Slightly tongue in cheek, but the strongest correlating indicator of Conservative voting that I have ever found in 20 years of canvassing is car related.
- Those washing their car in their driveway on a Saturday morning.
Slightly disconcertingly for the blue meanies, apart from my Dad, I don't know anyone who does this now. Why bother when its a tenner at the local hand car wash?
The gangs of trafficked Kurdish vagabonds don't even use the 'Two Bucket' system which is the absolute minimum for not fucking your clear coat. One session at one of these refugee camps and it's done for.
Correcting a fucked clear coat, if it's not too far gone, is a lot of work and you're knocking a couple of grand off the value at least. Unless you can offload it onto to some mug who can't judge the fuckedness state of clear coats.
I wonder what a clear coat is. I mostly just rely on rain to wash off my 2015 Fiesta. I never give my car a thought except when I'm actually in it or the MoT demand comes round.
PB is a useful reminder that there are a multitude of different ways to live...
For me, a car is simply a tool that allows me to do what I need/want to do. If I could do the things I wanted to do without a car, I'd not have one. I find no great joy in driving; the joy can come from what I do at the destination.
I also don't see my car as an extension of my psyche, or a reflection of who I am. It's a car.
And that is, I think, the heart of the matter. Once a car is a means to an end, then it's possible that there are other ways of achieving the same ends better. In fact, it's possible that car use gets in the way of achieving those ends.
The car is an interesting machine. It promises individual freedom, but relies on infrastructure that is provided collectively. It provides convenience for its owner but inconveniences others. It allows us to be ourselves but cuts us off from other people. It lets us do more but makes us less active. It opens up choices for some and restricts choices for others. Politically it's interesting because of all the things we do on a day to day basis it probably imposes more negative externalities, global and local, than anything else. Increasingly I think the political left-right divide comes down to whether you take the idea of these externalities seriously or not. The right can get a lot of mileage out of telling their voters that they can do what they want and any negative effects on other people are unimportant. The danger for the left is that they overestimate the extent to which people are willing, or feel able to afford, to care.
I think the Cons are absolutely right to pick a fight over car ownership because most of us have one and many of us realise the impracticalities of acting too quickly to dispossess us of them, or penalising ownership which the ULEZ has shown so clearly.
It is the one area (and I can't for the life of me think of any other) where actually the Cons might be able to claw some votes back and it seems that Lab are handing these to them on a plate.
FPT - I see @Leon once again totally fails to comprehend anyone who lives outside London by predicting no-one will have cars by 2050.
People will always have cars.
I believe @leon was predicting self driving electric vehicles that you summon when you need one (I could have just made that all up). That isn't London centric prediction but applies everywhere. It seems a reasonable prediction for the future and a comparison with the end of the use of the horse seems apt. Doesn't mean it will happen, but reasonable.
It doesn't. In London, you only very occasionally need a car - i.e. where you travel somewhere out of town on a trip at the weekend, or need to carry heavy luggage and ferry friends - whereas everywhere else you use a car several times every day: to drop off the kids, drive to work, go shopping, pick up the kids, and then to head out to the gym later. Maybe drop stuff at the tip too.
You thus want one on the drive all the time with all your stuff in it, and the kids car seats, ready to use at any time - so you get your own.
It may be on a PCP or hire-purchase, rather than owned outright, but it's definitely "your" car and that's the model 90%+ of the country uses and will continue to use.
It's quite possibly a prescription for the future in large cities, which house a significant and growing proportion of the world's population. Even in suburbanised Britain London is about 15% of the population - add similarly built up zones of the other major cities plus well serviced towns like Oxford and Cambridge, Brighton, Bath etc and it's a decent number of people who could be living like that. Then consider somewhere like Japan where almost everyone lives in a city and people rarely go on long drives, and it makes some sense.
For the miniscule minority who live in cities, maybe.
Most Britons live in towns, not cities though.
Are you quite sure that only a "miniscule minority" live in cities? Have you got the figures? Doesn't match what I can find.
Source: ONS England and Wales figures.
9.0 million live in London. 8.0 million live in any other city combined other than London.
English people overwhelming live in towns, not that you'd know it from how some on this website think and act.
So you accept that you're wrong. 17 million isn't a miniscule minority by any reasonable definition of 'miniscule'.
No but 2/3 of the English and Welsh population live in towns and villages not cities so Bart does have a point there
However anything including a village or a rural area can support alternatives eg a car club, or a stop on a bus route. Never mind the many villages with railway stations.
Choice needs to be husbanded and made convenient. If done correctly, the 13 mile Llandudno -> Bets-y-Coed cycle route should be about an hour each way, depending on traffic, and far less time to the villages en route.
Post Beeching probably less than 10% of villages have railway stations, buses are often every hour at best in rural areas
it depends on the area. there are a lot of places where there's no bus services at all. for where there is a bus service you may find 2 hourly not uncommon. but that's mostly during the day, if you're trying to go anywhere for the evening or on a sunday there's no bus services at all. There's also no desire in both local and national government to spend the money to ensure that these places have a decent bus service because it doesn't win enough votes.
Which both emphasise my point.
I make it 2500 railway stations plus heritage lines plus systems such as metro or light rail. I have a light rail station just under 2 miles away which is 12-14 minutes on a bicycle, where previously I had no station for 30 years until the 1990s. I can either take the hack-bike and park it at the station, or (if and when I get one) take a Brompton and take it with me, or take the car.
I'd agree that approx 10% of villages have stations.
And proper funding of Local Authorities is a huge issue to be addressed - they have been salami sliced by about 1/3 to 1/2 across the country since 2010. These are decisions we need to make.
There's quite a few towns (25 according to wikipedia) with a population of over 20000 which don't have a railway station. these could be better served (although some in Norfolk may be a challenge). but there are also places like Newcastle-under-lyme which could/should be served despite having a population of over 75000
Absolutely - Mansfield near me had that for decades for around 60-70k people. To the extent that the station 6 miles away in the next-town-but-one received the name "Alfreton and Mansfield Parkway" partly as a PR-sop.
Since 1995 it has had a light rail station on the Robin Hood line that was running at 400k passengers per annum pre-Covid. 22/23 numbers not yet available. 21/22 was 250k.
Anyhoo - things to do. Have a good day, all.
Sounds similar to Glenrothes (pop. 38,000): station called Glenrothes with Thornton -it's in Thornton, 4.2km from centre of the former. Markinch, the next stop, is actually closer to Glenrothes.
Cars eventually became much cheaper than running horses and a carriage.
Compared to the price of running a car in the 1970s, cars today are ridiculously cheap.
When we are all running electric cars on overnight surplus energy and there's much less to maintain than on a ICE car, why won't they continue to get cheaper? Electric cars aren't cheaper now, but in 20 years?
If we aren't living in extreme poverty, people will want their own transport. Taxis are inconvenient and rubbish now - why does having an AI driver instead of a meat based one make any difference?
That's quite easy to answer. I don't know the numbers but I'd guess that taxis are about 5% of cars on the road. Now imagine a world where taxis are 95% of the cars on the road. The convenience factor would be far better. When essentially every vehicle is self-driving, electric, and immediately summonable the whole argument about the benefits of owning and driving a car will look utterly different.
"Immediately summonable"? To where?
Will it carry a bicycle? Camping gear? Will I get fined if I stink it out with fish and chips?
Will the AI driver be able to get out and open the gates on a private off-road track?
Those are the 5% cases. The rest of us will be watching Netflix in our robo-taxis.
There are specific times when our current use of cars becomes a problem.
Perhaps we just need to solve school transport and "the commute" rather than reinventing personal transport for all?
School buses would cause the collapse of the space time continuum, apparently.
Fun story. Was in Cornwall. Apparently so many parent at a school were getting a taxi to get their kids to school (time pressure), that the local taxis couldn’t cope. Until one of them bought a minibus (all the safety features etc) and setup a school bus run. Pay termly in advance. He was telling me he is buying 2 more….
That being said, those blinkered city dwellers who don't understand the politics of the car in the suburbs and rural areas are missing the point.
Rishi is trying to sure up his base. His base largely drive cars.
This is the first good bit of political nous I've seen since his not buckling to strikes.
Yes. It is shoring up his base. It is a strategy for holding Uxbridge.
But it is not a strategy for recovering from Lab 48%, Con 25%. It is not a strategy for regaining councils in the South. The notion that Oxford is suddenly going to start voting Conservative because Rishi doesn't like LTNs is for the Xs*. So is the notion that Tiverton & Honiton is going to swing back to Rishi because he doesn't like 20mph limits.
The Conservatives are going to be reduced to a rump of the East Coast, Outer Suburbiton, Continuity Red Wall and General Sir Bufton Tufton (Rtd) at the next election. This is a policy that appeals to all those demographics. It is not a policy that will win back the 48% who say they're going to vote for Starmer.
* formerly known as birds
It is well known that my view of Rishi is that he is an electoral dud.
He isn't going to come anywhere near winning an election.
But the pro car message gives him, perhaps, 5% more than 25% - it converts the likes of my father, proud driver and car owner, a reason to vote for someone who he considers to the left of Tony Blair economically.
It gives the Tories back some don't knows.
Interestingly, the only real, albeit small, victories for the Blue meanies in the past few months have been car related. Cambridge council by election, and Uxbridge. Oxford could well surprise.
In what realistic way could Oxford surprise? I don't know what the boundary changes bring, but East has a Labour majority of 18k and West (and Abingdon) a Lib Dem majority of 9k. One or both of them might get a below average swing, but neither are going to have a surprise outcome.
Council elections....
Half-out in 2024.
There were a couple of by-elections earlier in the year in Littlemore (one City, one County Council). Labour held both, albeit anti-LTN independents did quite well. However, that's probably the ward where anti-LTN would do best and did pretty well in 2022 without winning too.
Maybe anti-LTN will grab a Council seat or two in 2024, but this isn't a new issue in Oxford and I can't see it seriously denting Labour's position - indeed they are more at risk from Greens running to their left.
FPT - I see @Leon once again totally fails to comprehend anyone who lives outside London by predicting no-one will have cars by 2050.
People will always have cars.
I believe @leon was predicting self driving electric vehicles that you summon when you need one (I could have just made that all up). That isn't London centric prediction but applies everywhere. It seems a reasonable prediction for the future and a comparison with the end of the use of the horse seems apt. Doesn't mean it will happen, but reasonable.
It doesn't. In London, you only very occasionally need a car - i.e. where you travel somewhere out of town on a trip at the weekend, or need to carry heavy luggage and ferry friends - whereas everywhere else you use a car several times every day: to drop off the kids, drive to work, go shopping, pick up the kids, and then to head out to the gym later. Maybe drop stuff at the tip too.
You thus want one on the drive all the time with all your stuff in it, and the kids car seats, ready to use at any time - so you get your own.
It may be on a PCP or hire-purchase, rather than owned outright, but it's definitely "your" car and that's the model 90%+ of the country uses and will continue to use.
@leon isn't talking about NOW, we are talking about some future. Stuff changes. You are always telling us we aren't thinking enough. Think about where it comes almost instantly, with a child seat if you want one, with a trailer if you want one. Waiting for you by the time you have put your shoes on and locked up. All paid for by an annual fee. No car not starting in the morning, or having a flat, no MOT, no service, no filling up or charging, etc, etc.
Go on do what you tell us to do. Think out of the box. It is like saying in 1918 that planes are no use for public transport because they only carry one or two people, don't go far and you would have to learn to fly them.
It won't come "almost instantly" anywhere in the country because there'd never be enough fleet to supply everyone from regional depots to all who want it at peak times in an economical fashion. People sometimes need to leave their house in minutes, and not wait an unspecified time. Moreover, people like to choose their own seat, their own stuff, their own kids stuff, their own colour, with their own music, and they like it on their own drive RIGHT THERE so it's ready whenever they want it. People will pay for convenience. And all the issues you list with possessing a car there are either very rare or total non-issues.
The future? No, this is just a myopic fantasy of some excitable Mets.
People are attached to their cars. I was. Then I sold it and feel fine (and richer)
It might be a wrench for some. Tho I suspect it will happen so gradually and incrementally most won’t notice. But it is already happening. The young are not learning to drive
FPT - I see @Leon once again totally fails to comprehend anyone who lives outside London by predicting no-one will have cars by 2050.
People will always have cars.
I believe @leon was predicting self driving electric vehicles that you summon when you need one (I could have just made that all up). That isn't London centric prediction but applies everywhere. It seems a reasonable prediction for the future and a comparison with the end of the use of the horse seems apt. Doesn't mean it will happen, but reasonable.
It doesn't. In London, you only very occasionally need a car - i.e. where you travel somewhere out of town on a trip at the weekend, or need to carry heavy luggage and ferry friends - whereas everywhere else you use a car several times every day: to drop off the kids, drive to work, go shopping, pick up the kids, and then to head out to the gym later. Maybe drop stuff at the tip too.
You thus want one on the drive all the time with all your stuff in it, and the kids car seats, ready to use at any time - so you get your own.
It may be on a PCP or hire-purchase, rather than owned outright, but it's definitely "your" car and that's the model 90%+ of the country uses and will continue to use.
@leon isn't talking about NOW, we are talking about some future. Stuff changes. You are always telling us we aren't thinking enough. Think about where it comes almost instantly, with a child seat if you want one, with a trailer if you want one. Waiting for you by the time you have put your shoes on and locked up. All paid for by an annual fee. No car not starting in the morning, or having a flat, no MOT, no service, no filling up or charging, etc, etc.
Go on do what you tell us to do. Think out of the box. It is like saying in 1918 that planes are no use for public transport because they only carry one or two people, don't go far and you would have to learn to fly them.
It won't come "almost instantly" anywhere in the country because there'd never be enough fleet to supply everyone from regional depots to all who want it at peak times in an economical fashion. People sometimes need to leave their house in minutes, and not wait an unspecified time. Moreover, people like to choose their own seat, their own stuff, their own kids stuff, their own colour, with their own music, and they like it on their own drive RIGHT THERE so it's ready whenever they want it. People will pay for convenience. And all the issues you list with possessing a car there are either very rare or total non-issues.
The future? No, this is just a myopic fantasy of some excitable Mets.
People are attached to their cars. I was. Then I sold it and feel fine (and richer)
It might be a wrench for some. Tho I suspect it will happen so gradually and incrementally most won’t notice. But it is already happening. The young are not learning to drive
They very much are where I live.
The stats say otherwise. America leads the way (but this is also true of the UK)
DETROIT (AP) — Michael Andretti has a 21-year-old son with zero interest in obtaining a driver’s license. Rideshare apps get him where he wants to go.
In New Jersey, the 16-year-old daughter of a local short track racer took a five-minute driving lesson on a golf cart through their yard before turning over the keys. “That's it, I'm done. Don't like it,” Kat Wilson told their father.
The teenage rite of passage of rushing to the DMV on your birthday to get that plastic card that represents freedom has changed dramatically over the last 30 years. Data collected from the Federal Highway Administration and analyzed by Green Car Congress showed that in 2018 approximately 61% of 18-year-olds in the U.S. had a driver’s license, down from 80% percent in 1983.
That's also been my experience with my lad and his friends. Most of them have learned or are learning to drive, but mostly due to insistence by their parents that they need to be able to do so. There's not been much enthusiasm for it, and most of them seem to regard it as a bit of a chore rather than a leap into freedom. They don't see the point - Ubers already give them freedom, without the hassle and expense of car ownership.
I actually agree it will be a sad moment when the last human-driven cars disappear. They do provide a wonderful freedom: I would advise my teenage daughters to learn to drive (despite all that I have said) - but not so they can drive in the UK (boring, expensive, often a chore), so they can hire a car in a foreign country and go see the world for themselves. A glorious, liberating experience (and the chance to do it will be with us for a couple of decades yet, at least)
But then cantering a horse across green hills and through woods without having to worry about cars and roads and all that danger was surely wonderful, as well; but it disappeared, and progress had its way
Even if human driven vehicles get replaced with autonomous vehicles, you'll still have most people owning their own autonomous vehicle rather than relying upon taxis for the same reason they already have their own vehicle rather than relying upon taxis.
No, they won't because who wants that shit cluttering up the drive and who wants to maintain it at vast expense when there will be companies offering immediate autonomous vehicles at your door in minutes with near-zero expense
It's like growing all your own veg versus "just going to the supermarket". A few cranks will do it; most will shrug and say SUPERMARKET
So your nirvana is to have millions of cars hanging around for people to use them for 2hrs a day just that they are not owned by anyone in particular.
Sounds like a great vision. Spenny, though, but I'm sure the cost will fall over time.
Nah. It works exactly the same way as Amazon Logistics and DPD and, well, trains. You have n% surplus in the fleet, enough for comfort and a certain amount of elasticity. You do demand-led pricing on the rest.
If you pay Amazon extra money, you get faster delivery. If you commit to paying Amazon £n per month, you get faster delivery guaranteed every time. Pricing like that means Amazon doesn't need to maintain a fleet capable of servicing every house in the country same-day.
That's how MaaS (Mobility as a Service) providers already work - think Uber and its surge pricing. You don't size your fleet according to maximum possible demand, you size it at a sensible level and manage the rest with demand-led pricing.
Ultimately most of this comes down to Google vs Musk. Waymo (Google/Alphabet's car arm) wants the future to be MaaS - services are how Google makes money, not selling hardware, with apologies to the three people with a Pixel phone. Musk's Tesla, meanwhile, is all about selling shiny hardware. Ultimately I think Google and @Leon will be proved right, and Musk wrong.
FPT - I see @Leon once again totally fails to comprehend anyone who lives outside London by predicting no-one will have cars by 2050.
People will always have cars.
I believe @leon was predicting self driving electric vehicles that you summon when you need one (I could have just made that all up). That isn't London centric prediction but applies everywhere. It seems a reasonable prediction for the future and a comparison with the end of the use of the horse seems apt. Doesn't mean it will happen, but reasonable.
It doesn't. In London, you only very occasionally need a car - i.e. where you travel somewhere out of town on a trip at the weekend, or need to carry heavy luggage and ferry friends - whereas everywhere else you use a car several times every day: to drop off the kids, drive to work, go shopping, pick up the kids, and then to head out to the gym later. Maybe drop stuff at the tip too.
You thus want one on the drive all the time with all your stuff in it, and the kids car seats, ready to use at any time - so you get your own.
It may be on a PCP or hire-purchase, rather than owned outright, but it's definitely "your" car and that's the model 90%+ of the country uses and will continue to use.
@leon isn't talking about NOW, we are talking about some future. Stuff changes. You are always telling us we aren't thinking enough. Think about where it comes almost instantly, with a child seat if you want one, with a trailer if you want one. Waiting for you by the time you have put your shoes on and locked up. All paid for by an annual fee. No car not starting in the morning, or having a flat, no MOT, no service, no filling up or charging, etc, etc.
Go on do what you tell us to do. Think out of the box. It is like saying in 1918 that planes are no use for public transport because they only carry one or two people, don't go far and you would have to learn to fly them.
It won't come "almost instantly" anywhere in the country because there'd never be enough fleet to supply everyone from regional depots to all who want it at peak times in an economical fashion. People sometimes need to leave their house in minutes, and not wait an unspecified time. Moreover, people like to choose their own seat, their own stuff, their own kids stuff, their own colour, with their own music, and they like it on their own drive RIGHT THERE so it's ready whenever they want it. People will pay for convenience. And all the issues you list with possessing a car there are either very rare or total non-issues.
The future? No, this is just a myopic fantasy of some excitable Mets.
People are attached to their cars. I was. Then I sold it and feel fine (and richer)
It might be a wrench for some. Tho I suspect it will happen so gradually and incrementally most won’t notice. But it is already happening. The young are not learning to drive
FPT - I see @Leon once again totally fails to comprehend anyone who lives outside London by predicting no-one will have cars by 2050.
People will always have cars.
I believe @leon was predicting self driving electric vehicles that you summon when you need one (I could have just made that all up). That isn't London centric prediction but applies everywhere. It seems a reasonable prediction for the future and a comparison with the end of the use of the horse seems apt. Doesn't mean it will happen, but reasonable.
It doesn't. In London, you only very occasionally need a car - i.e. where you travel somewhere out of town on a trip at the weekend, or need to carry heavy luggage and ferry friends - whereas everywhere else you use a car several times every day: to drop off the kids, drive to work, go shopping, pick up the kids, and then to head out to the gym later. Maybe drop stuff at the tip too.
You thus want one on the drive all the time with all your stuff in it, and the kids car seats, ready to use at any time - so you get your own.
It may be on a PCP or hire-purchase, rather than owned outright, but it's definitely "your" car and that's the model 90%+ of the country uses and will continue to use.
@leon isn't talking about NOW, we are talking about some future. Stuff changes. You are always telling us we aren't thinking enough. Think about where it comes almost instantly, with a child seat if you want one, with a trailer if you want one. Waiting for you by the time you have put your shoes on and locked up. All paid for by an annual fee. No car not starting in the morning, or having a flat, no MOT, no service, no filling up or charging, etc, etc.
Go on do what you tell us to do. Think out of the box. It is like saying in 1918 that planes are no use for public transport because they only carry one or two people, don't go far and you would have to learn to fly them.
It won't come "almost instantly" anywhere in the country because there'd never be enough fleet to supply everyone from regional depots to all who want it at peak times in an economical fashion. People sometimes need to leave their house in minutes, and not wait an unspecified time. Moreover, people like to choose their own seat, their own stuff, their own kids stuff, their own colour, with their own music, and they like it on their own drive RIGHT THERE so it's ready whenever they want it. People will pay for convenience. And all the issues you list with possessing a car there are either very rare or total non-issues.
The future? No, this is just a myopic fantasy of some excitable Mets.
People are attached to their cars. I was. Then I sold it and feel fine (and richer)
It might be a wrench for some. Tho I suspect it will happen so gradually and incrementally most won’t notice. But it is already happening. The young are not learning to drive
They very much are where I live.
The stats say otherwise. America leads the way (but this is also true of the UK)
DETROIT (AP) — Michael Andretti has a 21-year-old son with zero interest in obtaining a driver’s license. Rideshare apps get him where he wants to go.
In New Jersey, the 16-year-old daughter of a local short track racer took a five-minute driving lesson on a golf cart through their yard before turning over the keys. “That's it, I'm done. Don't like it,” Kat Wilson told their father.
The teenage rite of passage of rushing to the DMV on your birthday to get that plastic card that represents freedom has changed dramatically over the last 30 years. Data collected from the Federal Highway Administration and analyzed by Green Car Congress showed that in 2018 approximately 61% of 18-year-olds in the U.S. had a driver’s license, down from 80% percent in 1983.
That's also been my experience with my lad and his friends. Most of them have learned or are learning to drive, but mostly due to insistence by their parents that they need to be able to do so. There's not been much enthusiasm for it, and most of them seem to regard it as a bit of a chore rather than a leap into freedom. They don't see the point - Ubers already give them freedom, without the hassle and expense of car ownership.
