Maker Pro
Maker Pro

Car companies still cant get it right

E

Eeyore

Jan 1, 1970
0
Baloney. The whole St.Albans thing was just your attempt to weasel out
of a BS declaration, which in turn was made to support your silly
argument that owning 2 cars is difficult or impossible. You're wasting
your time projecting your limitations onto others anyway, since few of
them are as helpless.

Doesn't have to be St Albans. More or less most places in SE England are
very expensive both due to convenience of location and a decent jobs market.

We don't have 'hillbillies' here.

Graham
 
E

Eeyore

Jan 1, 1970
0
Vaughn said:
Our conclusion; SUVs give inexperienced drivers a false sense of security in
bad conditions.

I thought it was in ALL conditions actually.

Graham
 
E

Eeyore

Jan 1, 1970
0
(PeteCresswell) said:
Per Vaughn Simon:

I'd concur.... and add that 4wd, adding some 500+ pounds to the
vehicles weight, has got to compromise stopping and cornering.

It's basic physics. Consider they're likely to have a much higher C of G too.

Graham
 
S

Steve Ackman

Jan 1, 1970
0
Don't you have contractors with specialist vehicles to collect your
trash ? We do in the UK.

The US is a large place... so the answer is,
"It depends on where you live."
Actually, I misspoke. Very few places have "dumps"
(landfills) anymore. Most towns have replaced them with
a transfer station where trash is hydraulically compacted
in a large steel truckable container which is taken off
to be dumped into a landfill "somewhere else" when full.
This also means that the old habit of "dump picking" is
a thing of the past.

Transfer stations generally have some degree of
recycling ranging from a minimum of aluminum cans to
that plus motor oil, many plastics, paper, steel cans,
glass, yard waste, corrugated cardboard, clothing, books...

Waste disposal methods in a few of the places we've
lived, off the top of my head:

Where we owned the home:
El Paso, Texas - Curbside pickup
Berwick, Maine - Transfer Station (town sticker)
Middleburg, Florida - Transfer Station (pay by the bag)
Strafford, New Hampshire - Transfer Station (town sticker)
Show Low, Arizona - Roadside pickup (private contractor) OR
haul-it-yourself to transfer station
Cass Lake, Minnesota - County Transfer Station-30 miles (sticker)
Lisbon, NH - Transfer Station (sticker + buy special orange
bags in two stores in town @ $15/10)

Where we rented a house:
Idenheim, Germany - Curbside pickup (town)
Lawton, Oklahoma - Curbside pickup (town)
Gallup, New Mexico - Curbside pickup (town)
Gainesville, FL - Landlord's dumpster (1/2 mile)
Archer, FL - Streetside pickup + recyclables
San Carlos, AZ - Curbside pickup (tribe)
Whiteriver, AZ - Curbside pickup (tribe)
Shiprock, NM - Curbside pickup (tribe)

Where we rented an apartment:
Portsmouth, NH - dumpster
Dörnigheim, Germany - dumpster
Nürnberg, Germany - dumpster
Lakeland, FL - dumpster

Basically, if you live "in town" there is often a
truck that comes around, often paid for on your
water/sewer bill. If you live "in the country" you
usually haul your own... payment for use of the transfer
station varies VERY widely. Apartment complexes generally
have dumpsters (skips), so the residents themselves
only have to get their trash as far as the parking lot.
 
Doesn't have to be St Albans.

Too bad you foolishly wrote "UK" originally, without any
qualification. Regardless, one doesn't have to be a millionaire to own
multiple vehicles *anywhere* in the UK, and it's pigheaded to keep
pushing such a ludicrous claim.
More or less most places in SE England are
very expensive both due to convenience of location and a decent jobs market.

In your other post you appear to be lamenting the lack of work, and
mention lawyers dropping their rates by half. But here you're calling
it a "decent jobs market". Seems you have so many opinions to post
that you're having trouble keeping track of them.
We don't have 'hillbillies' here.

Oh brother. Typical fugly old Saab snob.

Wayne
 
S

Steve Ackman

Jan 1, 1970
0
In <744ca311-5f92-4d57-b165-ca080ddfbeb5@m36g2000hse.googlegroups.com>,
You need to learn to feel your reserve of traction and train your
reflexes to react instinctively the instant you exceed it. The advice
to "steer into the skid" is only a distraction if you haven't
practiced losing and regaining control. 5 - 10 MPH is enough to learn.
The problem is finding a safe place to practice where the owners won't
call the police.

