Posts by Psyx 2549 publicly visible posts • joined 4 Jun 2010
No, it fails when you deliberately do everything you can to fuck it up.
Kind of the 'phone equivalent of pouring water all over it and taking it to a 'Genius' and saying it stopped working.
And like the example, it seems that both Apple and Tesla have ways of finding out when customers are talking shit to them!
"Petrol has an edge over electric in that it doesn't just lose fuel due to a cold spell. It's kind of an important issue that could probably be fixed with some insulation but hasn't been."
But it will be. And for home charging the thing will be plugged in all night anyway. Hardly a deal-breaker, and solvable within a year. It's really a bit of a non-problem, especially for urban drivers who the product is ideal for, who probably aren't going to use more than 50 miles of range a day anyway.
"I would say an electric car is more hazardous in a crash than petrol due to the chemicals in the battery, and the fumes should the battery start leaking, but that depends on the battery technology and will change, no doubt."
I'd disagree, based on the factor that electric cars have to meet the same safety standards as petrol ones. And it's a lot harder to rupture a battery than a petrol tank. I've been in quite a few car crashes, and had several petrol tanks rupture, but never a battery. Remember: Safety testing isn't going to be wavered for electric vehicles in any way. We've all been driving around with a bunch of petrol fumes in a box for years, and it's never been a massive concern. I feel you are perhaps making a bit of an unfair knee-jerk judgement there.
"But the biggest advantage of petrol over electric? You can hear the damn things! ...Easy to fix: Add a small speaker to cast an 'engine' sound ahead of the car. Just hasn't been done, yet."
Yes, it has already been thought of and done.
However, I'm rather in disagreement with the idea. We have the chance here to quieten our loud streets and improve the living environment for people who live by busy roads, and it beggars belief to me that we're considering making them 'noisy'. So pedestrians will have to *look* before crossing the road... well, I don't have a problem with that. It's a problem for the sight impaired, but what's the best solution to that: Come up with an alternative solution of some kind (transponder in vehicle, keyed to 'beep' in the hearing aids of nearby people when approaching perhaps), or put a speaker in every car and keep our cities noisy? I consider the quietness to be a massive bonus and we have a real chance here to improve the quality of city life and sleep patterns of a lot of people.
"1. For most people the constant availability of their car is a valuable attribute."
I hear you, but I think that at most it's a terribly minor inconvenience. Sure, some people will absolutely refuse to make any convenience compromise to save some money, but many will. And it's not like long road trips are usually impulse affairs. All in all, getting a hire car is probably less of a chore than catching a train, and quite a few people don't consider that so much of an inconvenience as to render them useless.
"Consider the truism that inner-city dwellers can save a lot of money if they don't own a car, but use taxis for all short journeys and hire cars for long ones. If you try this, you'll find that you don't do many things that you would do if you had a car, because the cost is direct."
That's a problem with people being economical when it comes to getting out actual pound notes, rather than paying hidden charges, though. It's not a problem with the technology, but a perception bias. And not necessarily a bad one: Surely making people think about expense rather than just spending money without thought is a *positive* thing?
"2. Unless you live next door to the car hire office, hiring and returning a car will probably add at least two hours to your journey time. You will also have the annoyance of having to load and unload your luggage and find somewhere to park your electric car."
Car hire places are usually happy to have a car parked outside in my experience. Or catch a cab there. Many even deliver the car to your door. And remember that we are talking about urban drivers here. I don't know anyone who lives in an urban area who doesn't have a car hire place within an hour's drive. All-told, it's hardly a major hurdle. Frankly, it's already what I do on long trips, because my motor isn't practical for them either. It's simply a change of habit, and one that saves money.
"Petrol gives you range, reliability, global reach, convenience and performance. Electrics...don't."
Think about that carefully again.
Petrol has the range still, hands down.
Reliability? Electric has *far* fewer moving and component parts and is potentially a lot more reliable.
Global reach? In what way? You mean you can drive a car over the sea, or do you mean that you can buy petrol where you can't get electricity? I'd dispute that, as there are a lot more electrical outlets in the world than petrol pumps.
Convenience? In refuelling, petrol has that... maybe. Though not for me, because I consider it more convenient to get in and plug a car in that I do going to a petrol station. I don't know in what other way petrol is more convenient. What say you?
Performance? 0-60 in 3.7 seconds, and a 12 second 1/4 mile. 125mph top speed is generally enough for most occasions, too. What does your car do it in? That 0-60 time is a genuinely staggering number. And that's not good enough?
