Panic buying of petrol

Started by Steve J, 25 September 2021, 07:49:37 AM

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mmcv

I'm just holding out for driverless electric cars like they've trialled in some places. Automatic cars that you can just ping when you need them and the nearest one comes to you. Same for modular public transport and HGVs. Once we get us meatsacks away from behind the wheel transportation will become many times more efficient and safer. No need for traffic lights, calming measures, roundabouts, speed limits...just a full autonomous transportation system.

Of course, it'll be a while yet before that's viable anywhere but big cities, but it's a start!

Orcs

Quote from: mmcv on 28 September 2021, 02:17:44 PM
I'm just holding out for driverless electric cars like they've trialled in some places. Automatic cars that you can just ping when you need them and the nearest one comes to you. Same for modular public transport and HGVs. Once we get us meatsacks away from behind the wheel transportation will become many times more efficient and safer. No need for traffic lights, calming measures, roundabouts, speed limits...just a full autonomous transportation system.

Of course, it'll be a while yet before that's viable anywhere but big cities, but it's a start!

I doubt that any on this forum will live long enough to see that. Our Grandchildren might
The cynics are right nine times out of ten. -Mencken, H. L.

Life is not a matter of holding good cards, but of playing a poor hand well. - Robert Louis Stevenson

Ithoriel

Quote from: mmcv on 28 September 2021, 02:17:44 PM
I'm just holding out for driverless electric cars like they've trialled in some places. Automatic cars that you can just ping when you need them and the nearest one comes to you. Same for modular public transport and HGVs. Once we get us meatsacks away from behind the wheel transportation will become many times more efficient and safer. No need for traffic lights, calming measures, roundabouts, speed limits...just a full autonomous transportation system.

Of course, it'll be a while yet before that's viable anywhere but big cities, but it's a start!

A whole new meaning for "Blue Screen Of Death." :)
There are 100 types of people in the world, those who understand binary and those who can work from incomplete data

Techno II

I certainly won't live long enough to see that !

Cheers - Phil. :)

mmcv

28 September 2021, 02:57:06 PM #64 Last Edit: 28 September 2021, 03:02:07 PM by mmcv
Quote from: Orcs on 28 September 2021, 02:39:08 PM
I doubt that any on this forum will live long enough to see that. Our Grandchildren might

Certainly, a fully automated transport system is a ways off, but driverless cars running like a taxi or uber will become widespread within the next few years in major cities. They've been doing successful public trials in America (Pheonix, Arizona I think) and rolling it out elsewhere. They're also conducting trials using automated trucks doing depot to depot runs in the same area. Of course, that's somewhere with large well-maintained roads and consistent weather conditions but the benefit is that the "experience" gained by one automated vehicle can share and combine with all the other vehicles, so the learning curve is very fast. This means any one driverless vehicle has the equivalent of millions of hours of driving experience both on the road and in simulations, so expanding into areas with more difficult conditions will happen pretty quickly as they accumulate the experience. So I suspect by 2030 a lot of cross country goods transport will be automated. Though I'm with orcs on trying to buy local as much as possible, its not always realistic for those who don't live near a lot of agricultural producers so optimising the transportation systems in as low an impact way as possible is key.

Amazon unveiled a rideshare driverless car with a 16 hour constant run time charge to charge as well and I suspect as they become more widespread swappable batteries will become a thing so you don't even need to wait for a charge, just stop off at a station, system switches over your low battery for a charged one and off you go while it charges your old one up again.

We either have to get to a point very quickly that we can dramatically do away with fossil fuels, or completely reform our society to a pre-industrial one, and that isn't going to happen so pushing forward with technological solutions as quickly as possible is the only way.

The other interesting change will be in air travel. I hear they're looking into airships again as being much more efficient than airplanes. Hopefully a century of technological improvement will avoid the disasters of past experiments with them!

(Cue Iron Maiden's "Empire of the Clouds")

Ithoriel

Quote from: mmcv on 28 September 2021, 02:57:06 PM
Amazon unveiled a rideshare driverless car with a 16 hour constant run time charge to charge as well and I suspect as they become more widespread swappable batteries will become a thing so you don't even need to wait for a charge, just stop off at a station, system switches over your low battery for a charged one and off you go while it charges your old one up again.

I don't see how we run rafts of electirc cars without some variation of this.

It would make mmcv's "ping 'em with an app and they come to you" fleets easier to run if the vehicles could return to base, have a robot* pull out a low charge battery and replace it with a full one in minutes and then get back to work.

*If they can milk cows, they can change batteries!
There are 100 types of people in the world, those who understand binary and those who can work from incomplete data

mmcv

Quote from: Ithoriel on 28 September 2021, 03:10:36 PM
I don't see how we run rafts of electirc cars without some variation of this.

It would make mmcv's "ping 'em with an app and they come to you" fleets easier to run if the vehicles could return to base, have a robot* pull out a low charge battery and replace it with a full one in minutes and then get back to work.

*If they can milk cows, they can change batteries!

I think there have been some places they're trying out swappable batteries, I'm sure robotic swaps at a station will come in time as it becomes more efficient.

howayman

Battery shape/style should be standardized now to allow rapid change over in future design, rather than rapid charge.
Otherwise each car manufacturer will have their own shape of battery, possibly each model will have a different shape making rapid changes impossible.

