That's good news. Let's hooe that's as far as it goes though. It won't be popular though. Oh well.
regardless of your opinion of HS2, there's still need for greater capacity between Brum and Manc.
Meh. The whole scheme was shite. But though downing tools now may be more financially-astute, I can see the case that Euston/Crewe is necessary to make something out of it, and I'm glad the Government has made that decision.
But like I said, it's a massive opportunity for the Tories, and where it leaves Reeve's mythical cavernous black hole, I have no idea.
I think being negative about HS2 is precisely the kind of thing that could see the Conservatives lose the next election. There is a horrible negative aura around the party and dispelling that is critical - just look at how much trouble Reeves is in for bring honest about the size of the structural deficit.
Over the next half decade it's possible that Waymo will link their San Francisco and LA operations. If they do so, it'll be interesting to see how the effects demand across the other transport services. It's possible that hub-and-spoke is going to look very legacy very quickly.
That's good news. Let's hooe that's as far as it goes though. It won't be popular though. Oh well.
regardless of your opinion of HS2, there's still need for greater capacity between Brum and Manc.
Meh. The whole scheme was shite. But though downing tools now may be more financially-astute, I can see the case that Euston/Crewe is necessary to make something out of it, and I'm glad the Government has made that decision.
But like I said, it's a massive opportunity for the Tories, and where it leaves Reeve's mythical cavernous black hole, I have no idea.
I think being negative about HS2 is precisely the kind of thing that could see the Conservatives lose the next election. There is a horrible negative aura around the party and dispelling that is critical - just look at how much trouble Reeves is in for bring honest about the size of the structural deficit.
I'm just baffled by our apparently inability to build high-speed rail lines in a timely fashion and at a reasonable price. The contrast with, for example, Japan is stark. The Shinkansen network was started in the 60s, covers most of the country, runs like clockwork and has a fantastic safety record. And work is now well underway on the next generation, a maglev train connecting Tokyo and Osaka. For the Japanese, high-speed conventional rail is already old hat.
That's good news. Let's hooe that's as far as it goes though. It won't be popular though. Oh well.
regardless of your opinion of HS2, there's still need for greater capacity between Brum and Manc.
Meh. The whole scheme was shite. But though downing tools now may be more financially-astute, I can see the case that Euston/Crewe is necessary to make something out of it, and I'm glad the Government has made that decision.
But like I said, it's a massive opportunity for the Tories, and where it leaves Reeve's mythical cavernous black hole, I have no idea.
I think being negative about HS2 is precisely the kind of thing that could see the Conservatives lose the next election. There is a horrible negative aura around the party and dispelling that is critical - just look at how much trouble Reeves is in for bring honest about the size of the structural deficit.
I'm just baffled by our apparently inability to build high-speed rail lines in a timely fashion and at a reasonable price. The contrast with, for example, Japan is stark. The Shinkansen network was started in the 60s, covers most of the country, runs like clockwork and has a fantastic safety record. And work is now well underway on the next generation, a maglev train connecting Tokyo and Osaka. For the Japanese, high-speed conventional rail is already old hat.
Because everything apart from building it takes a ludicrous amount of time and money.
Then actually building it takes a ludicrous amount of time and money.
Israeli military says it is 'checking possibility' it has killed Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar
There are pictures of his alleged body circulating online.
It certainly looks like him, but with GenAI....is Leon asleep yet?
I thought they killed the leader of Hamas a few weeks or months back ?
Seems like a lethal game of whack a mole tbh.
Not really, the Qatar based lot are just living a life of luxury on the backs of Hamas ill gotten gains. Yahya Sinwar is the leader on the ground in Gaza, ideologically driven to kill the Jews and behind October 7th. He is the one Israel have to get to say they have "won".
Or are you confusing Hamas for Hezbollah, where they have a new leader every week?
The European Union has warned X that it may calculate fines against the social-media platform by including revenue from Elon Musk’s other businesses, including Space Exploration Technologies Corp. and Neuralink Corp., an approach that would significantly increase the potential penalties for violating content moderation rules.
Any news from Brazil about how their exile from twitter is going? I picture it like that scene from the Simpsons where Lionel Hutz imagines a world without lawyers.
Although Twitter nowadays seems to be often a sewer full of threats of violence, one thing I will say is that does sometimes still contain some more obscure, but potentially vety useful information, that might be ignored by main outlets.
One such is that, according a U.S defence functionary, there seems to be a potentially rather interesting set of Congressional UFO hearings planned for November 13, after the election, led by Congresswoman or Senator Mace, and promising a lot of surprising information and witnesses. We've been here before, though, so let's see what emerges from it.
Israeli military says it is 'checking possibility' it has killed Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar
There are pictures of his alleged body circulating online.
It certainly looks like him, but with GenAI....is Leon asleep yet?
I thought they killed the leader of Hamas a few weeks or months back ?
Seems like a lethal game of whack a mole tbh.
Not really, the Qatar based lot are just living a life of luxury on the backs of Hamas ill gotten gains. Yahya Sinwar is the leader on the ground in Gaza, ideologically driven to kill the Jews and behind October 7th. He is the one Israel have to get to say they have "won".
Or are you confusing Hamas for Hezbollah, where they have a new leader every week?
I thought the reason he'd survived up to now was that he buggered off to Qatar as soon as he possibly could - leaving the Gazans to face the consequences of the war he had started.
Israeli military says it is 'checking possibility' it has killed Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar
There are pictures of his alleged body circulating online.
It certainly looks like him, but with GenAI....is Leon asleep yet?
I thought they killed the leader of Hamas a few weeks or months back ?
Seems like a lethal game of whack a mole tbh.
Not really, the Qatar based lot are just living a life of luxury on the backs of Hamas ill gotten gains. Yahya Sinwar is the leader on the ground in Gaza, ideologically driven to kill the Jews and behind October 7th. He is the one Israel have to get to say they have "won".
Or are you confusing Hamas for Hezbollah, where they have a new leader every week?
I thought the reason he'd survived up to now was that he buggered off to Qatar as soon as he possibly could - leaving the Gazans to face the consequences of the war he had started.
No. They had CCTV footage of him with the hostages in the tunnels months into the conflict. And they know any deal that has been proposed has been communicated to him in Gaza for his take on it using human messengers.
There were some reports that he was going to try and escape to Egypt and that was supposedly the motivation for the Israeli to go in to Rafah and secure that border.
He has been radio silence for the past month or so, which made some think he might have died in an airstrike.
Israeli military says it is 'checking possibility' it has killed Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar
There are pictures of his alleged body circulating online.
It certainly looks like him, but with GenAI....is Leon asleep yet?
I thought they killed the leader of Hamas a few weeks or months back ?
Seems like a lethal game of whack a mole tbh.
Not really, the Qatar based lot are just living a life of luxury on the backs of Hamas ill gotten gains. Yahya Sinwar is the leader on the ground in Gaza, ideologically driven to kill the Jews and behind October 7th. He is the one Israel have to get to say they have "won".
Or are you confusing Hamas for Hezbollah, where they have a new leader every week?
I thought the reason he'd survived up to now was that he buggered off to Qatar as soon as he possibly could - leaving the Gazans to face the consequences of the war he had started.
No. They had CCTV footage of him with the hostages in the tunnels months into the conflict. And they know any deal that has been proposed has been communicated to him in Gaza for his take on it using human messengers.
There were some reports that he was going to try and escape to Egypt and that was supposedly the motivation for the Israeli to go in to Rafah and secure that border.
He has been radio silence for the past month or so, which made some think he might have died in an airstrike.
Well good news, if true. With Nasrallah also gone, Israel would have a basis on which to claim victory, and enact a ceasefire.
Obviously, any deal also needs to involve the return of the hostages.
Israeli military says it is 'checking possibility' it has killed Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar
There are pictures of his alleged body circulating online.
It certainly looks like him, but with GenAI....is Leon asleep yet?
I thought they killed the leader of Hamas a few weeks or months back ?
Seems like a lethal game of whack a mole tbh.
Not really, the Qatar based lot are just living a life of luxury on the backs of Hamas ill gotten gains. Yahya Sinwar is the leader on the ground in Gaza, ideologically driven to kill the Jews and behind October 7th. He is the one Israel have to get to say they have "won".
Or are you confusing Hamas for Hezbollah, where they have a new leader every week?
I thought the reason he'd survived up to now was that he buggered off to Qatar as soon as he possibly could - leaving the Gazans to face the consequences of the war he had started.
No. They had CCTV footage of him with the hostages in the tunnels months into the conflict. And they know any deal that has been proposed has been communicated to him in Gaza for his take on it using human messengers.
There were some reports that he was going to try and escape to Egypt and that was supposedly the motivation for the Israeli to go in to Rafah and secure that border.
He has been radio silence for the past month or so, which made some think he might have died in an airstrike.
Well good news, if true. With Nasrallah also gone, Israel would have a basis on which to claim victory, and enact a ceasefire.
Obviously, any deal also needs to involve the return of the hostages.
The reports are if it was him there were no hostages. I have a horrible feeling that is because they are all dead (at least the one they were using as human shields, we know Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the Palestine front of Jihad*, the Gazan Jihad for Islam* etc all have them, which makes everything even more complicated)
Catching up on the news, and on yesterday's accident vs collision topic, the death of Liam Payne sounds, based on reporting, more like a Darwin Award entry than an 'accident'.
It's always strange watching the protestations of media and friends to whitewash celebrity alkies and junkies.
We have the same about long-term violent criminal thugs who suddenly become "popular with everyone" or "would do anything to help anyone" or "the son every mum would love to have".
I suggest that far more good can come from such deaths if a modicum of honesty was present.
At least it seems we can rule out Putin being behind this apparent fall from height.
I also hadn't heard of him, must admit, but it's very sad, for his age if nothing else (and possibly a reflection on the industry and what it does to young stars in manufactured groups once they've served their purpose).
Israeli military says it is 'checking possibility' it has killed Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar
***Insert Brenda from Bristol gif***
in Recruitment Monthly...
"The challenges of management recruitment in the Death To Israel space." - by a man in a shiny blue suit with brown shoes.
"Conversely, openings are being created rapidly as this employment space expands, with a high probability of promotion for those who achieve the necessary level on their survival reports. Those who fail will be repositioned in Graveyard Management. The right candidate can, with a bit of luck, ascend to the C-suite within months with all that that implies."
Israeli military says it is 'checking possibility' it has killed Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar
***Insert Brenda from Bristol gif***
in Recruitment Monthly...
"The challenges of management recruitment in the Death To Israel space." - by a man in a shiny blue suit with brown shoes.
"Conversely, openings are being created rapidly as this employment space expands, with a high probability of promotion for those who achieve the necessary level on their survival reports. Those who fail will be repositioned in Graveyard Management. The right candidate can, with a bit of luck, ascend to the C-suite within months with all that that implies."
Promising - but need more Bullshit Bingo. No mention of Synergies, for example. Or AI. Or crypto.
"With the right stratergisation, new players in this market can optimise synergies and align the candidate flow with innovation in AI and Crypto".
The carbon capture project was actually initiated under the last government.
I know very little about the merits or otherwise of it, but the Tories obviously thought it a good idea, at least until 4 July.
It is inevitable that there will be some areas that are extremely difficult to decarbonise, and carbon capture may well be a solution in these areas. But it is surely very much a last resort. Our efforts for now should be focussed on rolling out renewables (and possibly nuclear, but I have my doubts there) as quickly as possible and on demand management initiatives.
My feeling is that if we really believe this is an emergency, we should be trying all options. I'd be annoyed if this happened instead of public investment in nuclear or other potential solutions... but we shouldn't be afraid of govt taking risks which could have a big payoff.
The other point is that delay costs, a lot. If we'd decided earlier on nuclear and HS2, we might have saved £50bn. And be benefiting from them built.
Yup, both of these decisions should have been made in 2002 after Labour opened the spending taps. Instead they went on a PFI binge for shiny new offices to placate the unions.
Put off by Labour, and put off again for a time by their successors. We could have borrowed at near 1% long term interest rates to finance them, too. Just mad.
Instead we did Brexit.
So we should have just ignored the largest vote for anything in British history and the results of three general elections, to build a wildly overpriced rail line?
Not what I said. What's incontestable is that our sense of priorities was badly wrong.
FWIW, in my area, there are two solutions for people who can't charge their electric vehicles at home. First, there were a few standard charging stations. There were two in the basement of the local library. I recall my surprise when I saw one actually being used. But now that happens a little more often. And there were two at a local supermarket.
Now, that same supermarket (part of the Fred Meyer chain) also has ten Tesla stations. When I shop there, which I do once or twice a month, I usually see six of them in use. (I shop on Tuesdays, usually. I would expect there are more on weekends.)
My guess is that most of those Teslas belong to couples. One sits in the Tesla, while the other does the shopping.
The two seem like a reasonable solutions, for many in this area (a Seattle suburb, near Microsoft and Google).
I note Sky only has one news story today of the death of a pop star in Buenos Aires
What is it with journalists and politicians who seem to have an obsession with the cult of celebrity
It is very sad for his family and friends but surely there has to be a balance
It appears cabinet ministers have failed to agree with Reeves for cuts in their department budgets, but welcome to the real world and the difficult choices and unpopularity that will go with them
The IMF have warned the UK needs tax increases and cuts in public spending, not borrowing, and this is when labour realise they simply have not got the ability to fund all the promises they are making and other people's money has already been spent
The Tories were going to do what, though?
Increase taxes and cut spending. TINA applies.
They would also have moved net zero to 2035 at least
The current government's target for Net Zero is 2050. 2035 would be seriously ambitious; didn't realise Sunak was quite so green .
Playing games - net zero emissions but then you knew that
That's incorrect too. Where are you getting all this false information?
Based on current trends, that would appear to be achievable, particularly with batteries becoming so cheap. Oddly enough, some of the targets are possibly mutually exclusive - if electric vehicles and heat pumps really take off, getting to zero carbon electricity becomes more difficult as demand grows.
Is this just an example of EV demand hitting some really hard edges. From this and other reports from articles and YouTubers it seems that there are some hurdles they can't cross, namely
Can't realistically handle long-distance travel (esp in USA)
Not enough charging stations
Not enough places to park whilst charging overnight (most people don't have drives)
EV cars are still comparatively expensive and have very poor resale values as batteries fade
Assumptions about users (apps, bank accounts, credit cards, cashless) are not universal
These problems may fade over time (and I hope they do: I like EVs) but right now they are pretty hard walls and will give a hard ceiling to sales for some time.
EVs are expensive in the EU thanks to tariffs on Chinese EVs & the slow progress of EU car makers in making EVs in sufficient volume to push them out the door cheaply.
Worldwide, EV sales are up 30% year on year - basically China is churning them out at far lower prices & selling them everywhere they can, including inside China itself.
I'm coming round to tariffs. I know the concept of comparative advantage and the theory that they destroy wealth, but I see no reason to increase wealth globally if it decreases wealth locally. From your point I assume that EU manufacturers will slowly catch up to make EVs, and unless I'm missing something there isn't Anu mass manufacturers of EVs in the UK?
The issue is domestic consumers end up paying more for an inferior product
So not only is there wealth destruction, there is also wealth transfer within countries
The carbon capture project was actually initiated under the last government.
I know very little about the merits or otherwise of it, but the Tories obviously thought it a good idea, at least until 4 July.
It is inevitable that there will be some areas that are extremely difficult to decarbonise, and carbon capture may well be a solution in these areas. But it is surely very much a last resort. Our efforts for now should be focussed on rolling out renewables (and possibly nuclear, but I have my doubts there) as quickly as possible and on demand management initiatives.
