Electric cars a step nearer mainstream?

Multi storey ones have ceilings.

They manage ti ge the ticket machines into car parks all over the place without any trouble,

And yes, you can have cables in 'sleeping policemen'

I'm sure you're right. Slight problem, though, is that if they're stroppy people the one they tend to take it out on is the driver, and if there's anyone whose fault it's not, it's the driver. You don't encourage more people to apply for the work if all they're going to be is a target for abuse, and a shortage of available drivers is surely one of the chief reasons for a shortage of available buses at any one time - or is it?

Linda ff

And it applies to almost everything you choose to do in life - how do you know in advance if you're going to like the meal you have just ordered, the film you're going to see, the book you've just started to read, the shoes that felt OK when you walked a couple of paces in the shop...?

Which makes it, well, if not meaningless, at least rather a pointless statement.

Linda ff

A lot of the time that is true, but not always. There was a really stroppy woman driving a citi 1 a couple of weekends ago - basically, a totally unprofessional cow. There were several examples on the trip from Kings Hedges to the city centre alone! Whenever there was somebody hurrying to catch the bus, she would wait until they had nearly arrived and then close the doors just in time and then shout at them through the door that she isn't allowed to open the doors again because she's technically "departed" at that point (which is true in itself), even though she was still selling tickets to the last people in the queue; at one stop, she even drove off with the doors open before the last two people had even asked for their ticket, just to avoid the person hurrying to get there, and then proceeded along at around 10mph because she was trying to drive along and deal with the remaining ticket sales at the same time. This sort of behaviour did not happen at any of the other stops when there was nobody else about - at those stops it was sell tickets, close doors, drive off. They'd be better off without her.

Did you get her driver number and report her? Don't buses in cities these days all have CCTV because of the abuse drivers receive?

This weeks is written by Steven Moffat, who has written many of the best episodes in the past four series, so there is a pretty good chance it will be another good one.

Easy... experience, reputation, and association.

How do you know that you are going to enjoy a book or a CD in advance or reading or listening? You don't with certainty, but you will be right by a margin a good deal better than chance.

In message , at 21:54:21 on Thu, 29 May 2008, The Natural Philosopher remarked:

Except on the top floor. Are you proposing dangling these poles from the ceiling?

Yes, one or two near the lifts, not a pole at every parking space.

Sounds as though she was reacting to abuse from a previous passenger - unpardonable, nevertheless. But didn't any of the passengers remonstrate with her?

I hope someone's reported her and she's no longer around. I use that route a lot.

Could have been PMT of course

Linda ff

We don't eat out because when we used to we were always diappointed.

We prefer real life, not shadows.

If we don't like a book after the first few pages we read another - but we read very little fiction.

Make our own.

Well, you made several meaningless statements about the bus drive ... I've never seen a professional bovine and how do you know what the driver intended?

Your opinions say more about you than about the driver :-)

Mary

Already covered, but we do know that a few authors write so well that they're worth reading. I'm just finishing a Rose Macaulay book, a very challenging tome which I've read five times, with no break between. I get more from it every time but I might just leave it for a few months when I've turned the last page and my eyes have moistened again.

We buy very few CDs and only those made by specialist musicians whose performances we've heard live.

You see, we prefer to make our own lives rather than live vicariously. This is a DIY group after all :-)

Mary

"Mary Fisher" gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:

Surely, to be consistent, you wouldn't read books written by others unless you'd heard them read in public first?

"Mary Fisher" gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:

I've never seen an amateur bovine. Every single bovine I've ever seen has been full-time, and earned their living by being bovine, which seems to be a fair description of "professional"...

My point was that there's no, or very little, "waste" heat from an electric motor, so you're going to need an extra KW or two to heat the car, which will reduce the range quite a bit if the heater runs off the main battery.

I went into ths earlier, actually there IS enough waste heat from both motor and battery in normal operation. If there isn't the actual heating requirments of a car are not that great compared with motive power. Unless stuck in traffic, where unlike an IC engine the motive power is zero..and so would the heatloss from the propulsion system.

I realise that: I'm just again uncertain about where this small factory comparison is useful. It probably consumes about as much power as emitted by a certain weight of rotting haddock, with or without a dropped zero! :) What I'm wondering at is the purpose of the comparison. My best guess at the moment from reading the thread is that it was introduced to say "not so much electricity": that a car park wouldn't consume such a large quantity of electricity, no more than a small factory. So as we'd need one in most car parks that extends to "wiring carparks wouldn't consume so much, no more than if they were small factories": the comparison extendeing only to power consumption. And then I imagine a power engineer standing on a hill overlooking a city full of small factories (like a Sheffield of yore) and I can see that they'd see a power landscape which was quite intimidating, SO a power landscape of wired carparks would be similarly intimidating.

Why electric cars? Electricity is an inefficient, but flexible energy transmission medium. I always think it best not to think of it as a power source, but a really cunning drive shaft type system. So having an electric car would mean that we can have cars powered by what? We surely need to concentrate on getting our existing demands for things which are very difficult to run on other fuels supplied renewably first? Doubling or tripling demand for something you're still not sure how to supply is a bit silly?

Dan.

I'm guessing they still invoice the entire country, as it's cheaper that way, and then use a warrant to search your premsises to prove you don't use their product if you complain?

Dan.

Oh look.

Around our way there are some trucks parked up with massive tanks between the cab and the, um, load. It's a bit like the days of the steam engine all over again. The tanks are the full height and width of the cab, but only extend back about two feet. That still makes them about 450gallons, though, by my reckoning, or about 4000 miles or so, I think. Should keep you going.

Dan.

They haven't searched mine yet.