People don't choose not to vote because it's difficult, they choose not to vote because they perceive that their vote doesn't count. And in a first past the post system like the US and the UK, they are correct, most of the votes are irrelevant, the only ones which really count are those in marginal seats.
The true solution to the turnout problem is to introduce a voting system where every vote really does count equally. That means proportional representation.
I agree totally, except that military gain *is* commercial gain. The only way to own something is to stand on it with some equivalent of a big stick and make sure no-one else claims to own it.
Just not on the roads. The concept is called Personal Rapid Transport.
e.g. http://www.atsltd.co.uk/
Why PRT?
1: It avoids roads. Roads are congested, you can have all the cars you like driven automatically but if they are all on the road at the same time you are going to be just as stuck. The average speed in London is 9mph for cars, 5mph for buses.
2: On demand, it's there when you want it, doesn't run on a schedule. Conventional public transport is only fully utilised during rush hour, otherwise it's largely empty which ultimately makes it only marginally more efficient than an unshared car.
3: Cheap. Because of the light weight requirements, a PRT system is cheaper than building new roads, far cheaper than rail or tram systems, literally a fraction of the cost.
4: Grid based rather than hub based. You can travel from any point to any point non stop and no changes, substantially more attractive than route based transport.
It's the only solution to today's transport problems, you can throw as much technology as you like at cars but fundamentally you are still going to be sitting waiting in traffic.
Well, the LiON and Li-Poly batteries in your laptop or mobile phone are bog standard chemical technology, but who do you have to buy replacements from?
The only reason you can't buy a generic replacement battery for your phone or laptop is that the profit margin on the proprietory interface to the equipment gives the manufacturer a truly astounding profit margin on them. This will also be true of the fuel cell refills.
It's "easy" to kill a tank. 10 inches of armour and a 20kg shoulder fired missile can still kill it.
You can power an exoskeleton suit with batteries, fuel cell, gas turbine, whatever but all that energy you are using ends up as heat anyway, wearing it you are going to be lit up like a christmas tree in the infrared. The number of machine gun rounds it can absorb will be near irrelevant because the opposition are going to be raining anti-tank armaments down on you.
The problem with self driving cars is that because the road environment is extremely complex, they are going to need massively sophisticated artificial intelligence systems in order to navigate safely. Remember, as well as the automated cars there will be human driven vehicles on the same road, the automated cars will also be stuck in traffic just like normally operated vehicles. It's going to be years (decades) before these are generally feasible.
A much cheaper and simpler system is the ATS ULTra system which uses 2m wide elevated platforms with 4 person electric drive pods or cars. It's already been tested successfully in the UK. They're (much) cheaper to install than standard roads, much cheaper than rail, light rail or even trams, cheaper to run than cars, busses, rail and have a higher average carrying capacity than all of the above as well to boot. It's a really nice solution, very much like the automated cabs which you mentioned.
Heathrow Airport is considering the system for getting passengers from the attached carparks to the terminals because the busses which do it at the moment are getting stuck in the highly congested road system round the airport.
In the V2G scenario, the cars do *NOT* generate electricity, they *only* buffer it. The electricity is still generated at power plant and the batteries in the cars are charged off peak so that during peak demand they can deliver it back to the grid removing the need for excess generating plant.
As an aside, large (300MW) CAES systems are already in operation in Germany and the US which store energy from off peak power generation for peak usage. There's also long running hydro storage and the heat storage system demonstrated by the Solar II system and then there's also the V2G concept. We're far from clueless.
The ridiculously quick ACP TZero for instance does 0->60 in 3.6 seconds, top speed of around 90mph and has a range of approx 300 miles with current fairly conventional LiON batteries.
The Electrum Spyder 0->60 in 7 secs also has a range of around 300 miles with existing LiON batteries, top speed of 80mph. In a couple of years there will be Li-S batteries around which can be retro-fitted to these vehicles which will more than double the range or reduce the weight increasing the performance.
And these are vehicles from small manufacturers, the GM EV1 would be driving nearly 400 miles per charge if upgraded to current LiON battery technology and approx 800 miles projected with Li-S batteries.
You don't see Stirling generators everywhere because they are not suitable for motor vehicles, most of the engines which power generators were principally designed for motor vehicles. I'll point you at a couple of Stirling generator sites, though Google would do as good a job if you want to research yourself:
http://www.stirlingtech.com/about/index.shtml
Current Lithium ion batteries now cost around the same as Lead Acid batteries and they are only getting cheaper. The batteries required to power a vehicle 200 - 300 miles are now only a few thousand dollars. Obviously the next generation of Li-S batteries will be initially expensive as existing lithium batteries were originally but they will come down in price exactly the same.
