from the are-external-combustion-engines-included? dept.
The UK moves up deadline to ban the sale of combustion-engine vehicles:
The United Kingdom will ban the sale of new combustion-engine vehicles by 2030, Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced today. It will also ban the sale of new hybrid cars by 2035. Johnson made the announcement tonight as part of a new ten-point plan for a "green industrial revolution."
This is the second time Johnson has moved up the deadline. The original plan was to stop sales of petrol and diesel-powered vehicles by 2040. Back in February, Johnson moved the target to 2035. He's come under increasing pressure to crack down on gas-guzzling cars in order to meet the UK's broader goal of eliminating emissions contributing to climate change by 2050.
"Although this year has taken a very different path to the one we expected, the UK is looking to the future and seizing the opportunity to build back greener," Johnson said in an emailed statement released to the press. "The recovery of our planet and of our economies can and must go hand-in-hand."
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 19 2020, @01:42PM (18 children)
UK isn't all that big, the longest single trip is Land's End, Penzance to John o' Groats, Google Maps says this is 837 miles. By 2030, will run of the mill (affordable) electric cars be able to do this in reasonable time? Currently Tesla's are the only cars in production that could make this with a couple of fast charge stops, and the cost of a Tesla is beyond most families.
Of course this doesn't account for UK residents that take their car to Europe...
Yesterday I did a 745 mile trip in USA with two five minute gas stops. No matter how nice the electric car experience might be, it would have been much longer with any of the ordinary-priced electric cars currently on offer.
Alternative: car buyers could be "educated" (by adverts) to never consider the requirement for a long trip, trailer towing, etc, in their purchasing decisions?
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 19 2020, @02:28PM (6 children)
Rethinking the whole transportation infrastructure is one approach. Lots of Scandinavians don't own cars, and have adequate rail based transport for both long haul and metro needs. In the U.S. we drive our personal cars for most travel, but if we have a longer trip planned (like over 1000 miles in a week) we will rent a car.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 19 2020, @02:52PM
The UK has discovered how to make an EV leak oil?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday November 19 2020, @03:34PM (4 children)
The US isn't much off from the size of all of Europe but with a little under half the people. And every year a little more of us move to the huge cities. Our runs between cities are much longer and there we don't have the entire length of the drives looking like you're just outside a suburb. Which is all to say, what works for them is not going to work for us. Not even close. At least not until our population at least doubles and people get over their megaopolis fetish.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 19 2020, @08:48PM (3 children)
90% of people would get along just fine with an electric car if we have the infrastructure. I don't want gas vehicles banned at all, except possibly the mass production of them.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday November 20 2020, @12:37AM (2 children)
No, they wouldn't. Not with the battery capacity we have today and not with the charge times we have today. Either issue by itself makes EVs impractical to completely unworkable for a pretty good chunk of the nation and together they're multiplicatively worse not additively. You need to get out of huge cities and learn how the other half of the nation lives. Then you need to pay attention to people who work for a living in the big cities too, because it's not that uncommon to need to put 400 miles on a vehicle in a day without leaving your home city.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 20 2020, @04:20AM (1 child)
I thought everybody in the USA was living the skinny jeans, man-bun, coffee shop worker lifestyle I see in the TV commercials. Am I being misled?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday November 22 2020, @12:42AM
Yes. Intentionally. It's not an accident that the overwhelming majority of our news organizations, the entertainment industry, and the education system are almost entirely made up of hardline to outright radical progressives. It's deliberate thought control.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Thursday November 19 2020, @02:42PM
> Land's End, Penzance to John o' Groats
Worth also weighting by population centres. Probably a better measure would be e.g. London to Glasgow (I guess about 500 miles). If I do a trip like that, I will usually fly (more evil than driving I expect). Train is also an option, but expensive and slow.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by bzipitidoo on Thursday November 19 2020, @03:33PM (6 children)
The mentality is different. To a European, 100 miles is a long trip. To an American, 100 years ago is a long time ago.
Another thing that the Europeans say is that the American wants jackrabbit starts, and wants to drive all day.
