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How low can Elon Musk sink? – politicalbetting.com

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  • TimSTimS Posts: 14,498

    TimS said:

    New Runcorn poll: https://findoutnow.co.uk/blog/runcorn-and-helsby-by-election-poll/

    Small sample. Basically same results as the previous Ashcroft poll.

    How are you likely to vote in that by-election?
    Turnout adjusted, ‘Don’t know’ excluded

    Reform UK: 36%
    Labour: 33%
    Conservative: 12%
    Liberal Democrats: 7%
    Green Party: 7%
    Other: 5%


    How are you likely to vote in that by-election?
    Turnout adjusted, ‘Don’t know’ included

    Reform UK: 30%
    Labour: 27%
    Conservative: 10%
    Liberal Democrats: 6%
    Green Party: 5%
    Other: 4%
    Don’t know: 17%


    How are you likely to vote in that by-election?
    Raw vote, not adjusted for turnout

    Reform UK: 26%
    Labour: 19%
    Conservative: 5%
    Liberal Democrats: 4%
    Green Party: 4%
    Other: 2%
    Don’t know: 22%
    I would not vote: 18%
    As someone said the other day, plenty of Tory vote for Reform to squeeze. Got to be in the bag no?
    A fair bit of Lib Dem and Green to squeeze too. If LDs don't make an effort they’ll probably go very low on vote share.
    Sure, but are they going to be motivated to vote tactically to get Labour back in?
    To keep Reform out, possibly. If Tories were the challenger they’d stay at home, but Reform is a different prospect.
  • algarkirkalgarkirk Posts: 13,697

    New Runcorn poll: https://findoutnow.co.uk/blog/runcorn-and-helsby-by-election-poll/

    Small sample. Basically same results as the previous Ashcroft poll.

    How are you likely to vote in that by-election?
    Turnout adjusted, ‘Don’t know’ excluded

    Reform UK: 36%
    Labour: 33%
    Conservative: 12%
    Liberal Democrats: 7%
    Green Party: 7%
    Other: 5%


    How are you likely to vote in that by-election?
    Turnout adjusted, ‘Don’t know’ included

    Reform UK: 30%
    Labour: 27%
    Conservative: 10%
    Liberal Democrats: 6%
    Green Party: 5%
    Other: 4%
    Don’t know: 17%


    How are you likely to vote in that by-election?
    Raw vote, not adjusted for turnout

    Reform UK: 26%
    Labour: 19%
    Conservative: 5%
    Liberal Democrats: 4%
    Green Party: 4%
    Other: 2%
    Don’t know: 22%
    I would not vote: 18%
    As someone said the other day, plenty of Tory vote for Reform to squeeze. Got to be in the bag no?
    No. Not in the bag. Yes, it is Reform v Labour but it's a contest between the force that is Reform v the force that is Anyone Who Can Beat Reform; they both have votes to pick up from all over the place. I thought this would be Labour fairly easily; it looks to me now like Labour by a short head.

    Rationale: The group that is 'Not Reform' is larger than the 'Reform Only' and will be motivated to turn up, though both groups in small numbers.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 75,324
    Seven EU countries back Czech plan to fund Radio Free Europe

    The Czech Republic initiated talks with EU partners about funding Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, which is headquartered in the Czech capital, following cuts to US support

    https://x.com/EuromaidanPress/status/1901999034492981468

  • algarkirkalgarkirk Posts: 13,697
    kinabalu said:

    algarkirk said:

    kinabalu said:

    Betting Post: The WH28 party market has moved a lot recently. The Dems were 2.4 but it's close to 50/50 now. I think the reason is that Trump has surprised (although not me) on the downside. People were not quite expecting this level of corruption and incompetence.

    Is it a good idea to offer odds or place bets on events likely to be bent as to outcome? For me this is one to avoid, though theoretical for me as a very unbent Cheltenham, where the best horse won every time, has none the less left the betting budget at Zero.
    What about that Willie Mullins 100/1 shot? The rank outsider of his 11 runners in the race. Very strange one.
    No. Nothing in that. Trainers and owners don't owe information to anyone, and can keep as quiet as they like. Who knows what the odds would be if everyone knew everything they would like to know, including what only the horse knows?
  • Eabhal said:

    Eabhal said:

    Eabhal said:

    TimS said:

    IanB2 said:

    IanB2 said:

    The question is what could turn Tesla’s slide of share price round?

    Musk getting banished by Trump and going into rehab?
    Musk has 13% of Tesla shares, and the only obvious way out for the company is for him to sell out and the company continue with him cut loose. The question is how long it will take for them to reach the same conclusion?

    Meanwhile, their global brand is worse than Ratnered.
    They need to get the share price down to double digits, then buy him out cheaply.
    Musk can't sell without triggering a huge tax liability (subject to a handy law change). The way squillionaires avoid tax is by borrowing money using their stakes as collateral. No income, no capital gains.
    Like farmers?
    Speaking of Elon & Tesla...

    EVs could be charged as fast as filling a petrol car after breakthrough
    Chinese manufacturer BYD develops system that cuts wait time to five minutes

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/03/18/evs-charged-fast-filling-petrol-car-breakthrough/ (£££)
    Be interesting to see if putting so much charge into the battery so fast has any long term effects on battery life.
    If batteries end up being super cheap (and possible to swap out), then that isn't much of an issue either.

    This is super exciting. We've made next to no effort to put in EV infrastructure in the UK (only invested about £3 billion), so this might be the sort of game changer that we need. Much cheaper than retrofitting charge points to houses and lampposts.
    Er no.

    To charge that fast means delivering electricity in large amounts, very quickly.

    To charge to 80%, say, with 10% “in the tank” means delivering 70KWh in 5 minutes.

    On an 800 volt system that is *thousands of amps*

    That will require infrastructure, all right. Lots of it.
    Bet you that's cheaper than fitting EV chargers to every house and lamppost in the land.
    Probably not, actually.

    To start with, it means investing in infrastructure all the way from the power stations on an epic scale. The equality reports alone would take 10 years.
    My back-of-envelope has it at about £50 billion to install a charging point for every car in the UK. Probably a bit more given you'll likely have more charging points than cars, including workplace parking etc.

    That's roughly equivalent to £6 million per fuel station. No idea if it's feasible to get enough power to each location for that kind of cost.
    Why would you assume a charging point for every car in the UK? There isn't a petrol pump for every car in the UK. I appreciate there are significant differences in the "fill" times, but many cars are lightly used. It's not like an EV needs charging every day any more than a petrol car needs filling every day (some do but most don't).
  • viewcodeviewcode Posts: 23,818

    viewcode said:

    Some time ago I had a rant about the fitting of regressions to datasets. I eventually had to introduce the Anscombe quartet (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anscombe's_quartet ) to get my point across. I've tried to find that rant in the comments but Bing and Google are useless and I can't find it. Can anybody assist?

    There is a search in the top right, you have mentioned it more than once so you will have to decide which you are referring to: https://vf.politicalbetting.com/search?Search=Anscombe
    Thank you, most helpful
  • StockyStocky Posts: 10,268
    Still no Runcorn odds on BF. Smarkets have Reform as 1.62 favourites. No bet for me - I was hoping for odds against Reform.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 44,380
    algarkirk said:

    kinabalu said:

    algarkirk said:

    kinabalu said:

    Betting Post: The WH28 party market has moved a lot recently. The Dems were 2.4 but it's close to 50/50 now. I think the reason is that Trump has surprised (although not me) on the downside. People were not quite expecting this level of corruption and incompetence.

    Is it a good idea to offer odds or place bets on events likely to be bent as to outcome? For me this is one to avoid, though theoretical for me as a very unbent Cheltenham, where the best horse won every time, has none the less left the betting budget at Zero.
    What about that Willie Mullins 100/1 shot? The rank outsider of his 11 runners in the race. Very strange one.
    No. Nothing in that. Trainers and owners don't owe information to anyone, and can keep as quiet as they like. Who knows what the odds would be if everyone knew everything they would like to know, including what only the horse knows?
    Probably right. If they'd lumped on it wouldn't have been 100/1. And although you do get bent races it's unlikely at Cheltenham.

    Yes, I'd love to know what each horse is thinking before the off. That would improve my betting no end.

    "Oh god, I'm so tired of all this shit" ... the odds-on fav.

    LAY!
  • MightyAlexMightyAlex Posts: 1,745
    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    Betting Post: The WH28 party market has moved a lot recently. The Dems were 2.4 but it's close to 50/50 now. I think the reason is that Trump has surprised (although not me) on the downside since he took office. People were not quite expecting this level of corruption and incompetence.

    I want to back Trump to stay in power beyond 2028.

    Add him as a runner Betfair!
    Yes. I presume some sort of etiquette is preventing a quote there. It'd be a "USA survives as a democracy?" proxy.

    What odds would you want btw?
    I put it at < 1.4 that there will be a Trump in the Whitehouse in 2029. I think he is too dynastic to hand it to Vance and too tightly bound by the constitution for another bite.
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 37,163
    @stevepeers.bsky.social‬

    "I never thought leopards would eat MY judges", says judge who supported immunity for leopards eating judges (or anyone else)
  • CookieCookie Posts: 14,654
    edited March 18
    algarkirk said:

    New Runcorn poll: https://findoutnow.co.uk/blog/runcorn-and-helsby-by-election-poll/

    Small sample. Basically same results as the previous Ashcroft poll.

    How are you likely to vote in that by-election?
    Turnout adjusted, ‘Don’t know’ excluded

    Reform UK: 36%
    Labour: 33%
    Conservative: 12%
    Liberal Democrats: 7%
    Green Party: 7%
    Other: 5%


    How are you likely to vote in that by-election?
    Turnout adjusted, ‘Don’t know’ included

    Reform UK: 30%
    Labour: 27%
    Conservative: 10%
    Liberal Democrats: 6%
    Green Party: 5%
    Other: 4%
    Don’t know: 17%


    How are you likely to vote in that by-election?
    Raw vote, not adjusted for turnout

    Reform UK: 26%
    Labour: 19%
    Conservative: 5%
    Liberal Democrats: 4%
    Green Party: 4%
    Other: 2%
    Don’t know: 22%
    I would not vote: 18%
    As someone said the other day, plenty of Tory vote for Reform to squeeze. Got to be in the bag no?
    No. Not in the bag. Yes, it is Reform v Labour but it's a contest between the force that is Reform v the force that is Anyone Who Can Beat Reform; they both have votes to pick up from all over the place. I thought this would be Labour fairly easily; it looks to me now like Labour by a short head.

    Rationale: The group that is 'Not Reform' is larger than the 'Reform Only' and will be motivated to turn up, though both groups in small numbers.
    Yes, I think that's right. I don't think it's a given that the Tory voters of Frodsham and Helsby and the surrounding villages will be flocking to Reform to oust Labour - the reverse is just as likely.
    I know the Runcorn half of the seat less well, but none of the small handful of Lab-ish voters I know are in the least bit Reform-friendly.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 44,380
    edited March 18

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    Betting Post: The WH28 party market has moved a lot recently. The Dems were 2.4 but it's close to 50/50 now. I think the reason is that Trump has surprised (although not me) on the downside since he took office. People were not quite expecting this level of corruption and incompetence.

    I want to back Trump to stay in power beyond 2028.

    Add him as a runner Betfair!
    Yes. I presume some sort of etiquette is preventing a quote there. It'd be a "USA survives as a democracy?" proxy.

    What odds would you want btw?
    I put it at < 1.4 that there will be a Trump in the Whitehouse in 2029. I think he is too dynastic to hand it to Vance and too tightly bound by the constitution for another bite.
    Really? Backing Jnr, Eric, Ivanka is fabulous value then iyo. And you can probably net that down to Jnr.

    Just checked. He's 20.
  • JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 44,905

    viewcode said:

    Kraut on BBC news panels...

    Dear @BBCNews in case you have not noticed or somehow missed out on the last 20 years, the Putin regime in Russia is a brutal dictatorship that kidnaps, imprisons, disappears, tortures, and murders anyone who opposes it. So could you stop asking Russian anti-war activists (including the one who is a friend of mine) to go on a "debate panel" to "debate" pro-war Russian regime propagandists, and thereby identify themselves to the Russian regime? Your job is to report the news, and not to emulate the morons that inhabit twitch.

    https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCr_Q-bPpcw5fJ-Oow1BW1NQ/community?lb=UgkxP1r5X2-z3VnW3WiIeQddG40mFtX8weEa

    TBH, if they are visible to the BBC as anti-war / anti-Putin, they will already be known by FSB. The BBC find their invitees for most things because they are already a known figure in that space, social media activity or that they volunteer themselves.
    Yes, but like my F-i-L; they are known about; they are on a list; but they are fine as long as they do not rock the boat too much. As long as they do not talk to the 'wrong' people; as long as they do not appear on TV decrying the government. As long as they don't appear on Wikileaks...
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 44,380
    Cookie said:

    algarkirk said:

    New Runcorn poll: https://findoutnow.co.uk/blog/runcorn-and-helsby-by-election-poll/

    Small sample. Basically same results as the previous Ashcroft poll.

    How are you likely to vote in that by-election?
    Turnout adjusted, ‘Don’t know’ excluded

    Reform UK: 36%
    Labour: 33%
    Conservative: 12%
    Liberal Democrats: 7%
    Green Party: 7%
    Other: 5%


    How are you likely to vote in that by-election?
    Turnout adjusted, ‘Don’t know’ included

    Reform UK: 30%
    Labour: 27%
    Conservative: 10%
    Liberal Democrats: 6%
    Green Party: 5%
    Other: 4%
    Don’t know: 17%


    How are you likely to vote in that by-election?
    Raw vote, not adjusted for turnout

    Reform UK: 26%
    Labour: 19%
    Conservative: 5%
    Liberal Democrats: 4%
    Green Party: 4%
    Other: 2%
    Don’t know: 22%
    I would not vote: 18%
    As someone said the other day, plenty of Tory vote for Reform to squeeze. Got to be in the bag no?
    No. Not in the bag. Yes, it is Reform v Labour but it's a contest between the force that is Reform v the force that is Anyone Who Can Beat Reform; they both have votes to pick up from all over the place. I thought this would be Labour fairly easily; it looks to me now like Labour by a short head.