By all means slate the car for it's genuine downsides (range and recharge time), but there's no need to just pluck some other stuff out of the air and state it as fact.
Apparently Steve, as long as electric cars aren't a solution for everyone whining about the idea, they are a shit idea and shouldn't be developed or bothered with.
And there was me thinking this was a tech website...
*goes to find something to throw a clog into*
"This is not a real world solution"
Not for you. But pink G-strings aren't a solution for you, either. Should companies stop selling them?
However, they are solutions for *other people*. Not everything on the market needs to cater for your needs. That is why there are choices.
Frankly, I'd love a Roadster, and it would suit my needs extremely well. It's not even the faux green factor so much as the startling performance and cheap 'fuel'. Shame about the purchase price, really.
"As Jtom points out, time sitting in traffic jams on a cold night will be a big worry."
Well, it is in a petrol car too, if you've only put in barely enough fuel to make the journey.
To be fair to electric cars though, sitting stationary isn't going to be sucking any power, except for lights/stereo et al, which is a small draw on the power, compared to moving a vehicle at 50mph. I'd rather be stunk in a traffic jam with a 'low fuel' warning in an electric car than petrol, I feel.
"That doesn't address long trips, but for most drivers those are rare (a few times a year) and never unexpected."
"So you need to own two cars just in case you actually need to go somewhere further than to work and back?"
If it's a few times a year, then it's cheaper to rent a car for it or take a train. And it'd still be cheaper than petrol *if* initial purchase price can be reduced. Having a second car to use a few times a year is just an obtuse solution to the issue.
"I'm pushing half a decade now and those projections have been steady at '50-70 years left' since I was old enough to read books without pictures. And my parents always told me I was a precocious young thing."
It's a complex question, because not only has the whole planet not been surveyed, but also extraction technologies develop, and rising prices make previously non-economic extractions viable.
Currently a lot of old wells are being re-drilled using new technology in order to get out the tricky stuff at the proverbial bottom.
It is finite and irreplaceable, though.
I used to work for an oil company, and exploration was a major part of what they did. They know where oil is *likely* to be found and prioritise looking there, but it can turn up elsewhere, and they don't tend to bother surveying areas where the tech isn't there to get the oil out.
"That's money well spent, yah? And I expect to see more state and federal cash going their way within the next three years as everyone involved double-down's on this bad bet."
That's no reason to single the company out though, given the plethora of state-funded cash cows there are around!
"Regardless of whatever a Tesla has or doesn't have under its hood, it's beginning to seem that El Reg has a bee under its bonnet about Tesla."
It's more that Lewis has a bee in his bonnet about anything vaguely green. Perhaps he was forced to eat sprouts as a child, or something.
"How about not mentioning Tesla again until such time as it equals in performance and convenience a motor car running on fossil fuels? That should give us a rest of a couple of hundred years at least."
What, you want it to be made slower?
Frankly, the performance is fine. It's just not suitable for long drives (which is more of a matter of trying to use the wrong tool for the job: No shit my screwdriver is crap at driving in nails!) and costs too much (more of an issue with production costs that will change with volume).
Mobile phones were shit all use without all the towers we have today and used to use car battery sized batteries. But we didn't decide to just give up on the idea: We developed it until it was practical and slowly built infrastructure.
"this means you have to have a car that can do a ~500 mile round trip without any messing about. Sure you can hire a car for such long journeys but actually it's a pain in the butt and turns out to be more expensive than the savings in petrol you've made ..."
Pain in the butt, yes. But it doesn't eclipse the fuel costs. Last time I rented, it was thirty quid for the day. That's less than I spend in petrol for the month.
That said, the *ideal* solution would be a little 'Leccy car and then catch a train for longer distances. The problem though is that the trains are atrocious and far more expensive than driving anywhere. If they could make long-distance public transport more viable, it would make short-range vehicles a lot more viable.
"cant really be considered a usable car (unless you never need more than 2 seats and don't need and luggage).... But the S... why else have something of that seating and luggage capacity if not as a replacement?
That's your perspective.
The Roadster is plenty practical enough if you don't have a family. And if there's just one person in it, there's space for luggage/shopping, making it perfectly practical.
And the S is practical as well *just not for long distances*. Many, many family vehicles are just used to pick up the kids, drive to work, and do the shopping. It is a perfectly acceptable replacement vehicle for anyone who doesn't drive long distances, it seems.
"Given the consequences of fuel depletion in an electric car, they should have *even more* accurate range calculators than those in a petrol engined car."
Yeah, because the calculator knows that you're going to put the heating on and maybe sit in traffic for two hours?
