The Chocolate Fireguard as designed by Mercedes Benz

[Howard LewisParticipant @howardlewis46836]

For those concerned about bladder capacity, the journey that i quoted is about 290 /300 miles round trip. One way, I manage in three hours, or just under, non stop; roadworks permitting, 2 hours motorway, and one hour hard driving once on ordinary single track roads

Oh, and I am approaching 81; but the toilet is first stop on arrival! My little petrol car has only a 35 litre tank, but does the round trip with fuel to spare.

One day, battery technology will catch up, or surpass the efficiency currently enjoyed by the internal combustion engine. 60 years ago, a car capable of 40 mpg was unusual, but not today, and with much superior performance!

Howard

[Enough!Participant @enough]

Posted by Howard Lewis on 09/05/2019 23:06:39:

Oh, and I am approaching 81; but the toilet is first stop on arrival! My little petrol car has only a 35 litre tank,

slightly edited but …. wow!

[pgk pgkParticipant @pgkpgk17461]

We all recognise that speed kills range. And that most folk only manage to average around 60mph on motorways unless they are very empty (or you have an audi or bmw and are immune from the need to indicate or obey speed limits). At a steady 55mph my car will do over 400miles. At 70mph it'll do over 300miles. At 80mph it drops to around 260 given average summer temps. If one had the patience and time to sit on the back of an HGV and get a slipstream tow I'd guess range would be further still. I wouldn't dream of doing it but it does have a function to space 1 car length behind the vehicle in front and leave the automatics to deal with braking.

I have it set for 5 car lengths and watch closely to make sure it's responding.

My Dad had to give up driving in his mid 70's after a couple of absence episodes and near crashes which is one reason for my choice of a vehicle with autonomy and high impact safety. Also if one doesn't respond to regular 'nags' in autonomous mode then the vehicle will pull over and stop. If the airbags deploy it will report to base. I hope I never have Dad's problem but one worries about familial possibilities.

Better autonomy will come. Most experts on vehicle AI reckon 5-10 years for cars to be better than humans in the sense of fewer crashes per x miles but never capable of dealing with the many weird edge cases that human drivers handle without any real thought. The car will avoid fatigue and distraction cases but will fail on judging whether to straddle or avoid road debris, anticipate loads coming adrift from vehicles in front – all those subtle things but overall safety will be better.

Elon Musk has a vision of his cars being used as autonomous taxis and even earning money for their owners when not needed for personal use. He claims to be doing that in 2 years but has never met his own deadlines. However to be fair to the chap he does usually manage to do what he says eventually – it takes vision to land two boosters on land and main rocket on a small barge at sea to re-use it all. It did fall off afterwards in rough seas but sh*t happens….

pgk

[RMAParticipant @rma]

I've been following this thread full of opinions, but here we go again….slagging off certain German cars and their drivers. If you can't have a reasonable, helpful discussion……please shut up!

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Posted by pgk pgk on 10/05/2019 07:41:11:

We all recognise that speed kills range. And that most folk only manage to average around 60mph on motorways unless they are very empty (or you have an audi or bmw and are immune from the need to indicate or obey speed limits).

.

Not quite true [i.e. we do not all recognise] … My little BMW has averaged about 27.3mpg over the last 94k miles, but its optimum fuel efficiency speed appears to be when cruising at 80-90mph [and thus averaging say 60 mph] at which it achieves 33mpg or better on a 150mile run.

My belief is that [as a broad generalisation for a petrol engine] the optimum fuel efficiency is delivered when the engine is running at peak torque. … Aerodynamics, etc. will, of course, influence how this translates into road speed.

MichaelG.

.

P.S. The late, great, LJK Setright postulated a couple of useful rules-of-thumb:

1. that the best cruising speed for a car would be 2/3 of its maximum speed
2. that the average speed for a 'typical' journey would be 2/3 of the cruising speed

As what they are … I have, to date, found no good reason to disagree

But we now live in different times, with different values, and very different traffic conditions.

[not done it yetParticipant @notdoneityet]

Posted by Howard Lewis on 09/05/2019 23:06:39:

….//

One day, battery technology will catch up, or surpass the efficiency currently enjoyed by the internal combustion engine. 60 years ago, a car capable of 40 mpg was unusual, but not today, and with much superior performance!