Pretty much what we have with the car, but it needs to be automated, like an automated taxi cab. Trains are too large and inflexible, conventional roads too complex without sophisticate artificial intelligence.
Motors in the wheel. Hmm, That'll increase the unsprung weight and give poorer handling, though I suppose it isn't exactly a sports car. Having the motors in the wheels might also increase reliability problems. I think i'd have gone with a Stirling generator though, much much quieter than Diesel, more efficient than a Diesel and can run on anything which generates heat which *has* to be a benefit in a military vehicle.
It'd be difficult to be less efficient than a Humvee.
The solution to gasoline is probably actually going to be the Lithium Sulphur battery. It's the technology which will give pure electric vehicles ranges of 600+ miles. And yeah, yeah limited duty cycles, only 500 -> 1000 charges, but 500 * 600 is 300,000 miles, lets say 200,000 miles to account for degradation.
Fairly straightforward, the batteries act as a buffer during peak hours which reduces the need for excess generating plant which stands idle most of the time but is brought online just to handle the peaks in demand.
Largely to avoid paying 80% tax on the fuel in the UK. You can use several pure vegetable oils in most recent diesels (which don't use rubber seals) with minor modifications. In fact you can buy kits and do it yourself.
It's quite an apt analogy actually, on any given track (except maybe those boring boring boring ovals) the F1 cars are seconds per lap faster than Indy cars. The problem is than even the cheapest F1 cars are ten times the price of an Indy car.
If you want the ultimate in performance you just bloody well have to pay for it. If average performance is acceptable then you can save a bundle.
Re:Fuel consumption would increase.
on
By Road and Rail?
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· Score: 1
"Trains have greatest efficiency at high capacity"
The chart on the linked page shows the load factor (percentage full) All of the vehicles have the greatest efficiency at high capacity and long distance and all are more efficient than the train but I take your point about the preponderance of cars running with a single passenger.
Having said that, trains only run at anything like full capacity during the rush hour, and outwith those periods they are almost empty. In fact, the average load factor for all commuter trains in the UK is only 33%. Inter city trains like the ones mentioned the average load factor is 52%. Peak rush hour in London the average load factor is 126%. Average load factor for intercity aircraft is 82%.
Um. 1) Shut the fuck up if you haven't got anything useful to say. 2) Knowing that 98% of the numpties sitting stationary in traffic on the road every day are commuting from home to work it makes sense to ask why they have to get into their car in order to make the journey.
You're making the assumption that trains are more efficient than cars. It's an invalid assumption, especially if the train also has to lug two tonnes of car per passenger.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/ ne ws/2004/06/21/ncar21.xml&sSheet=/news/2004/06/21/i xnewstop.html
Except, trains are less efficient.
on
By Road and Rail?
·
· Score: 1
"Also, for long distances and high speeds electrical traction is more efficient than any fossile fuel engine, so that's another disadvantage."
With Diesel hybrids coming along and pure electric vehicles now feasable due to improved battery technologies the case for passenger trains (as opposed to freight trains) is becoming poorer and poorer.
The problem with all these traffic management systems is that they are attempting to solve the wrong problem. What they should be doing is asking why there are so many people on the road at the same time all going in the same direction.
No, of course they don't. It's the over simplified "imagine a cow was a perfect sphere" type of engineering.
Even more importantly, motorcycles (or other ptv) given that they travel as fast as cars. Get it wrong on a bike and splat, change the speed of a bike on a bend and splat, you either run wide into oncoming traffic, fall into the verge or stand it up and again run into oncoming traffic.
Ticket/call/request management system
on
Are You Annoying?
·
· Score: 1
And when you close the calls you classify the problem. The stats can be usefull to see where money should be spent improving the systems.
e.g.
1: We had a crm system which would fuck up and cause problems regularly, we got loads of problem calls about it, it was terrible. The stats showed the problem and money was invested to upgrade the software and hardware, problem solved.
2: There was a prat who raised several tickets per week, often a couple a day if his environment didn't suit him. While he thought he knew what he was doing, he'd make changes and basically fuck up his account without keeping backups of his files. After a few meetings with his management to point out the number of tickets he was raising and the types of tickets, he was moved sideways into a position where he wasn't writing software anymore.
One of the best things you can do is say "Show me the problem, I need to see it to work out what it is". You obviously need to have some way of monitoring the user's desktop while they demonstrate the problem.
Slashdot Mirror
It wouldn't, of course.
People don't choose not to vote because it's difficult, they choose not to vote because they perceive that their vote doesn't count. And in a first past the post system like the US and the UK, they are correct, most of the votes are irrelevant, the only ones which really count are those in marginal seats.