C'mon: No car mileage calculator is accurate, and only an idiot would go on a long winter journey in a car they didn't know without a very healthy reserve.
If you run out of fuel, there's generally only one person to blame.
"Either way; Yes, a normal car can run out of juice as well, but the result is not nearly as dramatic."
I'm sure they said the same about petrol a hundred years ago. Why bother when you can just feed a horse some more hay.
The infrastructure isn't yet here. But it could be if we wanted it to. We just don't want it enough, because we have an easy alternative.
"Yes it's true that trackday mileage sucks, in a petrol or electric car. There's a huge difference though, that makes the Tesla a lot less use as a trackday car."
Yes. It's a bit of a shit track-day car, unless you have a trailer (and even then... it's still a pretty shit track car!). You'd have to be a bit insane to consider buying one for the track when you could have a Lotus 7 clone for a crap-ton less, which would also cost a crap-ton less to fix when it inevitably got bent or broke.
"It's not lying to show the car being pushed, it's entertainment.
"If Tesla couldn't cope with that, they shouldn't have gone on the show. If Top Gear had lied, I'm sure they'd have lost the court case..."
As someone else pointed out, they've had to change the voice-over, apparently. So, they did lie if they had to change it. As you say: They're an entertainment programme, but sometimes they go a little too far in entertaining at the cost of factuality.
"Electric cars are brilliant for town mileage. Lovely and efficient, as they do stop-start so well. But they have short ranges, and are impractical for long-distance work in most cases. Until we've got better battery tech, that's the way it's going to stay. I'm not even convinced I've seen a hybrid that's got any better fuel consumption than a decent diesel."
Agreed. However, I feel that there is still a place for them if the battery costs can be brought down. Many drivers now are purely urban, and I think that -if we can detach ourself from the 'one car to do everything' idea- there is a place for a one-or-two seat, stylish, city-car commuter vehicle. It's only need a twenty-to-thirty mile urban range, which would drastically reduce costs, too. It would certainly suffice for 95% of my needs, and a hire-car or decent train service (fat chance, but it would be good!) would happily fill the gap, and it'd be economical if the car was priced right.
Currently hybrids are just a wet-blanket for those who want to 'show they care' in a hypocritical manner, and for wealthy people who want the tax breaks and congestion-charge avoidance. They are not 'fit for purpose' and are more of a lifestyle choice. That said: Look at iDevices. If you can make them aspirational enough, then the functionality and sale-volume will come. An engine running at constant RPM charging a small battery should make for a more efficient design, and doesn't require the infrastructure. It's a step in the right direction, and our desire for four-seater, large, pure-petrol vehicles is mainly emotive, rather than rational. As much as I love vast amounts of power and the smell of fuel, I'd probably opt for a second commuter electric or hybrid vehicle if the cost-savings arrived.
"Why does the choice of electric cars seem to be between 'city' cars that look like they were designed for Noddy and friends (that is, cars basically designed only for how well they work in London), and high-spec 'sports' cars like Tesla"
Umm... you did look at the picture at the top of the article, right?
http://www.teslamotors.com/
It's got 4 doors and stuff.
"If the gauge says 100 miles left I'd quite happily set off on an 80 mile journey with no petrol stations along the way."
In winter? In a car that you'd not driven on a road trip before?
I sure as hell wouldn't. I'd think "Maybe I'd better put in a bit more, in case I'm stuck in traffic/get lost/decide to drive like a maniac"
"So, when you buy a electric vehicle, you need to buy a petrol powered vehicle as well, so you can go more than a hundred miles. Why not just buy the petrol powered vehicle..."
Because not everyone makes long road trips? I haven't driven more than a hundred miles in a go for about five years!
In your scenario, if you wanted to go on long trips every so often, it's much more cost effective to just take a train or hire a car for £30 a day.
"Although Tesla say that it will do 200 miles, we worked out that on our track it would only do 55 miles."
Well, my track-car used to do 240 miles to a tank... or about 60 on a track, too. What's the surprise? Drive a car on a race track and you're spending most of each lap either full on the throttle or full on the brakes. Singling out an electric car for being less inefficient in the circumstance is simply fucking stupid. Top Gear deciding to do so given their track experience seems to have been simply a bit of wilful and pointless sniping.
That Top Gear flat-out lied and claimed that they did run out of juice was basically an outright lie, and they were right to have been pulled up on it. Electric cars have their up-sides and down-sides, but there does seem to be a corner of journalism that is enjoying pointing that they can run out of juice *if used pretty inappropriately and incautiously*. I like Top Gear, but sometimes they can be dicks, and the NYT journo seems to have fallen into the same category.
