kgwilson

If anyone has read about Hitlers downfall, it took a long time before he was able to accept the inevitable that began in mid 1943 or even earlier with Stalingrad & Rommels failure in North Africa. Towards the end in his bunker under the Reichstag he became completely irrational & had absolutely no concern for the German people. I don't think Putin has the same stranglehold over his lackeys as Hitler did but they would do well to look at history & deal with him before something similar happens.

Swappable batteries will certainly have their place in the future electrification of road transport. This is already evident with the modification of prime movers by Janus where they replace the diesel engine & gearbox with electric motors & swappable batteries. They are planning swap depots on the east Coast & the battery will power an electric truck with a B-train from Sydney to Coffs. The battery takes about 4 minutes to swap. The new battery will get the load to Brisbane. Apparently the cost of electricity to charge the batteries is less that half that of diesel. Most EV owners charge their cars at home & as 89% the population live in Urban areas a similar percentage of cars will be changed at home and used most of the time in urban areas. But everyone has holidays and reasons to go on long road trips, so fast charge stations will eventually pop up everywhere. Getting the energy to them will be the main problem. I would think that local battery storage charged via wind & solar and maybe backup sources will enable capacity to be maintained. When there is a holiday weekend & there is a mass exodus from the cities to beaches & holiday places, most will get there without the need to charge the batteries. Then they have overnight & most of the time they are where they have gone to, to recharge for the trip home.

These batteries are now old technology. BYDs blade batteries and others will see these disappear soon. Even Tesla is putting BYD blade batteries in its Tesla Model 3 in China even after they announced their new 4680 replacement for the 18650 which is essentially just a bigger round battery. CATL the worlds largest battery manufacturer has released its Qilin CTP (cell to pack) battery and it is being installed in the Zeeker a Chinese EV. The Qilin battery has an energy density of 255 Wh/kg providing 1000km of range for the Zeekr 009 MPV. This energy density is 13% higher than the ne Tesla 4680 battery. Not only that, due to its liquid cooling system the battery can be charged from 10 to 80% in 10 minutes. This provides as fast if not faster refuelling than petrol stations. But GAC who most people have never heard of is even faster. Its new pouch battery can charge from 0 to 80% in 8 minutes. Check out the video from Fully Charged below.

All of the highway patrol & most other police vehicles have cameras that scan the number plate & instantly report to the driver whether the car is registered or not, now that we no longer have rego stickers on the windscreen. A tail light or other minor thing could easily be an automated ticket to the offender, withdrawn if the tail light is fixed within 7 days & evidence produced. There are a multide of very minor issues that could be dealt with by technology and encouragement. This would probably need a bit of a culture change in the law enforcement area but it is possible. It is a bit like CASA & the NZCAA. One acts as like coach while the other acts like a policeman. No prizes for guessing which is which.

I've been trying to get a round tuit for years without success so it is not a recent supply chain issue. I almost got one during the pandemic & then just as I thought I had got one it disappeared.

I got my drivers licence when I was 15 in 1965. My father went to the local council offices and asked for a driving licence & they wrote one out & he paid the 1 shilling fee & that was it. That was in NZ & of course times have changed, cars have got more powerful & faster and there are as many on the roads as there are people in the country now. I did a defensive driving course when I was still at high school & later skid training in landrovers when I did my national service. Too many young drivers have no idea how to control the loss of traction as they have never had any training in this regard. I was in NZ recently visiting relatives & we were discussing this issue. Now the driving age limit there is 16 & you get a leaner licence & can apply for a restricted licence at 16 1/2 & you can drive between 5am & 10pm but must have a supervisor with you to carry passengers at any time. This lasts for 10 years. You can apply for a full licence at age 18 if you have held a restricted licence for at least 18 months reduced to 6 months if you have attended and pass an approved advanced driving course. Then you must pass the full drivers licence test. There are no such things as red or green P plates & the system allows for young people to get to their place of work in most cases & seems to try to address the issues of young bullet proof males showing how much testosterone they have to mates and girls. I have no idea how effective their system is.

Lets hope it is the beginning of the end. Hopefully the Ukrainian supply lines are able to keep up with their advance, the West keeps up its support in armaments, training and technology & Putin gets his comeuppance. I always liked Winston Churchills speech after the victory in North Africa in 1943. "This is not the end, it is not even the beginning of the end, it is perhaps the end of the beginning". It was a pretty prophetic and historically accurate statement. That video of the Russian tank trying to escape sums up their attitude to a tee.

