Posts by MachDiamond

Never mind SETI and NASA, if your Ring somehow snaps ET, Amazon might give you $1M

While we analyze your claim....

fill out these forms. It's just standard stuff, assignment of copyright, NDA, non-disparagement, indemnity clauses... all completely standard, just sign at the bottom.

Police ignored the laws of datacenter climate control

"So in summary, there was an installed solution which had worked fine with no intervention for possibly decades."

I think if pressure were applied plenty of us would own up to dodgy installs like that. The boss "doesn't want to hear any excuses", make it work and make it work by 5pm! or you're going to be looking for a new job. The last guy would have had it done already... etc.

It sounds like it was a good job for lasting as long as it did. Running a fiber link at the time would have been expensive and overkill, but would have been the better solution. My aunt's VW bug, the one with the fuel injection that would often lose a hose and go up in flames got a stainless braided hose upgrade from me and my step dad after a minor fire. It wasn't cheap, but less than having to replace the whole car and the school were she was a teacher wasn't in a good neighborhood so having an incident anywhere near there could have other repercussions. There was never a problem with the fuel system after that. The VW repair shop where we took our Vdubs copied what we did for all of his fuel injected customers and got known for the mod.

You've just spent $400 on a baby monitor. Now you need a subscription

Re: Device no longer working as sold

"Their Amazon listing would be taken down after the EU tracks them down, "

Given how Amazon goes out of their way to make it look like you are buying from Amazon, they should be on the hook. eBay has been doing some of that and they need to be on the receiving end of some fines. It should be obvious that a marketplace seller is one somebody is buying from since too many people have faith in the Amazon brand and will stupidly trust that the transaction is with Amazon and not just them acting as a facilitator.

Re: Device no longer working as sold

"In the US I could see perhaps filing against the new owners in Small Claims Court for the original cost of the device, on the hope that they wouldn't respond and would be hit with a default judgement. So you'd get $400 less the filing costs. Might be worth it just for the lulz. "

It would be a day sitting around in a over HVAC'd building waiting for your case to get called. A weekday too, so it's a day from work burning up PTO or losing a day's pay. This is the way I look at a customer not paying for many of the sorts of jobs I do (in this case, photography for estate agents). The cost of filing and the day off is more than what I charge for a typical job and in Small Claims, I couldn't tack on the time off as part of the ask. It's easier for me to claim a copyright infringement since non-payment or a bounced check nullifies the license to use the images and I always register my images with the Copyright office. My attorney has a nice letter where he explains all of this and how the bill has gone up by the amount of his letter sending fee and will continue to grow if the person requires more contact. If the matter is a few thousand, small claims court starts to make sense.

Lessons in TANSTAAFL will continue until the mark learns or goes broke.

Re: Someone else's computer

"> To be fair - there should be regulation, where those companies would need to open up the API specification for their products and make it easy to point them at your local server when switcheroo inevitably happens."

Perhaps the API can be held like a patent (but not a patent) for 5 years or if the company folds, whichever comes first. Anybody selling a service subscription would have to send their code along with any updates to a central server and have to reverify their existence every 30 days. The same requirements would apply if support/services are discontinued with no allowances for companies bitching about "core technologies" and that sort of thing. If another company wanted to come along and provide backend support from some abandoned products, they could do so and charge a subscription fee. I can imagine there might be a few small companies that would set up and do that sort of thing. I agree with others that it wouldn't work as a hobbiest project although if the code had to be put in the public domain, some might or could be willing to donate firmware updates and extend the functionality if there is a good installed base of users.

Re: Someone else's computer

" Well in this case it was the one-sided decision to move to a subscription model *after* the customers had paid for an all-up-front model."

