Transport: Planes, Trains, Boats, Autos, and Rockets

[Typhoon]

cq9bBqjknAY

[Doc]

take the next left.

If only Yogi Berra had lived to see this.

[Typhoon]

Air Space Mag | The Man in the Homburg Hat

Had to look up the hat.

Wiki | Homburg hat

[Miss_Faucie_Fishtits]

https://pjmedia.com/trending/the-green- ... pensively/

Tens of thousands of plug-in hybrids (PHEVs) bought with generous government grants may be burning as much fuel as combustion-engine cars. ​Data compiled for the BBC suggests that such vehicles in corporate fleets averaged just 40 miles per gallon (mpg), when they could have done 130.

Why??....

"There are some examples where employees aren't even charging these vehicles up," said Paul Hollick, The Miles Consultancy's managing director. "The charge cables are still in the boot, in a cellophane wrapper, while the company and the employee are going in and out of petrol stations, paying for all of this additional fuel. This practice, he added, was "ridiculous".

....and what about the driveability of these hybrid vehicles? Mr. Walsh's personal opinion is summed up in this New Yorker cartoon:

[Simple Minded]

https://pjmedia.com/trending/the-green- ... pensively/

Tens of thousands of plug-in hybrids (PHEVs) bought with generous government grants may be burning as much fuel as combustion-engine cars. ​Data compiled for the BBC suggests that such vehicles in corporate fleets averaged just 40 miles per gallon (mpg), when they could have done 130.

Why??....

"There are some examples where employees aren't even charging these vehicles up," said Paul Hollick, The Miles Consultancy's managing director. "The charge cables are still in the boot, in a cellophane wrapper, while the company and the employee are going in and out of petrol stations, paying for all of this additional fuel. This practice, he added, was "ridiculous".

I love the irony. As we say in the hood of SimpleMindedStan, "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him think!"

And that is overlooking the fact that the "green" hybrid vehicle has two drive trains instead of only the single drive train of a gas powered car. Don't look into the energy equivalent cost of manufacturing hybrids.... It'll pop the bubble.

[Miss_Faucie_Fishtits]

The installation of two drive trains is an engineering redundancy and utilitarian disaster except for the one usable feature of the hybrid drive, the "Government doesn't tax your cherries off for driving a diesel or petrol commercial vehicle" module.....'>.......

[Typhoon]

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[Miss_Faucie_Fishtits]

Do we really want driverless vehicles?

It is just 15 years since the US military’s defense research agency offered $1 million to anyone who could create an autonomous vehicle capable of traversing a 240-kilometer course in the Mojave Desert. All 15 contenders crashed out of the DARPA Grand Challenge in 2004 and not one vehicle got further than 11.9km. The following year, however, five vehicles crossed the finish line, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency lost its prize money, and the world was thrust into a race to monetize a technology that, until that moment, no one knew was needed.

https://www.asiatimes.com/2019/02/opini ... less-cars/

also.......

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/ ... ving-cars/

[noddy]

my thots on the subject.

Europe and Asia formed pre-car, all the cities, all the towns, are organised in a way that rivers, trains or a brisk walk can handle much of your life.

Australia and America unfortunately formed around the car, so everything is spaced out wrong and has hardly any of those long term natural structures in them.

this is going to create alot of discordant arguments amongst people who dont understand how important a car is to the new world.

[Simple Minded]

my thots on the subject.

Europe and Asia formed pre-car, all the cities, all the towns, are organised in a way that rivers, trains or a brisk walk can handle much of your life.

Australia and America unfortunately formed around the car, so everything is spaced out wrong and has hardly any of those long term natural structures in them.

this is going to create alot of discordant arguments amongst people who dont understand how important a car is to the new world.

Excellent observation.

[Simple Minded]

https://www.amgreatness.com/2019/02/03/ ... -odysseus/

I've actually been to both Troy (NY) and Ithaca (NY). Neither are bad places at all.

[Typhoon]

https://www.amgreatness.com/2019/02/03/ ... -odysseus/

I've actually been to both Troy (NY) and Ithaca (NY). Neither are bad places at all.

