Off Topic The Politics Thread

Yes, it was a bit of a giveaway, though, wasn't it?

 

Volvo will apparently only make new models electric
Expect to see 300 new models that will be petrol or diesel come out in The next 3 years that can be updated for ages to come

 

Was it just the right that voted out

How much does it cost to fill your batteries

 

Plenty on the far left wanted out too.

Key word is 'yet' Yorkie. Massive investment taking place by the car companies and others, the key to this will be battery life to extend range. Tesla seems to be streets ahead of everyone else on this because they have focussed on it. When the others and other tech companies do too I think it will move forward rapidly. Also in very rapid recharging. Gove has made a promise he won't need to keep, but it has provided a real incentive for change.

Currently it costs about 2p a mile to charge at home, many workplace and supermarket charge points are free, and rapid charge points are about £6.50 for 30 minutes. It works out at about £500 a year cheaper than fuel.

For me the challenge is that I live in a terraced house (like millions of others) and even if I can do a 400 mile round trip on one charge I don't fancy running a cable out of a window and across the pavement to charge up (although I know people who do this) and being sued by someone tripping over it. I would need a dedicated parking spot on the street and some way of getting a charging post on the kerb. But I think long term a different method of charging will be needed, or super long range ultra rapid charging batteries. An annual 60 minute charge would be cool.

I think my next car will probably be a hybrid, one of those where the petrol engine charges the (rather small) battery., no need to plug in.

 

Home Office Minister Brandon Lewis (me neither) all over the place on immigration on the Today programme.

- he said the tens of thousands manifesto pledge remains Tory policy because that was the most important factor in the Brexit vote. But, unlike most manifesto promises, it won't be delivered by this government.

- they have set up a Migration Commission to work out just how reliant we are on migrant labour. It will report in September next year. Six months before Brexit and when the negotiations are meant to be finished.

- a year before this commission reports (and clearly one possible conclusion is that we are totally reliant on imported labour), the government will publish an immigration white paper, but Brandon can't even give us a hint of the options which may be considered for inclusion (he wasn't asked to make any commitments, just some ideas)

- but he is 100% clear that free movement from the EU will end on 29 March because it's part of the single market. No transition period, which is the opposite of what his boss Amber Rudd said. However the other parts of the single market - free movement of goods, services and capital - may not end. Say what?

- he can't even guess whether we will have a visa system in place by Brexit.

I'm brimming over with confidence.

 

Hybrids are specifically excluded from the 'ban' so you'll still be able to buy and drive those after 2040. I think they will make up the vast majority of cars on the roads in the future, unless there's the massive leap forward in battery capacity and efficiency that some are hoping for, and unless successive future governments and industry invest heavily in charging points and making sure we can generate the amount of additional electricity needed to cope with demand.

Still - when this happens, I'll be 75 and using a mobility scooter, so I'll be greener than anybody!

 

It's no secret I didn't vote for Brexit and I don't want the country to commit economic suicide by leaving the EU without any sign of a viable alternative. I don't have any problem with controlling immigration and I wouldn't have any problem with better control over who comes to live here - it just happens to be part of the current arrangement. I don't have a problem with making our own laws - even if it resulted in two different standards regarding the goods we sell to the rest of the EU and those we sell elsewhere, albeit that isn't very efficient. But I do have a problem with removing the UK from the oversight of the ECJ. I don't trust any government to do what's best for all of us if they can get away with doing what's best for themselves first - at the people's expense. Particularly now authoritarians on the far right and far left seem happy to insult our judiciary, and call for them to be political appointees who can be fired when the people-in power-and-influence don't get their own way.

If the people currently negotiating our post-Brexit world showed any sign of competence I'd be happier. They don't. They're out of their depth, it's too big a job for the people we've got available to do it in the timescale and yet we're reliant on them steering us through the rocks and rapids that we can all see poking out of the water.

That's why it's time to stop the boat and change course. We're just not ready to do this. We may yet leave the EU. We might find ourselves staying in and reforming it instead of just complaining about it. What won't end well is just leaving now, come what may.

 

Naaaaaaah!

 

They really need to think about the charging infrastucture before this becomes anywhere near law....I do 40K+ miles a year, and although the prospect of cleaner emmissions is enticing, I just don't have the time to wait on a battery recharge that the current technology allows, and the places I go certainly don't have charging facilities. Wireless charging along our roads would possibly help, but would cost billions to implement (if the technology for cars even exists). Solar charging another possibility, but hindered by seasonal and geographical changes (we don't get much sun up here!). Dual battery with a small hybrid, so that the motion of the car with one battery, charges the second with the hybrid as a back up? - again, you are hampered by the size of the battery in relation to the car.

This appears to be a knee-jerk reaction by Westminster (yet again) without being fully thought through, and although it is logical that we reduce our reliance on fossil fuels, true alternatives need to be fully investigated before blanket policy statements about banning cars that are not electric are banded about.

 

Steel, I think in 22 years the technology would have advanced far ahead of what it is now. I wouldn't worry.

 

I can't believe they've been banging on about Charlie Gard the past month. His parents are absolute imbeciles and even now they are fighting for him to be taken home when really they should just be spending as much time with him as possible

 

Car drivers are the real greenies
As soon as we have used up all that dirty carbon the cleaner we will become

 

Yes, we can be beamed to work like in Star Trek

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Teleportation: Photon particles today, humans tomorrow?

Chinese scientists say they have "teleported" a photon particle from the ground to a satellite orbiting 1,400km (870 miles) away.

For many, however, teleportation evokes something much more exotic. Is a world previously confined to science fiction now becoming reality?

Well, sort of. But we are not likely to be beaming ourselves to the office or a beach in the Bahamas anytime soon. Sorry.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-40594387

 

What a ridiculous, nasty post. Hopefully you will never be in such a position to make heart wrenching decisions like his parents have had to. Unnecessary post

 

Saw a few posts of people talking about Charlie Gard and thought i'd throw it out there.

Whilst i'm not in agreement about their court action to get him to USA to get the treatment, i can understand that and they are just fighting for their child and who knows how i would react.

What i'm criticising right now is that they've decided to take it up and spend more time fighting a case to allow him to die at home when hes only got limited time left.

 

i would have thought that they would want to be spending as much time with him as possible and not wasting precious time in court

 

I know that Durbar, but battery technology is the one area that they are spending millions on at the moment, for miniscule rewards with respect to size and performance - it's a matter of physics really, you can only store so much energy into a certain size and type of material, be it lithium, ni-cad or whatever new materials they are dreaming up in their labs. 2040 shouldn't affect me workwise, but the issue will still be there.

My next motor will probably be a hybrid - anyone got one? Are they worth the additional outlay?

 

Fred Flintstone has one

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The media coverage of this tragic case is nauseating, I understand the familys' stance (although I would like to think I would've listened to the doctors at GOSH in the first instance), but time is precious so spending as much of it with him as possible would be my top priority. The media however are circling like vultures, with a wiff of a story, and it's due to their continual coverage of this that the good, honest staff at GOSH have received death threats. They should leave the story alone, and let the family spend their final days in peace and dignity.

 

I'm not fit enough to keep that going with the mileage I do!