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Electric car impact on fuel availabilty and pricing in future(?)
- Thread starter JC220
- Start date
I first drove a Tesla (Model S) at an event that my employer had in Las Vegas back in 2013. No question it was an amazing experience, and it's one of those rare moments in life (like when I first used a Macintosh in 1985 (Pascal programming class, Oregon State Univ.), or first used the Internet in 1993 (Hewlett-Packard Cupertino), or bought my first iPhone in 2007 (Portland, OR)) where the product you are using is very clearly indicative of the future ... what is to come in a broader sense.
I will probably end up getting some sort of EV before I quit driving, someday. Maybe a Tesla, who knows? But it is definitely some years away. There is more development and evolution to do on these cars before they truly become mainstream. I am happy to wait for more evolution to occur before I take the plunge. If we didn't have folks like @RicardoD and the @Jlaa who take the plunge early on things like hybrids and EVs, then things wouldn't progress as quickly, so hats off to them.
But for now, I'm happy to drive my old gasoline cars I have, keep them on the road, and hopefully take a now-pandemlc-delayed delivery of the MB that I ordered from the factory quite some time ago.
To me, a Tesla or other EV lacks a certain passion, like driving a Toyota. Efficient, perhaps reliable, the wave of the future, yes. But it all seems rather boring to me. I have always thought that a big part of the experience of driving and owning a car, is MAINTAINING and fixing (and perhaps tastefully improving) it. It's why I have had my E500 since 2003, and my 560SEC since 2002. It's very, very likely that I'll still own both in another 20 years from now. In 20 years, there are going to be a lot fewer SECs and E500Es around.
Once in a while, I see someone driving an old Chevelle, or a W123, or even on very rare occasions an old VW Golf II. Recently I saw a guy driving a 1980s Celica Supra. I am talking about as daily drivers, not Sunday drivers. I have to give the owners of these cars a lot of props for their passion in keeping these cars running, going, as daily drivers. They're not cherry and pristine, but that's part of the charm of them. That's the kind of guy I like to be -- driving my SEC and people go "Wow, that's an awesome 1980s Benz coupe" as I drive by. It makes people happy. Heck, it makes ME happy. That's what counts.
I will probably end up getting some sort of EV before I quit driving, someday. Maybe a Tesla, who knows? But it is definitely some years away. There is more development and evolution to do on these cars before they truly become mainstream. I am happy to wait for more evolution to occur before I take the plunge. If we didn't have folks like @RicardoD and the @Jlaa who take the plunge early on things like hybrids and EVs, then things wouldn't progress as quickly, so hats off to them.
But for now, I'm happy to drive my old gasoline cars I have, keep them on the road, and hopefully take a now-pandemlc-delayed delivery of the MB that I ordered from the factory quite some time ago.
To me, a Tesla or other EV lacks a certain passion, like driving a Toyota. Efficient, perhaps reliable, the wave of the future, yes. But it all seems rather boring to me. I have always thought that a big part of the experience of driving and owning a car, is MAINTAINING and fixing (and perhaps tastefully improving) it. It's why I have had my E500 since 2003, and my 560SEC since 2002. It's very, very likely that I'll still own both in another 20 years from now. In 20 years, there are going to be a lot fewer SECs and E500Es around.
Once in a while, I see someone driving an old Chevelle, or a W123, or even on very rare occasions an old VW Golf II. Recently I saw a guy driving a 1980s Celica Supra. I am talking about as daily drivers, not Sunday drivers. I have to give the owners of these cars a lot of props for their passion in keeping these cars running, going, as daily drivers. They're not cherry and pristine, but that's part of the charm of them. That's the kind of guy I like to be -- driving my SEC and people go "Wow, that's an awesome 1980s Benz coupe" as I drive by. It makes people happy. Heck, it makes ME happy. That's what counts.
It's not just that the Taycan is crazy fast. It's that the performance is repeatable, over and over, back to back. The Tesla can pull off one single Insane/Ludicras/Plaid mode launch, then it has to cool down for a long time (I forget... 30+ minutes?). Taycan just cranks out repeated performance over a couple dozen repeated 1/4 mile runs. There was a road test (C&D or R&T) comparing the two, it was fascinating data. If I had $0.25M that I wanted to get rid of on a depreciating asset, the Taycan would be at least checked out... along with a used Zonda...
Welcome back Louis! So I go into community helper mode during this kinds of stuff. I did all the prep I could. If you lose your power in the temps below 30 more than 10 hours, you will get a frozen pipe outside for sure. I had an issue like most did on the NE corner of the house that get zero sunlight from November thru March. So the pipes in those walls (yes there is insulation) are suspect. We got a frozen situation inside that room and even with power, without Sun hitting the bricks, it is hard to get thermal transfer. So I shut off water to the house Tuesday afternoon at the street as a precaution since I had been helping others who let the pressure build with supply BURST. We lost power at 840p Tuesday night and it came back on around 9pm Wednesday. The pool equipment was tented but its hard to have 2" pipes with flowing water have issues. The heat from the continuously running pump served its purpose, keeping the tented equipment warm.
