Soaring Petrol/Diesel Prices - are we being conned ?

[Bazj]

Shelley....

 

You really do live in cloud cuckoo land and it suprises me not one jot that the greens and even the Lib Dems do not get taken seriously (except by a band of doo gooding eco-warriors and swampy look-a-likes)

 

We are being told the country is heading into a recession and you are talking about spending billions upon billions of pounds on a full and countrywide transport network which in your eyes would see a supply of cheap to hire cars at EVERY single railway station in the country which means that every single station will have to have enough land adjacent or close by, not only to house all the cars belonging to commuters, but also the corresponding number of cars at the destination stations!

 

So then, in Shelley utopia and with all these g-wiz cars on the roads are they going to improve this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGjvt8tqRYc Would you take your kids in one of these cars?

 

Then we have the issue of insurance.... are you aware of the amount that a car hire company pays in insurance to be allowed to do "spot" hiring of cars? Imagine the implications to insurance if they are suddenly renting 5x more vehicles?

 

Then we have the issue of where these are made. India. Not exactly around the corner now is it? so how do we get them over here? well with a lack of electric boats and electric planes, I guess they have to come the eco-unfriendly route of airliner or cargo ship. Then, once they get to the UK no doubt they are stuck on a car transporter (Big truck thing with a whopping big diesel engine which does about 6 miles to the gallon) So the G-wiz doesn't get off to a great start!!

 

and then finally we have the issue which has been raised about the silent running of these electric shopping trolleys..... and your response was to get them to possibly play symphonies.....

 

Personally I have a better idea.... why not take one of those fairies that obviously live at the bottom of your garden and get it to fly in front of your g-wiz; pushing people out of the way as you go. Well granted it is a bit of a silly idea; but surely on a level with most of the stuff you have posted so far on this matter?

[Shelley]

So then, in Shelley utopia and with all these g-wiz cars on the roads are they going to...

You clearly haven't watched the original video, because if you did you would know that it is not about G-wiz's, so I will repost it.

 

 

Everyone, even Goin Green, knows that the G-wiz is just a junky foot in the door, experimental try it out on the cheap car. Shai Agassi is not talking about G-wiz's. The GM Volt is not a G-Wiz. The Tesla certainly isn't a G-wiz. You are the one with the fairies at the bottom of the garden if you think that.

[Dizzy]

Baz.. after seeing the crash test think GWiz cars should be banned

 

Top Gear - GWiz vs table Funny until you see the very last bit.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bv-RMbtKjLU&feature=related

 

and to be fair to Shelly here's a clip comparing elec, hybrid, veg oil and bioethanol cars.

 

[Dizzy]

Shelly...

 

You have some interesting ideas and a rather good imagination but I'm sure if you are honest with yourself you must admit there are just too many cons, obstacles and costs involved in what you are suggesting and everyone going electric.

 

Hybrid cars do sound more feasible though although they are very expensive to buy.

 

Refering back to the video clip of Shai Agassi you did not anwser my earlier question so here it is again.

 

he talked about the % of tax on these new cars. 72% on cars that use oil/petrol and only 10% if it's elec. Sounded good until he then said the 10% would then rise to 70% once people started to get on board. Maybe I just misunderstood though.

[observer]

Forget cars; they are an anarchaic mode of transport because they are so individualistic, perhaps a metaphore for a political doctrine?! Instead of bleating about growing congestion; perhaps we should be investing in public transport options, including a completley new electro-magnetic hover rail inter-city system (Edinburgh to London in 1hr20mins).

[Shelley]

Shelly...

 

You have some interesting ideas and a rather good imagination but I'm sure if you are honest with yourself you must admit there are just too many cons, obstacles and costs involved in what you are suggesting and everyone going electric.