I actually agree it will be a sad moment when the last human-driven cars disappear. They do provide a wonderful freedom: I would advise my teenage daughters to learn to drive (despite all that I have said) - but not so they can drive in the UK (boring, expensive, often a chore), so they can hire a car in a foreign country and go see the world for themselves. A glorious, liberating experience (and the chance to do it will be with us for a couple of decades yet, at least)
But then cantering a horse across green hills and through woods without having to worry about cars and roads and all that danger was surely wonderful, as well; but it disappeared, and progress had its way
Even if human driven vehicles get replaced with autonomous vehicles, you'll still have most people owning their own autonomous vehicle rather than relying upon taxis for the same reason they already have their own vehicle rather than relying upon taxis.
No, they won't because who wants that shit cluttering up the drive and who wants to maintain it at vast expense when there will be companies offering immediate autonomous vehicles at your door in minutes with near-zero expense
It's like growing all your own veg versus "just going to the supermarket". A few cranks will do it; most will shrug and say SUPERMARKET
This is weird because I agree completely even though I will be one of those cranks growing my own food and owning a classic car.
FPT - I see @Leon once again totally fails to comprehend anyone who lives outside London by predicting no-one will have cars by 2050.
People will always have cars.
I believe @leon was predicting self driving electric vehicles that you summon when you need one (I could have just made that all up). That isn't London centric prediction but applies everywhere. It seems a reasonable prediction for the future and a comparison with the end of the use of the horse seems apt. Doesn't mean it will happen, but reasonable.
It doesn't. In London, you only very occasionally need a car - i.e. where you travel somewhere out of town on a trip at the weekend, or need to carry heavy luggage and ferry friends - whereas everywhere else you use a car several times every day: to drop off the kids, drive to work, go shopping, pick up the kids, and then to head out to the gym later. Maybe drop stuff at the tip too.
You thus want one on the drive all the time with all your stuff in it, and the kids car seats, ready to use at any time - so you get your own.
It may be on a PCP or hire-purchase, rather than owned outright, but it's definitely "your" car and that's the model 90%+ of the country uses and will continue to use.
@leon isn't talking about NOW, we are talking about some future. Stuff changes. You are always telling us we aren't thinking enough. Think about where it comes almost instantly, with a child seat if you want one, with a trailer if you want one. Waiting for you by the time you have put your shoes on and locked up. All paid for by an annual fee. No car not starting in the morning, or having a flat, no MOT, no service, no filling up or charging, etc, etc.
Go on do what you tell us to do. Think out of the box. It is like saying in 1918 that planes are no use for public transport because they only carry one or two people, don't go far and you would have to learn to fly them.
It won't come "almost instantly" anywhere in the country because there'd never be enough fleet to supply everyone from regional depots to all who want it at peak times in an economical fashion. People sometimes need to leave their house in minutes, and not wait an unspecified time. Moreover, people like to choose their own seat, their own stuff, their own kids stuff, their own colour, with their own music, and they like it on their own drive RIGHT THERE so it's ready whenever they want it. People will pay for convenience. And all the issues you list with possessing a car there are either very rare or total non-issues.
The future? No, this is just a myopic fantasy of some excitable Mets.
People are attached to their cars. I was. Then I sold it and feel fine (and richer)
It might be a wrench for some. Tho I suspect it will happen so gradually and incrementally most won’t notice. But it is already happening. The young are not learning to drive
FPT - I see @Leon once again totally fails to comprehend anyone who lives outside London by predicting no-one will have cars by 2050.
People will always have cars.
I believe @leon was predicting self driving electric vehicles that you summon when you need one (I could have just made that all up). That isn't London centric prediction but applies everywhere. It seems a reasonable prediction for the future and a comparison with the end of the use of the horse seems apt. Doesn't mean it will happen, but reasonable.
It doesn't. In London, you only very occasionally need a car - i.e. where you travel somewhere out of town on a trip at the weekend, or need to carry heavy luggage and ferry friends - whereas everywhere else you use a car several times every day: to drop off the kids, drive to work, go shopping, pick up the kids, and then to head out to the gym later. Maybe drop stuff at the tip too.
You thus want one on the drive all the time with all your stuff in it, and the kids car seats, ready to use at any time - so you get your own.
It may be on a PCP or hire-purchase, rather than owned outright, but it's definitely "your" car and that's the model 90%+ of the country uses and will continue to use.
@leon isn't talking about NOW, we are talking about some future. Stuff changes. You are always telling us we aren't thinking enough. Think about where it comes almost instantly, with a child seat if you want one, with a trailer if you want one. Waiting for you by the time you have put your shoes on and locked up. All paid for by an annual fee. No car not starting in the morning, or having a flat, no MOT, no service, no filling up or charging, etc, etc.
Go on do what you tell us to do. Think out of the box. It is like saying in 1918 that planes are no use for public transport because they only carry one or two people, don't go far and you would have to learn to fly them.
It won't come "almost instantly" anywhere in the country because there'd never be enough fleet to supply everyone from regional depots to all who want it at peak times in an economical fashion. People sometimes need to leave their house in minutes, and not wait an unspecified time. Moreover, people like to choose their own seat, their own stuff, their own kids stuff, their own colour, with their own music, and they like it on their own drive RIGHT THERE so it's ready whenever they want it. People will pay for convenience. And all the issues you list with possessing a car there are either very rare or total non-issues.
The future? No, this is just a myopic fantasy of some excitable Mets.
People are attached to their cars. I was. Then I sold it and feel fine (and richer)
It might be a wrench for some. Tho I suspect it will happen so gradually and incrementally most won’t notice. But it is already happening. The young are not learning to drive
They very much are where I live.
The stats say otherwise. America leads the way (but this is also true of the UK)
DETROIT (AP) — Michael Andretti has a 21-year-old son with zero interest in obtaining a driver’s license. Rideshare apps get him where he wants to go.
In New Jersey, the 16-year-old daughter of a local short track racer took a five-minute driving lesson on a golf cart through their yard before turning over the keys. “That's it, I'm done. Don't like it,” Kat Wilson told their father.
The teenage rite of passage of rushing to the DMV on your birthday to get that plastic card that represents freedom has changed dramatically over the last 30 years. Data collected from the Federal Highway Administration and analyzed by Green Car Congress showed that in 2018 approximately 61% of 18-year-olds in the U.S. had a driver’s license, down from 80% percent in 1983.
That's also been my experience with my lad and his friends. Most of them have learned or are learning to drive, but mostly due to insistence by their parents that they need to be able to do so. There's not been much enthusiasm for it, and most of them seem to regard it as a bit of a chore rather than a leap into freedom. They don't see the point - Ubers already give them freedom, without the hassle and expense of car ownership.
I actually agree it will be a sad moment when the last human-driven cars disappear. They do provide a wonderful freedom: I would advise my teenage daughters to learn to drive (despite all that I have said) - but not so they can drive in the UK (boring, expensive, often a chore), so they can hire a car in a foreign country and go see the world for themselves. A glorious, liberating experience (and the chance to do it will be with us for a couple of decades yet, at least)
But then cantering a horse across green hills and through woods without having to worry about cars and roads and all that danger was surely wonderful, as well; but it disappeared, and progress had its way
Even if human driven vehicles get replaced with autonomous vehicles, you'll still have most people owning their own autonomous vehicle rather than relying upon taxis for the same reason they already have their own vehicle rather than relying upon taxis.
No, they won't because who wants that shit cluttering up the drive and who wants to maintain it at vast expense when there will be companies offering immediate autonomous vehicles at your door in minutes with near-zero expense
It's like growing all your own veg versus "just going to the supermarket". A few cranks will do it; most will shrug and say SUPERMARKET
So your nirvana is to have millions of cars hanging around for people to use them for 2hrs a day just that they are not owned by anyone in particular.
Sounds like a great vision. Spenny, though, but I'm sure the cost will fall over time.
Nah. It works exactly the same way as Amazon Logistics and DPD and, well, trains. You have n% surplus in the fleet, enough for comfort and a certain amount of elasticity. You do demand-led pricing on the rest.
If you pay Amazon extra money, you get faster delivery. If you commit to paying Amazon £n per month, you get faster delivery guaranteed every time.
That's how MaaS (Mobility as a Service) providers already work - think Uber and its surge pricing. You don't size your fleet according to maximum possible demand, you size it at a sensible level and manage the rest with demand-led pricing.
Ultimately most of this comes down to Google vs Musk. Waymo (Google/Alphabet's car arm) wants the future to be MaaS - services are how Google makes money, not selling hardware, with apologies to the three people with a Pixel phone. Musk's Tesla, meanwhile, is all about selling shiny hardware. Ultimately I think Google and @Leon will be proved right, and Musk wrong.
So convenient and timely transport becomes the preserve of the wealthy and can be withdrawn at any time if you anoy the authorities.
Cars eventually became much cheaper than running horses and a carriage.
Compared to the price of running a car in the 1970s, cars today are ridiculously cheap.
When we are all running electric cars on overnight surplus energy and there's much less to maintain than on a ICE car, why won't they continue to get cheaper? Electric cars aren't cheaper now, but in 20 years?
If we aren't living in extreme poverty, people will want their own transport. Taxis are inconvenient and rubbish now - why does having an AI driver instead of a meat based one make any difference?
That's quite easy to answer. I don't know the numbers but I'd guess that taxis are about 5% of cars on the road. Now imagine a world where taxis are 95% of the cars on the road. The convenience factor would be far better. When essentially every vehicle is self-driving, electric, and immediately summonable the whole argument about the benefits of owning and driving a car will look utterly different.
"Immediately summonable"? To where?
Will it carry a bicycle? Camping gear? Will I get fined if I stink it out with fish and chips?
Will the AI driver be able to get out and open the gates on a private off-road track?
Those are the 5% cases. The rest of us will be watching Netflix in our robo-taxis.
There are specific times when our current use of cars becomes a problem [putting aside pollution as eventually solveable].
Perhaps we just need to solve school transport and "the commute" rather than reinventing personal transport for all?
Or just leave people alone?
Unlike some I don't see car ownership as a problem that needs to be solved.
How accurate are those charts? Especially when it is only "Sardinia" which is rather a big place.
I also see many articles talking about temperatures of 46 degrees, and wikipedia says a record high was reached of 47.3 degrees in Sardinia on July 19th.
RNLI issues a warning about paddleboarders coincidentally when our son was out on a shout this weekend to rescue 2 who were drifting out towards the wind farms
That being said, those blinkered city dwellers who don't understand the politics of the car in the suburbs and rural areas are missing the point.
Rishi is trying to sure up his base. His base largely drive cars.
This is the first good bit of political nous I've seen since his not buckling to strikes.
Yes. It is shoring up his base. It is a strategy for holding Uxbridge.
But it is not a strategy for recovering from Lab 48%, Con 25%. It is not a strategy for regaining councils in the South. The notion that Oxford is suddenly going to start voting Conservative because Rishi doesn't like LTNs is for the Xs*. So is the notion that Tiverton & Honiton is going to swing back to Rishi because he doesn't like 20mph limits.
The Conservatives are going to be reduced to a rump of the East Coast, Outer Suburbiton, Continuity Red Wall and General Sir Bufton Tufton (Rtd) at the next election. This is a policy that appeals to all those demographics. It is not a policy that will win back the 48% who say they're going to vote for Starmer.
* formerly known as birds
It is well known that my view of Rishi is that he is an electoral dud.
He isn't going to come anywhere near winning an election.
But the pro car message gives him, perhaps, 5% more than 25% - it converts the likes of my father, proud driver and car owner, a reason to vote for someone who he considers to the left of Tony Blair economically.
It gives the Tories back some don't knows.
Interestingly, the only real, albeit small, victories for the Blue meanies in the past few months have been car related. Cambridge council by election, and Uxbridge. Oxford could well surprise.
In what realistic way could Oxford surprise? I don't know what the boundary changes bring, but East has a Labour majority of 18k and West (and Abingdon) a Lib Dem majority of 9k. One or both of them might get a below average swing, but neither are going to have a surprise outcome.
Council elections....
Half-out in 2024.
There were a couple of by-elections earlier in the year in Littlemore (one City, one County Council). Labour held both, albeit anti-LTN independents did quite well. However, that's probably the ward where anti-LTN would do best and did pretty well in 2022 without winning too.
Maybe anti-LTN will grab a Council seat or two in 2024, but this isn't a new issue in Oxford and I can't see it seriously denting Labour's position - indeed they are more at risk from Greens running to their left.
Exactly this. I would not be amazed to see a defection in Oxford from Labour to the Greens within the next year.
Slightly tongue in cheek, but the strongest correlating indicator of Conservative voting that I have ever found in 20 years of canvassing is car related.
- Those washing their car in their driveway on a Saturday morning.
Slightly disconcertingly for the blue meanies, apart from my Dad, I don't know anyone who does this now. Why bother when its a tenner at the local hand car wash?
The gangs of trafficked Kurdish vagabonds don't even use the 'Two Bucket' system which is the absolute minimum for not fucking your clear coat. One session at one of these refugee camps and it's done for.
Correcting a fucked clear coat, if it's not too far gone, is a lot of work and you're knocking a couple of grand off the value at least. Unless you can offload it onto to some mug who can't judge the fuckedness state of clear coats.
I wonder what a clear coat is. I mostly just rely on rain to wash off my 2015 Fiesta. I never give my car a thought except when I'm actually in it or the MoT demand comes round.
PB is a useful reminder that there are a multitude of different ways to live...
For me, a car is simply a tool that allows me to do what I need/want to do. If I could do the things I wanted to do without a car, I'd not have one. I find no great joy in driving; the joy can come from what I do at the destination.
I also don't see my car as an extension of my psyche, or a reflection of who I am. It's a car.
And that is, I think, the heart of the matter. Once a car is a means to an end, then it's possible that there are other ways of achieving the same ends better. In fact, it's possible that car use gets in the way of achieving those ends.
The car is an interesting machine. It promises individual freedom, but relies on infrastructure that is provided collectively. It provides convenience for its owner but inconveniences others. It allows us to be ourselves but cuts us off from other people. It lets us do more but makes us less active. It opens up choices for some and restricts choices for others. Politically it's interesting because of all the things we do on a day to day basis it probably imposes more negative externalities, global and local, than anything else. Increasingly I think the political left-right divide comes down to whether you take the idea of these externalities seriously or not. The right can get a lot of mileage out of telling their voters that they can do what they want and any negative effects on other people are unimportant. The danger for the left is that they overestimate the extent to which people are willing, or feel able to afford, to care.
I think the Cons are absolutely right to pick a fight over car ownership because most of us have one and many of us realise the impracticalities of acting too quickly to dispossess us of them, or penalising ownership which the ULEZ has shown so clearly.
It is the one area (and I can't for the life of me think of any other) where actually the Cons might be able to claw some votes back and it seems that Lab are handing these to them on a plate.
Heat Punps
Disaster waiting to happen.
They sound bloody awful.
My next door neighbour has one.
Ive yet to hear him say anything good about it.
On the other hand he really likes his solar panels.
The media reporting of this "heatwave" was just bizarre. The idea that 35 degrees in Alicante is unusual in July is just plan silly. It was the same with the temperatures in Greece. In july and August it is always very hot there.
Cars eventually became much cheaper than running horses and a carriage.
Compared to the price of running a car in the 1970s, cars today are ridiculously cheap.
When we are all running electric cars on overnight surplus energy and there's much less to maintain than on a ICE car, why won't they continue to get cheaper? Electric cars aren't cheaper now, but in 20 years?
If we aren't living in extreme poverty, people will want their own transport. Taxis are inconvenient and rubbish now - why does having an AI driver instead of a meat based one make any difference?
That's quite easy to answer. I don't know the numbers but I'd guess that taxis are about 5% of cars on the road. Now imagine a world where taxis are 95% of the cars on the road. The convenience factor would be far better. When essentially every vehicle is self-driving, electric, and immediately summonable the whole argument about the benefits of owning and driving a car will look utterly different.
"Immediately summonable"? To where?
Will it carry a bicycle? Camping gear? Will I get fined if I stink it out with fish and chips?
Will the AI driver be able to get out and open the gates on a private off-road track?
Those are the 5% cases. The rest of us will be watching Netflix in our robo-taxis.
Maybe. You would need sufficient such that waiting times (and I'm talking about rural areas here) are sensible. That would require at certain times a glut of vehicles (commuting/school times, evenings, weekends) and at other times no vehicles at all.
No idea how cost effective this will be or practical but we shall see no doubt.
Slightly tongue in cheek, but the strongest correlating indicator of Conservative voting that I have ever found in 20 years of canvassing is car related.
- Those washing their car in their driveway on a Saturday morning.
Slightly disconcertingly for the blue meanies, apart from my Dad, I don't know anyone who does this now. Why bother when its a tenner at the local hand car wash?
Also, very well kept and manicured gardens.
See a well kept garden and a pristine Jag on the driveway?
You don't even need to bother knocking on the door.
Mine would fool you , nothing as downmarket as a Jag but well kept garden
Slightly tongue in cheek, but the strongest correlating indicator of Conservative voting that I have ever found in 20 years of canvassing is car related.
- Those washing their car in their driveway on a Saturday morning.
Slightly disconcertingly for the blue meanies, apart from my Dad, I don't know anyone who does this now. Why bother when its a tenner at the local hand car wash?
The gangs of trafficked Kurdish vagabonds don't even use the 'Two Bucket' system which is the absolute minimum for not fucking your clear coat. One session at one of these refugee camps and it's done for.
Correcting a fucked clear coat, if it's not too far gone, is a lot of work and you're knocking a couple of grand off the value at least. Unless you can offload it onto to some mug who can't judge the fuckedness state of clear coats.
I wonder what a clear coat is. I mostly just rely on rain to wash off my 2015 Fiesta. I never give my car a thought except when I'm actually in it or the MoT demand comes round.
PB is a useful reminder that there are a multitude of different ways to live...
For me, a car is simply a tool that allows me to do what I need/want to do. If I could do the things I wanted to do without a car, I'd not have one. I find no great joy in driving; the joy can come from what I do at the destination.
I also don't see my car as an extension of my psyche, or a reflection of who I am. It's a car.
And that is, I think, the heart of the matter. Once a car is a means to an end, then it's possible that there are other ways of achieving the same ends better. In fact, it's possible that car use gets in the way of achieving those ends.
The car is an interesting machine. It promises individual freedom, but relies on infrastructure that is provided collectively. It provides convenience for its owner but inconveniences others. It allows us to be ourselves but cuts us off from other people. It lets us do more but makes us less active. It opens up choices for some and restricts choices for others. Politically it's interesting because of all the things we do on a day to day basis it probably imposes more negative externalities, global and local, than anything else. Increasingly I think the political left-right divide comes down to whether you take the idea of these externalities seriously or not. The right can get a lot of mileage out of telling their voters that they can do what they want and any negative effects on other people are unimportant. The danger for the left is that they overestimate the extent to which people are willing, or feel able to afford, to care.
I think the Cons are absolutely right to pick a fight over car ownership because most of us have one and many of us realise the impracticalities of acting too quickly to dispossess us of them, or penalising ownership which the ULEZ has shown so clearly.
It is the one area (and I can't for the life of me think of any other) where actually the Cons might be able to claw some votes back and it seems that Lab are handing these to them on a plate.
Heat Punps
Disaster waiting to happen.
They sound bloody awful.
My next door neighbour has one.
Ive yet to hear him say anything good about it.
On the other hand he really likes his solar panels.
They're the norm in rural France and seem to work fine (not just in modern houses), yet every time I hear about them in the UK they don't seem up to the job, so there must be something in the way we're rolling them out here that's going awry. I'm renovating a barn there currently and there was no question the heating would be air source heat pump, our neighbours all have it too. Perhaps because they are topping up with wood burners, or perhaps the houses are just less draughty and better insulated.
FPT - I see @Leon once again totally fails to comprehend anyone who lives outside London by predicting no-one will have cars by 2050.
People will always have cars.
I believe @leon was predicting self driving electric vehicles that you summon when you need one (I could have just made that all up). That isn't London centric prediction but applies everywhere. It seems a reasonable prediction for the future and a comparison with the end of the use of the horse seems apt. Doesn't mean it will happen, but reasonable.
It doesn't. In London, you only very occasionally need a car - i.e. where you travel somewhere out of town on a trip at the weekend, or need to carry heavy luggage and ferry friends - whereas everywhere else you use a car several times every day: to drop off the kids, drive to work, go shopping, pick up the kids, and then to head out to the gym later. Maybe drop stuff at the tip too.
You thus want one on the drive all the time with all your stuff in it, and the kids car seats, ready to use at any time - so you get your own.
It may be on a PCP or hire-purchase, rather than owned outright, but it's definitely "your" car and that's the model 90%+ of the country uses and will continue to use.
@leon isn't talking about NOW, we are talking about some future. Stuff changes. You are always telling us we aren't thinking enough. Think about where it comes almost instantly, with a child seat if you want one, with a trailer if you want one. Waiting for you by the time you have put your shoes on and locked up. All paid for by an annual fee. No car not starting in the morning, or having a flat, no MOT, no service, no filling up or charging, etc, etc.
Go on do what you tell us to do. Think out of the box. It is like saying in 1918 that planes are no use for public transport because they only carry one or two people, don't go far and you would have to learn to fly them.
It won't come "almost instantly" anywhere in the country because there'd never be enough fleet to supply everyone from regional depots to all who want it at peak times in an economical fashion. People sometimes need to leave their house in minutes, and not wait an unspecified time. Moreover, people like to choose their own seat, their own stuff, their own kids stuff, their own colour, with their own music, and they like it on their own drive RIGHT THERE so it's ready whenever they want it. People will pay for convenience. And all the issues you list with possessing a car there are either very rare or total non-issues.
The future? No, this is just a myopic fantasy of some excitable Mets.
People are attached to their cars. I was. Then I sold it and feel fine (and richer)
It might be a wrench for some. Tho I suspect it will happen so gradually and incrementally most won’t notice. But it is already happening. The young are not learning to drive
FPT - I see @Leon once again totally fails to comprehend anyone who lives outside London by predicting no-one will have cars by 2050.
People will always have cars.
I believe @leon was predicting self driving electric vehicles that you summon when you need one (I could have just made that all up). That isn't London centric prediction but applies everywhere. It seems a reasonable prediction for the future and a comparison with the end of the use of the horse seems apt. Doesn't mean it will happen, but reasonable.
It doesn't. In London, you only very occasionally need a car - i.e. where you travel somewhere out of town on a trip at the weekend, or need to carry heavy luggage and ferry friends - whereas everywhere else you use a car several times every day: to drop off the kids, drive to work, go shopping, pick up the kids, and then to head out to the gym later. Maybe drop stuff at the tip too.
You thus want one on the drive all the time with all your stuff in it, and the kids car seats, ready to use at any time - so you get your own.
It may be on a PCP or hire-purchase, rather than owned outright, but it's definitely "your" car and that's the model 90%+ of the country uses and will continue to use.
@leon isn't talking about NOW, we are talking about some future. Stuff changes. You are always telling us we aren't thinking enough. Think about where it comes almost instantly, with a child seat if you want one, with a trailer if you want one. Waiting for you by the time you have put your shoes on and locked up. All paid for by an annual fee. No car not starting in the morning, or having a flat, no MOT, no service, no filling up or charging, etc, etc.
Go on do what you tell us to do. Think out of the box. It is like saying in 1918 that planes are no use for public transport because they only carry one or two people, don't go far and you would have to learn to fly them.
