Antivaxxers seem to be more common than before (I guess those that lived through the polio epidemic, and the era of the polio vaccine are not so numerous these daysā¦ same goes for other horrible diseases), so you might see some other old plagues coming back.
Everywhere you go, and see in modern days. IS way overpopulated. overbuilt.
Primarily on what WASā¦ Good arable land to produce food for all the Lemmings in the world on 2 legs. Mainly itās coastal.
=
āāRight you are. The human species is not going extinct. At least, not right awayā¦ Thatās why I say quality of life is the issue.āā
Above.
Whoāre you trying to kid.
Not until weāve eaten and detroyed everything else on this planet first, anyway.
Lightbringer is one of the most sensible brains on here regarding this.
Unfortunately. A coupla good world wars wonāt fix it nowadays.
Those were. the best means of birth control we had for decades.
Let all the younger generations (breeders) kill themselves off while the oldies control them into doing it as much as they can.
Prior to that Beubonic plague. Fire of London, etc held us back a bit.
We need to control the third world breeding b4 anything else will work.
They breeding quicker than humans can kill each other off.
Every ONE we save. Especially the males. is at least another ten to feed. growing expotentially down the ages.
The thought of the world populated by tribals, killing AND eating each other is not nice.
But. Just maybeā¦. Self inflicted. Youāre saving them so they can breed US out of existence in time. That or China.
We were saying the world is starting to overpopulate 50/60 yrs ago. (I was here)
We and the Africaās, Need to seriously look at Chinaās One child policy again. AND control it.
Although. After all this talk. Personally (dumb or not)
I reckon the planet is/has had pretty much enough of us.
The way she going. Something IS going to happen. Maybe weāll be lucky and sheāll give a good shrug and start over again in a coupla million yrs with something different.
Looking around. Humans have NOT proven a very nice race to raise.
Killing themselves and destroying everything else on the planet, as fast as they can.
From the time there were two males and one female. and it hasnāt stopped yet.
Using all the materials. minerals on the planet, as fast as they can.
NO thought for any humans that MAY still be here.
in 100/200/500/2000 yrs time.
Sheāll just be stripped. Barren. A cold GREY (concrete) boulder floating round in space with water splashing round the high bits.
Seriously. Forget the SMALL %age of good people over the generations.
From the very start of the human raceās existence. All we have EVER done.
Is kill and destroy. Everything. Everybody we can lay our hands on.
Then turn around and go back doing it again.
WHAT are we. Reallyā¦. A Farkinā blight on the planet.
She would be a LOT better off without humans polluting her surface.
Iām not a doomssayer, whatever.
Just an old fart of 78 yrs. That has covered a lot of this planet while being here.
Watching what humans do. To it and themselves.
and wondering WHYā¦ā¦
We really. Have no rhyme. Nor reason for being here.
Weāre no more than a virus in your computer really.
are we.
The small amount of good in humans. as a race,
No way can it negate
the evil we have shown for the last coupla, whatever thousand yrs.
Thatās my little bit.
At least my generation wonāt (hopefully) be around to see it eventuate.
Hopefully my grandkids too.
Doris Lessingā¦
For my father, who used to sit, hour after hour, night after night, outside our house in Africa, watching the stars āWell,ā he would say, āif we blow ourselves up, thereās plenty more where we came from!ā
By ANY real objective metric we have right now, you are better off living in the developed world now vs anywhere at any time in history. Less violence, more food, better medicine, more rights, etc. I hope people in my generation and younger can - if not being optimistic about the future - at least find it in themselves to try and improve it.
Yes. I can not think of any other time I would rather live in. As for what location in a developed worldā¦. I like where I am, but have a number of places in Canada, the UK and France where I believe I could be at least as happy. And yes, I do hope that people do try to improve the places they live in.
But the criminal would still get away in those 4 minutes, so is the electric car really to blame or is it the officer for letting the "fuel" get so low? The Model S can offer a range similar to gas-powered cars (370 miles for the long range version, but 250 miles for the base model), so this story is really no different than if the officer had run out of gas in the middle of a pursuit. Sure, the gas cruiser can be refilled easier and faster, but the bad guy gets away regardless.
Or....
They do what Police are supposed to do and start intercepting getaway vectors until they can roadblock or spike strip the runner :) . A single pursuing officer isn't the best strategy even if they've got 100 gallons of gas in the tank.