So, you're saying there's a whole bunch of people that believe that for one low price they can have something that requires outside services for free, forever? Whenever I see something like that I think "scam" or "bait and switch". It's like the ads for lifetime internet access for one low payment. That's an easy one, somebody is selling access to their account and when suckers stop sending them money, they'll close that account if the provider doesn't notice scores of different people using the account. Magellan SatNavs with "lifetime" map updates define "lifetime" as three years in the fine print. Schools need to teach and test on the concept of TANSTAAFL.

Re: "the sudden imposition of subscription fees"

"This is why I will never have a "smart" house. The only thing that is smart is the vendor fees to keep everything working."

I think it was Robert Llewelyn that did a show featuring a "smart home" with all of the gadgets and they admitted that it cost more for all of the stuff than that stuff would ever save in energy costs. This was assuming the companies, often startups, would be around to supply parts and service. Most of those companies disappear without a trace and don't supply servicing docs for their products.

I'm fine with manual switches. I also have some X10 remote stuff since it's easier than wiring more switches for things and I can also remotely control my outside lighting from several places around the house. I also like that if I were to hear an intruder, I could switch on a light behind them rather one near me giving my location away.

I wasn't raised in a quiet house. My parents figured a tired child is going to sleep no matter what and tiptoeing around when I was asleep was a bad thing to do so my crib was out where my mom could keep an eye on me and just got on with householdy things while I napped. Baby monitors weren't a thing way back in 50 BCE so it wasn't an option for my parents. What worked for them will still likely work for today's parents if they just did a bit of thinking for themselves.

Musk in hot water with SEC for failure to comply with subpoena

SF isn't a valid meeting place?

There are office of X or Twitter or whatever in SF so it's a valid location based on that. Elon also files around constantly in a Gulfstream that's at his disposal so San Francisco isn't an issue due to travel requirements either. Tesla's Fremont, CA plant is a short drive from SF, so it's not a time burden.

Most investors are well aware of reporting requirements when buying a greater than 5% chunk of a publicly traded company. Even a 5% slice can often mean a controlling interest in many companies so disclosures are not an evil thing. Close to 10% can indeed by a controlling interest as many shareholders never participate or assign their proxies.

Elon gets cut way too much slack. Just about any other person failing to show up when subpoenaed would be arrested and the interview would take place in a backroom under bright lights until all questions have been answered to the satisfaction of the inquisitor. For days without breaks if necessary. I suppose if the SEC it just going to give him another paltry fine for being a PIA, why should he care when he has other things to do?

Elon Musk's ambitions for Starship soar high while reality waits on launchpad

All not good

SpaceX's first launch of Booster/Starship was a dog and pony show. Mismatched hardware, obsolete systems already in the process of being replaced on the next iteration and known issues in many different areas. They knew on the day that three engines (maximum failures for a mission, so no margin left) were not going to light. 85 seconds into flight the steering was off-line having lost the hydraulic system. The Flight Termination System that was supposed to be automatic turns out to be manual and completely ineffective. The final events were the booster and Starship blowing up of their own accord and showering Mexican territorial waters with debris. Digging a huge crater was an issue and made worse by the "not a deluge" system not ready in time for a 4/20 launch. There had to be some engineers that knew the concrete had no chance of surviving even one launch. Chances are marginal that the rocket bidet can survive. Even if it does, the fresh water contamination of the site is an ecological no-no.

A rocket lander I worked on over 10 years ago is still in one piece with over 200 launch/landing cycles. At the time I was with the company, we won a NASA prize for that vehicle (second place). John Carmack of Doom fame won first place with his company, Armadillo Aerospace. Rumor has it that Elon saw the competition and that's what got him going on SpaceX's Grasshopper program.

Re: A brief look back

"such as the falcon heavy costing less to fly in full on throwaway configuration than a ULA rocket of the same lifting ability(and if the falcon heavy can land the sideboosters and core stage its even cheaper)"

Now add up how many F9H's have flown..... four (aside from Martin Eberhard's Roadster being sent on the first flight as a big FU).