Certainly the case if you have a can't do attitude. As to costs, you may have not got that far in the video, but he claims it is no more than that of a year's petrol. And offset it with the costs of staying on petrol, wars, oil spills, and on and on. This is no pipe dream either. They have signed contracts to do it in three places so far, Israel, Denmark, and the city of San Francisco.

Hybrid cars do sound more feasible though although they are very expensive to buy.

Plug in hybrids are the compromise that David Sandalow Freedom from Oil advocates, but he sees them as just a transition stage to fully electric. It's no doubt going to be some of both, and hydrogen (another way of storing electricity) will no doubt play a role as well. The real important thing to answer this wake-up call, and realize we don't need more oil.

 

As to safety considerations with the G-wiz, first as I said earlier, nobody is seriously proposing the G-wiz as the final answer. Criticize the real thing, not the cardboard mock-up.

 

But as for banning it, try that crash test on a bicycle or a motorcycle. Are you going to ban them? My answer is to not crash it. And the G-wiz has a number of safety advantages to compensate, like for example fantastic visibility (essentially no blind spots) and incredible maneuverability to help avoid those crashes. I love my G-wiz. Please don't take it away. Come for a ride in it some time, and you will appreciate how much fun that little car is. My Honda Civic feels like a tank after it.

Refering back to the video clip of Shai Agassi you did not anwser my earlier question so here it is again.

 

he talked about the % of tax on these new cars. 72% on cars that use oil/petrol and only 10% if it's elec. Sounded good until he then said the 10% would then rise to 70% once people started to get on board. Maybe I just misunderstood though.

I kind of wondered about that part too, but it sounds like it's only essential if you want to use car tax to fund beating up on the Palestinians. I would be curious to find out how the taxing works in Denmark or San Francisco.

[Shelley]

Forget cars; they are an anarchaic mode of transport because they are so individualistic, perhaps a metaphore for a political doctrine?! Instead of bleating about growing congestion; perhaps we should be investing in public transport options, including a completley new electro-magnetic hover rail inter-city system (Edinburgh to London in 1hr20mins).

Yes, of course, that too. As I said, we need to cut way down on car use. Bring it all out.

[McBain]

MagLev rail systems require an appalling amount of energy to run - would probably require a dedicated nuclear station all of its own

[Paul Kennedy]

If every large town had a Metro, no doubt people would take to public transport, or maybe not? Manchester has the tram system and still people drive there.

Lack of incentive somewhere.

 

I understand that the folks will be getting an "incentive" ....a congestion charge...and if it is like London's most of the money goes to the people who operate it on behalf of Transport for London, Capita PLC if my memory serves me correctly, with very little going to provide additional public transport.

[Dizzy]

 

As to safety considerations with the G-wiz, first as I said earlier, nobody is seriously proposing the G-wiz as the final answer. Criticize the real thing, not the cardboard mock-up.

 

But as for banning it, try that crash test on a bicycle or a motorcycle. Are you going to ban them? My answer is to not crash it. And the G-wiz has a number of safety advantages to compensate, like for example fantastic visibility (essentially no blind spots) and incredible maneuverability to help avoid those crashes. I love my G-wiz. Please don't take it away. Come for a ride in it some time, and you will appreciate how much fun that little car is. My Honda Civic feels like a tank after it.

 

I don't like motorbikes Shelly and I wont allow my family to ride on the roads on their bicycles as the roads around here with the idiotic drivers make it a very scarey and unsafe passtime

 

As for your answer of simply not crashing a G-wiz.... I'm sure most drivers do not intentionally crash their cars whatever the size

 

You obviously love your G-wiz and it does sound cute but I happen to like, and feel very safe, in the cars we have. I wont tell you what they are cos you would have nightmares but yours would probably fit in the boot of one of them

[Bazj]

I wont tell you what they are cos you would have nightmares but yours would probably fit in the boot of one of them

 

Hope its a 4 litre Range Rover Turbo or something!!

[Dizzy]

I wont tell you what they are cos you would have nightmares but yours would probably fit in the boot of one of them

 

Hope its a 4 litre Range Rover Turbo or something!!