The coastline is pretty spectacular. One trip back from Christchurch about 40 years ago was not one I would like to repeat. A mate (who owned an aircraft maintenance business and I had flown from Hamilton down to Dunedin to deliver a 172 that had been fully repaired after a crash. He flew the ex crasher & I the business 172. We then returned that day to Christchurch where we stayed for a couple of days & attended a pretty wild 21st birthday party. We left to go home & got about 80NM up the coast & turned around & went back to Christchurch as the marginal weather turned to custard. The next day it was better but not much. We called Wellington not far from Blenheim & requested radar coverage across the strait & they obliged. We could see the odd squall ahead & tried to avoid them but ended up getting hammered in one. I could not see a thing for a short while as the rain was so intense. Finally we got to the bottom of the North Island & headed up the West coast lower than the hills to the East which was where the wind was now coming from because the ceiling had got quite low. About half way to Mana Island just off the coast from Titahi Bay we hit some of the worst turbulence in my flying career. I thought I had my seat belt fairly tight (they are only lap & sash) but my head hit the roof. I think my comment was something like faaaaaarrrrkkk. The noises from the airframe were indescribable. BUT once past Porirua & Pukerua Bay, Paekakareki where I'd flown Hang Gliders a few years before it was perfect.

Anywhere with a generally stiff prevailing wind has shrubs & small trees that grow downwind. Chicago is called the Windy City in the US as it gets some mean North winds that blow down lake Michigan but Boston is actually the windiest. Wellington has got to be one of the windiest. I have flown a 172 in there on a completely calm day of which there are few. I have flown in & out commercially numerous times and hair raising is praising the experience.

I grew up in NZ and billy carts were called dobbins. I never knew why till now when I looked it up. A Dobbin is a quiet plodding work horse or in NZ a cart used to move loose wool in a woolshed. We made them out of bits of old timber with an apple box with one end removed to sit in. The wheels were resurrected from old prams. I remember finding a pram (perambulator) with ball bearing wheels at the tip & I was then able to beat everyone once I put those on my dobbin.

Virtually no strong Westerlies this year at all. I flew every week in August.

Single electric motor front wheel drive EV must have some form of CV joint and differential & at least a diff at the rear. Electronic traction control though is much easier and far more precise. In wheel motors are not a new idea. The Lohner-Porsche of 1900 had in wheel electric motors. The Lightyear One has electric motors in each wheel. Also the Aptera, the most efficient electric car yet developed & about to hit the market has in wheel electric motors. With a 100 kWH battery it has real world range of 1600 km. In wheel electric motors are lighter more efficient & get rid of transmission issues but pose other problems. These though are being overcome as we speak. The issues are detailed in the link below though it is over a year old and weight issues have already been addressed.. https://evcentral.com.au/why-dont-evs-have-four-in-wheel-motors/

Zager & Evans prophetic song from 1969. I don't see mankind even getting to the start (2525).

I have 3 heat pumps. One for my hot water (which runs off the solar power generated from the PV panels on the roof) & the other 2 are inverter heat pumps more commonly called air conditioning units in Australia. Originally air conditioners were simple refrigeration units that turned off & on when the thermostat told them to, only had a single operation function and it was either on or off. Once technology got hold of them they became heat pumps able to work both ways (cold or hot output) and the inclusion of an inverter enabled the power requirement to reduce as the desired temperature setting was reached. My main Mitsubishi Electric heat pump produces 7.1 KW of cooling energy from the input of 2.01 KW of electric energy & 8.0 KW of heat energy from the input of 2.09 of electric energy. Once the desired temperature is reached the inverter enables the input energy requirement to be reduced. Cooling minimum input energy is 480 watts cooling & 420 watts heating. It is also possible to direct the exhaust cold air from the water heater in to the house in summer to cool the house while it is heating the water.

Sodium is heavier than Lithium but given that the Lithium makes up only around 5% of the total battery weight the extra weight is not that much of a disadvantage and energy density of sodium is about 160 Wh/Kg compared to lithiums 200 Wh/Kg. Both are improving with next generation Sodium Ion expected to reach more than 200Wh/Kg so the ball park is set to get very level except price which is Lithium Ions downfall.