My feeling is that if we really believe this is an emergency, we should be trying all options. I'd be annoyed if this happened instead of public investment in nuclear or other potential solutions... but we shouldn't be afraid of govt taking risks which could have a big payoff.
The other point is that delay costs, a lot. If we'd decided earlier on nuclear and HS2, we might have saved £50bn. And be benefiting from them built.
Yup, both of these decisions should have been made in 2002 after Labour opened the spending taps. Instead they went on a PFI binge for shiny new offices to placate the unions.
Put off by Labour, and put off again for a time by their successors. We could have borrowed at near 1% long term interest rates to finance them, too. Just mad.
Instead we did Brexit.
So we should have just ignored the largest vote for anything in British history and the results of three general elections, to build a wildly overpriced rail line?
Not what I said. What's incontestable is that our sense of priorities was badly wrong.
The Supreme Court looks set to gut 8th Amendment protections. They'll probably draw the line at disembowelling, though. Probably.
https://www.vox.com/scotus/378058/supreme-court-hamm-smith-death-penalty-eighth-amendment ..At least some members of the Court’s Republican majority, however, have suggested that this “evolving standards of decency” framework should be abandoned. In Bucklew v. Precythe (2019), the Court considered whether states could use execution methods that risked causing the dying inmate a great deal of pain. Justice Neil Gorsuch’s majority opinion, which held that potentially painful methods of execution are allowed, seems to exist in a completely different universe than the Court’s Eighth Amendment cases that look to evolving standards.
While the Court’s earlier opinions ask whether a particular form of punishment has fallen out of favor today, Gorsuch asked whether a method of punishment was out of favor at the time of the founding. Though his opinion does list some methods of execution, such as “disemboweling” and “burning alive” that violate the Eighth Amendment, Gorsuch wrote that these methods are unconstitutional because “by the time of the founding, these methods had long fallen out of use and so had become ‘unusual.’”..
I note Sky only has one news story today of the death of a pop star in Buenos Aires
What is it with journalists and politicians who seem to have an obsession with the cult of celebrity
It is very sad for his family and friends but surely there has to be a balance
It appears cabinet ministers have failed to agree with Reeves for cuts in their department budgets, but welcome to the real world and the difficult choices and unpopularity that will go with them
The IMF have warned the UK needs tax increases and cuts in public spending, not borrowing, and this is when labour realise they simply have not got the ability to fund all the promises they are making and other people's money has already been spent
The Tories were going to do what, though?
Increase taxes and cut spending. TINA applies.
They would also have moved net zero to 2035 at least
The current government's target for Net Zero is 2050. 2035 would be seriously ambitious; didn't realise Sunak was quite so green .
Playing games - net zero emissions but then you knew that
That's incorrect too. Where are you getting all this false information?
Based on current trends, that would appear to be achievable, particularly with batteries becoming so cheap. Oddly enough, some of the targets are possibly mutually exclusive - if electric vehicles and heat pumps really take off, getting to zero carbon electricity becomes more difficult as demand grows.
Is this just an example of EV demand hitting some really hard edges. From this and other reports from articles and YouTubers it seems that there are some hurdles they can't cross, namely
Can't realistically handle long-distance travel (esp in USA)
Not enough charging stations
Not enough places to park whilst charging overnight (most people don't have drives)
EV cars are still comparatively expensive and have very poor resale values as batteries fade
Assumptions about users (apps, bank accounts, credit cards, cashless) are not universal
These problems may fade over time (and I hope they do: I like EVs) but right now they are pretty hard walls and will give a hard ceiling to sales for some time.
EVs are expensive in the EU thanks to tariffs on Chinese EVs & the slow progress of EU car makers in making EVs in sufficient volume to push them out the door cheaply.
Worldwide, EV sales are up 30% year on year - basically China is churning them out at far lower prices & selling them everywhere they can, including inside China itself.
I'm coming round to tariffs. I know the concept of comparative advantage and the theory that they destroy wealth, but I see no reason to increase wealth globally if it decreases wealth locally. From your point I assume that EU manufacturers will slowly catch up to make EVs, and unless I'm missing something there isn't Anu mass manufacturers of EVs in the UK?
The issue is domestic consumers end up paying more for an inferior product
So not only is there wealth destruction, there is also wealth transfer within countries
There's no point of producing superior products if your population don't earn enough to buy them. Henry Ford paid his employers enough for them to buy his product. Plus we have coming up to fifty years of data that makes me think the combination of neoliberalism and globalisation doesn't work. We aren't producing EV/hybrids, our steel industry just died, and we are throwing away a lead in SMRs. Our present path just makes us poorer and thanks to Miliband's stupidity, colder. Empirically we need to do things differently
The Supreme Court looks set to gut 8th Amendment protections. They'll probably draw the line at disembowelling, though. Probably.
https://www.vox.com/scotus/378058/supreme-court-hamm-smith-death-penalty-eighth-amendment ..At least some members of the Court’s Republican majority, however, have suggested that this “evolving standards of decency” framework should be abandoned. In Bucklew v. Precythe (2019), the Court considered whether states could use execution methods that risked causing the dying inmate a great deal of pain. Justice Neil Gorsuch’s majority opinion, which held that potentially painful methods of execution are allowed, seems to exist in a completely different universe than the Court’s Eighth Amendment cases that look to evolving standards.
While the Court’s earlier opinions ask whether a particular form of punishment has fallen out of favor today, Gorsuch asked whether a method of punishment was out of favor at the time of the founding. Though his opinion does list some methods of execution, such as “disemboweling” and “burning alive” that violate the Eighth Amendment, Gorsuch wrote that these methods are unconstitutional because “by the time of the founding, these methods had long fallen out of use and so had become ‘unusual.’”..
What sort of 'civilised' country is the US becoming?
FWIW, in my area, there are two solutions for people who can't charge their electric vehicles at home. First, there were a few standard charging stations. There were two in the basement of the local library. I recall my surprise when I saw one actually being used. But now that happens a little more often. And there were two at a local supermarket.
Now, that same supermarket (part of the Fred Meyer chain) also has ten Tesla stations. When I shop there, which I do once or twice a month, I usually see six of them in use. (I shop on Tuesdays, usually. I would expect there are more on weekends.)
My guess is that most of those Teslas belong to couples. One sits in the Tesla, while the other does the shopping.
The two seem like a reasonable solutions, for many in this area (a Seattle suburb, near Microsoft and Google).
In France, looks like the Ibis hotel chain has done a deal with Tesla Supercharging. Business hotels, big carparks, lots of space.
Interestingly they seem to have put in decent coffee machines, in the hotels - had some of the best coffee I had in France in an Ibis hotel!
I note Sky only has one news story today of the death of a pop star in Buenos Aires
What is it with journalists and politicians who seem to have an obsession with the cult of celebrity
It is very sad for his family and friends but surely there has to be a balance
It appears cabinet ministers have failed to agree with Reeves for cuts in their department budgets, but welcome to the real world and the difficult choices and unpopularity that will go with them
The IMF have warned the UK needs tax increases and cuts in public spending, not borrowing, and this is when labour realise they simply have not got the ability to fund all the promises they are making and other people's money has already been spent
The Tories were going to do what, though?
Increase taxes and cut spending. TINA applies.
They would also have moved net zero to 2035 at least
The current government's target for Net Zero is 2050. 2035 would be seriously ambitious; didn't realise Sunak was quite so green .
Playing games - net zero emissions but then you knew that
That's incorrect too. Where are you getting all this false information?
Based on current trends, that would appear to be achievable, particularly with batteries becoming so cheap. Oddly enough, some of the targets are possibly mutually exclusive - if electric vehicles and heat pumps really take off, getting to zero carbon electricity becomes more difficult as demand grows.
Is this just an example of EV demand hitting some really hard edges. From this and other reports from articles and YouTubers it seems that there are some hurdles they can't cross, namely
Can't realistically handle long-distance travel (esp in USA)
Not enough charging stations
Not enough places to park whilst charging overnight (most people don't have drives)
EV cars are still comparatively expensive and have very poor resale values as batteries fade
Assumptions about users (apps, bank accounts, credit cards, cashless) are not universal
These problems may fade over time (and I hope they do: I like EVs) but right now they are pretty hard walls and will give a hard ceiling to sales for some time.
EVs are expensive in the EU thanks to tariffs on Chinese EVs & the slow progress of EU car makers in making EVs in sufficient volume to push them out the door cheaply.
Worldwide, EV sales are up 30% year on year - basically China is churning them out at far lower prices & selling them everywhere they can, including inside China itself.
I'm coming round to tariffs. I know the concept of comparative advantage and the theory that they destroy wealth, but I see no reason to increase wealth globally if it decreases wealth locally. From your point I assume that EU manufacturers will slowly catch up to make EVs, and unless I'm missing something there isn't Anu mass manufacturers of EVs in the UK?
The issue is domestic consumers end up paying more for an inferior product
So not only is there wealth destruction, there is also wealth transfer within countries
There's no point of producing superior products if your population don't earn enough to buy them. Henry Ford paid his employers enough for them to buy his product. Plus we have coming up to fifty years of data that makes me think the combination of neoliberalism and globalisation doesn't work. We aren't producing EV/hybrids, our steel industry just died, and we are throwing away a lead in SMRs. Our present path just makes us poorer and thanks to Miliband's stupidity, colder. Empirically we need to do things differently
Which comes back to Musk and his antics. He exists as he is, because he can get things to happen. Often involving sustained inward investment in companies.
It's not just the state abrogating its responsibilities. It's companies who just sit there, rent seeking and not actually trying to innovate.
The Supreme Court looks set to gut 8th Amendment protections. They'll probably draw the line at disembowelling, though. Probably.
https://www.vox.com/scotus/378058/supreme-court-hamm-smith-death-penalty-eighth-amendment ..At least some members of the Court’s Republican majority, however, have suggested that this “evolving standards of decency” framework should be abandoned. In Bucklew v. Precythe (2019), the Court considered whether states could use execution methods that risked causing the dying inmate a great deal of pain. Justice Neil Gorsuch’s majority opinion, which held that potentially painful methods of execution are allowed, seems to exist in a completely different universe than the Court’s Eighth Amendment cases that look to evolving standards.
While the Court’s earlier opinions ask whether a particular form of punishment has fallen out of favor today, Gorsuch asked whether a method of punishment was out of favor at the time of the founding. Though his opinion does list some methods of execution, such as “disemboweling” and “burning alive” that violate the Eighth Amendment, Gorsuch wrote that these methods are unconstitutional because “by the time of the founding, these methods had long fallen out of use and so had become ‘unusual.’”..
What sort of 'civilised' country is the US becoming?
One of the reasons why I don't trust institutions is the execution of Richard Roose https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Roose . Not just in the fact of the execution (boiling alive) but the fact that so-called civilized lawyers discussed the case calmly for centuries thereafter. Humans can be repellent.
I note Sky only has one news story today of the death of a pop star in Buenos Aires
What is it with journalists and politicians who seem to have an obsession with the cult of celebrity
It is very sad for his family and friends but surely there has to be a balance
It appears cabinet ministers have failed to agree with Reeves for cuts in their department budgets, but welcome to the real world and the difficult choices and unpopularity that will go with them
The IMF have warned the UK needs tax increases and cuts in public spending, not borrowing, and this is when labour realise they simply have not got the ability to fund all the promises they are making and other people's money has already been spent
The Tories were going to do what, though?
Increase taxes and cut spending. TINA applies.
They would also have moved net zero to 2035 at least
The current government's target for Net Zero is 2050. 2035 would be seriously ambitious; didn't realise Sunak was quite so green .
Playing games - net zero emissions but then you knew that
That's incorrect too. Where are you getting all this false information?
Based on current trends, that would appear to be achievable, particularly with batteries becoming so cheap. Oddly enough, some of the targets are possibly mutually exclusive - if electric vehicles and heat pumps really take off, getting to zero carbon electricity becomes more difficult as demand grows.
Is this just an example of EV demand hitting some really hard edges. From this and other reports from articles and YouTubers it seems that there are some hurdles they can't cross, namely
Can't realistically handle long-distance travel (esp in USA)
Not enough charging stations
Not enough places to park whilst charging overnight (most people don't have drives)
EV cars are still comparatively expensive and have very poor resale values as batteries fade
Assumptions about users (apps, bank accounts, credit cards, cashless) are not universal
These problems may fade over time (and I hope they do: I like EVs) but right now they are pretty hard walls and will give a hard ceiling to sales for some time.
EVs are expensive in the EU thanks to tariffs on Chinese EVs & the slow progress of EU car makers in making EVs in sufficient volume to push them out the door cheaply.
Worldwide, EV sales are up 30% year on year - basically China is churning them out at far lower prices & selling them everywhere they can, including inside China itself.
I'm coming round to tariffs. I know the concept of comparative advantage and the theory that they destroy wealth, but I see no reason to increase wealth globally if it decreases wealth locally. From your point I assume that EU manufacturers will slowly catch up to make EVs, and unless I'm missing something there isn't Anu mass manufacturers of EVs in the UK?
The issue is domestic consumers end up paying more for an inferior product
So not only is there wealth destruction, there is also wealth transfer within countries
There's no point of producing superior products if your population don't earn enough to buy them. Henry Ford paid his employers enough for them to buy his product. Plus we have coming up to fifty years of data that makes me think the combination of neoliberalism and globalisation doesn't work. We aren't producing EV/hybrids, our steel industry just died, and we are throwing away a lead in SMRs. Our present path just makes us poorer and thanks to Miliband's stupidity, colder. Empirically we need to do things differently
We important loads of stuff from China. I'm curious as to why EVs are considered a special case.
With the exception of Tesla, UK/US/European manufacturers got lazy and preferred to lobby for the status quo than innovate. Some of them are now catching up, which is no doubt a good thing for our economies, but the only reason why is our climate targets and pressure from abroad.
That's more likely because of the competition from electric bikes, which are everywhere. And are far cheaper.
To a point. Ebikes have basically wiped out the market for road-legal 50cc equivalent scooters, both petrol and electric, but that was never a big market anyway. 50cc models are limited to 28mph and have pitiful motors that struggle to make walking pace going up a hill. Only 16 year-olds ever bought them, because they can't legally ride anything else.
The bulk of the motorcycle market in the UK is 125cc scooters and after a brief blip of sales electrics have been crushed. Electric 125 equivalent models will generally do 50-ish mph and a range of 40-60 miles. Nobody's buying an ebike instead of a 125, which is why unlike 50cc machines sales of petrol 125s are fine. They're ignoring electrics and buying a petrol model that's half the price, does 65mph+, goes for 200 miles on one tank and has storage space that isn't filled up with batteries.
The technology for electric motorcycles and scooters just isn't there yet, so I suspect sales will continue to be woeful until battery tech improves or the government outright bans petrol engines.
I note Sky only has one news story today of the death of a pop star in Buenos Aires
What is it with journalists and politicians who seem to have an obsession with the cult of celebrity
It is very sad for his family and friends but surely there has to be a balance
It appears cabinet ministers have failed to agree with Reeves for cuts in their department budgets, but welcome to the real world and the difficult choices and unpopularity that will go with them
The IMF have warned the UK needs tax increases and cuts in public spending, not borrowing, and this is when labour realise they simply have not got the ability to fund all the promises they are making and other people's money has already been spent
The Tories were going to do what, though?
Increase taxes and cut spending. TINA applies.
