* Posts by Edge Case

6 publicly visible posts • joined 16 Dec 2022

Bargain-hunting boss saw his bonus go up in a puff of self-inflicted smoke

Edge Case

Re: Free Vending

Thumbs down for not crediting it in the first place?

Why do IT projects like the UK's scandal-hit Post Office Horizon end in disaster?

Edge Case

Re: Someone could write a book

If the mistakes of the first book are still being made, then maybe it should be reprinted in a bigger font.... or just made into a BBC miniseries, which seems to do wonders for building awareness....

New cars bought in the UK must be zero emission by 2035 – it's the law

Edge Case

Re: Alternatives to car use?

Agreed - public (or at least communal) transport *should* be the solution, but the government doesn't dare even flirt with delivering that - the last budget was explicit about "supporting Britain's motorists" when they should absolutely be supporting alternatives.

Edge Case

Re: Finding a working charger

Personally, I only had to check once that every motorway services between my home and my most common destination has chargers - after that I absolutely CAN take it as read that I can stop *somewhere*.

And it really isn't a long break - If my total journey would need 120% of a full battery, then stopping anytime after 80% to chuck 20% in is a fairly easy adjustment.

Also, the days of 500 miles on a tank are a) not common, and b) fairly recent - my 1986 Cavalier had a maximum range of 320, and I'm sure there are lots of ICE cars with mileages a lot less than your 500 figure. The longest range EV's I think are over 400 miles already

Edge Case

Re: Finding a working charger

There's a lot of selective prediction in this discussion, and this is a prime example. You're willing to extrapolate to more EVs, but implicitly assume that the number of chargers won't flex to meet that demand.

This is not to say that the problem is simple - it isn't. But there's nothing insurmountable.

- Battery capacity (Kw / cubic inch) and efficiency (miles / Kwh) have both improved over the last 10 years, and can reasonably be expected to improve further in the next ten.

- Charging speeds (KW / min) has improved as well, so recharges take less time, which means a single charger can serve more users

- All of the UK's forecourt businesses are investing in providing charging capability. Motorway service stations that do not will inevitably lose business to those that do, so standard economics will drive development. The same will be true of the supermarket industry, and probably shopping centres too.

- For those who have the capability to fit chargers to their homes, public charging will be very much a secondary method, anyway, due to both cost and convenience. The "pain" of plugging in overnight is merely a behaviour adjustment.

- For those who do not have capability, and who are not addressed by the public charging network, the possibility of workplace charging exists, so instead of "park at home overnight and charge ready for the morning", one might "park at work for a couple of hours and charge ready for the journey home" - it's the same thing, just time-offset.

- For those who live in flats, AND have cars, but have to park on street, AND have no access to workplace charging, in 10 years time - yes, there'll need to be another solution. Lamppost upgrades are viable, as are parking meters and even disused phone boxes - all without impacting on existing street furniture. I've seen the capability for bollards to extend out of the pavement on demand to reveal a charger, so that's a capability that exists today.

- Swappable battery packs are still a possibility, albeit small. Inductive charging works, but may be hard to scale.

- Most white vans, postal workers, and the like probably do less than 250 miles a day, which means work all day, charge all night is achievable. Those that do more will potentially be limited slightly in 10 years time - this can be coped with.

- HGV / PSV is the biggest issue if we're considering what we know today - there are electric HGV today, but the scale of battery improvement will have to be significant to enable the distances needed.

A point on secondhand EVs - someone said "why would anyone buy a secondhand EV, not knowing what state the battery is in". Well, actually, an EV can give you a far better guide to the battery health than an ICE car can about the engine.

Corporate execs: Get back, get back, to the office where you once belonged

Edge Case

Re: Collaboration

I agree that it's demonstrably BS. After all, it was a "new and difficult problem" that pushed many of us into the WFH sea-change in the first place.

So, all the people now being encouraged / forced back to the office have already proved that they can deal with pretty much any problem remotely.

I still perceive this as a two lane issue - One, buildings are expensive and break clauses are too far in the future. Two, some "leaders" don't trust their people. Personally, an empty building costs more or less the same as a used one (more electric, more frequent cleaning notwithstanding), so why sweat it? Can only be that lane two is more embedded than was thought.

We need a survey that says "x% of workers perceive managers who insist on office attendance as mistrusting inadequates" as the next step in the propaganda war...