Rockets have been landed since the 1960's. It hasn't been a technical issue, it's been financial. The added risk and the low launch demand aren't there for a big market in reusable boosters. There's about a 40% performance hit to make a booster reusable and breakeven is on the order of 10 uses. Frankly, it's been cheaper to just drop the boosters into the ocean to this point. Elon is launching so many Starlink sats that reuse is important since Starlink, as advertised, is going to be hard pressed to ever make money so they need to save money on launches if they can.

Re: A brief look back

"it's pretty clear from the rate of increase in satellites in orbit that there is and was a substantial pent up demand for for launches"

What is it when you deduct all of the Starlink debris being sent up by Elon? It's about the same except for more Cubesats on rideshare missions.

Re: A brief look back

"SpaceX's track record is decidedly mixed, with three launch failures in seven attempts"

With Starship, they had one vehicle land and not blow up before launching the full stack. It wasn't a full up Starship, though. It was an empty hull test article with only 3 engines.

Equal Employment Commission sues Tesla for racist discrimination, retaliation at Fremont plant

Re: Just look at Twitter

"The actions of the company's CEO sets the overall tone for the entire company"

If the CEO in question wasn't just working PT with time split between a bunch of other projects even when he might be physically in the office.

Re: Just look at Twitter

"The person in charge or each company. "

Without some very damning evidence that Elon is a massive racist, I'd go with him just not caring one way or the other as long as cars are coming off of the assembly line. It's a crazy approach but thus far Elon hasn't been penalized in a substantial way for his antics. The "420 Tweet" cost him $20mn (and Tesla $20mn, but that out of company funds so nothing for Elon to worry about). Somebody worth billions on paper isn't going to be too stressed about $20mn since he got all sorts of coverage for doing something that most other corporate executives would be drawn and quartered over. I was very disappointed that the SEC settled before trial. Anybody qualified to be at the head (CEO and Board Chairman, for bog sake) of a big publicly traded company should know that the Tweet wasn't on and would cause issues. Part of the problem is Elon's Twitter account had been officially designated as an official source of company communications. It wasn't just a personal account, but for somebody like Elon, it wouldn't matter much anyway since he's so tied to the company he stole from the founders.

"Tesla's strategy for fires is to let them burn. Yes this is going to be greaat when a shopping center carpark goes up and a 100 cars and coutnless people die ..."

The approach is moving towards protecting things around the burning EV rather than trying to extinguish the battery fire which is a lost cause anyway. By the time the fire brigade shows up the car is a total loss. They aren't talking about standing around as the surrounding countryside is reduced to ash.

"But as the world's richest man (currently, on paper)"

Welllllll, if you only tot up the current trading value of the stock he holds, the number looks pretty impressive, but the term is "net" worth so one also has to take into account all shares pledged against loans, lines of credit and other securitizations. Falcon LLC, the company that 'owns' the Gulfstream Elon flies around on constantly, was waiting on the latest model to be delivered which is a huge pile of money in addition to the thousands of dollars per hour it costs to operate those aircraft (Tesla and SpaceX may be paying for the flight time). I wouldn't be surprised if the paper on the financing is backed at least in part with Elon's stock holdings. How many ex wives does he have? Any more children to add to the tally? It won't belong before the $258bn lawsuit for Dogecoin shenanigans starts being heard in court. More blood sucking lawyers to keep fed and they do what they can to pad their billing.

$17k solid gold Apple Watch goes from Beyoncé's wrist to the obsolete list

Re: No doubt

"I *like* clockwork clocks.. "

I'm still looking for a mechanical clock that goes in the "gun camera" of a Mig 15. I was given the camera and bought some extra film canisters to go with it, but it's missing the watch that gets it face projected on the film. The whole thing is super clever and very straightforward.

Re: No doubt

"24 carat is too soft for most applications."

Not for bullion which is what the prices quoted on the financial news are charting.

I found a pile of old ic's with lots of Gold (damn things have some heft), but it might still not be enough to process for the Gold content. Buyers will also only offer a percentage of what the Gold scrap might be worth to cover their backside. Without precise knowledge, the Gold could be worth less after being made into a useful item than it was worth initially.