They would also have moved net zero to 2035 at least
The current government's target for Net Zero is 2050. 2035 would be seriously ambitious; didn't realise Sunak was quite so green .
Playing games - net zero emissions but then you knew that
That's incorrect too. Where are you getting all this false information?
Based on current trends, that would appear to be achievable, particularly with batteries becoming so cheap. Oddly enough, some of the targets are possibly mutually exclusive - if electric vehicles and heat pumps really take off, getting to zero carbon electricity becomes more difficult as demand grows.
Is this just an example of EV demand hitting some really hard edges. From this and other reports from articles and YouTubers it seems that there are some hurdles they can't cross, namely
Can't realistically handle long-distance travel (esp in USA)
Not enough charging stations
Not enough places to park whilst charging overnight (most people don't have drives)
EV cars are still comparatively expensive and have very poor resale values as batteries fade
Assumptions about users (apps, bank accounts, credit cards, cashless) are not universal
These problems may fade over time (and I hope they do: I like EVs) but right now they are pretty hard walls and will give a hard ceiling to sales for some time.
EVs are expensive in the EU thanks to tariffs on Chinese EVs & the slow progress of EU car makers in making EVs in sufficient volume to push them out the door cheaply.
Worldwide, EV sales are up 30% year on year - basically China is churning them out at far lower prices & selling them everywhere they can, including inside China itself.
I'm coming round to tariffs. I know the concept of comparative advantage and the theory that they destroy wealth, but I see no reason to increase wealth globally if it decreases wealth locally. From your point I assume that EU manufacturers will slowly catch up to make EVs, and unless I'm missing something there isn't Anu mass manufacturers of EVs in the UK?
The issue is domestic consumers end up paying more for an inferior product
So not only is there wealth destruction, there is also wealth transfer within countries
There's no point of producing superior products if your population don't earn enough to buy them. Henry Ford paid his employers enough for them to buy his product. Plus we have coming up to fifty years of data that makes me think the combination of neoliberalism and globalisation doesn't work. We aren't producing EV/hybrids, our steel industry just died, and we are throwing away a lead in SMRs. Our present path just makes us poorer and thanks to Miliband's stupidity, colder. Empirically we need to do things differently
Yes, we can't forget that the ideal consumer is likely a worker and if you remove the value of their work they cannot consume.
Globalisation in the West seemed to help those who are divorced from production allowing them to sell cheap low end goods and displace the local producers. Now with the rise of the Chinese factory shops i.e Amazon, Alibaba and direct to consumer goods there is no longer the value for Argos to capture. And the Chinese are moving up the value chain.
Is this just an example of EV demand hitting some really hard edges. From this and other reports from articles and YouTubers it seems that there are some hurdles they can't cross, namely
Can't realistically handle long-distance travel (esp in USA)
Not enough charging stations
Not enough places to park whilst charging overnight (most people don't have drives)
EV cars are still comparatively expensive and have very poor resale values as batteries fade
Assumptions about users (apps, bank accounts, credit cards, cashless) are not universal
These problems may fade over time (and I hope they do: I like EVs) but right now they are pretty hard walls and will give a hard ceiling to sales for some time.
Spot on. There's a plateau in the market because we've run though the enthusiastic early adopters and people for whom those issues are not a major problem.
People without driveways not being able to charge at home is a huge bottleneck to adoption of EVs, I've never seen any realistic proposal on how to deal with this other than spending vast amounts lining streets with charging points.
The 'computer on wheels' approach taken by EV manufacturers is also an impediment. It's a car, not an iPad. They need to have models with physical buttons, no reliance on internet connectivity or accounts to log into, and a simple, easily repairable design. I suspect the Chinese manufacturers will cater to this market in the next few years.
I see a lot of news editorials and Youtube videos proclaiming EVs are dead and petrol4evah. Which is bollocks, but obviously gets them clicks and views.
(if anyone wants to see what a dead EV market looks like, take a look at motorcycles. In 2023 electrics had 4% of sales, down almost 40% from 2022. A single model of petrol scooter, the Yamaha NMAX 125, has sales roughly equivalent to all electric motorcycles combined.)
I've recently moved to the west Kensington part of Hammersmith and Fulham. Pretty much all of the streetlight now have charging points in them. Not sure how widespread this is, or how good/fast they are at charging, but seems like a good way to go for those who do not have drives.
Same round here. Good for overnight charging, generally.
Because, when the street light were put in, someone decided that 32/20A was the right way to go. Even before LED light became a thing, this was an interesting choice.
Obviously they were expecting an electric oven attached to each street light....
There has been quite a lot of work increasing the feeds upstream of the street lights themselves.
There are a few on sidestreets round here but it is hardly a panacea. No-one is getting up at 3am to move their car once it has charged, to make room for the next one.
I know a few people living in flats who charge their EVs at superchargers, only.
Much as most people don't fill their cars with petrol at home.
The thing is, that assuming there's no queue, it takes a couple of minutes to fill a car/van with petrol or diesel and you're good for 400-600 miles (depending on car and driving style). for EVs it can take up to half an hour and you'll not get the mileage.
I'd struggle to drive 400-600 miles without stopping for a wee and a walk around to stretch my legs, And maybe a coffee and bite to eat.
The problem is that if you charge at a public charger it's 80p or so per kWh which is very expensive when petrol is 10p per mile max.
Unless 80-90% of your mileage is done via low cost at home charging the figures for an EV simply don't stack up.
Yebbut you generally get around 4 miles per kwh (I get over 5 when the weather is mild from my Niro) so while not as cheap as petrol, it's not too bad. And when I charge at home, I get about 300 miles on a full charge fror less than a tenner. So a home top up with a small boost en route for a longer trip is probably reasonable.
As others have said, the EV3 looks like it'll go some way to being a practical solution for longer journeys. And I've had no issues with the quality of Kia.
That's more likely because of the competition from electric bikes, which are everywhere. And are far cheaper.
To a point. Ebikes have basically wiped out the market for road-legal 50cc equivalent scooters, both petrol and electric, but that was never a big market anyway. 50cc models are limited to 28mph and have pitiful motors that struggle to make walking pace going up a hill. Only 16 year-olds ever bought them, because they can't legally ride anything else.
The bulk of the motorcycle market in the UK is 125cc scooters and after a brief blip of sales electrics have been crushed. Electric 125 equivalent models will generally do 50-ish mph and a range of 40-60 miles. Nobody's buying an ebike instead of a 125, which is why unlike 50cc machines sales of petrol 125s are fine. They're ignoring electrics and buying a petrol model that's half the price, does 65mph+, goes for 200 miles on one tank and has storage space that isn't filled up with batteries.
The technology for electric motorcycles and scooters just isn't there yet, so I suspect sales will continue to be woeful until battery tech improves or the government outright bans petrol engines.
The electric mopeds seem to be a big thing in the East. The battery issues being mitigated by hot swapping stations.
Another person who is finding out the FO part of FA&FO.
The wife of a Conservative councillor has been jailed for 31 months after calling for hotels housing asylum seekers to be set on fire.
Lucy Connolly, whose husband Raymond serves on West Northamptonshire Council, posted the expletive-ridden message on X, formerly known as Twitter, on the day three girls were killed in Southport.
The 41-year-old childminder called for "mass deportation now" and added: "If that makes me racist, so be it."
She has been sentenced at Birmingham Crown Court, having previously admitted intending to stir up racial hatred.
I note Sky only has one news story today of the death of a pop star in Buenos Aires
What is it with journalists and politicians who seem to have an obsession with the cult of celebrity
It is very sad for his family and friends but surely there has to be a balance
It appears cabinet ministers have failed to agree with Reeves for cuts in their department budgets, but welcome to the real world and the difficult choices and unpopularity that will go with them
The IMF have warned the UK needs tax increases and cuts in public spending, not borrowing, and this is when labour realise they simply have not got the ability to fund all the promises they are making and other people's money has already been spent
The Tories were going to do what, though?
Increase taxes and cut spending. TINA applies.
They would also have moved net zero to 2035 at least
The current government's target for Net Zero is 2050. 2035 would be seriously ambitious; didn't realise Sunak was quite so green .
Playing games - net zero emissions but then you knew that
That's incorrect too. Where are you getting all this false information?
Based on current trends, that would appear to be achievable, particularly with batteries becoming so cheap. Oddly enough, some of the targets are possibly mutually exclusive - if electric vehicles and heat pumps really take off, getting to zero carbon electricity becomes more difficult as demand grows.
Is this just an example of EV demand hitting some really hard edges. From this and other reports from articles and YouTubers it seems that there are some hurdles they can't cross, namely
Can't realistically handle long-distance travel (esp in USA)
Not enough charging stations
Not enough places to park whilst charging overnight (most people don't have drives)
EV cars are still comparatively expensive and have very poor resale values as batteries fade
Assumptions about users (apps, bank accounts, credit cards, cashless) are not universal
These problems may fade over time (and I hope they do: I like EVs) but right now they are pretty hard walls and will give a hard ceiling to sales for some time.
EVs are expensive in the EU thanks to tariffs on Chinese EVs & the slow progress of EU car makers in making EVs in sufficient volume to push them out the door cheaply.
Worldwide, EV sales are up 30% year on year - basically China is churning them out at far lower prices & selling them everywhere they can, including inside China itself.
I'm coming round to tariffs. I know the concept of comparative advantage and the theory that they destroy wealth, but I see no reason to increase wealth globally if it decreases wealth locally. From your point I assume that EU manufacturers will slowly catch up to make EVs, and unless I'm missing something there isn't Anu mass manufacturers of EVs in the UK?
The issue is domestic consumers end up paying more for an inferior product
So not only is there wealth destruction, there is also wealth transfer within countries
There's no point of producing superior products if your population don't earn enough to buy them. Henry Ford paid his employers enough for them to buy his product. Plus we have coming up to fifty years of data that makes me think the combination of neoliberalism and globalisation doesn't work. We aren't producing EV/hybrids, our steel industry just died, and we are throwing away a lead in SMRs. Our present path just makes us poorer and thanks to Miliband's stupidity, colder. Empirically we need to do things differently
We important loads of stuff from China. I'm curious as to why EVs are considered a special case.
With the exception of Tesla, UK/US/European manufacturers got lazy and preferred to lobby for the status quo than innovate. Some of them are now catching up, which is no doubt a good thing for our economies, but the only reason why is our climate targets and pressure from abroad.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine has demonstrated the danger for democracies of being economically reliant on a militaristic dictatorship. So it would be a good move to reduce our economic dependence on China.
The first step would be to prevent becoming reliant on China for further industries in addition to those where we already import. At the moment the West still has a car industry, while it generally doesn't have TV or smartphone industries.
It should be easier to retain our car industry then it would be to regain a TV manufacturing industry.
I note Sky only has one news story today of the death of a pop star in Buenos Aires
What is it with journalists and politicians who seem to have an obsession with the cult of celebrity
It is very sad for his family and friends but surely there has to be a balance
It appears cabinet ministers have failed to agree with Reeves for cuts in their department budgets, but welcome to the real world and the difficult choices and unpopularity that will go with them
The IMF have warned the UK needs tax increases and cuts in public spending, not borrowing, and this is when labour realise they simply have not got the ability to fund all the promises they are making and other people's money has already been spent
The Tories were going to do what, though?
Increase taxes and cut spending. TINA applies.
They would also have moved net zero to 2035 at least
The current government's target for Net Zero is 2050. 2035 would be seriously ambitious; didn't realise Sunak was quite so green .
Playing games - net zero emissions but then you knew that
That's incorrect too. Where are you getting all this false information?
Based on current trends, that would appear to be achievable, particularly with batteries becoming so cheap. Oddly enough, some of the targets are possibly mutually exclusive - if electric vehicles and heat pumps really take off, getting to zero carbon electricity becomes more difficult as demand grows.
Is this just an example of EV demand hitting some really hard edges. From this and other reports from articles and YouTubers it seems that there are some hurdles they can't cross, namely
Can't realistically handle long-distance travel (esp in USA)
Not enough charging stations
Not enough places to park whilst charging overnight (most people don't have drives)
EV cars are still comparatively expensive and have very poor resale values as batteries fade
Assumptions about users (apps, bank accounts, credit cards, cashless) are not universal
These problems may fade over time (and I hope they do: I like EVs) but right now they are pretty hard walls and will give a hard ceiling to sales for some time.
EVs are expensive in the EU thanks to tariffs on Chinese EVs & the slow progress of EU car makers in making EVs in sufficient volume to push them out the door cheaply.
Worldwide, EV sales are up 30% year on year - basically China is churning them out at far lower prices & selling them everywhere they can, including inside China itself.
I'm coming round to tariffs. I know the concept of comparative advantage and the theory that they destroy wealth, but I see no reason to increase wealth globally if it decreases wealth locally. From your point I assume that EU manufacturers will slowly catch up to make EVs, and unless I'm missing something there isn't Anu mass manufacturers of EVs in the UK?
The issue is domestic consumers end up paying more for an inferior product
So not only is there wealth destruction, there is also wealth transfer within countries
There's no point of producing superior products if your population don't earn enough to buy them. Henry Ford paid his employers enough for them to buy his product. Plus we have coming up to fifty years of data that makes me think the combination of neoliberalism and globalisation doesn't work. We aren't producing EV/hybrids, our steel industry just died, and we are throwing away a lead in SMRs. Our present path just makes us poorer and thanks to Miliband's stupidity, colder. Empirically we need to do things differently
We important loads of stuff from China. I'm curious as to why EVs are considered a special case.
With the exception of Tesla, UK/US/European manufacturers got lazy and preferred to lobby for the status quo than innovate. Some of them are now catching up, which is no doubt a good thing for our economies, but the only reason why is our climate targets and pressure from abroad.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine has demonstrated the danger for democracies of being economically reliant on a militaristic dictatorship. So it would be a good move to reduce our economic dependence on China.
The first step would be to prevent becoming reliant on China for further industries in addition to those where we already import. At the moment the West still has a car industry, while it generally doesn't have TV or smartphone industries.
It should be easier to retain our car industry then it would be to regain a TV manufacturing industry.
Although a key component of any modern car is basically a TV, so maybe you do need to aim to control the whole supply chain.
The Supreme Court looks set to gut 8th Amendment protections. They'll probably draw the line at disembowelling, though. Probably.
https://www.vox.com/scotus/378058/supreme-court-hamm-smith-death-penalty-eighth-amendment ..At least some members of the Court’s Republican majority, however, have suggested that this “evolving standards of decency” framework should be abandoned. In Bucklew v. Precythe (2019), the Court considered whether states could use execution methods that risked causing the dying inmate a great deal of pain. Justice Neil Gorsuch’s majority opinion, which held that potentially painful methods of execution are allowed, seems to exist in a completely different universe than the Court’s Eighth Amendment cases that look to evolving standards.
While the Court’s earlier opinions ask whether a particular form of punishment has fallen out of favor today, Gorsuch asked whether a method of punishment was out of favor at the time of the founding. Though his opinion does list some methods of execution, such as “disemboweling” and “burning alive” that violate the Eighth Amendment, Gorsuch wrote that these methods are unconstitutional because “by the time of the founding, these methods had long fallen out of use and so had become ‘unusual.’”..
What sort of 'civilised' country is the US becoming?