So I will turn my water back on later today once we are above freezing to be sure that my frozen situation has cleared itself. This should be our last day of 18F-30F swings for the year. My generator got some attention with a fuel system overhaul last summer in prep for hurricane season. When I went to start her after losing power, the fuel petcock valve had a dangerous leak and I suspect the cold caused the fine metal used from the PROC to shrink more than the engineers had thought and there wasn't any sealing. Neighbor has a whole house Generac so we spent the day there and planned to spend the night but we came back to a warm home with purposefully shut off water. Hopefully we get flow at all indoor faucets or I will shut it down again.
So I will turn my water back on later today once we are above freezing to be sure that my frozen situation has cleared itself. This should be our last day of 18F-30F swings for the year. My generator got some attention with a fuel system overhaul last summer in prep for hurricane season. When I went to start her after losing power, the fuel petcock valve had a dangerous leak and I suspect the cold caused the fine metal used from the PROC to shrink more than the engineers had thought and there wasn't any sealing. Neighbor has a whole house Generac so we spent the day there and planned to spend the night but we came back to a warm home with purposefully shut off water. Hopefully we get flow at all indoor faucets or I will shut it down again.
I can see @LWB250 nodding approval all the way from sunny FL... I also predict Gerenac units (and similar whole-house generators) selling out rapidly, if they haven't already.
You probably have a 6L m119 powered standby generator Dave?
Be aware that there is a Generac service campaign for some standby generators. The fuel plenum may rust and pose a significant fire risk.
If the unit is covered by this action, Generac is reimbursing customers for the inspection.
The problem is claimed to be the result of wet conditions around the generator unit.
I have not have mine inspected yet. But it sits on concrete pad surrounded by landscape stone on the windy side of the house.
If the unit is covered by this action, Generac is reimbursing customers for the inspection.
The problem is claimed to be the result of wet conditions around the generator unit.
I have not have mine inspected yet. But it sits on concrete pad surrounded by landscape stone on the windy side of the house.
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Today’s Wall Street Journal lead editorial.
If it’s too much for you to read …. Just read the last two paragraphs. That should only require about 30 seconds of your time.
Typical pre-hurricane activity. Post-hurricane as well, it's a boon for the generator guys - until people find out what they cost.
My whole-house 25kW Kohler system was about $1,000/kW installed. $500/year for maintenance plus fuel (500 gallon propane tank in front yard). Not for the faint of heart financially - you really have to want the ability to go off grid when necessary. While the up front cost is tough, it's all relative when the power goes out and your neighbors are dark, yet life goes on inside your house.
And not to be a jerk, but before we went down this road we made a very clear commitment that it's everyone for themselves when the SHTF. If others don't have the foresight or willingness to prepare, I'm not compromising my survivability or sharing the expense with others for free.
There was a whole house generator in a previous house we owned. Major storm blew through and power was out for an extended period. We had power, no problem. Neighbors wanted to run extension cords to our house so they had some lights and power for their fridges/freezers. Sure! Pay me $100 for the privilege. It pissed some of them off, but really - is their lack of planning my fault? Nope. Sorry.
Dan
The new Tesla's are much better in this regard. Kudos to Porsche on their robust performance. C+D just had a Taycan at ViR and it lapped at 2:55, about the same as its ICE competitors (E63, M5) and was repeatable - awesome stuff that will only get better. But yes, the exhaust note of a Metzger or big V8 is hard to give up. I'd also probably go Zonda over Taycan for my $0.25M, then I'd scrape my penies together to buy a clapped out Prius as a DD.It's not just that the Taycan is crazy fast. It's that the performance is repeatable, over and over, back to back. The Tesla can pull off one single Insane/Ludicras/Plaid mode launch, then it has to cool down for a long time (I forget... 30+ minutes?). Taycan just cranks out repeated performance over a couple dozen repeated 1/4 mile runs. There was a road test (C&D or R&T) comparing the two, it was fascinating data. If I had $0.25M that I wanted to get rid of on a depreciating asset, the Taycan would be at least checked out... along with a used Zonda...
Isn't the Texas imbroglio due to a combination of factors, mostly insufficient winterization (of both nat gas and wind) and their decision to structure their grid as they did? Seems like they've learned a lesson, although sizing your electrical grid for a 100 year storm might not be the best use of resources and money. In any case, I was under the impresison that nuclear's death was due more to costs than regulation - Greens want it back too, but it's prohibitively expensive and time consuming to build plants and they still suffer the stigma in the general public of Fukushima and Chernobyl (great HBO series btw). Bill Gates is a big proponent of renewables plus nuclear and has a lot of money in startups trying to build cheaper fission plants that are quicker to build too.
