'spark has come up with an idea! hummm ?
They will make a humming noise to warn you of their 'ninja-stealth like approach.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-b ... m-57430956

Much easier if they stay off paths and pedestrianised streets.
I'm still trying to find a use for their batteries in my solar 'go-green experiments....

[John Landon]

I love EV's, this revolution is making great strides forward, and I have looked at what is going in on Taiwan, China and Korea, and they are way ahead of the game that we are in the West.

I see many of these E-Scooters ferrying people around in Liverpool. What a great idea !

I can talk for hours on the whole EV subject, I Long sicen gave up arguing with the Nay sayers, and their silly uneducated arguments like "How do I charge my EV if I live in a high rise flat" ?

My answer... How to do get diesel or petrol in your car when you live in a high rise flat ? Same principal applies you muppets. !

Of course, as I have discovered, EV's are not just about saving pollution and going green, that's just the beginning of what's coming. Necessity id the mother of invention... Stage 5 Autonomy is already a thing in the East.

Back to scooters. You cant ride your own scooter on the street, but if you rent one from the council then you can... Hmmmm

[BBLUX]

We have had a hybrid Toyota since we moved to France. I understand the EU will mandate that all new hybrid/electric cars will have to have a sound generator when travelling at low speed. Not sure if this will be a retrofit on our 5 year old car though. Frankly it is very quiet on the petrol engine at low speeds and I have been known to make people jump with the horn!

[Who2]

There is a great TV series whereby they convert all manner of cars to electric.
Really interesting Vintage Voltage, highly recommended viewing, if you have unlimited funds...

Ps: My favorite around here is the electric unicycle, those guys are great..they never crash into you and
the 'deliverooo's will kill someone one day...

[HEPZIBAH]

We have had a hybrid Toyota since we moved to France. I understand the EU will mandate that all new hybrid/electric cars will have to have a sound generator when travelling at low speed. Not sure if this will be a retrofit on our 5 year old car though. Frankly it is very quiet on the petrol engine at low speeds and I have been known to make people jump with the horn!

The only time those produce any noise is during those two seconds when you accelerate into power eg when overtaking on a motorway. Otherwise, silence is golden.

[John Landon]

Vintage Voltage is great. Those guys are in Mid Wales, not that far from me.

I really dont think its worth converting an older car though, as it adds extra weight and all your boot space gets consumed by batteries. But for those who can afford it and really love thier old car, why not ?

With the Autonomy coming on the way it has, I predict that cars will be self driving in the next few years.
in Korea, they have created an entire city and catered for every possibilty to test autonomy, they are now at level 5.
We in the west are at level 1.

once that happens, all the traffic can be controlled by computers, as each car can report back its location and speed and also where its going. I even predict that you wont own a car in the future, just subscribe to the use of one. Your electronic diary will feed the central computer your needs..

All we need is to produce all the elctricty we will need in the future as we step away from fossil fuels for our transport, heating and domestic needs.

If only there was a huge fusion reactor in the sky that could provide us with those needs, ...
or indeed some clever bugger figure out how to get electricity out of the ground from this giant electromagnet we live on, and have a greater understanding of the whole electro magnetic spectrum ...

[A-Four]

I totally agree with you John, although I have never driven a car in my life, (except for one lesson with a mate on Southport beach, after which I was told to never drive, so I did not.) we have all suffered from pollution of those things. Way back in the 1990's a company up in Birmingham called Joseph Lucas Ltd, had made advanced developments towards a super powered vehicle battery. What ever happened to that ?, perhaps they got paid off by BP, Shell and the other so called 'sisters'.

The future, I'm pleased to say are All-electric Vehicles, or EV's as they are called, but am not sure how safe they are at the moment. The business section of the New York Post reported earlier this week that over 50,000 of Elon Musk's EV's have been re-called because of 'rolling over red stop signs'. I am certain though that you are right, life will be a lot greener soon, but only wished it came years earlier.

[newcastle]

Someone needs to explain to A-Four the difference between an all-electric vehicle and a fully- automated vehicle.

And, JL should note that an electromagnetic field does not, per se, have any energy. To create electricity from the Earth’s magnetic field you would need to move something through it….an act which would undoubtedly consume more energy than it generated!

I think greater use of that fusion power station which we orbit, and it’s spin-offs of wind and water power, are the directions of progress in the foreseeable future.

[John Landon]

There is also the geothermal activity that we can tap into as well in certain places on the earth too. That didn't work out well in Austria though after the hot water they were piping up got into the layer of chalk underground and caused it to swell, thus damaging many houses and buildings as the foundations began to move. But, like nuclear energy, we learn from our mistakes, and rather than running away from our mistakes we need to learn from them and put what we have learned into practice.

I'm optimistic that the world I leave behind when I shuffle off this mortal coil, will be a much better one than when I first arrived.

It's amazing just how far we have moved on since 1961. In so may aspects of our life, and that of this world.

[newcastle]

There is also the geothermal activity that we can tap into as well in certain places on the earth too.

Yes….although those “ certain places” are few and far between. Iceland does quite well….but living on top of a volcano does have its drawbacks

Naturally, we tend to look at the world, its future…..the future of our species…..purely from our viewpoint. Life had existed on this planet for 3.5 billion years…..and will exist for the remainder of the planet’s habitable time…..perhaps another 3 billion years.

Whether we’re around to see much of it..who knows? Our present tenure of 200,000 years is virtually nothing in the scale of life on earth.

The scope of our knowledge and inventiveness seems to progress exponentially. Whether it ends with us perpetuating our survival, or terminating it…..

[John Landon]

My own opinion is that we reach our epoch and then we will leave. By my reckoning mankind has another 1000 years left, in it's current guise.

As you say, our knowledge and inventiveness is growing all the time. I'm sure that there is something waiting to be discovered that will accelerate us to that epoch in a very short space of time.