Re: No doubt

" I'm guessing that anyone who bought a solid gold first generation product has enough money and obsession with Apple that they've already bought a newer one and don't care that this one has become worthless.

I'm wondering if the ones named got theirs for free or heavily discounted as a shadow advertising ploy. It gets the people that really can't afford them to buy anyway to be like their hero. It's just like the $250 trainers named after some sports figure except the shoes will last much longer.

"but Apple has changed the solder to something that doesn’t melt. "

That's likely the lead free crap. Try to infuse the new with some old and often that can get the unleaded stuff to melt so you can wick it off or get it with the solder sucker.

Re: No doubt

"This will last until people get fed up of buying things that are declared obsolete when they are still perfectly fixable and maintainable. "

I have electronic repair in my background so I look to see if something is serviceable before I buy it. Sometimes there is little choice, but I'll take something old that's built well over something new with a load of features I'm unlikely to ever use.

A watch phone has zero appeal for me. I got out of wearing watches a long time ago since I play drums and the two things are incompatible. I have a couple of nice dress watches that might still work I keep just in case, but everything has a clock on it these days so I'm never out of sync. I ignore my phone quite frequently unless I hear a ringtone that I like (friends and family and good customers). A phone I will ignore mated with a fashion accessory that I never wear is a combination of wasted money. Given the price of an iPhone and iWatch, I'd suggest people give them both a miss and pay off the car/home faster.

Does anybody have any plans for a compact EMP generator that can disable a Harley? Dickweed across the street with a lack of mufflers and a penchant for going on rides in the middle of the night is at it again. He already thinks They are microwaving his brain and telling his doctor to deny him more pain meds so I'd love to zap his bike with a ray gun and really give him something to be paranoid about.

Musk's first year as Twitter's Dear Leader is nigh

"Net Worth", don't forget the "Net" part

Elon doesn't have a 1/2 trillion dollars. He may not even be able to lay hands on a few hundred million. Most of the magazines and news agencies dedicated to tracking rich people and finance reporting have estimated that a large chunk of Tesla stock held by Elon is pledged as security against loans and lines of credit. What's left he may need to keep in reserve in case Tesla stock price undergoes a correction and the creditors insist on more stock to keep balance.

If I still had a mortgage, my net worth would include my home minus what I still owed on it. A more comprehensive analysis would include the interest on that loan and estimate my worth over a specified period of time.

There's having lots of money, being wealthy and seeming to have lots of money but actually being flat broke. A bouncy castle with a rip can be kept inflated if enough new air is being pumped in, but if the pump stops, the whole thing comes crashing down, possibly smothering people in the process. Ideally, somebody going for real wealth wants a perfectly sealed bouncy castle with super tough fabric that doesn't take any pumping to keep inflated. Or, at least, very little that one can earn flipping burgers (a well paying job now in California).

Re: Mastodon remains the most exciting alternative

"At least NASA is on Mastodon with regular posts on what they are doing or the latest JWST photos."

I get that delivered to my email so no need to join any social media sites. I'm enough of a space nut that if a really awesome photo is release from JWST, I'll have several people emailing me to ask if I've seen it. RSS on steroids.

Re: Social media is overrated

"I think the Saudi's are rather indifferent at this point. As long as Twitter is still up and running, by owning a good sized stake in it they have leverage to get info on any dissidents in the country using it to say things the government doesn't like."

There's still the banks that got suckered into the deal thinking they could turn around and flog the debt off at a profit. The trouble was after Elon's attempts to worm out of the deal, the market changed and the perception of Twitter changed and the banks were upside down on the deal. I'm not saying that those banks will send in specialist negotiators to have an up close and personal "chat" with Elon, but they can take it out on him in other ways since Elon also runs several other businesses that need banking. Lines of Credit can become more difficult to get with more stringent security requirements. Loans could be accelerated. We've all seen with Nigel Farage's banking woes and the others that have had the same treatment that banks can swing a big hammer in these days.