I ask you: If you were driving 200 miles in a normal car IN WINTER, and there was no petrol stations on the way, would you stop the petrol pump when it said you had 240 miles of fuel? No: You'd be a dumb-ass to. What kind of moron would?
If you fuelled your car and then it lost 1/3 of a tank of petrol overnight to the petrol fairies just before a long drive, would you not put more fuel in, or would you think "fuck it, I'm sure it'll be fine"?
It seems to me that the journalist decided that he wanted to write a stand-out article, so managed to pretty much deliberately sabotage the road test for the sake of sensationalism. Crap journalism of course, but pretty typical for the newspapers these days.
"the idea is for the population to be in charge and capable of overthrowing a bad gov."
Then I put it to you that the Constitution and specifically the Second Amendment has failed your Nation.
The Citizens cannot overthrow your government. Anyone who tries is located by the world's most effective internal security services, branded a terrorist and thrown in jail forever. Any large scale uprising will be met with a far larger and better armed 'militia' (the NG and regular army) and would be utterly torn apart.
As the Second Amendment has failed in its purpose, why cling to it?
"I would agree with some more regulation but I totally agree with the freedom to own and the right to self defence."
I agree that more regulation is good. I agree that the right to own *some* types of firearms. I personally do not agree with the right to use firearms for self-defence *in my nation* and I feel that if the firearms could be removed from the hands of criminals in the US in an effective manner then it would reduce the perceived need and desire for people to use firearms for home defence, which would then have the knock-on effect of reducing accidental deaths, domestic violence using firearms and other nice things. But America needs to get a lot of guns of the streets before they can get to that point, which involves sensible laws regarding ownership coupled with and led by a serious amount of police-effort to stop firearms getting into criminal hands in the first place, and removing the ones that are already there.
"I also called for states to be compared. You still presented 2 only. Very selective."
Yes, that's because I'm not about to look up that stats for 50 States for you again. Do your own damned homework.
"You say DC got these laws to counter the high crime. But the ban on guns hasnt solved it and it still has high crime. So are you proving no link between crime and guns? Or just saying that DC is different because it doesnt suit your needs?"
Actually DC does fit my means because it shows that lots of firearms equates to a lot of deaths. I'm not sure why you keep thinking it fits *your* needs. Not that I *need* anything. I just get tired of reading about another dozen kids being blown away because the US has more legislation in place against Kinder Eggs than it does semi-automatic weapon.
DC is still high crime, but it's LESS crime now. Do you really believe that essentially saying "gun laws didn't magically transform DC into My Little Pony Land" is an argument against gun control in any way?
Any State which is purely urban is going to be a statistical abnormality. Is that not evident? Pointing at it and going: "Look here" is just stating the obvious. You have to actually *think* about why, instead of just pointing at a number.
The gun laws didn't make enough of a difference because they weren't coupled with a enough effort to get illegal firearms off the street and because people could just go and buy firearms from 50 miles away. It was a bad implementation of gun control because of porous borders. That doesn't make gun control bad. Same story with Mexico: Gun control, but with the world's biggest gun shop right next door and a porous border.
"Crime figures are in general reducing across the US. The facts behind the numbers make a difference."
That has nothing to do with guns, does it. At all.
"Every single mass shooting we've experienced in the last 5 years has been the result of someone who was KNOWN to be mentally unbalanced and a DANGER TO SOCIETY not being locked up until treatment was completed.
Every single start of a mass shooting which has been started and stopped short has been stopped by someone in the local vicinity who happened to be carrying a gun being able to bring it to bear on the situation."
I'm going to call bullshit on both of those facts, because you just fucking made them up.
Citation or stow it.
"Interesting you think there are only 2 states in the US. You mention 2 that make your point but miss out on the whole of the US."
Well, duh!! That's was the point, if you actually read the thread. I was replying to a post that said that the US is a different society to Switzerland et al, so it's only proper to compare US States with other US States. So I took two US States that are harsh on crime and have lots of guns.
DC is an odd-ball case as it's a totally urbanised State, and urban areas have higher criminality rates.
But yeah... throw it in and cite it: tough on crime, lots of violent death. So being tough on crime doesn't really work that well. Or did you mean the (mostly repealed) gun laws there? The gun laws were brought in specifically to counter the massive violence, but it was already too late and the laws were side-stepped by people buying firearms 'next door'. Still: Crime figures are down there now.
"I watched an interview where the head of the NRA was promoting the idea of armed guards being based at schools as a way of preventing more shootings - America is the only developed nation I can think of where someone thinks this is a good idea."