It won't come "almost instantly" anywhere in the country because there'd never be enough fleet to supply everyone from regional depots to all who want it at peak times in an economical fashion. People sometimes need to leave their house in minutes, and not wait an unspecified time. Moreover, people like to choose their own seat, their own stuff, their own kids stuff, their own colour, with their own music, and they like it on their own drive RIGHT THERE so it's ready whenever they want it. People will pay for convenience. And all the issues you list with possessing a car there are either very rare or total non-issues.
The future? No, this is just a myopic fantasy of some excitable Mets.
People are attached to their cars. I was. Then I sold it and feel fine (and richer)
It might be a wrench for some. Tho I suspect it will happen so gradually and incrementally most won’t notice. But it is already happening. The young are not learning to drive
They very much are where I live.
The stats say otherwise. America leads the way (but this is also true of the UK)
DETROIT (AP) — Michael Andretti has a 21-year-old son with zero interest in obtaining a driver’s license. Rideshare apps get him where he wants to go.
In New Jersey, the 16-year-old daughter of a local short track racer took a five-minute driving lesson on a golf cart through their yard before turning over the keys. “That's it, I'm done. Don't like it,” Kat Wilson told their father.
The teenage rite of passage of rushing to the DMV on your birthday to get that plastic card that represents freedom has changed dramatically over the last 30 years. Data collected from the Federal Highway Administration and analyzed by Green Car Congress showed that in 2018 approximately 61% of 18-year-olds in the U.S. had a driver’s license, down from 80% percent in 1983.
That's also been my experience with my lad and his friends. Most of them have learned or are learning to drive, but mostly due to insistence by their parents that they need to be able to do so. There's not been much enthusiasm for it, and most of them seem to regard it as a bit of a chore rather than a leap into freedom. They don't see the point - Ubers already give them freedom, without the hassle and expense of car ownership.
I actually agree it will be a sad moment when the last human-driven cars disappear. They do provide a wonderful freedom: I would advise my teenage daughters to learn to drive (despite all that I have said) - but not so they can drive in the UK (boring, expensive, often a chore), so they can hire a car in a foreign country and go see the world for themselves. A glorious, liberating experience (and the chance to do it will be with us for a couple of decades yet, at least)
But then cantering a horse across green hills and through woods without having to worry about cars and roads and all that danger was surely wonderful, as well; but it disappeared, and progress had its way
Even if human driven vehicles get replaced with autonomous vehicles, you'll still have most people owning their own autonomous vehicle rather than relying upon taxis for the same reason they already have their own vehicle rather than relying upon taxis.
No, they won't because who wants that shit cluttering up the drive and who wants to maintain it at vast expense when there will be companies offering immediate autonomous vehicles at your door in minutes with near-zero expense
It's like growing all your own veg versus "just going to the supermarket". A few cranks will do it; most will shrug and say SUPERMARKET
So your nirvana is to have millions of cars hanging around for people to use them for 2hrs a day just that they are not owned by anyone in particular.
Sounds like a great vision. Spenny, though, but I'm sure the cost will fall over time.
Nah. It works exactly the same way as Amazon Logistics and DPD and, well, trains. You have n% surplus in the fleet, enough for comfort and a certain amount of elasticity. You do demand-led pricing on the rest.
If you pay Amazon extra money, you get faster delivery. If you commit to paying Amazon £n per month, you get faster delivery guaranteed every time.
That's how MaaS (Mobility as a Service) providers already work - think Uber and its surge pricing. You don't size your fleet according to maximum possible demand, you size it at a sensible level and manage the rest with demand-led pricing.
Ultimately most of this comes down to Google vs Musk. Waymo (Google/Alphabet's car arm) wants the future to be MaaS - services are how Google makes money, not selling hardware, with apologies to the three people with a Pixel phone. Musk's Tesla, meanwhile, is all about selling shiny hardware. Ultimately I think Google and @Leon will be proved right, and Musk wrong.
So convenient and timely transport becomes the preserve of the wealthy and can be withdrawn at any time if you anoy the authorities.
Sounding more like China every day.
If all car transport was on an Uber-like basis, you could find your trip cancelled at the last minute for no reason, or because you have a 4.3 star rating rather than a 4.4 star one.
And as for Uber's surge pricing... at busy times I've seen prices 5x the usual rate. Disabled and need to get to the hospital at the same time as kicking out time at a footy match? Pay up. Etc.
And that is before, as you so rightly point out, the orwellian idea of having your every trip logged and monitored, a complete loss of privacy.
Or a government that says, cars contribute x amount of carbon to the environment, "you have a maximum of 180 usable car-share minutes per week" etc.
Cars eventually became much cheaper than running horses and a carriage.
Compared to the price of running a car in the 1970s, cars today are ridiculously cheap.
When we are all running electric cars on overnight surplus energy and there's much less to maintain than on a ICE car, why won't they continue to get cheaper? Electric cars aren't cheaper now, but in 20 years?
If we aren't living in extreme poverty, people will want their own transport. Taxis are inconvenient and rubbish now - why does having an AI driver instead of a meat based one make any difference?
That's quite easy to answer. I don't know the numbers but I'd guess that taxis are about 5% of cars on the road. Now imagine a world where taxis are 95% of the cars on the road. The convenience factor would be far better. When essentially every vehicle is self-driving, electric, and immediately summonable the whole argument about the benefits of owning and driving a car will look utterly different.
"Immediately summonable"? To where?
Will it carry a bicycle? Camping gear? Will I get fined if I stink it out with fish and chips?
Will the AI driver be able to get out and open the gates on a private off-road track?
Those are the 5% cases. The rest of us will be watching Netflix in our robo-taxis.
There are specific times when our current use of cars becomes a problem [putting aside pollution as eventually solveable].
Perhaps we just need to solve school transport and "the commute" rather than reinventing personal transport for all?
Or just leave people alone?
Unlike some I don't see car ownership as a problem that needs to be solved.
@OnlyLivingBoy made some interesting comments about the differences between left and right. I don't disagree in some respects.
But I feel that increasingly the State goes looking for solutions to minor problems rather than address the fact that it is too big, and needs to give everyone more freedom by cutting itself.
Slightly tongue in cheek, but the strongest correlating indicator of Conservative voting that I have ever found in 20 years of canvassing is car related.
- Those washing their car in their driveway on a Saturday morning.
Slightly disconcertingly for the blue meanies, apart from my Dad, I don't know anyone who does this now. Why bother when its a tenner at the local hand car wash?
The gangs of trafficked Kurdish vagabonds don't even use the 'Two Bucket' system which is the absolute minimum for not fucking your clear coat. One session at one of these refugee camps and it's done for.
Correcting a fucked clear coat, if it's not too far gone, is a lot of work and you're knocking a couple of grand off the value at least. Unless you can offload it onto to some mug who can't judge the fuckedness state of clear coats.
I wonder what a clear coat is. I mostly just rely on rain to wash off my 2015 Fiesta. I never give my car a thought except when I'm actually in it or the MoT demand comes round.
PB is a useful reminder that there are a multitude of different ways to live...
For me, a car is simply a tool that allows me to do what I need/want to do. If I could do the things I wanted to do without a car, I'd not have one. I find no great joy in driving; the joy can come from what I do at the destination.
I also don't see my car as an extension of my psyche, or a reflection of who I am. It's a car.
And that is, I think, the heart of the matter. Once a car is a means to an end, then it's possible that there are other ways of achieving the same ends better. In fact, it's possible that car use gets in the way of achieving those ends.
The car is an interesting machine. It promises individual freedom, but relies on infrastructure that is provided collectively. It provides convenience for its owner but inconveniences others. It allows us to be ourselves but cuts us off from other people. It lets us do more but makes us less active. It opens up choices for some and restricts choices for others. Politically it's interesting because of all the things we do on a day to day basis it probably imposes more negative externalities, global and local, than anything else. Increasingly I think the political left-right divide comes down to whether you take the idea of these externalities seriously or not. The right can get a lot of mileage out of telling their voters that they can do what they want and any negative effects on other people are unimportant. The danger for the left is that they overestimate the extent to which people are willing, or feel able to afford, to care.
I think the Cons are absolutely right to pick a fight over car ownership because most of us have one and many of us realise the impracticalities of acting too quickly to dispossess us of them, or penalising ownership which the ULEZ has shown so clearly.
It is the one area (and I can't for the life of me think of any other) where actually the Cons might be able to claw some votes back and it seems that Lab are handing these to them on a plate.
Heat Punps
Disaster waiting to happen.
They sound bloody awful.
My next door neighbour has one.
Ive yet to hear him say anything good about it.
On the other hand he really likes his solar panels.
A major heat pump provider has criticised the plan to replace gas boilers suggesting heat pumps in Scotland are particularly a poor substitute
Slightly tongue in cheek, but the strongest correlating indicator of Conservative voting that I have ever found in 20 years of canvassing is car related.
- Those washing their car in their driveway on a Saturday morning.
Slightly disconcertingly for the blue meanies, apart from my Dad, I don't know anyone who does this now. Why bother when its a tenner at the local hand car wash?
The gangs of trafficked Kurdish vagabonds don't even use the 'Two Bucket' system which is the absolute minimum for not fucking your clear coat. One session at one of these refugee camps and it's done for.
Correcting a fucked clear coat, if it's not too far gone, is a lot of work and you're knocking a couple of grand off the value at least. Unless you can offload it onto to some mug who can't judge the fuckedness state of clear coats.
I wonder what a clear coat is. I mostly just rely on rain to wash off my 2015 Fiesta. I never give my car a thought except when I'm actually in it or the MoT demand comes round.
PB is a useful reminder that there are a multitude of different ways to live...
For me, a car is simply a tool that allows me to do what I need/want to do. If I could do the things I wanted to do without a car, I'd not have one. I find no great joy in driving; the joy can come from what I do at the destination.
I also don't see my car as an extension of my psyche, or a reflection of who I am. It's a car.
And that is, I think, the heart of the matter. Once a car is a means to an end, then it's possible that there are other ways of achieving the same ends better. In fact, it's possible that car use gets in the way of achieving those ends.
The car is an interesting machine. It promises individual freedom, but relies on infrastructure that is provided collectively. It provides convenience for its owner but inconveniences others. It allows us to be ourselves but cuts us off from other people. It lets us do more but makes us less active. It opens up choices for some and restricts choices for others. Politically it's interesting because of all the things we do on a day to day basis it probably imposes more negative externalities, global and local, than anything else. Increasingly I think the political left-right divide comes down to whether you take the idea of these externalities seriously or not. The right can get a lot of mileage out of telling their voters that they can do what they want and any negative effects on other people are unimportant. The danger for the left is that they overestimate the extent to which people are willing, or feel able to afford, to care.
I think the Cons are absolutely right to pick a fight over car ownership because most of us have one and many of us realise the impracticalities of acting too quickly to dispossess us of them, or penalising ownership which the ULEZ has shown so clearly.
It is the one area (and I can't for the life of me think of any other) where actually the Cons might be able to claw some votes back and it seems that Lab are handing these to them on a plate.
Heat Punps
Disaster waiting to happen.
They sound bloody awful.
My next door neighbour has one.
Ive yet to hear him say anything good about it.
On the other hand he really likes his solar panels.
They're the norm in rural France and seem to work fine (not just in modern houses), yet every time I hear about them in the UK they don't seem up to the job, so there must be something in the way we're rolling them out here that's going awry. I'm renovating a barn there currently and there was no question the heating would be air source heat pump, our neighbours all have it too. Perhaps because they are topping up with wood burners, or perhaps the houses are just less draughty and better insulated.
The media reporting of this "heatwave" was just bizarre. The idea that 35 degrees in Alicante is unusual in July is just plan silly. It was the same with the temperatures in Greece. In july and August it is always very hot there.
But we can quantify "very hot," can we not? There's very hot, and there's the record for Sardinia of 47.3 set two weeks ago. Very very very very hot, if you prefer it put like that. A record.
What is exceptionally pathetic is the "the fires weren't caused by climate change, they were caused by arson" claim. Arson works if and only if conditions are exceptionally hot and dry. The argument is like saying "People claim smart motorways are unusually dangerous, but if you examine the actual accidents on them, it always turns out they are caused by cars and lorries, not the actual motorway."
Cars eventually became much cheaper than running horses and a carriage.
Compared to the price of running a car in the 1970s, cars today are ridiculously cheap.
When we are all running electric cars on overnight surplus energy and there's much less to maintain than on a ICE car, why won't they continue to get cheaper? Electric cars aren't cheaper now, but in 20 years?
If we aren't living in extreme poverty, people will want their own transport. Taxis are inconvenient and rubbish now - why does having an AI driver instead of a meat based one make any difference?
That's quite easy to answer. I don't know the numbers but I'd guess that taxis are about 5% of cars on the road. Now imagine a world where taxis are 95% of the cars on the road. The convenience factor would be far better. When essentially every vehicle is self-driving, electric, and immediately summonable the whole argument about the benefits of owning and driving a car will look utterly different.
"Immediately summonable"? To where?
Will it carry a bicycle? Camping gear? Will I get fined if I stink it out with fish and chips?
Will the AI driver be able to get out and open the gates on a private off-road track?
Those are the 5% cases. The rest of us will be watching Netflix in our robo-taxis.
There are specific times when our current use of cars becomes a problem [putting aside pollution as eventually solveable].
Perhaps we just need to solve school transport and "the commute" rather than reinventing personal transport for all?
Or just leave people alone?
Unlike some I don't see car ownership as a problem that needs to be solved.
Nor do I. But there are times when our use of them is not optimal.
In many things the US is terrible, but somehow they seem to be able to organise school buses.
Slightly tongue in cheek, but the strongest correlating indicator of Conservative voting that I have ever found in 20 years of canvassing is car related.
- Those washing their car in their driveway on a Saturday morning.
Slightly disconcertingly for the blue meanies, apart from my Dad, I don't know anyone who does this now. Why bother when its a tenner at the local hand car wash?
The gangs of trafficked Kurdish vagabonds don't even use the 'Two Bucket' system which is the absolute minimum for not fucking your clear coat. One session at one of these refugee camps and it's done for.
Correcting a fucked clear coat, if it's not too far gone, is a lot of work and you're knocking a couple of grand off the value at least. Unless you can offload it onto to some mug who can't judge the fuckedness state of clear coats.
I wonder what a clear coat is. I mostly just rely on rain to wash off my 2015 Fiesta. I never give my car a thought except when I'm actually in it or the MoT demand comes round.
PB is a useful reminder that there are a multitude of different ways to live...
For me, a car is simply a tool that allows me to do what I need/want to do. If I could do the things I wanted to do without a car, I'd not have one. I find no great joy in driving; the joy can come from what I do at the destination.
I also don't see my car as an extension of my psyche, or a reflection of who I am. It's a car.
And that is, I think, the heart of the matter. Once a car is a means to an end, then it's possible that there are other ways of achieving the same ends better. In fact, it's possible that car use gets in the way of achieving those ends.
The car is an interesting machine. It promises individual freedom, but relies on infrastructure that is provided collectively. It provides convenience for its owner but inconveniences others. It allows us to be ourselves but cuts us off from other people. It lets us do more but makes us less active. It opens up choices for some and restricts choices for others. Politically it's interesting because of all the things we do on a day to day basis it probably imposes more negative externalities, global and local, than anything else. Increasingly I think the political left-right divide comes down to whether you take the idea of these externalities seriously or not. The right can get a lot of mileage out of telling their voters that they can do what they want and any negative effects on other people are unimportant. The danger for the left is that they overestimate the extent to which people are willing, or feel able to afford, to care.
I think the Cons are absolutely right to pick a fight over car ownership because most of us have one and many of us realise the impracticalities of acting too quickly to dispossess us of them, or penalising ownership which the ULEZ has shown so clearly.
It is the one area (and I can't for the life of me think of any other) where actually the Cons might be able to claw some votes back and it seems that Lab are handing these to them on a plate.
Heat Punps
Disaster waiting to happen.
They sound bloody awful.
My next door neighbour has one.
Ive yet to hear him say anything good about it.
On the other hand he really likes his solar panels.
They're the norm in rural France and seem to work fine (not just in modern houses), yet every time I hear about them in the UK they don't seem up to the job, so there must be something in the way we're rolling them out here that's going awry. I'm renovating a barn there currently and there was no question the heating would be air source heat pump, our neighbours all have it too. Perhaps because they are topping up with wood burners, or perhaps the houses are just less draughty and better insulated.
I really don't know much about them other than the bits I read on here and eslsewhere but working better in France may be due to warmer climate. All the sources seem to indicate that air source heat pumps work better when it is warmer/hotter outside. Certainly the only person I know who has had one fitted said it was great in the summer but really bad in the winter.
Slightly tongue in cheek, but the strongest correlating indicator of Conservative voting that I have ever found in 20 years of canvassing is car related.
- Those washing their car in their driveway on a Saturday morning.
Slightly disconcertingly for the blue meanies, apart from my Dad, I don't know anyone who does this now. Why bother when its a tenner at the local hand car wash?
The gangs of trafficked Kurdish vagabonds don't even use the 'Two Bucket' system which is the absolute minimum for not fucking your clear coat. One session at one of these refugee camps and it's done for.
Correcting a fucked clear coat, if it's not too far gone, is a lot of work and you're knocking a couple of grand off the value at least. Unless you can offload it onto to some mug who can't judge the fuckedness state of clear coats.
I wonder what a clear coat is. I mostly just rely on rain to wash off my 2015 Fiesta. I never give my car a thought except when I'm actually in it or the MoT demand comes round.
PB is a useful reminder that there are a multitude of different ways to live...
For me, a car is simply a tool that allows me to do what I need/want to do. If I could do the things I wanted to do without a car, I'd not have one. I find no great joy in driving; the joy can come from what I do at the destination.
I also don't see my car as an extension of my psyche, or a reflection of who I am. It's a car.
And that is, I think, the heart of the matter. Once a car is a means to an end, then it's possible that there are other ways of achieving the same ends better. In fact, it's possible that car use gets in the way of achieving those ends.
The car is an interesting machine. It promises individual freedom, but relies on infrastructure that is provided collectively. It provides convenience for its owner but inconveniences others. It allows us to be ourselves but cuts us off from other people. It lets us do more but makes us less active. It opens up choices for some and restricts choices for others. Politically it's interesting because of all the things we do on a day to day basis it probably imposes more negative externalities, global and local, than anything else. Increasingly I think the political left-right divide comes down to whether you take the idea of these externalities seriously or not. The right can get a lot of mileage out of telling their voters that they can do what they want and any negative effects on other people are unimportant. The danger for the left is that they overestimate the extent to which people are willing, or feel able to afford, to care.
I think the Cons are absolutely right to pick a fight over car ownership because most of us have one and many of us realise the impracticalities of acting too quickly to dispossess us of them, or penalising ownership which the ULEZ has shown so clearly.
It is the one area (and I can't for the life of me think of any other) where actually the Cons might be able to claw some votes back and it seems that Lab are handing these to them on a plate.
Heat Punps
Disaster waiting to happen.
They sound bloody awful.
My next door neighbour has one.
Ive yet to hear him say anything good about it.
On the other hand he really likes his solar panels.
A major heat pump provider has criticised the plan to replace gas boilers suggesting heat pumps in Scotland are particularly a poor substitute
Air Source Heat pumps for everything - hot water etc - generally require complete rip out/new build
Air Source for heating (aka Air Conditioning in reverse) much less so. If you have a new loft conversion being done, spec that plus solar panels. The panels will run the air con in summer, providing your insulation is good enough.
Given the way that heat rises in the house, little heating needed up top in most winters.
The media reporting of this "heatwave" was just bizarre. The idea that 35 degrees in Alicante is unusual in July is just plan silly. It was the same with the temperatures in Greece. In july and August it is always very hot there.
But we can quantify "very hot," can we not? There's very hot, and there's the record for Sardinia of 47.3 set two weeks ago. Very very very very hot, if you prefer it put like that. A record.
What is exceptionally pathetic is the "the fires weren't caused by climate change, they were caused by arson" claim. Arson works if and only if conditions are exceptionally hot and dry. The argument is like saying "People claim smart motorways are unusually dangerous, but if you examine the actual accidents on them, it always turns out they are caused by cars and lorries, not the actual motorway."
It doesn't have to be exceptionally hot and dry for arson. Sure it helps, but it isn't necessary. It can simply be hot and dry.
Cars eventually became much cheaper than running horses and a carriage.
Compared to the price of running a car in the 1970s, cars today are ridiculously cheap.
When we are all running electric cars on overnight surplus energy and there's much less to maintain than on a ICE car, why won't they continue to get cheaper? Electric cars aren't cheaper now, but in 20 years?
If we aren't living in extreme poverty, people will want their own transport. Taxis are inconvenient and rubbish now - why does having an AI driver instead of a meat based one make any difference?
That's quite easy to answer. I don't know the numbers but I'd guess that taxis are about 5% of cars on the road. Now imagine a world where taxis are 95% of the cars on the road. The convenience factor would be far better. When essentially every vehicle is self-driving, electric, and immediately summonable the whole argument about the benefits of owning and driving a car will look utterly different.
"Immediately summonable"? To where?
Will it carry a bicycle? Camping gear? Will I get fined if I stink it out with fish and chips?
Will the AI driver be able to get out and open the gates on a private off-road track?
Those are the 5% cases. The rest of us will be watching Netflix in our robo-taxis.
There are specific times when our current use of cars becomes a problem [putting aside pollution as eventually solveable].
Perhaps we just need to solve school transport and "the commute" rather than reinventing personal transport for all?
Or just leave people alone?
Unlike some I don't see car ownership as a problem that needs to be solved.
@OnlyLivingBoy made some interesting comments about the differences between left and right. I don't disagree in some respects.
But I feel that increasingly the State goes looking for solutions to minor problems rather than address the fact that it is too big, and needs to give everyone more freedom by cutting itself.
My point is that there's a large cadre of people in public policy who see it as their job to use the power of the State to change people's values, and the way they live, because they disagree with both.
Slightly tongue in cheek, but the strongest correlating indicator of Conservative voting that I have ever found in 20 years of canvassing is car related.
- Those washing their car in their driveway on a Saturday morning.
Slightly disconcertingly for the blue meanies, apart from my Dad, I don't know anyone who does this now. Why bother when its a tenner at the local hand car wash?
The gangs of trafficked Kurdish vagabonds don't even use the 'Two Bucket' system which is the absolute minimum for not fucking your clear coat. One session at one of these refugee camps and it's done for.
Correcting a fucked clear coat, if it's not too far gone, is a lot of work and you're knocking a couple of grand off the value at least. Unless you can offload it onto to some mug who can't judge the fuckedness state of clear coats.
I wonder what a clear coat is. I mostly just rely on rain to wash off my 2015 Fiesta. I never give my car a thought except when I'm actually in it or the MoT demand comes round.
PB is a useful reminder that there are a multitude of different ways to live...
For me, a car is simply a tool that allows me to do what I need/want to do. If I could do the things I wanted to do without a car, I'd not have one. I find no great joy in driving; the joy can come from what I do at the destination.
I also don't see my car as an extension of my psyche, or a reflection of who I am. It's a car.
And that is, I think, the heart of the matter. Once a car is a means to an end, then it's possible that there are other ways of achieving the same ends better. In fact, it's possible that car use gets in the way of achieving those ends.