" And he's also not paying his bills, another way of trimming costs. "

One of the creditors he isn't paying is King Charles. It turns out the Royal empire is the landlord for some of "Twitter's" offices in England. Yeah, it won't go as it might have in years past, but the King is still a king and has ways of handling things that might not be pleasant for the handlee.

"> throwing the brand away and calling it X seems like the weirdest ..."

A saner operator would have kept Twitter as a component of X. X being the overall container for all of the things Elon wants to get away with.

"What would eventually become PayPal you mean."

Not even that.

Common Sense Skeptic did a well presented job of tracking where Paypal came from and how Elon wasn't really a part of it in their series "Debunking Elon Musk" on YT. Elon did have stock in Paypal that made him a pile of money, but it wasn't him that led the company to that payday.

Google throws California $93M to make location tracking lawsuit disappear

"I'm wondering how long it will be before we see Google (and the other big tech companies) broken up the same way Bell was."

The anti-trust regulations haven't been applied in the US for ages. The politicians that would have to invoke those proceedings would be participating in virtual cannibalism if they did. It would certainly mean very little money dropped in the campaign donation box for the next re-election run.

For a dose of fun, look up Live Nation/Ticket Master and see how one company controls the live music market in the US. Part of their rise was dirty business in the way they hoovered up other ticket companies and booking agencies/promotors. The only time I go to TicketDisater mediated show these days is if I know somebody and get a free pass.

PhD student guilty of 3D-printing 'kamikaze' drone for Islamic State terrorists

Re: I was right, then

"(#d printers are handy for aeromodellers but they're used for bits like custom servo arms and detail for scale models.)"

For small parts such as servo arms, filament printers suck. I made some small replacement parts for my table saw and noticed they have cracked. I also find that many times filament printed parts have really bad mechanical properties. For some projects I'm thinking I'll 3D print a mold and use 2-part epoxy or cast polyurethane to make the parts. It's not super efficient, but I could make the molds one-time use by having to break them to get parts out once cast that have undercuts and overhangs.

Most consumer grade 3D printers are also very slow. What is shown in the photos probably took days and days to print where I could knock up something like it in a single day using other methods and materials in my shed. The biggest lesson I've learned by getting a 3D printer is how it can be rather inadequate for all of the things I was thinking it would be good for.

NASA delays already-late $1B Psyche probe's visit to metal-rich asteroid

The martians did it

After fully groking and embracing the people on the 4th planet, they destroyed it. I swear it's true, I read it in a book.

Nuclear-powered datacenters: What could go wrong?

Would a company really install a nuke?

The ROI on a nuclear reactor is decades. Most companies can't think past how they are going to manipulate things to make the financials this quarter look awesome to share holders. A reactor would tie them to a site for a long time no matter what the State might do to them in taxes, regulations and all sorts of other not so pleasant visitations. Companies would lose the ability to let the bird fly and move someplace else and everybody playing the game would know that. I don't think we want entities like Enron or Theranos operating nuclear reactors.

Re: Interesting

"We could end up with an auction-style system, whereby however little electricity we have is supplied to the highest bidders."

I'd rather see a grid where pricing is sent out in real time at something like 15 minute intervals and people/companies/systems can choose to draw power of put off usage until prices are in a certain bracket. Build the capability into a car and it will charge when rates are low with all sorts of caveats built in. Home and business storage batteries could absorb energy when prices are low and kick in to offset drawing from the grid when it's expensive. This is going to be one of the only ways to make wind useful. It's so intermittent that usage for it has to be flexible enough for it to work. It's something like a bidding system except users adjust their usage as the form of bids. Yes, you can charge your EV during peak hours in summer, but it's going to be dear.