Also looks like they have some unit issues running around in that editorial, missing some factors of 1000 somewhere.... "Peak grid demand is 57MW......peak gas contribution of 43,800 MW"....so transmission is like 0.001% efficient? They need to generate 1000x the power they need? Maybe WSJ doesn't get SI units....perhaps if they quoted it in BTU*slug*lb*hr or whatever nonsense unit the US uses for this they'd get it right.
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I'm not sure what the current barriers are to nuclear in USA, but at least some would be the "not in my backyard" public resistance. So just dump it in the middle of Nevada where nobody lives except (outerspace) aliens, lol. That would feed the west half the USA.
My perception was regulation was the larger problem, not cost, but I really don't know.I haven't seen any recent discussion of Chernobyl or 3 Mile island, but many moons ago I read an interesting research paper on these. Chernobyl used a reactor design deemed far too dangerous and was never allowed in USA, but people don't understand the difference, and think that could happen here. 3 Mile was a perfect storm of human error and component failure, which would be extremely unlikely to occur with any new, modern design. Fukushima, I don't know the odds of a 9.0 earthquake and tsunami there, but it would be far less in USA. That level of natural disaster would take out any type of power plant near the epicenter.
Cost for any other plant (gas, coal, hydro) is massive, what I don't know how much of a premium would be attached to a new nuclear build. As always the bigger hassle is disposing of the waste. Maybe send it to Mars now that there are frequent flights in that direction.
OH, good, old Pascal! I still miss it a bit, and so...fortunately have Ada for in job programming
Real men use Modula-2. Pascal is for "Borland Turbo-Pascal" weenies only.OH, good, old Pascal! I still miss it a bit, and so...fortunately have Ada for in job programming
I will point out, however, that the marketers behind Borland Turbo Pascal seemed to have the right idea.....
@JAB12 this one is for you. ;-)
Holy cow, I was forced to learn ada at college. It was the programming class that made me avoid all other programming classesOH, good, old Pascal! I still miss it a bit, and so...fortunately have Ada for in job programming
One of the cool things about Aptera is they are big on "right to repair", it feels like a engiNERD company trying to hack together an efficient commute pod. Probably won't appeal to the masses but that is what the used Tesla Model 3 market is for. I put my $100 down for fun. Let see who will actually pony up when the time comes.
@gsxr I didn't know about the repeat run factor on these EVs. Cars are just insanely fast now.
I've had the good luck to be able dabble in EV, tinker on my flat 6 Porsches, and try to maintain my E500 the best I can. And as we have discussed before the most environmental thing I can do is simply maintain my E500 as my daily driver.
I am highly suspect of that Wall Street Journal editorial as I would be of some New York Times green new deal con job.
So glad @nocfn made it through using his brains and prior experience! Wohooo!
@gsxr I didn't know about the repeat run factor on these EVs. Cars are just insanely fast now.
I've had the good luck to be able dabble in EV, tinker on my flat 6 Porsches, and try to maintain my E500 the best I can. And as we have discussed before the most environmental thing I can do is simply maintain my E500 as my daily driver.
I am highly suspect of that Wall Street Journal editorial as I would be of some New York Times green new deal con job.
So glad @nocfn made it through using his brains and prior experience! Wohooo!
Ummmm ….. I was talking about learning Pascal in 1985, not 2005. I think 1985 was before you were born, right?Real men use Modula-2. Pascal is for "Borland Turbo-Pascal" weenies only.
I will point out, however, that the marketers behind Borland Turbo Pascal seemed to have the right idea.....
View attachment 126433
I took Pascal as an elective, as part of my pre-pharmacy curriculum. Yes, my first three years I studied to be a pharmacist before switching majors.
Pascal wasn’t all that much worse than BASIC. I remember our first project assigned by the prof was to create a working clock face. Meaning you wound enter a time (AM or PM) and then the correct time would have to be displayed on a round clock face. Seems pretty elementary now….
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No question that the WSJ editorial page is right of center, and pro-business. But as you say, it also provides a counterbalance to what you read on the NYT and WaPo editorial pages (I also take the WaPo, which is more or less a “local” paper for me like the Merc or Chronicle would be to you).
For what it's worth, NYT is a common joke now, even in the sub-soil of Russian and Ukraine-languaged YouTube. Places so distant from USA (really anther planet as far as culture and mentality) they are just about totally free of bias. As far as I'm concerned, one of the best litmus tests out there. Soviet Union is still a first-hand experience for more than half of the population there. On the other hand, WSJ is considered as a respectable publication.
It is interesting to see the current climate of "cancellation" of diverse people and thought that strays from accepted norms, as dictated by the social media and political oligarchs, and the mainstream media networks and newspapers. Every week we read about more and more people being cancelled, or kicked off of social media just for expressing their First Amendment rights. Unfortunately, what they are saying goes against established thought patterns ("party line").