The car is an interesting machine. It promises individual freedom, but relies on infrastructure that is provided collectively. It provides convenience for its owner but inconveniences others. It allows us to be ourselves but cuts us off from other people. It lets us do more but makes us less active. It opens up choices for some and restricts choices for others. Politically it's interesting because of all the things we do on a day to day basis it probably imposes more negative externalities, global and local, than anything else. Increasingly I think the political left-right divide comes down to whether you take the idea of these externalities seriously or not. The right can get a lot of mileage out of telling their voters that they can do what they want and any negative effects on other people are unimportant. The danger for the left is that they overestimate the extent to which people are willing, or feel able to afford, to care.
I think the Cons are absolutely right to pick a fight over car ownership because most of us have one and many of us realise the impracticalities of acting too quickly to dispossess us of them, or penalising ownership which the ULEZ has shown so clearly.
It is the one area (and I can't for the life of me think of any other) where actually the Cons might be able to claw some votes back and it seems that Lab are handing these to them on a plate.
Heat Punps
Disaster waiting to happen.
They sound bloody awful.
My next door neighbour has one.
Ive yet to hear him say anything good about it.
On the other hand he really likes his solar panels.
They're the norm in rural France and seem to work fine (not just in modern houses), yet every time I hear about them in the UK they don't seem up to the job, so there must be something in the way we're rolling them out here that's going awry. I'm renovating a barn there currently and there was no question the heating would be air source heat pump, our neighbours all have it too. Perhaps because they are topping up with wood burners, or perhaps the houses are just less draughty and better insulated.
I really don't know much about them other than the bits I read on here and eslsewhere but working better in France may be due to warmer climate. All the sources seem to indicate that air source heat pumps work better when it is warmer/hotter outside. Certainly the only person I know who has had one fitted said it was great in the summer but really bad in the winter.
The media reporting of this "heatwave" was just bizarre. The idea that 35 degrees in Alicante is unusual in July is just plan silly. It was the same with the temperatures in Greece. In july and August it is always very hot there.
But we can quantify "very hot," can we not? There's very hot, and there's the record for Sardinia of 47.3 set two weeks ago. Very very very very hot, if you prefer it put like that. A record.
What is exceptionally pathetic is the "the fires weren't caused by climate change, they were caused by arson" claim. Arson works if and only if conditions are exceptionally hot and dry. The argument is like saying "People claim smart motorways are unusually dangerous, but if you examine the actual accidents on them, it always turns out they are caused by cars and lorries, not the actual motorway."
Slightly tongue in cheek, but the strongest correlating indicator of Conservative voting that I have ever found in 20 years of canvassing is car related.
- Those washing their car in their driveway on a Saturday morning.
Slightly disconcertingly for the blue meanies, apart from my Dad, I don't know anyone who does this now. Why bother when its a tenner at the local hand car wash?
The gangs of trafficked Kurdish vagabonds don't even use the 'Two Bucket' system which is the absolute minimum for not fucking your clear coat. One session at one of these refugee camps and it's done for.
Correcting a fucked clear coat, if it's not too far gone, is a lot of work and you're knocking a couple of grand off the value at least. Unless you can offload it onto to some mug who can't judge the fuckedness state of clear coats.
I wonder what a clear coat is. I mostly just rely on rain to wash off my 2015 Fiesta. I never give my car a thought except when I'm actually in it or the MoT demand comes round.
PB is a useful reminder that there are a multitude of different ways to live...
For me, a car is simply a tool that allows me to do what I need/want to do. If I could do the things I wanted to do without a car, I'd not have one. I find no great joy in driving; the joy can come from what I do at the destination.
I also don't see my car as an extension of my psyche, or a reflection of who I am. It's a car.
And that is, I think, the heart of the matter. Once a car is a means to an end, then it's possible that there are other ways of achieving the same ends better. In fact, it's possible that car use gets in the way of achieving those ends.
The car is an interesting machine. It promises individual freedom, but relies on infrastructure that is provided collectively. It provides convenience for its owner but inconveniences others. It allows us to be ourselves but cuts us off from other people. It lets us do more but makes us less active. It opens up choices for some and restricts choices for others. Politically it's interesting because of all the things we do on a day to day basis it probably imposes more negative externalities, global and local, than anything else. Increasingly I think the political left-right divide comes down to whether you take the idea of these externalities seriously or not. The right can get a lot of mileage out of telling their voters that they can do what they want and any negative effects on other people are unimportant. The danger for the left is that they overestimate the extent to which people are willing, or feel able to afford, to care.
I think the Cons are absolutely right to pick a fight over car ownership because most of us have one and many of us realise the impracticalities of acting too quickly to dispossess us of them, or penalising ownership which the ULEZ has shown so clearly.
It is the one area (and I can't for the life of me think of any other) where actually the Cons might be able to claw some votes back and it seems that Lab are handing these to them on a plate.
Heat Punps
Disaster waiting to happen.
They sound bloody awful.
My next door neighbour has one.
Ive yet to hear him say anything good about it.
On the other hand he really likes his solar panels.
Solar panels provide some benefit.
The idea of shivvering for days in January whilst my heat pump struggles to churn out 15C through a really cold snap fills me with horror.
Slightly tongue in cheek, but the strongest correlating indicator of Conservative voting that I have ever found in 20 years of canvassing is car related.
- Those washing their car in their driveway on a Saturday morning.
Slightly disconcertingly for the blue meanies, apart from my Dad, I don't know anyone who does this now. Why bother when its a tenner at the local hand car wash?
The gangs of trafficked Kurdish vagabonds don't even use the 'Two Bucket' system which is the absolute minimum for not fucking your clear coat. One session at one of these refugee camps and it's done for.
Correcting a fucked clear coat, if it's not too far gone, is a lot of work and you're knocking a couple of grand off the value at least. Unless you can offload it onto to some mug who can't judge the fuckedness state of clear coats.
I wonder what a clear coat is. I mostly just rely on rain to wash off my 2015 Fiesta. I never give my car a thought except when I'm actually in it or the MoT demand comes round.
PB is a useful reminder that there are a multitude of different ways to live...
For me, a car is simply a tool that allows me to do what I need/want to do. If I could do the things I wanted to do without a car, I'd not have one. I find no great joy in driving; the joy can come from what I do at the destination.
I also don't see my car as an extension of my psyche, or a reflection of who I am. It's a car.
And that is, I think, the heart of the matter. Once a car is a means to an end, then it's possible that there are other ways of achieving the same ends better. In fact, it's possible that car use gets in the way of achieving those ends.
The car is an interesting machine. It promises individual freedom, but relies on infrastructure that is provided collectively. It provides convenience for its owner but inconveniences others. It allows us to be ourselves but cuts us off from other people. It lets us do more but makes us less active. It opens up choices for some and restricts choices for others. Politically it's interesting because of all the things we do on a day to day basis it probably imposes more negative externalities, global and local, than anything else. Increasingly I think the political left-right divide comes down to whether you take the idea of these externalities seriously or not. The right can get a lot of mileage out of telling their voters that they can do what they want and any negative effects on other people are unimportant. The danger for the left is that they overestimate the extent to which people are willing, or feel able to afford, to care.
I think the Cons are absolutely right to pick a fight over car ownership because most of us have one and many of us realise the impracticalities of acting too quickly to dispossess us of them, or penalising ownership which the ULEZ has shown so clearly.
It is the one area (and I can't for the life of me think of any other) where actually the Cons might be able to claw some votes back and it seems that Lab are handing these to them on a plate.
Heat Punps
Disaster waiting to happen.
They sound bloody awful.
My next door neighbour has one.
Ive yet to hear him say anything good about it.
On the other hand he really likes his solar panels.
They're the norm in rural France and seem to work fine (not just in modern houses), yet every time I hear about them in the UK they don't seem up to the job, so there must be something in the way we're rolling them out here that's going awry. I'm renovating a barn there currently and there was no question the heating would be air source heat pump, our neighbours all have it too. Perhaps because they are topping up with wood burners, or perhaps the houses are just less draughty and better insulated.
I really don't know much about them other than the bits I read on here and eslsewhere but working better in France may be due to warmer climate. All the sources seem to indicate that air source heat pumps work better when it is warmer/hotter outside. Certainly the only person I know who has had one fitted said it was great in the summer but really bad in the winter.
A reasonably simple intro here. I hadn't realised how much of the garden might have to be dug up.
Slightly tongue in cheek, but the strongest correlating indicator of Conservative voting that I have ever found in 20 years of canvassing is car related.
- Those washing their car in their driveway on a Saturday morning.
Slightly disconcertingly for the blue meanies, apart from my Dad, I don't know anyone who does this now. Why bother when its a tenner at the local hand car wash?
The gangs of trafficked Kurdish vagabonds don't even use the 'Two Bucket' system which is the absolute minimum for not fucking your clear coat. One session at one of these refugee camps and it's done for.
Correcting a fucked clear coat, if it's not too far gone, is a lot of work and you're knocking a couple of grand off the value at least. Unless you can offload it onto to some mug who can't judge the fuckedness state of clear coats.
I wonder what a clear coat is. I mostly just rely on rain to wash off my 2015 Fiesta. I never give my car a thought except when I'm actually in it or the MoT demand comes round.
PB is a useful reminder that there are a multitude of different ways to live...
For me, a car is simply a tool that allows me to do what I need/want to do. If I could do the things I wanted to do without a car, I'd not have one. I find no great joy in driving; the joy can come from what I do at the destination.
I also don't see my car as an extension of my psyche, or a reflection of who I am. It's a car.
And that is, I think, the heart of the matter. Once a car is a means to an end, then it's possible that there are other ways of achieving the same ends better. In fact, it's possible that car use gets in the way of achieving those ends.
The car is an interesting machine. It promises individual freedom, but relies on infrastructure that is provided collectively. It provides convenience for its owner but inconveniences others. It allows us to be ourselves but cuts us off from other people. It lets us do more but makes us less active. It opens up choices for some and restricts choices for others. Politically it's interesting because of all the things we do on a day to day basis it probably imposes more negative externalities, global and local, than anything else. Increasingly I think the political left-right divide comes down to whether you take the idea of these externalities seriously or not. The right can get a lot of mileage out of telling their voters that they can do what they want and any negative effects on other people are unimportant. The danger for the left is that they overestimate the extent to which people are willing, or feel able to afford, to care.
I think the Cons are absolutely right to pick a fight over car ownership because most of us have one and many of us realise the impracticalities of acting too quickly to dispossess us of them, or penalising ownership which the ULEZ has shown so clearly.
It is the one area (and I can't for the life of me think of any other) where actually the Cons might be able to claw some votes back and it seems that Lab are handing these to them on a plate.
Heat Punps
Disaster waiting to happen.
They sound bloody awful.
My next door neighbour has one.
Ive yet to hear him say anything good about it.
On the other hand he really likes his solar panels.
They're the norm in rural France and seem to work fine (not just in modern houses), yet every time I hear about them in the UK they don't seem up to the job, so there must be something in the way we're rolling them out here that's going awry. I'm renovating a barn there currently and there was no question the heating would be air source heat pump, our neighbours all have it too. Perhaps because they are topping up with wood burners, or perhaps the houses are just less draughty and better insulated.
I really don't know much about them other than the bits I read on here and eslsewhere but working better in France may be due to warmer climate. All the sources seem to indicate that air source heat pumps work better when it is warmer/hotter outside. Certainly the only person I know who has had one fitted said it was great in the summer but really bad in the winter.
That seems suboptimal
I should add that that is my understanding and very limited experience based on one other person. I am not any sort of expert on these things.
Slightly tongue in cheek, but the strongest correlating indicator of Conservative voting that I have ever found in 20 years of canvassing is car related.
- Those washing their car in their driveway on a Saturday morning.
Slightly disconcertingly for the blue meanies, apart from my Dad, I don't know anyone who does this now. Why bother when its a tenner at the local hand car wash?
The gangs of trafficked Kurdish vagabonds don't even use the 'Two Bucket' system which is the absolute minimum for not fucking your clear coat. One session at one of these refugee camps and it's done for.
Correcting a fucked clear coat, if it's not too far gone, is a lot of work and you're knocking a couple of grand off the value at least. Unless you can offload it onto to some mug who can't judge the fuckedness state of clear coats.
I wonder what a clear coat is. I mostly just rely on rain to wash off my 2015 Fiesta. I never give my car a thought except when I'm actually in it or the MoT demand comes round.
PB is a useful reminder that there are a multitude of different ways to live...
For me, a car is simply a tool that allows me to do what I need/want to do. If I could do the things I wanted to do without a car, I'd not have one. I find no great joy in driving; the joy can come from what I do at the destination.
I also don't see my car as an extension of my psyche, or a reflection of who I am. It's a car.
And that is, I think, the heart of the matter. Once a car is a means to an end, then it's possible that there are other ways of achieving the same ends better. In fact, it's possible that car use gets in the way of achieving those ends.
The car is an interesting machine. It promises individual freedom, but relies on infrastructure that is provided collectively. It provides convenience for its owner but inconveniences others. It allows us to be ourselves but cuts us off from other people. It lets us do more but makes us less active. It opens up choices for some and restricts choices for others. Politically it's interesting because of all the things we do on a day to day basis it probably imposes more negative externalities, global and local, than anything else. Increasingly I think the political left-right divide comes down to whether you take the idea of these externalities seriously or not. The right can get a lot of mileage out of telling their voters that they can do what they want and any negative effects on other people are unimportant. The danger for the left is that they overestimate the extent to which people are willing, or feel able to afford, to care.
I think the Cons are absolutely right to pick a fight over car ownership because most of us have one and many of us realise the impracticalities of acting too quickly to dispossess us of them, or penalising ownership which the ULEZ has shown so clearly.
It is the one area (and I can't for the life of me think of any other) where actually the Cons might be able to claw some votes back and it seems that Lab are handing these to them on a plate.
Heat Punps
Disaster waiting to happen.
They sound bloody awful.
My next door neighbour has one.
Ive yet to hear him say anything good about it.
On the other hand he really likes his solar panels.
They're the norm in rural France and seem to work fine (not just in modern houses), yet every time I hear about them in the UK they don't seem up to the job, so there must be something in the way we're rolling them out here that's going awry. I'm renovating a barn there currently and there was no question the heating would be air source heat pump, our neighbours all have it too. Perhaps because they are topping up with wood burners, or perhaps the houses are just less draughty and better insulated.
I really don't know much about them other than the bits I read on here and eslsewhere but working better in France may be due to warmer climate. All the sources seem to indicate that air source heat pumps work better when it is warmer/hotter outside. Certainly the only person I know who has had one fitted said it was great in the summer but really bad in the winter.
Definitely not down to climate. In the seasons they're used it's much colder in central France than most of the UK. And the houses are snug and warm too. I think insulation and draughts must be a key difference.
Slightly tongue in cheek, but the strongest correlating indicator of Conservative voting that I have ever found in 20 years of canvassing is car related.
- Those washing their car in their driveway on a Saturday morning.
Slightly disconcertingly for the blue meanies, apart from my Dad, I don't know anyone who does this now. Why bother when its a tenner at the local hand car wash?
The gangs of trafficked Kurdish vagabonds don't even use the 'Two Bucket' system which is the absolute minimum for not fucking your clear coat. One session at one of these refugee camps and it's done for.
Correcting a fucked clear coat, if it's not too far gone, is a lot of work and you're knocking a couple of grand off the value at least. Unless you can offload it onto to some mug who can't judge the fuckedness state of clear coats.
I wonder what a clear coat is. I mostly just rely on rain to wash off my 2015 Fiesta. I never give my car a thought except when I'm actually in it or the MoT demand comes round.
PB is a useful reminder that there are a multitude of different ways to live...
For me, a car is simply a tool that allows me to do what I need/want to do. If I could do the things I wanted to do without a car, I'd not have one. I find no great joy in driving; the joy can come from what I do at the destination.
I also don't see my car as an extension of my psyche, or a reflection of who I am. It's a car.
And that is, I think, the heart of the matter. Once a car is a means to an end, then it's possible that there are other ways of achieving the same ends better. In fact, it's possible that car use gets in the way of achieving those ends.
The car is an interesting machine. It promises individual freedom, but relies on infrastructure that is provided collectively. It provides convenience for its owner but inconveniences others. It allows us to be ourselves but cuts us off from other people. It lets us do more but makes us less active. It opens up choices for some and restricts choices for others. Politically it's interesting because of all the things we do on a day to day basis it probably imposes more negative externalities, global and local, than anything else. Increasingly I think the political left-right divide comes down to whether you take the idea of these externalities seriously or not. The right can get a lot of mileage out of telling their voters that they can do what they want and any negative effects on other people are unimportant. The danger for the left is that they overestimate the extent to which people are willing, or feel able to afford, to care.
I think the Cons are absolutely right to pick a fight over car ownership because most of us have one and many of us realise the impracticalities of acting too quickly to dispossess us of them, or penalising ownership which the ULEZ has shown so clearly.
It is the one area (and I can't for the life of me think of any other) where actually the Cons might be able to claw some votes back and it seems that Lab are handing these to them on a plate.
Heat Punps
Disaster waiting to happen.
They sound bloody awful.
My next door neighbour has one.
Ive yet to hear him say anything good about it.
On the other hand he really likes his solar panels.
They're the norm in rural France and seem to work fine (not just in modern houses), yet every time I hear about them in the UK they don't seem up to the job, so there must be something in the way we're rolling them out here that's going awry. I'm renovating a barn there currently and there was no question the heating would be air source heat pump, our neighbours all have it too. Perhaps because they are topping up with wood burners, or perhaps the houses are just less draughty and better insulated.
I really don't know much about them other than the bits I read on here and eslsewhere but working better in France may be due to warmer climate. All the sources seem to indicate that air source heat pumps work better when it is warmer/hotter outside. Certainly the only person I know who has had one fitted said it was great in the summer but really bad in the winter.
They need high quality of insulation on the property, underfloor heating etc.
The number of times I’ve seen them bodged onto an existing setup…
Slightly tongue in cheek, but the strongest correlating indicator of Conservative voting that I have ever found in 20 years of canvassing is car related.
- Those washing their car in their driveway on a Saturday morning.
Slightly disconcertingly for the blue meanies, apart from my Dad, I don't know anyone who does this now. Why bother when its a tenner at the local hand car wash?
The gangs of trafficked Kurdish vagabonds don't even use the 'Two Bucket' system which is the absolute minimum for not fucking your clear coat. One session at one of these refugee camps and it's done for.
Correcting a fucked clear coat, if it's not too far gone, is a lot of work and you're knocking a couple of grand off the value at least. Unless you can offload it onto to some mug who can't judge the fuckedness state of clear coats.
I wonder what a clear coat is. I mostly just rely on rain to wash off my 2015 Fiesta. I never give my car a thought except when I'm actually in it or the MoT demand comes round.
PB is a useful reminder that there are a multitude of different ways to live...
For me, a car is simply a tool that allows me to do what I need/want to do. If I could do the things I wanted to do without a car, I'd not have one. I find no great joy in driving; the joy can come from what I do at the destination.
I also don't see my car as an extension of my psyche, or a reflection of who I am. It's a car.
And that is, I think, the heart of the matter. Once a car is a means to an end, then it's possible that there are other ways of achieving the same ends better. In fact, it's possible that car use gets in the way of achieving those ends.
The car is an interesting machine. It promises individual freedom, but relies on infrastructure that is provided collectively. It provides convenience for its owner but inconveniences others. It allows us to be ourselves but cuts us off from other people. It lets us do more but makes us less active. It opens up choices for some and restricts choices for others. Politically it's interesting because of all the things we do on a day to day basis it probably imposes more negative externalities, global and local, than anything else. Increasingly I think the political left-right divide comes down to whether you take the idea of these externalities seriously or not. The right can get a lot of mileage out of telling their voters that they can do what they want and any negative effects on other people are unimportant. The danger for the left is that they overestimate the extent to which people are willing, or feel able to afford, to care.
I think the Cons are absolutely right to pick a fight over car ownership because most of us have one and many of us realise the impracticalities of acting too quickly to dispossess us of them, or penalising ownership which the ULEZ has shown so clearly.
It is the one area (and I can't for the life of me think of any other) where actually the Cons might be able to claw some votes back and it seems that Lab are handing these to them on a plate.
Heat Punps
Disaster waiting to happen.
They sound bloody awful.
My next door neighbour has one.
Ive yet to hear him say anything good about it.
On the other hand he really likes his solar panels.
They're the norm in rural France and seem to work fine (not just in modern houses), yet every time I hear about them in the UK they don't seem up to the job, so there must be something in the way we're rolling them out here that's going awry. I'm renovating a barn there currently and there was no question the heating would be air source heat pump, our neighbours all have it too. Perhaps because they are topping up with wood burners, or perhaps the houses are just less draughty and better insulated.
I really don't know much about them other than the bits I read on here and eslsewhere but working better in France may be due to warmer climate. All the sources seem to indicate that air source heat pumps work better when it is warmer/hotter outside. Certainly the only person I know who has had one fitted said it was great in the summer but really bad in the winter.
That seems suboptimal
I should add that that is my understanding and very limited experience based on one other person. I am not any sort of expert on these things.
Clearly the UK needs a bit more warming to get our heat pump efficiency up.
Slightly tongue in cheek, but the strongest correlating indicator of Conservative voting that I have ever found in 20 years of canvassing is car related.
- Those washing their car in their driveway on a Saturday morning.
Slightly disconcertingly for the blue meanies, apart from my Dad, I don't know anyone who does this now. Why bother when its a tenner at the local hand car wash?
The gangs of trafficked Kurdish vagabonds don't even use the 'Two Bucket' system which is the absolute minimum for not fucking your clear coat. One session at one of these refugee camps and it's done for.
Correcting a fucked clear coat, if it's not too far gone, is a lot of work and you're knocking a couple of grand off the value at least. Unless you can offload it onto to some mug who can't judge the fuckedness state of clear coats.
I wonder what a clear coat is. I mostly just rely on rain to wash off my 2015 Fiesta. I never give my car a thought except when I'm actually in it or the MoT demand comes round.
PB is a useful reminder that there are a multitude of different ways to live...
For me, a car is simply a tool that allows me to do what I need/want to do. If I could do the things I wanted to do without a car, I'd not have one. I find no great joy in driving; the joy can come from what I do at the destination.
I also don't see my car as an extension of my psyche, or a reflection of who I am. It's a car.
And that is, I think, the heart of the matter. Once a car is a means to an end, then it's possible that there are other ways of achieving the same ends better. In fact, it's possible that car use gets in the way of achieving those ends.
The car is an interesting machine. It promises individual freedom, but relies on infrastructure that is provided collectively. It provides convenience for its owner but inconveniences others. It allows us to be ourselves but cuts us off from other people. It lets us do more but makes us less active. It opens up choices for some and restricts choices for others. Politically it's interesting because of all the things we do on a day to day basis it probably imposes more negative externalities, global and local, than anything else. Increasingly I think the political left-right divide comes down to whether you take the idea of these externalities seriously or not. The right can get a lot of mileage out of telling their voters that they can do what they want and any negative effects on other people are unimportant. The danger for the left is that they overestimate the extent to which people are willing, or feel able to afford, to care.