    Rationale: The group that is 'Not Reform' is larger than the 'Reform Only' and will be motivated to turn up, though both groups in small numbers.
    Yes, I think that's right. I don't think it's a given that the Tory voters of Frodsham and Helsby and the surrounding villages will be flocking to Reform to oust Labour - the reverse is just as likely.
    I know the Runcorn half of the seat less well, but none of the small handful of Lab-ish voters I know are in the least bit Reform-friendly.
    But otoh you posted the other day, based on meeting up with some old mates, that it was amazing how much to the right people up there had moved.

    (sorry, I remember everything)
  • FlatlanderFlatlander Posts: 4,861
    Nigelb said:

    Eabhal said:

    Eabhal said:

    TimS said:

    IanB2 said:

    IanB2 said:

    The question is what could turn Tesla’s slide of share price round?

    Musk getting banished by Trump and going into rehab?
    Musk has 13% of Tesla shares, and the only obvious way out for the company is for him to sell out and the company continue with him cut loose. The question is how long it will take for them to reach the same conclusion?

    Meanwhile, their global brand is worse than Ratnered.
    They need to get the share price down to double digits, then buy him out cheaply.
    Musk can't sell without triggering a huge tax liability (subject to a handy law change). The way squillionaires avoid tax is by borrowing money using their stakes as collateral. No income, no capital gains.
    Like farmers?
    Speaking of Elon & Tesla...

    EVs could be charged as fast as filling a petrol car after breakthrough
    Chinese manufacturer BYD develops system that cuts wait time to five minutes

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/03/18/evs-charged-fast-filling-petrol-car-breakthrough/ (£££)
    Be interesting to see if putting so much charge into the battery so fast has any long term effects on battery life.
    If batteries end up being super cheap (and possible to swap out), then that isn't much of an issue either.

    This is super exciting. We've made next to no effort to put in EV infrastructure in the UK (only invested about £3 billion), so this might be the sort of game changer that we need. Much cheaper than retrofitting charge points to houses and lampposts.
    Er no.

    To charge that fast means delivering electricity in large amounts, very quickly.

    To charge to 80%, say, with 10% “in the tank” means delivering 70KWh in 5 minutes.

    On an 800 volt system that is *thousands of amps*

    That will require infrastructure, all right. Lots of it.
    Bet you that's cheaper than fitting EV chargers to every house and lamppost in the land.
    Probably not, actually.

    To start with, it means investing in infrastructure all the way from the power stations on an epic scale. The equality reports alone would take 10 years.
    Put a small nuclear reactor in a container at the back of the charging station?

    Though that might not be enough power.

    Edit: At 1MW needed per charger, a 20MW SMR might just do it, which Last Energy claims to sell...
    Nah..

    That’s slacker thinking.

    Detonate a 20kt nuclear device in a cavern full of salt every 30 minutes. The molten salt reservoir drives a steam system that powers the turbines….

    #WhatWouldNealCloudDo
    Ha!

    Seriously though, nobody is getting a 10-20MW connection to every petrol station, surely?

    You'd need local battery storage, though that would probably need as large an exclusion zone as a nuclear device.
    I don’t think you’d need anything like that.
    Most EVs won’t charge at that rate, and won’t for many years. It’s possibly quite useful for commercial vehicles like buses, though.

    A 500 kW charger would fully charge a 50kWh battery in ten minutes - which is about the maximum likely need for the next decade - so that’s about five cars an hour.

    A 10MW supply implies 100 cars an hour. How many petrol stations do that amount of business ?
    With local battery storage you could do more at peak hours, or get by with a smaller supply.

    And a lot of people will just trickle charge at home.

    I should think a lot of busy petrol stations do deal with 100 cars an hour at peak times.

    If 50% of vehicles were trickle charged at home then I imagine the peak would be lower, but still, you would potentially need a lot of power.

    The main point was that it is very unlikely that you'll get the kind of direct supply needed everywhere (10MW would need a 132kV line - 3MW a 11kV line) so local storage is the only realistic way this is going to work.

    Which would, as Malmesbury points out, have other potential benefits.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 75,324

    Eabhal said:

    Eabhal said:

    Eabhal said:

    TimS said:

    IanB2 said:

    IanB2 said:

    The question is what could turn Tesla’s slide of share price round?

    Musk getting banished by Trump and going into rehab?
    Musk has 13% of Tesla shares, and the only obvious way out for the company is for him to sell out and the company continue with him cut loose. The question is how long it will take for them to reach the same conclusion?

    Meanwhile, their global brand is worse than Ratnered.
    They need to get the share price down to double digits, then buy him out cheaply.
    Musk can't sell without triggering a huge tax liability (subject to a handy law change). The way squillionaires avoid tax is by borrowing money using their stakes as collateral. No income, no capital gains.
    Like farmers?
    Speaking of Elon & Tesla...

    EVs could be charged as fast as filling a petrol car after breakthrough
    Chinese manufacturer BYD develops system that cuts wait time to five minutes

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/03/18/evs-charged-fast-filling-petrol-car-breakthrough/ (£££)
    Be interesting to see if putting so much charge into the battery so fast has any long term effects on battery life.
    If batteries end up being super cheap (and possible to swap out), then that isn't much of an issue either.

    This is super exciting. We've made next to no effort to put in EV infrastructure in the UK (only invested about £3 billion), so this might be the sort of game changer that we need. Much cheaper than retrofitting charge points to houses and lampposts.
    Er no.

    To charge that fast means delivering electricity in large amounts, very quickly.

    To charge to 80%, say, with 10% “in the tank” means delivering 70KWh in 5 minutes.

    On an 800 volt system that is *thousands of amps*

    That will require infrastructure, all right. Lots of it.
    Bet you that's cheaper than fitting EV chargers to every house and lamppost in the land.
    Probably not, actually.

    To start with, it means investing in infrastructure all the way from the power stations on an epic scale. The equality reports alone would take 10 years.
    My back-of-envelope has it at about £50 billion to install a charging point for every car in the UK. Probably a bit more given you'll likely have more charging points than cars, including workplace parking etc.

    That's roughly equivalent to £6 million per fuel station. No idea if it's feasible to get enough power to each location for that kind of cost.
    Why would you assume a charging point for every car in the UK? There isn't a petrol pump for every car in the UK. I appreciate there are significant differences in the "fill" times, but many cars are lightly used. It's not like an EV needs charging every day any more than a petrol car needs filling every day (some do but most don't).
    Average daily mileage across the UK is around 20.
    That’s around 5 or 6kWh.

    The numbers people are posting are just nonsense.

    No doubt we’ll need infrastructure upgrades - but that’s happening anyway for the renewables grid. A bit of joined up government planning would make dropping in a few fast charging stations in locations which might actually need them (busy motorway service stations, for example) relatively easy.
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 39,696
    Eabhal said:

    Eabhal said:

    Eabhal said:

    TimS said:

    IanB2 said:

    IanB2 said:

    The question is what could turn Tesla’s slide of share price round?

    Musk getting banished by Trump and going into rehab?
    Musk has 13% of Tesla shares, and the only obvious way out for the company is for him to sell out and the company continue with him cut loose. The question is how long it will take for them to reach the same conclusion?

    Meanwhile, their global brand is worse than Ratnered.
    They need to get the share price down to double digits, then buy him out cheaply.
    Musk can't sell without triggering a huge tax liability (subject to a handy law change). The way squillionaires avoid tax is by borrowing money using their stakes as collateral. No income, no capital gains.
    Like farmers?
    Speaking of Elon & Tesla...

    EVs could be charged as fast as filling a petrol car after breakthrough
    Chinese manufacturer BYD develops system that cuts wait time to five minutes

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/03/18/evs-charged-fast-filling-petrol-car-breakthrough/ (£££)
    Be interesting to see if putting so much charge into the battery so fast has any long term effects on battery life.
    If batteries end up being super cheap (and possible to swap out), then that isn't much of an issue either.

    This is super exciting. We've made next to no effort to put in EV infrastructure in the UK (only invested about £3 billion), so this might be the sort of game changer that we need. Much cheaper than retrofitting charge points to houses and lampposts.
    Er no.

    To charge that fast means delivering electricity in large amounts, very quickly.

    To charge to 80%, say, with 10% “in the tank” means delivering 70KWh in 5 minutes.

    On an 800 volt system that is *thousands of amps*

    That will require infrastructure, all right. Lots of it.
    Bet you that's cheaper than fitting EV chargers to every house and lamppost in the land.
    Probably not, actually.

    To start with, it means investing in infrastructure all the way from the power stations on an epic scale. The equality reports alone would take 10 years.
    My back-of-envelope has it at about £50 billion to install a charging point for every car in the UK. Probably a bit more given you'll likely have more charging points than cars, including workplace parking etc.

    That's roughly equivalent to £6 million per fuel station. No idea if it's feasible to get enough power to each location for that kind of cost.
    That's only one part of it though, we'd also need to 4x our electricity generation which is probably another £30-40bn in costs. More given our shite planning rules and expensive infrastructure costs.
  • MattWMattW Posts: 25,797
    How low can Musk sink?

    Pretty low - doesn't he specialise in submarines and calling people paedophiles?
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 19,120
    edited March 18
    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    I'm afraid "favourable opinion of Donald Trump" is an almost perfectly accurate proxy for utter plonker. It's heartening to see it so rare for everyone except (surprise surprise) Reform supporters.

    How do we reckon Donald Chamberlain's call with Putin is going?
    "Vlad, if you don't play ball here and, you know, pretend to agree to some stuff I'm gonna make you wear a condom next time."
    Yes, Mr Putin sir, I will do that. Can I just say what a tough guy you are? So tough. We sure will humble that Zelenskyy together. He was so rude. So rude.
  • EabhalEabhal Posts: 9,797
    edited March 18

    Eabhal said:

    Eabhal said:

    Eabhal said:

    TimS said:

    IanB2 said:

    IanB2 said:

    The question is what could turn Tesla’s slide of share price round?

    Musk getting banished by Trump and going into rehab?
    Musk has 13% of Tesla shares, and the only obvious way out for the company is for him to sell out and the company continue with him cut loose. The question is how long it will take for them to reach the same conclusion?

    Meanwhile, their global brand is worse than Ratnered.
    They need to get the share price down to double digits, then buy him out cheaply.
    Musk can't sell without triggering a huge tax liability (subject to a handy law change). The way squillionaires avoid tax is by borrowing money using their stakes as collateral. No income, no capital gains.
    Like farmers?
    Speaking of Elon & Tesla...

    EVs could be charged as fast as filling a petrol car after breakthrough
    Chinese manufacturer BYD develops system that cuts wait time to five minutes

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/03/18/evs-charged-fast-filling-petrol-car-breakthrough/ (£££)
    Be interesting to see if putting so much charge into the battery so fast has any long term effects on battery life.
    If batteries end up being super cheap (and possible to swap out), then that isn't much of an issue either.

    This is super exciting. We've made next to no effort to put in EV infrastructure in the UK (only invested about £3 billion), so this might be the sort of game changer that we need. Much cheaper than retrofitting charge points to houses and lampposts.
    Er no.

    To charge that fast means delivering electricity in large amounts, very quickly.

    To charge to 80%, say, with 10% “in the tank” means delivering 70KWh in 5 minutes.

    On an 800 volt system that is *thousands of amps*

    That will require infrastructure, all right. Lots of it.
    Bet you that's cheaper than fitting EV chargers to every house and lamppost in the land.
    Probably not, actually.

    To start with, it means investing in infrastructure all the way from the power stations on an epic scale. The equality reports alone would take 10 years.
    My back-of-envelope has it at about £50 billion to install a charging point for every car in the UK. Probably a bit more given you'll likely have more charging points than cars, including workplace parking etc.

    That's roughly equivalent to £6 million per fuel station. No idea if it's feasible to get enough power to each location for that kind of cost.
    Why would you assume a charging point for every car in the UK? There isn't a petrol pump for every car in the UK. I appreciate there are significant differences in the "fill" times, but many cars are lightly used. It's not like an EV needs charging every day any more than a petrol car needs filling every day (some do but most don't).
    I wasn't clear - I was just comparing the costs of installing a slow charging point in everyone's homes versus installing rapid chargers at every existing fuel station instead.
  • Nigel_ForemainNigel_Foremain Posts: 14,714
    Has there been any polling on "likelihood to buy a Tesla" here or in any other country? Possibly a good guide would be to survey those that have already bought one, and see there intent to buy another. If there is a complete Tesla implosion it will be interesting to see what effect it has on Musk's other businesses.
  • Pagan2Pagan2 Posts: 10,501

    Eabhal said:

    Eabhal said:

    TimS said:

    IanB2 said:

    IanB2 said:

    The question is what could turn Tesla’s slide of share price round?

    Musk getting banished by Trump and going into rehab?
    Musk has 13% of Tesla shares, and the only obvious way out for the company is for him to sell out and the company continue with him cut loose. The question is how long it will take for them to reach the same conclusion?

    Meanwhile, their global brand is worse than Ratnered.
    They need to get the share price down to double digits, then buy him out cheaply.
    Musk can't sell without triggering a huge tax liability (subject to a handy law change). The way squillionaires avoid tax is by borrowing money using their stakes as collateral. No income, no capital gains.
    Like farmers?
    Speaking of Elon & Tesla...

    EVs could be charged as fast as filling a petrol car after breakthrough
    Chinese manufacturer BYD develops system that cuts wait time to five minutes

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/03/18/evs-charged-fast-filling-petrol-car-breakthrough/ (£££)
    Be interesting to see if putting so much charge into the battery so fast has any long term effects on battery life.
    If batteries end up being super cheap (and possible to swap out), then that isn't much of an issue either.