It actually smacks very much these days of what the old Soviet Union used to be, except in the US we don't have the Gulag system to exile people to in a physical sense. They are just cancelled and exiled socially, fired from their job, and their ability to earn a living is negated. Look at the recent example of the female actress and star (Gina Carano) who was "cancelled" by Disney from "The Mandalorian" for expressing conservative political views online.
That's where the term "party line" came from ..... the former USSR and the Communist Party.
It's very sad that the ability of anyone to say whatever they want in this country, has now been severely curtailed. It used to be that even neo-Nazis and KKK had complete freedom of speech ... but hardly anybody listened to them. Now, they are attacked, and their right to say what they want to say has been attacked. Sure their philosophy is COMPLETELY wrong (as is the American Communist Party), but they should be able to shout whatever they want to (politically) from whatever street corner they want to. But they can't, because their right to free speech has been taken away.
That is wrong, and that is against what America is all about.
I'm just curious ... does anyone here actually believe that a neo-Nazi or KKK member here in the USA DOES NOT have the right to say whatever they want to publicly on a street corner?
It actually smacks very much these days of what the old Soviet Union used to be, except in the US we don't have the Gulag system to exile people to in a physical sense. They are just cancelled and exiled socially, fired from their job, and their ability to earn a living is negated. Look at the recent example of the female actress and star (Gina Carano) who was "cancelled" by Disney from "The Mandalorian" for expressing conservative political views online.
That's where the term "party line" came from ..... the former USSR and the Communist Party.
It's very sad that the ability of anyone to say whatever they want in this country, has now been severely curtailed. It used to be that even neo-Nazis and KKK had complete freedom of speech ... but hardly anybody listened to them. Now, they are attacked, and their right to say what they want to say has been attacked. Sure their philosophy is COMPLETELY wrong (as is the American Communist Party), but they should be able to shout whatever they want to (politically) from whatever street corner they want to. But they can't, because their right to free speech has been taken away.
That is wrong, and that is against what America is all about.
I'm just curious ... does anyone here actually believe that a neo-Nazi or KKK member here in the USA DOES NOT have the right to say whatever they want to publicly on a street corner?
Dan, how many hours of generator runtime do you get from a 500 gallon propane tank? I'm assuming propane is still ~$3/gallon, or ~$1500 to fill it.
I think the rule of thumb is about 2.5 to 3.5 gph for LP. Depending on the genny model and load. The big units are much much higher.
My Generac is a 20kwh with a 1.0l 2 cylinder air cooler motor. When we're in for a long outage, I assume the burn rate will be ~75 gallons per day. It's always less, but for planning purposes. I typically top up our 1000 gallon tank when I get below 50% in normal times. I filler'up if there's bad Springtime storms coming. Pre-gennie days had us without power for 11 days one time. And 8 days another. Of course, after the install, we've not had to run backup for more than 3 days straight. And the typical outage in six to twelve hours these days.
I think my fill in late December was around $2.19 gallon.
The power issues in Texas are not good and something that will probably be increasing as Gerry's posted article highlights.
Here in Ireland the power grid is very stable we don't really get power cuts ever really. Maybe 20 years ago when power lines were overhead but then all of them were moved to underground (Within towns I mean) in early 2000s and its super stable since then.
I do also highly doubt that all residential properties are capable of charging EV cars on regular basis and there are very few charging points in each town. Zero Tesla ones in small towns just local electricity provider points in the odd carpark. It is increasing though.
As a part of Planning Applications now the local councils force all sorts of climate stuff on developers. (Such as 1 in 100 year storm event drainage underground which is a massive network of oversized pipes and MHs), Green and Blue roofing systems and PV panels etc. What they are also doing is enforcing new and existing developments to install EV charging points. Ironically this has been applied to existing filling stations going in for an extension etc whereby they insist that 10% of the parking provision is converted to EV charging points. These cost about £9k each to install so adding 5 or 6 of them just because the council says so is not great for business. There is a loophole whereby legislation states that it can be future proofed for EV points instead. So put all ducts in, line paint it out and don't put the actual chargers in - this works only in limited cases depending on the local council opinion.
Conversely some Motorway Service stations have vast rows of Tesla charging stations all sitting empty at any one time. I believe the whole concept of EV cars being greener is heavily flawed for reasons already mentioned. How can the emissions and resources required to produce the car and batteries in the first instance be ignored? Don't they ship them on fossil fuelled vessels across the world too? No thanks ill keep my 2007 MB diesel high miler daily as long as I can. (And similar later diesel cars)
LPG may be a more "green" fuel to run classics on in the future if petrol starts to get taxed by the government in the guise of saving the planet.... my 1997 S320 came to me with an LPG conversion by PO so I have no costs to make up. The system works great to be fair no noticeable decrease in power when running on it. And here LPG at the pump is about half the price of petrol. (However most cars will do slightly less MPG whilst running on LPG)
Here in Ireland the power grid is very stable we don't really get power cuts ever really. Maybe 20 years ago when power lines were overhead but then all of them were moved to underground (Within towns I mean) in early 2000s and its super stable since then.