I think the Cons are absolutely right to pick a fight over car ownership because most of us have one and many of us realise the impracticalities of acting too quickly to dispossess us of them, or penalising ownership which the ULEZ has shown so clearly.
It is the one area (and I can't for the life of me think of any other) where actually the Cons might be able to claw some votes back and it seems that Lab are handing these to them on a plate.
Heat Punps
Disaster waiting to happen.
They sound bloody awful.
My next door neighbour has one.
Ive yet to hear him say anything good about it.
On the other hand he really likes his solar panels.
They're the norm in rural France and seem to work fine (not just in modern houses), yet every time I hear about them in the UK they don't seem up to the job, so there must be something in the way we're rolling them out here that's going awry. I'm renovating a barn there currently and there was no question the heating would be air source heat pump, our neighbours all have it too. Perhaps because they are topping up with wood burners, or perhaps the houses are just less draughty and better insulated.
I really don't know much about them other than the bits I read on here and eslsewhere but working better in France may be due to warmer climate. All the sources seem to indicate that air source heat pumps work better when it is warmer/hotter outside. Certainly the only person I know who has had one fitted said it was great in the summer but really bad in the winter.
A reasonably simple intro here. I hadn't realised how much of the garden might have to be dug up.
The media reporting of this "heatwave" was just bizarre. The idea that 35 degrees in Alicante is unusual in July is just plan silly. It was the same with the temperatures in Greece. In july and August it is always very hot there.
But we can quantify "very hot," can we not? There's very hot, and there's the record for Sardinia of 47.3 set two weeks ago. Very very very very hot, if you prefer it put like that. A record.
What is exceptionally pathetic is the "the fires weren't caused by climate change, they were caused by arson" claim. Arson works if and only if conditions are exceptionally hot and dry. The argument is like saying "People claim smart motorways are unusually dangerous, but if you examine the actual accidents on them, it always turns out they are caused by cars and lorries, not the actual motorway."
My daughter and her family decided to book a late all inclusive holiday in August and told the travel agents they would go anywhere but fire affected areas
It seems she has found an excellent holiday in Morocco but this was through an independent travel agent as TUI, JET2, and the like were almost aggressively trying to send them to Southern Europe no doubt as they have huge investments in these areas
It will be interesting how holidaymakers react to visiting these areas in the future in peak season
Cars eventually became much cheaper than running horses and a carriage.
Compared to the price of running a car in the 1970s, cars today are ridiculously cheap.
When we are all running electric cars on overnight surplus energy and there's much less to maintain than on a ICE car, why won't they continue to get cheaper? Electric cars aren't cheaper now, but in 20 years?
If we aren't living in extreme poverty, people will want their own transport. Taxis are inconvenient and rubbish now - why does having an AI driver instead of a meat based one make any difference?
That's quite easy to answer. I don't know the numbers but I'd guess that taxis are about 5% of cars on the road. Now imagine a world where taxis are 95% of the cars on the road. The convenience factor would be far better. When essentially every vehicle is self-driving, electric, and immediately summonable the whole argument about the benefits of owning and driving a car will look utterly different.
"Immediately summonable"? To where?
Will it carry a bicycle? Camping gear? Will I get fined if I stink it out with fish and chips?
Will the AI driver be able to get out and open the gates on a private off-road track?
Those are the 5% cases. The rest of us will be watching Netflix in our robo-taxis.
There are specific times when our current use of cars becomes a problem [putting aside pollution as eventually solveable].
Perhaps we just need to solve school transport and "the commute" rather than reinventing personal transport for all?
Or just leave people alone?
Unlike some I don't see car ownership as a problem that needs to be solved.
The millions of people killed on the road every year by tired, drunk, angry, sneezing, stupid, distracted, Googling, phone-texting human drivers might disagree with you
"Road traffic crashes now represent the eighth leading cause of death globally. They claim more than 1.35 million lives each year and cause up to 50 million injuries. And, the fact is, every one of those deaths and injuries is preventable."
FPT - I see @Leon once again totally fails to comprehend anyone who lives outside London by predicting no-one will have cars by 2050.
People will always have cars.
I believe @leon was predicting self driving electric vehicles that you summon when you need one (I could have just made that all up). That isn't London centric prediction but applies everywhere. It seems a reasonable prediction for the future and a comparison with the end of the use of the horse seems apt. Doesn't mean it will happen, but reasonable.
It doesn't. In London, you only very occasionally need a car - i.e. where you travel somewhere out of town on a trip at the weekend, or need to carry heavy luggage and ferry friends - whereas everywhere else you use a car several times every day: to drop off the kids, drive to work, go shopping, pick up the kids, and then to head out to the gym later. Maybe drop stuff at the tip too.
You thus want one on the drive all the time with all your stuff in it, and the kids car seats, ready to use at any time - so you get your own.
It may be on a PCP or hire-purchase, rather than owned outright, but it's definitely "your" car and that's the model 90%+ of the country uses and will continue to use.
@leon isn't talking about NOW, we are talking about some future. Stuff changes. You are always telling us we aren't thinking enough. Think about where it comes almost instantly, with a child seat if you want one, with a trailer if you want one. Waiting for you by the time you have put your shoes on and locked up. All paid for by an annual fee. No car not starting in the morning, or having a flat, no MOT, no service, no filling up or charging, etc, etc.
Go on do what you tell us to do. Think out of the box. It is like saying in 1918 that planes are no use for public transport because they only carry one or two people, don't go far and you would have to learn to fly them.
It won't come "almost instantly" anywhere in the country because there'd never be enough fleet to supply everyone from regional depots to all who want it at peak times in an economical fashion. People sometimes need to leave their house in minutes, and not wait an unspecified time. Moreover, people like to choose their own seat, their own stuff, their own kids stuff, their own colour, with their own music, and they like it on their own drive RIGHT THERE so it's ready whenever they want it. People will pay for convenience. And all the issues you list with possessing a car there are either very rare or total non-issues.
The future? No, this is just a myopic fantasy of some excitable Mets.
You're doing it again. Not thinking of what the future may bring. I covered the issues you brought up before (child seat and going to the dump). Let's cover another you have just brought up; music. A few years ago that would have been an issue. You would have had to take your own CDs rather than leaving them in your car. Not now. All on the phone. What else may change in the FUTURE. Note we are talking about the FUTURE. So programmable seats. My car already has that. If it really bugs you it is not inconceivable you could change the colour of the car. I can already change the colour of the lighting in my car. How do you know we can't some time in the future get a car to you within minutes and one that hasn't got a flat battery or flat tyre?
As far as it being a met elite fantasy, well I live in a village with no bus service and a station a mile away so I drive a car everywhere except when going to London, but I can imagine a different future, even if it may not happen.
No, I'm not doing anything again - other than simply disagreeing with you.
Taking present day trends and projecting them way out into the future with the air of inevitability is the oldest trick in the book for futurologists but forgets that they can change shape, diverge, converge or even go into regression.
Your post is simply doubling down on your precious one with a few more capital letters. I want to own my own ride and have the convenience of it on my own driveway, ready for me whenever I like.
Yes, we can all exercise fantasies and imagination of what might be different in the future but what we're really discussing here is how smartphones have made the hailing of cabs in major cities and short-term car hire far more convenient than once they were.
That does not a revolution make.
I'm not saying it will happen. I made that entirely clear in every post that it might not. I even gave the example of the flying cars which never happened. I simply made the point that @leon's proposition was not silly. The difference is you are arguing it won't happen, not may not happen. I do appreciate this is a matter of opinion. As far as capitals are concerned I used them where they are used in every day life (CD) or to emphasize FUTURE because people seem to forget @leon said 2050 and not tomorrow. 2050 is a long way off.
Cars eventually became much cheaper than running horses and a carriage.
Compared to the price of running a car in the 1970s, cars today are ridiculously cheap.
When we are all running electric cars on overnight surplus energy and there's much less to maintain than on a ICE car, why won't they continue to get cheaper? Electric cars aren't cheaper now, but in 20 years?
If we aren't living in extreme poverty, people will want their own transport. Taxis are inconvenient and rubbish now - why does having an AI driver instead of a meat based one make any difference?
That's quite easy to answer. I don't know the numbers but I'd guess that taxis are about 5% of cars on the road. Now imagine a world where taxis are 95% of the cars on the road. The convenience factor would be far better. When essentially every vehicle is self-driving, electric, and immediately summonable the whole argument about the benefits of owning and driving a car will look utterly different.
"Immediately summonable"? To where?
Will it carry a bicycle? Camping gear? Will I get fined if I stink it out with fish and chips?
Will the AI driver be able to get out and open the gates on a private off-road track?
Those are the 5% cases. The rest of us will be watching Netflix in our robo-taxis.
Maybe. You would need sufficient such that waiting times (and I'm talking about rural areas here) are sensible. That would require at certain times a glut of vehicles (commuting/school times, evenings, weekends) and at other times no vehicles at all.
No idea how cost effective this will be or practical but we shall see no doubt.
If NHS Managers were put in charge of Uber, you could wait two years for it to arrive.
Slightly tongue in cheek, but the strongest correlating indicator of Conservative voting that I have ever found in 20 years of canvassing is car related.
- Those washing their car in their driveway on a Saturday morning.
Slightly disconcertingly for the blue meanies, apart from my Dad, I don't know anyone who does this now. Why bother when its a tenner at the local hand car wash?
The gangs of trafficked Kurdish vagabonds don't even use the 'Two Bucket' system which is the absolute minimum for not fucking your clear coat. One session at one of these refugee camps and it's done for.
Correcting a fucked clear coat, if it's not too far gone, is a lot of work and you're knocking a couple of grand off the value at least. Unless you can offload it onto to some mug who can't judge the fuckedness state of clear coats.
I wonder what a clear coat is. I mostly just rely on rain to wash off my 2015 Fiesta. I never give my car a thought except when I'm actually in it or the MoT demand comes round.
PB is a useful reminder that there are a multitude of different ways to live...
For me, a car is simply a tool that allows me to do what I need/want to do. If I could do the things I wanted to do without a car, I'd not have one. I find no great joy in driving; the joy can come from what I do at the destination.
I also don't see my car as an extension of my psyche, or a reflection of who I am. It's a car.
And that is, I think, the heart of the matter. Once a car is a means to an end, then it's possible that there are other ways of achieving the same ends better. In fact, it's possible that car use gets in the way of achieving those ends.
The car is an interesting machine. It promises individual freedom, but relies on infrastructure that is provided collectively. It provides convenience for its owner but inconveniences others. It allows us to be ourselves but cuts us off from other people. It lets us do more but makes us less active. It opens up choices for some and restricts choices for others. Politically it's interesting because of all the things we do on a day to day basis it probably imposes more negative externalities, global and local, than anything else. Increasingly I think the political left-right divide comes down to whether you take the idea of these externalities seriously or not. The right can get a lot of mileage out of telling their voters that they can do what they want and any negative effects on other people are unimportant. The danger for the left is that they overestimate the extent to which people are willing, or feel able to afford, to care.
I think the Cons are absolutely right to pick a fight over car ownership because most of us have one and many of us realise the impracticalities of acting too quickly to dispossess us of them, or penalising ownership which the ULEZ has shown so clearly.
It is the one area (and I can't for the life of me think of any other) where actually the Cons might be able to claw some votes back and it seems that Lab are handing these to them on a plate.
Heat Punps
Disaster waiting to happen.
They sound bloody awful.
My next door neighbour has one.
Ive yet to hear him say anything good about it.
On the other hand he really likes his solar panels.
They're the norm in rural France and seem to work fine (not just in modern houses), yet every time I hear about them in the UK they don't seem up to the job, so there must be something in the way we're rolling them out here that's going awry. I'm renovating a barn there currently and there was no question the heating would be air source heat pump, our neighbours all have it too. Perhaps because they are topping up with wood burners, or perhaps the houses are just less draughty and better insulated.
I really don't know much about them other than the bits I read on here and eslsewhere but working better in France may be due to warmer climate. All the sources seem to indicate that air source heat pumps work better when it is warmer/hotter outside. Certainly the only person I know who has had one fitted said it was great in the summer but really bad in the winter.
Definitely not down to climate. In the seasons they're used it's much colder in central France than most of the UK. And the houses are snug and warm too. I think insulation and draughts must be a key difference.
Are heat pumps widely used in Doubs ?
O/T Steve Smith and Travis Head looking dangerous for England here.
Slightly tongue in cheek, but the strongest correlating indicator of Conservative voting that I have ever found in 20 years of canvassing is car related.
- Those washing their car in their driveway on a Saturday morning.
Slightly disconcertingly for the blue meanies, apart from my Dad, I don't know anyone who does this now. Why bother when its a tenner at the local hand car wash?
The gangs of trafficked Kurdish vagabonds don't even use the 'Two Bucket' system which is the absolute minimum for not fucking your clear coat. One session at one of these refugee camps and it's done for.
Correcting a fucked clear coat, if it's not too far gone, is a lot of work and you're knocking a couple of grand off the value at least. Unless you can offload it onto to some mug who can't judge the fuckedness state of clear coats.
I wonder what a clear coat is. I mostly just rely on rain to wash off my 2015 Fiesta. I never give my car a thought except when I'm actually in it or the MoT demand comes round.
PB is a useful reminder that there are a multitude of different ways to live...
For me, a car is simply a tool that allows me to do what I need/want to do. If I could do the things I wanted to do without a car, I'd not have one. I find no great joy in driving; the joy can come from what I do at the destination.
I also don't see my car as an extension of my psyche, or a reflection of who I am. It's a car.
And that is, I think, the heart of the matter. Once a car is a means to an end, then it's possible that there are other ways of achieving the same ends better. In fact, it's possible that car use gets in the way of achieving those ends.
The car is an interesting machine. It promises individual freedom, but relies on infrastructure that is provided collectively. It provides convenience for its owner but inconveniences others. It allows us to be ourselves but cuts us off from other people. It lets us do more but makes us less active. It opens up choices for some and restricts choices for others. Politically it's interesting because of all the things we do on a day to day basis it probably imposes more negative externalities, global and local, than anything else. Increasingly I think the political left-right divide comes down to whether you take the idea of these externalities seriously or not. The right can get a lot of mileage out of telling their voters that they can do what they want and any negative effects on other people are unimportant. The danger for the left is that they overestimate the extent to which people are willing, or feel able to afford, to care.
I think the Cons are absolutely right to pick a fight over car ownership because most of us have one and many of us realise the impracticalities of acting too quickly to dispossess us of them, or penalising ownership which the ULEZ has shown so clearly.
It is the one area (and I can't for the life of me think of any other) where actually the Cons might be able to claw some votes back and it seems that Lab are handing these to them on a plate.
Heat Punps
Disaster waiting to happen.
They sound bloody awful.
My next door neighbour has one.
Ive yet to hear him say anything good about it.
On the other hand he really likes his solar panels.
Solar panels provide some benefit.
The idea of shivvering for days in January whilst my heat pump struggles to churn out 15C through a really cold snap fills me with horror.
Having 100 people pay for your product and then not use it 95% of the time seems a far better way to make money than having 100 people only pay for 1 of your product and then share it. This is why Netflix are clamping down on shared accounts.
No making half the cars but taking the same sort of money overall is a better business. That's what they want to do. They aren't investing so heavily in order to lose money.
FPT - I see @Leon once again totally fails to comprehend anyone who lives outside London by predicting no-one will have cars by 2050.
People will always have cars.
I believe @leon was predicting self driving electric vehicles that you summon when you need one (I could have just made that all up). That isn't London centric prediction but applies everywhere. It seems a reasonable prediction for the future and a comparison with the end of the use of the horse seems apt. Doesn't mean it will happen, but reasonable.
It doesn't. In London, you only very occasionally need a car - i.e. where you travel somewhere out of town on a trip at the weekend, or need to carry heavy luggage and ferry friends - whereas everywhere else you use a car several times every day: to drop off the kids, drive to work, go shopping, pick up the kids, and then to head out to the gym later. Maybe drop stuff at the tip too.
You thus want one on the drive all the time with all your stuff in it, and the kids car seats, ready to use at any time - so you get your own.
It may be on a PCP or hire-purchase, rather than owned outright, but it's definitely "your" car and that's the model 90%+ of the country uses and will continue to use.
@leon isn't talking about NOW, we are talking about some future. Stuff changes. You are always telling us we aren't thinking enough. Think about where it comes almost instantly, with a child seat if you want one, with a trailer if you want one. Waiting for you by the time you have put your shoes on and locked up. All paid for by an annual fee. No car not starting in the morning, or having a flat, no MOT, no service, no filling up or charging, etc, etc.
Go on do what you tell us to do. Think out of the box. It is like saying in 1918 that planes are no use for public transport because they only carry one or two people, don't go far and you would have to learn to fly them.
It won't come "almost instantly" anywhere in the country because there'd never be enough fleet to supply everyone from regional depots to all who want it at peak times in an economical fashion. People sometimes need to leave their house in minutes, and not wait an unspecified time. Moreover, people like to choose their own seat, their own stuff, their own kids stuff, their own colour, with their own music, and they like it on their own drive RIGHT THERE so it's ready whenever they want it. People will pay for convenience. And all the issues you list with possessing a car there are either very rare or total non-issues.
The future? No, this is just a myopic fantasy of some excitable Mets.
You're doing it again. Not thinking of what the future may bring. I covered the issues you brought up before (child seat and going to the dump). Let's cover another you have just brought up; music. A few years ago that would have been an issue. You would have had to take your own CDs rather than leaving them in your car. Not now. All on the phone. What else may change in the FUTURE. Note we are talking about the FUTURE. So programmable seats. My car already has that. If it really bugs you it is not inconceivable you could change the colour of the car. I can already change the colour of the lighting in my car. How do you know we can't some time in the future get a car to you within minutes and one that hasn't got a flat battery or flat tyre?
As far as it being a met elite fantasy, well I live in a village with no bus service and a station a mile away so I drive a car everywhere except when going to London, but I can imagine a different future, even if it may not happen.
No, I'm not doing anything again - other than simply disagreeing with you.
Taking present day trends and projecting them way out into the future with the air of inevitability is the oldest trick in the book for futurologists but forgets that they can change shape, diverge, converge or even go into regression.
Your post is simply doubling down on your precious one with a few more capital letters. I want to own my own ride and have the convenience of it on my own driveway, ready for me whenever I like.
Yes, we can all exercise fantasies and imagination of what might be different in the future but what we're really discussing here is how smartphones have made the hailing of cabs in major cities and short-term car hire far more convenient than once they were.
That does not a revolution make.
I'm not saying it will happen. I made that entirely clear in every post that it might not. I even gave the example of the flying cars which never happened. I simply made the point that @leon's proposition was not silly. The difference is you are arguing it won't happen, not may not happen. I do appreciate this is a matter of opinion. As far as capitals are concerned I used them where they are used in every day life (CD) or to emphasize FUTURE because people seem to forget @leon said 2050 and not tomorrow. 2050 is a long way off.
The media reporting of this "heatwave" was just bizarre. The idea that 35 degrees in Alicante is unusual in July is just plan silly. It was the same with the temperatures in Greece. In july and August it is always very hot there.
But we can quantify "very hot," can we not? There's very hot, and there's the record for Sardinia of 47.3 set two weeks ago. Very very very very hot, if you prefer it put like that. A record.
What is exceptionally pathetic is the "the fires weren't caused by climate change, they were caused by arson" claim. Arson works if and only if conditions are exceptionally hot and dry. The argument is like saying "People claim smart motorways are unusually dangerous, but if you examine the actual accidents on them, it always turns out they are caused by cars and lorries, not the actual motorway."
It doesn't have to be exceptionally hot and dry for arson. Sure it helps, but it isn't necessary. It can simply be hot and dry.
I suspect arsonism is pretty much a constant - if you think it's a good idea you probably always think it's a good idea, it doesn't occur to you out of the blue or because it's trending on twitter hushmamouf X, so its relative effectiveness varies directly with hotness and dryness. Results as spectacular as Rhodes require exceptional conditions.
And there's another oddity, the claim that the people on Rhodes were represented as refugees when in fact they were holidaymakers. They looked to me like both. I suspect they were getting a fair bit of typically British hate for being either 1. the sort of ghastly poor people who go on 5 star holidays to greece or 2. the sort of rich tory bastards who go on 5 star holidays to greece.
The media reporting of this "heatwave" was just bizarre. The idea that 35 degrees in Alicante is unusual in July is just plan silly. It was the same with the temperatures in Greece. In july and August it is always very hot there.
But we can quantify "very hot," can we not? There's very hot, and there's the record for Sardinia of 47.3 set two weeks ago. Very very very very hot, if you prefer it put like that. A record.
What is exceptionally pathetic is the "the fires weren't caused by climate change, they were caused by arson" claim. Arson works if and only if conditions are exceptionally hot and dry. The argument is like saying "People claim smart motorways are unusually dangerous, but if you examine the actual accidents on them, it always turns out they are caused by cars and lorries, not the actual motorway."
My daughter and her family decided to book a late all inclusive holiday in August and told the travel agents they would go anywhere but fire affected areas
It seems she has found an excellent holiday in Morocco but this was through an independent travel agent as TUI, JET2, and the like were almost aggressively trying to send them to Southern Europe no doubt as they have huge investments in these areas
It will be interesting how holidaymakers react to visiting these areas in the future in peak season
Tunisia, I am told, is insanely cheap right now. No one wants to go because terror
Slightly tongue in cheek, but the strongest correlating indicator of Conservative voting that I have ever found in 20 years of canvassing is car related.
- Those washing their car in their driveway on a Saturday morning.
Slightly disconcertingly for the blue meanies, apart from my Dad, I don't know anyone who does this now. Why bother when its a tenner at the local hand car wash?
The gangs of trafficked Kurdish vagabonds don't even use the 'Two Bucket' system which is the absolute minimum for not fucking your clear coat. One session at one of these refugee camps and it's done for.
Correcting a fucked clear coat, if it's not too far gone, is a lot of work and you're knocking a couple of grand off the value at least. Unless you can offload it onto to some mug who can't judge the fuckedness state of clear coats.
I wonder what a clear coat is. I mostly just rely on rain to wash off my 2015 Fiesta. I never give my car a thought except when I'm actually in it or the MoT demand comes round.
PB is a useful reminder that there are a multitude of different ways to live...
For me, a car is simply a tool that allows me to do what I need/want to do. If I could do the things I wanted to do without a car, I'd not have one. I find no great joy in driving; the joy can come from what I do at the destination.
I also don't see my car as an extension of my psyche, or a reflection of who I am. It's a car.
And that is, I think, the heart of the matter. Once a car is a means to an end, then it's possible that there are other ways of achieving the same ends better. In fact, it's possible that car use gets in the way of achieving those ends.
The car is an interesting machine. It promises individual freedom, but relies on infrastructure that is provided collectively. It provides convenience for its owner but inconveniences others. It allows us to be ourselves but cuts us off from other people. It lets us do more but makes us less active. It opens up choices for some and restricts choices for others. Politically it's interesting because of all the things we do on a day to day basis it probably imposes more negative externalities, global and local, than anything else. Increasingly I think the political left-right divide comes down to whether you take the idea of these externalities seriously or not. The right can get a lot of mileage out of telling their voters that they can do what they want and any negative effects on other people are unimportant. The danger for the left is that they overestimate the extent to which people are willing, or feel able to afford, to care.