    This is super exciting. We've made next to no effort to put in EV infrastructure in the UK (only invested about £3 billion), so this might be the sort of game changer that we need. Much cheaper than retrofitting charge points to houses and lampposts.
    Er no.

    To charge that fast means delivering electricity in large amounts, very quickly.

    To charge to 80%, say, with 10% “in the tank” means delivering 70KWh in 5 minutes.

    On an 800 volt system that is *thousands of amps*

    That will require infrastructure, all right. Lots of it.
    Bet you that's cheaper than fitting EV chargers to every house and lamppost in the land.
    Probably not, actually.

    To start with, it means investing in infrastructure all the way from the power stations on an epic scale. The equality reports alone would take 10 years.
    Put a small nuclear reactor in a container at the back of the charging station?

    Though that might not be enough power.

    Edit: At 1MW needed per charger, a 20MW SMR might just do it, which Last Energy claims to sell...
    Nah..

    That’s slacker thinking.

    Detonate a 20kt nuclear device in a cavern full of salt every 30 minutes. The molten salt reservoir drives a steam system that powers the turbines….

    #WhatWouldNealCloudDo
    No idea what the answers are here, so merely asking

    How many caverns of salt do we have
    How many 20kt nuclear devices have we
    What is the cost of a 20kt device vs electricity produced
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 83,061
    edited March 18

    viewcode said:

    Kraut on BBC news panels...

    Dear @BBCNews in case you have not noticed or somehow missed out on the last 20 years, the Putin regime in Russia is a brutal dictatorship that kidnaps, imprisons, disappears, tortures, and murders anyone who opposes it. So could you stop asking Russian anti-war activists (including the one who is a friend of mine) to go on a "debate panel" to "debate" pro-war Russian regime propagandists, and thereby identify themselves to the Russian regime? Your job is to report the news, and not to emulate the morons that inhabit twitch.

    https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCr_Q-bPpcw5fJ-Oow1BW1NQ/community?lb=UgkxP1r5X2-z3VnW3WiIeQddG40mFtX8weEa

    TBH, if they are visible to the BBC as anti-war / anti-Putin, they will already be known by FSB. The BBC find their invitees for most things because they are already a known figure in that space, social media activity or that they volunteer themselves.
    Yes, but like my F-i-L; they are known about; they are on a list; but they are fine as long as they do not rock the boat too much. As long as they do not talk to the 'wrong' people; as long as they do not appear on TV decrying the government. As long as they don't appear on Wikileaks...
    Its a just a bit of a weird complaint. If they are on BBC radar as an anti-Putin activist they have probably been pretty vocal already and all they have to do is say to the BBC thanks but no thanks, I do not want to appear. It being a debate panel or not I don't think changes anything in regards to if you are on Putin's naughty list. If you go on the BBC and they line up a load of questions for you to give Putin both barrels you are going on the list, the pro-Russian propagandist being that or not is irrelevant.
  • MattWMattW Posts: 25,797
    Ooh.

    (Back from "out in the sun".)

    Are we on a PB Flappalotaboutnotalot wrt Charging points?

    Goodoh. As long as it keeps them happy.
  • Pagan2Pagan2 Posts: 10,501
    viewcode said:

    Eabhal said:

    Eabhal said:

    TimS said:

    IanB2 said:

    IanB2 said:

    The question is what could turn Tesla’s slide of share price round?

    Musk getting banished by Trump and going into rehab?
    Musk has 13% of Tesla shares, and the only obvious way out for the company is for him to sell out and the company continue with him cut loose. The question is how long it will take for them to reach the same conclusion?

    Meanwhile, their global brand is worse than Ratnered.
    They need to get the share price down to double digits, then buy him out cheaply.
    Musk can't sell without triggering a huge tax liability (subject to a handy law change). The way squillionaires avoid tax is by borrowing money using their stakes as collateral. No income, no capital gains.
    Like farmers?
    Speaking of Elon & Tesla...

    EVs could be charged as fast as filling a petrol car after breakthrough
    Chinese manufacturer BYD develops system that cuts wait time to five minutes

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/03/18/evs-charged-fast-filling-petrol-car-breakthrough/ (£££)
    Be interesting to see if putting so much charge into the battery so fast has any long term effects on battery life.
    If batteries end up being super cheap (and possible to swap out), then that isn't much of an issue either.

    This is super exciting. We've made next to no effort to put in EV infrastructure in the UK (only invested about £3 billion), so this might be the sort of game changer that we need. Much cheaper than retrofitting charge points to houses and lampposts.
    Er no.

    To charge that fast means delivering electricity in large amounts, very quickly.

    To charge to 80%, say, with 10% “in the tank” means delivering 70KWh in 5 minutes.

    On an 800 volt system that is *thousands of amps*

    That will require infrastructure, all right. Lots of it.
    Bet you that's cheaper than fitting EV chargers to every house and lamppost in the land.
    Probably not, actually.

    To start with, it means investing in infrastructure all the way from the power stations on an epic scale. The equality reports alone would take 10 years.
    Put a small nuclear reactor in a container at the back of the charging station?

    Though that might not be enough power.

    Edit: At 1MW needed per charger, a 20MW SMR might just do it, which Last Energy claims to sell...
    Nah..

    That’s slacker thinking.

    Detonate a 20kt nuclear device in a cavern full of salt every 30 minutes. The molten salt reservoir drives a steam system that powers the turbines….

    #WhatWouldNealCloudDo
    Not only did I not have to look that up, I have a copy of "Masters of the Vortex" on my shelves with the 1970's Chris Foss picture on the cover. Jumpers for goalposts...
    didnt get the doc smith reference
  • eekeek Posts: 29,417
    MaxPB said:

    Eabhal said:

    Eabhal said:

    Eabhal said:

    TimS said:

    IanB2 said:

    IanB2 said:

    The question is what could turn Tesla’s slide of share price round?

    Musk getting banished by Trump and going into rehab?
    Musk has 13% of Tesla shares, and the only obvious way out for the company is for him to sell out and the company continue with him cut loose. The question is how long it will take for them to reach the same conclusion?

    Meanwhile, their global brand is worse than Ratnered.
    They need to get the share price down to double digits, then buy him out cheaply.
    Musk can't sell without triggering a huge tax liability (subject to a handy law change). The way squillionaires avoid tax is by borrowing money using their stakes as collateral. No income, no capital gains.
    Like farmers?
    Speaking of Elon & Tesla...

    EVs could be charged as fast as filling a petrol car after breakthrough
    Chinese manufacturer BYD develops system that cuts wait time to five minutes

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/03/18/evs-charged-fast-filling-petrol-car-breakthrough/ (£££)
    Be interesting to see if putting so much charge into the battery so fast has any long term effects on battery life.
    If batteries end up being super cheap (and possible to swap out), then that isn't much of an issue either.

    This is super exciting. We've made next to no effort to put in EV infrastructure in the UK (only invested about £3 billion), so this might be the sort of game changer that we need. Much cheaper than retrofitting charge points to houses and lampposts.
    Er no.

    To charge that fast means delivering electricity in large amounts, very quickly.

    To charge to 80%, say, with 10% “in the tank” means delivering 70KWh in 5 minutes.

    On an 800 volt system that is *thousands of amps*

    That will require infrastructure, all right. Lots of it.
    Bet you that's cheaper than fitting EV chargers to every house and lamppost in the land.
    Probably not, actually.

    To start with, it means investing in infrastructure all the way from the power stations on an epic scale. The equality reports alone would take 10 years.
    My back-of-envelope has it at about £50 billion to install a charging point for every car in the UK. Probably a bit more given you'll likely have more charging points than cars, including workplace parking etc.

    That's roughly equivalent to £6 million per fuel station. No idea if it's feasible to get enough power to each location for that kind of cost.
    That's only one part of it though, we'd also need to 4x our electricity generation which is probably another £30-40bn in costs. More given our shite planning rules and expensive infrastructure costs.
    While the nuclear explosions are (hopefully) a joke by @Malmesbury we really should be looking at mini nuclear reactors if any designs look plausible or failing that a couple of power stations of Korean design
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 33,942
    algarkirk said:

    New Runcorn poll: https://findoutnow.co.uk/blog/runcorn-and-helsby-by-election-poll/

    Small sample. Basically same results as the previous Ashcroft poll.

    How are you likely to vote in that by-election?
    Turnout adjusted, ‘Don’t know’ excluded

    Reform UK: 36%
    Labour: 33%
    Conservative: 12%
    Liberal Democrats: 7%
    Green Party: 7%
    Other: 5%


    How are you likely to vote in that by-election?
    Turnout adjusted, ‘Don’t know’ included

    Reform UK: 30%
    Labour: 27%
    Conservative: 10%
    Liberal Democrats: 6%
    Green Party: 5%
    Other: 4%
    Don’t know: 17%


    How are you likely to vote in that by-election?
    Raw vote, not adjusted for turnout

    Reform UK: 26%
    Labour: 19%
    Conservative: 5%
    Liberal Democrats: 4%
    Green Party: 4%
    Other: 2%
    Don’t know: 22%
    I would not vote: 18%
    As someone said the other day, plenty of Tory vote for Reform to squeeze. Got to be in the bag no?
    No. Not in the bag. Yes, it is Reform v Labour but it's a contest between the force that is Reform v the force that is Anyone Who Can Beat Reform; they both have votes to pick up from all over the place. I thought this would be Labour fairly easily; it looks to me now like Labour by a short head.

    Rationale: The group that is 'Not Reform' is larger than the 'Reform Only' and will be motivated to turn up, though both groups in small numbers.
    Interesting way of looking at it. I would have thought it's more likely to be a case of Labour v the force that is Anyone Who Can Beat Labour, since they're the government.
  • Nigel_ForemainNigel_Foremain Posts: 14,714
    Nigelb said:

    Eabhal said:

    Eabhal said:

    Eabhal said:

    TimS said:

    IanB2 said:

    IanB2 said:

    The question is what could turn Tesla’s slide of share price round?

    Musk getting banished by Trump and going into rehab?
    Musk has 13% of Tesla shares, and the only obvious way out for the company is for him to sell out and the company continue with him cut loose. The question is how long it will take for them to reach the same conclusion?

    Meanwhile, their global brand is worse than Ratnered.
    They need to get the share price down to double digits, then buy him out cheaply.
    Musk can't sell without triggering a huge tax liability (subject to a handy law change). The way squillionaires avoid tax is by borrowing money using their stakes as collateral. No income, no capital gains.
    Like farmers?
    Speaking of Elon & Tesla...

    EVs could be charged as fast as filling a petrol car after breakthrough
    Chinese manufacturer BYD develops system that cuts wait time to five minutes

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/03/18/evs-charged-fast-filling-petrol-car-breakthrough/ (£££)
    Be interesting to see if putting so much charge into the battery so fast has any long term effects on battery life.
    If batteries end up being super cheap (and possible to swap out), then that isn't much of an issue either.

    This is super exciting. We've made next to no effort to put in EV infrastructure in the UK (only invested about £3 billion), so this might be the sort of game changer that we need. Much cheaper than retrofitting charge points to houses and lampposts.
    Er no.

    To charge that fast means delivering electricity in large amounts, very quickly.

    To charge to 80%, say, with 10% “in the tank” means delivering 70KWh in 5 minutes.

    On an 800 volt system that is *thousands of amps*

    That will require infrastructure, all right. Lots of it.
    Bet you that's cheaper than fitting EV chargers to every house and lamppost in the land.
    Probably not, actually.

    To start with, it means investing in infrastructure all the way from the power stations on an epic scale. The equality reports alone would take 10 years.
    My back-of-envelope has it at about £50 billion to install a charging point for every car in the UK. Probably a bit more given you'll likely have more charging points than cars, including workplace parking etc.

    That's roughly equivalent to £6 million per fuel station. No idea if it's feasible to get enough power to each location for that kind of cost.
    Why would you assume a charging point for every car in the UK? There isn't a petrol pump for every car in the UK. I appreciate there are significant differences in the "fill" times, but many cars are lightly used. It's not like an EV needs charging every day any more than a petrol car needs filling every day (some do but most don't).
    Average daily mileage across the UK is around 20.
    That’s around 5 or 6kWh.

    The numbers people are posting are just nonsense.

    No doubt we’ll need infrastructure upgrades - but that’s happening anyway for the renewables grid. A bit of joined up government planning would make dropping in a few fast charging stations in locations which might actually need them (busy motorway service stations, for example) relatively easy.
    Improving the infrastructure by ensuring superchargers are at all major motorway service stations would be a good start. Having to drive well away from the main routes to find a charger is neither environmentally friendly or conducive to a pleasant and efficient journey
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 43,576
    kinabalu said:

    TOPPING said:

    One journey up (then down) the AI(M) does not a conclusive survey make, but I didn't seem to see many Teslas on the motorway when I went to see my dear old mother on Sunday for her 95th birthday.

    Presumably people have range anxiety so can't actually travel anywhere meaningful in the things.

    It's interesting that Tesla should have brought together the hard right (hating anything eco) and the hard left (hating everything Trumpish) in one joyous band of righteousness.

    I doubt a Hard Left boycott would hurt Tesla since few could afford one to start with. Affluent libs otoh could do some damage.
    Very true. I trust your Tesla remains unbought.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 83,061

    Nigelb said:

    Eabhal said:

    Eabhal said:

    Eabhal said:

    TimS said:

    IanB2 said:

    IanB2 said:

    The question is what could turn Tesla’s slide of share price round?

    Musk getting banished by Trump and going into rehab?
    Musk has 13% of Tesla shares, and the only obvious way out for the company is for him to sell out and the company continue with him cut loose. The question is how long it will take for them to reach the same conclusion?

    Meanwhile, their global brand is worse than Ratnered.
    They need to get the share price down to double digits, then buy him out cheaply.
    Musk can't sell without triggering a huge tax liability (subject to a handy law change). The way squillionaires avoid tax is by borrowing money using their stakes as collateral. No income, no capital gains.
    Like farmers?
    Speaking of Elon & Tesla...