 

Can't afford one of those

 

It's a similar size though and is a 3 ltr turbo 4x4 weighing about 2 tons. Not good I know Other one is smaller though I promise

[Bazj]

Don't apologise..... get a bigger one!!

[observer]

McB: as you may know, sections of a MagLev rail are switched off, until the precise moment the train enters that section. What one would need to analyse, is the energy consumption per person as against energy consumption of everyone using a car and ending up grid-locked.

[McBain]

You're neglecting the sheer cost of installing such a system in the first place Obs . Given the amazing increases that Prescott and his ilk have managed to make in delivering a more effective public transport system I wouldn't trust this Government with extracting a fart from a tin of beans, never mind installation of a new mass-transit system based on proven technology from Japan.

 

Of course, the planning system would not be a problem since local Government would not be involved in making the decision - it would be the purview of the Major Infrastructure Projects panel (or whatever it's called).

[observer]

Accept the cost point McB; it would be enormous, even if we assume that such a mega-infrastructure project could be delivered in the UK, on time and within the original cost estimates. However, it is the only solution to mass transit, aside from travel reduction measures; as our roads will continue to seize up.

[asperity]

We buy it off the French, like we buy a lot of our electricity already. They, unlike us, have loads of nuclear power stations!!!

[observer]

...... which cost an arm and a leg to commission and decommission, and will leave a legacy of irradiated waste, buried underground to threaten our water table and future generations.

[asperity]

Well thats for the French to worry about. And nuclear power stations, as well as being reliable, cost a fifth of what wind farms do. And wind farms will have to be decommissioned at some time in the not too distant future and all the materials disposed of (if they haven't already blown away)

[observer]

Alas, I personally don't support "wind farms"; but rather hydro and tidal schemes; which have the added effect of providing fresh water supplies, leisure (sailing) venues, and giving some control over flood risks.

[Geoffrey Settle]

I don't see why we can't have as many different forms of alternative energy as possible after all we have a variety of weathers that match the different sources of power - let's get the egg heads inventing and improving our options because that's what we are good at.

[disgusted]

Just because you travel from Portsmouth to Aberdeen, doesn't mean you are any nearer your destination than if you travelled from Dundee to Aberdeen. You're still stuck in Aberdeen station rather than your final destination, you'll still have exactly the same problems once your feet hit the platform.

You didn't read the earlier post that he was responding to.

All it takes to get rid of it is good parking at the train station and convenient inexpensive car rental at the destination station.

Typically for a long distance trip, for the beginning and end of the trip, it's more flexible to have your own car, but for the middle bit where you're just sitting with a bunch of other cars on a motorway all going the same way, you don't have any flexibility anyway, so you might as well be in some form of public transportation. The tricky bit is finding a way to make that transition from one transport mode to the other as seamless as possible. Of course there are futuristic fancy ideas like trains that disconnect, but I'm trying to think simple do it tomorrow sort of technology. And for that, as you suggest, the beginning and end of the trip are the problematic parts, because of the inconvenience of changing modes of transport, and such things as adjusting your schedule to that of the train. But as the distance gets longer such delays become relatively less important, particularly if they are more than compensated for by a faster speed in the middle bit, because you're not stuck in traffic.

 

Yes, I agree, the beginning and end bits are the challenge. But it's no good saying they are impossible when not even the smallest bit of effort is being made on them. Perhaps a private effort could be made. I've been told about house swapping clubs, where you go on holiday by staying in somebody house while they stay in yours. I know someone who did it with his family when he was a child. He said you correspond with them a good while first, so you come to trust them. I'm still not sure about it, but he said they never had any problems. So how about a car swapping club? You know, you get to your destination, and there are all these cars parked there taking up space and paying parking fees just when you need a car. Seems such a waste, there must be a way to devise a system to take advantage of it.