I think the Cons are absolutely right to pick a fight over car ownership because most of us have one and many of us realise the impracticalities of acting too quickly to dispossess us of them, or penalising ownership which the ULEZ has shown so clearly.
It is the one area (and I can't for the life of me think of any other) where actually the Cons might be able to claw some votes back and it seems that Lab are handing these to them on a plate.
Heat Punps
Disaster waiting to happen.
They sound bloody awful.
My next door neighbour has one.
Ive yet to hear him say anything good about it.
On the other hand he really likes his solar panels.
They're the norm in rural France and seem to work fine (not just in modern houses), yet every time I hear about them in the UK they don't seem up to the job, so there must be something in the way we're rolling them out here that's going awry. I'm renovating a barn there currently and there was no question the heating would be air source heat pump, our neighbours all have it too. Perhaps because they are topping up with wood burners, or perhaps the houses are just less draughty and better insulated.
I really don't know much about them other than the bits I read on here and eslsewhere but working better in France may be due to warmer climate. All the sources seem to indicate that air source heat pumps work better when it is warmer/hotter outside. Certainly the only person I know who has had one fitted said it was great in the summer but really bad in the winter.
That seems suboptimal
I should add that that is my understanding and very limited experience based on one other person. I am not any sort of expert on these things.
Our heating has been by Air Source Heat Pump since 2010. No complaints here. I should point out though:
- We have very good insulation - Underfloor heating - No gas in our village, so the alternative was oil
We're planning to move house next year - another major renovation or self-build. Would we install an ASHP again? Absolutely.
The media reporting of this "heatwave" was just bizarre. The idea that 35 degrees in Alicante is unusual in July is just plan silly. It was the same with the temperatures in Greece. In july and August it is always very hot there.
But we can quantify "very hot," can we not? There's very hot, and there's the record for Sardinia of 47.3 set two weeks ago. Very very very very hot, if you prefer it put like that. A record.
What is exceptionally pathetic is the "the fires weren't caused by climate change, they were caused by arson" claim. Arson works if and only if conditions are exceptionally hot and dry. The argument is like saying "People claim smart motorways are unusually dangerous, but if you examine the actual accidents on them, it always turns out they are caused by cars and lorries, not the actual motorway."
My daughter and her family decided to book a late all inclusive holiday in August and told the travel agents they would go anywhere but fire affected areas
It seems she has found an excellent holiday in Morocco but this was through an independent travel agent as TUI, JET2, and the like were almost aggressively trying to send them to Southern Europe no doubt as they have huge investments in these areas
It will be interesting how holidaymakers react to visiting these areas in the future in peak season
Tunisia, I am told, is insanely cheap right now. No one wants to go because terror
Morocco was not really cheap at nearly £7,000 for a family of 4 for 14 days, but it is 4 star and all inclusive
The media reporting of this "heatwave" was just bizarre. The idea that 35 degrees in Alicante is unusual in July is just plan silly. It was the same with the temperatures in Greece. In july and August it is always very hot there.
But we can quantify "very hot," can we not? There's very hot, and there's the record for Sardinia of 47.3 set two weeks ago. Very very very very hot, if you prefer it put like that. A record.
What is exceptionally pathetic is the "the fires weren't caused by climate change, they were caused by arson" claim. Arson works if and only if conditions are exceptionally hot and dry. The argument is like saying "People claim smart motorways are unusually dangerous, but if you examine the actual accidents on them, it always turns out they are caused by cars and lorries, not the actual motorway."
My daughter and her family decided to book a late all inclusive holiday in August and told the travel agents they would go anywhere but fire affected areas
It seems she has found an excellent holiday in Morocco but this was through an independent travel agent as TUI, JET2, and the like were almost aggressively trying to send them to Southern Europe no doubt as they have huge investments in these areas
It will be interesting how holidaymakers react to visiting these areas in the future in peak season
Weirdly, the only sort of place you know you are safe from forest fires, is the sort of place which has just been ravaged by huge forest fires.
FPT - I see @Leon once again totally fails to comprehend anyone who lives outside London by predicting no-one will have cars by 2050.
People will always have cars.
I believe @leon was predicting self driving electric vehicles that you summon when you need one (I could have just made that all up). That isn't London centric prediction but applies everywhere. It seems a reasonable prediction for the future and a comparison with the end of the use of the horse seems apt. Doesn't mean it will happen, but reasonable.
It doesn't. In London, you only very occasionally need a car - i.e. where you travel somewhere out of town on a trip at the weekend, or need to carry heavy luggage and ferry friends - whereas everywhere else you use a car several times every day: to drop off the kids, drive to work, go shopping, pick up the kids, and then to head out to the gym later. Maybe drop stuff at the tip too.
You thus want one on the drive all the time with all your stuff in it, and the kids car seats, ready to use at any time - so you get your own.
It may be on a PCP or hire-purchase, rather than owned outright, but it's definitely "your" car and that's the model 90%+ of the country uses and will continue to use.
@leon isn't talking about NOW, we are talking about some future. Stuff changes. You are always telling us we aren't thinking enough. Think about where it comes almost instantly, with a child seat if you want one, with a trailer if you want one. Waiting for you by the time you have put your shoes on and locked up. All paid for by an annual fee. No car not starting in the morning, or having a flat, no MOT, no service, no filling up or charging, etc, etc.
Go on do what you tell us to do. Think out of the box. It is like saying in 1918 that planes are no use for public transport because they only carry one or two people, don't go far and you would have to learn to fly them.
It won't come "almost instantly" anywhere in the country because there'd never be enough fleet to supply everyone from regional depots to all who want it at peak times in an economical fashion. People sometimes need to leave their house in minutes, and not wait an unspecified time. Moreover, people like to choose their own seat, their own stuff, their own kids stuff, their own colour, with their own music, and they like it on their own drive RIGHT THERE so it's ready whenever they want it. People will pay for convenience. And all the issues you list with possessing a car there are either very rare or total non-issues.
The future? No, this is just a myopic fantasy of some excitable Mets.
You're doing it again. Not thinking of what the future may bring. I covered the issues you brought up before (child seat and going to the dump). Let's cover another you have just brought up; music. A few years ago that would have been an issue. You would have had to take your own CDs rather than leaving them in your car. Not now. All on the phone. What else may change in the FUTURE. Note we are talking about the FUTURE. So programmable seats. My car already has that. If it really bugs you it is not inconceivable you could change the colour of the car. I can already change the colour of the lighting in my car. How do you know we can't some time in the future get a car to you within minutes and one that hasn't got a flat battery or flat tyre?
As far as it being a met elite fantasy, well I live in a village with no bus service and a station a mile away so I drive a car everywhere except when going to London, but I can imagine a different future, even if it may not happen.
No, I'm not doing anything again - other than simply disagreeing with you.
Taking present day trends and projecting them way out into the future with the air of inevitability is the oldest trick in the book for futurologists but forgets that they can change shape, diverge, converge or even go into regression.
Your post is simply doubling down on your precious one with a few more capital letters. I want to own my own ride and have the convenience of it on my own driveway, ready for me whenever I like.
Yes, we can all exercise fantasies and imagination of what might be different in the future but what we're really discussing here is how smartphones have made the hailing of cabs in major cities and short-term car hire far more convenient than once they were.
That does not a revolution make.
I'm not saying it will happen. I made that entirely clear in every post that it might not. I even gave the example of the flying cars which never happened. I simply made the point that @leon's proposition was not silly. The difference is you are arguing it won't happen, not may not happen. I do appreciate this is a matter of opinion. As far as capitals are concerned I used them where they are used in every day life (CD) or to emphasize FUTURE because people seem to forget @leon said 2050 and not tomorrow. 2050 is a long way off.
The problem with heat pumps is that the efficiency is dependent on the output temperature being as low as possible. [Theoretical maximum efficiency is Thot / (Thot - Tcold) although you won't get anything like that]
With outdoor temperatures below a certain point, or radiator temperatures above a certain point, you just won't get a return on investment. You might as well just have direct electrical heating with room thermostats.
To use a heat pump properly I'd have to demolish my house as the insulation isn't really up to it.
In the long term that's probably the best option and no great loss (1920s bungalow) but I wonder how many more recent houses would need the same treatment. Probably more than we'd like, as a lot of 1980s housing really was poor.
The media reporting of this "heatwave" was just bizarre. The idea that 35 degrees in Alicante is unusual in July is just plan silly. It was the same with the temperatures in Greece. In july and August it is always very hot there.
But we can quantify "very hot," can we not? There's very hot, and there's the record for Sardinia of 47.3 set two weeks ago. Very very very very hot, if you prefer it put like that. A record.
What is exceptionally pathetic is the "the fires weren't caused by climate change, they were caused by arson" claim. Arson works if and only if conditions are exceptionally hot and dry. The argument is like saying "People claim smart motorways are unusually dangerous, but if you examine the actual accidents on them, it always turns out they are caused by cars and lorries, not the actual motorway."
My daughter and her family decided to book a late all inclusive holiday in August and told the travel agents they would go anywhere but fire affected areas
It seems she has found an excellent holiday in Morocco but this was through an independent travel agent as TUI, JET2, and the like were almost aggressively trying to send them to Southern Europe no doubt as they have huge investments in these areas
It will be interesting how holidaymakers react to visiting these areas in the future in peak season
Weirdly, the only sort of place you know you are safe from forest fires, is the sort of place which has just been ravaged by huge forest fires.
Slightly tongue in cheek, but the strongest correlating indicator of Conservative voting that I have ever found in 20 years of canvassing is car related.
- Those washing their car in their driveway on a Saturday morning.
Slightly disconcertingly for the blue meanies, apart from my Dad, I don't know anyone who does this now. Why bother when its a tenner at the local hand car wash?
The gangs of trafficked Kurdish vagabonds don't even use the 'Two Bucket' system which is the absolute minimum for not fucking your clear coat. One session at one of these refugee camps and it's done for.
Correcting a fucked clear coat, if it's not too far gone, is a lot of work and you're knocking a couple of grand off the value at least. Unless you can offload it onto to some mug who can't judge the fuckedness state of clear coats.
I wonder what a clear coat is. I mostly just rely on rain to wash off my 2015 Fiesta. I never give my car a thought except when I'm actually in it or the MoT demand comes round.
PB is a useful reminder that there are a multitude of different ways to live...
For me, a car is simply a tool that allows me to do what I need/want to do. If I could do the things I wanted to do without a car, I'd not have one. I find no great joy in driving; the joy can come from what I do at the destination.
I also don't see my car as an extension of my psyche, or a reflection of who I am. It's a car.
And that is, I think, the heart of the matter. Once a car is a means to an end, then it's possible that there are other ways of achieving the same ends better. In fact, it's possible that car use gets in the way of achieving those ends.
The car is an interesting machine. It promises individual freedom, but relies on infrastructure that is provided collectively. It provides convenience for its owner but inconveniences others. It allows us to be ourselves but cuts us off from other people. It lets us do more but makes us less active. It opens up choices for some and restricts choices for others. Politically it's interesting because of all the things we do on a day to day basis it probably imposes more negative externalities, global and local, than anything else. Increasingly I think the political left-right divide comes down to whether you take the idea of these externalities seriously or not. The right can get a lot of mileage out of telling their voters that they can do what they want and any negative effects on other people are unimportant. The danger for the left is that they overestimate the extent to which people are willing, or feel able to afford, to care.
I think the Cons are absolutely right to pick a fight over car ownership because most of us have one and many of us realise the impracticalities of acting too quickly to dispossess us of them, or penalising ownership which the ULEZ has shown so clearly.
It is the one area (and I can't for the life of me think of any other) where actually the Cons might be able to claw some votes back and it seems that Lab are handing these to them on a plate.
Heat Punps
Disaster waiting to happen.
They sound bloody awful.
My next door neighbour has one.
Ive yet to hear him say anything good about it.
On the other hand he really likes his solar panels.
They're the norm in rural France and seem to work fine (not just in modern houses), yet every time I hear about them in the UK they don't seem up to the job, so there must be something in the way we're rolling them out here that's going awry. I'm renovating a barn there currently and there was no question the heating would be air source heat pump, our neighbours all have it too. Perhaps because they are topping up with wood burners, or perhaps the houses are just less draughty and better insulated.
I really don't know much about them other than the bits I read on here and eslsewhere but working better in France may be due to warmer climate. All the sources seem to indicate that air source heat pumps work better when it is warmer/hotter outside. Certainly the only person I know who has had one fitted said it was great in the summer but really bad in the winter.
Definitely not down to climate. In the seasons they're used it's much colder in central France than most of the UK. And the houses are snug and warm too. I think insulation and draughts must be a key difference.
Are heat pumps widely used in Doubs ?
O/T Steve Smith and Travis Head looking dangerous for England here.
The media reporting of this "heatwave" was just bizarre. The idea that 35 degrees in Alicante is unusual in July is just plan silly. It was the same with the temperatures in Greece. In july and August it is always very hot there.
But we can quantify "very hot," can we not? There's very hot, and there's the record for Sardinia of 47.3 set two weeks ago. Very very very very hot, if you prefer it put like that. A record.
What is exceptionally pathetic is the "the fires weren't caused by climate change, they were caused by arson" claim. Arson works if and only if conditions are exceptionally hot and dry. The argument is like saying "People claim smart motorways are unusually dangerous, but if you examine the actual accidents on them, it always turns out they are caused by cars and lorries, not the actual motorway."
My daughter and her family decided to book a late all inclusive holiday in August and told the travel agents they would go anywhere but fire affected areas
It seems she has found an excellent holiday in Morocco but this was through an independent travel agent as TUI, JET2, and the like were almost aggressively trying to send them to Southern Europe no doubt as they have huge investments in these areas
It will be interesting how holidaymakers react to visiting these areas in the future in peak season
Weirdly, the only sort of place you know you are safe from forest fires, is the sort of place which has just been ravaged by huge forest fires.
The problem with heat pumps is that the efficiency is dependent on the output temperature being as low as possible. [Theoretical maximum efficiency is Thot / (Thot - Tcold) although you won't get anything like that]
With outdoor temperatures below a certain point, or radiator temperatures above a certain point, you just won't get a return on investment. You might as well just have direct electrical heating with room thermostats.
To use a heat pump properly I'd have to demolish my house as the insulation isn't really up to it.
In the long term that's probably the best option and no great loss (1920s bungalow) but I wonder how many more recent houses would need the same treatment. Probably more than we'd like, as a lot of 1980s housing really was poor.
The media reporting of this "heatwave" was just bizarre. The idea that 35 degrees in Alicante is unusual in July is just plan silly. It was the same with the temperatures in Greece. In july and August it is always very hot there.
But we can quantify "very hot," can we not? There's very hot, and there's the record for Sardinia of 47.3 set two weeks ago. Very very very very hot, if you prefer it put like that. A record.
What is exceptionally pathetic is the "the fires weren't caused by climate change, they were caused by arson" claim. Arson works if and only if conditions are exceptionally hot and dry. The argument is like saying "People claim smart motorways are unusually dangerous, but if you examine the actual accidents on them, it always turns out they are caused by cars and lorries, not the actual motorway."
My daughter and her family decided to book a late all inclusive holiday in August and told the travel agents they would go anywhere but fire affected areas
It seems she has found an excellent holiday in Morocco but this was through an independent travel agent as TUI, JET2, and the like were almost aggressively trying to send them to Southern Europe no doubt as they have huge investments in these areas
It will be interesting how holidaymakers react to visiting these areas in the future in peak season
Tunisia, I am told, is insanely cheap right now. No one wants to go because terror
Morocco was not really cheap at nearly £7,000 for a family of 4 for 14 days, but it is 4 star and all inclusive
TBF I just checked and Tunisia in August is not much cheaper than that for a good four star
Clearly the bargains have gone, this being peak season, and perhaps Tunisia is gaining as people avoid other "hotspots"
England's 2nd innings tail shoulda got 50 more runs. GAH
Rain is coming. I don't think it matters.
Clears up at 4, met office says. looks solid on the radar though
Yes, the Met Office rainfall map for the next few hours is distinctly at odds with the one for the past few. In particular the future map shows the band of rain over northern France whereas I can tell you it over south west England.
The media reporting of this "heatwave" was just bizarre. The idea that 35 degrees in Alicante is unusual in July is just plan silly. It was the same with the temperatures in Greece. In july and August it is always very hot there.
But we can quantify "very hot," can we not? There's very hot, and there's the record for Sardinia of 47.3 set two weeks ago. Very very very very hot, if you prefer it put like that. A record.
What is exceptionally pathetic is the "the fires weren't caused by climate change, they were caused by arson" claim. Arson works if and only if conditions are exceptionally hot and dry. The argument is like saying "People claim smart motorways are unusually dangerous, but if you examine the actual accidents on them, it always turns out they are caused by cars and lorries, not the actual motorway."
My daughter and her family decided to book a late all inclusive holiday in August and told the travel agents they would go anywhere but fire affected areas
It seems she has found an excellent holiday in Morocco but this was through an independent travel agent as TUI, JET2, and the like were almost aggressively trying to send them to Southern Europe no doubt as they have huge investments in these areas
It will be interesting how holidaymakers react to visiting these areas in the future in peak season
Weirdly, the only sort of place you know you are safe from forest fires, is the sort of place which has just been ravaged by huge forest fires.
Fuertaventura. No trees. They were all chopped down to build ships many years ago.
Cars eventually became much cheaper than running horses and a carriage.
Compared to the price of running a car in the 1970s, cars today are ridiculously cheap.
When we are all running electric cars on overnight surplus energy and there's much less to maintain than on a ICE car, why won't they continue to get cheaper? Electric cars aren't cheaper now, but in 20 years?
If we aren't living in extreme poverty, people will want their own transport. Taxis are inconvenient and rubbish now - why does having an AI driver instead of a meat based one make any difference?
That's quite easy to answer. I don't know the numbers but I'd guess that taxis are about 5% of cars on the road. Now imagine a world where taxis are 95% of the cars on the road. The convenience factor would be far better. When essentially every vehicle is self-driving, electric, and immediately summonable the whole argument about the benefits of owning and driving a car will look utterly different.
"Immediately summonable"? To where?
Will it carry a bicycle? Camping gear? Will I get fined if I stink it out with fish and chips?
Will the AI driver be able to get out and open the gates on a private off-road track?
Those are the 5% cases. The rest of us will be watching Netflix in our robo-taxis.
There are specific times when our current use of cars becomes a problem [putting aside pollution as eventually solveable].
Perhaps we just need to solve school transport and "the commute" rather than reinventing personal transport for all?
Or just leave people alone?
Unlike some I don't see car ownership as a problem that needs to be solved.
@OnlyLivingBoy made some interesting comments about the differences between left and right. I don't disagree in some respects.
But I feel that increasingly the State goes looking for solutions to minor problems rather than address the fact that it is too big, and needs to give everyone more freedom by cutting itself.
My point is that there's a large cadre of people in public policy who see it as their job to use the power of the State to change people's values, and the way they live, because they disagree with both.
They tend to be concentrated on the Left.
How strange the ruling class is still in power, then, what with leftwing moles having taken over senior positions in one of its most important institutions, the state, where they presumably do leftwing things like rabble-rousing the plebs to rise up against their oppressors, go on strike, reject consumerism, reject what their "betters" try to fill their heads with, etc.
Any public official who's into that kind of thing, drop me a message - I'd like to invite you for dinner.
England's 2nd innings tail shoulda got 50 more runs. GAH
Rain is coming. I don't think it matters.
Clears up at 4, met office says. looks solid on the radar though
Yes, the Met Office rainfall map for the next few hours is distinctly at odds with the one for the past few. In particular the future map shows the band of rain over northern France whereas I can tell you it over south west England.
Never trust the forecast map! Always look at the observation map, only thing is there's a 15 to 30 min delay.
The media reporting of this "heatwave" was just bizarre. The idea that 35 degrees in Alicante is unusual in July is just plan silly. It was the same with the temperatures in Greece. In july and August it is always very hot there.
But we can quantify "very hot," can we not? There's very hot, and there's the record for Sardinia of 47.3 set two weeks ago. Very very very very hot, if you prefer it put like that. A record.
What is exceptionally pathetic is the "the fires weren't caused by climate change, they were caused by arson" claim. Arson works if and only if conditions are exceptionally hot and dry. The argument is like saying "People claim smart motorways are unusually dangerous, but if you examine the actual accidents on them, it always turns out they are caused by cars and lorries, not the actual motorway."
My daughter and her family decided to book a late all inclusive holiday in August and told the travel agents they would go anywhere but fire affected areas
It seems she has found an excellent holiday in Morocco but this was through an independent travel agent as TUI, JET2, and the like were almost aggressively trying to send them to Southern Europe no doubt as they have huge investments in these areas
It will be interesting how holidaymakers react to visiting these areas in the future in peak season
Weirdly, the only sort of place you know you are safe from forest fires, is the sort of place which has just been ravaged by huge forest fires.
Fuertaventura. No trees. They were all chopped down to build ships many years ago.
Western Isles. Few trees and the weather is less favourable for wildfires
The obsession with getting more people onto “the housing ladder” reflects an illusion. For society as a whole, the “ladder” is part of the problem, not the solution.
England's 2nd innings tail shoulda got 50 more runs. GAH
Rain is coming. I don't think it matters.
Clears up at 4, met office says. looks solid on the radar though
Yes, the Met Office rainfall map for the next few hours is distinctly at odds with the one for the past few. In particular the future map shows the band of rain over northern France whereas I can tell you it over south west England.
Never trust the forecast map! Always look at the observation map, only thing is there's a 15 to 30 min delay.
Very hard to use the observation map to help guess tomorrow's (or this evening's) weather. Unless you have a little time-travelling tip you're not sharing?
Cars eventually became much cheaper than running horses and a carriage.
Compared to the price of running a car in the 1970s, cars today are ridiculously cheap.
When we are all running electric cars on overnight surplus energy and there's much less to maintain than on a ICE car, why won't they continue to get cheaper? Electric cars aren't cheaper now, but in 20 years?
If we aren't living in extreme poverty, people will want their own transport. Taxis are inconvenient and rubbish now - why does having an AI driver instead of a meat based one make any difference?
That's quite easy to answer. I don't know the numbers but I'd guess that taxis are about 5% of cars on the road. Now imagine a world where taxis are 95% of the cars on the road. The convenience factor would be far better. When essentially every vehicle is self-driving, electric, and immediately summonable the whole argument about the benefits of owning and driving a car will look utterly different.
"Immediately summonable"? To where?
Will it carry a bicycle? Camping gear? Will I get fined if I stink it out with fish and chips?
Will the AI driver be able to get out and open the gates on a private off-road track?
Those are the 5% cases. The rest of us will be watching Netflix in our robo-taxis.
There are specific times when our current use of cars becomes a problem [putting aside pollution as eventually solveable].
Perhaps we just need to solve school transport and "the commute" rather than reinventing personal transport for all?
Or just leave people alone?
Unlike some I don't see car ownership as a problem that needs to be solved.
The millions of people killed on the road every year by tired, drunk, angry, sneezing, stupid, distracted, Googling, phone-texting human drivers might disagree with you
"Road traffic crashes now represent the eighth leading cause of death globally. They claim more than 1.35 million lives each year and cause up to 50 million injuries. And, the fact is, every one of those deaths and injuries is preventable."