    EVs could be charged as fast as filling a petrol car after breakthrough
    Chinese manufacturer BYD develops system that cuts wait time to five minutes

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/03/18/evs-charged-fast-filling-petrol-car-breakthrough/ (£££)
    Be interesting to see if putting so much charge into the battery so fast has any long term effects on battery life.
    If batteries end up being super cheap (and possible to swap out), then that isn't much of an issue either.

    This is super exciting. We've made next to no effort to put in EV infrastructure in the UK (only invested about £3 billion), so this might be the sort of game changer that we need. Much cheaper than retrofitting charge points to houses and lampposts.
    Er no.

    To charge that fast means delivering electricity in large amounts, very quickly.

    To charge to 80%, say, with 10% “in the tank” means delivering 70KWh in 5 minutes.

    On an 800 volt system that is *thousands of amps*

    That will require infrastructure, all right. Lots of it.
    Bet you that's cheaper than fitting EV chargers to every house and lamppost in the land.
    Probably not, actually.

    To start with, it means investing in infrastructure all the way from the power stations on an epic scale. The equality reports alone would take 10 years.
    My back-of-envelope has it at about £50 billion to install a charging point for every car in the UK. Probably a bit more given you'll likely have more charging points than cars, including workplace parking etc.

    That's roughly equivalent to £6 million per fuel station. No idea if it's feasible to get enough power to each location for that kind of cost.
    Why would you assume a charging point for every car in the UK? There isn't a petrol pump for every car in the UK. I appreciate there are significant differences in the "fill" times, but many cars are lightly used. It's not like an EV needs charging every day any more than a petrol car needs filling every day (some do but most don't).
    Average daily mileage across the UK is around 20.
    That’s around 5 or 6kWh.

    The numbers people are posting are just nonsense.

    No doubt we’ll need infrastructure upgrades - but that’s happening anyway for the renewables grid. A bit of joined up government planning would make dropping in a few fast charging stations in locations which might actually need them (busy motorway service stations, for example) relatively easy.
    Improving the infrastructure by ensuring superchargers are at all major motorway service stations would be a good start. Having to drive well away from the main routes to find a charger is neither environmentally friendly or conducive to a pleasant and efficient journey
    That was really the only announcement of any notice from Labour's big business investment summit. The question is will they cost the same rip off prices they currently charge for petrol at motorway services, so that only idiots fill up there.
  • Pagan2Pagan2 Posts: 10,501

    Nigelb said:

    Eabhal said:

    Eabhal said:

    Eabhal said:

    TimS said:

    IanB2 said:

    IanB2 said:

    The question is what could turn Tesla’s slide of share price round?

    Musk getting banished by Trump and going into rehab?
    Musk has 13% of Tesla shares, and the only obvious way out for the company is for him to sell out and the company continue with him cut loose. The question is how long it will take for them to reach the same conclusion?

    Meanwhile, their global brand is worse than Ratnered.
    They need to get the share price down to double digits, then buy him out cheaply.
    Musk can't sell without triggering a huge tax liability (subject to a handy law change). The way squillionaires avoid tax is by borrowing money using their stakes as collateral. No income, no capital gains.
    Like farmers?
    Speaking of Elon & Tesla...

    EVs could be charged as fast as filling a petrol car after breakthrough
    Chinese manufacturer BYD develops system that cuts wait time to five minutes

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/03/18/evs-charged-fast-filling-petrol-car-breakthrough/ (£££)
    Be interesting to see if putting so much charge into the battery so fast has any long term effects on battery life.
    If batteries end up being super cheap (and possible to swap out), then that isn't much of an issue either.

    This is super exciting. We've made next to no effort to put in EV infrastructure in the UK (only invested about £3 billion), so this might be the sort of game changer that we need. Much cheaper than retrofitting charge points to houses and lampposts.
    Er no.

    To charge that fast means delivering electricity in large amounts, very quickly.

    To charge to 80%, say, with 10% “in the tank” means delivering 70KWh in 5 minutes.

    On an 800 volt system that is *thousands of amps*

    That will require infrastructure, all right. Lots of it.
    Bet you that's cheaper than fitting EV chargers to every house and lamppost in the land.
    Probably not, actually.

    To start with, it means investing in infrastructure all the way from the power stations on an epic scale. The equality reports alone would take 10 years.
    My back-of-envelope has it at about £50 billion to install a charging point for every car in the UK. Probably a bit more given you'll likely have more charging points than cars, including workplace parking etc.

    That's roughly equivalent to £6 million per fuel station. No idea if it's feasible to get enough power to each location for that kind of cost.
    Why would you assume a charging point for every car in the UK? There isn't a petrol pump for every car in the UK. I appreciate there are significant differences in the "fill" times, but many cars are lightly used. It's not like an EV needs charging every day any more than a petrol car needs filling every day (some do but most don't).
    Average daily mileage across the UK is around 20.
    That’s around 5 or 6kWh.

    The numbers people are posting are just nonsense.

    No doubt we’ll need infrastructure upgrades - but that’s happening anyway for the renewables grid. A bit of joined up government planning would make dropping in a few fast charging stations in locations which might actually need them (busy motorway service stations, for example) relatively easy.
    Improving the infrastructure by ensuring superchargers are at all major motorway service stations would be a good start. Having to drive well away from the main routes to find a charger is neither environmentally friendly or conducive to a pleasant and efficient journey
    Motorway services are reknowned for charging about 5 times more for anything they sell and a total ripoff. Not sure they are an answer
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 44,380

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    I'm afraid "favourable opinion of Donald Trump" is an almost perfectly accurate proxy for utter plonker. It's heartening to see it so rare for everyone except (surprise surprise) Reform supporters.

    How do we reckon Donald Chamberlain's call with Putin is going?
    "Vlad, if you don't play ball here and, you know, pretend to agree to some stuff I'm gonna make you wear a condom next time."
    Yes, Mr Putin sir, I will do that. Can I just say what a tough guy you are? So tough. We sure will humble that Zelenskyy together. He was so rude. So rude.
    Sounds about right. He certainly loves his Vlad. I don't personally believe Donald Trump is a "Russian asset" but they'd hardly get more value from him if he was.
  • MattWMattW Posts: 25,797
    edited March 18

    I'm quite proud to be a very early convert from Musk fanboi to Musk hater. A process many others have taken since. :)

    I’ve always thought he was a bellend ever since he called that rescuer a paedo.
    You go for male genital insults?

    On his twitter feed I tent to go for the female - twat. I don't think Yanks use it as much as we do as they are all delicate blossoms with a public veneer of performative civilisation, so I find it gets through the censor more reliably.

    It tends not to like "President Chump", though.

    :smile:
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 83,061
    Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin’s phone call has ended, with an envoy to the Russian leader declaring that the “world has become a much safer place today”.
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 37,163
    Putin kept Trump waiting for over an hour

    Pure power play
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 44,380
    TOPPING said:

    kinabalu said:

    TOPPING said:

    One journey up (then down) the AI(M) does not a conclusive survey make, but I didn't seem to see many Teslas on the motorway when I went to see my dear old mother on Sunday for her 95th birthday.

    Presumably people have range anxiety so can't actually travel anywhere meaningful in the things.

    It's interesting that Tesla should have brought together the hard right (hating anything eco) and the hard left (hating everything Trumpish) in one joyous band of righteousness.

    I doubt a Hard Left boycott would hurt Tesla since few could afford one to start with. Affluent libs otoh could do some damage.
    Very true. I trust your Tesla remains unbought.
    Not with a bargepole. I'm a petrolhead.
  • EabhalEabhal Posts: 9,797
    MaxPB said:

    Eabhal said:

    Eabhal said:

    Eabhal said:

    TimS said:

    IanB2 said:

    IanB2 said:

    The question is what could turn Tesla’s slide of share price round?

    Musk getting banished by Trump and going into rehab?
    Musk has 13% of Tesla shares, and the only obvious way out for the company is for him to sell out and the company continue with him cut loose. The question is how long it will take for them to reach the same conclusion?

    Meanwhile, their global brand is worse than Ratnered.
    They need to get the share price down to double digits, then buy him out cheaply.
    Musk can't sell without triggering a huge tax liability (subject to a handy law change). The way squillionaires avoid tax is by borrowing money using their stakes as collateral. No income, no capital gains.
    Like farmers?
    Speaking of Elon & Tesla...

    EVs could be charged as fast as filling a petrol car after breakthrough
    Chinese manufacturer BYD develops system that cuts wait time to five minutes

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/03/18/evs-charged-fast-filling-petrol-car-breakthrough/ (£££)
    Be interesting to see if putting so much charge into the battery so fast has any long term effects on battery life.
    If batteries end up being super cheap (and possible to swap out), then that isn't much of an issue either.

    This is super exciting. We've made next to no effort to put in EV infrastructure in the UK (only invested about £3 billion), so this might be the sort of game changer that we need. Much cheaper than retrofitting charge points to houses and lampposts.
    Er no.

    To charge that fast means delivering electricity in large amounts, very quickly.

    To charge to 80%, say, with 10% “in the tank” means delivering 70KWh in 5 minutes.

    On an 800 volt system that is *thousands of amps*

    That will require infrastructure, all right. Lots of it.
    Bet you that's cheaper than fitting EV chargers to every house and lamppost in the land.
    Probably not, actually.

    To start with, it means investing in infrastructure all the way from the power stations on an epic scale. The equality reports alone would take 10 years.
    My back-of-envelope has it at about £50 billion to install a charging point for every car in the UK. Probably a bit more given you'll likely have more charging points than cars, including workplace parking etc.

    That's roughly equivalent to £6 million per fuel station. No idea if it's feasible to get enough power to each location for that kind of cost.
    That's only one part of it though, we'd also need to 4x our electricity generation which is probably another £30-40bn in costs. More given our shite planning rules and expensive infrastructure costs.
    True, but we already have that in planning/construction in Scotland. It's shifting it to where (and when) its needed which is the challenge.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 83,061
    edited March 18
    The Resolution Foundation has also put out a statement about the benefit cuts.

    The foundation says that if the government plans to save £5 billion from restricting Pip by making it harder to qualify for the ‘daily living’ component, this would mean between 800,000 and 1.2 million people losing support of between £4,200 and £6,300 per year by 2029-30.

    The foundation also says up to four million families will benefit from general universal credit becoming a bit more generous- but only by around £3 per week.
  • DumbosaurusDumbosaurus Posts: 829

    Has there been any polling on "likelihood to buy a Tesla" here or in any other country? Possibly a good guide would be to survey those that have already bought one, and see there intent to buy another. If there is a complete Tesla implosion it will be interesting to see what effect it has on Musk's other businesses.

    I expect it to be country dependent, with more significant effects in e.g. US and Germany than over here.

    Although there are other sound reasons for it to be less likely as the model line gets older, the economy gets stuffed, and competitors outdo them (supposedly - am less convinced of this last part, like for like, with my experiences).

    Approx 15-25k miles looks to be the sweet spot for buying a Model Y Performance atm. We could even maybe make do with the Long Range but is 4.5s 0-60 (compared to 3.2 in the Performance) really fast enough for the nursery run? I'm not convinced.
  • rkrkrkrkrkrk Posts: 8,582
    https://www.bigissue.com/news/social-justice/benefits-cuts-labour-pip-universal-credit-reform/

    Big issue on disability benefits changes. Tbh seems a lot more thought through than I might have guessed based on headlines. Reducing pointless assessments is a clear win.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 83,061
    The IFS says that about 900,000 people who currently get the health element of universal credit (UC) – top-up payments because they are sick (see 12.27pm) – but who do not get Pip (the personal independence payment) would be worse off by £2,400 a year from 2028-29. That’s because the new rules imply they would lose the top-up, it says.

    There are 2.4 million families getting the UC health top-up would get £280 less a year from 2028-9, the IFS says. That is because the top-up will become less valuable.

    The other 4.5 million familes on UC would be £150 a year better of from 2028-29, the IFS. That is because that element will become more valuable.

    People claiming the UC top-up for the first time under these rules will get £2,500 a year less under the new system than they would have done under the old one, the IFS says.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 50,464
    Do I detect a backbone in the SCOTUS?

    Woah.

    Chief Justice Roberts has issued a rare statement.

    "For more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision. The normal appellate review process exists for that purpose."

    Quite a slap-down of Trump.

    https://bsky.app/profile/davidallengreen.bsky.social/post/3lko3jnmca22c
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 43,576

    TOPPING said:

    One journey up (then down) the AI(M) does not a conclusive survey make, but I didn't seem to see many Teslas on the motorway when I went to see my dear old mother on Sunday for her 95th birthday.

    Presumably people have range anxiety so can't actually travel anywhere meaningful in the things.

    It's interesting that Tesla should have brought together the hard right (hating anything eco) and the hard left (hating everything Trumpish) in one joyous band of righteousness.

    Range anxiety was answered by having a network of fast chargers around the world. Done London to Chablis several times, for example.
    It makes sense to stop for, what, 20-30 mins on a journey from London to Chablis. 100 miles along the A1 not so much.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 83,061
    edited March 18
    Foxy said:

    Do I detect a backbone in the SCOTUS?

    Woah.

    Chief Justice Roberts has issued a rare statement.

    "For more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision. The normal appellate review process exists for that purpose."

    Quite a slap-down of Trump.

    https://bsky.app/profile/davidallengreen.bsky.social/post/3lko3jnmca22c

    Its that more that Roberts is a constitution absolutist? That to him is more important than anything else, and has in the past made judgement against what you would perceive "his side"?
  • FlatlanderFlatlander Posts: 4,861
    Nigelb said:

    Eabhal said:

    Eabhal said:

    Eabhal said:

    TimS said:

    IanB2 said:

    IanB2 said:

    The question is what could turn Tesla’s slide of share price round?