My first "learn to skid" experience was on Pease in
the '70s on an old section of asphalt that was pretty
much unused. Took the '66 VW bus out there and did
doughnuts, hard brakes, gradually faster circles, etc.,
just drove around on both sides of the traction limit
to find out where it was. Each vehicle is different,
so whenever we've lived in snow areas, I always take
any new car out to some empty parking lot especially
the first winter we have it.
Town rec area (baseball diamond/swimming pool) is
generally good for an empty unplowed lot.
 
T

Trygve Lillefosse

Jan 1, 1970
0
Because sometimes we need that capability and we don't want to buy two cars.
These days I rarely need to go further than 10 miles from my house, but just two
weeks ago we took a trip in excess of 1000 miles. Sorry, but a pure EV just
won't do.

It wont do for you.
But what about those who dont need the range? Why should they be
"forced" to have the same range as you?
 
T

Trygve Lillefosse

Jan 1, 1970
0
Have you ever considered selling double glazing, or maybe 'siding' might be
more appropriate in the USA.

Double glazing makes a lot of sense wherever there is winther. Here in
Norway you will not find a reasonably new house with single glazing.
Many new houses have tripple glazing or double glazing with special
glass that is almost as good as tripple glazing.

When I lived in London, I rented a relatively new flat with single
glazing. I could never quite figure out why it was not double.
 
V

Vaughn Simon

Jan 1, 1970
0
Trygve Lillefosse said:
Sorry, but a pure EV just
won't do.

It wont do for you.
But what about those who dont need the range? Why should they be
"forced" to have the same range as you?
I can't imagine where that idea came from. I never implied any such thing.
The rest of the world can buy whatever they want.

That said, short of a massive long-term gasoline shortage, I can't imagine a
significant market existing in the USA for a short-range EV that costs as much
as (or more than) a much more capable IC vehicle.


--
Vaughn

.........................................................
Nothing personal, but if you are posting through Google Groups I may not receive
your message. Google refuses to control the flood of spam messages originating
in their system, so on any given day I may or may not have Google blocked. Try
a real NNTP server & news reader program and you will never go back. All you
need is access to an NNTP server (AKA "news server") and a news reader program.
You probably already have a news reader program in your computer (Hint: Outlook
Express). Assuming that your Usenet needs are modest, use
http://news.aioe.org/ for free and/or http://www.teranews.com/ for a one-time
$3.95 setup fee.
..........................................................

Will poofread for food.
 
E

Eeyore

Jan 1, 1970
0
Trygve said:
It wont do for you.
But what about those who dont need the range? Why should they be
"forced" to have the same range as you?

No-one's forcing them, but even those who travel shorter distances daily typically
will from time to time have the need for unexpectedly long journeys. This is where
the PHEV really scores.

Graham
 
E

Eeyore

Jan 1, 1970
0
Trygve said:
Double glazing makes a lot of sense wherever there is winther.

The current consensus is that it's massively oversold in the UK and for a
fraction of the prive you could insulate your roof to a VERY high standard and
get better results.

Here in
Norway you will not find a reasonably new house with single glazing.
Many new houses have tripple glazing or double glazing with special
glass that is almost as good as tripple glazing.

Well you are of course rather more northerly than us but you still have to have
some air circulation in a house or the air will become excessively humid, smelly
and foul. How do you arrange this ?

When I lived in London, I rented a relatively new flat with single
glazing. I could never quite figure out why it was not double.

I think double is compulsory now at or at least 'low-E' glass.

When I had my own windows replaced (which are Victorian sliding sash types),
there was only one compnay I knew of doing them double glazed and they cost a
fortune. Probably about 2,000 Euro each at today's prices. So instead I had them
made by a local company and fitted with 6mm laminated glass. Not quite as
effective but better than the about 2mm glass that was there before. We had to
make special weights to balance the sashes. The noise reduction was amazing too,
not to mention potential burglar resistance.

Graham
 
E

Eeyore

Jan 1, 1970
0
Vaughn said:
I can't imagine where that idea came from. I never implied any such thing.
The rest of the world can buy whatever they want.

That said, short of a massive long-term gasoline shortage, I can't imagine a
significant market existing in the USA for a short-range EV that costs as much
as (or more than) a much more capable IC vehicle.

Or IC/EV i.e PHEV vehicle.

Graham
 
E

Eeyore

Jan 1, 1970
0
Jim said:
I saw exactly the same automated pickup trash containers we have now
in NH on the 2006 "Doctor Who".

The Welsh seem to be really serious about preserving their language.

For about 5% of the population.

Signs were bilingual with English below in smaller letters.

They're odd people. And it was a Welshman who told me that !