England's 2nd innings tail shoulda got 50 more runs. GAH
Rain is coming. I don't think it matters.
Clears up at 4, met office says. looks solid on the radar though
Yes, the Met Office rainfall map for the next few hours is distinctly at odds with the one for the past few. In particular the future map shows the band of rain over northern France whereas I can tell you it over south west England.
Never trust the forecast map! Always look at the observation map, only thing is there's a 15 to 30 min delay.
You can pay £25 or so / year and get the radar with a shorter delay and 5 minute updates. If it matters to you.
Sadly the Met Office don't make their Doppler radar available real time.
FPT - I see @Leon once again totally fails to comprehend anyone who lives outside London by predicting no-one will have cars by 2050.
People will always have cars.
I believe @leon was predicting self driving electric vehicles that you summon when you need one (I could have just made that all up). That isn't London centric prediction but applies everywhere. It seems a reasonable prediction for the future and a comparison with the end of the use of the horse seems apt. Doesn't mean it will happen, but reasonable.
It doesn't. In London, you only very occasionally need a car - i.e. where you travel somewhere out of town on a trip at the weekend, or need to carry heavy luggage and ferry friends - whereas everywhere else you use a car several times every day: to drop off the kids, drive to work, go shopping, pick up the kids, and then to head out to the gym later. Maybe drop stuff at the tip too.
You thus want one on the drive all the time with all your stuff in it, and the kids car seats, ready to use at any time - so you get your own.
It may be on a PCP or hire-purchase, rather than owned outright, but it's definitely "your" car and that's the model 90%+ of the country uses and will continue to use.
@leon isn't talking about NOW, we are talking about some future. Stuff changes. You are always telling us we aren't thinking enough. Think about where it comes almost instantly, with a child seat if you want one, with a trailer if you want one. Waiting for you by the time you have put your shoes on and locked up. All paid for by an annual fee. No car not starting in the morning, or having a flat, no MOT, no service, no filling up or charging, etc, etc.
Go on do what you tell us to do. Think out of the box. It is like saying in 1918 that planes are no use for public transport because they only carry one or two people, don't go far and you would have to learn to fly them.
It won't come "almost instantly" anywhere in the country because there'd never be enough fleet to supply everyone from regional depots to all who want it at peak times in an economical fashion. People sometimes need to leave their house in minutes, and not wait an unspecified time. Moreover, people like to choose their own seat, their own stuff, their own kids stuff, their own colour, with their own music, and they like it on their own drive RIGHT THERE so it's ready whenever they want it. People will pay for convenience. And all the issues you list with possessing a car there are either very rare or total non-issues.
The future? No, this is just a myopic fantasy of some excitable Mets.
You're doing it again. Not thinking of what the future may bring. I covered the issues you brought up before (child seat and going to the dump). Let's cover another you have just brought up; music. A few years ago that would have been an issue. You would have had to take your own CDs rather than leaving them in your car. Not now. All on the phone. What else may change in the FUTURE. Note we are talking about the FUTURE. So programmable seats. My car already has that. If it really bugs you it is not inconceivable you could change the colour of the car. I can already change the colour of the lighting in my car. How do you know we can't some time in the future get a car to you within minutes and one that hasn't got a flat battery or flat tyre?
As far as it being a met elite fantasy, well I live in a village with no bus service and a station a mile away so I drive a car everywhere except when going to London, but I can imagine a different future, even if it may not happen.
No, I'm not doing anything again - other than simply disagreeing with you.
Taking present day trends and projecting them way out into the future with the air of inevitability is the oldest trick in the book for futurologists but forgets that they can change shape, diverge, converge or even go into regression.
Your post is simply doubling down on your precious one with a few more capital letters. I want to own my own ride and have the convenience of it on my own driveway, ready for me whenever I like.
Yes, we can all exercise fantasies and imagination of what might be different in the future but what we're really discussing here is how smartphones have made the hailing of cabs in major cities and short-term car hire far more convenient than once they were.
That does not a revolution make.
I'm not saying it will happen. I made that entirely clear in every post that it might not. I even gave the example of the flying cars which never happened. I simply made the point that @leon's proposition was not silly. The difference is you are arguing it won't happen, not may not happen. I do appreciate this is a matter of opinion. As far as capitals are concerned I used them where they are used in every day life (CD) or to emphasize FUTURE because people seem to forget @leon said 2050 and not tomorrow. 2050 is a long way off.
Slightly tongue in cheek, but the strongest correlating indicator of Conservative voting that I have ever found in 20 years of canvassing is car related.
- Those washing their car in their driveway on a Saturday morning.
Slightly disconcertingly for the blue meanies, apart from my Dad, I don't know anyone who does this now. Why bother when its a tenner at the local hand car wash?
The gangs of trafficked Kurdish vagabonds don't even use the 'Two Bucket' system which is the absolute minimum for not fucking your clear coat. One session at one of these refugee camps and it's done for.
Correcting a fucked clear coat, if it's not too far gone, is a lot of work and you're knocking a couple of grand off the value at least. Unless you can offload it onto to some mug who can't judge the fuckedness state of clear coats.
I wonder what a clear coat is. I mostly just rely on rain to wash off my 2015 Fiesta. I never give my car a thought except when I'm actually in it or the MoT demand comes round.
PB is a useful reminder that there are a multitude of different ways to live...
For me, a car is simply a tool that allows me to do what I need/want to do. If I could do the things I wanted to do without a car, I'd not have one. I find no great joy in driving; the joy can come from what I do at the destination.
I also don't see my car as an extension of my psyche, or a reflection of who I am. It's a car.
And that is, I think, the heart of the matter. Once a car is a means to an end, then it's possible that there are other ways of achieving the same ends better. In fact, it's possible that car use gets in the way of achieving those ends.
The car is an interesting machine. It promises individual freedom, but relies on infrastructure that is provided collectively. It provides convenience for its owner but inconveniences others. It allows us to be ourselves but cuts us off from other people. It lets us do more but makes us less active. It opens up choices for some and restricts choices for others. Politically it's interesting because of all the things we do on a day to day basis it probably imposes more negative externalities, global and local, than anything else. Increasingly I think the political left-right divide comes down to whether you take the idea of these externalities seriously or not. The right can get a lot of mileage out of telling their voters that they can do what they want and any negative effects on other people are unimportant. The danger for the left is that they overestimate the extent to which people are willing, or feel able to afford, to care.
I think the Cons are absolutely right to pick a fight over car ownership because most of us have one and many of us realise the impracticalities of acting too quickly to dispossess us of them, or penalising ownership which the ULEZ has shown so clearly.
It is the one area (and I can't for the life of me think of any other) where actually the Cons might be able to claw some votes back and it seems that Lab are handing these to them on a plate.
Heat Punps
Disaster waiting to happen.
They sound bloody awful.
My next door neighbour has one.
Ive yet to hear him say anything good about it.
On the other hand he really likes his solar panels.
They're the norm in rural France and seem to work fine (not just in modern houses), yet every time I hear about them in the UK they don't seem up to the job, so there must be something in the way we're rolling them out here that's going awry. I'm renovating a barn there currently and there was no question the heating would be air source heat pump, our neighbours all have it too. Perhaps because they are topping up with wood burners, or perhaps the houses are just less draughty and better insulated.
I really don't know much about them other than the bits I read on here and eslsewhere but working better in France may be due to warmer climate. All the sources seem to indicate that air source heat pumps work better when it is warmer/hotter outside. Certainly the only person I know who has had one fitted said it was great in the summer but really bad in the winter.
Ground source less affected by season, but not really a retrofit option unless you hate your garden!
There's a house in Scotland we've been to in all seasons with a ground source heat pump and it's cosy (and the shower etc hot) at all times of year. In new build they make a lot of sense, but not for retrofit, generally.
The media reporting of this "heatwave" was just bizarre. The idea that 35 degrees in Alicante is unusual in July is just plan silly. It was the same with the temperatures in Greece. In july and August it is always very hot there.
But we can quantify "very hot," can we not? There's very hot, and there's the record for Sardinia of 47.3 set two weeks ago. Very very very very hot, if you prefer it put like that. A record.
What is exceptionally pathetic is the "the fires weren't caused by climate change, they were caused by arson" claim. Arson works if and only if conditions are exceptionally hot and dry. The argument is like saying "People claim smart motorways are unusually dangerous, but if you examine the actual accidents on them, it always turns out they are caused by cars and lorries, not the actual motorway."
My daughter and her family decided to book a late all inclusive holiday in August and told the travel agents they would go anywhere but fire affected areas
It seems she has found an excellent holiday in Morocco but this was through an independent travel agent as TUI, JET2, and the like were almost aggressively trying to send them to Southern Europe no doubt as they have huge investments in these areas
It will be interesting how holidaymakers react to visiting these areas in the future in peak season
Weirdly, the only sort of place you know you are safe from forest fires, is the sort of place which has just been ravaged by huge forest fires.
Fuertaventura. No trees. They were all chopped down to build ships many years ago.
Same with Iceland. I assumed it was too cold, but no they had them, but chopped them all down. Now trying to replace them.
Slightly tongue in cheek, but the strongest correlating indicator of Conservative voting that I have ever found in 20 years of canvassing is car related.
- Those washing their car in their driveway on a Saturday morning.
Slightly disconcertingly for the blue meanies, apart from my Dad, I don't know anyone who does this now. Why bother when its a tenner at the local hand car wash?
The gangs of trafficked Kurdish vagabonds don't even use the 'Two Bucket' system which is the absolute minimum for not fucking your clear coat. One session at one of these refugee camps and it's done for.
Correcting a fucked clear coat, if it's not too far gone, is a lot of work and you're knocking a couple of grand off the value at least. Unless you can offload it onto to some mug who can't judge the fuckedness state of clear coats.
I wonder what a clear coat is. I mostly just rely on rain to wash off my 2015 Fiesta. I never give my car a thought except when I'm actually in it or the MoT demand comes round.
PB is a useful reminder that there are a multitude of different ways to live...
For me, a car is simply a tool that allows me to do what I need/want to do. If I could do the things I wanted to do without a car, I'd not have one. I find no great joy in driving; the joy can come from what I do at the destination.
I also don't see my car as an extension of my psyche, or a reflection of who I am. It's a car.
And that is, I think, the heart of the matter. Once a car is a means to an end, then it's possible that there are other ways of achieving the same ends better. In fact, it's possible that car use gets in the way of achieving those ends.
The car is an interesting machine. It promises individual freedom, but relies on infrastructure that is provided collectively. It provides convenience for its owner but inconveniences others. It allows us to be ourselves but cuts us off from other people. It lets us do more but makes us less active. It opens up choices for some and restricts choices for others. Politically it's interesting because of all the things we do on a day to day basis it probably imposes more negative externalities, global and local, than anything else. Increasingly I think the political left-right divide comes down to whether you take the idea of these externalities seriously or not. The right can get a lot of mileage out of telling their voters that they can do what they want and any negative effects on other people are unimportant. The danger for the left is that they overestimate the extent to which people are willing, or feel able to afford, to care.
I think the Cons are absolutely right to pick a fight over car ownership because most of us have one and many of us realise the impracticalities of acting too quickly to dispossess us of them, or penalising ownership which the ULEZ has shown so clearly.
It is the one area (and I can't for the life of me think of any other) where actually the Cons might be able to claw some votes back and it seems that Lab are handing these to them on a plate.
Heat Punps
Disaster waiting to happen.
They sound bloody awful.
My next door neighbour has one.
Ive yet to hear him say anything good about it.
On the other hand he really likes his solar panels.
They're the norm in rural France and seem to work fine (not just in modern houses), yet every time I hear about them in the UK they don't seem up to the job, so there must be something in the way we're rolling them out here that's going awry. I'm renovating a barn there currently and there was no question the heating would be air source heat pump, our neighbours all have it too. Perhaps because they are topping up with wood burners, or perhaps the houses are just less draughty and better insulated.
I really don't know much about them other than the bits I read on here and eslsewhere but working better in France may be due to warmer climate. All the sources seem to indicate that air source heat pumps work better when it is warmer/hotter outside. Certainly the only person I know who has had one fitted said it was great in the summer but really bad in the winter.
A reasonably simple intro here. I hadn't realised how much of the garden might have to be dug up.
Cars eventually became much cheaper than running horses and a carriage.
Compared to the price of running a car in the 1970s, cars today are ridiculously cheap.
When we are all running electric cars on overnight surplus energy and there's much less to maintain than on a ICE car, why won't they continue to get cheaper? Electric cars aren't cheaper now, but in 20 years?
If we aren't living in extreme poverty, people will want their own transport. Taxis are inconvenient and rubbish now - why does having an AI driver instead of a meat based one make any difference?
That's quite easy to answer. I don't know the numbers but I'd guess that taxis are about 5% of cars on the road. Now imagine a world where taxis are 95% of the cars on the road. The convenience factor would be far better. When essentially every vehicle is self-driving, electric, and immediately summonable the whole argument about the benefits of owning and driving a car will look utterly different.
"Immediately summonable"? To where?
Will it carry a bicycle? Camping gear? Will I get fined if I stink it out with fish and chips?
Will the AI driver be able to get out and open the gates on a private off-road track?
Those are the 5% cases. The rest of us will be watching Netflix in our robo-taxis.
There are specific times when our current use of cars becomes a problem [putting aside pollution as eventually solveable].
Perhaps we just need to solve school transport and "the commute" rather than reinventing personal transport for all?
Or just leave people alone?
Unlike some I don't see car ownership as a problem that needs to be solved.
@OnlyLivingBoy made some interesting comments about the differences between left and right. I don't disagree in some respects.
But I feel that increasingly the State goes looking for solutions to minor problems rather than address the fact that it is too big, and needs to give everyone more freedom by cutting itself.
My point is that there's a large cadre of people in public policy who see it as their job to use the power of the State to change people's values, and the way they live, because they disagree with both.
England's 2nd innings tail shoulda got 50 more runs. GAH
Rain is coming. I don't think it matters.
Clears up at 4, met office says. looks solid on the radar though
Yes, the Met Office rainfall map for the next few hours is distinctly at odds with the one for the past few. In particular the future map shows the band of rain over northern France whereas I can tell you it over south west England.
Never trust the forecast map! Always look at the observation map, only thing is there's a 15 to 30 min delay.
You can pay £25 or so / year and get the radar with a shorter delay and 5 minute updates. If it matters to you.
Sadly the Met Office don't make their Doppler radar available real time.
The ECB should do what F1 does and buy their own weather radar head, that they put on top of the grandstand and gives real-time data to everyone.
The media reporting of this "heatwave" was just bizarre. The idea that 35 degrees in Alicante is unusual in July is just plan silly. It was the same with the temperatures in Greece. In july and August it is always very hot there.
But we can quantify "very hot," can we not? There's very hot, and there's the record for Sardinia of 47.3 set two weeks ago. Very very very very hot, if you prefer it put like that. A record.
What is exceptionally pathetic is the "the fires weren't caused by climate change, they were caused by arson" claim. Arson works if and only if conditions are exceptionally hot and dry. The argument is like saying "People claim smart motorways are unusually dangerous, but if you examine the actual accidents on them, it always turns out they are caused by cars and lorries, not the actual motorway."
It doesn't have to be exceptionally hot and dry for arson. Sure it helps, but it isn't necessary. It can simply be hot and dry.
I suspect arsonism is pretty much a constant - if you think it's a good idea you probably always think it's a good idea, it doesn't occur to you out of the blue or because it's trending on twitter hushmamouf X, so its relative effectiveness varies directly with hotness and dryness. Results as spectacular as Rhodes require exceptional conditions.
And there's another oddity, the claim that the people on Rhodes were represented as refugees when in fact they were holidaymakers. They looked to me like both. I suspect they were getting a fair bit of typically British hate for being either 1. the sort of ghastly poor people who go on 5 star holidays to greece or 2. the sort of rich tory bastards who go on 5 star holidays to greece.
The Rhodes Must Fall movement has finally hit its target.
Slightly tongue in cheek, but the strongest correlating indicator of Conservative voting that I have ever found in 20 years of canvassing is car related.
- Those washing their car in their driveway on a Saturday morning.
Slightly disconcertingly for the blue meanies, apart from my Dad, I don't know anyone who does this now. Why bother when its a tenner at the local hand car wash?
The gangs of trafficked Kurdish vagabonds don't even use the 'Two Bucket' system which is the absolute minimum for not fucking your clear coat. One session at one of these refugee camps and it's done for.
Correcting a fucked clear coat, if it's not too far gone, is a lot of work and you're knocking a couple of grand off the value at least. Unless you can offload it onto to some mug who can't judge the fuckedness state of clear coats.
I wonder what a clear coat is. I mostly just rely on rain to wash off my 2015 Fiesta. I never give my car a thought except when I'm actually in it or the MoT demand comes round.
PB is a useful reminder that there are a multitude of different ways to live...
For me, a car is simply a tool that allows me to do what I need/want to do. If I could do the things I wanted to do without a car, I'd not have one. I find no great joy in driving; the joy can come from what I do at the destination.
I also don't see my car as an extension of my psyche, or a reflection of who I am. It's a car.
And that is, I think, the heart of the matter. Once a car is a means to an end, then it's possible that there are other ways of achieving the same ends better. In fact, it's possible that car use gets in the way of achieving those ends.
The car is an interesting machine. It promises individual freedom, but relies on infrastructure that is provided collectively. It provides convenience for its owner but inconveniences others. It allows us to be ourselves but cuts us off from other people. It lets us do more but makes us less active. It opens up choices for some and restricts choices for others. Politically it's interesting because of all the things we do on a day to day basis it probably imposes more negative externalities, global and local, than anything else. Increasingly I think the political left-right divide comes down to whether you take the idea of these externalities seriously or not. The right can get a lot of mileage out of telling their voters that they can do what they want and any negative effects on other people are unimportant. The danger for the left is that they overestimate the extent to which people are willing, or feel able to afford, to care.
I think the Cons are absolutely right to pick a fight over car ownership because most of us have one and many of us realise the impracticalities of acting too quickly to dispossess us of them, or penalising ownership which the ULEZ has shown so clearly.
It is the one area (and I can't for the life of me think of any other) where actually the Cons might be able to claw some votes back and it seems that Lab are handing these to them on a plate.
Heat Punps
Disaster waiting to happen.
They sound bloody awful.
My next door neighbour has one.
Ive yet to hear him say anything good about it.
On the other hand he really likes his solar panels.
They're the norm in rural France and seem to work fine (not just in modern houses), yet every time I hear about them in the UK they don't seem up to the job, so there must be something in the way we're rolling them out here that's going awry. I'm renovating a barn there currently and there was no question the heating would be air source heat pump, our neighbours all have it too. Perhaps because they are topping up with wood burners, or perhaps the houses are just less draughty and better insulated.
I really don't know much about them other than the bits I read on here and eslsewhere but working better in France may be due to warmer climate. All the sources seem to indicate that air source heat pumps work better when it is warmer/hotter outside. Certainly the only person I know who has had one fitted said it was great in the summer but really bad in the winter.
A reasonably simple intro here. I hadn't realised how much of the garden might have to be dug up.
The obsession with getting more people onto “the housing ladder” reflects an illusion. For society as a whole, the “ladder” is part of the problem, not the solution.
The media reporting of this "heatwave" was just bizarre. The idea that 35 degrees in Alicante is unusual in July is just plan silly. It was the same with the temperatures in Greece. In july and August it is always very hot there.
But we can quantify "very hot," can we not? There's very hot, and there's the record for Sardinia of 47.3 set two weeks ago. Very very very very hot, if you prefer it put like that. A record.
What is exceptionally pathetic is the "the fires weren't caused by climate change, they were caused by arson" claim. Arson works if and only if conditions are exceptionally hot and dry. The argument is like saying "People claim smart motorways are unusually dangerous, but if you examine the actual accidents on them, it always turns out they are caused by cars and lorries, not the actual motorway."
My daughter and her family decided to book a late all inclusive holiday in August and told the travel agents they would go anywhere but fire affected areas
It seems she has found an excellent holiday in Morocco but this was through an independent travel agent as TUI, JET2, and the like were almost aggressively trying to send them to Southern Europe no doubt as they have huge investments in these areas
It will be interesting how holidaymakers react to visiting these areas in the future in peak season
Weirdly, the only sort of place you know you are safe from forest fires, is the sort of place which has just been ravaged by huge forest fires.
Fuertaventura. No trees. They were all chopped down to build ships many years ago.
Western Isles. Few trees and the weather is less favourable for wildfires
Going up to Inverness a month or so ago there were warnings of a "high risk of forest fires". Not sure we have had a day without rain since.
Slightly tongue in cheek, but the strongest correlating indicator of Conservative voting that I have ever found in 20 years of canvassing is car related.
- Those washing their car in their driveway on a Saturday morning.
Slightly disconcertingly for the blue meanies, apart from my Dad, I don't know anyone who does this now. Why bother when its a tenner at the local hand car wash?
The gangs of trafficked Kurdish vagabonds don't even use the 'Two Bucket' system which is the absolute minimum for not fucking your clear coat. One session at one of these refugee camps and it's done for.
Correcting a fucked clear coat, if it's not too far gone, is a lot of work and you're knocking a couple of grand off the value at least. Unless you can offload it onto to some mug who can't judge the fuckedness state of clear coats.
I wonder what a clear coat is. I mostly just rely on rain to wash off my 2015 Fiesta. I never give my car a thought except when I'm actually in it or the MoT demand comes round.
PB is a useful reminder that there are a multitude of different ways to live...
For me, a car is simply a tool that allows me to do what I need/want to do. If I could do the things I wanted to do without a car, I'd not have one. I find no great joy in driving; the joy can come from what I do at the destination.
I also don't see my car as an extension of my psyche, or a reflection of who I am. It's a car.
And that is, I think, the heart of the matter. Once a car is a means to an end, then it's possible that there are other ways of achieving the same ends better. In fact, it's possible that car use gets in the way of achieving those ends.
The car is an interesting machine. It promises individual freedom, but relies on infrastructure that is provided collectively. It provides convenience for its owner but inconveniences others. It allows us to be ourselves but cuts us off from other people. It lets us do more but makes us less active. It opens up choices for some and restricts choices for others. Politically it's interesting because of all the things we do on a day to day basis it probably imposes more negative externalities, global and local, than anything else. Increasingly I think the political left-right divide comes down to whether you take the idea of these externalities seriously or not. The right can get a lot of mileage out of telling their voters that they can do what they want and any negative effects on other people are unimportant. The danger for the left is that they overestimate the extent to which people are willing, or feel able to afford, to care.
I think the Cons are absolutely right to pick a fight over car ownership because most of us have one and many of us realise the impracticalities of acting too quickly to dispossess us of them, or penalising ownership which the ULEZ has shown so clearly.
It is the one area (and I can't for the life of me think of any other) where actually the Cons might be able to claw some votes back and it seems that Lab are handing these to them on a plate.
Heat Punps
Disaster waiting to happen.
They sound bloody awful.
My next door neighbour has one.
Ive yet to hear him say anything good about it.
On the other hand he really likes his solar panels.
