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Off Topic The Goodhand Arms

Discussion in 'Southampton' started by TheSecondStain, Jul 15, 2014.

  1. StJabbo1

    StJabbo1 Well-Known Member

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    Mrs Jab says she needs an ebike, she does do a few kms so fair enough. Huge choice here in the Netherlands most seem assembled from several motor and battery manufacturers. I've had to avoid some olduns flying around like demented Barry Sheens, ebike collisions on the up over here.
     
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  2. SaintinSerbia

    SaintinSerbia Annoying Twat

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    will admit to nearly getting run over by a Prius. Maybe they could peg some playing cards to the shocks to rattle against the wheel spokes?
     
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  3. SaintinSerbia

    SaintinSerbia Annoying Twat

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  4. ChilcoSaint

    ChilcoSaint What a disgrace
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    People need to think differently about EV’s than we have about ICE vehicles for the last 140 years. EV vehicles offer all kinds of possibilities with regard to road safety, such as remote speed control in urban areas, which would be relatively simple to impose. Mandatory 20 mph limits are becoming more and more widespread, but are difficult to enforce. EV’s could easily have some sort of transponder built in which would prevent speeding. I’m sure there would be moans about deprivation of liberties, but tough ****.
     
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  5. TheSecondStain

    TheSecondStain Needs an early night

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    Glad you mentioned this as it is a little bugbear of mine. Modern ICE cars, with their long-legged 5 speeds or more, are really only able to run smoothly and relatively cleanly at around 30 mph or more in the highest gear. The benefits are relaxed, economical cruising at higher road speeds. There are exceptions, such as Volvos and Saabs, which generally can run OK at 20mph in top gear. A legacy of their home market safety. But it means that, in order to negotiate a 20mph zone, the driver of another modern ICE vehicle must put the car in a lower gear. The consequence is, the engine spins at a higher rpm, the car uses more fuel, and creates more pollution in the process. This omits the adjustment of throttle, the take up of load by the engine, and the acceleration to 30mph once the driver is out of the zone. All of which richen the fuel mixture temporarily and cause still higher pollution levels. A car not changing speed from the 30mph, as it passes through the 20mph zone, carries a greater risk of killing a pedestrian [often a child] who might walk or run out into traffic without due concern. However, it runs far cleaner on it's mimimum throttle.

    And this is just one of the conumdrums with the internal combustion engine. It can't adapt to modern urban requirements, where 90% of driving is done. And most of the time it has just 'popped into town', so the engine almost certainly isn't properly warm, whatever the gauge says, so it causes more pollution than the maker lies to you about. Then we have 'sleeping policemen'. That's a cracking little pollution raiser.

    So what do we do? Do we stay at 30mph and risk killing more unthinking pedestrians [mainly kids coming out of school]
    Do we educate them about road dangers like we used to before it was deemed too costly or 'interfering' and allow cars to continue at 30mph? Do we demand car drivers slow down, so that they kill fewer kids, but gas a whole swathe of them to death indirectly [most pushchairs are at the perfect height for exhausts], because there is significant evidence that is indeed happening to urban kids?
    Or do we do the sensible thing and get ICE cars off the road asap if not before? An EV doesn't care what speed it runs at. [no stupid arguments about dirty electricity please] It will never pollute. And, as Chilco says above, they can be remotely controlled for speeds. But by then the cars will be talking to and avoiding each other and pedestrians, with the occupants asleep or playing games. And quite possibly, when that data is in, it will become illegal to drive anyway. Race tracks might get busy.
     
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  6. Clem Fandango

    Clem Fandango Well-Known Member

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    TSS, I'm confused. A car doing 20 in 2nd gear will be revving less and using less fuel than a car doing 60 in 5th, surely?
     
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  7. fran-MLs little camera

    fran-MLs little camera Well-Known Member

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    I can see the future....it won't be long before you can forget flashy motors...everyone within cities will be using public transport or the equivalent of milk floats.
     
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  8. TheSecondStain

    TheSecondStain Needs an early night

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    Forgot to answer the TG presentation, and about your 'education'. Put simply, a lot of what Chris Harris said was so dated, or blatantly untrue, I'm surprised the programme still qualifies as 'factual'. Chris Harris is an excellent motoring journalist, but he's not suited to TG, where he has to share the limelight in silly sketches and antics. He can do proper roadtests, but he's shoehorned into the TG format. That said, he's never been the biggest fan of the upcoming EV revolution. Take a peek at his roadtest of the 2017 Model S P100D:


    You can see that the sheer performance of the car blows him out of his socks. But he will not accept it. Actually, this has been a general TG attitude. Even the TG magazine presenters can't help but snipe as they end up being very impressed. And it's not just Tesla. Even the Jaguar iPace gets a lot of praise. It won Car of the Year in a lot of countries. Typically, because it isn't attempting to push ICE cars off the road, it got practically no sniping at all. Oh, and it's thought to be British. Good car too:

     
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  9. TheSecondStain

    TheSecondStain Needs an early night

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    You are definitely confused Clem. Read it again. :rolleyes:
     
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  10. TheSecondStain

    TheSecondStain Needs an early night

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    We could, but the idea is to own a car that when you aren't letting it run you around, goes off and makes you more money than you bought it for by being a Robotaxi. True.
     