    Musk getting banished by Trump and going into rehab?
    Musk has 13% of Tesla shares, and the only obvious way out for the company is for him to sell out and the company continue with him cut loose. The question is how long it will take for them to reach the same conclusion?

    Meanwhile, their global brand is worse than Ratnered.
    They need to get the share price down to double digits, then buy him out cheaply.
    Musk can't sell without triggering a huge tax liability (subject to a handy law change). The way squillionaires avoid tax is by borrowing money using their stakes as collateral. No income, no capital gains.
    Like farmers?
    Speaking of Elon & Tesla...

    EVs could be charged as fast as filling a petrol car after breakthrough
    Chinese manufacturer BYD develops system that cuts wait time to five minutes

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/03/18/evs-charged-fast-filling-petrol-car-breakthrough/ (£££)
    Be interesting to see if putting so much charge into the battery so fast has any long term effects on battery life.
    If batteries end up being super cheap (and possible to swap out), then that isn't much of an issue either.

    This is super exciting. We've made next to no effort to put in EV infrastructure in the UK (only invested about £3 billion), so this might be the sort of game changer that we need. Much cheaper than retrofitting charge points to houses and lampposts.
    Er no.

    To charge that fast means delivering electricity in large amounts, very quickly.

    To charge to 80%, say, with 10% “in the tank” means delivering 70KWh in 5 minutes.

    On an 800 volt system that is *thousands of amps*

    That will require infrastructure, all right. Lots of it.
    Bet you that's cheaper than fitting EV chargers to every house and lamppost in the land.
    Probably not, actually.

    To start with, it means investing in infrastructure all the way from the power stations on an epic scale. The equality reports alone would take 10 years.
    My back-of-envelope has it at about £50 billion to install a charging point for every car in the UK. Probably a bit more given you'll likely have more charging points than cars, including workplace parking etc.

    That's roughly equivalent to £6 million per fuel station. No idea if it's feasible to get enough power to each location for that kind of cost.
    Why would you assume a charging point for every car in the UK? There isn't a petrol pump for every car in the UK. I appreciate there are significant differences in the "fill" times, but many cars are lightly used. It's not like an EV needs charging every day any more than a petrol car needs filling every day (some do but most don't).
    Average daily mileage across the UK is around 20.
    That’s around 5 or 6kWh.

    The numbers people are posting are just nonsense.

    No doubt we’ll need infrastructure upgrades - but that’s happening anyway for the renewables grid. A bit of joined up government planning would make dropping in a few fast charging stations in locations which might actually need them (busy motorway service stations, for example) relatively easy.
    There's plenty of estates round here where nobody has driveways and nobody is going to plug their car into a lamppost without some scroat doing something stupid.

    The hundreds of cars and vans in these places will need local fast charging, and unlike on a motorway, the owners aren't really going to be keen on spending half an hour drinking coffee whilst filling up. Doing a weekly shop, perhaps.

    There will have to be infrastructure for fast charging or it will be a step backwards in lifestyle, even if it is an improvement in every other way.
  • Nigel_ForemainNigel_Foremain Posts: 14,714
    TOPPING said:

    One journey up (then down) the AI(M) does not a conclusive survey make, but I didn't seem to see many Teslas on the motorway when I went to see my dear old mother on Sunday for her 95th birthday.

    Presumably people have range anxiety so can't actually travel anywhere meaningful in the things.

    It's interesting that Tesla should have brought together the hard right (hating anything eco) and the hard left (hating everything Trumpish) in one joyous band of righteousness.

    As a Tesla owner (for now)I can tell you that Tesla drivers don't get range anxiety as the range is excellent and the charging network best in class.

    The sad thing is that the technology is amazing. Pity the CEO is trying very hard to trash his brand. I wont be getting another one when the time comes to swap.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 75,324

    Nigelb said:

    Eabhal said:

    Eabhal said:

    TimS said:

    IanB2 said:

    IanB2 said:

    The question is what could turn Tesla’s slide of share price round?

    Musk getting banished by Trump and going into rehab?
    Musk has 13% of Tesla shares, and the only obvious way out for the company is for him to sell out and the company continue with him cut loose. The question is how long it will take for them to reach the same conclusion?

    Meanwhile, their global brand is worse than Ratnered.
    They need to get the share price down to double digits, then buy him out cheaply.
    Musk can't sell without triggering a huge tax liability (subject to a handy law change). The way squillionaires avoid tax is by borrowing money using their stakes as collateral. No income, no capital gains.
    Like farmers?
    Speaking of Elon & Tesla...

    EVs could be charged as fast as filling a petrol car after breakthrough
    Chinese manufacturer BYD develops system that cuts wait time to five minutes

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/03/18/evs-charged-fast-filling-petrol-car-breakthrough/ (£££)
    Be interesting to see if putting so much charge into the battery so fast has any long term effects on battery life.
    If batteries end up being super cheap (and possible to swap out), then that isn't much of an issue either.

    This is super exciting. We've made next to no effort to put in EV infrastructure in the UK (only invested about £3 billion), so this might be the sort of game changer that we need. Much cheaper than retrofitting charge points to houses and lampposts.
    Er no.

    To charge that fast means delivering electricity in large amounts, very quickly.

    To charge to 80%, say, with 10% “in the tank” means delivering 70KWh in 5 minutes.

    On an 800 volt system that is *thousands of amps*

    That will require infrastructure, all right. Lots of it.
    Bet you that's cheaper than fitting EV chargers to every house and lamppost in the land.
    Probably not, actually.

    To start with, it means investing in infrastructure all the way from the power stations on an epic scale. The equality reports alone would take 10 years.
    Put a small nuclear reactor in a container at the back of the charging station?

    Though that might not be enough power.

    Edit: At 1MW needed per charger, a 20MW SMR might just do it, which Last Energy claims to sell...
    Nah..

    That’s slacker thinking.

    Detonate a 20kt nuclear device in a cavern full of salt every 30 minutes. The molten salt reservoir drives a steam system that powers the turbines….

    #WhatWouldNealCloudDo
    Ha!

    Seriously though, nobody is getting a 10-20MW connection to every petrol station, surely?

    You'd need local battery storage, though that would probably need as large an exclusion zone as a nuclear device.
    I don’t think you’d need anything like that.
    Most EVs won’t charge at that rate, and won’t for many years. It’s possibly quite useful for commercial vehicles like buses, though.

    A 500 kW charger would fully charge a 50kWh battery in ten minutes - which is about the maximum likely need for the next decade - so that’s about five cars an hour.

    A 10MW supply implies 100 cars an hour. How many petrol stations do that amount of business ?
    With local battery storage you could do more at peak hours, or get by with a smaller supply.

    And a lot of people will just trickle charge at home.

    I should think a lot of busy petrol stations do deal with 100 cars an hour at peak times.

    If 50% of vehicles were trickle charged at home then I imagine the peak would be lower, but still, you would potentially need a lot of power.

    The main point was that it is very unlikely that you'll get the kind of direct supply needed everywhere (10MW would need a 132kV line - 3MW a 11kV line) so local storage is the only realistic way this is going to work.

    Which would, as Malmesbury points out, have other potential benefits.
    There are around 8000 petrol stations in the UK, and around 32m cars.
    That’s 4000 cars per petrol station.

    At 5kWh usage per day (on average), if every car was an EV, and none charged at home, then that would require 50kWh of charge for 400 cars per station, per day.

    Something like 80% of EV owners charge their cars at home.

    There might be a need for a few high capacity service stations, but that ought to be pretty easy to plan for as we upgrade the grid.
    And a single 20ft container can provide 1MWh of storage (using extremely safe LFP batteries). Four or five would cover the peak times at your highest capacity stations.

    It’s not particularly hard.
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 29,682
    kinabalu said:

    algarkirk said:

    kinabalu said:

    Betting Post: The WH28 party market has moved a lot recently. The Dems were 2.4 but it's close to 50/50 now. I think the reason is that Trump has surprised (although not me) on the downside. People were not quite expecting this level of corruption and incompetence.

    Is it a good idea to offer odds or place bets on events likely to be bent as to outcome? For me this is one to avoid, though theoretical for me as a very unbent Cheltenham, where the best horse won every time, has none the less left the betting budget at Zero.
    What about that Willie Mullins 100/1 shot? The rank outsider of his 11 runners in the race. Very strange one.
    You mean the one I had an alert for but unfortunately I was too bloody ill to notice? That Poniros? The one who could have won me £10,000 or maybe £2 million in an acca in the unlikely event I'd found the other six winners on the card?
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 64,732
    Like the subtle joke in headline there @TSE about Musk and his sink.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 83,061
    edited March 18
    Jensen Huang giving the sort of presentation that Apple used to do. Also rather unsubtle dig about bringing their HQ to the venue.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 44,380

    TOPPING said:

    One journey up (then down) the AI(M) does not a conclusive survey make, but I didn't seem to see many Teslas on the motorway when I went to see my dear old mother on Sunday for her 95th birthday.

    Presumably people have range anxiety so can't actually travel anywhere meaningful in the things.

    It's interesting that Tesla should have brought together the hard right (hating anything eco) and the hard left (hating everything Trumpish) in one joyous band of righteousness.

    As a Tesla owner (for now)I can tell you that Tesla drivers don't get range anxiety as the range is excellent and the charging network best in class.

    The sad thing is that the technology is amazing. Pity the CEO is trying very hard to trash his brand. I wont be getting another one when the time comes to swap.
    I wonder if a class action is feasible on the grounds that people (like you) were sold the product under the false pretences that the owner was not a fascist?
  • rkrkrkrkrkrk Posts: 8,582

    TOPPING said:

    One journey up (then down) the AI(M) does not a conclusive survey make, but I didn't seem to see many Teslas on the motorway when I went to see my dear old mother on Sunday for her 95th birthday.

    Presumably people have range anxiety so can't actually travel anywhere meaningful in the things.

    It's interesting that Tesla should have brought together the hard right (hating anything eco) and the hard left (hating everything Trumpish) in one joyous band of righteousness.

    As a Tesla owner (for now)I can tell you that Tesla drivers don't get range anxiety as the range is excellent and the charging network best in class.

    The sad thing is that the technology is amazing. Pity the CEO is trying very hard to trash his brand. I wont be getting another one when the time comes to swap.
    Apparently the new Mercedes can do 500km on a single charge.
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 29,682
    Nigelb said:

    Seven EU countries back Czech plan to fund Radio Free Europe

    The Czech Republic initiated talks with EU partners about funding Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, which is headquartered in the Czech capital, following cuts to US support

    https://x.com/EuromaidanPress/status/1901999034492981468

    Meanwhile our government follows the last lot in wanting to chop the BBC World Service.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 53,539
    edited March 18
    Pagan2 said:

    Eabhal said:

    Eabhal said:

    TimS said:

    IanB2 said:

    IanB2 said:

    The question is what could turn Tesla’s slide of share price round?

    Musk getting banished by Trump and going into rehab?
    Musk has 13% of Tesla shares, and the only obvious way out for the company is for him to sell out and the company continue with him cut loose. The question is how long it will take for them to reach the same conclusion?

    Meanwhile, their global brand is worse than Ratnered.
    They need to get the share price down to double digits, then buy him out cheaply.
    Musk can't sell without triggering a huge tax liability (subject to a handy law change). The way squillionaires avoid tax is by borrowing money using their stakes as collateral. No income, no capital gains.
    Like farmers?
    Speaking of Elon & Tesla...

    EVs could be charged as fast as filling a petrol car after breakthrough
    Chinese manufacturer BYD develops system that cuts wait time to five minutes

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/03/18/evs-charged-fast-filling-petrol-car-breakthrough/ (£££)
    Be interesting to see if putting so much charge into the battery so fast has any long term effects on battery life.
    If batteries end up being super cheap (and possible to swap out), then that isn't much of an issue either.

    This is super exciting. We've made next to no effort to put in EV infrastructure in the UK (only invested about £3 billion), so this might be the sort of game changer that we need. Much cheaper than retrofitting charge points to houses and lampposts.
    Er no.

    To charge that fast means delivering electricity in large amounts, very quickly.

    To charge to 80%, say, with 10% “in the tank” means delivering 70KWh in 5 minutes.

    On an 800 volt system that is *thousands of amps*

    That will require infrastructure, all right. Lots of it.
    Bet you that's cheaper than fitting EV chargers to every house and lamppost in the land.
    Probably not, actually.

    To start with, it means investing in infrastructure all the way from the power stations on an epic scale. The equality reports alone would take 10 years.
    Put a small nuclear reactor in a container at the back of the charging station?

    Though that might not be enough power.

    Edit: At 1MW needed per charger, a 20MW SMR might just do it, which Last Energy claims to sell...
    Nah..

    That’s slacker thinking.

    Detonate a 20kt nuclear device in a cavern full of salt every 30 minutes. The molten salt reservoir drives a steam system that powers the turbines….

    #WhatWouldNealCloudDo
    No idea what the answers are here, so merely asking

    How many caverns of salt do we have
    How many 20kt nuclear devices have we
    What is the cost of a 20kt device vs electricity produced
    It only gets cost competitive when the nukes are mass produced megaton yield devices. Say 15 Megatons each. You add lots of lithium and uranium to the salt to breed plutonium and tritium.

    So aside from the test ban treaty, you need the ability to build hundreds of nuclear bombs. A week….
  • Nigel_ForemainNigel_Foremain Posts: 14,714
    rkrkrk said:

    TOPPING said:

    One journey up (then down) the AI(M) does not a conclusive survey make, but I didn't seem to see many Teslas on the motorway when I went to see my dear old mother on Sunday for her 95th birthday.

    Presumably people have range anxiety so can't actually travel anywhere meaningful in the things.

    It's interesting that Tesla should have brought together the hard right (hating anything eco) and the hard left (hating everything Trumpish) in one joyous band of righteousness.

    As a Tesla owner (for now)I can tell you that Tesla drivers don't get range anxiety as the range is excellent and the charging network best in class.

