Electric cars a step nearer mainstream?

[Tim Ward]

Nope. Haven't heard from them for many years.

[Mary Fisher]

I've never complained but once a TVL chap came while we were in the garden. Still don't understand that! He said he didn't want to come into the house, he could see that we didn't have a tv. I insisted that he came in but we ended up talking about clocks ...

Mary

[August West]

This being the case, where's the problem? Are UK hauliers somehow unable to fit the same large tanks, and go to where the fuel is cheap, fill up, and then compete with the nasty forigners?

[Linda Fox]

Name at least one.

I suppose if I kindly point out that it wasn't me who wrote that, you will say you never said it was, at which point I shall start to wonder why you mentioned it in the first place.

where have I suggested that I do? I did say "sounds like..." and having had two friends who drove buses in Cambridge (how many have you had?) I know from what they've told me about some of the abuse that they get (like one who was threatened because the previous two buses hadn't shown up) that that's what they feel like sometimes.

If it was the line about PMT, look up irony in your dictionary of humour

cliché cliché cliché

Linda ff

[Linda Fox]

Are you not aware you are crossposting, then? Get a newsreader that alerts you to the fact.

And what is reading fiction if not living vicariously?

Linda ff

[John Rumm]

My point exactly. You can predict in advance with reasonable accuracy.

[Jules]

What, heaters whilst running? (electric engine block heaters are very common here - plug into the mains a while before you need to use the car, as otherwise there's just no way it's going to start in mid-winter. I've not heard of someone using an electric heater to warm the passenger cabin whilst moving, though)

cheers

Jules

[Roland Perry]

In message , at

14:08:37 on Fri, 30 May 2008, Jules remarked:

Many Volvos have electric seat warmers.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Highly efficient.

Nuclear energy. If you must, wind and wave power.

We know perfectly well how to generate electricity more efficiently than a car burns fuel. The only thing we will never run on lithum batteries is a (full size) aircraft above a couple of people payload for an hour...

The issue being that nearly all renewable sources of energy are easily transalatle into electricity, apart from low garde heat, which is really only useful as a means of heating spaces.

Dont think of fossil fuels as as power source, but a really cunning drive shaft type system. But outdated by electrical technology, and the 'batteries' that nature charged up for us over a few million years, are running flat..

[The Natural Philosopher]

Its sound enough if that suits the layout..

I think you will find a lot of pillars.

[Linda Fox]

I'd heard of Saabs which were plugged in overnight to stop them freezing up.

Husband reading over my shoulder says it was a regular thing in certain parts of Canada when he was there in the 70s, that every parking space at work had a socket. An anti-freze thing rather than a keep-you-warm-while-you-drive thing.

Linda ff

[Roland Perry]

In message , at 20:59:23 on Fri, 30 May 2008, The Natural Philosopher remarked:

Very few of which have ticket machines next to them.

Typically pillars are at the end of rows of spaces, and even then the socket is going to be on the wrong side 50% of the time.

[Cicero]

================================== Electric space heaters and demisters were widely advertised in motoring magazines about 30 years ago. Here is a modern sophisticated version:

[Derek Geldard]

What do we buy from the Baltic states? Top of the list when I was there seemed to be wooden pallets. They don't get enough daylight to even grow wheat - Cabbages and Beetroot it is then.

It seems the big trucking companies (Stobart Et Al) who have other big UK Blue Chip companies as customers don't even attempt to compete at that level.

However, the driver (apparently a significant proportion of the cost of running a truck) still needs to draw wages on a UK scale not a Latvian or Lithuanian scale in order to meet UK living costs and satisfy minimum wage regulations, not to mention pay UK tax and a great deal of UK haulage is done by (family) owner driver companies with 1 - 4 trucks. It is these people who are threatened with imminent bankruptcy staring them in the face.

IGWS it's not a good time to be a-selling second hand trucks.

DG

[Dave Liquorice]

That is bad planning on my part for not foreseeing that a particular widget has a critical role to play. I have spares and backups available for most things and if not a direct permanent replacement I probably have something that could be pressed into service as a temporary measure.

If a supplier doesn't have stock of a normal stock item it's poor stock control. A decent stock control system takes into account lead times and normal demand levels ensuring that new stock arrives well before the last of the old stock is sold.

And why shouldn't I? The nearest one is 20+ miles away and even then I don't know if they are any good! Being that far from suppliers of useful widgets is probably what I have stock of most things and backups available. If you live 10 mins from a DIY store you'd just nip out for a washer if you need one rather than have some in stock.

[Dave Liquorice]

Your choice, I doubt we would use a cinema more than once a year, theatre perhaps a little more often. I'm the one who misses a good indian restaurant, SWMBO'd doesn't like anything "spicy".

BTDTGTTS used to live on an modernish estate, end of a small close. Knew the neighbours one side, and one family across the close. Saw the 50% of the others very occasionally as they went from front door to car or vice versa. The others never saw them at all. Similarly in a block converted into 14 flats, I could only recognise about 5 other people who lived in the block. I put it down to modern urban living, no one has any time, they are all too busy rushing about, chasing some advertisers image of dream home.

[dennis]

I think you will find supermarket car parks have electric sockets too, otherwise the car isn't going to start after a 30 minute shop in -40 temps.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Gosh. However did they manage to solve the cable problem that is worrying Roland so much?

[Roland Perry]

In message , at 22:03:19 on Fri, 30 May 2008, The Natural Philosopher remarked:

The car park may have been designed for them, rather than being retro-fitted. And if Canada is anything like the USA, most car parks will be ground floor and tarmac, not multi-storey and concrete.

[The Natural Philosopher]

The more people there are about, the less you naturally want to engage with them.

We hit the Chelsea flower show last week and I was just about ready to start screaming as I couldnt walk an inch without bumping into someone or elbowing or being elbowed out of the way.

Most days here, I dont actually see ANYONE apart from my wife and the postman.

And that's only if there is a parcel to be signed for.