I made a throw away comment just after the attack about "I suppose the NRA would suggest that if teachers were armed this wouldn't happen", and I was genuinely slightly horrified to discover that this was indeed their response. Still, it almost seems karma has been intent on countering some of the more radical pro-gun arguments in recent weeks:
"School massacres happen even without guns": China school attack with knives happens. Nobody actually dies.
"Nobody ever gets gunned down on a shooting range. Places where people are armed are safe": War hero is gunned down on shooting range.
"Look at all the assault rifles in Switzerland, and they have no problem": Drunk Swiss guy kills three with assault rifle.
"If people have guns they can intervene and stop gunmen": Armed police attacked and wounded by ex police officer.
"It's difficult for many to understand that guns are not the issue, mentally unbalanced people are the real issue.... What we should do is a better job of removing evil and mentally unbalanced people from society "
Over 10% of the population are mentally ill at some point in their life.
Every teenager who has ever existed has been mentally unbalanced.
Anyone on courses of strong medication or hormone treatment is mentally unbalanced.
Even the Pill can make you mentally unbalanced.
What are you suggesting? Waving a magic fucking wand and solving all of that overnight? Incarcerating 20% of the population? And that's easier than licensing firearms is it?
"How many people died on 9-11 without a single gun being used?"
That's an absurd straw man. The people who committed the crime were not mentally unbalanced. They just weren't on your side.
"Should we outlaw airplanes and box cutters, because they are the tools of death and destruction?"
Actually, we DID outlaw box-cutters ON 'planes, and guess what: No more atrocities. Your own example shows you that taking away weapons has worked.
"People need to remove themselves from all of the emotion and look at the big picture."
Like the unemotional and even-handed way that you considered the 9/11 attackers as mentally ill?
"But as we are english and they are american there is also the huge difference of culture, so you can only really compare american to american."
This is true. Let's look at Texas... say. It's harsh on criminals, keen on the death sentence, and OK with people carrying firearms... and of course next to no crime because of it.... oh no, wait... that's totally untrue...
Ok: How about Florida... nope... that's a free fire zone as well. Hmmm....
"What I just can't understand is how people who feel they must have guns to feel safe don't see that this shows a fundamental failure of American society, and more guns won't fix it."
I think you'll find that *enough* fully automatic weapons might solve the problem of American society once and for all...
Yeah, but if she hadn't have had the Coke, she'd have had to actually have eaten food. Ergo, it was the Coke.
For example, if I didn't want to sleep, I'd eventually fall asleep. If I took Amphetamine and never slept, I'd eventually drop dead. Clearly, the Coroner would rightly blame them Amphetamine.
"No, it's not worth a million quid, they'd need just under 40 years for that"
Except that money is worth less than human life, morally.
Hell: Money isn't even a thing that physically exists in any real sense any more. Some numbers of a spreadsheet aren't worth more than a human life. When a Wall Street dealer loses 5 million for an investment bank in a day of trading, it's not as bad as putting 5 people up against a wall and putting bullets in their faces.
To some extent the police did it to themselves. Or rather some of the bastard/lazy ones screwed it up for the good ones.
I do try to support the police but many of them would rather get a pat on the back for screwing over a generally 'good' citizen who made a mistake and who is an 'easy kill' than they would try to face the uphill struggle of dealing with the real scum. I appreciate that it's a hard job and it's really the fault of the criminals, but some police officers don't help themselves and are such utter pricks that they shouldn't be allowed to deal with 'normal' people, for the sake of the Force's reputation!
"such as from legitimate building or renovation works. "
That's typically grey market as well! It's a well-know little scam in the building trade to take all to good bits to the scrappy for a few used fivers. The whole business is utterly dodgy. I've never known an honest scrappy. Or indeed one who could be described in any way more flattering than 'pikey'.
Steve... mean?
Surely not; he was Buddhist!
Which is a fucking joke. He was the closest Buddhism has had to an anti-Christ.
An entire religion based around not giving a shit about materialism, letting go of jealousy and resentment, being decent and forgiving to people so they are decent and forgiving and the world is a better place and Steve claims to be a fucking believer. Balls.
This is the guy who helms the most successful, rich and morally bankrupt firm on Earth, makes the entire fucking planet want to spend £400 on a smartphone and feel smug about it, gets pretty much everyone shout at everyone else over their choice of fucking phone and buys a new car every fucking month. And he claimed he was Buddhist. Joself fucking Stalin was a better Buddhist than Jobs.
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