In fact, that's what happened here. Other units were called to intercept, the chase was called off for public safety, and then the culprit crashed and was captured. The Low Battery story (the OP link didn't work for me) was actually quite positive about the Tesla police cruiser, suggesting that this particular situation was rare since the cruiser was normally charged to a higher level before a shift and that they normally lasted an entire 11-hour shift with capacity to spare. Their words, not mine.
Some of the comments above suggest that some of you are not familiar with Teslas in the same way that many consumers are not yet familiar with modern LED flashlights.
Electric cars may not be the best choice for every police force, but wouldn't it be nice to have a car that's more powerful than pretty much every gasoline car on the road. A high-end Model S can overtake pretty much any gas automobile in the world, including many race cars. They're fast as f*ck :STEVE: . In fact, many police departments are interested in electric cars because they're so fast; they make excellent interceptors. And, since the police drive their cars so much, they can actually achieve the savings promised by electric vehicles; most consumers would have to drive a Tesla for a decade just to break even.
Yes, it's true that electric vehicles have to "consume" their range in order to cool or heat the vehicle occupants or even to cool or heat the battery itself (yup, it will even sit and cool or heat itself all day in the parking lot), but they are still more efficient than any gasoline vehicle, even in cold or hot climates. That "waste heat" that you recover to heat the occupants in a gas vehicle represents more energy than is used to move the vehicle and its occupants.
If you lose a dollar per minute out your car window, is it a superior technology if you can recover 10% of that for some useful purpose? The electric car simply closes the window. Unfortunately, the electric car costs substantially more and takes hours to refuel. Those are downsides, but they do not make electric cars "stupid" or some sort of hoax. A Tesla Model 3, for example, is eventually cheaper to own than a comparable gasoline car, but "eventually" here means possibly 9-10 years for the average driver :( .
I'm no electric car nut, but I do try to be objective about them. The reality is that we should have built cities that required less driving around in the first place ;) . Moving workers out into suburbs was a stupid move brought about by savvy marketing of the "English country estate", though our version is of course just a tiny border of lawn surrounding a vinyl-covered house sitting alongside a hundred identical houses, each with their own borders of lawn. Americans feel entitled to their ever-growing automobiles and the fuels that power them. I've adored cars, especially fast ones, my entire life, but I'm still willing to admit that cars are probably the most destructive technology ever invented.
To my knowledge, we've yet to see compressed air vehicles with viable range, though I'm always interested in these technologies. Personally, I liked the concept of Elio Motors (way more practical and also more ecologically-friendly than a Tesla), but they made a lot of mistakes (like having 3 wheels instead of 4, thus requiring a motorcycle license) and never got the car onto the market while it was relevant :( . Rather than try to start a million-unit-per-year car company from scratch, I think that a boutique company might eventually grow large enough to offer Elio-style vehicles. Some electric bicycle companies are now producing enclosed vehicles with space for passengers and cargo, for example.
Unfortunately, consumers are still being told that heavier vehicles are safer for their children (and thus a threat to me and mine as a I drive a small car). While size can add safety thanks to larger crumple zones, increased weight is actually more dangerous, both for people inside and outside the vehicle. It's downright stupid to be in an arms race where those that can afford larger vehicles are safer than those who cannot, yet even <<a top U.S. leader>> has recently been telling people that they should drive "tanks" in order to protect their families. Tell that to Formula One drivers, whose cars are the lightest they can possibly be while also protecting them from injury in incredibly violent crashes.
I'll drive a small vehicle until I'm too old to drive and my small vehicle is metaphorically a huge middle-finger to all of the massive vehicles around me on the road which I cannot see around and which will easily kill me in a collision. I simply won't play their game.
I do drive a pickup truck as well, but it's actually for farming, not for making me feel more secure as I drive around the urban jungle. I can't take cattle to market with my car ;) . The truck guzzles gas like crazy, so I have zero desire to casually drive it around. I certainly wish it were electric. That would be useful, actually, since farmers don't typically drive trucks for super-long distances; they usually do daily chores with them.
Though they are now seen as "old-fashioned" to the Tesla crowd, Hybrids are actually the best combination of efficiency, cost, and reliability of available full-size-vehicle technologies. Hybrids are effectively twice as efficient as any gasoline car on the road, which also means that gasoline cars would be just as efficient if they contained twice as many passengers (ride-sharing is more efficient than any technological solution and walking or biking effectively an infinite improvement beyond that).