I do also highly doubt that all residential properties are capable of charging EV cars on regular basis and there are very few charging points in each town. Zero Tesla ones in small towns just local electricity provider points in the odd carpark. It is increasing though.
As a part of Planning Applications now the local councils force all sorts of climate stuff on developers. (Such as 1 in 100 year storm event drainage underground which is a massive network of oversized pipes and MHs), Green and Blue roofing systems and PV panels etc. What they are also doing is enforcing new and existing developments to install EV charging points. Ironically this has been applied to existing filling stations going in for an extension etc whereby they insist that 10% of the parking provision is converted to EV charging points. These cost about £9k each to install so adding 5 or 6 of them just because the council says so is not great for business. There is a loophole whereby legislation states that it can be future proofed for EV points instead. So put all ducts in, line paint it out and don't put the actual chargers in - this works only in limited cases depending on the local council opinion.
Conversely some Motorway Service stations have vast rows of Tesla charging stations all sitting empty at any one time. I believe the whole concept of EV cars being greener is heavily flawed for reasons already mentioned. How can the emissions and resources required to produce the car and batteries in the first instance be ignored? Don't they ship them on fossil fuelled vessels across the world too? No thanks ill keep my 2007 MB diesel high miler daily as long as I can. (And similar later diesel cars)
LPG may be a more "green" fuel to run classics on in the future if petrol starts to get taxed by the government in the guise of saving the planet.... my 1997 S320 came to me with an LPG conversion by PO so I have no costs to make up. The system works great to be fair no noticeable decrease in power when running on it. And here LPG at the pump is about half the price of petrol. (However most cars will do slightly less MPG whilst running on LPG)
As far as I am aware it is stable Gerry. I bought my S320 in a whim about 2 years ago. The seller had taken it and some other MBs to settle someone's debt! (Amicably agreed) Therefore I bought it for £750 IIRC and she had the LPG conversion already (About £1250) and 4x new Michelins for good measure. A home run so to speak.
The LPG tank is in the boot in place of the spare wheel. There is a switch / gauge under the steering wheel - quite small and neat actually. She starts on petrol and after a certain (minimal) run time / coolant temperature it can switch to gas if the switch is so selected. The LEDs change to show it's on gas and the level of gas in the tank. There are special anti blast parts on the engine intake -again all quite neatly done as it was a professional installation. It does require special LPG compatible spark plugs. It has never missed a beat on it.
I did drive it for the first 6 months then it sat around since then. But even though it's sat for over a year now the LPG level has not dropped in the tank and when I drop in a battery and start her up it will switch to LPG no problems still. Going to MOT it again in March all being well and start driving it again.
Interestingly MOT checks here do not extend to LPG installations. But I do intend to take it to an LPG specialist this summer for a service / inspection anyway. There is a small LPG filter and the gas pipes are all shielded against gas in the interior compartment (trunk), they will check all that.
Population density.
UK is 1/3 the area of Texas. With more than double the population.
It obviously plays a huge role in infrastructure development. As does a populace's appetite for taxes and high utility costs.
When people from overseas come to US, it's kinda funny to hear their itineraries(if they've not been here before). Thinking they're gonna rent a car tour the entire east coast and do Disney in a week. lol The country is so friggin massive. and so sparseley populated. It's like how most Americans have no clue how large Russia is. (2X CONUS) and that most of it is totally undeveloped. Talk about sparsely populated areas.
UK is 1/3 the area of Texas. With more than double the population.
It obviously plays a huge role in infrastructure development. As does a populace's appetite for taxes and high utility costs.
When people from overseas come to US, it's kinda funny to hear their itineraries(if they've not been here before). Thinking they're gonna rent a car tour the entire east coast and do Disney in a week. lol The country is so friggin massive. and so sparseley populated. It's like how most Americans have no clue how large Russia is. (2X CONUS) and that most of it is totally undeveloped. Talk about sparsely populated areas.
In fairness, we heard a lot early in this weather crises from the governor of Texas, on right leaning news networks, indicating that our problems were somehow related to windmills and the green new deal. This was picked up by many (including in this thread) and discussed. It turns out that Texas gets less of 1/3 of its energy from win and solar and that the shutdowns to the coal and gas powered plants were a larger contributing factor.
I don't think free speech was intended for politicians to push out their propaganda, There's a difference between public service and private service and it seemed his comments at the time served his donors better than the people who elected him. One can ague that his donors elected him, which is very true in this political landscape, but they're not the people he should be representing in his job as a government official.