Personally I think lithium is about at its peak now and due to the resource being relatively scarce and increasingly more expensive, sodium will replace it within a few years. Salt is half chlorine and half sodium so it is readily available and very cheap. https://www.dw.com/en/the-batteries-of-the-future-sodium-instead-of-lithium/a-54707542 Then there is Brisbane based Graphene Manufacturing Group (GMG) that has produced a graphene aluminium ion battery that charges 70 times faster than lithium, lasts 3 times longer and is better for the environment. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWJSGKezHfA&t=9s

I think there are plenty of older age group Russians who yearn for the old Soviet days when everyone was poor but they had a roof over their head and were well fed. I agree though that there are probably few if any of the Putin worshipers who have the appropriate skills or balls to pick up his mantle. The younger generation who have embraced Western culture and its trappings are mostly keeping quiet to stay out of jail but will pretty quickly jump back on the freedom wagon if the wheels fall off Putins. The wealthy will have a bob each way. Whatever comes to pass they like corruption as it enables them to stay rich & get even richer.

At present it doesn't matter that Utes and SUVs are the most popular vehicle types purchased new in Australia because the demand for what is currently available (BEV cars & SUVs) far outstrips the supply anyway. A friend has placed a deposit on a Kia EV6 but won't get it till 2023. As for the mining industry among others BHP, Rio Tinto, FMG & others are investing in the electrification of their businesses starting with electric land cruisers, dump trucks and excavators.

That is if you believe there is a god. Putin has to as his aggressive efforts to date have seen his armed forces severely weakened and his country and people suffering as well as being ostracised by almost everyone except Kim & Xi.

From 2035 there will not be many new ICE cars to choose from. There will continue to be quite a demand for oil for use in the chemical & plastics industry. Aramco & others are making their hay now while their sun still shines. The oil price may drop but it will never get down to prices we knew last century. Even when the price of crude went negative during the pandemic the average price at the pump never went below $1.29 a litre. By 2027 the costs of transport and refining will most likely mean prices well North of $2.50 a litre even if they give the crude away.

New battery technologies that are cheap to produce but unsuitable for EVs or technology items are easily able to be used in the home. The price is dropping all the time & it scares the crap out of the electricity retailers who only see a reducing market as people move off grid. The other option of course is neighbourhood batteries though they generally still use the existing supply network. The energy supply shakeup has only just begun even though Australia has the largest uptake of rooftop solar in the world with absolutely no thanks to the previous federal government.

There is a lot of information out there which is historically correct but is promoted by anti EV and efficiency circles to the nth degree to pour scorn on EV production. They don't look at the latest developments and the fact that battery technology is increasing at exponential pace. Things like Tesla installed almost 22 GWh of solar panels by the end of 21, its Nevada gigafactory is carbon neutral, & the manufacture in house of its new 4680 batteries has reduced energy consumption by more than 70% etc. The current demand for lithium for batteries will be quite short lived. Sodium ion batteries now have similar energy density & are 30% cheaper to make. There are dozens of new battery technologies under development which will make existing high end batteries look like the old Eveready carbon D cells of the 60s. The Apterra may not suit everyone but its efficiency and price were previously unheard of. Making the wheel the electric motor might be new but it is the most logical way to gain efficiency you can get at this stage. Swappable batteries are ideal for large trucks with a huge front end that used to house an enormous diesel engine & transmission but I personally don't think they will gain much traction in the personal transport market. There are 300 EV manufacturers in China alone producing more than 700 models of every size & shape and for multiple roles. 1000 km of real world range is already there in quite a few of the new larger sized Chinese EVs and the latest CATL innovation of cell cooling of LiFePo4 batteries has increased this even more. New batteries can be fully charged without degradation and last 500,000km, the latest from 10% to 80% in only 5 minutes. All this was unheard of only 1 year ago. And now the BYD Dolphin is being sold in Australia for about 35k so why would you buy a new ICE car that will cost more to run as time goes by and be virtually unsaleable within 10 years. There is absolutely no doubt that my next car will be an EV (if I live long enough). The only problem at present is demand is far exceeding supply.

Scomo is a failed marketing man & now a disgraced politician although most of us knew that already. I am always amazed that most of the worst religious nutcases end up as senior politicians.

Janus Electric had a prototype in 2020 & said they would begin operations in late 2021 between Sydney & Brisbane with Coffs Harbour being a major battery swap centre. The cost of conversion is about the same as a diesel overhaul and the trucks grill opens like a clamshell, the battery is quickly disconnected, removed by a forklift & a fully charged one put in all in under 4 minutes.

There is a 4 part doco on Netflix called "The Age of Tanks". It is French produced but in English and tracks the history of Tanks from their invention through many wars, invasions and insurrections etc to the modern day. It is well worth watching. The end conclusion is that while there are some pretty impressive technological developments in recent times their time is basically up.