Graham
 
D

daestrom

Jan 1, 1970
0
Balanced View wrote:
I live in the snow belt along Lake Ontario,where it is not uncommon to
get two feet of snow overnight and I've
have never been stuck with just front wheel drive. In many cases 4wd
just gives people a false sense of
security and gets them stuck twice as deep ;~) I've lost track of how
many times I've seen suv's in ditches on the
way home on roads that only had a foot of snow on them....

Ditto...

Oswego NY, we get plenty of snow, yet I only use 2-wheel drive. Of course,
I grew up driving in weather as bad as this in upper Michigan, so it's sort
of second-nature to me.

But a two-wheel drive Tucson at least lets me see over the snowbanks ;-)

daestrom
 
D

daestrom

Jan 1, 1970
0
Jim said:
The weight adds as much to traction as to inertia. Vehicles from ATVs
to plow trucks have roughly similar stopping and cornering ability it
they have tires with similar coefficients of friction.

But the coefficient of friction for tires varies widely when the roads are
covered in snow. A heavy truck can compress the snow under the tires and
get a different 'grip' than a light car.

Cars with really wide radial tires have a harder time than little compacts
with the very skinny stock tires.

And of course when the snow starts getting over a foot or so, the issue of
ground-clearance comes into play. More than once I've 'snowplowed' with the
air-dam and bumper of my car to get through a drift.

But if the snow's really deep, the weight of the car starts getting
supported by the snow under the frame and the tires spin quite freely. Then
the only thing to do is shovel snow out from under the middle of the car to
get the weight back on the wheels. BTDT :-/

daestrom
 
P

(PeteCresswell)

Jan 1, 1970
0
Per daestrom:
And of course when the snow starts getting over a foot or so, the issue of
ground-clearance comes into play. More than once I've 'snowplowed' with the
air-dam and bumper of my car to get through a drift.

Once I had chains on my VW bug and the snow was deep enough that
the front end was consistently floating on top of the snow and I
was steering (actually more like guiding) the vehicle with the
rudder effect of the front wheels.
 
T

Trygve Lillefosse

Jan 1, 1970
0
The current consensus is that it's massively oversold in the UK and for a
fraction of the prive you could insulate your roof to a VERY high standard and
get better results.

We do both.:)

I live in a house from the 50's, and there are some single glass
windows. The roof is insulated, and I would like to change the single
glazed windows. But as it costs quite a bit, and requires labour, I
opted for a heatpump instead.
Well you are of course rather more northerly than us but you still have to have
some air circulation in a house or the air will become excessively humid, smelly
and foul. How do you arrange this ?

We arrange it by not having a lot of rugs all over the house.:)
There are ventilators that can be regulated. If that is not enough,
you could always open the windows a few minutes. Also we use a bit of
firewood wich draws air trough the pipe.

Many solutions, but I guess it depends on the house/flat.

I think double is compulsory now at or at least 'low-E' glass.

We recently had or are going to get stricter building codes on
insulation. Think the insulation has to be increased by 20% compared
to previous standards.
When I had my own windows replaced (which are Victorian sliding sash types),
there was only one compnay I knew of doing them double glazed and they cost a
fortune. Probably about 2,000 Euro each at today's prices. So instead I had them
made by a local company and fitted with 6mm laminated glass. Not quite as
effective but better than the about 2mm glass that was there before. We had to
make special weights to balance the sashes. The noise reduction was amazing too,
not to mention potential burglar resistance.

€2000 sounds wild.... But I guess thats why double glazing got such a
bad name in UK.:)

I guess the selling point/pricing is the savings in heating, not the
actual cost to make the product. Used to be that way with heatpumps
over here.
 
T

Trygve Lillefosse

Jan 1, 1970
0
I can't imagine where that idea came from. I never implied any such thing.
The rest of the world can buy whatever they want.

My original posting was about how people who owned EV1s realy liked
them and wanted to keep them. (Or something along those lines.)
Not that the car was suited for all.
That said, short of a massive long-term gasoline shortage, I can't imagine a
significant market existing in the USA for a short-range EV that costs as much
as (or more than) a much more capable IC vehicle.

I agree on that. I also think that for EVs to reach a mass market they
need to go 70MPH and be as secure as an ICE car.
It will probarbly never be anything but a niche car as there are
probarbly series hybrids for sale within a few years.
 
T

Trygve Lillefosse

Jan 1, 1970
0
No-one's forcing them, but even those who travel shorter distances daily typically
will from time to time have the need for unexpectedly long journeys. This is where
the PHEV really scores.

I agree that a PHEV gives much more versatility. But my original
statement was that the people who owned EV1s liked them and wanted to
keep them. Then you started talking about range and stating that the
car was ugly.

PHEVs are great and will probarbly be a mass product.
EVs are also great for its use, but will probarbly not be a mass
product.
 
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