I note Sky only has one news story today of the death of a pop star in Buenos Aires
What is it with journalists and politicians who seem to have an obsession with the cult of celebrity
It is very sad for his family and friends but surely there has to be a balance
It appears cabinet ministers have failed to agree with Reeves for cuts in their department budgets, but welcome to the real world and the difficult choices and unpopularity that will go with them
The IMF have warned the UK needs tax increases and cuts in public spending, not borrowing, and this is when labour realise they simply have not got the ability to fund all the promises they are making and other people's money has already been spent
The Tories were going to do what, though?
Increase taxes and cut spending. TINA applies.
They would also have moved net zero to 2035 at least
The current government's target for Net Zero is 2050. 2035 would be seriously ambitious; didn't realise Sunak was quite so green .
Playing games - net zero emissions but then you knew that
That's incorrect too. Where are you getting all this false information?
Based on current trends, that would appear to be achievable, particularly with batteries becoming so cheap. Oddly enough, some of the targets are possibly mutually exclusive - if electric vehicles and heat pumps really take off, getting to zero carbon electricity becomes more difficult as demand grows.
Is this just an example of EV demand hitting some really hard edges. From this and other reports from articles and YouTubers it seems that there are some hurdles they can't cross, namely
Can't realistically handle long-distance travel (esp in USA)
Not enough charging stations
Not enough places to park whilst charging overnight (most people don't have drives)
EV cars are still comparatively expensive and have very poor resale values as batteries fade
Assumptions about users (apps, bank accounts, credit cards, cashless) are not universal
These problems may fade over time (and I hope they do: I like EVs) but right now they are pretty hard walls and will give a hard ceiling to sales for some time.
EVs are expensive in the EU thanks to tariffs on Chinese EVs & the slow progress of EU car makers in making EVs in sufficient volume to push them out the door cheaply.
Worldwide, EV sales are up 30% year on year - basically China is churning them out at far lower prices & selling them everywhere they can, including inside China itself.
I'm coming round to tariffs. I know the concept of comparative advantage and the theory that they destroy wealth, but I see no reason to increase wealth globally if it decreases wealth locally. From your point I assume that EU manufacturers will slowly catch up to make EVs, and unless I'm missing something there isn't Anu mass manufacturers of EVs in the UK?
The issue is domestic consumers end up paying more for an inferior product
So not only is there wealth destruction, there is also wealth transfer within countries
There's no point of producing superior products if your population don't earn enough to buy them. Henry Ford paid his employers enough for them to buy his product. Plus we have coming up to fifty years of data that makes me think the combination of neoliberalism and globalisation doesn't work. We aren't producing EV/hybrids, our steel industry just died, and we are throwing away a lead in SMRs. Our present path just makes us poorer and thanks to Miliband's stupidity, colder. Empirically we need to do things differently
We important loads of stuff from China. I'm curious as to why EVs are considered a special case.
With the exception of Tesla, UK/US/European manufacturers got lazy and preferred to lobby for the status quo than innovate. Some of them are now catching up, which is no doubt a good thing for our economies, but the only reason why is our climate targets and pressure from abroad.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine has demonstrated the danger for democracies of being economically reliant on a militaristic dictatorship. So it would be a good move to reduce our economic dependence on China.
The first step would be to prevent becoming reliant on China for further industries in addition to those where we already import. At the moment the West still has a car industry, while it generally doesn't have TV or smartphone industries.
It should be easier to retain our car industry then it would be to regain a TV manufacturing industry.
Although a key component of any modern car is basically a TV, so maybe you do need to aim to control the whole supply chain.
And entirely insulate ourselves from world energy markets.
I note Sky only has one news story today of the death of a pop star in Buenos Aires
What is it with journalists and politicians who seem to have an obsession with the cult of celebrity
It is very sad for his family and friends but surely there has to be a balance
It appears cabinet ministers have failed to agree with Reeves for cuts in their department budgets, but welcome to the real world and the difficult choices and unpopularity that will go with them
The IMF have warned the UK needs tax increases and cuts in public spending, not borrowing, and this is when labour realise they simply have not got the ability to fund all the promises they are making and other people's money has already been spent
The Tories were going to do what, though?
Increase taxes and cut spending. TINA applies.
They would also have moved net zero to 2035 at least
The current government's target for Net Zero is 2050. 2035 would be seriously ambitious; didn't realise Sunak was quite so green .
Playing games - net zero emissions but then you knew that
That's incorrect too. Where are you getting all this false information?
Based on current trends, that would appear to be achievable, particularly with batteries becoming so cheap. Oddly enough, some of the targets are possibly mutually exclusive - if electric vehicles and heat pumps really take off, getting to zero carbon electricity becomes more difficult as demand grows.
Is this just an example of EV demand hitting some really hard edges. From this and other reports from articles and YouTubers it seems that there are some hurdles they can't cross, namely
Can't realistically handle long-distance travel (esp in USA)
Not enough charging stations
Not enough places to park whilst charging overnight (most people don't have drives)
EV cars are still comparatively expensive and have very poor resale values as batteries fade
Assumptions about users (apps, bank accounts, credit cards, cashless) are not universal
These problems may fade over time (and I hope they do: I like EVs) but right now they are pretty hard walls and will give a hard ceiling to sales for some time.
EVs are expensive in the EU thanks to tariffs on Chinese EVs & the slow progress of EU car makers in making EVs in sufficient volume to push them out the door cheaply.
Worldwide, EV sales are up 30% year on year - basically China is churning them out at far lower prices & selling them everywhere they can, including inside China itself.
I'm coming round to tariffs. I know the concept of comparative advantage and the theory that they destroy wealth, but I see no reason to increase wealth globally if it decreases wealth locally. From your point I assume that EU manufacturers will slowly catch up to make EVs, and unless I'm missing something there isn't Anu mass manufacturers of EVs in the UK?
The issue is domestic consumers end up paying more for an inferior product
So not only is there wealth destruction, there is also wealth transfer within countries
There's no point of producing superior products if your population don't earn enough to buy them. Henry Ford paid his employers enough for them to buy his product. Plus we have coming up to fifty years of data that makes me think the combination of neoliberalism and globalisation doesn't work. We aren't producing EV/hybrids, our steel industry just died, and we are throwing away a lead in SMRs. Our present path just makes us poorer and thanks to Miliband's stupidity, colder. Empirically we need to do things differently
We important loads of stuff from China. I'm curious as to why EVs are considered a special case.
With the exception of Tesla, UK/US/European manufacturers got lazy and preferred to lobby for the status quo than innovate. Some of them are now catching up, which is no doubt a good thing for our economies, but the only reason why is our climate targets and pressure from abroad.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine has demonstrated the danger for democracies of being economically reliant on a militaristic dictatorship. So it would be a good move to reduce our economic dependence on China.
The first step would be to prevent becoming reliant on China for further industries in addition to those where we already import. At the moment the West still has a car industry, while it generally doesn't have TV or smartphone industries.
It should be easier to retain our car industry then it would be to regain a TV manufacturing industry.
Which is perhaps an argument for encouraging Chinese EV manufacturers to set up in the Europe/UK (already happening in the EU). We should aim to do to them what China did to the West a couple of decades back.
I note Sky only has one news story today of the death of a pop star in Buenos Aires
What is it with journalists and politicians who seem to have an obsession with the cult of celebrity
It is very sad for his family and friends but surely there has to be a balance
It appears cabinet ministers have failed to agree with Reeves for cuts in their department budgets, but welcome to the real world and the difficult choices and unpopularity that will go with them
The IMF have warned the UK needs tax increases and cuts in public spending, not borrowing, and this is when labour realise they simply have not got the ability to fund all the promises they are making and other people's money has already been spent
The Tories were going to do what, though?
Increase taxes and cut spending. TINA applies.
They would also have moved net zero to 2035 at least
The current government's target for Net Zero is 2050. 2035 would be seriously ambitious; didn't realise Sunak was quite so green .
Playing games - net zero emissions but then you knew that
That's incorrect too. Where are you getting all this false information?
Based on current trends, that would appear to be achievable, particularly with batteries becoming so cheap. Oddly enough, some of the targets are possibly mutually exclusive - if electric vehicles and heat pumps really take off, getting to zero carbon electricity becomes more difficult as demand grows.
Is this just an example of EV demand hitting some really hard edges. From this and other reports from articles and YouTubers it seems that there are some hurdles they can't cross, namely
Can't realistically handle long-distance travel (esp in USA)
Not enough charging stations
Not enough places to park whilst charging overnight (most people don't have drives)
EV cars are still comparatively expensive and have very poor resale values as batteries fade
Assumptions about users (apps, bank accounts, credit cards, cashless) are not universal
These problems may fade over time (and I hope they do: I like EVs) but right now they are pretty hard walls and will give a hard ceiling to sales for some time.
EVs are expensive in the EU thanks to tariffs on Chinese EVs & the slow progress of EU car makers in making EVs in sufficient volume to push them out the door cheaply.
Worldwide, EV sales are up 30% year on year - basically China is churning them out at far lower prices & selling them everywhere they can, including inside China itself.
I'm coming round to tariffs. I know the concept of comparative advantage and the theory that they destroy wealth, but I see no reason to increase wealth globally if it decreases wealth locally. From your point I assume that EU manufacturers will slowly catch up to make EVs, and unless I'm missing something there isn't Anu mass manufacturers of EVs in the UK?
The issue is domestic consumers end up paying more for an inferior product
So not only is there wealth destruction, there is also wealth transfer within countries
There's no point of producing superior products if your population don't earn enough to buy them. Henry Ford paid his employers enough for them to buy his product. Plus we have coming up to fifty years of data that makes me think the combination of neoliberalism and globalisation doesn't work. We aren't producing EV/hybrids, our steel industry just died, and we are throwing away a lead in SMRs. Our present path just makes us poorer and thanks to Miliband's stupidity, colder. Empirically we need to do things differently
We important loads of stuff from China. I'm curious as to why EVs are considered a special case.
With the exception of Tesla, UK/US/European manufacturers got lazy and preferred to lobby for the status quo than innovate. Some of them are now catching up, which is no doubt a good thing for our economies, but the only reason why is our climate targets and pressure from abroad.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine has demonstrated the danger for democracies of being economically reliant on a militaristic dictatorship. So it would be a good move to reduce our economic dependence on China.
The first step would be to prevent becoming reliant on China for further industries in addition to those where we already import. At the moment the West still has a car industry, while it generally doesn't have TV or smartphone industries.
It should be easier to retain our car industry then it would be to regain a TV manufacturing industry.
Although a key component of any modern car is basically a TV, so maybe you do need to aim to control the whole supply chain.
I think the fashion for large screens in cars is a safety hazard and I hope it will prove to be temporary.
But, yes, the aim would be to be able to ban imports from China if they ever invaded Taiwan, without that causing our economy to crater.
Let's just say, we're not there yet, and I worry that we need them more than they need us.
I note Sky only has one news story today of the death of a pop star in Buenos Aires
What is it with journalists and politicians who seem to have an obsession with the cult of celebrity
It is very sad for his family and friends but surely there has to be a balance
It appears cabinet ministers have failed to agree with Reeves for cuts in their department budgets, but welcome to the real world and the difficult choices and unpopularity that will go with them
The IMF have warned the UK needs tax increases and cuts in public spending, not borrowing, and this is when labour realise they simply have not got the ability to fund all the promises they are making and other people's money has already been spent
The Tories were going to do what, though?
Increase taxes and cut spending. TINA applies.
They would also have moved net zero to 2035 at least
The current government's target for Net Zero is 2050. 2035 would be seriously ambitious; didn't realise Sunak was quite so green .
Playing games - net zero emissions but then you knew that
That's incorrect too. Where are you getting all this false information?
Based on current trends, that would appear to be achievable, particularly with batteries becoming so cheap. Oddly enough, some of the targets are possibly mutually exclusive - if electric vehicles and heat pumps really take off, getting to zero carbon electricity becomes more difficult as demand grows.
Is this just an example of EV demand hitting some really hard edges. From this and other reports from articles and YouTubers it seems that there are some hurdles they can't cross, namely
Can't realistically handle long-distance travel (esp in USA)
Not enough charging stations
Not enough places to park whilst charging overnight (most people don't have drives)
EV cars are still comparatively expensive and have very poor resale values as batteries fade
Assumptions about users (apps, bank accounts, credit cards, cashless) are not universal
These problems may fade over time (and I hope they do: I like EVs) but right now they are pretty hard walls and will give a hard ceiling to sales for some time.
EVs are expensive in the EU thanks to tariffs on Chinese EVs & the slow progress of EU car makers in making EVs in sufficient volume to push them out the door cheaply.
Worldwide, EV sales are up 30% year on year - basically China is churning them out at far lower prices & selling them everywhere they can, including inside China itself.
I'm coming round to tariffs. I know the concept of comparative advantage and the theory that they destroy wealth, but I see no reason to increase wealth globally if it decreases wealth locally. From your point I assume that EU manufacturers will slowly catch up to make EVs, and unless I'm missing something there isn't Anu mass manufacturers of EVs in the UK?
The issue is domestic consumers end up paying more for an inferior product
So not only is there wealth destruction, there is also wealth transfer within countries
There's no point of producing superior products if your population don't earn enough to buy them. Henry Ford paid his employers enough for them to buy his product. Plus we have coming up to fifty years of data that makes me think the combination of neoliberalism and globalisation doesn't work. We aren't producing EV/hybrids, our steel industry just died, and we are throwing away a lead in SMRs. Our present path just makes us poorer and thanks to Miliband's stupidity, colder. Empirically we need to do things differently
We important loads of stuff from China. I'm curious as to why EVs are considered a special case.
With the exception of Tesla, UK/US/European manufacturers got lazy and preferred to lobby for the status quo than innovate. Some of them are now catching up, which is no doubt a good thing for our economies, but the only reason why is our climate targets and pressure from abroad.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine has demonstrated the danger for democracies of being economically reliant on a militaristic dictatorship. So it would be a good move to reduce our economic dependence on China.
The first step would be to prevent becoming reliant on China for further industries in addition to those where we already import. At the moment the West still has a car industry, while it generally doesn't have TV or smartphone industries.
It should be easier to retain our car industry then it would be to regain a TV manufacturing industry.
Which is perhaps an argument for encouraging Chinese EV manufacturers to set up in the Europe/UK (already happening in the EU). We should aim to do to them what China did to the West a couple of decades back.
This is the Trump strategy. Put up a tariff wall and encourage investment behind it.
I note Sky only has one news story today of the death of a pop star in Buenos Aires
What is it with journalists and politicians who seem to have an obsession with the cult of celebrity
It is very sad for his family and friends but surely there has to be a balance
It appears cabinet ministers have failed to agree with Reeves for cuts in their department budgets, but welcome to the real world and the difficult choices and unpopularity that will go with them
The IMF have warned the UK needs tax increases and cuts in public spending, not borrowing, and this is when labour realise they simply have not got the ability to fund all the promises they are making and other people's money has already been spent
The Tories were going to do what, though?
Increase taxes and cut spending. TINA applies.
They would also have moved net zero to 2035 at least
The current government's target for Net Zero is 2050. 2035 would be seriously ambitious; didn't realise Sunak was quite so green .
Playing games - net zero emissions but then you knew that
That's incorrect too. Where are you getting all this false information?
Based on current trends, that would appear to be achievable, particularly with batteries becoming so cheap. Oddly enough, some of the targets are possibly mutually exclusive - if electric vehicles and heat pumps really take off, getting to zero carbon electricity becomes more difficult as demand grows.