Can be difficult to appreciate how much roads have improved. In America, for a taste of what it used to be like, take a back road near the east coast. You can't just blithely sail along at 60 mph (or faster), there are too many sharp curves, blind corners, blind hills, stops, little towns with reduced speed limits, jogs in the route, and little to no margin for error with the road being very narrow and having no shoulder. 100 miles of that is a long trip.
I've been on the old standard, the 18 foot wide highway. Even when they are straight as an arrow, that sort of road is exhausting to drive. You are forever making tiny adjustments to the steering, to stay in that narrow lane. You can't take your attention off the road for even 2 seconds. In one state, a candidate for governor won the election on the promise to widen all the state highways to 20 feet. Many of those roads lasted a long time, over 50 years in some cases. For many years, you'd see the conversion: On each side, a stripe of black tar joining the 18 foot highway to an extra foot of pavement.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 19 2020, @03:56PM (5 children)
> You are forever making tiny adjustments to the steering, to stay in that narrow lane.
Sounds like you may have not driven a car with good "on-center" behavior--some are much better than others. I have two similar Japanese made hatchbacks, one is lovely on-center (small steering motions) and the other has just enough friction that it is awful. With a little too much friction in the steering system, the driver has to apply extra torque to overcome the friction...which then leads to the steering wheel turning further than desired...and then a compensating turn back the other way.
This aspect of vehicle dynamics is fairly new, only a few car companies do a good job at it (in my opinion), and detailed understanding is difficult. We were involved in an initial study (long before anything made it to production) and that was late 1990s. Before that it was kind of hit-or-miss if any particular car would be pleasant to drive on-center. The change to electric power steering hasn't helped, in part because focus on the control software has taken away development effort from the mechanical basics like controlling friction in all the parts of the steering system.
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Thursday November 19 2020, @07:09PM (4 children)
Yes, the steering system matters. It's not that important whether it's rack and pinion or recirculating ball, what matters more is how well engineered it is, how well it stays tight and responsive over the years. Back in the days of the 18 foot highway, loose steering was all too common. Little bit of wear on the linkage, a little hardening and shrinkage of the rubber bushings, and you have loose steering. Rack and pinion was generally better over the long haul.
One car I remember for being too cheap was a 1988 Ford Escort. Among other things, the ball joints were too small, and the clutch plate was too small. All kinds of stuff wore out or failed well before the 100k mile mark. And, yes, the steering failed on it. The mechanism came apart. Fortunately, that didn't cause an accident.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 19 2020, @09:22PM (3 children)
I had an '89 Escort as my first car. It was only a couple of years old.
You had to keep it under 70 or 75 mph (I forget the magic number), because once past that, the entire steering column would shake **HARD**. It was probably dangerous to even drive it close to the pre-vibration point based on what a tinny little wagon that car was.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 20 2020, @12:27AM (1 child)
> steering column would shake **HARD**
Sounds like a sympathetic resonance problem. These are often driven by the once-around wheel speed: say the tire circumference is 6 feet, 70 mph is 102 ft/sec, so ~17Hz. Since some of these resonances are very peaky, it only takes a slight amount of input from the tire. Could be imbalance (often fixable with a good quality spin balance job) or tire non-uniformity (most tires have a splice where the tread rubber is wrapped around the base cord structure).
Tires usually wear to make the non-uniformity worse, so new tires will often "fix" these kinds of problems.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 20 2020, @03:49AM
Thanks. I really could have used that info 31 years ago.
;-D
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 20 2020, @02:20AM
> '89 Escort
Funny, I had a 1992 Corolla, that was the competitor for the Escort and I think that 88-92 Corollas were all in one generation. Kept that Corolla for 20 years, top speed (out on empty desert roads) was 110 mph (indicated) and the steering/handling was always solid.
(Score: 2) by SomeGuy on Thursday November 19 2020, @09:34PM (2 children)
Well, it worked for the requirement of actually being able to HEAR people using cell phones.
So, yes, this is exactly what will happen.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday November 20 2020, @12:43AM
I grew up expecting to have perfect signal any time I needed to use the phone and to get blessed silence when I stepped out of the door. And if it wasn't perfect, analog is incomparably easier to understand in poor signal conditions than digital. Analog gives you noise with the signal, digital gives you entirely missing signal.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 20 2020, @04:42PM
Tow a trailer with an extra battery pack and/or generator on it?