Haven't been to California since the 1990's. Sounds like the state of the State has significantly declined since then.

When I'd stop for gas in the south Loop in Chicago, some pinwheel would invariably show up and ask for money.

[Nonc Hilaire]

Easy to designate one lane on freeways for automated autos (and trucks). Make long term travel painless and simple.

Short-run traffic can stay manual on freeways by choice, but all traffic goes manual off the freeways. Low cost and instant implementation.

[noddy]

https://www.amgreatness.com/2019/02/03/ ... -odysseus/

I've actually been to both Troy (NY) and Ithaca (NY). Neither are bad places at all.

hah. sydney is as close as australia gets to this.

[noddy]

Easy to designate one lane on freeways for automated autos (and trucks). Make long term travel painless and simple.

Short-run traffic can stay manual on freeways by choice, but all traffic goes manual off the freeways. Low cost and instant implementation.

maybe, seems hard to police and the real win of automated cars is not the auto pilot on highways, its the floating pool of shard rentable units that lets the poorer folk not waste money on a high cost item that spends most of its time wasting space on their property.

[Nonc Hilaire]

Easy to designate one lane on freeways for automated autos (and trucks). Make long term travel painless and simple.

Short-run traffic can stay manual on freeways by choice, but all traffic goes manual off the freeways. Low cost and instant implementation.

maybe, seems hard to police and the real win of automated cars is not the auto pilot on highways, its the floating pool of shard rentable units that lets the poorer folk not waste money on a high cost item that spends most of its time wasting space on their property.

But it is an existing use scenario that requires virtually no changes and less policing as HOV lanes. Put people on notice drivers in the auto-auto lane may be watching PronHub and might not have both hands on the wheel kinda polices itself.

I also read the trucking industry has proposed that exact plan for long haul trucking.

[Simple Minded]

Easy to designate one lane on freeways for automated autos (and trucks). Make long term travel painless and simple.

Short-run traffic can stay manual on freeways by choice, but all traffic goes manual off the freeways. Low cost and instant implementation.

I saw this movie once. Robots from the future send a cyborg back in time to debug the system.

[Nonc Hilaire]

I have a car that has manual steering but automated speed control (Subaru Eyesight). It follows the car ahead by a set distance regardless of speed. Unlike cruise control, it speeds up and slows down to around 2mph before you must use the accellerator..

Very nice on the long family vacation, but a delight in bumper-to-bumper traffic. No constant accellerate then brake. Just a smooth even ride. Competely eliminates that tension which builds up in stop and go driving.

It has collision avoidance, which is nice, but I think if everyone had automated speed control we could almost eliminate traffic jams.

[Typhoon]

CAD as in computer assisted driving is a good idea.

We still have a way go to full autopilot.

Ars Tech | In 2017, the feds said Tesla Autopilot cut crashes 40%—that was bogus

[Miss_Faucie_Fishtits]

The Boeing 737 Max debacle burst like an overripe carbuncle and probably deserves its own thread, but our spengler has an interesting take on the situation:

By now the whole world knows what pilots and aerospace engineers have known all along: Boeing stuck big modern engines on a 1950s airframe design, which made the 737 Max inherently unstable, with a tendency to go nose up and stall. It used a software kluge to compensate but didn’t retrain pilots in the new aircraft in order to speed sales.

pomp........ ow....... BUT.....

President Trump should remember Winston Churchill’s advice never to waste a crisis, and use the full power of his office to hold Boeing accountable for cutting corners and withholding key information. That’s the right thing to do as a matter of sheer political expediency – Americans want their leaders to stand up to industry corruption – but it’s also a strategic opportunity.

https://www.asiatimes.com/2019/03/artic ... ty-for-us/

[Nonc Hilaire]

I think options expiration is this Friday and Boeing is a big chunk of the Dow. Should be an interesting day. The PPT is going to have a busy couple of days.

[Typhoon]

Soccer Moms on the Moon.

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[Mr. Perfect]

This is the first cool thing I've seen in a while. "Street legal".

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[noddy]

thats quite the nifty toy.

[Mr. Perfect]

It's a monster as well. At one point it was #2 on the Top Gear lap time list.

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