Is this just an example of EV demand hitting some really hard edges. From this and other reports from articles and YouTubers it seems that there are some hurdles they can't cross, namely
Can't realistically handle long-distance travel (esp in USA)
Not enough charging stations
Not enough places to park whilst charging overnight (most people don't have drives)
EV cars are still comparatively expensive and have very poor resale values as batteries fade
Assumptions about users (apps, bank accounts, credit cards, cashless) are not universal
These problems may fade over time (and I hope they do: I like EVs) but right now they are pretty hard walls and will give a hard ceiling to sales for some time.
EVs are expensive in the EU thanks to tariffs on Chinese EVs & the slow progress of EU car makers in making EVs in sufficient volume to push them out the door cheaply.
Worldwide, EV sales are up 30% year on year - basically China is churning them out at far lower prices & selling them everywhere they can, including inside China itself.
I'm coming round to tariffs. I know the concept of comparative advantage and the theory that they destroy wealth, but I see no reason to increase wealth globally if it decreases wealth locally. From your point I assume that EU manufacturers will slowly catch up to make EVs, and unless I'm missing something there isn't Anu mass manufacturers of EVs in the UK?
The issue is domestic consumers end up paying more for an inferior product
So not only is there wealth destruction, there is also wealth transfer within countries
There's no point of producing superior products if your population don't earn enough to buy them. Henry Ford paid his employers enough for them to buy his product. Plus we have coming up to fifty years of data that makes me think the combination of neoliberalism and globalisation doesn't work. We aren't producing EV/hybrids, our steel industry just died, and we are throwing away a lead in SMRs. Our present path just makes us poorer and thanks to Miliband's stupidity, colder. Empirically we need to do things differently
We important loads of stuff from China. I'm curious as to why EVs are considered a special case.
With the exception of Tesla, UK/US/European manufacturers got lazy and preferred to lobby for the status quo than innovate. Some of them are now catching up, which is no doubt a good thing for our economies, but the only reason why is our climate targets and pressure from abroad.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine has demonstrated the danger for democracies of being economically reliant on a militaristic dictatorship. So it would be a good move to reduce our economic dependence on China.
The first step would be to prevent becoming reliant on China for further industries in addition to those where we already import. At the moment the West still has a car industry, while it generally doesn't have TV or smartphone industries.
It should be easier to retain our car industry then it would be to regain a TV manufacturing industry.
Which is perhaps an argument for encouraging Chinese EV manufacturers to set up in the Europe/UK (already happening in the EU). We should aim to do to them what China did to the West a couple of decades back.
I don't think the Chinese will be stupid enough to hand over their IP nor the control of western based subsidiaries.
To be really flippant:
They know the value of scientific & engineering expertise unlike our captains of financialisation, offshoring and deskilling.
I note Sky only has one news story today of the death of a pop star in Buenos Aires
What is it with journalists and politicians who seem to have an obsession with the cult of celebrity
It is very sad for his family and friends but surely there has to be a balance
It appears cabinet ministers have failed to agree with Reeves for cuts in their department budgets, but welcome to the real world and the difficult choices and unpopularity that will go with them
The IMF have warned the UK needs tax increases and cuts in public spending, not borrowing, and this is when labour realise they simply have not got the ability to fund all the promises they are making and other people's money has already been spent
The Tories were going to do what, though?
Increase taxes and cut spending. TINA applies.
They would also have moved net zero to 2035 at least
The current government's target for Net Zero is 2050. 2035 would be seriously ambitious; didn't realise Sunak was quite so green .
Playing games - net zero emissions but then you knew that
That's incorrect too. Where are you getting all this false information?
Based on current trends, that would appear to be achievable, particularly with batteries becoming so cheap. Oddly enough, some of the targets are possibly mutually exclusive - if electric vehicles and heat pumps really take off, getting to zero carbon electricity becomes more difficult as demand grows.
Is this just an example of EV demand hitting some really hard edges. From this and other reports from articles and YouTubers it seems that there are some hurdles they can't cross, namely
Can't realistically handle long-distance travel (esp in USA)
Not enough charging stations
Not enough places to park whilst charging overnight (most people don't have drives)
EV cars are still comparatively expensive and have very poor resale values as batteries fade
Assumptions about users (apps, bank accounts, credit cards, cashless) are not universal
These problems may fade over time (and I hope they do: I like EVs) but right now they are pretty hard walls and will give a hard ceiling to sales for some time.
EVs are expensive in the EU thanks to tariffs on Chinese EVs & the slow progress of EU car makers in making EVs in sufficient volume to push them out the door cheaply.
Worldwide, EV sales are up 30% year on year - basically China is churning them out at far lower prices & selling them everywhere they can, including inside China itself.
I'm coming round to tariffs. I know the concept of comparative advantage and the theory that they destroy wealth, but I see no reason to increase wealth globally if it decreases wealth locally. From your point I assume that EU manufacturers will slowly catch up to make EVs, and unless I'm missing something there isn't Anu mass manufacturers of EVs in the UK?
The issue is domestic consumers end up paying more for an inferior product
So not only is there wealth destruction, there is also wealth transfer within countries
There's no point of producing superior products if your population don't earn enough to buy them. Henry Ford paid his employers enough for them to buy his product. Plus we have coming up to fifty years of data that makes me think the combination of neoliberalism and globalisation doesn't work. We aren't producing EV/hybrids, our steel industry just died, and we are throwing away a lead in SMRs. Our present path just makes us poorer and thanks to Miliband's stupidity, colder. Empirically we need to do things differently
We important loads of stuff from China. I'm curious as to why EVs are considered a special case.
With the exception of Tesla, UK/US/European manufacturers got lazy and preferred to lobby for the status quo than innovate. Some of them are now catching up, which is no doubt a good thing for our economies, but the only reason why is our climate targets and pressure from abroad.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine has demonstrated the danger for democracies of being economically reliant on a militaristic dictatorship. So it would be a good move to reduce our economic dependence on China.
The first step would be to prevent becoming reliant on China for further industries in addition to those where we already import. At the moment the West still has a car industry, while it generally doesn't have TV or smartphone industries.
It should be easier to retain our car industry then it would be to regain a TV manufacturing industry.
Which is perhaps an argument for encouraging Chinese EV manufacturers to set up in the Europe/UK (already happening in the EU). We should aim to do to them what China did to the West a couple of decades back.
This is the Trump strategy. Put up a tariff wall and encourage investment behind it.
It is what Japan had done when Mrs Thatcher fell for the Friedmanite spin that Japan's rise showed the triumph of free markets.
Funny story of the day, the lawsuit between James Howell and Newport City Council.
For those who don’t know the background, in 2013 Mr Howell lost a computer hard drive, thrown away by his partner. It contains 8,000 Bitcoin, not worth an awful lot in 2013 but now worth approximately $650m.
He’s spent the last few years trying to persuade the council to let him carefully dig up a 10-year-old landfill site to try and find the drive, and has already offered them a 10% reward if he finds it and can recover the contents.
Owen? All I can think of is Owen Hargeaves. Who hasn't been in the news for some while.
Owen Jones is going to be distraught. If it's true.
Oh, of course, Owen Jones. Less good than Owen Hargreaves but still a cromulent Owen. If what's true?
Hamas leader is now with his 72 virgins.
Ah, I see. To be honest, it struck me as such unqualified good news that I forgot there were nutters like Owen Jones who rather like Islamic terrorism.
Imagine if Mossad had been around during WW2? Hitler, Goebbels, Goering, Doenitz, Mussolini, Hirohito - all would be gone within the first 6 months of the war.
I note Sky only has one news story today of the death of a pop star in Buenos Aires
What is it with journalists and politicians who seem to have an obsession with the cult of celebrity
It is very sad for his family and friends but surely there has to be a balance
It appears cabinet ministers have failed to agree with Reeves for cuts in their department budgets, but welcome to the real world and the difficult choices and unpopularity that will go with them
The IMF have warned the UK needs tax increases and cuts in public spending, not borrowing, and this is when labour realise they simply have not got the ability to fund all the promises they are making and other people's money has already been spent
The Tories were going to do what, though?
Increase taxes and cut spending. TINA applies.
They would also have moved net zero to 2035 at least
The current government's target for Net Zero is 2050. 2035 would be seriously ambitious; didn't realise Sunak was quite so green .
Playing games - net zero emissions but then you knew that
That's incorrect too. Where are you getting all this false information?
Based on current trends, that would appear to be achievable, particularly with batteries becoming so cheap. Oddly enough, some of the targets are possibly mutually exclusive - if electric vehicles and heat pumps really take off, getting to zero carbon electricity becomes more difficult as demand grows.
Is this just an example of EV demand hitting some really hard edges. From this and other reports from articles and YouTubers it seems that there are some hurdles they can't cross, namely
Can't realistically handle long-distance travel (esp in USA)
Not enough charging stations
Not enough places to park whilst charging overnight (most people don't have drives)
EV cars are still comparatively expensive and have very poor resale values as batteries fade
Assumptions about users (apps, bank accounts, credit cards, cashless) are not universal
These problems may fade over time (and I hope they do: I like EVs) but right now they are pretty hard walls and will give a hard ceiling to sales for some time.
EVs are expensive in the EU thanks to tariffs on Chinese EVs & the slow progress of EU car makers in making EVs in sufficient volume to push them out the door cheaply.
Worldwide, EV sales are up 30% year on year - basically China is churning them out at far lower prices & selling them everywhere they can, including inside China itself.
I'm coming round to tariffs. I know the concept of comparative advantage and the theory that they destroy wealth, but I see no reason to increase wealth globally if it decreases wealth locally. From your point I assume that EU manufacturers will slowly catch up to make EVs, and unless I'm missing something there isn't Anu mass manufacturers of EVs in the UK?
The issue is domestic consumers end up paying more for an inferior product
So not only is there wealth destruction, there is also wealth transfer within countries
There's no point of producing superior products if your population don't earn enough to buy them. Henry Ford paid his employers enough for them to buy his product. Plus we have coming up to fifty years of data that makes me think the combination of neoliberalism and globalisation doesn't work. We aren't producing EV/hybrids, our steel industry just died, and we are throwing away a lead in SMRs. Our present path just makes us poorer and thanks to Miliband's stupidity, colder. Empirically we need to do things differently
We important loads of stuff from China. I'm curious as to why EVs are considered a special case.
With the exception of Tesla, UK/US/European manufacturers got lazy and preferred to lobby for the status quo than innovate. Some of them are now catching up, which is no doubt a good thing for our economies, but the only reason why is our climate targets and pressure from abroad.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine has demonstrated the danger for democracies of being economically reliant on a militaristic dictatorship. So it would be a good move to reduce our economic dependence on China.
The first step would be to prevent becoming reliant on China for further industries in addition to those where we already import. At the moment the West still has a car industry, while it generally doesn't have TV or smartphone industries.
It should be easier to retain our car industry then it would be to regain a TV manufacturing industry.
Which is perhaps an argument for encouraging Chinese EV manufacturers to set up in the Europe/UK (already happening in the EU). We should aim to do to them what China did to the West a couple of decades back.
This is the Trump strategy. Put up a tariff wall and encourage investment behind it.
Yes it’s a really difficult call for a lot of countries, the Chinese EVs are clearly being ‘dumped’ on other markets, and especially Western countries need to balance the need for cheap EVs to meet their environmental targets with protecting their own automotive industries from what’s obviously an attempt by China to capture the entire industry.
If only there was another EV manufacturer, perhaps one from a friendly nation, who might have been invited to the UK business summit earlier in the week…
Funny story of the day, the lawsuit between James Howell and Newport City Council.
For those who don’t know the background, in 2013 Mr Howell lost a computer hard drive, thrown away by his partner. It contains 8,000 Bitcoin, not worth an awful lot in 2013 but now worth approximately $650m.
He’s spent the last few years trying to persuade the council to let him carefully dig up a 10-year-old landfill site to try and find the drive, and has already offered them a 10% reward if he finds it and can recover the contents.
I note Sky only has one news story today of the death of a pop star in Buenos Aires
What is it with journalists and politicians who seem to have an obsession with the cult of celebrity
It is very sad for his family and friends but surely there has to be a balance
It appears cabinet ministers have failed to agree with Reeves for cuts in their department budgets, but welcome to the real world and the difficult choices and unpopularity that will go with them
The IMF have warned the UK needs tax increases and cuts in public spending, not borrowing, and this is when labour realise they simply have not got the ability to fund all the promises they are making and other people's money has already been spent
The Tories were going to do what, though?
Increase taxes and cut spending. TINA applies.
They would also have moved net zero to 2035 at least
The current government's target for Net Zero is 2050. 2035 would be seriously ambitious; didn't realise Sunak was quite so green .
Playing games - net zero emissions but then you knew that
That's incorrect too. Where are you getting all this false information?
Based on current trends, that would appear to be achievable, particularly with batteries becoming so cheap. Oddly enough, some of the targets are possibly mutually exclusive - if electric vehicles and heat pumps really take off, getting to zero carbon electricity becomes more difficult as demand grows.
Is this just an example of EV demand hitting some really hard edges. From this and other reports from articles and YouTubers it seems that there are some hurdles they can't cross, namely
Can't realistically handle long-distance travel (esp in USA)
Not enough charging stations
Not enough places to park whilst charging overnight (most people don't have drives)
EV cars are still comparatively expensive and have very poor resale values as batteries fade
Assumptions about users (apps, bank accounts, credit cards, cashless) are not universal
These problems may fade over time (and I hope they do: I like EVs) but right now they are pretty hard walls and will give a hard ceiling to sales for some time.
EVs are expensive in the EU thanks to tariffs on Chinese EVs & the slow progress of EU car makers in making EVs in sufficient volume to push them out the door cheaply.
Worldwide, EV sales are up 30% year on year - basically China is churning them out at far lower prices & selling them everywhere they can, including inside China itself.
I'm coming round to tariffs. I know the concept of comparative advantage and the theory that they destroy wealth, but I see no reason to increase wealth globally if it decreases wealth locally. From your point I assume that EU manufacturers will slowly catch up to make EVs, and unless I'm missing something there isn't Anu mass manufacturers of EVs in the UK?
The issue is domestic consumers end up paying more for an inferior product
So not only is there wealth destruction, there is also wealth transfer within countries
There's no point of producing superior products if your population don't earn enough to buy them. Henry Ford paid his employers enough for them to buy his product. Plus we have coming up to fifty years of data that makes me think the combination of neoliberalism and globalisation doesn't work. We aren't producing EV/hybrids, our steel industry just died, and we are throwing away a lead in SMRs. Our present path just makes us poorer and thanks to Miliband's stupidity, colder. Empirically we need to do things differently
We important loads of stuff from China. I'm curious as to why EVs are considered a special case.
With the exception of Tesla, UK/US/European manufacturers got lazy and preferred to lobby for the status quo than innovate. Some of them are now catching up, which is no doubt a good thing for our economies, but the only reason why is our climate targets and pressure from abroad.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine has demonstrated the danger for democracies of being economically reliant on a militaristic dictatorship. So it would be a good move to reduce our economic dependence on China.
The first step would be to prevent becoming reliant on China for further industries in addition to those where we already import. At the moment the West still has a car industry, while it generally doesn't have TV or smartphone industries.
It should be easier to retain our car industry then it would be to regain a TV manufacturing industry.
Which is perhaps an argument for encouraging Chinese EV manufacturers to set up in the Europe/UK (already happening in the EU). We should aim to do to them what China did to the West a couple of decades back.
This is the Trump strategy. Put up a tariff wall and encourage investment behind it.