Howard

 

We have to be very careful when making statements like that! It all depends on comparing apples with apples!

Petrol engines are not that efficient – not so much over 25%, typically. Combined cycle gas turbines have a generation efficiency of around 60%. Tesla motors are now about 90% efficient.

Let’s assume 15% losses during charge/discharge for the battery and 10% charger losses (possibly both might be over-estimated).

60 x 0.9 x 0.85 x 0.9 gives a Tesla efficiency of ? Yes 40%. Diesel cars are only about 30%?

True, that coal fired power stations are only a little above 40% energy efficient, but coal generated leccy is reducing all the time. Wind and solar generated power uses absolutely zero fuel, so anyone charging their car with only renewable energy shows an efficiency approaching 70%.

As an aside, Tesla’s latest development in motors provides a claimed 93% efficiency. There are other factors involved in this issue, of course. Batteries need to be maintained at optimum temperature, so may need active heating or cooling. Electric motors use no power while queuing in stop-go traffic. Fossil fuelled vehicles do not run anywhere near to their peak efficiency until warmed up, whereas electirc motors work at almost peak efficiency from the word go – so the “school runs” are hugely more efficient in the EV.

So it goes on, but on the subject of ‘efficiency’ battery power is far superior to fossil fuelled vehicles, but I have not included time factors in my argument on the topic.

If you drove more slowly, your 150 mile journey would take longer for two reasons. Firstly the slower speed and secondly the need for a pee break during the journey. I rest my case.

Edited By not done it yet on 10/05/2019 08:33:46

[BazyleParticipant @bazyle]

" Wind and solar generated power uses absolutely zero fuel, " not true. You have to amortise the energy used in manufacture and maintenance as you do for all things.

MG if you only get 27mpg take that heap off the road. My Landrover manages 33 mpg (diesel) and my Fiesta 53mpg (petrol).
I think I heard that most modern cars are designed for optimum efficiency at 56mph for some reason but that may only apply to cars that don't have unnecessarily large engines.

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Posted by Bazyle on 10/05/2019 09:02:52:

MG if you only get 27mpg take that heap off the road. My Landrover manages 33 mpg (diesel) and my Fiesta 53mpg (petrol).

.

That heap does me very nicely, thank you

27.3 is the overall average in my ownership … it gets down to about 23 if I drive enthusiastcally on the local roads.

Self righteous insults from a diesel driver will not change my preferences.

MichaelG.

Edited By Michael Gilligan on 10/05/2019 10:03:40

[Gordon WParticipant @gordonw]

Well, what a day I've had– Just got home after days / weeks in hospital. Just starting to realise what's in store for us all. Look on the bright side, we are generating ideas as I sit here. I am stopping now to get my breath back.

[FMESParticipant @fmes]

Posted by Michael Gilligan on 10/05/2019 08:32:21:

P.S. The late, great, LJK Setright postulated a couple of useful rules-of-thumb:

1. that the best cruising speed for a car would be 2/3 of its maximum speed
2. that the average speed for a 'typical' journey would be 2/3 of the cruising speed

As what they are … I have, to date, found no good reason to disagree

But we now live in different times, with different values, and very different traffic conditions.

Ahhh, now as my Mercedes has a manufacturers figure of 150 mph tops, that would make best cruising speed around 100mph.

Don't think plod would appreciate that, but it does return the upper 50's mpg on a run at motorway speeds.

58.6 mpg average on a recent run to Lincoln from Portsmouth and back.

Thinking back, I had an E93a Ford pop, that would just about do 45 mph flat out with the wind behind it on a good day and I seem to recall a white line painted on the speedo at 30 mph.

So LJKs prediction would seem to hold true

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Posted by Gordon W on 10/05/2019 10:02:31:

Well, what a day I've had– Just got home after days / weeks in hospital. Just starting to realise what's in store for us all. Look on the bright side, we are generating ideas as I sit here. I am stopping now to get my breath back.

.