Gwydion

A lot of the problems are/will be societal/commercial not technological.

Will people give up car ownership for communal vehicles? When we've spent the last 60 years selling the car as a symbol of individual success in a dream of robust democratic competition?

Battery efficiency is dramatically improving and the use of Sodium vice Lithium is being developed - cheaper availability and does not require rare earth metals like Lithium ion batteries. Large scale use of this technology will allow storage of electricity from solar and wind for use when it is dark and still.

But we need to think and consume more locally, like Orcs said. One of the problems I remember a car manufacturer outlining (just before Brexit but this applies whether we are in or out of Europe) was the just in time supply of parts going back and forth across the channel to complete the vehicle - some components travelled four or five times before being finally installed. Often components will have initially travelled from China of course. There may be financial/political reasons that makes sense but I can't think of any ecological ones.


Raider4

Quote from: mmcv on 28 September 2021, 02:17:44 PM
I'm just holding out for driverless electric cars like they've trialled in some places. Automatic cars that you can just ping when you need them and the nearest one comes to you.

And the one that turns up is covered in the previous user's vomit . . .

Gwydion

I rest my case m'lud. :)

(and whose insurance pays up when the 'driverless' vehicle software crashes - along with the car?)

Steve J

Basically we have too many people on the planet. When I was born the global population was 3.2 billion, now it is 7.8 billion. When I was at Uni in 1983, the automotive industry knew that it couldn't allow China to become a car owning state, due to the pollution emitted given its population size. Really I think we are talking about sticking plaster solutions when major surgery is required :(.

DecemDave

Quote from: Steve J on 28 September 2021, 04:57:09 PM
When I was born the global population was 3.2 billion, now it is 7.8 billion.
Gosh you have been busy  :D 

mmcv

Quote from: Raider4 on 28 September 2021, 04:18:40 PM
And the one that turns up is covered in the previous user's vomit . . .

Possible, but there are systems that can flag stuff like that to return that one to base for cleaning and get another, not foolproof, but manageable. Perhaps even having check in stations that they can go to between rides to be inspected by a human.

Quote from: Steve J on 28 September 2021, 04:57:09 PM
Basically we have too many people on the planet. When I was born the global population was 3.2 billion, now it is 7.8 billion. When I was at Uni in 1983, the automotive industry knew that it couldn't allow China to become a car owning state, due to the pollution emitted given its population size. Really I think we are talking about sticking plaster solutions when major surgery is required :(.

The pandemic had a damn good try at that but hasn't made much of a dent on the grand scheme. Probably needs another world war to get the sort of population reduction we'd need :| as I don't particularly relish the idea of that then I have to hope technological progress will provide the solutions.

Quote from: Gwydion on 28 September 2021, 04:17:09 PM
A lot of the problems are/will be societal/commercial not technological.

Will people give up car ownership for communal vehicles? When we've spent the last 60 years selling the car as a symbol of individual success in a dream of robust democratic competition?

Certainly waste culture is a big part of it and I agree there needs to be large social reforms. I hate shopping in supermarkets if I can avoid it as the amount of plastic and waste is just terrifying and unnecessary. But for many people there's no other option and unless those monster industries commit to it quickly and on a large scale there's a limit to what the consumer can do as their choice are limited.

The idea of items like cars as status symbol is probably partly a generational one. My generation and younger (the dreaded Millenials and Gen Z) seem to be less driven (no pun intended) by such things as a trend. A lot of those traditional status symbols and milestones are already out of reach for many of them, so there's less emphasis put on ownership by many compared to experiences and reputation. Not all, of course, there's a huge number of people such that any grand sweeping generational statements are largely moot, but there's enough of a trend that I wouldn't see the idea of using a service like that being a problem for a large portion, perhaps a majority.

I'd say already in a lot of big cities car ownership is way down as it just becomes impractical vs calling an uber, etc. I'd happily get rid of my car if there was a reliable on demand services available. For every fancy white BMW status symbol car on the road there's easily 20 or 30 "does the job" cars that serve a practical purpose and fill a need.

People haven't had too much trouble switching from "physical" concepts like say CDs and DVDs, to "non tangible subscriptions" like Spotify and Netflix. It's a similar idea just scaled up a bit more.

So if it becomes easier and more pragmatic for people to give up their cars they will in droves because it'll be more convenient. Hit a app and get a car in 5 mins, no faffing with taxes, MOTs, mechanics, or even if you've a headache or a sore back or whatever.

That's why I think the solutions will have to be technological, as people as a whole generally won't change their behaviours for abstract concepts, they will change their behaviours due to whatever is easiest and most convenient.

Orcs

Quote from: mmcv on 28 September 2021, 03:29:55 PM
I think there have been some places they're trying out swappable batteries, I'm sure robotic swaps at a station will come in time as it becomes more efficient.

Hang on a minute, They can't even get a standardized Phone Charger, let alone a standard size and shaped and weight battery that will fit multiple makes of car.
The cynics are right nine times out of ten. -Mencken, H. L.

Life is not a matter of holding good cards, but of playing a poor hand well. - Robert Louis Stevenson