Elon Musk has beef with Bill Gates because he shorted Tesla stock, says biographer

Re: Tesla, the company doing the most to solve climate change

"at least half the people reading it will have a broken sarcasm detector."

With Elon and Tesla, there are so many rabid fans that assuming something is sarcasm has a good chance of it not being that at all.

Re: Tesla, the company doing the most to solve climate change

"Have you seen the Rivian build quality?"

Rich "rebuilds" has a Rivian and pointed out that the entire side of the pickup is one stamping. I never noticed that and it means that there is no buying a new quarter panel to fix an accident. On my first mini pickup I had something happen to a front quarter panel (not admitting to anything) and was able to take is off, give it a good beating, fill and paint job. With a Rivian, a section would have to be cut out and a new donor piece welded on, smoothed and repainted. Muy expensive in labor and skills.

Re: Shorting Tesla

"Tesla is nominally worth 10x Ford, despite shipping fewer cars and making a smaller profit."

Another really good test is to look at all of Ford's assets, tooling, IP and a large installed base to sell parts/service to. Whatever your transportation needs, Ford is likely to have a model that fits the order. Tesla has 2 luxury models and one mass market vehicle in two sizes. The 3 and Y are very similar that I often have to look really hard to determine which is which or see them side by side. The Semi is shipping to Frito-Lay and the Cybertruck feels to me like one the too radical designs that may do well for a couple of years and then drop almost to zero once there's so many on the road that aren't pointing at them anymore. No estate, no van, no fleet optimized model and still no Roadster 2.0. If the tech is so good, why no skateboard so bespoke builders can create niche vehicles with Tesla underpinnings? The electric double decker busses in London are built on top of a BYD chassis that shows up and is driven off of the delivery trailer (man, that looks so weird).

Re: Shorting Tesla

"Shorting Tesla on the scale of Gates purchase doesn't hurt Tesla. "

Arguably, once a company has sold shares and they are traded on the public markets, in a certain sense their value can be external to company's fortunes. Selling short is just taking a position that a stock is going to lose value where purchasing shares is a bet that the stock will rise. With Tesla's market cap so out of quilter the the company's finances and assets, a well timed short could be a good way to make money. Even a lot of money.

I'm going to have to pirate a copy of that biography. I haven't wanted to buy a copy since I've been too worried that it would just be yet another puff piece.

Raspberry Pi 5 revealed, and it should satisfy your need for speed

Re: What direction is North?

"Just because YOU see no need for this, doesn't mean others won't."

There are already tons of options to choose from and if everybody is pushing their platforms in the same direction, the only difference will be price. I already use 3G cell phones for general computing stuff.

Car industry pleads for delay to post-Brexit tariffs on EVs

Re: Petrol and Diesel

"By long haul I mean 3000km + trucking routes."

I don't expect there are that many people making 3000km trips in their car very frequently.

There are still many applications for large electric trucks. Given how poorly the ports are run in the US, lots of drivers picking up containers to take to distribution centers, customs offices and railheads would save loads of fuel by not being sat idling away ready to pull forward another 50m to the next union paperwork checker in line. For long runs, rail is far more cost efficient. What's lacking is good logistical planning so containers get on and off the trains quickly so the the train can move on to the next stop. It might also make sense to have trains that are 100% containerized freight and others that are "break bulk" box cars, tanks, hoppers and lumber carriers rather than a mish mash of everything. It might cut down on the need to continuously reconfigure.

Re: Lie

"It has nothing to do with "meeting demand", just greed."

Greed doesn't even enter into it. If something is allowed that gives your competitor an advantage such as sourcing cheap components or finished items from another country, it you don't do it too, they'll have you for lunch. In the US, a publicly traded corporation could see its directors charged with crimes for not managing the company for maximum benefit of the shareholders. I have to laugh at people that cry that the big companies need to pay a "fair share" in taxes or some such nonsense. They pay what is legally required. Any problems with that should be taken up with those politicians that have been in office for far too long.

Re: I'm confused....