 

And by the way, I'm well qualified to talk about long distance car travel. I've driven the 3000 miles across the US once, alone. 400 miles a day, staying in Motel 6's and eating at Dennys. Get up, have breakfast at Dennys, drive 4 hours, stop for lunch in a town you will never remember, drive another 4 hours, go for a swim in the pool, have dinner at Dennys, go to bed, repeat. Out on the I80 sometimes had the same car in front of me for a hundred miles, and once practically made friends with the kids in one of them, playing shooting games.

 

About a year later, I took 2/3 of the same trip (Chicago to San Francisco) in a train. That's a trip I will be telling stories about forever.

Well done on taking a long distance trip once. You're an expert right enough.

 

Ok, let's try a different tack, I travel to London from Leamington on business frequently, I take the train for two reasons - 1. I'm not wearing out my own car for business. 2. The underground, you get from A to B without any hassle whatsoever.

 

I also travel from Warrington to Leamington Monday & Friday as I work there. I drive, and will always drive. 1. The warrington station is a few miles from Callands, not convenient like the underground. 2. I need my car midweek to commute from my flat outside Coventry to Leamington, because a) I don't want to take over an hour to travel the 9 miles in the company of smelly commuters I have no desire to get to know, and because there is no public transport from where I stay to LEamington, I would have to go back into Coventry, then another bus/train to Leamington & 3. There is no station in the place where my flat is, so coming and going to there from Warrington also involves various taxis or buses at the other end. No thanks to all of that.

 

 

Also your long distance analogy doesn't hold up either, it's much much quicker for me to drive from Warrington to Aberdeen than it is to take the train, and cheaper too.

 

 

That is why public transport will never be the right answer, because it is simply far too inconvenient. Once the tree huggers understand this, then maybe we can get on with finding a proper solution instead of trying to ban the car.

 

As for car swapping, that is LOL funny. Let some muggins drive my car? Have you driven lately, have you seen some of the clowns on the road? No way would I let half of them loose in my car. And insurance? Wow, how high would that be, insure your car for random strangers? I can only say well done for thinking outside the box, but your idea is ridiculous.

[Bazj]

Well I did

Warrington to Dresden in 2 days.

Warrington to Perpignan in one day and

Warrington to Palma in Majorca in 2 days.... all easily accessible by air but no where near as much fun as driving!

 

We do tend to get the train now and last year we did Warrington to Brittany via Paris on Virgin, Eurostar and TGV.... another great adventure; particularly for two 5/6 year olds! We rented a car when we got to Brittany partly because I don't think they have buses over there!

[observer]

Ironically, the global market and congestion are deciding these matters for us: escalating fuel prices are forcing many car drivers onto public transport or bikes; car companies are now reducing production of SUVs etc and grid lock will do the rest. So choice will only exist (as ever) for those who can afford it. The problem is: Government have done nothing to fundementally improve and reduce costs of public transport EG; remember Prezzer's "turning buses into greyhounds" by positive discrimination in the form of bus lanes and priority greens at traffic lights etc?! As for rail, privatisation has created an absolute dog's breakfast of uncordinated companies, all with someone else to blame and still subsidised by the taxpayer, with the sharholders skimming off the top. There are three basic modal requirements for rail: fast inter-city, local commuter and goods; which arguably can't be satisfactorily accomodated on the same track system; thus we need an ultra-fast inter-city system built seperately from existing track and possibly a move to MagLev technology to do it? Production of food and other goods, at or near the points of consumption; to reduce food and goods miles. We need to look at "people movement" regardless of mode; and this means integrated systems with smooth and easy transfer from one mode to another; which could mean cheaper taxis/bike rental/car rental/buses etc. Unfortunately, the required imagination, innovation and political will arn't there; and we'll continue to sleep walk into grid lock, until we all start begging for an alternative.

[tonymaillman]

I'll stick to bikes ! ....... the ones with engines of course