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We'll always be together, Forever, ? In Electric Dreams...
Why...
Do I not shed a tear for the death of the combustion engine? From 2040 with the banning of all diesel and petrol cars, the UK has scheduled it to go to the great garage in the sky. Even earlier in Norway... but they have Santa power that allows Ingrid and Lars to visit the entire globe in one night on a sleigh, so they are not worried. However under current technology this swap-over just ain't going to happen. Those boffins at the UK's National Grid already have a problem at half time in a big football match when the Brits all flick on the kettle for a cuppa. Imagine what 9 million cars all charging at the same time in will do? That's before we work out where we will find enough lithium to make all these batteries as well as work out how to transport them without blowing up. A small question here dear reader. If a lithium battery can blow up in transit, what makes it not catch fire when subsequently in use? No no no, I still give a huge bow of respect to the propellor head's who Elon Musk has corralled together at Tesla, but the knee jerk reaction from the other car makers to buzz down the same electric path is wrong. Hydrogen, the most plentiful gas in the universe must be the long term answer. Water out your exhaust pipe, fill up time same as petrol and no one has a monopoly on the stuff. In a hundred years, electric cars and Hybrids will be seen with the same affection as other backwaters of transport; the steam car, the Segway and Wankel engines.
...and another thing
I also note that among the uber-brilliant as well as eye wateringly wealthy denizens of Palo Alto there is disagreement about Arnold Schwarzenegger’s The Terminator. In the terrified corner are Elon Musk and Bill Gates who are convinced that A.I., Artificial Intelligence, will take one look at the people who created it and decide either to keep us humans as pets (after being suitably neutered) or consign us to history. They want it regulated.
In the eager beaver corner are Larry Page and Mark Zuckerburg who are convinced A.I. will not only give us all our own Jeeves to shake a decent Martini but replace us in the workplace so we can live to 150 and at last reach the final level on Candy Crush.
For the first time in my life I feel a bit disassociated with all this. By the time I have to hand in the keys to my Maserrari I will probably be peeing into my underpants. Hopefully the old people’s home my wife has shuffled me off into will have at least glamorous Russian nurses and a bloody big Scalectrix track to play on… which I suppose is ironic. My first and last taste of high speed driving will be electric. Maybe Elon Musk is right…
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2 Comments
Love reading your dispatches! Keep them coming.
Very well put! The issue could not have been explained any better. Kinda like the age old horse and buggy discussion. How do you grow that much oats and what do you do with the excrement.