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 19 2020, @01:51PM (1 child)
(Score: 3, Touché) by takyon on Thursday November 19 2020, @01:57PM
It's all over. Put on the VR helmet and haptic bodysuit.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by sonamchauhan on Thursday November 19 2020, @02:08PM (7 children)
Then expect private transport to gradually become the prerogative of the very rich.
Then expect a booming market in secondhand cars. And an market in underground 'back-conversion kits' (from electric to hybrid). And people carrying petrol generators in the boot :-)
Or maybe, I am wrong. As someone else noted, the UK is pretty small. Maybe people won't mind breaking their trips to charge. Or automated battery swaps will be finally upon us. Or the country will be riddled with Hyperloops, and people will only need to putter around a few km before having to get onto mandated hyperloop tollways.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday November 19 2020, @03:39PM (5 children)
Bad math there. Only the longest possible drives in the UK are going to require a recharge at all for a single leg of a round trip. For them, it's perfectly viable.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by sonamchauhan on Thursday November 19 2020, @04:38PM (4 children)
Very few people fill-up on a cross-country trip. They fillup on the way back from work or the shops. Filling up takes 5 minutes. Not hours. So no need to plan in advance.
Maybe people will get used to parking in their garage and hooking up an electrical connection to the car every night (or every few nights), and disconnecting it in the morning before driving off. Maybe it'll be just another habit: like charging-up their mobile.
(Score: 2) by slinches on Thursday November 19 2020, @04:53PM (2 children)
This is exactly what's happening. I don't know the statistics, but I'd wager that a large majority of EV owners have chargers installed at home and just plug in to charge overnight.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 19 2020, @05:36PM (1 child)
The majority of hybrids on company lease in the UK are returned at the end of term with the charging cable still in the sealed plastic wrapper.
(Score: 2) by toddestan on Friday November 20 2020, @03:25AM
I guess if you're not the one buying the gas, then a lot of people aren't going to care.
Are plug-in hybrids that common in the UK? They exist in the states but are the exception.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 20 2020, @02:25AM
> parking in their garage
Assumes that you have a garage. Many houses don't have garages or any parking exclusively for the apartment/flat owner. So the next rule will be that landlords are compelled to install hookups for outside chargers...
(Score: 2) by inertnet on Thursday November 19 2020, @04:23PM
So Europe will be looking like Cuba in about 50 years.
I expect the policy will be to make gasoline extremely expensive, plus "too hazardous to handle without a special, expensive permit".
(Score: 2) by Tokolosh on Thursday November 19 2020, @02:18PM (1 child)
The first Industrial Revolution did not happen because the government ordered it. No real revolution has ever been carried out by the State. So Johnson will be lumped with Canute on this.
That is not to say it can't happen. It just won't be because a politician wished it. One thing is for sure - a politician will claim credit.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 19 2020, @07:52PM
The people thought they elected a populist, but Boris Johnson is Jew controlled, Neo-Bolshevik, NWO scum just like the rest.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by xorsyst on Thursday November 19 2020, @02:19PM
The average UK driver does less than 150 miles per week, so already for day to day use, EVs are viable for the majority of people who can charge at home. Once there's a second-hand market, their share will take off significantly.
We got a (non-Tesla) EV this year as our only car, and in 6 months we've only needed to use a public charger twice. Having to stop for 45 minutes in the middle of 3 hours of driving is slightly inconvenient, but not a problem if it's only an occasional thing. Obviously covid has cancelled some longer trips, but even so I suspect once a month at most would we do a journey needing a public charger.
And that's today. In 10 years time things will already be significantly better than that.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Thursday November 19 2020, @02:23PM (14 children)
I have never been to the British Isles, but I'm going to hazard a guess that the typical driving trip is not from the tip of Cornwall to the tip of Scotland. It's probably more regional. The Internet says the distance between Edinburgh and London is 332 miles. That's within the range of a Tesla on a full charge, with maybe a quick top up of 5-10 minutes at a supercharger for a driver who is anxious about range.
It sort of seems like the kind of country that's made for EVs now.
It would further seem that between offshore wind, tidal power, and solar that the UK could achieve full energy independence, which is an enviable state for an island country.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 19 2020, @02:41PM (3 children)
especially in that Northern Ireland. They have lots of solar.