    The sad thing is that the technology is amazing. Pity the CEO is trying very hard to trash his brand. I wont be getting another one when the time comes to swap.
    Apparently the new Mercedes can do 500km on a single charge.
    Yes it is on my list for a possible replacement. Looks cool too
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 43,576
    kinabalu said:

    TOPPING said:

    kinabalu said:

    TOPPING said:

    One journey up (then down) the AI(M) does not a conclusive survey make, but I didn't seem to see many Teslas on the motorway when I went to see my dear old mother on Sunday for her 95th birthday.

    Presumably people have range anxiety so can't actually travel anywhere meaningful in the things.

    It's interesting that Tesla should have brought together the hard right (hating anything eco) and the hard left (hating everything Trumpish) in one joyous band of righteousness.

    I doubt a Hard Left boycott would hurt Tesla since few could afford one to start with. Affluent libs otoh could do some damage.
    Very true. I trust your Tesla remains unbought.
    Not with a bargepole. I'm a petrolhead.
    Are you a string-backed or perforated leather glove kind of guy.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 75,324
    Foxy said:

    Do I detect a backbone in the SCOTUS?

    Woah.

    Chief Justice Roberts has issued a rare statement.

    "For more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision. The normal appellate review process exists for that purpose."

    Quite a slap-down of Trump.

    https://bsky.app/profile/davidallengreen.bsky.social/post/3lko3jnmca22c

    I think that’s more panic than backbone.
    Roberts has played along with the Trump tendency for years. He’s just realised he’ll be condemned to complete irrelevance, if Trump rules by dictat and ignores the law completely.
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 43,576

    TOPPING said:

    One journey up (then down) the AI(M) does not a conclusive survey make, but I didn't seem to see many Teslas on the motorway when I went to see my dear old mother on Sunday for her 95th birthday.

    Presumably people have range anxiety so can't actually travel anywhere meaningful in the things.

    It's interesting that Tesla should have brought together the hard right (hating anything eco) and the hard left (hating everything Trumpish) in one joyous band of righteousness.

    As a Tesla owner (for now)I can tell you that Tesla drivers don't get range anxiety as the range is excellent and the charging network best in class.

    The sad thing is that the technology is amazing. Pity the CEO is trying very hard to trash his brand. I wont be getting another one when the time comes to swap.
    I assume the golf club is just down the road, is it Nige?
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 83,061
    Musk casually bought another AI company yesterday.
  • rkrkrkrkrkrk Posts: 8,582

    rkrkrk said:

    TOPPING said:

    One journey up (then down) the AI(M) does not a conclusive survey make, but I didn't seem to see many Teslas on the motorway when I went to see my dear old mother on Sunday for her 95th birthday.

    Presumably people have range anxiety so can't actually travel anywhere meaningful in the things.

    It's interesting that Tesla should have brought together the hard right (hating anything eco) and the hard left (hating everything Trumpish) in one joyous band of righteousness.

    As a Tesla owner (for now)I can tell you that Tesla drivers don't get range anxiety as the range is excellent and the charging network best in class.

    The sad thing is that the technology is amazing. Pity the CEO is trying very hard to trash his brand. I wont be getting another one when the time comes to swap.
    Apparently the new Mercedes can do 500km on a single charge.
    Yes it is on my list for a possible replacement. Looks cool too
    £40k to this non petrol head seems pretty competitive pricing.
  • Nigel_ForemainNigel_Foremain Posts: 14,714
    kinabalu said:

    TOPPING said:

    One journey up (then down) the AI(M) does not a conclusive survey make, but I didn't seem to see many Teslas on the motorway when I went to see my dear old mother on Sunday for her 95th birthday.

    Presumably people have range anxiety so can't actually travel anywhere meaningful in the things.

    It's interesting that Tesla should have brought together the hard right (hating anything eco) and the hard left (hating everything Trumpish) in one joyous band of righteousness.

    As a Tesla owner (for now)I can tell you that Tesla drivers don't get range anxiety as the range is excellent and the charging network best in class.

    The sad thing is that the technology is amazing. Pity the CEO is trying very hard to trash his brand. I wont be getting another one when the time comes to swap.
    I wonder if a class action is feasible on the grounds that people (like you) were sold the product under the false pretences that the owner was not a fascist?
    Might lose on caveat emptor, as I had already realised he was a complete Cnut but foolishly decided to overlook my distaste because I liked the tech (and particularly the charging network)
  • algarkirkalgarkirk Posts: 13,697
    Andy_JS said:

    algarkirk said:

    New Runcorn poll: https://findoutnow.co.uk/blog/runcorn-and-helsby-by-election-poll/

    Small sample. Basically same results as the previous Ashcroft poll.

    How are you likely to vote in that by-election?
    Turnout adjusted, ‘Don’t know’ excluded

    Reform UK: 36%
    Labour: 33%
    Conservative: 12%
    Liberal Democrats: 7%
    Green Party: 7%
    Other: 5%


    How are you likely to vote in that by-election?
    Turnout adjusted, ‘Don’t know’ included

    Reform UK: 30%
    Labour: 27%
    Conservative: 10%
    Liberal Democrats: 6%
    Green Party: 5%
    Other: 4%
    Don’t know: 17%


    How are you likely to vote in that by-election?
    Raw vote, not adjusted for turnout

    Reform UK: 26%
    Labour: 19%
    Conservative: 5%
    Liberal Democrats: 4%
    Green Party: 4%
    Other: 2%
    Don’t know: 22%
    I would not vote: 18%
    As someone said the other day, plenty of Tory vote for Reform to squeeze. Got to be in the bag no?
    No. Not in the bag. Yes, it is Reform v Labour but it's a contest between the force that is Reform v the force that is Anyone Who Can Beat Reform; they both have votes to pick up from all over the place. I thought this would be Labour fairly easily; it looks to me now like Labour by a short head.

    Rationale: The group that is 'Not Reform' is larger than the 'Reform Only' and will be motivated to turn up, though both groups in small numbers.
    Interesting way of looking at it. I would have thought it's more likely to be a case of Labour v the force that is Anyone Who Can Beat Labour, since they're the government.
    Yes. I think that would be usually the case, but I think tentatively that international events, even though they are not overtly affecting polling, may incline the moderate centre - the great mass of people who generally voted LD/Tory/Lab in the olden days of a few years ago - to vote in enough numbers for whichever centrist can beat Trump's big friend.

    I tend to feel that the divide between 'OK With Reform' and 'Not OK With Reform' is about 35/65 among those with any thoughts at all.
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 64,732
    Foxy said:

    Do I detect a backbone in the SCOTUS?

    Woah.

    Chief Justice Roberts has issued a rare statement.

    "For more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision. The normal appellate review process exists for that purpose."

    Quite a slap-down of Trump.

    https://bsky.app/profile/davidallengreen.bsky.social/post/3lko3jnmca22c

    At last some sign of hope that US isn't headed to Zimbabwe government and law.
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 29,682

    Has there been any polling on "likelihood to buy a Tesla" here or in any other country? Possibly a good guide would be to survey those that have already bought one, and see there intent to buy another. If there is a complete Tesla implosion it will be interesting to see what effect it has on Musk's other businesses.

    I expect it to be country dependent, with more significant effects in e.g. US and Germany than over here.

    Although there are other sound reasons for it to be less likely as the model line gets older, the economy gets stuffed, and competitors outdo them (supposedly - am less convinced of this last part, like for like, with my experiences).

    Approx 15-25k miles looks to be the sweet spot for buying a Model Y Performance atm. We could even maybe make do with the Long Range but is 4.5s 0-60 (compared to 3.2 in the Performance) really fast enough for the nursery run? I'm not convinced.
    Can you use a Tesla on the nursery run? The doors are opened in completely eccentric ways, and will surely discombobulate even the brightest toddler.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 44,380
    edited March 18

    kinabalu said:

    algarkirk said:

    kinabalu said:

    Betting Post: The WH28 party market has moved a lot recently. The Dems were 2.4 but it's close to 50/50 now. I think the reason is that Trump has surprised (although not me) on the downside. People were not quite expecting this level of corruption and incompetence.

    Is it a good idea to offer odds or place bets on events likely to be bent as to outcome? For me this is one to avoid, though theoretical for me as a very unbent Cheltenham, where the best horse won every time, has none the less left the betting budget at Zero.
    What about that Willie Mullins 100/1 shot? The rank outsider of his 11 runners in the race. Very strange one.
    You mean the one I had an alert for but unfortunately I was too bloody ill to notice? That Poniros? The one who could have won me £10,000 or maybe £2 million in an acca in the unlikely event I'd found the other six winners on the card?
    Oh god, sorry to touch that nerve. That is so annoying. Hope you're better now btw.

    To reciprocate, I backed JJ Spaun (what a name!) to win the Players Championship (talking golf here) at 180. He came 2nd - lost to Rory McIlroy in a play-off. It would have been my longest ever single bet winner. But wasn't.
  • FlatlanderFlatlander Posts: 4,861
    edited March 18
    Nigelb said:

    Nigelb said:

    Eabhal said:

    Eabhal said:

    TimS said:

    IanB2 said:

    IanB2 said:

    The question is what could turn Tesla’s slide of share price round?

    Musk getting banished by Trump and going into rehab?
    Musk has 13% of Tesla shares, and the only obvious way out for the company is for him to sell out and the company continue with him cut loose. The question is how long it will take for them to reach the same conclusion?

    Meanwhile, their global brand is worse than Ratnered.
    They need to get the share price down to double digits, then buy him out cheaply.
    Musk can't sell without triggering a huge tax liability (subject to a handy law change). The way squillionaires avoid tax is by borrowing money using their stakes as collateral. No income, no capital gains.
    Like farmers?
    Speaking of Elon & Tesla...

    EVs could be charged as fast as filling a petrol car after breakthrough
    Chinese manufacturer BYD develops system that cuts wait time to five minutes

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/03/18/evs-charged-fast-filling-petrol-car-breakthrough/ (£££)
    Be interesting to see if putting so much charge into the battery so fast has any long term effects on battery life.
    If batteries end up being super cheap (and possible to swap out), then that isn't much of an issue either.

    This is super exciting. We've made next to no effort to put in EV infrastructure in the UK (only invested about £3 billion), so this might be the sort of game changer that we need. Much cheaper than retrofitting charge points to houses and lampposts.
    Er no.

    To charge that fast means delivering electricity in large amounts, very quickly.

    To charge to 80%, say, with 10% “in the tank” means delivering 70KWh in 5 minutes.

    On an 800 volt system that is *thousands of amps*

    That will require infrastructure, all right. Lots of it.
    Bet you that's cheaper than fitting EV chargers to every house and lamppost in the land.
    Probably not, actually.

    To start with, it means investing in infrastructure all the way from the power stations on an epic scale. The equality reports alone would take 10 years.
    Put a small nuclear reactor in a container at the back of the charging station?

    Though that might not be enough power.

    Edit: At 1MW needed per charger, a 20MW SMR might just do it, which Last Energy claims to sell...
    Nah..

    That’s slacker thinking.

    Detonate a 20kt nuclear device in a cavern full of salt every 30 minutes. The molten salt reservoir drives a steam system that powers the turbines….

    #WhatWouldNealCloudDo
    Ha!

    Seriously though, nobody is getting a 10-20MW connection to every petrol station, surely?

    You'd need local battery storage, though that would probably need as large an exclusion zone as a nuclear device.
    I don’t think you’d need anything like that.
    Most EVs won’t charge at that rate, and won’t for many years. It’s possibly quite useful for commercial vehicles like buses, though.

    A 500 kW charger would fully charge a 50kWh battery in ten minutes - which is about the maximum likely need for the next decade - so that’s about five cars an hour.

    A 10MW supply implies 100 cars an hour. How many petrol stations do that amount of business ?
    With local battery storage you could do more at peak hours, or get by with a smaller supply.

    And a lot of people will just trickle charge at home.

    I should think a lot of busy petrol stations do deal with 100 cars an hour at peak times.

    If 50% of vehicles were trickle charged at home then I imagine the peak would be lower, but still, you would potentially need a lot of power.

    The main point was that it is very unlikely that you'll get the kind of direct supply needed everywhere (10MW would need a 132kV line - 3MW a 11kV line) so local storage is the only realistic way this is going to work.

    Which would, as Malmesbury points out, have other potential benefits.
    There are around 8000 petrol stations in the UK, and around 32m cars.
    That’s 4000 cars per petrol station.

    At 5kWh usage per day (on average), if every car was an EV, and none charged at home, then that would require 50kWh of charge for 400 cars per station, per day.

    Something like 80% of EV owners charge their cars at home.

    There might be a need for a few high capacity service stations, but that ought to be pretty easy to plan for as we upgrade the grid.
    And a single 20ft container can provide 1MWh of storage (using extremely safe LFP batteries). Four or five would cover the peak times at your highest capacity stations.

    It’s not particularly hard.
    80% charge at home currently because people with driveways are the ones for whom the whole electric business works.

    I'd guess it would be much nearer 50% if electric cars became universal.

    5kWh x 4000 x 0.5 = 10MWh. So yes, 5MWh would probably cover morning and evening rush hours at a busy filling station.

    You still need to find a 11kV 1MW feed from somewhere, as well as 5 container batteries.

    This isn't going to be easy. At all.
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 121,231

    Like the subtle joke in headline there @TSE about Musk and his sink.

    Yay, somebody spotted it.
  • CookieCookie Posts: 14,654
    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    One journey up (then down) the AI(M) does not a conclusive survey make, but I didn't seem to see many Teslas on the motorway when I went to see my dear old mother on Sunday for her 95th birthday.

    Presumably people have range anxiety so can't actually travel anywhere meaningful in the things.

    It's interesting that Tesla should have brought together the hard right (hating anything eco) and the hard left (hating everything Trumpish) in one joyous band of righteousness.

    As a Tesla owner (for now)I can tell you that Tesla drivers don't get range anxiety as the range is excellent and the charging network best in class.