Welcome back, Gordon

Here's the good News: **LINK**

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-48069663?xtor=ES-208-%5B22739_News_NLB_Wk16_Fri_10_May%5D-20190510-%5Bbbcnews_climate_newsenvironment_cambridge%5D

MichaelG.

[Kiwi BlokeParticipant @kiwibloke62605]

Progress. A couple of days ago, Mozilla 'forgot' to renew a certificate, so all (security) add-ons for the Firefox browser were disabled. Gmail has recently thrown a wobbly. Pilots fight and lose against airliners' safety-enhancing systems. Auto-piloting cars crash, for no apparent reason. Algorithms of Byzantine complexity make decisions too quickly for errors to be identified, and no-one understands what the hell is going on. The stock market has a 'blip'. Machine 'intelligence' learns by implementing heuristics it has 'learned' by processes no-one understands or can identify. Therefore no-one can tell whether the AI is correct or not, except by results – when it's inconveniently late for an error to be detected. And some of the mistakes are extraordinary. The prof. of security engineering (how's that for a concept?) at Cambridge won't touch internet banking.

It was nerve-wracking enough sitting in the passenger seat when junior was learning to drive. Luckily, instructions to go slowly were heeded. But how would it feel to be a passenger in an auto-piloting vehicle, with super-human reflexes, seeing all around itself, and making decisions far more quickly than the hapless, half-asleep and de-skilled human 'supervisor' possibly could, and speeding along, perhaps at speeds beyond the ability of any human driver, particularly in a complex environment. And yet the human is presumably expected to be able to take control as soon as (s)he senses that the AI has stuffed up. How relaxing to be a passenger!

And then there's the worrying problem of the AI's 'moral code'. Who gets sacrificed in certain accident situations (eg the owner, in a head-on smash, or the queue of people waiting at the bus stop, if the car swerves to avoid the head-on)? Will you be able to pay more to have a 'protect the owner at all costs' rule programmed in?

Since most garages seem incapable of sorting out existing misbehaving control systems, we can look forward to chaos when our electric vehicles have a slightly intermittent contact somewhere, or a bug that rarely manifests itself…

Progress? It's too easy to build complexity into software. Features are added 'because we can', and it doesn't cost much. But 'because we can' is not a good justification for doing something.

Rant over – for the moment.

[Kiwi BlokeParticipant @kiwibloke62605]

…and another thing… See, now you've got me started…

We have a new Honda Jazz. It's great, and one of the cheapest new cars in NZ. The control electrickery seems to marry the CVT and its torque converter together pretty well. I was fearful that they would'fight' each other. Gentle journeys can be done at 4.7 l/100km. It has an electronic fuel gauge.

We were about 30km from home, with a soon-to-expire, generous 40c-off per litre fuel voucher to use in our home town, but not where we were. The fuel gauge showed near-empty, with the warning annunciator lit, and the display showed the calculated range to be 20km. OK, into the nearby pumps for a $10 splash. Program the pump for $10 delivery, pull the trigger, and enter daydream mode. Back in the car, driving away, and the fuel gauge shows empty, etc., and still only 20km range. Back to the pumps. Not sure whether the pump automagically delivered $10-worth of fuel, or just fired blanks. Attendant assured me all was OK. Put in another $10's-worth, just to be sure (listened for the filling noises this time). Drove off. Gauge and range calculation unchanged.

The tank should now be about 1/4 full, but the electronics didn't know. Slowly, ever so slowly, we started generating petrol, as the gauge climbed up – to a stable reading about 20 km from the pumps. The range calculation resolutely stayed at 20 km. The journey was about 30 km. The thing had no shame.

Probably a good job it wasn't a life-or-death situation…

[SillyOldDufferModerator @sillyoldduffer]

Posted by Kiwi Bloke 1 on 10/05/2019 12:05:50:

…

… how would it feel to be a passenger in an auto-piloting vehicle, with super-human reflexes, seeing all around itself, and making decisions far more quickly than the hapless, half-asleep and de-skilled human 'supervisor' possibly could, and speeding along, perhaps at speeds beyond the ability of any human driver, particularly in a complex environment. And yet the human is presumably expected to be able to take control as soon as (s)he senses that the AI has stuffed up. How relaxing to be a passenger!