More seriously, any serious consideration of CO2-free power grid in UK involves nuclear power.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 19 2020, @03:39PM (2 children)
Germany has extensive solar despite its latitude and comparable climate.
As for nuclear, does the UK have native deposits of uranium or thorium it can mine?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 19 2020, @03:45PM
The cost of fuel to run a nuclear power plant is a small fraction of the overall cost.
A little fuel lasts a very long time.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 19 2020, @03:49PM
Germany also burns brown coal and buys power from its neighbors when the sun doesn't shine.
Germany is a poor place to try to go heavy on solar. That choice was politically driven, not driven by "SCIENCE".
(Score: 3, Insightful) by theluggage on Thursday November 19 2020, @05:09PM (9 children)
...but not necessarily in the rain, in a traffic jam, with lights on and heater running (a scenario which anybody who has ever been to either Edinburgh or London will appreciate). Then you arrive at your destination with the battery blinking red and the first thing you need to do when you arrive (30 minutes late because of aforesaid traffic jam) is find not just a parking space (often easier said than done) but a parking space with a compatible charger and leave it there long enough to get a substantial charge for the return journey. It's not that you can't make long trips in an EV with 300+ mile range - but you'll have to plan the logistics of charging stops a bit more carefully than in a petrol car where you can get a 300 mile "charge" in 5 minutes at any filling station.
...and the availability of chargers is currently fine for the early adopters, but a handful of charging points at a filling station or shopping mall won't cut it when a large number of motorists need to hook up for an hour or so at a time to get a full charge.
Also, it's not about average distances. It's about longest distances. Most of my trips are a few miles at most and well within the capability of a small, relatively cheap EV - but a few times a year I have to do a much longer drive (of which the longest leg is 300 miles and ends up out in the sticks, where even hooking up to a regular 13A/240V socket would be a hassle). Currently, a small petrol car can do both - with the current state of EVs I'd be looking at either buying a honking great Tesla that was an overkill for 50 weeks out of 52 or renting a long-range car (with all the hassle of collecting it, returning it and getting screwed over for insurance - or paying extra to get it delivered)...
On top of that, I'm very fortunate in having a private driveway and garage - so I could charge overnight, start off on a full charge and never worry about charging stations for 90% of trips. Millions of others rely on street parking - there will have to be a huge roll out of public on-street chargers to address that.
I suspect that a lot of US trips > 100 miles take the form: Car - Local airport - Destination airport - pick/up drop off hire car - Destination. C.f. the UK where virtually all trips are drivable in a single day, internal air services are limited to a few key business/holiday routes that are barely faster than driving and rail travel is end-of-argument expensive.
NB: I'm not opposed to the rollout of EVs but it is going to require a lot of people to change their habits and significant infrastructure improvements, that some of the "works for me" evangelists don't seem to get.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 19 2020, @05:38PM (4 children)
American here. We don't bat an eye at driving 300 miles instead of taking a plane, and that's just regular folks.
Keep in mind our highways, if the traffic isn't horrible, will easily let you drive 80 mph continuously. You can cover a lot of ground in the same time it
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 19 2020, @05:49PM
... takes to do the whole airport/car rental routine.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 19 2020, @07:55PM
yeah, i drive ~600 miles (~10 hrs) between h/motels when i'm traveling a great distance.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday November 20 2020, @12:52AM
The Roomie has about half a dozen sites he's in charge of. But he's the only guy in the company doing his job east of the Mississippi, so he logs a whole fucking lot of miles every time he steps out the door. His closest customer is 4.5 hours away. Adding a charging stop in there would mean the difference from being able to make it home the same day most of the time and almost always having to spend the night on the road because of DoT regs. It would also mean he was legally unable to solve one issue and then make it all the way to another customer's site on the same day.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by xorsyst on Friday November 20 2020, @09:00AM
It's not the speed of the US highways - there's something about US driving that requires a lot less attention (and therefore makes them a lot less tiring) than UK motorway driving. I dunno if it's wider lanes, more lanes, or less traffic. But having done both a fair bit, EVs are much more suited to UK driving because we need to stop for breaks more frequently!
