New battery tech?

Right. Computers never crash. ;-)

Bert you twerp, we are talking about a possible mode of operation of Driverless cars that may/ could happen in the future. You won't have to do anything for a couple of reasons ,

You arn't making the decision , we are talking about driverless cars remember .

Unless we revert to a stay at home society such as existed for most till about 1900 we will need both road and rail , 3500 cars isn't that huge an amount on a busy motorway and that is as it is now with present free for all.

No it won't, it will be making reasonable progress Northwards, and if as is most likely my destination will be Glasgow or further North then HS2 isn't scheduled to reach that far for a long time. Point to point journey time isn't the be all and end all if you have the hassle to make your way to a rail terminal 2 hours away in the first place.

which bit of "with no stops, range and bladders allowing." did you find hard to comprehend?

You can throw what ifs at any scenario.

What if the train loses power , what if a heat wave risks buckling the track so they get speed restricted,what if there is a points failure . The list could go on and on.

G.Harman

Actually, no. One of the current problems facing developers is the fact that driverless cars are actually slower to react to emergencies and any unusual events.

To get maximum through reduce speed, down to about 5mph. I would suggest taking a train on west coast main line and look out the window as the track runs alongside the M1. Then imagine another 3000+ cars pumped onto the motorway.

There won't be "big gaps" between these "trains"

We don't actively go around encouraging people to walk on train tracks. City centre trams are different but they move relatively slowly.

Electric heating in homes etc too, then?

Ah resorting to abuse. The sign of a failed argument.

I hope so.

AH just like my sat nav.

HS2 trains can run on conventional track, so 200mph to Crewe then 125mph to Glasgow, no change of train necessary (except maybe at the hard border which will be necessary if the Scots choose independence and are allowed into the EU, an unlikely scenario I admit.

But on a train those sort of inconveniences do not impact on journey time whereas in your driverless car scenario they do,

And you can overlook the inconvenient ones.

The probability of a failure in your 350 car scenario is much greater than that in a single train.

The thing is that trundling along a motorway - where a 'train' of cars might be possible - isn't the problem anyway. It's congestion at the start and end of that motorway, and where roads join it. Which would be made worse by cars coupling up - even electronically.

At such times my employer doesnt mind if I'm an hour late and sometimes some are allowed to go home early, and adminsatrative staff are allowed to stay at home and work from home.

Reminds me of star wars; attack of the clones when the mother ship or whatever SW call it went bang. All the clones just stopped moving. Now you might think that is a bit far fetched or OT but look up "Locusts watching star wars"

Does a goal post make a noise when it moves ..... when there's no one there to see it. :-)

No.

The law he really meant is probably the one that got him. As it is St Patrick's Day he may have been drinking Murphys.

G.Harman

Although interesting, I wonder how much consolation it would have been to the third Tesla driver I saw arrive at Watford Gap Services recently to find that both Tesla Superchargers were already in use?

Patrick's law says that Murphy was an optimist.

The electric motor needs to be a lot cooler than an ICE. There is a separate water system for heating the cab with a resistance heater. Hence there are two systems to keep topped up with water/antifreeze. One for the motor/electronics, the other for the cab heating system. The electronics are water cooled too.

Neither runs under pressure.

If you run the separate cab heater, it knocks around 25% off range. Plus range is reduced anyway in cold weather, the batteries don't like it. I'm not too bad, it's garaged in an underground garage.

Nobody'll be able to afford the tickets.

Crypt?!

In article , whisky-dave writes

Are all blind people deaf?

Good keep the riff raff off. (AKA scousers)