"If that EU EV is sold in a 3rd country that has an agreed FTA "

Demerits for undefined TLA's

Re: Nationalism or a Green Transition.

" most of the car plants are only staying on with subsidies that would bring a nostalgic tear to the eye of a British Leyland exec."

I see part of the problem in trying to produce mainstream consumer vehicles. There are some firms in the UK making specialized electric vehicles that are filled with great ideas. Some are for trades, some for delivery and others really drill down to specific needs of a few customers. The one niche I've noticed are the laboratory companies that get patient sample from doctors to run tests. They pick up a standardized container either daily or on call, drop off an empty container and take the materials back to the lab. Since they work with standard sized parcels, it would be easy to build a vehicle for the purpose on a standard 'skateboard'. Seating for two, limited entertainment, fleet management software (route maps programmed from the dispatching office) and not a lot else. A phone charger with a BT link to the stereo to play music and a backing up camera would be about as fancy as necessary. Every time I go to the doctor they want to extract something from me and send it off for testing. I guess it's a good way to pad the bill since insurance is paying the cost. The labs must be operating loads of vehicles that we never notice. There are also handling stuff that isn't so good to be putting through the post.

"they were intended to catch Teslas but ended up hitting domestic industry."

The big joke is that lots of bits on a Tesla are imported. There's very little electronic component manufacturing in the US and no displays being made. Some years ago there were people getting photos of crates labeled in Chinese at the Tesla California plant. The translation showed the parts to be metal parts (forgings) for regular production. Now, with Tesla having manufacturing in countries outside the US, it makes sense that some components will be more efficient to produce from a central location to achieve some economies of scale and shipped to the US as assembled modules ready to be bolted on to a car.

"But kinda intended to incentivise 'green' UK to build EVs and components"

The KISS explanation is it's a way they can asses more tax. The green washing is just a good sounding excuse. Is it really so important that all cars in Britain are >45% component sourced and assembled in Britain? Wouldn't it be better to put more emphasis on all of the things that Britain and the whole of the UK are really good at over car manufacturing? The London double-decker busses are built on BYD platforms. London electric black cabs are made by the Chinese company Geely. It's always best to play to your strengths and I don't see auto manufacture as the UK's greatest strength. It would be like advocating to rebuild all of the lost textile manufacturing. Having some is good, but mandating that all clothes sold in the UK are made in the UK or suffer from protectionist tariffs is silly.

Re: I'll be sticking with petrol (or diesel) for my next car.

"Now, I'm not sure what percentage of use-cases fall into that category (and it will vary greatly based on location), but I'm willing to bet it's a fairly large chunk in vast swathes of city and suburban living.

And in that case of course there need to be infrastructure upgrades to get all that charging power to people's homes, driveways or streets."

The use cases will be individual. I fit in very well and wish I could justify even a second hand EV. The biggest benefit to me is not having to visit a petrol station to fill up and having a full charge (or however less I set if for) every morning for the cost of 30 seconds to plug in.

At the moment, there isn't a lot of infrastructure upgrades needed for people to charge off-peak at home. If the government forces adoption, that accelerates the timeline and utility companies will have to make huge investments (tax payer subsidized) to rip out and replace lines and transformers with lots of life left in them to be able to cope with the load. If it's just allowed to progress naturally, power companies will be able to make upgrades more organically as needed. I can see a big bottleneck being the time it takes the power companies to get planning permission to do the upgrades. 12 months to get permission, 2 weeks to do the work.

Re: I'll be sticking with petrol (or diesel) for my next car.

"So you need maybe 100-150 charging spaces. Clearly 4 charging spaces is ridiculously inadequate. The good thing is, with this model, you don't need these chargers to be 100-200kW+ superchargers, 20-30kW max will be quite sufficient (and also better for the batteries)"

100 chargers in one place is not a good idea. Most of those people are going to be looking for food and other things to do while their car charges so it would be better to have 20 or less spaces dotted about an area so there's some choice in what shops and eateries are close by to where you charge your car.