As far as free speech, social media & news and cancel culture? I guess that people can say anything they like. If it's so disguising that turns people off, private organizations like social media and news are under no obligations hurt their own business by giving them a platform. Even if they didn't break a law.
This balance between free speech, capitalism and personal reasonability is turning into a real struggle for what was once a right of center political party. It's actually a struggle for what was both center right political parties, but in my eyes, one more than the other.
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I struggled with Ada for a couple of reasons:
1) I literally chose CS for university because I wanted a well paying career. That was my only driver and I didn't think learning Ada when everybody wanted C, C++ or Java was going get me a well paid job (unless I took a time machine and went to work for NASA)
2) The professor who taught the class wrote a book on it and was pushing it very hard as the study guide
I was more talking about freedom of speech in general, by anyone, saying anything they want to in terms of political speech. Which is why I used the "say anything on any street corner" example, rather than "support X politician on Twitter".
I agree that any private company (Facebook, Twitter etc.) has the right to police (or not police) anything on their platform, and de-platform anyone they want to. This didn't used to be a problem until very very recently. I first set up my Twitter account back in 2008, and I have seen stuff on there that was pretty egregiously bad and extreme, on both sides of the fence. Yet it seems that the de-platforming has seemed to largely skew from one side of the fence, with the "standards" not equally applied across the board.
For example, why would Twitter purge a politician or public personality for saying "you should fight like hell and yell at your representative for a fair election", yet another politician from the other side of the aisle who says "you should harrass cabinet members if you see them at restaurants and protest at their house so you can give them a piece of your mind" skates off scot-free. It doesn't make sense.
On the right to de-platform: It's no different than what I would do on this forum. If someone came on here and espoused neo-Nazi views, or for that matter communist political views (like @kiev's signature), their posts (and perhaps their account) would be deleted, and I would send @The Emperor a PM asking him to force-choke them out.
Cause and effect. It goes to the supreme court example of yelling fire in a theater. Certain political figures have used these platforms to raise the temperature to the level were we're seeing stuff that would not look normal in Pakistan let alone the US.
Why then and not know? Hopefully it's because we as a society have had enough and these social media platforms have picked up on it.
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I thought Gina Carano got fired from Disney because she made all those holocaust references (mostly in poor taste) on her social media? I'm all pro free speech, but if I were running a family entertainment company I wouldn't keep employees like that around.
In reality, Carano's sin was political speech that used a Holocaust analogy. Not saying what she did was right or wrong (free speech, remember?), but again, if Carano were a liberal rather than a conservative, do you think she would have gotten fired? I mean, you have not just a couple of pretty "progressive" national politicians out there who have also said some pretty nasty anti-Israel things, publicly doubted the Holocaust, said "some people did something" in reference to 9/11, "it's all about the Benjamins, baby" and they seem to have no problem keeping their jobs.
Again, I don't care what they say. I just believe that free-speech standards should be applied equally to everyone. But they're not.
Gina Carano's 'The Mandalorian' Firing, Explained
Gina Carano, known as Cara Dune in 'Star Wars,' was fired...
Before this gets too political, let's not forget the hardships being faced in Texas right now, particularly the the plight of one of our senators, who fled his home country to cross the Mexican border so that he could provide food, shelter and warmth to his family.
In the arms of an angel .......
In the arms of an angel .......
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And in 99.7% of cases this is what we do. Just saying. Each and everyone of us is a lot more than the 500E, its maintenance, and fuel prices. I thoroughly enjoy off-topic, personal rants that "humanize" avatar and nicknames. And since this is a relatively homogenous, cohesive group it works out very well
Sorry, but we can't talk about oil with out touching on:
www.desmogblog.com
Racism and Discrimination in the Oil and Gas Industry
With the recent focus on systemic racism in America, the oil and gas industry is depicting itself as leading on the issue of diversity in the workforce. However, its public relations efforts and slick advertisements do not reflect the industry’s actual behavior. In early June, as protests over...
That's some excellent & quite substantive Coastal Elite virtue signaling !!
I'm late to the party on this one as I only like to look at EVs, not sure I can muster to ever own one, even the newly released Porsche one, however, I live in a high-rise with 300+ units and only 2 parking stations with an EV charger. There are at least 7 or 8 EVs or Hybrids in the building maybe more and they have to valet in turns per their assigned hours/day of the week to charge. The whole thing is ridiculous if you ask me. Further to this if you would like to install your own charger in your own parking stall which comes within the SF added to the deed of your own condo unit, good luck getting a permit for it. Technically you don't 'own' the parking stall, it is the condo association that would have to apply for a permit to the relevant jurisdiction, aka AHJ in order for you to be able to install a charger in your stall. Good luck with that. Meanwhile in the parking garage of the storage facility for some of my other cars they recently minted a brand new block of 20 Tesla charging stations that are perpetually empty. Go figure.My employer had these for a number of years(decade?), usually empty. But more recently, I was seeing the 3-4 stations always occupied. I had the same thought... what happens when a couple dozen people are fighting for the handful of stations available?