    The sad thing is that the technology is amazing. Pity the CEO is trying very hard to trash his brand. I wont be getting another one when the time comes to swap.
    I assume the golf club is just down the road, is it Nige?
    Tesla drivers may have less range anxiety than drivers of other electrics but presumably this is balanced by greater brick-through-the-window anxiety.
  • Nigel_ForemainNigel_Foremain Posts: 14,714
    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    One journey up (then down) the AI(M) does not a conclusive survey make, but I didn't seem to see many Teslas on the motorway when I went to see my dear old mother on Sunday for her 95th birthday.

    Presumably people have range anxiety so can't actually travel anywhere meaningful in the things.

    It's interesting that Tesla should have brought together the hard right (hating anything eco) and the hard left (hating everything Trumpish) in one joyous band of righteousness.

    As a Tesla owner (for now)I can tell you that Tesla drivers don't get range anxiety as the range is excellent and the charging network best in class.

    The sad thing is that the technology is amazing. Pity the CEO is trying very hard to trash his brand. I wont be getting another one when the time comes to swap.
    I assume the golf club is just down the road, is it Nige?
    Don't play the game. Spoils a good walk.
  • rkrkrkrkrkrk Posts: 8,582

    Has there been any polling on "likelihood to buy a Tesla" here or in any other country? Possibly a good guide would be to survey those that have already bought one, and see there intent to buy another. If there is a complete Tesla implosion it will be interesting to see what effect it has on Musk's other businesses.

    I expect it to be country dependent, with more significant effects in e.g. US and Germany than over here.

    Although there are other sound reasons for it to be less likely as the model line gets older, the economy gets stuffed, and competitors outdo them (supposedly - am less convinced of this last part, like for like, with my experiences).

    Approx 15-25k miles looks to be the sweet spot for buying a Model Y Performance atm. We could even maybe make do with the Long Range but is 4.5s 0-60 (compared to 3.2 in the Performance) really fast enough for the nursery run? I'm not convinced.
    Can you use a Tesla on the nursery run? The doors are opened in completely eccentric ways, and will surely discombobulate even the brightest toddler.
    Some pretty scary stories about people getting trapped and burned alive when the power fails. Apparently to open the door you need to remove a grill to find a hidden handle on some models. Moronic design.
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 64,732

    Like the subtle joke in headline there @TSE about Musk and his sink.

    Yay, somebody spotted it.
    When this is all finally over and they are putting him in prison for treason they should make him carry a toilet cistern into the cell.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 83,061

    Ha ha.



    Oliver Carroll
    @olliecarroll
    ·
    11m
    Just as Putin talked w Trump, Ukrainians staged surprise raid into Russia’s Belgorod province, south of Kursk. I’m told op was 3 weeks in making, idea is to create a “buffer zone” like Putin threatened in Ukraine. A source says they are several km inside Russia, and moving.

    Doesn't sound like we are getting any closer to a ceasefire.
  • MattWMattW Posts: 25,797

    Foxy said:

    Do I detect a backbone in the SCOTUS?

    Woah.

    Chief Justice Roberts has issued a rare statement.

    "For more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision. The normal appellate review process exists for that purpose."

    Quite a slap-down of Trump.

    https://bsky.app/profile/davidallengreen.bsky.social/post/3lko3jnmca22c

    Its that more that Roberts is a constitution absolutist? That to him is more important than anything else, and has in the past made judgement against what you would perceive "his side"?
    A more cynical interpretation, which I have tended towards since I heard it just under a year ago, is that the SCOTUS redlines will be defined more by Trump's opportunity to dispense with SCOTUS.

    SCOTUS' first loyalty is to the unchallengeable power of SCOTUS.
  • prh47bridgeprh47bridge Posts: 466

    Eabhal said:

    TimS said:

    IanB2 said:

    IanB2 said:

    The question is what could turn Tesla’s slide of share price round?

    Musk getting banished by Trump and going into rehab?
    Musk has 13% of Tesla shares, and the only obvious way out for the company is for him to sell out and the company continue with him cut loose. The question is how long it will take for them to reach the same conclusion?

    Meanwhile, their global brand is worse than Ratnered.
    They need to get the share price down to double digits, then buy him out cheaply.
    Musk can't sell without triggering a huge tax liability (subject to a handy law change). The way squillionaires avoid tax is by borrowing money using their stakes as collateral. No income, no capital gains.
    Like farmers?
    Speaking of Elon & Tesla...

    EVs could be charged as fast as filling a petrol car after breakthrough
    Chinese manufacturer BYD develops system that cuts wait time to five minutes

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/03/18/evs-charged-fast-filling-petrol-car-breakthrough/ (£££)
    Be interesting to see if putting so much charge into the battery so fast has any long term effects on battery life.
    If batteries end up being super cheap (and possible to swap out), then that isn't much of an issue either.

    This is super exciting. We've made next to no effort to put in EV infrastructure in the UK (only invested about £3 billion), so this might be the sort of game changer that we need. Much cheaper than retrofitting charge points to houses and lampposts.
    Er no.

    To charge that fast means delivering electricity in large amounts, very quickly.

    To charge to 80%, say, with 10% “in the tank” means delivering 70KWh in 5 minutes.

    On an 800 volt system that is *thousands of amps*

    That will require infrastructure, all right. Lots of it.
    On an 800 volt system, that is 1,050 amps. So just over 1,000 amps, not "thousands of amps".
  • Nigel_ForemainNigel_Foremain Posts: 14,714
    TOPPING said:

    kinabalu said:

    TOPPING said:

    kinabalu said:

    TOPPING said:

    One journey up (then down) the AI(M) does not a conclusive survey make, but I didn't seem to see many Teslas on the motorway when I went to see my dear old mother on Sunday for her 95th birthday.

    Presumably people have range anxiety so can't actually travel anywhere meaningful in the things.

    It's interesting that Tesla should have brought together the hard right (hating anything eco) and the hard left (hating everything Trumpish) in one joyous band of righteousness.

    I doubt a Hard Left boycott would hurt Tesla since few could afford one to start with. Affluent libs otoh could do some damage.
    Very true. I trust your Tesla remains unbought.
    Not with a bargepole. I'm a petrolhead.
    Are you a string-backed or perforated leather glove kind of guy.
    Probably wears a cravat too. He would love to drive a Jaaag, but that would be too interesting so sticks to the Skoda.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 83,061
    edited March 18
    MattW said:

    Foxy said:

    Do I detect a backbone in the SCOTUS?

    Woah.

    Chief Justice Roberts has issued a rare statement.

    "For more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision. The normal appellate review process exists for that purpose."

    Quite a slap-down of Trump.

    https://bsky.app/profile/davidallengreen.bsky.social/post/3lko3jnmca22c

    Its that more that Roberts is a constitution absolutist? That to him is more important than anything else, and has in the past made judgement against what you would perceive "his side"?
    A more cynical interpretation, which I have tended towards since I heard it just under a year ago, is that the SCOTUS redlines will be defined more by Trump's opportunity to dispense with SCOTUS.

    SCOTUS' first loyalty is to the unchallengeable power of SCOTUS.
    I can believe that, but that also ties into the the constitution absolutism. SCOTUS is an integral part of the the constitution, and if I am remembering correctly Roberts is on of the those that see the constitution as absolute and unalterable with the passage of time i.e there is no room for the living breathing update for modern times outlook. You can be both cynical about holding on to your power particularly if it also happens to align with your narrow view of what US law is based upon.
  • MattWMattW Posts: 25,797
    viewcode said:

    Some time ago I had a rant about the fitting of regressions to datasets. I eventually had to introduce the Anscombe quartet (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anscombe's_quartet ) to get my point across. I've tried to find that rant in the comments but Bing and Google are useless and I can't find it. Can anybody assist?

    In case you have not found it, ow anyone else wishes to look, I think you want this thread:

    https://vf.politicalbetting.com/discussion/comment/4615355/#Comment_4615355

    (I put Anscombe into the search box and it was answer 3.)
  • Nigel_ForemainNigel_Foremain Posts: 14,714

    Ha ha.



    Oliver Carroll
    @olliecarroll
    ·
    11m
    Just as Putin talked w Trump, Ukrainians staged surprise raid into Russia’s Belgorod province, south of Kursk. I’m told op was 3 weeks in making, idea is to create a “buffer zone” like Putin threatened in Ukraine. A source says they are several km inside Russia, and moving.

    Doesn't sound like we are getting any closer to a ceasefire.
    Russia will only want one if they feel the tide is turning against them.
  • DopermeanDopermean Posts: 861

    rkrkrk said:

    TOPPING said:

    One journey up (then down) the AI(M) does not a conclusive survey make, but I didn't seem to see many Teslas on the motorway when I went to see my dear old mother on Sunday for her 95th birthday.

    Presumably people have range anxiety so can't actually travel anywhere meaningful in the things.

    It's interesting that Tesla should have brought together the hard right (hating anything eco) and the hard left (hating everything Trumpish) in one joyous band of righteousness.

    As a Tesla owner (for now)I can tell you that Tesla drivers don't get range anxiety as the range is excellent and the charging network best in class.

    The sad thing is that the technology is amazing. Pity the CEO is trying very hard to trash his brand. I wont be getting another one when the time comes to swap.
    Apparently the new Mercedes can do 500km on a single charge.
    Yes it is on my list for a possible replacement. Looks cool too
    That's 300 miles 100-0%, which is not that competitive now, ID-7 is 386miles, and 80-20% is what the manufacturers recommend for normal use to maintain the battery. So that's 180 mile range for recommended use, cold weather will be worse.

    If you can charge at home, regularly do long return journeys <200-250 miles but rarely further and with enough time to recharge between trips then a long range EV is a good deal.
    If you do longer round trips and will need to use public chargers regularly then it will be as expensive as a thirsty ICE and far more of a ball-ache.
  • Daveyboy1961Daveyboy1961 Posts: 4,354

    Ha ha.



    Oliver Carroll
    @olliecarroll
    ·
    11m
    Just as Putin talked w Trump, Ukrainians staged surprise raid into Russia’s Belgorod province, south of Kursk. I’m told op was 3 weeks in making, idea is to create a “buffer zone” like Putin threatened in Ukraine. A source says they are several km inside Russia, and moving.

    Doesn't sound like we are getting any closer to a ceasefire.
    Russia will only want one if they feel the tide is turning against them.
    This sounds like one sided ceasefire. Putin gets everything and Ukraine gets nothing.

  • bondegezoubondegezou Posts: 13,123

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    Betting Post: The WH28 party market has moved a lot recently. The Dems were 2.4 but it's close to 50/50 now. I think the reason is that Trump has surprised (although not me) on the downside since he took office. People were not quite expecting this level of corruption and incompetence.

    I want to back Trump to stay in power beyond 2028.

    Add him as a runner Betfair!
    Yes. I presume some sort of etiquette is preventing a quote there. It'd be a "USA survives as a democracy?" proxy.

    What odds would you want btw?
    As high as possible seeing market makers at the bookies dont even consider him a valid runner.....
    You could lay the market then.
  • Nigel_ForemainNigel_Foremain Posts: 14,714
    This is a few days old (so apols if been already commented on), but hopefully might be another way to put the nazi back in his box:

    https://dailywrap.net/en-gb/european-space-giants-unite-to-challenge-musks-dominance,7135458251146881a?utm_source=msn&utm_medium=agregator
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 64,732

    ‪Phillips OBrien‬ ‪@phillipspobrien.bsky.social‬
    ·
    3m
    Putin wants an energy/infrastructure only ceasefire. A sign that these attacks by Ukraine are having real impact and he's worried by then. Ukraine should consider rejecting Putin's selective ceasefire and get something broader than helps Ukraine.
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 29,682
    The Rest is Entertainment on the Facebook book.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sehoqonHeXg&t=1576s

    Mark Zuckerberg needed to be convinced that Facebook had been used for the first Trump win.

    Nick Clegg earned $100 million.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 83,061
    edited March 18
    A gang has been convicted over the theft of a £4.8m gold toilet from an art exhibition at Blenheim Palace.

    The BBC can now reveal the full criminal history of the heist gang's kingpin James Sheen. He has been jailed at least six times since 2005 and has led organised crime groups that made more than £5m from fraud and theft - money authorities have largely failed to recover.

    Within days the artwork, called America, had been broken up and sold on, the court heard. None of the gold has been recovered.

    Despite spending about half of the past 20 years in prison, Sheen has personally made about £2m from his crimes, not including the golden toilet heist.

    https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cj3nrrmk04mo
  • Pagan2Pagan2 Posts: 10,501
    Nigelb said:

    Nigelb said:

    Eabhal said:

    Eabhal said:

    TimS said:

    IanB2 said:

    IanB2 said:

    The question is what could turn Tesla’s slide of share price round?

    Musk getting banished by Trump and going into rehab?
    Musk has 13% of Tesla shares, and the only obvious way out for the company is for him to sell out and the company continue with him cut loose. The question is how long it will take for them to reach the same conclusion?

    Meanwhile, their global brand is worse than Ratnered.
    They need to get the share price down to double digits, then buy him out cheaply.
    Musk can't sell without triggering a huge tax liability (subject to a handy law change). The way squillionaires avoid tax is by borrowing money using their stakes as collateral. No income, no capital gains.
    Like farmers?
    Speaking of Elon & Tesla...

    EVs could be charged as fast as filling a petrol car after breakthrough
    Chinese manufacturer BYD develops system that cuts wait time to five minutes

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/03/18/evs-charged-fast-filling-petrol-car-breakthrough/ (£££)
    Be interesting to see if putting so much charge into the battery so fast has any long term effects on battery life.
    If batteries end up being super cheap (and possible to swap out), then that isn't much of an issue either.

    This is super exciting. We've made next to no effort to put in EV infrastructure in the UK (only invested about £3 billion), so this might be the sort of game changer that we need. Much cheaper than retrofitting charge points to houses and lampposts.
    Er no.