And then there's the worrying problem of the AI's 'moral code'. Who gets sacrificed in certain accident situations (eg the owner, in a head-on smash, or the queue of people waiting at the bus stop, if the car swerves to avoid the head-on)? Will you be able to pay more to have a 'protect the owner at all costs' rule programmed in?

…

We already have wide experience of auto-piloting vehicles in the shape of aircraft. Modern fast fighters cannot be controlled without computer help; to maximise manoeuvrability, fighters are designed to be aerodynamically unstable. They only stay in the air because computers can manipulate several control surfaces far faster than any human. The pilot steers the plane, but its the electronics that are actually flying it. More prosaically, most airliners are heavily computer controlled, and despite the occasional glitch, an airliner is the safest way to travel. In contrast, light aircraft are far more dangerous and the main cause of accidents is pilot error.

The moral choice is straightforward I think; it should apply the principle of least harm. If that means the control system killing the driver rather than ploughing through a line of school-children, so be it. Particularly appropriate when a drunk driver is speeding or texting…

Doesn't worry me too much. All technology starts by being expensive and unreliable. Given time and experience most problems get sorted out – that's what engineers do.

From personal experience I can confirm that the majority of really serious problems are caused by people not technology. If a machine breaks down you can fix or replace it. Much more difficult when the key specialist rings up to say he's been arrested for indecent exposure and refused bail. Fraud, mistakes, incompetence, lust, sexism, obstinate stupidity, bullying, prejudice, mental and physical illness, misunderstandings, racism, 'Not Invented Here' tribalism, misplaced religious or political beliefs, tactless, insensitive, arrogant, ignorant, conservative, maverick, drink, drugs, etc etc. You name it, managers spend far too much time sorting out hapless humanity. Give me a machine any day!

Dave

a

Edited By SillyOldDuffer on 10/05/2019 12:57:46

[SamsarandaParticipant @samsaranda]

It seems from the content of this posting that we are all more or less resigned to our transport going electric with its inevitable changes to our culture. There is one area which I fear will cause problems which may be difficult to solve, and that is if vehicle owners live in blocks of flats, or have garages with no prospect of power available or who have by necessity to rely on parking in the street, then on street charging will be inevitable. There has been much talk about the provision of on street charging being made available so it seems that it will happen, looking on the black side it means there will be numerous cars parked unattended but connected to charging points with a length of fairly hefty copper cable, the scrap industry will inevitably be swamped with scrap cables as the ne’er do wells harvest their spoils during the silent hours.

Dave W

[pgk pgkParticipant @pgkpgk17461]

There are already companies converting street lights into charging points. Doubtless wherever cars are parked legally there will start to be charging points put up. It'll be a slow process presumably with legisation demanding all new builds provide points
Cable thefts are nothing new. Whether it is economically valid for toe-rags to grab lots of short lengths while car alarms go off instead of traditional thefts via street access covers where they can drag out many yards ata time or nick even longer lengths from the railways is moot. One of the benefits of EV;s is that their camera/sensor network can be used to monitor theft and damage.

[not done it yetParticipant @notdoneityet]

Posted by Samsaranda on 10/05/2019 13:36:57:

It seems from the content of this posting that we are all more or less resigned to our transport going electric with its inevitable changes to our culture. There is one area which I fear will cause problems which may be difficult to solve, and that is if vehicle owners live in blocks of flats, or have garages with no prospect of power available or who have by necessity to rely on parking in the street, then on street charging will be inevitable. There has been much talk about the provision of on street charging being made available so it seems that it will happen, looking on the black side it means there will be numerous cars parked unattended but connected to charging points with a length of fairly hefty copper cable, the scrap industry will inevitably be swamped with scrap cables as the ne’er do wells harvest their spoils during the silent hours.

Dave W

Why would these leads need to be copper? Not even needed to be particularly hefty, either. ‘Granny’ cables are provided with most EVs? These charging outlets are not going to be super chargers like Tesla have installed! If a ‘granny’ cable (yes, I suppose the term is a bit ‘ageist&rsquo can be operated by a little old lady who might be regarded as frail, just about everyone else could be expected to be able to plug in a slightly heavier connector?

Aluminium is a good electrical conductor.