For example, the Toyota Prius has been around for a long time and has proven to require almost no maintenance and have the lowest long-term ownership cost of any automobile on the market. People initially warned that the batteries would need replacement every few years, but in reality the battery packs typically last longer than the cars themselves. In other words, the car will rust apart before the battery pack is dead.
The current Camry was designed as a hybrid and they merely leave out the hybrid parts to make the non-hybrid Camry, so I don't understand why people even buy the non-hybrid version; the hybrid pays for itself rapidly in typical urban driving and REDUCES vehicle maintenance. No-brainer, IMO. The only reason Toyota sells non-hybrid Camry's is because consumers aren't very bright and can't do basic math. Oh, and my sister just bought a non-hybrid Camry :FACEPALM: .
<<deleted objectionable content>>
Electric cars are also seeing excellent battery life, mainly because those cells are treated far better than those in phones. (I despise the total sacrifice of battery life in order to get an extra 15 minutes of runtime. I'm disgusted that consumers accept and even prefer that tradeoff, as it means that my many-hundred-dollar phone, which of course has a non-replaceable battery, is basically designed to fail after only a few years. If they charged to only 4.10V or something, our phones would last 2-3 times longer.)
Well, you have got a lot of info and Opinions going on here. Must have been stuck in your craw for a while do get all that out in one post
Anyway, regarding Elio.
They made that thing with 3 wheels so they could skirt all the safety regulations that come with making a Real Automobile. This is a trick used by lots of wannabe vehicle manufacturers.
I have no problems with Police using electric cars and totally understood all of the article, just posted it because it was funny to hear of a Cop on low battery during a chase. It is just a sign of the times that we are venturing into alternate forms of transportation and that is always nice to see technology evolve and slowly move the masses into something different and hopefully more efficient.
If a Hybrid is twice as efficient as you say, why do they not get twice the fuel mileage then???
Why did the very early Prius have better mileage then the later ones?
And lastly now, Why you had to go into Politics is beyond me?
You know the rules.
I personally know people on both sides that drive Electric cars so to pigeonhole them is just nearsighted and well, you figure it out.
Actually, I was quite interested in an Elio, but how long has it been vaporware already? And when are people who expressed interest and āreservedā theirs (whatever that entails) actually going to get one?
I wanted something more convenient to be able to stuff into my (half of the) driveway, but wasnāt terribly interested in a murdercycle except as a placeholder to wheel out and take my front spot when Iād go somewhere (letting me winnow down to 1 car only), and possibly to just tour around in summer (ie, carry insurance for only half a year), but NYC traffic and the idiots on the road would make that a dangerous proposition. Iād rather not get gorked or end up a para-/quadriplegic, yāknow?
And even a āSmart Carā getting only 40-mpg?? What a joke! My old fullsize Buick gets about 30 on the straights with a 3.8L pushing it along. You mean to tell me a little road-rat like that canāt get at least 60??
So even if an Elio only hits in the 60s vs claimed goal of 84mpg, itās still a decent proposition. A 1-person commuter (donāt need a co-pilot in back) makes it way betterān an enclosed golf-cart. Only thing that would concern me would it any tendency to āweathervaneā in high winds. But then again, Iād take a real car in lousy weather anyway.
Frankly, if I hear that Elio is delivering, Iād see what shakes out and as long as thereās no seriously bad news (say, qualitywise), Iād be in for one.
Hybrids arenāt twice as efficient as the same car without that tech, but it certainly helps.
Would hit 30mpg regularly in the hybrid Escape I had for a while, and anecdotally driving cars between dealership locations for work, the hybrids always got noticeably better milage.
Iāve got a gas powered F150 thatāll get 25mpg on the highway if Iām careful. Not all trucks āguzzleā fuel. This one has a smaller (2.7L) V6 and twin turbos. It can tow a boat or camper (with about 15mpg in my experience) too. I mainly use it to carry my tools/equipment daily, and I have a typical commute of 92 miles. I actually use my truck as a truck regularly, and it is a tool (the right tool) that works well for what I need. I have never felt the need to justify my truck, and donāt see it as an outward expression of my inner self-worth. I purchased it to fit my needs and budget. If I had less driving to do, or more towing I might have gotten the larger 3.5L Ecoboost or the 5.0L (I believe the 3.5L Ecoboost is actually higher performance than the 5.0L NA, but they have slightly different strengths).