    To charge that fast means delivering electricity in large amounts, very quickly.

    To charge to 80%, say, with 10% “in the tank” means delivering 70KWh in 5 minutes.

    On an 800 volt system that is *thousands of amps*

    That will require infrastructure, all right. Lots of it.
    Bet you that's cheaper than fitting EV chargers to every house and lamppost in the land.
    Probably not, actually.

    To start with, it means investing in infrastructure all the way from the power stations on an epic scale. The equality reports alone would take 10 years.
    Put a small nuclear reactor in a container at the back of the charging station?

    Though that might not be enough power.

    Edit: At 1MW needed per charger, a 20MW SMR might just do it, which Last Energy claims to sell...
    Nah..

    That’s slacker thinking.

    Detonate a 20kt nuclear device in a cavern full of salt every 30 minutes. The molten salt reservoir drives a steam system that powers the turbines….

    #WhatWouldNealCloudDo
    Ha!

    Seriously though, nobody is getting a 10-20MW connection to every petrol station, surely?

    You'd need local battery storage, though that would probably need as large an exclusion zone as a nuclear device.
    I don’t think you’d need anything like that.
    Most EVs won’t charge at that rate, and won’t for many years. It’s possibly quite useful for commercial vehicles like buses, though.

    A 500 kW charger would fully charge a 50kWh battery in ten minutes - which is about the maximum likely need for the next decade - so that’s about five cars an hour.

    A 10MW supply implies 100 cars an hour. How many petrol stations do that amount of business ?
    With local battery storage you could do more at peak hours, or get by with a smaller supply.

    And a lot of people will just trickle charge at home.

    I should think a lot of busy petrol stations do deal with 100 cars an hour at peak times.

    If 50% of vehicles were trickle charged at home then I imagine the peak would be lower, but still, you would potentially need a lot of power.

    The main point was that it is very unlikely that you'll get the kind of direct supply needed everywhere (10MW would need a 132kV line - 3MW a 11kV line) so local storage is the only realistic way this is going to work.

    Which would, as Malmesbury points out, have other potential benefits.
    There are around 8000 petrol stations in the UK, and around 32m cars.
    That’s 4000 cars per petrol station.

    At 5kWh usage per day (on average), if every car was an EV, and none charged at home, then that would require 50kWh of charge for 400 cars per station, per day.

    Something like 80% of EV owners charge their cars at home.

    There might be a need for a few high capacity service stations, but that ought to be pretty easy to plan for as we upgrade the grid.
    And a single 20ft container can provide 1MWh of storage (using extremely safe LFP batteries). Four or five would cover the peak times at your highest capacity stations.

    It’s not particularly hard.
    80% charge their cars at home as currently only the richer can afford ev's. The ones more likely to have a driveway to charge in
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 44,380
    TOPPING said:

    kinabalu said:

    TOPPING said:

    kinabalu said:

    TOPPING said:

    One journey up (then down) the AI(M) does not a conclusive survey make, but I didn't seem to see many Teslas on the motorway when I went to see my dear old mother on Sunday for her 95th birthday.

    Presumably people have range anxiety so can't actually travel anywhere meaningful in the things.

    It's interesting that Tesla should have brought together the hard right (hating anything eco) and the hard left (hating everything Trumpish) in one joyous band of righteousness.

    I doubt a Hard Left boycott would hurt Tesla since few could afford one to start with. Affluent libs otoh could do some damage.
    Very true. I trust your Tesla remains unbought.
    Not with a bargepole. I'm a petrolhead.
    Are you a string-backed or perforated leather glove kind of guy.
    And a furry dice? No, fraid not. But I do like petrol cars. The way I figure it is we're coming to the end of all that - the pumps, the smell, the insertion of the nozzle - and I want to enjoy it while I can. I've got a Golf GTI. Vroom vroom.
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 29,682

    A gang has been convicted over the theft of a £4.8m gold toilet from an art exhibition at Blenheim Palace.

    The BBC can now reveal the full criminal history of the heist gang's kingpin James Sheen. He has been jailed at least six times since 2005 and has led organised crime groups that made more than £5m from fraud and theft - money authorities have largely failed to recover.

    Within days the artwork, called America, had been broken up and sold on, the court heard. None of the gold has been recovered.

    https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cj3nrrmk04mo

    How many offensive tweets is that?
  • Nigel_ForemainNigel_Foremain Posts: 14,714

    Ha ha.



    Oliver Carroll
    @olliecarroll
    ·
    11m
    Just as Putin talked w Trump, Ukrainians staged surprise raid into Russia’s Belgorod province, south of Kursk. I’m told op was 3 weeks in making, idea is to create a “buffer zone” like Putin threatened in Ukraine. A source says they are several km inside Russia, and moving.

    Doesn't sound like we are getting any closer to a ceasefire.
    Russia will only want one if they feel the tide is turning against them.
    This sounds like one sided ceasefire. Putin gets everything and Ukraine gets nothing.

    Yep, though Putin has paid a very heavy price, or rather the Russian poor bloody infantry have along with the Ukrainians, both military and civilian. I pray for the day when Putin and his ilk (including Trump) get their comeuppance.
  • Nigel_ForemainNigel_Foremain Posts: 14,714

    A gang has been convicted over the theft of a £4.8m gold toilet from an art exhibition at Blenheim Palace.

    The BBC can now reveal the full criminal history of the heist gang's kingpin James Sheen. He has been jailed at least six times since 2005 and has led organised crime groups that made more than £5m from fraud and theft - money authorities have largely failed to recover.

    Within days the artwork, called America, had been broken up and sold on, the court heard. None of the gold has been recovered.

    https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cj3nrrmk04mo

    How many offensive tweets is that?
    Did he plead guilt-y ?
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 83,061
    edited March 18

    The Rest is Entertainment on the Facebook book.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sehoqonHeXg&t=1576s

    Mark Zuckerberg needed to be convinced that Facebook had been used for the first Trump win.

    Nick Clegg earned $100 million.

    Nice little earner....still not sure what his job at Meta actually was.
  • Luckyguy1983Luckyguy1983 Posts: 30,240
    algarkirk said:

    New Runcorn poll: https://findoutnow.co.uk/blog/runcorn-and-helsby-by-election-poll/

    Small sample. Basically same results as the previous Ashcroft poll.

    How are you likely to vote in that by-election?
    Turnout adjusted, ‘Don’t know’ excluded

    Reform UK: 36%
    Labour: 33%
    Conservative: 12%
    Liberal Democrats: 7%
    Green Party: 7%
    Other: 5%


    How are you likely to vote in that by-election?
    Turnout adjusted, ‘Don’t know’ included

    Reform UK: 30%
    Labour: 27%
    Conservative: 10%
    Liberal Democrats: 6%
    Green Party: 5%
    Other: 4%
    Don’t know: 17%


    How are you likely to vote in that by-election?
    Raw vote, not adjusted for turnout

    Reform UK: 26%
    Labour: 19%
    Conservative: 5%
    Liberal Democrats: 4%
    Green Party: 4%
    Other: 2%
    Don’t know: 22%
    I would not vote: 18%
    As someone said the other day, plenty of Tory vote for Reform to squeeze. Got to be in the bag no?
    No. Not in the bag. Yes, it is Reform v Labour but it's a contest between the force that is Reform v the force that is Anyone Who Can Beat Reform; they both have votes to pick up from all over the place. I thought this would be Labour fairly easily; it looks to me now like Labour by a short head.

    Rationale: The group that is 'Not Reform' is larger than the 'Reform Only' and will be motivated to turn up, though both groups in small numbers.
    You may be right, and I'll be very impressed if you are.

    It doesn't feel that way to me, but you are the better psephologist by a country mile. And I want Reform to win, which is probably clouding my judgement.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 98,073

    The Rest is Entertainment on the Facebook book.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sehoqonHeXg&t=1576s

    Mark Zuckerberg needed to be convinced that Facebook had been used for the first Trump win.

    Nick Clegg earned $100 million.

    Nice little earner....still not sure what his job at Meta actually was.
    It's useful to have a posh British person around the office now and then?
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 44,380

    TOPPING said:

    kinabalu said:

    TOPPING said:

    kinabalu said:

    TOPPING said:

    One journey up (then down) the AI(M) does not a conclusive survey make, but I didn't seem to see many Teslas on the motorway when I went to see my dear old mother on Sunday for her 95th birthday.

    Presumably people have range anxiety so can't actually travel anywhere meaningful in the things.

    It's interesting that Tesla should have brought together the hard right (hating anything eco) and the hard left (hating everything Trumpish) in one joyous band of righteousness.

    I doubt a Hard Left boycott would hurt Tesla since few could afford one to start with. Affluent libs otoh could do some damage.
    Very true. I trust your Tesla remains unbought.
    Not with a bargepole. I'm a petrolhead.
    Are you a string-backed or perforated leather glove kind of guy.
    Probably wears a cravat too. He would love to drive a Jaaag, but that would be too interesting so sticks to the Skoda.
    Like I said ... Golf GTI.

    High performance, well-proportioned exterior. Perfect for me.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 98,073

    Ha ha.



    Oliver Carroll
    @olliecarroll
    ·
    11m
    Just as Putin talked w Trump, Ukrainians staged surprise raid into Russia’s Belgorod province, south of Kursk. I’m told op was 3 weeks in making, idea is to create a “buffer zone” like Putin threatened in Ukraine. A source says they are several km inside Russia, and moving.

    Doesn't sound like we are getting any closer to a ceasefire.
    Russia will only want one if they feel the tide is turning against them.
    This sounds like one sided ceasefire. Putin gets everything and Ukraine gets nothing.

    Trump only cares that he can claim peace, and won't care what Ukraine has to suffer to get it.
  • glwglw Posts: 10,256


    ‪Phillips OBrien‬ ‪@phillipspobrien.bsky.social‬
    ·
    3m
    Putin wants an energy/infrastructure only ceasefire. A sign that these attacks by Ukraine are having real impact and he's worried by then. Ukraine should consider rejecting Putin's selective ceasefire and get something broader than helps Ukraine.

    Hopefully that new 3,000 km range missile will be operational shortly.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 53,539
    eek said:

    MaxPB said:

    Eabhal said:

    Eabhal said:

    Eabhal said:

    TimS said:

    IanB2 said:

    IanB2 said:

    The question is what could turn Tesla’s slide of share price round?

    Musk getting banished by Trump and going into rehab?
    Musk has 13% of Tesla shares, and the only obvious way out for the company is for him to sell out and the company continue with him cut loose. The question is how long it will take for them to reach the same conclusion?

    Meanwhile, their global brand is worse than Ratnered.
    They need to get the share price down to double digits, then buy him out cheaply.
    Musk can't sell without triggering a huge tax liability (subject to a handy law change). The way squillionaires avoid tax is by borrowing money using their stakes as collateral. No income, no capital gains.
    Like farmers?
    Speaking of Elon & Tesla...

    EVs could be charged as fast as filling a petrol car after breakthrough
    Chinese manufacturer BYD develops system that cuts wait time to five minutes

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/03/18/evs-charged-fast-filling-petrol-car-breakthrough/ (£££)
    Be interesting to see if putting so much charge into the battery so fast has any long term effects on battery life.
    If batteries end up being super cheap (and possible to swap out), then that isn't much of an issue either.

    This is super exciting. We've made next to no effort to put in EV infrastructure in the UK (only invested about £3 billion), so this might be the sort of game changer that we need. Much cheaper than retrofitting charge points to houses and lampposts.
    Er no.

    To charge that fast means delivering electricity in large amounts, very quickly.

    To charge to 80%, say, with 10% “in the tank” means delivering 70KWh in 5 minutes.

    On an 800 volt system that is *thousands of amps*

    That will require infrastructure, all right. Lots of it.
    Bet you that's cheaper than fitting EV chargers to every house and lamppost in the land.
    Probably not, actually.

    To start with, it means investing in infrastructure all the way from the power stations on an epic scale. The equality reports alone would take 10 years.
    My back-of-envelope has it at about £50 billion to install a charging point for every car in the UK. Probably a bit more given you'll likely have more charging points than cars, including workplace parking etc.

    That's roughly equivalent to £6 million per fuel station. No idea if it's feasible to get enough power to each location for that kind of cost.
    That's only one part of it though, we'd also need to 4x our electricity generation which is probably another £30-40bn in costs. More given our shite planning rules and expensive infrastructure costs.
    While the nuclear explosions are (hopefully) a joke by @Malmesbury we really should be looking at mini nuclear reactors if any designs look plausible or failing that a couple of power stations of Korean design
    "Joke"??? JOKE?!!!!

    It's attitudes to nuclear power like that, that have set us back decades.....

    Scene, 1950s planning office for a trade show -

    "So General Atomics will be demonstrating their TRIGA reactor live at the show. Awesome. A real, live nuclear reactor in the hall. And they will demonstrate that it is completely safe by getting Edward Teller to pull out the control rod as fast as he can - this will generate an excursion in power, which will self damp. Trying to induce a nuclear accident as a demo at the show? Magnificent!"

    Next you'll be saying that Project Orion is a bad idea. Let alone my rework of Project Pluto for business jets.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 83,061
    edited March 18
    kle4 said:

    Ha ha.



    Oliver Carroll
    @olliecarroll
    ·
    11m
    Just as Putin talked w Trump, Ukrainians staged surprise raid into Russia’s Belgorod province, south of Kursk. I’m told op was 3 weeks in making, idea is to create a “buffer zone” like Putin threatened in Ukraine. A source says they are several km inside Russia, and moving.

    Doesn't sound like we are getting any closer to a ceasefire.
    Russia will only want one if they feel the tide is turning against them.
    This sounds like one sided ceasefire. Putin gets everything and Ukraine gets nothing.

    Trump only cares that he can claim peace, and won't care what Ukraine has to suffer to get it.
    Doesn't sound like Trump got anything much from his call with Putin. A prisoner swap and a promise from Putin not to attack energy infrastructure (lets see how long that lasts).
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