The true solution to the turnout problem is to introduce a voting system where every vote really does count equally. That means proportional representation.
I agree totally, except that military gain *is* commercial gain. The only way to own something is to stand on it with some equivalent of a big stick and make sure no-one else claims to own it.
Well described here:
http://www.safespeed.org.uk/rttm.html
The 35% reductions they are talking about are spurious.
HTH
Just not on the roads. The concept is called Personal Rapid Transport.
e.g.
http://www.atsltd.co.uk/
Why PRT?
1: It avoids roads. Roads are congested, you can have all the cars you like driven automatically but if they are all on the road at the same time you are going to be just as stuck. The average speed in London is 9mph for cars, 5mph for buses.
2: On demand, it's there when you want it, doesn't run on a schedule. Conventional public transport is only fully utilised during rush hour, otherwise it's largely empty which ultimately makes it only marginally more efficient than an unshared car.
3: Cheap. Because of the light weight requirements, a PRT system is cheaper than building new roads, far cheaper than rail or tram systems, literally a fraction of the cost.
4: Grid based rather than hub based. You can travel from any point to any point non stop and no changes, substantially more attractive than route based transport.
It's the only solution to today's transport problems, you can throw as much technology as you like at cars but fundamentally you are still going to be sitting waiting in traffic.
Well, the LiON and Li-Poly batteries in your laptop or mobile phone are bog standard chemical technology, but who do you have to buy replacements from?
The only reason you can't buy a generic replacement battery for your phone or laptop is that the profit margin on the proprietory interface to the equipment gives the manufacturer a truly astounding profit margin on them. This will also be true of the fuel cell refills.
Is the same problems as inkjet refills. Who do you buy refills from?
It's "easy" to kill a tank. 10 inches of armour and a 20kg shoulder fired missile can still kill it.
You can power an exoskeleton suit with batteries, fuel cell, gas turbine, whatever but all that energy you are using ends up as heat anyway, wearing it you are going to be lit up like a christmas tree in the infrared. The number of machine gun rounds it can absorb will be near irrelevant because the opposition are going to be raining anti-tank armaments down on you.
The problem with self driving cars is that because the road environment is extremely complex, they are going to need massively sophisticated artificial intelligence systems in order to navigate safely. Remember, as well as the automated cars there will be human driven vehicles on the same road, the automated cars will also be stuck in traffic just like normally operated vehicles. It's going to be years (decades) before these are generally feasible.
A much cheaper and simpler system is the ATS ULTra system which uses 2m wide elevated platforms with 4 person electric drive pods or cars. It's already been tested successfully in the UK. They're (much) cheaper to install than standard roads, much cheaper than rail, light rail or even trams, cheaper to run than cars, busses, rail and have a higher average carrying capacity than all of the above as well to boot. It's a really nice solution, very much like the automated cabs which you mentioned.
Heathrow Airport is considering the system for getting passengers from the attached carparks to the terminals because the busses which do it at the moment are getting stuck in the highly congested road system round the airport.
No. They're making money by selling things.
HTH.
In the V2G scenario, the cars do *NOT* generate electricity, they *only* buffer it. The electricity is still generated at power plant and the batteries in the cars are charged off peak so that during peak demand they can deliver it back to the grid removing the need for excess generating plant.
As an aside, large (300MW) CAES systems are already in operation in Germany and the US which store energy from off peak power generation for peak usage. There's also long running hydro storage and the heat storage system demonstrated by the Solar II system and then there's also the V2G concept. We're far from clueless.
HTH
Power output depends what you're trying to do.
The ridiculously quick ACP TZero for instance does 0->60 in 3.6 seconds, top speed of around 90mph and has a range of approx 300 miles with current fairly conventional LiON batteries.
The Electrum Spyder 0->60 in 7 secs also has a range of around 300 miles with existing LiON batteries, top speed of 80mph. In a couple of years there will be Li-S batteries around which can be retro-fitted to these vehicles which will more than double the range or reduce the weight increasing the performance.
And these are vehicles from small manufacturers, the GM EV1 would be driving nearly 400 miles per charge if upgraded to current LiON battery technology and approx 800 miles projected with Li-S batteries.
You don't see Stirling generators everywhere because they are not suitable for motor vehicles, most of the engines which power generators were principally designed for motor vehicles. I'll point you at a couple of Stirling generator sites, though Google would do as good a job if you want to research yourself:
http://www.stirlingtech.com/about/index.shtml
Current Lithium ion batteries now cost around the same as Lead Acid batteries and they are only getting cheaper. The batteries required to power a vehicle 200 - 300 miles are now only a few thousand dollars. Obviously the next generation of Li-S batteries will be initially expensive as existing lithium batteries were originally but they will come down in price exactly the same.
