h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

What, British Racing Green? Anything with a Leyland engine really was cursed...

<BB<

That is annoying about the mobile phone thing indeed - I have been known to type a fake number into those on occasion to make sure they use my 'preferred' contact option...

Highly possible that the 'green car' thing relates to Jaguar - my dad was given a Jaguar as his company car back in the 1980s, and it needed a babysitter to keep the engine in working order if he went on a business trip or holiday and wouldn't be driving it for a few days

Today's PH is related to the last PH - the update that took away my low contrast option has moved things around, so the icons I use most often now need two clicks to access instead of one...

Not as bad as the software "upgrade" I once encountered. The old software was text based, so if you knew the right codes, you could do almost anything with a few keystrokes. Then they decided that we needed a windows based user interface. Entering one new product code literally took a hundred mouseclicks (instead of fifteen keystrokes, including the seven for the new product code itself).

Shocking... Definitely more focus on system than user...

I'm finding my way around the interface a bit better now, but it is weird how inconsistent it is.

I had four images on a page, all aligned neatly. When I copied the page and tried to replace the images with new ones, two slotted in neatly, but the other two pasted in next to the old images, and wouldn't sit next to each other without me wrestling them into position

PH (maybe not that petty)

The Dutch government is steering toward car mileage based tax, effectively making the use of a car much more expensive for most, to pressure people into using public transport instead.
Yesterday, the CEO of our biggest train company announced that they plan to make train tickets more expensive during rush hour, to reduce the load on his trains. (please note that this CEO used to be a cabinet minister). I would call that counterproductive.
How are people supposed to go to work? Who is going to pay for that? Most companies allow only two days of working from home a week.

I thought the cycle network is the envy of the . Which is great if you are fit and mobile, and work in a town within 15 miles of your home - but obviously if you are commuting by train you are either too far to or unable to cycle.
(The trouble is that governments tend to think of one form of transport as being the one-size-fits-all solution to transport, but of course that isn't the case, not for bikes, , trains - and certainly not cars).

<BB<

My commute example: 44km door to door. Takes 35-45 minutes by car, for less than 5 euros one way. (including fuel, tax, maintenance, devaluation)

Public transport:
-Either 23 minutes by bus or 14+2 minutes by bicycle to the railway station.
-then add 19 minutes by train, considering I show up just in time, otherwise add up to 15 minutes waiting time.
-then either walk 25 minutes (power walking = sweaty arrival) to my office or take a bus and walk the last bit anyway, 27 minutes, considering direct transit connection from train to bus, or add up to 10 minutes.

Total time: 60 - 94 minutes one way.
Total price 7.5-11 euros one way.

Even if the car would cost the same (the pay per km formula they're discussing), it would still save me one hour traveling time on average per day, and I would arrive without the sweat / rain.

I live near possibly the most automobile centric major city in the world, Houston, Texas. What little rail there is is all within and between the central areas of the city, Downtown & the Medical Center. Bus routes reach most areas within the city (out to around the Beltway, about a 15 mile radius). I live much further than that away from downtown. Bike routes are expanding within the city and some areas of the suburbs.

I don't have to commute into the city. I work only 10 miles from home now. By car that's about 15-30 minutes depending on traffic and mostly construction. I did try riding my bike to work once. That took 1 hour. That can be dangerous in the summer heat and humidity.

I drive an EV.

I also tried going on my recumbent bike once. It took me two hours and I didn't have a lot of energy left to work. At te end of the day I still had to cycle back. I must admit that a little more preparation would have helped (tire pressure to maximum, some more training beforehand. Blood circulation to the legs has to adapt to recumbent cycling, as the blood has to go up past your knees.) Being a father of three, I can't spare the 2-3 hours extra travel a day anyway.

I drive a EURO 6 diesel car, which is theoretically as clean as and more fuel efficient than a petrol car (unless the car maker cut corners and gave diesels a bad name). I'm afraid I will not be able to afford a full EV in the near future, especially since I am also required to invest in a carbon neutral house and can't seem to build up any savings due to all the taxation on everything environment related. Government policy seems to be all single issue ideas without calculating whether anyone can afford the whole package and keep going forward (and buy food, pay mortgage...).

Please note that I work in the automotive industry as an engine test engineer. My employer is working on all possible variants of propulsion (Diesel, hybrid, EV, hydrogen), because different use cases ask for different solutions (long haul applications don't work with full EV). There is legislation in place that puts an ever increasing quotum on zero emission vehicle sales in the coming years / decades. The problem is when customers are not willing / able to buy the zero emissions vehicles or when the grid doesn't support the charging of those numbers of EV vehicles. (there are huge problems getting planning permission for high power charging points)

Some rough calculations show another issue:

To run all trucks where I live as EV's, you would need around 12 billion kWh of green energy anually. That's about a quarter of the green energy that is currently being generated. Then we have to add passenger cars, that should go electric by 2030, using around 21 million kWh anually (half of green energy). Moving industy to green energy would take about all off the current green energy at 45 million kWh. Getting all houses switched to green energy would require something like 44 trillion kWh of green energy anually. (about a thousand times more than currently generated).

Green energy is not a constant supply. Solar panels are not working at night and barely work through the winter, when people need energy for heating. Most passenger cars are unavailable for charging when the yield is highest. The grid is already struggling with the current input of solar energy.

Sorry, end of rant.

It is just that I don't see how this is all going to work in the given timeline.

There is definitely a lack of forethought when it comes to government policies like that. So in the UK only electric cars will be sold new after 2030 - but politicians don't live in the real world along with everyone else. They forget that not everyone lives in a big house with a garage and/or driveway. Most people end up parking somewhere different along the road - or even on nearby streets - each day. How will people in tower blocks without parking be expected to charge their cars? On pavement charging points on every street would, after all, be expensive to install and maintain and make it difficult to use pavements, particularly if you are in a wheelchair or pushing a pram.

<BB<

I don't think that politician's long term promises are meant to work in a given timeline. The aim is that for a current government to announce something daft like, 'By 2030 all food will be fat free' and get kudos for it - while knowing that they aren't going to be in power in 2030, so when 2030 comes around and the government has changed 27 times in the meantime, it is the new government's fault that target's not been met.

<BB<

I bought my EV used. It had under 30k miles and I paid a bit less than $20,000. A recent rant by Rowan Atkinson seemed to suggest that people by new EVs and then throw them away after 3 years.

Can't get anything useful for that money and mileage around here. Only Renault Zoës where you have to lease the battery. (too small, insufficient range...)

Used Kia eNero's at around £20K now.
These have a range of about 200 Miles

Today's PH - the National Rail website is really good for finding train journeys, but then it passes me to another website to buy the tickets, and it pretty much always fails to find the journey I've just found...

It says 'You need to buy more than one ticket' but doesn't tell me which tickets!!!

I had the same experience when trying to book a trip from the Netherlands to Italy through France. Every three train connection had one that couldn't be booked.
Another thing is that every train transit through Paris includes crossing the city by Metro, because all stations are a terminus.

I must admit I've several times given up and just bought the ticket from the person on the counter, but they're planning on closing ticket offices... (I've signed petitions against that).

<BB<

Within the Netherlands, you can now just swipe you bank card at the start and end of journey.

You can on too - unless you are travelling with others.

<BB<