The answer isn't necessarily adding more stations... at some point, the company is going to balk at the cost of both installing the station, AND paying for the 'lektricity. Tearing up the parking lot to run more high-power cables will not be cheap. I guess they would just start - wait for it - charging for the privilege of topping off at work.
I like WSJ editorial to get alternative viewpoints to the mainstream media but they are fairly biased too. I trust their news coverage more and find it to be fairly independent. They ran an article on Texas fiasco highlighting the core issues around energy market in Texas and why investments to deal with cold weather and ROI were the main reasons and not wind mills freezing up (which didn't help but not the main reason as some news outlets are calling it out).
"The result was a laissez-faire market design that rewards those who can sell power inexpensively and still recover their capital costs. That keeps prices low when demand is steady. When demand spikes, however, so do prices, which can climb as high as $9,000 per megawatt-hour to incentivize power plants of all kinds to fire up.
If an electricity producer agrees to supply power into the market and then fails to deliver, the producer has to pay for the cost of replacing it. But if a plant trips offline and stays out of the market for an extended period, as happened this week, there is no penalty besides lost revenue."
"Ercot devised a set of best practices for power-plant owners to prepare for the possibility of extreme cold. But the guidelines remain suggestions. The grid operator has no authority to mandate them, although it does do some spot checks. The state utility commission doesn’t even employ inspectors to visit the plants and check on whether they are winterized."
"For plant owners, that presents a paradox: Should they add to their capital costs by preparing for severe cold snaps that occur only occasionally, or skip the preparation and risk tripping offline, missing out on high prices and exacerbating a potential supply shortage?"
I would agree with you @mikeym. The WSJ news pages (news gathering operation) is very center/neutral in bias. Although the political news coverage is slightly left of center, but it’s not egregious, and it does mostly maintain objectivity.
The WSJ editorial pages are clearly right of center and pro-capitalism. Though they are not afraid to criticize Trump and others when they are out of line (and they do).
The operative difference between the WSJ, and operations like the WaPo and NYT, is that at the WSJ the news and editorial operations are 100% independent of each other. Headed up by different people, with separate staffs and lines of reporting. Editorial page coverage and views do not seep into the news operation, and Vice versa.
That is the way that newspapers of all types traditionally worked, and are supposed to work. News and Editorial are practically and philosophically supposed to be separate. That’s what I learned in journalism school, as well
What has happened with the NYT and WaPo is that the news gathering operations have been infused with the once separate bias lens of the editorial operations. This bleed-through means everything that is published (news and editorial) has a common and interdependent philosophy. The bias taints the entire operation.
It’s always interesting to just read the headlines of the WaPo and the WSJ News articles reporting the same news. One is very “just the facts.” — “Biden Speaks About COVID Relief Plan at Pfizer Plant in Michigan”. One has a definitive slant expressed just in the headline — “Biden Boasts of Popularity of Relief Plan, Puts Heat on Republicans in Pfizer Speech”
You can guess which is which. To me, it is very distressing to see this. Unfortunately these papers have to do this to keep up their circulation, as they have lost so much ad revenue to online advertising, that they have to cater to a “base” audience in a partisan way. And during the past four years their circulation did increase as they played to this base.
The WSJ has a different profile and while circulation and revenue have gone down, it’s never been as much danger as the NYT and WaPo have been. This has allowed them to maintain separate departments and more objectivity in news-gathering. Probably doesn’t hurt that the WSJ is also a Rupert Murdoch operation, like Fox News.
But despite ownership, no question that WSJ news operation is far less biased than the WaPo or NYT.
Today’s Bezos-owned WaPo is nothing like the Graham-owned WaPo of the Watergate era, when objective real news and investigative reporting was the order of the day.
The WSJ editorial pages are clearly right of center and pro-capitalism. Though they are not afraid to criticize Trump and others when they are out of line (and they do).
The operative difference between the WSJ, and operations like the WaPo and NYT, is that at the WSJ the news and editorial operations are 100% independent of each other. Headed up by different people, with separate staffs and lines of reporting. Editorial page coverage and views do not seep into the news operation, and Vice versa.
That is the way that newspapers of all types traditionally worked, and are supposed to work. News and Editorial are practically and philosophically supposed to be separate. That’s what I learned in journalism school, as well
What has happened with the NYT and WaPo is that the news gathering operations have been infused with the once separate bias lens of the editorial operations. This bleed-through means everything that is published (news and editorial) has a common and interdependent philosophy. The bias taints the entire operation.