When I finally get myself some more land, I will likely trade this smaller truck in for an F250 with a Powerstroke to match the increased workload Iāll need it to carry. It wonāt be to look cool or provide me with a symbol of status. My buddies growing up used to joke ābig truck, small peenā, so maybe this attitude is regional? I grew up in north central Texas in a rural community (10 in my graduating class). People out there generally drove trucks for the utility. I think the people leftdisconnected takes issue with are more likely the ones with ātruck ballsā or ātoo-tall-to-be-usefulā lifts and ultra shiny wheelsā¦ that is a whole ānother thing. I think attitude matters here.
My brother drives a Dodge Challenger with a 6.4L engine. No idea what kind of mileage he gets, but it sure is quickā¦ I think we are blessed to have the freedom to choose whatever suits us. It isnāt really our business what someone else is doing with their freedom.
I wonāt touch too much on politics, but I come from Texas, drive a Ford F150, and Iām going to keep my firearms. I took a number of environmental science classes in college, and apart from a few crazier students I think it was a great time. I grew up outdoors, am a Boy Scout, and love nature. If it would be useful to me, I could see driving a Nissan Leaf or a Tesla 3. I donāt think environmentalism is something that follows āparty linesā, and the main disagreements are more about the āHowā than the āWhatā.
I like having a sedan/compact when driving (and especially parking ) in the city but really miss the capacity of an SUV. If you actually use your truck for hauling, towing, etc. you arenāt doing it for āthe lookā. I know a lot of people with souped-up trucks that never do anything but commute to-from work here; thatās their money to use for what they want though.
There are definitely some vehicles I associate with terrible and/or dangerous drivers thoughā¦ most of them being pretty expensive.
No, not the Elio. For all of their mistakes, I have to stick up for them on this point. They designed the car to pass all standard safety regulations and to have a full suite of airbags. They did the smart thing here, as the Elio was intended to get 5 stars on every safety test, since they knew that buyers would consider such a small car to be āunsafeā and that insurance companies might balk at insuring them.
They did not use 3 wheels to skirt safety laws, but instead thought that it would save money on manufacturing and materials while maximizing efficiency, allowing a simpler drive system and smaller, more aerodynamic body.
One problem was that they then had to go around the country convincing state legislators to re-classify the Elio from a motorcycle to a car. Then they realized the need to also include a āskateboardā roller assembly so that people could drive the Elio over oil change bays :person_facepalming: . Mechanicsā lifts were/are still a problem.
They did use off-the-shelf parts for everything they could, but then elected to design a new engine from scratch, which simply wasnāt financially feasible. Observers eventually realized that it would have been simpler and cheaper to just build a small, 4-wheel car (the company likely did, too, but hasnāt admitted it). I still hope that we get something like the Elio someday, as the economics of a truly inexpensive commuter vehicle are better than any Tesla, provided it avoids luxury features.
They also initially promised an 84MPG car for US$5,959, a combination which they could not possibly deliver. The price was later increased to $7,450, but thatās also unrealistic.
The company announced that 100 pre-production cars would be produced in 2019. In 2017, Elio Motors was reportedly more than $50 million in debt with an estimated $300+ million needed to reach production. I wonāt take those odds.
Yes, but many posters immediately made fun of the āstupidā electric car for running out of battery like some sort of toy. It was a funny story, but it was then used to bash not only electric vehicles, but the ideas behind those vehicles, including unsaid āpoliticalā ideas. I totally accept that electric vehicles donāt solve our problems, but I also see no reason to unfairly make fun of them or use them as examples of ātodayās stupidity.ā
Twice as efficient for moving a 200lb. human being. A standard car uses 1% of its energy to move the human driver, while an old Toyota Prius uses 2% of its energy to move the human driver. Thus, twice the efficiency. That doesnāt equal twice the MPG, because the car is still wasting most of its energy through heat generation and moving 3,000lbs of steel around.
Iām not going to argue the math as I already went through all of that 15 years ago or something, so itās fine if people donāt believe me. It doesnāt even matter, since occupant-mile/gallon is the relevant metric. Yes, itās disappointing that the mileage has declined over time, but I guess, like most cars, the Prius has gotten fatter and more powerful. I think today the smarter choice might be the Camry Hybrid as it gets pretty much identical mileage as the Prius. I would like to recommend hybrids from other manufacturers, but most of those are SUVās and thus are inherently less efficient than a car.