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  11. TheSecondStain

    TheSecondStain Needs an early night

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    In comparison to the rather timid British, the Americans, who aren't total devotees of Detroit and nothing else, are taking EVs to their hearts, simply because they know they are better, and more fun on the road. This is a big US magazine called Motortrend. They do fun things like TG, but don't forget to actually road test the cars. Here they compare the 2017 Bentley Bentayga against the 2016 Tesla Model X P90D Ludicrous [the slower one]. Take special note when they get an Alfa Romeo supercar to beat another same model Alfa Romeo supercar. It's quite funny:

     
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  12. TheSecondStain

    TheSecondStain Needs an early night

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    Us Remainers rail at the Leavers, but this isn't a political swipe, but I do have to mention the Leavers flagship rag, the Daily Fail, I mean Mail. The Mail mentions that if everyone in the UK went EV, we'd need 6 new nuclear power stations the size of Hinkley C [which I'm almost willing to bet will never become operational]. Yet, nobody from the Daily Mail asked the National Grid. They say that if everyone went EV right now, we'd need... wait for it... 0 new power stations. No, I haven't forgotten to put a 1 or 2 in front of the 0. They say, we can quite happily manage on the existing grid. Why? Because people won't/don't all charge their cars at the same time.
    Let's put it another way - we never run out of petrol or diesel [OK, sometimes we do, but it's very rare]. That's because not everybody fuels up at the same time. If we did all go and fuel up at exactly the same time, it would take several days to do [queueing], and by some point, all the fuel stations would have run out. Why? Because they simply don't carry enough fuel to accommodate all the cars in the UK, all at once. But they manage it overall.

    Right now, in the UK, we have been commissioning offshore and onshore Wind farms [especially] and Solar farms like crazy, simply because someone in government has quietly got the point. They are way cheaper and safer to install and operate, And they produce electricity that costs almost f****** nothing, after the units are paid for, and they do that within 6 months or so. Eventually, someone is going to get the bigger point and have battery storage put with everyone of those farms to smooth out their ups and downs, because the sun doesn't always shine, the wind doesn't always blow. Luckily, it tends to be windy when the sun doesn't shine and visa versa, during the day. And they often produce more than is needed in the local area. So they get switched off. Why not charge batteries instead?

    What I'm leading upto really slowly is that this year will be the first one that Renewable Energy will provide more power than Coal and Gas, because it has tripled it's capacity in just a few years, greatly outpacing the 1990s Dash For Gas. And it shows no signs of slowing. Indeed, it is only going to get faster as renewables get cheaper and cheaper.

    This year the renewable power provided will only be greater by a few percent. But we know how significant a few percent tends to be on these shores. Oops, I got political after all. <doh>
     
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  13. SaintMarv

    SaintMarv Well-Known Member

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    Marv's bad joke of the day
    A guy goes into a bar and says to the barman give me a shot of your strongest whiskey. Actually make it a double and then knocks it straight back. Another double please and again he knocks it straight back. Another double please. The barman said is everything OK mate? The guy replied I got into a fight with the wife and she's not talking to me for a month. The barman said maybe that's a good thing a little bit of peace and quiet. The guy replied yeah but today's the last day.
     
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  14. fran-MLs little camera

    fran-MLs little camera Well-Known Member

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    Japan and US have already issued rulings that electric cars must have added noise especially at low speeds....I thought ice cream chimes at first but realised that that could be dangerous if it attracted children. :) The best suggestion I saw was it should sound like a car (wow, who'd have thought).
     
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  15. Che’s Godlike Thighs

    Che’s Godlike Thighs Well-Known Member

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    In Bratislava now. As if the Slovakia/Slovenia distinction isn't confusing enough, the Slovak word for Slovakia, is Slovensko. So that's what I see all round town, in the tourist shops and whatnot. It's simply overwhelming me every morning I wake up here, trying to remember which country I'm in again.

    But, on the bright side, found a pub last night serving pints for 1 Euro, and glasses of prosecco for 1.50.

    Also, the word for 'hello' here is 'ahoj' (pronounced 'ahoy'), which is brilliant. And 'friend' is 'kamarat' (from 'comrade'). So I've been walking round greeting everyone with 'Ahoy comrade!'.

    Plus there's culture and stuff here, probably.
     
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  16. fran-MLs little camera

    fran-MLs little camera Well-Known Member

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    Such an attractive city with some interesting statues....especially liked the sewage worker coming out of a manhole...would be banned here on health and safety as perfect height to trip over :) NB Was warned by guide not to touch it as the dogs pee on it...a lot!
     
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  17. ChilcoSaint

    ChilcoSaint What a disgrace
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    You see, they’re doing what I wrote about above, which is to think of the problem in ICE terms. Even today, most top end EV’s have cameras all round and their on-board AI is aware of the car’s surroundings. It’s no stretch of the imagination to just automatically stop the vehicle dead if, say, a child runs out, especially if it’s limited to 20 mph anyway. As we move towards self-driving EV’s that will become standard.
     
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  18. TheSecondStain

    TheSecondStain Needs an early night

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    Yeah, seems ridiculous that a vehicle capable of almost silent operation should have to have noise added, but humans being what they are, they need to be protected, because they won't do it for themselves. There is legislation going through several countries that a small amount of noise will be added to moving EVs until they reach 30mph, at which point the noise diminishes to nothing because tyre roar will be loud enough. I read of comments from people about this that pedestrians should be more aware [and that's probably true, they should] but the truth is, they won't be.
    Decades ago, when Japanese motorcycles pretty much took over, they were able to make bikes that made very little noise, and so legislation was passed to make them 'beep' when they put their indicators on [wow, motorcycles with indicators - whatever next???] That didn't last and I don't see this one doing so either. Eventually, cars will be so good at avoiding wandering pedestrians, with their automatic systems, that the need to make noise will disappear and we can have really quiet streets with just the swish of tyres on tarmac.
     
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  19. Che’s Godlike Thighs

    Che’s Godlike Thighs Well-Known Member

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    Yeah saw that one and a few others. It's quite a quirky little place, and friendly folks.
     
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  20. davecg69

    davecg69 Well-Known Member

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