(Score: 2) by toddestan on Friday November 20 2020, @03:38AM (1 child)
In the US, flying is such a hassle that most people will drive it if they can get there in a day's drive (i.e. no night on the road). What a day's drive constitutes will differ between people, but think of something like 8-12 hours behind the wheel, doing ~70 MPH on an interstate highway. You can cover a lot of ground that way. Though the US is big - if you want to drive from coast to coast plan on at least a several nights on the road.
Also, with flying you waste a huge amount of time at the airport with security, making sure you get there early enough, boarding, and so on. For a 100 miles I'm not even going to consider flying. I'll easily get there twice as fast, with a whole lot less stress, just driving it than dealing with trying to fly there. It's something like 250-300 miles or so (4-5 hour drive) before flying actually starts to become faster.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday November 22 2020, @12:48AM
Yup, but it never becomes more convenient until a continent change is involved unless there's a time-critical matter that needs attending to ASAFP.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2, Disagree) by xorsyst on Friday November 20 2020, @08:58AM (1 child)
Or, you know, just taking a bit longer to do those 300 miles because you stop a couple of times to charge. There are public chargers nearly everywhere - check zap map for your particular journey. Rural Scotland is surprisingly well accommodated. Mid Wales is probably the worst.
If it is only a few times a year, an extra hour or two of your life charging (during which time you can nap, read, eat, etc) isn't really that much of a reason to avoid the switch.
(Score: 2) by theluggage on Friday November 20 2020, @10:44PM
It's not an extra hour or two of my life I'm worried about: it's an extra hour or two added to an already exhausting 6 hour drive, especially when you only have 8 hours of daylight in the winter and two rush hours to try and work around, especially when you're not one of those annoying people who can grab a few zees on demand at any time of day and wake up fresh as a daisy... Plus, although my long trips are currently for personal purposes in my copious free time, that's not always the case...
Also, you missed the bit about 300+ mile ranges coming attached to the larger and/or more expensive cars - try it in a compact with 100-140 miles range and you're in to Formula 1-esque deliberations about pit stop strategies - as opposed to "when I get down to 1/8 of a tank I'll pull into the next service station for a piss and a burger".
As I said - these are not total deal breakers but they are inconveniences that people will have to adapt to.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 19 2020, @03:16PM (5 children)
I have to admit that I'm not a native speaker of English. But that usage of the word "up" puzzles me. Actually the numbers are getting smaller, aren't they? Or did the author envision the future as a trip to hell, where the direction to the present is really up?
(Score: 2) by xorsyst on Thursday November 19 2020, @03:21PM (2 children)
Moving something closer to now is moving it up - presumably this is related to having a calendar with the further-away dates further down the calendar.
(Score: 1, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 19 2020, @03:52PM (1 child)
Has nothing to do with that.
It's an idiom, and it's use is justified simply by common usage.
Idioms are one thing that makes learning foreign languages hard. Idioms must simply be memorized.
(Score: 2) by kazzie on Thursday November 19 2020, @07:59PM
There's also the idiom "kicking the can down the road" which is exact opposite of doing something earlier. Knowing that, this use of "up" makes a lot more sense.
(Similarly, if you move something "up the agenda" , you're going to do it sooner.)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 19 2020, @03:22PM
Ya know, everything is "big" in America, everything is "small" in the UK. So the UK wants to stand "out" by moving things "up".
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 19 2020, @05:44PM
Well then, how about the use of "ass" and "shit"?
(Score: 2) by Username on Thursday November 19 2020, @03:33PM (1 child)
If you want to give the EV makers a monopoly, just ban all non-ev cars now. I don't understand the need for a deadline. Give them the goal of 100 miles per watt, and fine them if they don't make it too.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 19 2020, @05:39PM
Capacity - coal powered cars aren't viable and industry would be forced to install generators.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by oumuamua on Thursday November 19 2020, @03:39PM (14 children)
Sometimes you just have to force people to do the right thing.
A less heavy handed way would be a carbon tax but nobody wants that either.
