Electric cars a step nearer mainstream?

[The Natural Philosopher]

Safety. Your welcome :-)

[Doctor Drivel]

You are talking total tripe! The Toyota hybrid system is by far the best anyone has come up with. It is licenced to many other companies, including Ford.

Then look at this:

We meed an Issigonis to re-desing the whole car from the ground up

Cars will look different, be lighter and more aerodynamic, once they design around the new electric components.

[Dave Liquorice]

As you know the road you will also know it is a nice "driving road". When the brakes faded I had been coming down using the "stop" and "go" pedals as switches rather than gentle progessive controls... B-)

Interesting experience and you don't get much warning that the brakes are about to stop working. And stop working they do, not just "get a bit weak" basically no brake at all, no matter how hard you push the pedal. Switch to driving on snow/ice mode gently using the gears and engine braking.

[The Natural Philosopher]

ROFLMAO!!!

good thing I have finished my coffee.

Of course they will stoopid.

Once you cant use more than half a dozen componnents from your production line on the new car, it becomes sane to start again with a clean sheet.

[Mary Fisher]

Hmm. Although we're not on the breadline I don't think our piggy bank is as fat as that ... but I'll have a look anyway. Thanks,

Mary

[Dave Liquorice]

Summat wrong wiv it... My long term (3.51 years) average is 29.4mpg. Not much stop/start town driving in that though. The last two tank fulls have produced 31.5 and 30.5 mpg over 484 and 486 miles, mostly rural A roads bowling along at 50mph (+/-5 mph or so) and local running.

[Roger]

The message from Huge contains these words:

That's not exactly like with like. Different models and presumably even different engine sizes. Correct me if I am wrong but I thought a td5 was only 2.5 litres capacity.

FWIW my early 80s RR did about 17 mpg.

[Huge]

It's "you're".

And it was deliberate.

[Mark Ayliffe]

On or about 2008-05-28, Huge illuminated us with:

Ah, possibly. I thought they were talking about a porch. Which makes sense in context I think.

[Mark Ayliffe]

I've picked up half a Ford 2.5L diesel trannie engine. But I doubt whether I could do it now!

[Roger]

The message from "Mary Fisher" contains these words:

Hmm. I would have thought you would have thrown up your hands in horror at such a monstrous abomination. How anyone could consider 195 gmsCO2/km in the least bit green is beyond me.

[Mary Fisher]

though, I've asked if there is one and if it can tow.

There may be a second hand model which is suitable for us. There's a local dealer and there's no rush so we can afford to wait.

Thanks again for the information,

Mary

[Dave Liquorice]

But F.Blogs Hauliers Ltd is complaining that they will go out of business with out government help. Well the answer is put your prices up. If it cost X to transport that pallet of widgets from A to B that is the minimum you should charge. It's called market forces and being in bussiness. It's not as if Smiths Trucking down the road is getting fuel 20p/l cheaper than J.Blogs Hauliers. We are all in the same boat. They wibble about continental truckers coming over and doing the work on their cheap fuel, er, once a forgien truck has done a few hundred miles it will need to fill up at our prices...

[Sarah Brown]

Gladly:

[Andy Hall]

My Land Rover is green. Does that count?

[Andy Hall]

I have a couple of them that fell into my hand at a filling station in Germany. They are a U shaped loop of thick wire.

[Andy Hall]

That's nonsense. The full tank trip mechanism still works even with the latch wire in place.

[Andy Hall]

This doesn't happen because the trip mechanism in the handle still works. All petrol stations I have used in the U.S. have the latch wires on the pump handles. I have never seen a flood of fuel.

[Andy Hall]

Ironically the U.S. arrangement is probably safer. The pump is tripped off when the tank is full and it is virtually impossible to top off the tank and spill fuel.

They even have vapour extraction around the nozzle in the form of a flexible concertina plastic thingy

[Andy Hall]

Plus people still think that they are noisy, chuggy things like buses.