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Posted by not done it yet on 10/05/2019 13:59:30:

Aluminium is a good electrical conductor.

.

and also rather expensive [in terms of energy consumption] to produce:

**LINK**

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wylfa_Nuclear_Power_Station

So perhaps the 'total cost of ownership' merits another dose of looking-at.

MichaelG.

[not done it yetParticipant @notdoneityet]

Flexible Posted by Michael Gilligan on 10/05/2019 14:57:06:

Posted by not done it yet on 10/05/2019 13:59:30:

Aluminium is a good electrical conductor.

.

and also rather expensive [in terms of energy consumption] to produce:

**LINK**

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wylfa_Nuclear_Power_Station

So perhaps the 'total cost of ownership' merits another dose of looking-at.

MichaelG.

Please explain what a nuclear power station has to do with a simple lead an socket?

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Posted by not done it yet on 10/05/2019 15:25:49:

Please explain what a nuclear power station has to do with a simple lead an socket?

.

The page about the nuclear power station includes figures for the power requirements of Aluminium production.

We need to include such considerations when considering the use of Aluminium cables for charging-up electric vehicles.

MichaelG.

Edited By Michael Gilligan on 10/05/2019 15:42:59

[Mick B1Participant @mickb1]

Posted by SillyOldDuffer on 10/05/2019 12:56:42:

…

The moral choice is straightforward I think; it should apply the principle of least harm. If that means the control system killing the driver rather than ploughing through a line of school-children, so be it. Particularly appropriate when a drunk driver is speeding or texting…

…

Eh, hang on – that's an underhand conflation.

It's the AI in control, not the driver, so his condition or phone activities are irrelevant, and speeding would be impossible.

[NealebParticipant @nealeb]

My mind is wandering off down a dark and dangerous path…

Did anyone hear the John Finnemore sketch on Radio 4 in which an autonomous car salesman (i.e. salesman of autonomous cars, to save any confusion…) was trying to sell to a customer?

"What if the car sees a choice between hitting a bridge at speed, or knocking down a pedestrian?"

"Ah, the moral decision circuits would choose the bridge."

"Can't you do anything about that?"

"For £10K more, this model would hit the pedestrian. But not a queue of elderly pensioners waiting at a bus stop."

"Really?"

"Yes, and for £20K more, this one would hit the bus stop queue – but not the petrol tanker parked outside a school"

…etc

I can see a day when the back-street car remappers move from tweaking timing and injection parameters to tweaking moral decision circuits – at a price…

Edited By Nealeb on 10/05/2019 16:52:29

[Mick B1Participant @mickb1]

Posted by Nealeb on 10/05/2019 16:52:02:

My mind is wandering off down a dark and dangerous path…

…

"For £10K more, this model would hit the pedestrian. But not a queue of elderly pensioners waiting at a bus stop."

…

I can see a day when the back-street car remappers move from tweaking timing and injection parameters to tweaking moral decision circuits – at a price…

Plus, of course, the "pensioners bus queue" might actually be a unit of terrorist militia operating under false ID cover provided by other backstreet data wranglers…

The scope for paranoid fantasy in such a world is limitless.

[not done it yetParticipant @notdoneityet]

Posted by Michael Gilligan on 10/05/2019 15:42:01

The page about the nuclear power station includes figures for the power requirements of Aluminium production.

We need to include such considerations when considering the use of Aluminium cables for charging-up electric vehicles.

MichaelG.

Edited By Michael Gilligan on 10/05/2019 15:42:59

A dumb place to look for metal costings? Not too much problem in smelting Al in Norway or Iceland, what with their hydro or geothermal leccy output.

Copper is still worth a great deal more as scrap. Three times approx – the same as buying the metals. Further, while conductors would need to be thicker, they would only weigh about half as much as the copper versions. That means the, thieves would need to pinch 6 times as many ally cables, as copper ones, to get the same return.

For a few kW and a short cable, steel might even do the job.

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Posted by not done it yet on 10/05/2019 17:38:41:

A dumb place to look for metal costings?

.

Not at all …

Raison d'être

MichaelG.

.

I think I will leave you on your soapbox

… it's really not worth trying to have a discussion.

[Author]

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