Yes it’s a really difficult call for a lot of countries, the Chinese EVs are clearly being ‘dumped’ on other markets, and especially Western countries need to balance the need for cheap EVs to meet their environmental targets with protecting their own automotive industries from what’s obviously an attempt by China to capture the entire industry.
If only there was another EV manufacturer, perhaps one from a friendly nation, who might have been invited to the UK business summit earlier in the week…
I note Sky only has one news story today of the death of a pop star in Buenos Aires
What is it with journalists and politicians who seem to have an obsession with the cult of celebrity
It is very sad for his family and friends but surely there has to be a balance
It appears cabinet ministers have failed to agree with Reeves for cuts in their department budgets, but welcome to the real world and the difficult choices and unpopularity that will go with them
The IMF have warned the UK needs tax increases and cuts in public spending, not borrowing, and this is when labour realise they simply have not got the ability to fund all the promises they are making and other people's money has already been spent
The Tories were going to do what, though?
Increase taxes and cut spending. TINA applies.
They would also have moved net zero to 2035 at least
The current government's target for Net Zero is 2050. 2035 would be seriously ambitious; didn't realise Sunak was quite so green .
Playing games - net zero emissions but then you knew that
That's incorrect too. Where are you getting all this false information?
Based on current trends, that would appear to be achievable, particularly with batteries becoming so cheap. Oddly enough, some of the targets are possibly mutually exclusive - if electric vehicles and heat pumps really take off, getting to zero carbon electricity becomes more difficult as demand grows.
Is this just an example of EV demand hitting some really hard edges. From this and other reports from articles and YouTubers it seems that there are some hurdles they can't cross, namely
Can't realistically handle long-distance travel (esp in USA)
Not enough charging stations
Not enough places to park whilst charging overnight (most people don't have drives)
EV cars are still comparatively expensive and have very poor resale values as batteries fade
Assumptions about users (apps, bank accounts, credit cards, cashless) are not universal
These problems may fade over time (and I hope they do: I like EVs) but right now they are pretty hard walls and will give a hard ceiling to sales for some time.
EVs are expensive in the EU thanks to tariffs on Chinese EVs & the slow progress of EU car makers in making EVs in sufficient volume to push them out the door cheaply.
Worldwide, EV sales are up 30% year on year - basically China is churning them out at far lower prices & selling them everywhere they can, including inside China itself.
I'm coming round to tariffs. I know the concept of comparative advantage and the theory that they destroy wealth, but I see no reason to increase wealth globally if it decreases wealth locally. From your point I assume that EU manufacturers will slowly catch up to make EVs, and unless I'm missing something there isn't Anu mass manufacturers of EVs in the UK?
The issue is domestic consumers end up paying more for an inferior product
So not only is there wealth destruction, there is also wealth transfer within countries
There's no point of producing superior products if your population don't earn enough to buy them. Henry Ford paid his employers enough for them to buy his product. Plus we have coming up to fifty years of data that makes me think the combination of neoliberalism and globalisation doesn't work. We aren't producing EV/hybrids, our steel industry just died, and we are throwing away a lead in SMRs. Our present path just makes us poorer and thanks to Miliband's stupidity, colder. Empirically we need to do things differently
We important loads of stuff from China. I'm curious as to why EVs are considered a special case.
With the exception of Tesla, UK/US/European manufacturers got lazy and preferred to lobby for the status quo than innovate. Some of them are now catching up, which is no doubt a good thing for our economies, but the only reason why is our climate targets and pressure from abroad.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine has demonstrated the danger for democracies of being economically reliant on a militaristic dictatorship. So it would be a good move to reduce our economic dependence on China.
The first step would be to prevent becoming reliant on China for further industries in addition to those where we already import. At the moment the West still has a car industry, while it generally doesn't have TV or smartphone industries.
It should be easier to retain our car industry then it would be to regain a TV manufacturing industry.
Which is perhaps an argument for encouraging Chinese EV manufacturers to set up in the Europe/UK (already happening in the EU). We should aim to do to them what China did to the West a couple of decades back.
This is the Trump strategy. Put up a tariff wall and encourage investment behind it.
It is what Japan had done when Mrs Thatcher fell for the Friedmanite spin that Japan's rise showed the triumph of free markets.
The Japanese manufacturers were innovating and not dumping, at a time when British manufacturing was mired in political lobbying and industrial relations issues, and most definitely not on the product.
I note Sky only has one news story today of the death of a pop star in Buenos Aires
What is it with journalists and politicians who seem to have an obsession with the cult of celebrity
It is very sad for his family and friends but surely there has to be a balance
It appears cabinet ministers have failed to agree with Reeves for cuts in their department budgets, but welcome to the real world and the difficult choices and unpopularity that will go with them
The IMF have warned the UK needs tax increases and cuts in public spending, not borrowing, and this is when labour realise they simply have not got the ability to fund all the promises they are making and other people's money has already been spent
The Tories were going to do what, though?
Increase taxes and cut spending. TINA applies.
They would also have moved net zero to 2035 at least
The current government's target for Net Zero is 2050. 2035 would be seriously ambitious; didn't realise Sunak was quite so green .
Playing games - net zero emissions but then you knew that
That's incorrect too. Where are you getting all this false information?
Based on current trends, that would appear to be achievable, particularly with batteries becoming so cheap. Oddly enough, some of the targets are possibly mutually exclusive - if electric vehicles and heat pumps really take off, getting to zero carbon electricity becomes more difficult as demand grows.
Is this just an example of EV demand hitting some really hard edges. From this and other reports from articles and YouTubers it seems that there are some hurdles they can't cross, namely
Can't realistically handle long-distance travel (esp in USA)
Not enough charging stations
Not enough places to park whilst charging overnight (most people don't have drives)
EV cars are still comparatively expensive and have very poor resale values as batteries fade
Assumptions about users (apps, bank accounts, credit cards, cashless) are not universal
These problems may fade over time (and I hope they do: I like EVs) but right now they are pretty hard walls and will give a hard ceiling to sales for some time.
EVs are expensive in the EU thanks to tariffs on Chinese EVs & the slow progress of EU car makers in making EVs in sufficient volume to push them out the door cheaply.
Worldwide, EV sales are up 30% year on year - basically China is churning them out at far lower prices & selling them everywhere they can, including inside China itself.
I'm coming round to tariffs. I know the concept of comparative advantage and the theory that they destroy wealth, but I see no reason to increase wealth globally if it decreases wealth locally. From your point I assume that EU manufacturers will slowly catch up to make EVs, and unless I'm missing something there isn't Anu mass manufacturers of EVs in the UK?
The issue is domestic consumers end up paying more for an inferior product
So not only is there wealth destruction, there is also wealth transfer within countries
There's no point of producing superior products if your population don't earn enough to buy them. Henry Ford paid his employers enough for them to buy his product. Plus we have coming up to fifty years of data that makes me think the combination of neoliberalism and globalisation doesn't work. We aren't producing EV/hybrids, our steel industry just died, and we are throwing away a lead in SMRs. Our present path just makes us poorer and thanks to Miliband's stupidity, colder. Empirically we need to do things differently
We important loads of stuff from China. I'm curious as to why EVs are considered a special case.
With the exception of Tesla, UK/US/European manufacturers got lazy and preferred to lobby for the status quo than innovate. Some of them are now catching up, which is no doubt a good thing for our economies, but the only reason why is our climate targets and pressure from abroad.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine has demonstrated the danger for democracies of being economically reliant on a militaristic dictatorship. So it would be a good move to reduce our economic dependence on China.
The first step would be to prevent becoming reliant on China for further industries in addition to those where we already import. At the moment the West still has a car industry, while it generally doesn't have TV or smartphone industries.
It should be easier to retain our car industry then it would be to regain a TV manufacturing industry.
Which is perhaps an argument for encouraging Chinese EV manufacturers to set up in the Europe/UK (already happening in the EU). We should aim to do to them what China did to the West a couple of decades back.
This is the Trump strategy. Put up a tariff wall and encourage investment behind it.
You're being overgenerous describing Trump's love affair with the idea of tariffs as a 'strategy'.
I note Sky only has one news story today of the death of a pop star in Buenos Aires
What is it with journalists and politicians who seem to have an obsession with the cult of celebrity
It is very sad for his family and friends but surely there has to be a balance
It appears cabinet ministers have failed to agree with Reeves for cuts in their department budgets, but welcome to the real world and the difficult choices and unpopularity that will go with them
The IMF have warned the UK needs tax increases and cuts in public spending, not borrowing, and this is when labour realise they simply have not got the ability to fund all the promises they are making and other people's money has already been spent
The Tories were going to do what, though?
Increase taxes and cut spending. TINA applies.
They would also have moved net zero to 2035 at least
The current government's target for Net Zero is 2050. 2035 would be seriously ambitious; didn't realise Sunak was quite so green .
Playing games - net zero emissions but then you knew that
That's incorrect too. Where are you getting all this false information?
Based on current trends, that would appear to be achievable, particularly with batteries becoming so cheap. Oddly enough, some of the targets are possibly mutually exclusive - if electric vehicles and heat pumps really take off, getting to zero carbon electricity becomes more difficult as demand grows.
Is this just an example of EV demand hitting some really hard edges. From this and other reports from articles and YouTubers it seems that there are some hurdles they can't cross, namely
Can't realistically handle long-distance travel (esp in USA)
Not enough charging stations
Not enough places to park whilst charging overnight (most people don't have drives)
EV cars are still comparatively expensive and have very poor resale values as batteries fade
Assumptions about users (apps, bank accounts, credit cards, cashless) are not universal
These problems may fade over time (and I hope they do: I like EVs) but right now they are pretty hard walls and will give a hard ceiling to sales for some time.
EVs are expensive in the EU thanks to tariffs on Chinese EVs & the slow progress of EU car makers in making EVs in sufficient volume to push them out the door cheaply.
Worldwide, EV sales are up 30% year on year - basically China is churning them out at far lower prices & selling them everywhere they can, including inside China itself.
I'm coming round to tariffs. I know the concept of comparative advantage and the theory that they destroy wealth, but I see no reason to increase wealth globally if it decreases wealth locally. From your point I assume that EU manufacturers will slowly catch up to make EVs, and unless I'm missing something there isn't Anu mass manufacturers of EVs in the UK?
The issue is domestic consumers end up paying more for an inferior product
So not only is there wealth destruction, there is also wealth transfer within countries
There's no point of producing superior products if your population don't earn enough to buy them. Henry Ford paid his employers enough for them to buy his product. Plus we have coming up to fifty years of data that makes me think the combination of neoliberalism and globalisation doesn't work. We aren't producing EV/hybrids, our steel industry just died, and we are throwing away a lead in SMRs. Our present path just makes us poorer and thanks to Miliband's stupidity, colder. Empirically we need to do things differently
We important loads of stuff from China. I'm curious as to why EVs are considered a special case.
With the exception of Tesla, UK/US/European manufacturers got lazy and preferred to lobby for the status quo than innovate. Some of them are now catching up, which is no doubt a good thing for our economies, but the only reason why is our climate targets and pressure from abroad.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine has demonstrated the danger for democracies of being economically reliant on a militaristic dictatorship. So it would be a good move to reduce our economic dependence on China.
The first step would be to prevent becoming reliant on China for further industries in addition to those where we already import. At the moment the West still has a car industry, while it generally doesn't have TV or smartphone industries.
It should be easier to retain our car industry then it would be to regain a TV manufacturing industry.
Which is perhaps an argument for encouraging Chinese EV manufacturers to set up in the Europe/UK (already happening in the EU). We should aim to do to them what China did to the West a couple of decades back.
This is the Trump strategy. Put up a tariff wall and encourage investment behind it.
Yes it’s a really difficult call for a lot of countries, the Chinese EVs are clearly being ‘dumped’ on other markets, and especially Western countries need to balance the need for cheap EVs to meet their environmental targets with protecting their own automotive industries from what’s obviously an attempt by China to capture the entire industry.
If only there was another EV manufacturer, perhaps one from a friendly nation, who might have been invited to the UK business summit earlier in the week…
I laughed. I am a bad person. 😞
Yes. You’re sentenced to watch the video of that rocket catch from 20 different angles.
Another person who is finding out the FO part of FA&FO.
The wife of a Conservative councillor has been jailed for 31 months after calling for hotels housing asylum seekers to be set on fire.
Lucy Connolly, whose husband Raymond serves on West Northamptonshire Council, posted the expletive-ridden message on X, formerly known as Twitter, on the day three girls were killed in Southport.
The 41-year-old childminder called for "mass deportation now" and added: "If that makes me racist, so be it."
She has been sentenced at Birmingham Crown Court, having previously admitted intending to stir up racial hatred.
The Supreme Court looks set to gut 8th Amendment protections. They'll probably draw the line at disembowelling, though. Probably.
https://www.vox.com/scotus/378058/supreme-court-hamm-smith-death-penalty-eighth-amendment ..At least some members of the Court’s Republican majority, however, have suggested that this “evolving standards of decency” framework should be abandoned. In Bucklew v. Precythe (2019), the Court considered whether states could use execution methods that risked causing the dying inmate a great deal of pain. Justice Neil Gorsuch’s majority opinion, which held that potentially painful methods of execution are allowed, seems to exist in a completely different universe than the Court’s Eighth Amendment cases that look to evolving standards.
While the Court’s earlier opinions ask whether a particular form of punishment has fallen out of favor today, Gorsuch asked whether a method of punishment was out of favor at the time of the founding. Though his opinion does list some methods of execution, such as “disemboweling” and “burning alive” that violate the Eighth Amendment, Gorsuch wrote that these methods are unconstitutional because “by the time of the founding, these methods had long fallen out of use and so had become ‘unusual.’”..
What sort of 'civilised' country is the US becoming?
One of the reasons why I don't trust institutions is the execution of Richard Roose https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Roose . Not just in the fact of the execution (boiling alive) but the fact that so-called civilized lawyers discussed the case calmly for centuries thereafter. Humans can be repellent.
Well it does touch on interesting issues far beyond its gruesome details. And it's Henry who was the psychopath, not the lawyers - and the case was a Parliamentary attainder, effectively dictated by him, rather than a criminal trial in the courts.
The 8th Amendment (and the part of the English bill of rights it was copied from) was as much about the limitation of politico-judicial power as it was about the cruelty of particular punishments. A historical irony, in view of what the current US Supreme Court has become.
Although Twitter nowadays seems to be often a sewer full of threats of violence, one thing I will say is that does sometimes still contain some more obscure, but potentially vety useful information, that might be ignored by main outlets.
One such is that, according a U.S defence functionary, there seems to be a potentially rather interesting set of Congressional UFO hearings planned for November 13, after the election, led by Congresswoman or Senator Mace, and promising a lot of surprising information and witnesses. We've been here before, though, so let's see what emerges from it.
Don't get your hopes up. It will be the same old witnesses, the same old stories and no actual evidence.
If all these people have evidence, call the papers, the TV stations and lets get it out there.
“We are working with authorities to determine the legal repercussions for those likely committing federal offenses by posting and utilizing stolen material by terror regime adversaries,” he continued. “Ms. Daniels has been held to account by having to pay President Trump over and above the money she owes to him as a result of her wrongdoings.”
MSNBC obtained the documents from Daniels’ lawyer, not through a hack. ..
The focus group reaction to the two Tory leadership candidates, as reported recently in the Guardian, is interesting. Most have no doubt aready seen it, but for reference: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/oct/13/conservatives-focus-group-kemi-badenoch-robert-jenrick-tory-leadership The group was composed of former Conservative voters who had switched to either Labour or Reform in the last election (Lib Dem switchers sadly not included; I should be interested to know if there would be any difference in the feedback). They preferred Badenoch. When considering remarks that many of us might regard as controversial, they were more willing to give Badenoch the benefit of the doubt and in some cases outright agreed with her.