It’s always interesting to just read the headlines of the WaPo and the WSJ News articles reporting the same news. One is very “just the facts.” — “Biden Speaks About COVID Relief Plan at Pfizer Plant in Michigan”. One has a definitive slant expressed just in the headline — “Biden Boasts of Popularity of Relief Plan, Puts Heat on Republicans in Pfizer Speech”
You can guess which is which. To me, it is very distressing to see this. Unfortunately these papers have to do this to keep up their circulation, as they have lost so much ad revenue to online advertising, that they have to cater to a “base” audience in a partisan way. And during the past four years their circulation did increase as they played to this base.
The WSJ has a different profile and while circulation and revenue have gone down, it’s never been as much danger as the NYT and WaPo have been. This has allowed them to maintain separate departments and more objectivity in news-gathering. Probably doesn’t hurt that the WSJ is also a Rupert Murdoch operation, like Fox News.
But despite ownership, no question that WSJ news operation is far less biased than the WaPo or NYT.
Today’s Bezos-owned WaPo is nothing like the Graham-owned WaPo of the Watergate era, when objective real news and investigative reporting was the order of the day.
Just a Little thought from my German Point of view:
Prices for electricity are very high here. 2nd highest in the world iirc. Prices went up about 8% since last December.
Average Price for one kwh of power is a bit over 30 Cents.
Fuel Prices are high too. Right now about 1,40 Euros per Liter (for regular fuel, no premium but also not the cheaper E10). This is 5,31 Euros or 6,42 USD per gallon. And prices will rise to about 1,80 Euros per liter until 2030, mostly caused by extra taxation.
BUT: The costs for electricity went up about 80% during the last 15 years. Gas went up too, but "only" about 40%.
At 1,80 Euros per Liter we will have a rise of about 80% too, but in 24 years and not in 15 years.
And don´t you think that the prices for electricity will come down in the future!
Plus I don´t see the Chance for everybody to Charge electric cars. No chance! Many People park on the streets, with out own houses or even garages.
And as a Little side-note: I drove my current daily driver (a 2018 Smart car) for a bit more than 100 miles yesterday. This included Friday afternoon rush hour in one of Germanies worst cities regarding traffic, plus quite some miles on the German Autobahn at Maximum Speed (limited at 97mph).
My average fuel consumption yesterday was 5.0 liters per 100km or 47mpg. Not that bad imo...
Prices for electricity are very high here. 2nd highest in the world iirc. Prices went up about 8% since last December.
Average Price for one kwh of power is a bit over 30 Cents.
Fuel Prices are high too. Right now about 1,40 Euros per Liter (for regular fuel, no premium but also not the cheaper E10). This is 5,31 Euros or 6,42 USD per gallon. And prices will rise to about 1,80 Euros per liter until 2030, mostly caused by extra taxation.
BUT: The costs for electricity went up about 80% during the last 15 years. Gas went up too, but "only" about 40%.
At 1,80 Euros per Liter we will have a rise of about 80% too, but in 24 years and not in 15 years.
And don´t you think that the prices for electricity will come down in the future!
Plus I don´t see the Chance for everybody to Charge electric cars. No chance! Many People park on the streets, with out own houses or even garages.
And as a Little side-note: I drove my current daily driver (a 2018 Smart car) for a bit more than 100 miles yesterday. This included Friday afternoon rush hour in one of Germanies worst cities regarding traffic, plus quite some miles on the German Autobahn at Maximum Speed (limited at 97mph).
My average fuel consumption yesterday was 5.0 liters per 100km or 47mpg. Not that bad imo...
Speed limit 97. Sigh. You're making me want to move to Germany, despite the cost of fuel and lektricity...
No speed limit there, but the car is limited at only 97 mph!Speed limit 97. Sigh. You're making me want to move to Germany, despite the cost of fuel and lektricity...
EQS with unique MBUX Hyperscreen: the big picture
Visually impressive, radically easy to operate and extremely eager to learn: the MBUX Hyperscreen is one of the major highlights for the EQS.
media.mbusa.com
Looks like new cars are less about driving experience and more about big screens, OLED....
It's funny you say that. I rented a Chrysler 300C about a year or so ago for a trip from Fresno to just north of SF. Having to into menus and sub menus to adjust heating, audio, heated seats etc was super distracting. If they're going to design cars that way, they might have to make them self driving.EQS with unique MBUX Hyperscreen: the big picture
Visually impressive, radically easy to operate and extremely eager to learn: the MBUX Hyperscreen is one of the major highlights for the EQS.
Looks like new cars are less about driving experience and more about big screens, OLED....
I lost the screen where I was able to turn off the "Auto Stop/Start" feature on the loaner car. Can't find it. Hundreds of swipes, presses and curses later. It's still MIA.
I [heart] in-car technology.
Auto Stop/Start sucks. I cannot express how much I loathe it. Seems like older models had an easy-to-find button to control it.
I [heart] in-car technology.
Auto Stop/Start sucks. I cannot express how much I loathe it. Seems like older models had an easy-to-find button to control it.