For a motorway services location, 350kW chargers should be the norm. More and more cars are coming out that can charge at that rate. With the size of many battery packs, the "C" rate (capacity/charge rate) isn't very high and those that can take those rates have been designed for it. 20-30kW would be glacially slow for somebody on a long trip that just needs a top up while they visit the loo and buy a fresh supply of snacks for sit down for a meal. Provided you aren't doing nothing but fast charging at high power levels, your battery pack will be just fine.

Re: I'll be sticking with petrol (or diesel) for my next car.

"Until charging times are on parity with refuelling, the ratio of chargers to users needs to be far higher."

That's making a whole bunch of assumptions. How much charge does the car need, how fast can it charge, how powerful is the charger and how long will the person be spending on their shop. It might make more sense for Tesco to install more level 2 charging stands so more people can add 25 or so miles of range while they shop over 6-8 fast chargers that are often blocked or even being used. Initially, power generation won't be the limiting factor, it will be distribution. Whenever the branch circuit was planned for where Tesco is sited, there wasn't any thought about needing vastly more to accommodate EV charging.

If the area is less dense than a big city where most people have off-street parking, the number of public charging spots and their max power can change a lot.

Re: I'll be sticking with petrol (or diesel) for my next car.

"Until charging times are on parity with refuelling, the ratio of chargers to users needs to be far higher."

The great thing about that is electricity is everywhere and fitting an EVSE is pretty simple. It's even more simple if it's just an outlet and the EV owner needs to provide their own cordset. Payment would be based on time since Level 2 charging is going to be at the circuit capacity the whole time. It just doesn't allow for charging management.

Lots of slow chargers in places like train stations, sports arena, cinemas, etc can mean it's possible to give everybody some charging rather than only having a couple of very fast chargers that nobody can use (they'll not be able to move their cars when done). If all a hotel had was a row of 2kW chargers, a person could do a fast charge elsewhere to 70-80% and top up to 100% overnight so the car has maximum range when they'll be leaving in the morning. They could even be smaller or the smaller ones can be free while higher capacity spots are charged a premium. With some management software, a hotel could offer several tiers of charging at each space for different prices and systems can regulate the power being used to stay within the power allocated for all of the chargers.

Re: I'll be sticking with petrol (or diesel) for my next car.

" it's highly likely that the cost of an electric car would be the same or less than a diesel equivalent."

The utility of an EV can be much higher. My trips are mostly well within the range of a single charge so being able to not need to visit a petrol station would be great. It's one less thing to do when I'm already running late. Every couple of years I make a long road trip, but the journey is part of the outing or I'd take the train (I don't fly commercial anymore) so needing to stop more frequently for charging on those long trips dovetails nicely into needing to stop more frequently to spend a penny as I get older.

Re: I'll be sticking with petrol (or diesel) for my next car.

"The trouble is whilst much is possible to make our power stations more environment friendly, we’ve been very slow in doing any of them,"

KW to KW, power stations are already much cleaner than a vehicle engine. What's being bandied about right now is taking what's left of the emissions, adding national budget sums of money to them so to reduce them a wee bit more. Principally CO2 reduction.

Re: I'll be sticking with petrol (or diesel) for my next car.

"definitely not something to be done on the owners drive at the weekend by a couple of amateur/hobby mechanics."

Actually, I think what you might see is exactly that AND the larger central refurbishing facility with no middle ground. It will be more cost effective for a repair shop to just order in a replacement pack and do a swap rather than component level repair. Many repair shops already send parts out to be refurbished (cylinder heads, etc) rather than doing the work in-house since it can be hard to find people qualified to do the work. Using them for those skills ever once in a while is a waste. From a time perspective, it's faster for me, the car owner, to get a replacement engine fitted than to wait for my original engine to be rebuilt. If I factor in hiring a car for a week, it's going to be cheaper too.