Electric cars.

The French are generally hopeless at maths except when it comes to what's left in their pocket after taxes.

Last night at a garden club committee meeting the preisdent asked who had a calculator to add up 4 figures that came to 22.59! I'd done it in y head before before they'd got their phones out. Doesn't help, of course, that the still count numbers in the 60s as 60 and then any number from 1 to 19 and 80 and above as four score and the same rigmarole to get to 99.

Mind you, I think it would be better if teaching kids to analyse and think for themselves was as important as teaching good basic maths and English grammar which seem to have gone by the board in too many schools. Given the people I was at school with who then went on to teacher training college it's no surprise standards have fallen.

 

I'm no ggod at maths,righting etc but i can think for myself, God help us all then Jiffy

 

And this is not helped by the wilful misuse of statistics.

My particular bug-bear is failure to differentiate between relative risk and absolute risk. Say out of 1000 people, 2 get bird flu. The gov orders a cull of all birds and then of 1000 people, 1 gets bird flu. The gov medical advisers then do press conferences announcing that the cull has reduced bird flu cases by 50%. Everyone is duly impressed. But if instead they said you had a 0.2% chance of getting it and now you have a 0.1% chance, people might see that the cull was pointless and all about smoke and mirrors. Grrrr!

 

New car registrations in the UK for September was 275,239 units, an increase of 2,620 units compared to September 2023, still well down on 328,041 in September 2020 when we were in the grip of the pandemic. The overall share of fully electric cars in the UK stands at 17.8% well below the 22% target set by the previous government.

You only have to look at the nosedive in new fully electric cars registered in the EU that there is no way any country is going to meet these mandatory targets set by the governments. Sales of fully electric cars in Germany for the month of August fell by 69% compared the same month the previous year.

German new-car market slumps into worrying decline in August

We still have this on going conflict with the Ukraine and Russia plus Israel, Lebanon and Iran and fuel prices at the pump are going down, yet energy bills are increasing. What's the bet that the labour party sting us at the pumps in the forthcoming budget.

They reckon a BEV doing 10,000 miles per annum is on average losing 60% of the cars value in it's first 3 years. we all know cars depreciate but I wouldn't purchase a new fully electric car if depreciation is going to be that high.

 

Hi,

No one needs to think for themselves these days; we're all told what to think; what to eat; what to say as long as it doesn't offend PC and even what car to buy; years ago it was diesel then when everyone switched to diesel the government stabbed us in the back. I think the same is going to happen to EV owners who bought their EV with no road tax charges; I'm sure electricity charges will increase at public chargers in order to make up for losing rip off tax on petrol/diesel. Our Yeti when new was subjected to £30 road tax now it's £35 and at the end of this month will it go ballistic?

Kids are too busy having a mobile phone welded to their ear.

About 50 years ago whilst attending a course on draughtmanship; we were doing maths; all the other members were using their calculator; I only had a slide rule and easily beat the lot of them. I once watched a video showing a competition between two guys; one with mobile phone one with Morse Code; Morse Code won.

Kind regards, Col.

 

Governments and the majority of religions have always wanted to control thinking and ideas. The RC church decided long ago that teaching people to read, write and do 'rithmetic would lead them to question dogma and resist their teachings. When Napoleon came to power in France he realised this and introduced the metric system because he saw the peasants couldn't do sum but nearly everyone has 10 toues and fingers to help them along.

The Russians, after their revolution, qietly executed or shipped to remote, inhospitable areas, anyone who had enough brain to question Communism. Fear was their favourite control technique.

The Nazis used misinformation and propaganda to persuade their subjects that Jews were the cause of all their economic and social ills.

Similar things are going on in the UK and USA with the right spreading ridiculous hate messages and lies.

One perspicaceous German lady saw where this would lead and wrote,

"This constant lying is not aimed at making the people believe a lie, but at ensuring that no one believes anything anymore. A people that can no longer distinguish between truth and lies cannot distinguish between right and wrong.

And such a people, deprived of the power to think and judge, is, without knowing and willing it, completely subjected to the rule of lies. With such a people, you can do whatever you want."

- Hannah Arendt

(14 October 1906 – 4 December 1975) German historian and philosopher.

 

Which government ordered the cull of a 1000 people because of bird flu; I missed that headline.

 

I read it that way the first time too @NigelJ

 

@Fat Controller the two SMs I use most (same group, different places) have both recenly re-roofed the extensive covered parts of their car parks with PV panels so now we are still safe from rain and excess sun but they are coining in the leccy to run their stores.

The first to complete the project has now installes a row of 6 Tesla charging points. No idea if they are universal chargers or what they will charge as I am not in the market for EV vehicles as long as I can walk independently and at least as long as our 2 diesel cars last. They will be nurtured.

 

Most people should know that the biggest carbon footprint of any vehicle is when it's made. If everyone changes their car now, the carbon output will shoot up, and take years to reduce again. Our two (petrol) cars 11 & 17 years old respectively, are still fully ULEZ compliant, just as well as we are now just inside the zone, have "paid off" the carbon debt long ago, the yearly pollution from them now is negligible compared to one jet flight or even one diesel truck going once round the M25!

 

I think I have reached the point where if someone made an EV with a 200 mile range, it looked well designed and not as high as a truck, was a sensible price and had a decent performance, didn't keep telling me I'm driving too fast and just got on with going down the road, I might consider one.
Not sure how many of those boxes they are ticking yet.