Pretty much what we have with the car, but it needs to be automated, like an automated taxi cab. Trains are too large and inflexible, conventional roads too complex without sophisticate artificial intelligence.
u strans. htm
The concept is called Personal Rapid Transit.
Something like:
http://www.advancedpassengervehicles.com/a
or
http://www.atsltd.co.uk/
Motors in the wheel. Hmm, That'll increase the unsprung weight and give poorer handling, though I suppose it isn't exactly a sports car. Having the motors in the wheels might also increase reliability problems. I think i'd have gone with a Stirling generator though, much much quieter than Diesel, more efficient than a Diesel and can run on anything which generates heat which *has* to be a benefit in a military vehicle.
It'd be difficult to be less efficient than a Humvee.
The solution to gasoline is probably actually going to be the Lithium Sulphur battery. It's the technology which will give pure electric vehicles ranges of 600+ miles. And yeah, yeah limited duty cycles, only 500 -> 1000 charges, but 500 * 600 is 300,000 miles, lets say 200,000 miles to account for degradation.
Fairly straightforward, the batteries act as a buffer during peak hours which reduces the need for excess generating plant which stands idle most of the time but is brought online just to handle the peaks in demand.
I'm not convinced it's a starter though.
Largely to avoid paying 80% tax on the fuel in the UK. You can use several pure vegetable oils in most recent diesels (which don't use rubber seals) with minor modifications. In fact you can buy kits and do it yourself.
It's Formula 1 which race prototype machines.
It's quite an apt analogy actually, on any given track (except maybe those boring boring boring ovals) the F1 cars are seconds per lap faster than Indy cars. The problem is than even the cheapest F1 cars are ten times the price of an Indy car.
If you want the ultimate in performance you just bloody well have to pay for it. If average performance is acceptable then you can save a bundle.
"Trains have greatest efficiency at high capacity"
The chart on the linked page shows the load factor (percentage full) All of the vehicles have the greatest efficiency at high capacity and long distance and all are more efficient than the train but I take your point about the preponderance of cars running with a single passenger.
Having said that, trains only run at anything like full capacity during the rush hour, and outwith those periods they are almost empty. In fact, the average load factor for all commuter trains in the UK is only 33%. Inter city trains like the ones mentioned the average load factor is 52%. Peak rush hour in London the average load factor is 126%. Average load factor for intercity aircraft is 82%.
Um.
1) Shut the fuck up if you haven't got anything useful to say.
2) Knowing that 98% of the numpties sitting stationary in traffic on the road every day are commuting from home to work it makes sense to ask why they have to get into their car in order to make the journey.
"and fuel consumption would plunge."
/ ne ws/2004/06/21/ncar21.xml&sSheet=/news/2004/06/21/i xnewstop.html
You're making the assumption that trains are more efficient than cars. It's an invalid assumption, especially if the train also has to lug two tonnes of car per passenger.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=
Sorry, wrong. At 100% capacity, current Diesel engined cars are more efficient per passenger mile than the current generation of electric trains also at 100% capacity. The trains are also less efficient per passenger mile than a jet airliner. The best thing we could do with the rail system is rip it up and replace it with roads.
With Diesel hybrids coming along and pure electric vehicles now feasable due to improved battery technologies the case for passenger trains (as opposed to freight trains) is becoming poorer and poorer.
But why are they on the road, all at the same time? Coincidence? Every day? I don't think so.
The problem with all these traffic management systems is that they are attempting to solve the wrong problem. What they should be doing is asking why there are so many people on the road at the same time all going in the same direction.
No, of course they don't. It's the over simplified "imagine a cow was a perfect sphere" type of engineering.
Even more importantly, motorcycles (or other ptv) given that they travel as fast as cars. Get it wrong on a bike and splat, change the speed of a bike on a bend and splat, you either run wide into oncoming traffic, fall into the verge or stand it up and again run into oncoming traffic.
And when you close the calls you classify the problem. The stats can be usefull to see where money should be spent improving the systems.
e.g.
1: We had a crm system which would fuck up and cause problems regularly, we got loads of problem calls about it, it was terrible. The stats showed the problem and money was invested to upgrade the software and hardware, problem solved.
2: There was a prat who raised several tickets per week, often a couple a day if his environment didn't suit him. While he thought he knew what he was doing, he'd make changes and basically fuck up his account without keeping backups of his files. After a few meetings with his management to point out the number of tickets he was raising and the types of tickets, he was moved sideways into a position where he wasn't writing software anymore.
One of the best things you can do is say "Show me the problem, I need to see it to work out what it is". You obviously need to have some way of monitoring the user's desktop while they demonstrate the problem.