My point was that hybrid cars can have excellent payback and are more ecologically friendly than electric cars right now. In fact, we could make many more hybrid cars (and trucks?) than Tesla electric ones with todayās limited supply of li-ion batteries and this would save far more energy than spending all of those batteries on Teslas. Any tax rebates should prioritize hybrids over electrics so long as batteries and battery materials are limited commodities.
Hmmm. I scanned the thread before my last post and saw page after page of posts that were definitely political in nature. Some even called people stupid for wanting to improve energy efficiency or reduce ecological impact. Those posts and accusations were deeply āpoliticalā and itās the elephant in the room for the entire thread.
I was relaying my personal experience that MY family and friends definitely avoid certain products because of their beliefs, so it certainly seemed an appropriate comment. What I said is absolutely true where I live. You can even get fired from your job here if you say something unflattering about Coal; good luck winning a jury trial if you sue. I would not own a Tesla here, because it would likely get keyed, or worse. The irony is that the Tesla burns coal :person_facepalming: .
I hopefully deleted the objectionable content from the prior post.
Note that I donāt really want to own a Tesla, anyway, since the things seem to need an Internet connection just to boot up. A Tesla is not a car; itās a computer with wheels. I do agree with many of the sentiments expressed in this thread, but did not agree with the general assessment that it was ridiculous to use a Tesla as a police car.
I prefer older cars with stick-shift transmissions. I have zero intention of ever owning a car with an automatic transmission, yet most cars today donāt offer a manual transmission! They come with either a CVT or a 43-speed automatic (yes, an exaggeration). I actually like CVTās and have been promoting them since the mid-90ās when they became rugged enough for production cars, but I donāt want one . Iām a geek and control freak, so I want to control the transmission, thank you very much.
I donāt want a video screen in the dash, either, but every vehicle on the market now has one. I donāt mind having a computer control the engine as that offers some real benefits in engine management and efficiency, but I want to drive, not be driven.
And while Iām at it, I think Iāll gripe about the fact that car manufacturers no longer bother putting proper high-low climate modes into cars, apparently because consumers have grown too stupid to use them. We did science in the the 1950ās and 60ās and found that human beings are most comfortable with warm feet and a cool head and thus American and Japanese cars had wonderful high-low modes for decades, yet āmixā modes in new cars just blow the same temperature air out of the āfootā and āfaceā vents . Thatās not progress.
Iāve wanted to do that for years. I donāt mind doing some searches on my own, but do you know of a good place to start if I want to learn how you are doing this? Do you have to root the phone?
I wonāt bring this up again in this thread, so sorry if Iām going off-topic.
If you are willing to root your phone you can achieve the same result without any additional hardware. There are several battery charge limiting apps on Play store.
But I didnāt want to root my phone and used Blitzwolf SHP5 smart socket with USB output. On the phone I have 2 apps: Automate and IFTTT. Automate checks the battery level and tells IFTTT to turn off the smart plug. It would be better to do it in one app but one cannot check the battery level while the other does not know how to operate the smart plug. First world problems.
I believe electric vehicles are the future, but certainly not in the form they are in today.
There are just too many inconveniences overshadowing the benefits when comparing to their fossil fuel burning vehicles and most consumers arenāt willing to live with those inconveniences. What happens after three or four years when you need a new battery pack? Thatās 5000 USD, best case. What happens when your Tesla warranty runs out and you need to get repairs? You donāt, or you spend lots of money, assuming you can find someone who will touch the thing or even has the ability to get parts. What happens when you need to drive more than 200 miles? Better have your gas guzzler on standby. Live in an apartment? You canāt charge the thing so you are SOL. Power out or in the midst of some kind of natural disaster? Oh boy.
Things like this may seem minor in the grand scheme, but they are things many consumers just arenāt willing to overlook.
Safety is a concern in vehicles with large Li-ion packs. Iād rather not be in a burning vehicle at all if I can avoid it, but Iād much rather be in one with a 15 gallon gas tank than a 1200 pound Li-ion battery pack.
There are other ways to power electric vehicles. Hydrogen fuel cells for example. I understand that producing hydrogen isnāt too efficient today, but if the process was developed further, it could be improved and made more efficient. The same can be said about Li-ion batteries. They are not an ideal power source for an electric vehicle, at least not as they are today. Itās just the best weāve got right now.
Iām sure Iāll own an EV in my lifetime, but it certainly will not be any of the ones available today.