They're the norm in rural France and seem to work fine (not just in modern houses), yet every time I hear about them in the UK they don't seem up to the job, so there must be something in the way we're rolling them out here that's going awry. I'm renovating a barn there currently and there was no question the heating would be air source heat pump, our neighbours all have it too. Perhaps because they are topping up with wood burners, or perhaps the houses are just less draughty and better insulated.
I really don't know much about them other than the bits I read on here and eslsewhere but working better in France may be due to warmer climate. All the sources seem to indicate that air source heat pumps work better when it is warmer/hotter outside. Certainly the only person I know who has had one fitted said it was great in the summer but really bad in the winter.
A reasonably simple intro here. I hadn't realised how much of the garden might have to be dug up.
The media reporting of this "heatwave" was just bizarre. The idea that 35 degrees in Alicante is unusual in July is just plan silly. It was the same with the temperatures in Greece. In july and August it is always very hot there.
But we can quantify "very hot," can we not? There's very hot, and there's the record for Sardinia of 47.3 set two weeks ago. Very very very very hot, if you prefer it put like that. A record.
What is exceptionally pathetic is the "the fires weren't caused by climate change, they were caused by arson" claim. Arson works if and only if conditions are exceptionally hot and dry. The argument is like saying "People claim smart motorways are unusually dangerous, but if you examine the actual accidents on them, it always turns out they are caused by cars and lorries, not the actual motorway."
My daughter and her family decided to book a late all inclusive holiday in August and told the travel agents they would go anywhere but fire affected areas
It seems she has found an excellent holiday in Morocco but this was through an independent travel agent as TUI, JET2, and the like were almost aggressively trying to send them to Southern Europe no doubt as they have huge investments in these areas
It will be interesting how holidaymakers react to visiting these areas in the future in peak season
Weirdly, the only sort of place you know you are safe from forest fires, is the sort of place which has just been ravaged by huge forest fires.
Fuertaventura. No trees. They were all chopped down to build ships many years ago.
Western Isles. Few trees and the weather is less favourable for wildfires
Not a done deal if the peat dries out (this was Lewis).
Slightly tongue in cheek, but the strongest correlating indicator of Conservative voting that I have ever found in 20 years of canvassing is car related.
- Those washing their car in their driveway on a Saturday morning.
Slightly disconcertingly for the blue meanies, apart from my Dad, I don't know anyone who does this now. Why bother when its a tenner at the local hand car wash?
The gangs of trafficked Kurdish vagabonds don't even use the 'Two Bucket' system which is the absolute minimum for not fucking your clear coat. One session at one of these refugee camps and it's done for.
Correcting a fucked clear coat, if it's not too far gone, is a lot of work and you're knocking a couple of grand off the value at least. Unless you can offload it onto to some mug who can't judge the fuckedness state of clear coats.
I wonder what a clear coat is. I mostly just rely on rain to wash off my 2015 Fiesta. I never give my car a thought except when I'm actually in it or the MoT demand comes round.
PB is a useful reminder that there are a multitude of different ways to live...
For me, a car is simply a tool that allows me to do what I need/want to do. If I could do the things I wanted to do without a car, I'd not have one. I find no great joy in driving; the joy can come from what I do at the destination.
I also don't see my car as an extension of my psyche, or a reflection of who I am. It's a car.
And that is, I think, the heart of the matter. Once a car is a means to an end, then it's possible that there are other ways of achieving the same ends better. In fact, it's possible that car use gets in the way of achieving those ends.
The car is an interesting machine. It promises individual freedom, but relies on infrastructure that is provided collectively. It provides convenience for its owner but inconveniences others. It allows us to be ourselves but cuts us off from other people. It lets us do more but makes us less active. It opens up choices for some and restricts choices for others. Politically it's interesting because of all the things we do on a day to day basis it probably imposes more negative externalities, global and local, than anything else. Increasingly I think the political left-right divide comes down to whether you take the idea of these externalities seriously or not. The right can get a lot of mileage out of telling their voters that they can do what they want and any negative effects on other people are unimportant. The danger for the left is that they overestimate the extent to which people are willing, or feel able to afford, to care.
I think the Cons are absolutely right to pick a fight over car ownership because most of us have one and many of us realise the impracticalities of acting too quickly to dispossess us of them, or penalising ownership which the ULEZ has shown so clearly.
It is the one area (and I can't for the life of me think of any other) where actually the Cons might be able to claw some votes back and it seems that Lab are handing these to them on a plate.
Heat Punps
Disaster waiting to happen.
They sound bloody awful.
My next door neighbour has one.
Ive yet to hear him say anything good about it.
On the other hand he really likes his solar panels.
They're the norm in rural France and seem to work fine (not just in modern houses), yet every time I hear about them in the UK they don't seem up to the job, so there must be something in the way we're rolling them out here that's going awry. I'm renovating a barn there currently and there was no question the heating would be air source heat pump, our neighbours all have it too. Perhaps because they are topping up with wood burners, or perhaps the houses are just less draughty and better insulated.
I really don't know much about them other than the bits I read on here and eslsewhere but working better in France may be due to warmer climate. All the sources seem to indicate that air source heat pumps work better when it is warmer/hotter outside. Certainly the only person I know who has had one fitted said it was great in the summer but really bad in the winter.
A reasonably simple intro here. I hadn't realised how much of the garden might have to be dug up.
I suspect it's more like solar panels - save a lot of energy most of the time, but still need some input from conventional means.
Isn't that for ground source rather than air source though?
I fail to see how they would get enough heat out of air or ground to work decently in Scotland. Do any other northern countries use them.
Yes. Air-source heat pumps work fine down to -7°C air temperature, when they become less efficient (but then you just heat using the electricity with no gain. I suspect the ground in Scotland is always above freezing once you are down a metre, so ground-source heat pumps would have no problem.
Slightly tongue in cheek, but the strongest correlating indicator of Conservative voting that I have ever found in 20 years of canvassing is car related.
- Those washing their car in their driveway on a Saturday morning.
Slightly disconcertingly for the blue meanies, apart from my Dad, I don't know anyone who does this now. Why bother when its a tenner at the local hand car wash?
The gangs of trafficked Kurdish vagabonds don't even use the 'Two Bucket' system which is the absolute minimum for not fucking your clear coat. One session at one of these refugee camps and it's done for.
Correcting a fucked clear coat, if it's not too far gone, is a lot of work and you're knocking a couple of grand off the value at least. Unless you can offload it onto to some mug who can't judge the fuckedness state of clear coats.
I wonder what a clear coat is. I mostly just rely on rain to wash off my 2015 Fiesta. I never give my car a thought except when I'm actually in it or the MoT demand comes round.
PB is a useful reminder that there are a multitude of different ways to live...
For me, a car is simply a tool that allows me to do what I need/want to do. If I could do the things I wanted to do without a car, I'd not have one. I find no great joy in driving; the joy can come from what I do at the destination.
I also don't see my car as an extension of my psyche, or a reflection of who I am. It's a car.
And that is, I think, the heart of the matter. Once a car is a means to an end, then it's possible that there are other ways of achieving the same ends better. In fact, it's possible that car use gets in the way of achieving those ends.
The car is an interesting machine. It promises individual freedom, but relies on infrastructure that is provided collectively. It provides convenience for its owner but inconveniences others. It allows us to be ourselves but cuts us off from other people. It lets us do more but makes us less active. It opens up choices for some and restricts choices for others. Politically it's interesting because of all the things we do on a day to day basis it probably imposes more negative externalities, global and local, than anything else. Increasingly I think the political left-right divide comes down to whether you take the idea of these externalities seriously or not. The right can get a lot of mileage out of telling their voters that they can do what they want and any negative effects on other people are unimportant. The danger for the left is that they overestimate the extent to which people are willing, or feel able to afford, to care.
I think the Cons are absolutely right to pick a fight over car ownership because most of us have one and many of us realise the impracticalities of acting too quickly to dispossess us of them, or penalising ownership which the ULEZ has shown so clearly.
It is the one area (and I can't for the life of me think of any other) where actually the Cons might be able to claw some votes back and it seems that Lab are handing these to them on a plate.
Heat Punps
Disaster waiting to happen.
They sound bloody awful.
My next door neighbour has one.
Ive yet to hear him say anything good about it.
On the other hand he really likes his solar panels.
They're the norm in rural France and seem to work fine (not just in modern houses), yet every time I hear about them in the UK they don't seem up to the job, so there must be something in the way we're rolling them out here that's going awry. I'm renovating a barn there currently and there was no question the heating would be air source heat pump, our neighbours all have it too. Perhaps because they are topping up with wood burners, or perhaps the houses are just less draughty and better insulated.
I really don't know much about them other than the bits I read on here and eslsewhere but working better in France may be due to warmer climate. All the sources seem to indicate that air source heat pumps work better when it is warmer/hotter outside. Certainly the only person I know who has had one fitted said it was great in the summer but really bad in the winter.
A reasonably simple intro here. I hadn't realised how much of the garden might have to be dug up.
The media reporting of this "heatwave" was just bizarre. The idea that 35 degrees in Alicante is unusual in July is just plan silly. It was the same with the temperatures in Greece. In july and August it is always very hot there.
But we can quantify "very hot," can we not? There's very hot, and there's the record for Sardinia of 47.3 set two weeks ago. Very very very very hot, if you prefer it put like that. A record.
What is exceptionally pathetic is the "the fires weren't caused by climate change, they were caused by arson" claim. Arson works if and only if conditions are exceptionally hot and dry. The argument is like saying "People claim smart motorways are unusually dangerous, but if you examine the actual accidents on them, it always turns out they are caused by cars and lorries, not the actual motorway."
My daughter and her family decided to book a late all inclusive holiday in August and told the travel agents they would go anywhere but fire affected areas
It seems she has found an excellent holiday in Morocco but this was through an independent travel agent as TUI, JET2, and the like were almost aggressively trying to send them to Southern Europe no doubt as they have huge investments in these areas
It will be interesting how holidaymakers react to visiting these areas in the future in peak season
Weirdly, the only sort of place you know you are safe from forest fires, is the sort of place which has just been ravaged by huge forest fires.
Fuertaventura. No trees. They were all chopped down to build ships many years ago.
Western Isles. Few trees and the weather is less favourable for wildfires
Not a done deal if the peat dries out (this was Lewis).
True. Best get it all dug up and burned to prevent that, I guess?
Slightly tongue in cheek, but the strongest correlating indicator of Conservative voting that I have ever found in 20 years of canvassing is car related.
- Those washing their car in their driveway on a Saturday morning.
Slightly disconcertingly for the blue meanies, apart from my Dad, I don't know anyone who does this now. Why bother when its a tenner at the local hand car wash?
The gangs of trafficked Kurdish vagabonds don't even use the 'Two Bucket' system which is the absolute minimum for not fucking your clear coat. One session at one of these refugee camps and it's done for.
Correcting a fucked clear coat, if it's not too far gone, is a lot of work and you're knocking a couple of grand off the value at least. Unless you can offload it onto to some mug who can't judge the fuckedness state of clear coats.
I wonder what a clear coat is. I mostly just rely on rain to wash off my 2015 Fiesta. I never give my car a thought except when I'm actually in it or the MoT demand comes round.
PB is a useful reminder that there are a multitude of different ways to live...
For me, a car is simply a tool that allows me to do what I need/want to do. If I could do the things I wanted to do without a car, I'd not have one. I find no great joy in driving; the joy can come from what I do at the destination.
I also don't see my car as an extension of my psyche, or a reflection of who I am. It's a car.
And that is, I think, the heart of the matter. Once a car is a means to an end, then it's possible that there are other ways of achieving the same ends better. In fact, it's possible that car use gets in the way of achieving those ends.
The car is an interesting machine. It promises individual freedom, but relies on infrastructure that is provided collectively. It provides convenience for its owner but inconveniences others. It allows us to be ourselves but cuts us off from other people. It lets us do more but makes us less active. It opens up choices for some and restricts choices for others. Politically it's interesting because of all the things we do on a day to day basis it probably imposes more negative externalities, global and local, than anything else. Increasingly I think the political left-right divide comes down to whether you take the idea of these externalities seriously or not. The right can get a lot of mileage out of telling their voters that they can do what they want and any negative effects on other people are unimportant. The danger for the left is that they overestimate the extent to which people are willing, or feel able to afford, to care.
I think the Cons are absolutely right to pick a fight over car ownership because most of us have one and many of us realise the impracticalities of acting too quickly to dispossess us of them, or penalising ownership which the ULEZ has shown so clearly.
It is the one area (and I can't for the life of me think of any other) where actually the Cons might be able to claw some votes back and it seems that Lab are handing these to them on a plate.
Heat Punps
Disaster waiting to happen.
They sound bloody awful.
My next door neighbour has one.
Ive yet to hear him say anything good about it.
On the other hand he really likes his solar panels.
They're the norm in rural France and seem to work fine (not just in modern houses), yet every time I hear about them in the UK they don't seem up to the job, so there must be something in the way we're rolling them out here that's going awry. I'm renovating a barn there currently and there was no question the heating would be air source heat pump, our neighbours all have it too. Perhaps because they are topping up with wood burners, or perhaps the houses are just less draughty and better insulated.
I really don't know much about them other than the bits I read on here and eslsewhere but working better in France may be due to warmer climate. All the sources seem to indicate that air source heat pumps work better when it is warmer/hotter outside. Certainly the only person I know who has had one fitted said it was great in the summer but really bad in the winter.
A reasonably simple intro here. I hadn't realised how much of the garden might have to be dug up.
Slightly tongue in cheek, but the strongest correlating indicator of Conservative voting that I have ever found in 20 years of canvassing is car related.
- Those washing their car in their driveway on a Saturday morning.
Slightly disconcertingly for the blue meanies, apart from my Dad, I don't know anyone who does this now. Why bother when its a tenner at the local hand car wash?
The gangs of trafficked Kurdish vagabonds don't even use the 'Two Bucket' system which is the absolute minimum for not fucking your clear coat. One session at one of these refugee camps and it's done for.
Correcting a fucked clear coat, if it's not too far gone, is a lot of work and you're knocking a couple of grand off the value at least. Unless you can offload it onto to some mug who can't judge the fuckedness state of clear coats.
I wonder what a clear coat is. I mostly just rely on rain to wash off my 2015 Fiesta. I never give my car a thought except when I'm actually in it or the MoT demand comes round.
PB is a useful reminder that there are a multitude of different ways to live...
For me, a car is simply a tool that allows me to do what I need/want to do. If I could do the things I wanted to do without a car, I'd not have one. I find no great joy in driving; the joy can come from what I do at the destination.
I also don't see my car as an extension of my psyche, or a reflection of who I am. It's a car.
And that is, I think, the heart of the matter. Once a car is a means to an end, then it's possible that there are other ways of achieving the same ends better. In fact, it's possible that car use gets in the way of achieving those ends.
The car is an interesting machine. It promises individual freedom, but relies on infrastructure that is provided collectively. It provides convenience for its owner but inconveniences others. It allows us to be ourselves but cuts us off from other people. It lets us do more but makes us less active. It opens up choices for some and restricts choices for others. Politically it's interesting because of all the things we do on a day to day basis it probably imposes more negative externalities, global and local, than anything else. Increasingly I think the political left-right divide comes down to whether you take the idea of these externalities seriously or not. The right can get a lot of mileage out of telling their voters that they can do what they want and any negative effects on other people are unimportant. The danger for the left is that they overestimate the extent to which people are willing, or feel able to afford, to care.
I think the Cons are absolutely right to pick a fight over car ownership because most of us have one and many of us realise the impracticalities of acting too quickly to dispossess us of them, or penalising ownership which the ULEZ has shown so clearly.
It is the one area (and I can't for the life of me think of any other) where actually the Cons might be able to claw some votes back and it seems that Lab are handing these to them on a plate.
Heat Punps
Disaster waiting to happen.
They sound bloody awful.
My next door neighbour has one.
Ive yet to hear him say anything good about it.
On the other hand he really likes his solar panels.
They're the norm in rural France and seem to work fine (not just in modern houses), yet every time I hear about them in the UK they don't seem up to the job, so there must be something in the way we're rolling them out here that's going awry. I'm renovating a barn there currently and there was no question the heating would be air source heat pump, our neighbours all have it too. Perhaps because they are topping up with wood burners, or perhaps the houses are just less draughty and better insulated.
I really don't know much about them other than the bits I read on here and eslsewhere but working better in France may be due to warmer climate. All the sources seem to indicate that air source heat pumps work better when it is warmer/hotter outside. Certainly the only person I know who has had one fitted said it was great in the summer but really bad in the winter.
Ground source less affected by season, but not really a retrofit option unless you hate your garden!
There's a house in Scotland we've been to in all seasons with a ground source heat pump and it's cosy (and the shower etc hot) at all times of year. In new build they make a lot of sense, but not for retrofit, generally.
Comments
Fun story. Was in Cornwall. Apparently so many parent at a school were getting a taxi to get their kids to school (time pressure), that the local taxis couldn’t cope. Until one of them bought a minibus (all the safety features etc) and setup a school bus run. Pay termly in advance. He was telling me he is buying 2 more….
Maybe anti-LTN will grab a Council seat or two in 2024, but this isn't a new issue in Oxford and I can't see it seriously denting Labour's position - indeed they are more at risk from Greens running to their left.
If you pay Amazon extra money, you get faster delivery. If you commit to paying Amazon £n per month, you get faster delivery guaranteed every time. Pricing like that means Amazon doesn't need to maintain a fleet capable of servicing every house in the country same-day.
That's how MaaS (Mobility as a Service) providers already work - think Uber and its surge pricing. You don't size your fleet according to maximum possible demand, you size it at a sensible level and manage the rest with demand-led pricing.
Ultimately most of this comes down to Google vs Musk. Waymo (Google/Alphabet's car arm) wants the future to be MaaS - services are how Google makes money, not selling hardware, with apologies to the three people with a Pixel phone. Musk's Tesla, meanwhile, is all about selling shiny hardware. Ultimately I think Google and @Leon will be proved right, and Musk wrong.
Sounding more like China every day.
Unlike some I don't see car ownership as a problem that needs to be solved.
I also see many articles talking about temperatures of 46 degrees, and wikipedia says a record high was reached of 47.3 degrees in Sardinia on July 19th.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_extreme_temperatures_in_Italy
I think they've chosen an inaccurate source of information because it supports their narrative.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/jul/31/rnli-urges-uk-paddleboarders-to-think-carefully-about-weather-and-tides?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other
Ive yet to hear him say anything good about it.
On the other hand he really likes his solar panels.
The BBC did use ESA's ground temperature predictions without explanation, as I pointed out at the time.
There was, however, a heatwave.
No idea how cost effective this will be or practical but we shall see no doubt.
And as for Uber's surge pricing... at busy times I've seen prices 5x the usual rate. Disabled and need to get to the hospital at the same time as kicking out time at a footy match? Pay up. Etc.
And that is before, as you so rightly point out, the orwellian idea of having your every trip logged and monitored, a complete loss of privacy.
Or a government that says, cars contribute x amount of carbon to the environment, "you have a maximum of 180 usable car-share minutes per week" etc.
But I feel that increasingly the State goes looking for solutions to minor problems rather than address the fact that it is too big, and needs to give everyone more freedom by cutting itself.
However solar panels are a good investment
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2023/07/30/heat-pump-willie-haughey-attacks-plans-replace-gas-boilers/
What is exceptionally pathetic is the "the fires weren't caused by climate change, they were caused by arson" claim. Arson works if and only if conditions are exceptionally hot and dry. The argument is like saying "People claim smart motorways are unusually dangerous, but if you examine the actual accidents on them, it always turns out they are caused by cars and lorries, not the actual motorway."
In many things the US is terrible, but somehow they seem to be able to organise school buses.
Air Source for heating (aka Air Conditioning in reverse) much less so. If you have a new loft conversion being done, spec that plus solar panels. The panels will run the air con in summer, providing your insulation is good enough.
Given the way that heat rises in the house, little heating needed up top in most winters.
They tend to be concentrated on the Left.
The idea of shivvering for days in January whilst my heat pump struggles to churn out 15C through a really cold snap fills me with horror.
https://www.which.co.uk/reviews/ground-and-air-source-heat-pumps/article/an-introduction-to-heat-pumps-aYyxQ1e0Hw6N
I suspect it's more like solar panels - save a lot of energy most of the time, but still need some input from conventional means.
The number of times I’ve seen them bodged onto an existing setup…
It seems she has found an excellent holiday in Morocco but this was through an independent travel agent as TUI, JET2, and the like were almost aggressively trying to send them to Southern Europe no doubt as they have huge investments in these areas
It will be interesting how holidaymakers react to visiting these areas in the future in peak season
"Road traffic crashes now represent the eighth leading cause of death globally. They claim more than 1.35 million lives each year and cause up to 50 million injuries. And, the fact is, every one of those deaths and injuries is preventable."
https://www.brake.org.uk/get-involved/take-action/mybrake/knowledge-centre/global-road-safety#:~:text=Road traffic crashes now represent,deaths and injuries is preventable.
Autonomous cars will kill tiny numbers of people, in comparison. The same way trains or planes kill tiny numbers
O/T Steve Smith and Travis Head looking dangerous for England here.
Flying robo taxis, no less…
And there's another oddity, the claim that the people on Rhodes were represented as refugees when in fact they were holidaymakers. They looked to me like both. I suspect they were getting a fair bit of typically British hate for being either 1. the sort of ghastly poor people who go on 5 star holidays to greece or 2. the sort of rich tory bastards who go on 5 star holidays to greece.
- We have very good insulation
- Underfloor heating
- No gas in our village, so the alternative was oil
We're planning to move house next year - another major renovation or self-build. Would we install an ASHP again? Absolutely.
With outdoor temperatures below a certain point, or radiator temperatures above a certain point, you just won't get a return on investment. You might as well just have direct electrical heating with room thermostats.
To use a heat pump properly I'd have to demolish my house as the insulation isn't really up to it.
In the long term that's probably the best option and no great loss (1920s bungalow) but I wonder how many more recent houses would need the same treatment. Probably more than we'd like, as a lot of 1980s housing really was poor.
Aus 1.85
Eng 5.2
Draw 3.65
https://www.betfair.com/exchange/plus/en/cricket/test-matches/england-v-australia-betting-32503518
Clearly the bargains have gone, this being peak season, and perhaps Tunisia is gaining as people avoid other "hotspots"
Any public official who's into that kind of thing, drop me a message - I'd like to invite you for dinner.
Well, you never know.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2023/07/30/britains-property-wealth-boom-is-an-illusion/
The argument you're making there is for autonomous driving cars not against car ownership.
The two things are mutually exclusive: you could own your own autonomous driving vehicle.
Sadly the Met Office don't make their Doppler radar available real time.
They’ll last as long as the helicopter transfers in New York lasted - until one crashes and makes a big mess on the street.
There's a house in Scotland we've been to in all seasons with a ground source heat pump and it's cosy (and the shower etc hot) at all times of year. In new build they make a lot of sense, but not for retrofit, generally.
And the Telegraph is reborn.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360544221009324
("more than half of all residential houses in Sweden have an installed heat pump")
There's plenty of energy in air or ground to extract, even when 'cold'. But to run most efficiently and be comfortable you need very good insulation.