Jenrick is a dud. Right-wingers think they can see through him, and centrists and left-wingers perceive him as unacceptably extreme. He also gives off slimy and dodgy vibes in general, whatever views and policies he espouses - difficult to shed.
Badenoch may well also be a dud - but in largely refusing to commit now to gimmicky policies, and being nuanced in her response to freebiegate (even partially defending the principle in an interview with Brillo), she seems to have more of an eye for the long-term future of her party, as opposed to Jenrick's instant gratification. So, even if she crashes and burns quickly, Badenoch may still leave at least something that her successor can build on.
Owen? All I can think of is Owen Hargeaves. Who hasn't been in the news for some while.
Owen Jones is going to be distraught. If it's true.
Oh, of course, Owen Jones. Less good than Owen Hargreaves but still a cromulent Owen. If what's true?
Hamas leader is now with his 72 virgins.
Ah, I see. To be honest, it struck me as such unqualified good news that I forgot there were nutters like Owen Jones who rather like Islamic terrorism.
Imagine if Mossad had been around during WW2? Hitler, Goebbels, Goering, Doenitz, Mussolini, Hirohito - all would be gone within the first 6 months of the war.
It's perhaps surprising that there wasn't such a thing as Mossad by 1940 at the latest. However, the Jews were famous for being prepared to move on, as the result of incessant persecution, and so I gather they regarded what was happening as just another move on. Until it was too late. Having got 'back' to Palestine though they've been savage in defence.
I note Sky only has one news story today of the death of a pop star in Buenos Aires
What is it with journalists and politicians who seem to have an obsession with the cult of celebrity
It is very sad for his family and friends but surely there has to be a balance
It appears cabinet ministers have failed to agree with Reeves for cuts in their department budgets, but welcome to the real world and the difficult choices and unpopularity that will go with them
The IMF have warned the UK needs tax increases and cuts in public spending, not borrowing, and this is when labour realise they simply have not got the ability to fund all the promises they are making and other people's money has already been spent
The Tories were going to do what, though?
Increase taxes and cut spending. TINA applies.
They would also have moved net zero to 2035 at least
The current government's target for Net Zero is 2050. 2035 would be seriously ambitious; didn't realise Sunak was quite so green .
Playing games - net zero emissions but then you knew that
That's incorrect too. Where are you getting all this false information?
Based on current trends, that would appear to be achievable, particularly with batteries becoming so cheap. Oddly enough, some of the targets are possibly mutually exclusive - if electric vehicles and heat pumps really take off, getting to zero carbon electricity becomes more difficult as demand grows.
Is this just an example of EV demand hitting some really hard edges. From this and other reports from articles and YouTubers it seems that there are some hurdles they can't cross, namely
Can't realistically handle long-distance travel (esp in USA)
Not enough charging stations
Not enough places to park whilst charging overnight (most people don't have drives)
EV cars are still comparatively expensive and have very poor resale values as batteries fade
Assumptions about users (apps, bank accounts, credit cards, cashless) are not universal
These problems may fade over time (and I hope they do: I like EVs) but right now they are pretty hard walls and will give a hard ceiling to sales for some time.
EVs are expensive in the EU thanks to tariffs on Chinese EVs & the slow progress of EU car makers in making EVs in sufficient volume to push them out the door cheaply.
Worldwide, EV sales are up 30% year on year - basically China is churning them out at far lower prices & selling them everywhere they can, including inside China itself.
I'm coming round to tariffs. I know the concept of comparative advantage and the theory that they destroy wealth, but I see no reason to increase wealth globally if it decreases wealth locally. From your point I assume that EU manufacturers will slowly catch up to make EVs, and unless I'm missing something there isn't Anu mass manufacturers of EVs in the UK?
The issue is domestic consumers end up paying more for an inferior product
So not only is there wealth destruction, there is also wealth transfer within countries
There's no point of producing superior products if your population don't earn enough to buy them. Henry Ford paid his employers enough for them to buy his product. Plus we have coming up to fifty years of data that makes me think the combination of neoliberalism and globalisation doesn't work. We aren't producing EV/hybrids, our steel industry just died, and we are throwing away a lead in SMRs. Our present path just makes us poorer and thanks to Miliband's stupidity, colder. Empirically we need to do things differently
We important loads of stuff from China. I'm curious as to why EVs are considered a special case.
With the exception of Tesla, UK/US/European manufacturers got lazy and preferred to lobby for the status quo than innovate. Some of them are now catching up, which is no doubt a good thing for our economies, but the only reason why is our climate targets and pressure from abroad.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine has demonstrated the danger for democracies of being economically reliant on a militaristic dictatorship. So it would be a good move to reduce our economic dependence on China.
The first step would be to prevent becoming reliant on China for further industries in addition to those where we already import. At the moment the West still has a car industry, while it generally doesn't have TV or smartphone industries.
It should be easier to retain our car industry then it would be to regain a TV manufacturing industry.
Which is perhaps an argument for encouraging Chinese EV manufacturers to set up in the Europe/UK (already happening in the EU). We should aim to do to them what China did to the West a couple of decades back.
This is the Trump strategy. Put up a tariff wall and encourage investment behind it.
It is what Japan had done when Mrs Thatcher fell for the Friedmanite spin that Japan's rise showed the triumph of free markets.
The Japanese manufacturers were innovating and not dumping, at a time when British manufacturing was mired in political lobbying and industrial relations issues, and most definitely not on the product.
But had risen to dominance behind a protectionist wall (and American aid).
I note Sky only has one news story today of the death of a pop star in Buenos Aires
What is it with journalists and politicians who seem to have an obsession with the cult of celebrity
It is very sad for his family and friends but surely there has to be a balance
It appears cabinet ministers have failed to agree with Reeves for cuts in their department budgets, but welcome to the real world and the difficult choices and unpopularity that will go with them
The IMF have warned the UK needs tax increases and cuts in public spending, not borrowing, and this is when labour realise they simply have not got the ability to fund all the promises they are making and other people's money has already been spent
The Tories were going to do what, though?
Increase taxes and cut spending. TINA applies.
They would also have moved net zero to 2035 at least
The current government's target for Net Zero is 2050. 2035 would be seriously ambitious; didn't realise Sunak was quite so green .
Playing games - net zero emissions but then you knew that
That's incorrect too. Where are you getting all this false information?
Based on current trends, that would appear to be achievable, particularly with batteries becoming so cheap. Oddly enough, some of the targets are possibly mutually exclusive - if electric vehicles and heat pumps really take off, getting to zero carbon electricity becomes more difficult as demand grows.
Is this just an example of EV demand hitting some really hard edges. From this and other reports from articles and YouTubers it seems that there are some hurdles they can't cross, namely
Can't realistically handle long-distance travel (esp in USA)
Not enough charging stations
Not enough places to park whilst charging overnight (most people don't have drives)
EV cars are still comparatively expensive and have very poor resale values as batteries fade
Assumptions about users (apps, bank accounts, credit cards, cashless) are not universal
These problems may fade over time (and I hope they do: I like EVs) but right now they are pretty hard walls and will give a hard ceiling to sales for some time.
For me, the key factor is convenience.
I have a diesel car and I know that it is there whenever I need it. The only small inconvenience is having to spend 5 mins in the petrol station once every 3-4 weeks (we're not big drivers now).
With an electric car, it just seems more hassle:
- the issue of having to wait at services for a recharge mid journey - having to faff about with charging at home - also the worry that the battery will degrade over time leading to more of the above.
So right now I wouldn't choose an electric car unless/until the refueling because as quick and easy as diesel
For me, there are 2 main requirements
1. Range needs to be genuinely 300 miles so I can drive to the Lake District (for example) without worrying about charging.
2. It has to fit down my drive.
Currently nothing on the market meets both those two. A couple of top end models can just do the range, but are too wide. And they are too big/expensive, I wouldn't have bought petrol/diesel equivalents either. Ideally I don't want anything bigger than a Golf/Focus.
It feels like it will be a few years yet before I can switch.
Take a look at the Kia EV3 with the larger battery, it will do 370 miles.
I run a Kia e-niro that's 4 years old and the battery is as good as new with 270 genuine miles on a full charge. I do regular trips to the Isle of Wight in it from Leics. In 4 years I have used public chargers just once per year. The EV3 would mean not even that. Fantastic to drive and build quality.
Got to say that I expect my next car will be a Kia EV3 in about 2-3 years time as they start to hit the second hand market.
That looks interesting for when I come to replace mine in several years.
Towing weights for EVs seem to be being resolved gradually.
FWIW, in my area, there are two solutions for people who can't charge their electric vehicles at home. First, there were a few standard charging stations. There were two in the basement of the local library. I recall my surprise when I saw one actually being used. But now that happens a little more often. And there were two at a local supermarket.
Now, that same supermarket (part of the Fred Meyer chain) also has ten Tesla stations. When I shop there, which I do once or twice a month, I usually see six of them in use. (I shop on Tuesdays, usually. I would expect there are more on weekends.)
My guess is that most of those Teslas belong to couples. One sits in the Tesla, while the other does the shopping.
The two seem like a reasonable solutions, for many in this area (a Seattle suburb, near Microsoft and Google).
Why don't they trust their Teslas to be left alone?
That's more likely because of the competition from electric bikes, which are everywhere. And are far cheaper.
To a point. Ebikes have basically wiped out the market for road-legal 50cc equivalent scooters, both petrol and electric, but that was never a big market anyway. 50cc models are limited to 28mph and have pitiful motors that struggle to make walking pace going up a hill. Only 16 year-olds ever bought them, because they can't legally ride anything else.
The bulk of the motorcycle market in the UK is 125cc scooters and after a brief blip of sales electrics have been crushed. Electric 125 equivalent models will generally do 50-ish mph and a range of 40-60 miles. Nobody's buying an ebike instead of a 125, which is why unlike 50cc machines sales of petrol 125s are fine. They're ignoring electrics and buying a petrol model that's half the price, does 65mph+, goes for 200 miles on one tank and has storage space that isn't filled up with batteries.
The technology for electric motorcycles and scooters just isn't there yet, so I suspect sales will continue to be woeful until battery tech improves or the government outright bans petrol engines.
It's also to do with a wild west of no regulation in the "e-bikes which are mopeds or motorcycles" market.
A Sur-Ron will do 50 mph, has 50 miles range, and there are only a tiny number of places in the UK where anyone will enforce on it.
TBF I am not sure how the prices of those compare.
Another person who is finding out the FO part of FA&FO.
The wife of a Conservative councillor has been jailed for 31 months after calling for hotels housing asylum seekers to be set on fire.
Lucy Connolly, whose husband Raymond serves on West Northamptonshire Council, posted the expletive-ridden message on X, formerly known as Twitter, on the day three girls were killed in Southport.
The 41-year-old childminder called for "mass deportation now" and added: "If that makes me racist, so be it."
She has been sentenced at Birmingham Crown Court, having previously admitted intending to stir up racial hatred.
That's the full sentence, she may get out after 40% of the time.
The sentencing hearing was told the former childminder sent a WhatsApp message on August 5 joking that the tweet to her 10,000 followers had “bit me on the arse, lol.”
Opening the case, prosecutor Naeem Valli said Connolly also sent a message saying she intended to work her notice period as a childminder “on the sly” despite being de-registered.
Mr Valli added: “She then goes on to say that if she were to get arrested she would play the mental health card.”
I note Sky only has one news story today of the death of a pop star in Buenos Aires
What is it with journalists and politicians who seem to have an obsession with the cult of celebrity
It is very sad for his family and friends but surely there has to be a balance
It appears cabinet ministers have failed to agree with Reeves for cuts in their department budgets, but welcome to the real world and the difficult choices and unpopularity that will go with them
The IMF have warned the UK needs tax increases and cuts in public spending, not borrowing, and this is when labour realise they simply have not got the ability to fund all the promises they are making and other people's money has already been spent
The Tories were going to do what, though?
Increase taxes and cut spending. TINA applies.
They would also have moved net zero to 2035 at least
The current government's target for Net Zero is 2050. 2035 would be seriously ambitious; didn't realise Sunak was quite so green .
Playing games - net zero emissions but then you knew that
That's incorrect too. Where are you getting all this false information?
Based on current trends, that would appear to be achievable, particularly with batteries becoming so cheap. Oddly enough, some of the targets are possibly mutually exclusive - if electric vehicles and heat pumps really take off, getting to zero carbon electricity becomes more difficult as demand grows.
Is this just an example of EV demand hitting some really hard edges. From this and other reports from articles and YouTubers it seems that there are some hurdles they can't cross, namely
Can't realistically handle long-distance travel (esp in USA)
Not enough charging stations
Not enough places to park whilst charging overnight (most people don't have drives)
EV cars are still comparatively expensive and have very poor resale values as batteries fade
Assumptions about users (apps, bank accounts, credit cards, cashless) are not universal
These problems may fade over time (and I hope they do: I like EVs) but right now they are pretty hard walls and will give a hard ceiling to sales for some time.
For me, the key factor is convenience.
I have a diesel car and I know that it is there whenever I need it. The only small inconvenience is having to spend 5 mins in the petrol station once every 3-4 weeks (we're not big drivers now).
With an electric car, it just seems more hassle:
- the issue of having to wait at services for a recharge mid journey - having to faff about with charging at home - also the worry that the battery will degrade over time leading to more of the above.
So right now I wouldn't choose an electric car unless/until the refueling because as quick and easy as diesel
For me, there are 2 main requirements
1. Range needs to be genuinely 300 miles so I can drive to the Lake District (for example) without worrying about charging.
2. It has to fit down my drive.
Currently nothing on the market meets both those two. A couple of top end models can just do the range, but are too wide. And they are too big/expensive, I wouldn't have bought petrol/diesel equivalents either. Ideally I don't want anything bigger than a Golf/Focus.
It feels like it will be a few years yet before I can switch.
Take a look at the Kia EV3 with the larger battery, it will do 370 miles.
I run a Kia e-niro that's 4 years old and the battery is as good as new with 270 genuine miles on a full charge. I do regular trips to the Isle of Wight in it from Leics. In 4 years I have used public chargers just once per year. The EV3 would mean not even that. Fantastic to drive and build quality.
Got to say that I expect my next car will be a Kia EV3 in about 2-3 years time as they start to hit the second hand market.
That looks interesting for when I come to replace mine in several years.
Towing weights for EVs seem to be being resolved gradually.
I note Sky only has one news story today of the death of a pop star in Buenos Aires
What is it with journalists and politicians who seem to have an obsession with the cult of celebrity
It is very sad for his family and friends but surely there has to be a balance
It appears cabinet ministers have failed to agree with Reeves for cuts in their department budgets, but welcome to the real world and the difficult choices and unpopularity that will go with them
The IMF have warned the UK needs tax increases and cuts in public spending, not borrowing, and this is when labour realise they simply have not got the ability to fund all the promises they are making and other people's money has already been spent
The Tories were going to do what, though?
Increase taxes and cut spending. TINA applies.
They would also have moved net zero to 2035 at least
The current government's target for Net Zero is 2050. 2035 would be seriously ambitious; didn't realise Sunak was quite so green .
Playing games - net zero emissions but then you knew that
That's incorrect too. Where are you getting all this false information?
