(This letter was sent to multiple Island newspapers on June 8, 2023)
Dear Editor,
We have four alternatives to Highway 4. Three roads are controlled by Mosaic Forest Company and one railway escaped the fire and floods but not decades of Government neglect. It is time for Government’s stubborn, ideological resistance to expanding our publicly owned transportation networks to end.
The Ministry has demonstrated its preference for the “Valley Link” between Cowichan, Alberni, and Comox, including servicing Nitinat, Anacla, and Bamfield, with its upgrades to the Bamfield road, so finish the job: Take over the forestry roads and extend Highway 18. While you’re at it, compensate and work with First Nations to rebuild the railway and provide resilience and new options for all residents and businesses.
Billions of dollars in economic activity is being wasted by road closures because Government has allowed our transportation networks to deteriorate and become reliant on single points of failure.
Interesting moves in the #ElectricVehicle changing space lately (in the US and in Canada).
It sure would have been nice for the US to mandate some open #EV charging standard years ago, but it seems that everyone is coalescing around #Tesla's so-called NCAS "standard".
Right now, it seems to me that NCAS is not actually a standard, but rather, an open specification.
Hopefully, this gets on an independent standards track.
There's been a fair bit of mindless chatter recently that EVs don't actually reduce CO2 emissions. Prolly started and funded by legacy petrol-car manufacturers who are losing market share. It's piffle.
#EVs just aren't practical for some people here. I regularly do a trip where I drive ~300km, stay for five hours, and drive home again. In the winter, when it's -30C, and you're driving into a (minimum) 110km/h headwind, you need the heater on full blast, all the way.
An #EV doesn't have a lot of waste heat to spare, so they need an #electrical#resistance#heater. Heat pumps don't work at -30C either.
There's a fundamental difference. My #ICE#car generates more waste heat than I could possibly use for heating purposes, and I don't need to heat the fuel to keep it efficient. So having the heat on full blast doesn't reduce my range at all.
So if I leave home with enough gas to get there, I'm fine, no matter what the weather. If #heating for cabin & battery mean my #EV quits 10km short of my destination, there's a good chance I'm #dead.
Carrot River's full of nice people, about 1,000 of them. We used to drive to the cafe there from Red Earth (nearest restaurant), a little less than an hour.
But there's no fast-charger there. Not even a 4kW one. And despite them being nice, I don't think any individual or business would want me to plug in and suck down 1.5kW on their dime for 50 hours straight.
R200,000 City Blitz becomes South Africa’s cheapest electric car at 20c/km and 150km range with max speed 80km/h
Aimed at small businesses, mines and urban delivery services, the tiny Chinese vehicle is imported by EV Africa, a subsidiary of motor retail and car hire giant Combined Motor Holdings (CMH).
The affordable, eco-friendly City Blitz is available in four mod ...continues
Lucid now makes an EV that gets 516 miles on a single charge.
Goodbye "range anxiety". VERY rare to drive more than 500 miles in a single day.
Detailed review at link below. This car is expensive, but the tech should transfer to any car maker who wants to hit that number, even in a relatively inexpensive #EV.
hmmm ... Rowan Atkinson makes several valid points here, but others that make no sense to me, such as "the environmental problem with a petrol engine is the petrol, not the engine ..." What?! (fyi, "Mr Bean" Atkinson holds bachelors and masters degrees in Electrical Engineering).
"I love electric vehicles – and was an early adopter. But increasingly I feel duped - Rowan Atkinson (Guardian)
@yosoysami I will need to find the research paper I remember reading on this, it I think he undersells the current situation with existing #ev infrastructure (both battery manufacturing and charging), and oversells the possible future of hydrogen and especially synthetic fuels. I do agree that holding on to older, efficient gas cars is likely a sound idea
Chargeplace Scotland to be taken over by private company and local council partnerships. Once a great network now needs investment and the Scottish Government can't find the cash or will to be in charge.