Here is a good discussion of what is at play:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/nov/19/climate-crisis-markets-economic-system [theguardian.com]
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 19 2020, @05:29PM (3 children)
But never, ever consider, even briefly, that if you're having to force them, maybe it isn't the right thing after all.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 20 2020, @03:53AM (2 children)
Have you ever considered that 90% of the population are gibbering morons? Then the other ten or so are split between nihilistic capitalists who don't give a damn about any future they can't buy and sell, and reasonable people who start taking paternalistic views when confronted by the boundless stupidity of the masses.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 20 2020, @02:29PM
Looking at just one metric, a (very smart) friend once reminded me that the average IQ is 100 by definition. Remember that when you are dealing with a large group of people, from all walks of life.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 20 2020, @02:29PM
Thank you for reinforcing my point for me. I swear he's not a sockpuppet.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 19 2020, @06:15PM (6 children)
The incandescent bulb ban was pushed by bulb manufacturers who held CFL patents, increasing heavy metals in the water table was doing the right thing?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 19 2020, @06:57PM (5 children)
LED bulbs were also widely available at that time
They costed more upfront but paid for themselves long term
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 19 2020, @07:04PM (3 children)
LED bulbs in the beginning were not guaranteed to be cost-effective. The reason is, the bulb price was so high that the bulb would have to never break for years before you get the pay back. CFL's were cheaper, and the pay back was more guaranteed to happen. Now the price of LEDs has fallen so much, even if they don't last forever, they still will pay for themselves sooner than even the CFL's which are now obsolete.
(Score: 2) by Tokolosh on Friday November 20 2020, @12:15AM
...and no government diktat needed.
(Score: 3, Informative) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday November 20 2020, @12:57AM (1 child)
They're still not cost efficient in terms of longevity. The LEDs themselves may be able to handle a gerzillion hours but the cocktacularly shitty electronics between the light socket and the LEDs doesn't last much to any longer than an incandescent bulb does. Especially if you have them in an enclosed fixture that traps the heat in with them.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 20 2020, @02:33AM
Our LEDs often get dimmer over a few years. One day I turn on the light and realize that it's really dim, it's not my eyes going bad (yet!) then the LED needs replacing. A few times I've found another location where it might be still useful, like a night-light.
(Score: 2) by toddestan on Friday November 20 2020, @03:43AM
The first phase of the incandescent light ban, at least in the US, started in 2012. LED light bulbs existed, but CFL's were the norm. LEDs became common a few years later. In hindsight, it really was just a bit too early. It would have been much better to just jump from incandescent to LED's, without the short CFL stop-gap in between.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 19 2020, @07:33PM (2 children)
yeah cause extremist actions like bans and and bombings work so well.
(Score: 2, Disagree) by unauthorized on Thursday November 19 2020, @08:32PM (1 child)
If you believe banning things is inherently wrong then you're the extremist here bub. Most people believe in the rule of law to some extent.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 20 2020, @04:09AM
Dictatorships have a strong rule of law by your definition.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday November 19 2020, @03:49PM
No biggie. They quit making Nortons earlier this year anyway. I mean, yeah, you can get a Triumph again now but the Speedmaster is the only thing they make that I'd want to be do anything with but sell.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 19 2020, @07:46PM (1 child)
In WA state, in the USofA, if you're a male, never, ever, gun the throttle of an internal combustion engine within earshot of any females. If you do, they'll dispatch the 'social police' and have you 'investigated' until your life is completely destroyed.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday November 20 2020, @12:58AM
Damn, now I wanna go do that. Way too far of a drive though.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by bart on Thursday November 19 2020, @08:43PM (1 child)
I've been on a few road-trip sabbaticals already, where I've crossed all over Europe in my camper-van. Often when we relocated, we'd do a 1000 km or more per day.
This becomes completely unfeasible with electric vehicles (at least as they are now).
Robert Heinlein wrote in his dystopian book `Friday` about the APV's (Authorized Power Vehicles), that would typically only be allowed to people like farmers and such.
I presume we're heading towards that future, where everyone is tracked all the time, where freedom of movement is factually very limited because of the limitations of public transport.
Except for the rich of course.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 20 2020, @04:14AM
Modern vehicles DO track you at this point.
For me, cars should NEVER broadcast a goddamn thing over radiowaves. NOTHING. But, we are all living in a world where your electronic devices are spyware.
In Soviet Russia, television watches YOU.
Update that to "Corporatist/NWO America."