Based on current trends, that would appear to be achievable, particularly with batteries becoming so cheap. Oddly enough, some of the targets are possibly mutually exclusive - if electric vehicles and heat pumps really take off, getting to zero carbon electricity becomes more difficult as demand grows.
Is this just an example of EV demand hitting some really hard edges. From this and other reports from articles and YouTubers it seems that there are some hurdles they can't cross, namely
Can't realistically handle long-distance travel (esp in USA)
Not enough charging stations
Not enough places to park whilst charging overnight (most people don't have drives)
EV cars are still comparatively expensive and have very poor resale values as batteries fade
Assumptions about users (apps, bank accounts, credit cards, cashless) are not universal
These problems may fade over time (and I hope they do: I like EVs) but right now they are pretty hard walls and will give a hard ceiling to sales for some time.
EVs are expensive in the EU thanks to tariffs on Chinese EVs & the slow progress of EU car makers in making EVs in sufficient volume to push them out the door cheaply.
Worldwide, EV sales are up 30% year on year - basically China is churning them out at far lower prices & selling them everywhere they can, including inside China itself.
I'm coming round to tariffs. I know the concept of comparative advantage and the theory that they destroy wealth, but I see no reason to increase wealth globally if it decreases wealth locally. From your point I assume that EU manufacturers will slowly catch up to make EVs, and unless I'm missing something there isn't Anu mass manufacturers of EVs in the UK?
The issue is domestic consumers end up paying more for an inferior product
So not only is there wealth destruction, there is also wealth transfer within countries
There's no point of producing superior products if your population don't earn enough to buy them. Henry Ford paid his employers enough for them to buy his product. Plus we have coming up to fifty years of data that makes me think the combination of neoliberalism and globalisation doesn't work. We aren't producing EV/hybrids, our steel industry just died, and we are throwing away a lead in SMRs. Our present path just makes us poorer and thanks to Miliband's stupidity, colder. Empirically we need to do things differently
We important loads of stuff from China. I'm curious as to why EVs are considered a special case.
With the exception of Tesla, UK/US/European manufacturers got lazy and preferred to lobby for the status quo than innovate. Some of them are now catching up, which is no doubt a good thing for our economies, but the only reason why is our climate targets and pressure from abroad.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine has demonstrated the danger for democracies of being economically reliant on a militaristic dictatorship. So it would be a good move to reduce our economic dependence on China.
The first step would be to prevent becoming reliant on China for further industries in addition to those where we already import. At the moment the West still has a car industry, while it generally doesn't have TV or smartphone industries.
It should be easier to retain our car industry then it would be to regain a TV manufacturing industry.
Which is perhaps an argument for encouraging Chinese EV manufacturers to set up in the Europe/UK (already happening in the EU). We should aim to do to them what China did to the West a couple of decades back.
This is the Trump strategy. Put up a tariff wall and encourage investment behind it.
Yes it’s a really difficult call for a lot of countries, the Chinese EVs are clearly being ‘dumped’ on other markets, and especially Western countries need to balance the need for cheap EVs to meet their environmental targets with protecting their own automotive industries from what’s obviously an attempt by China to capture the entire industry.
If only there was another EV manufacturer, perhaps one from a friendly nation, who might have been invited to the UK business summit earlier in the week…
The focus group reaction to the two Tory leadership candidates, as reported recently in the Guardian, is interesting. Most have no doubt aready seen it, but for reference: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/oct/13/conservatives-focus-group-kemi-badenoch-robert-jenrick-tory-leadership The group was composed of former Conservative voters who had switched to either Labour or Reform in the last election (Lib Dem switchers sadly not included; I should be interested to know if there would be any difference in the feedback). They preferred Badenoch. When considering remarks that many of us might regard as controversial, they were more willing to give Badenoch the benefit of the doubt and in some cases outright agreed with her.
Jenrick is a dud. Right-wingers think they can see through him, and centrists and left-wingers perceive him as unacceptably extreme. He also gives off slimy and dodgy vibes in general, whatever views and policies he espouses - difficult to shed.
Badenoch may well also be a dud - but in largely refusing to commit now to gimmicky policies, and being nuanced in her response to freebiegate (even partially defending the principle in an interview with Brillo), she seems to have more of an eye for the long-term future of her party, as opposed to Jenrick's instant gratification. So, even if she crashes and burns quickly, Badenoch may still leave at least something that her successor can build on.
I have £5 on her at 11/8 and another £100 on her on less flattering odds which I forget
Quite apart from hypothetical poling either of these would have as their first task making it to the election as LOTO. Worst of all someone new in a Shadow role may be able to convince as a political performer. From that moment anyone notable in the old Government will be in the dustbin of history. No-one in the Cabinet of the 2010-24 Con Govts will win a 2028/9 GE in my view. Way too many skeletons in the closet
Of course Lab could implode - but then they wouldn't be up against Starmer they would be up against a probably rather more deft campaigner
Comments
Seems like a lethal game of whack a mole tbh.
Then actually building it takes a ludicrous amount of time and money.
Or are you confusing Hamas for Hezbollah, where they have a new leader every week?
"The challenges of management recruitment in the Death To Israel space." - by a man in a shiny blue suit with brown shoes.
One such is that, according a U.S defence functionary, there seems to be a potentially rather interesting set of Congressional UFO hearings planned for November 13, after the election, led by Congresswoman or Senator Mace, and promising a lot of surprising information and witnesses. We've been here before, though, so let's see what emerges from it.
There were some reports that he was going to try and escape to Egypt and that was supposedly the motivation for the Israeli to go in to Rafah and secure that border.
He has been radio silence for the past month or so, which made some think he might have died in an airstrike.
Obviously, any deal also needs to involve the return of the hostages.
* obviously joking about these..
I also hadn't heard of him, must admit, but it's very sad, for his age if nothing else (and possibly a reflection on the industry and what it does to young stars in manufactured groups once they've served their purpose).
"With the right stratergisation, new players in this market can optimise synergies and align the candidate flow with innovation in AI and Crypto".
What's incontestable is that our sense of priorities was badly wrong.
As has become increasingly evident.
Are you arguing we should ignore our mistakes ?
https://www.rte.ie/news/ireland/2024/1017/1475916-inishowen-opposition/
Now, that same supermarket (part of the Fred Meyer chain) also has ten Tesla stations. When I shop there, which I do once or twice a month, I usually see six of them in use. (I shop on Tuesdays, usually. I would expect there are more on weekends.)
My guess is that most of those Teslas belong to couples. One sits in the Tesla, while the other does the shopping.
The two seem like a reasonable solutions, for many in this area (a Seattle suburb, near Microsoft and Google).
So not only is there wealth destruction, there is also wealth transfer within countries
Harris leading Trump by a wide 48-point margin among South Asian battleground voters
https://x.com/londonvinjamuri/status/1846911053294186847
GBN Updates
@GBNUpdates
·
1h
🔵 Decision Time: The Race To Lead
@RobertJenrick
and
@KemiBadenoch
🕖 Tonight from 7pm
📺 Only on
@GBNEWS
They'll probably draw the line at disembowelling, though. Probably.
https://www.vox.com/scotus/378058/supreme-court-hamm-smith-death-penalty-eighth-amendment
..At least some members of the Court’s Republican majority, however, have suggested that this “evolving standards of decency” framework should be abandoned. In Bucklew v. Precythe (2019), the Court considered whether states could use execution methods that risked causing the dying inmate a great deal of pain. Justice Neil Gorsuch’s majority opinion, which held that potentially painful methods of execution are allowed, seems to exist in a completely different universe than the Court’s Eighth Amendment cases that look to evolving standards.
While the Court’s earlier opinions ask whether a particular form of punishment has fallen out of favor today, Gorsuch asked whether a method of punishment was out of favor at the time of the founding. Though his opinion does list some methods of execution, such as “disemboweling” and “burning alive” that violate the Eighth Amendment, Gorsuch wrote that these methods are unconstitutional because “by the time of the founding, these methods had long fallen out of use and so had become ‘unusual.’”..
Interestingly they seem to have put in decent coffee machines, in the hotels - had some of the best coffee I had in France in an Ibis hotel!
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/10/15/heres-how-donald-trump-will-lower-grocery-prices/?pwapi_token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJyZWFzb24iOiJnaWZ0IiwibmJmIjoxNzI4OTY0ODAwLCJpc3MiOiJzdWJzY3JpcHRpb25zIiwiZXhwIjoxNzMwMzQ3MTk5LCJpYXQiOjE3Mjg5NjQ4MDAsImp0aSI6IjVjNmM0YjFhLTA5YTktNDNkMi04Y2EwLWFkNTIyMDI2ZmFiMiIsInVybCI6Imh0dHBzOi8vd3d3Lndhc2hpbmd0b25wb3N0LmNvbS9wb2xpdGljcy8yMDI0LzEwLzE1L2hlcmVzLWhvdy1kb25hbGQtdHJ1bXAtd2lsbC1sb3dlci1ncm9jZXJ5LXByaWNlcy8ifQ.m6pD2Sx_LV9I8Q6mlX8B5pI-bP18hu2gBs6SQqriArw
They simply quote Trump's answer to a question about what are you going to do about prices. They quote it in full. He really should stick to dancing.
It's not just the state abrogating its responsibilities. It's companies who just sit there, rent seeking and not actually trying to innovate.
With the exception of Tesla, UK/US/European manufacturers got lazy and preferred to lobby for the status quo than innovate. Some of them are now catching up, which is no doubt a good thing for our economies, but the only reason why is our climate targets and pressure from abroad.
The bulk of the motorcycle market in the UK is 125cc scooters and after a brief blip of sales electrics have been crushed. Electric 125 equivalent models will generally do 50-ish mph and a range of 40-60 miles. Nobody's buying an ebike instead of a 125, which is why unlike 50cc machines sales of petrol 125s are fine. They're ignoring electrics and buying a petrol model that's half the price, does 65mph+, goes for 200 miles on one tank and has storage space that isn't filled up with batteries.
The technology for electric motorcycles and scooters just isn't there yet, so I suspect sales will continue to be woeful until battery tech improves or the government outright bans petrol engines.
Globalisation in the West seemed to help those who are divorced from production allowing them to sell cheap low end goods and displace the local producers. Now with the rise of the Chinese factory shops i.e Amazon, Alibaba and direct to consumer goods there is no longer the value for Argos to capture. And the Chinese are moving up the value chain.
As others have said, the EV3 looks like it'll go some way to being a practical solution for longer journeys. And I've had no issues with the quality of Kia.
·
19m
Israeli media is reporting that identification of Sinwar has been confirmed and the IDF has killed him
Time for Friedman's plan?
It’s Time for America to Get Real With Iran and Israel
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/15/opinion/iran-israel-war.html
The wife of a Conservative councillor has been jailed for 31 months after calling for hotels housing asylum seekers to be set on fire.
Lucy Connolly, whose husband Raymond serves on West Northamptonshire Council, posted the expletive-ridden message on X, formerly known as Twitter, on the day three girls were killed in Southport.
The 41-year-old childminder called for "mass deportation now" and added: "If that makes me racist, so be it."
She has been sentenced at Birmingham Crown Court, having previously admitted intending to stir up racial hatred.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cp3wkzgpjxvo
The first step would be to prevent becoming reliant on China for further industries in addition to those where we already import. At the moment the West still has a car industry, while it generally doesn't have TV or smartphone industries.
It should be easier to retain our car industry then it would be to regain a TV manufacturing industry.
But, yes, the aim would be to be able to ban imports from China if they ever invaded Taiwan, without that causing our economy to crater.
Let's just say, we're not there yet, and I worry that we need them more than they need us.
To be really flippant:
They know the value of scientific & engineering expertise unlike our captains of financialisation, offshoring and deskilling.
For those who don’t know the background, in 2013 Mr Howell lost a computer hard drive, thrown away by his partner. It contains 8,000 Bitcoin, not worth an awful lot in 2013 but now worth approximately $650m.
He’s spent the last few years trying to persuade the council to let him carefully dig up a 10-year-old landfill site to try and find the drive, and has already offered them a 10% reward if he finds it and can recover the contents.
https://yro.slashdot.org/story/24/10/16/1733245/man-sues-town-for-647-million-over-trashed-bitcoin-hard-drive
To be honest, it struck me as such unqualified good news that I forgot there were nutters like Owen Jones who rather like Islamic terrorism.
Imagine if Mossad had been around during WW2? Hitler, Goebbels, Goering, Doenitz, Mussolini, Hirohito - all would be gone within the first 6 months of the war.
If only there was another EV manufacturer, perhaps one from a friendly nation, who might have been invited to the UK business summit earlier in the week…
NEW THREAD
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ysx4t7ICO58
And it's Henry who was the psychopath, not the lawyers - and the case was a Parliamentary attainder, effectively dictated by him, rather than a criminal trial in the courts.
The 8th Amendment (and the part of the English bill of rights it was copied from) was as much about the limitation of politico-judicial power as it was about the cruelty of particular punishments.
A historical irony, in view of what the current US Supreme Court has become.
If all these people have evidence, call the papers, the TV stations and lets get it out there.
They don't. Its grift, all the way down.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/trumps-legal-team-tried-keep-stormy-daniels-quiet-ahead-2024-election-rcna175828
..In a statement to MSNBC, Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung falsely asserted that the documents Maddow referenced “were attained as part of an illegal, foreign hacking attack against President Trump and his team.”
“We are working with authorities to determine the legal repercussions for those likely committing federal offenses by posting and utilizing stolen material by terror regime adversaries,” he continued. “Ms. Daniels has been held to account by having to pay President Trump over and above the money she owes to him as a result of her wrongdoings.”
MSNBC obtained the documents from Daniels’ lawyer, not through a hack. ..
The group was composed of former Conservative voters who had switched to either Labour or Reform in the last election (Lib Dem switchers sadly not included; I should be interested to know if there would be any difference in the feedback).
They preferred Badenoch.
When considering remarks that many of us might regard as controversial, they were more willing to give Badenoch the benefit of the doubt and in some cases outright agreed with her.
Jenrick is a dud. Right-wingers think they can see through him, and centrists and left-wingers perceive him as unacceptably extreme. He also gives off slimy and dodgy vibes in general, whatever views and policies he espouses - difficult to shed.
Badenoch may well also be a dud - but in largely refusing to commit now to gimmicky policies, and being nuanced in her response to freebiegate (even partially defending the principle in an interview with Brillo), she seems to have more of an eye for the long-term future of her party, as opposed to Jenrick's instant gratification. So, even if she crashes and burns quickly, Badenoch may still leave at least something that her successor can build on.
Having got 'back' to Palestine though they've been savage in defence.
Towing weights for EVs seem to be being resolved gradually.
Are these the self-driving type?
A Sur-Ron will do 50 mph, has 50 miles range, and there are only a tiny number of places in the UK where anyone will enforce on it.
TBF I am not sure how the prices of those compare.
https://www.lowestoftjournal.co.uk/news/national/24660321.tory-councillors-wife-jailed-asylum-hotels-racial-hatred-tweet/
That's the full sentence, she may get out after 40% of the time.
The sentencing hearing was told the former childminder sent a WhatsApp message on August 5 joking that the tweet to her 10,000 followers had “bit me on the arse, lol.”
Opening the case, prosecutor Naeem Valli said Connolly also sent a message saying she intended to work her notice period as a childminder “on the sly” despite being de-registered.
Mr Valli added: “She then goes on to say that if she were to get arrested she would play the mental health card.”
Of course Lab could implode - but then they wouldn't be up against Starmer they would be up against a probably rather more deft campaigner