The Chocolate Fireguard as designed by Mercedes Benz

Why would these leads need to be copper? Not even needed to be particularly hefty, either. ‘Granny’ cables are provided with most EVs? These charging outlets are not going to be super chargers like Tesla have installed! If a ‘granny’ cable (yes, I suppose the term is a bit ‘ageist&rsquo can be operated by a little old lady who might be regarded as frail, just about everyone else could be expected to be able to plug in a slightly heavier connector?

Aluminium is a good electrical conductor.

.

and also rather expensive [in terms of energy consumption] to produce:

**LINK**

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wylfa_Nuclear_Power_Station

So perhaps the 'total cost of ownership' merits another dose of looking-at.

MichaelG.

Please explain what a nuclear power station has to do with a simple lead an socket?

.

The page about the nuclear power station includes figures for the power requirements of Aluminium production.

We need to include such considerations when considering the use of Aluminium cables for charging-up electric vehicles.

MichaelG.

Edited By Michael Gilligan on 10/05/2019 15:42:59

Eh, hang on - that's an underhand conflation.

It's the AI in control, not the driver, so his condition or phone activities are irrelevant, and speeding would be impossible.

My mind is wandering off down a dark and dangerous path...

Did anyone hear the John Finnemore sketch on Radio 4 in which an autonomous car salesman (i.e. salesman of autonomous cars, to save any confusion...) was trying to sell to a customer?

"What if the car sees a choice between hitting a bridge at speed, or knocking down a pedestrian?"

"Ah, the moral decision circuits would choose the bridge."

"Can't you do anything about that?"

"For £10K more, this model would hit the pedestrian. But not a queue of elderly pensioners waiting at a bus stop."

"Really?"

"Yes, and for £20K more, this one would hit the bus stop queue - but not the petrol tanker parked outside a school"

...etc

I can see a day when the back-street car remappers move from tweaking timing and injection parameters to tweaking moral decision circuits - at a price...

Edited By Nealeb on 10/05/2019 16:52:29

Plus, of course, the "pensioners bus queue" might actually be a unit of terrorist militia operating under false ID cover provided by other backstreet data wranglers...

The scope for paranoid fantasy in such a world is limitless.

A dumb place to look for metal costings? Not too much problem in smelting Al in Norway or Iceland, what with their hydro or geothermal leccy output.

Copper is still worth a great deal more as scrap. Three times approx - the same as buying the metals. Further, while conductors would need to be thicker, they would only weigh about half as much as the copper versions. That means the, thieves would need to pinch 6 times as many ally cables, as copper ones, to get the same return.

For a few kW and a short cable, steel might even do the job.

.

Not at all ...

Raison d'être

MichaelG.

.

I think I will leave you on your soapbox

... it's really not worth trying to have a discussion.

The thing about Wylfa is that it's a nuclear power station. Fuels costs effectively zero. 44 years of power production for not a lot of running costs. If we had followed the French model as expected in the '60s and '70s, electrical power would be the cheapest source of energy we had. Hopefully in another 50 years our children and grand children will have fusion power stations coming on line, but it'd be nice to build a couple of dozen new fission plants to tide us over until then,

(Waves hands:- I sent out the purchase order for the cooling fans for the JET generators when I was a child at GEC Machines).

Edited By Mark Rand on 11/05/2019 01:22:05

I was reading a little about fusion power last week. Whislt I understand the basic premis the practicalities are beyond me. I did find some interesting comments along the way. One analysis of fusion development concluded that "fusion power is only 30yrs away - and always will be"

Another commentary claimed that the mass and temperature of our sun wasn't enough to allow for fusion except for quantum tunneling - which i really had a hard time trying to understand. Because of that our own fusion plants apparently need temperatures (and pressures?) greater than the sun...

pgk

But remember, no matter how much you may pay for your"assist programme" there is still the situation that you as the driver are ultimately responsible for any set of of circumstances that may arise. The systems are not to be relied upon.

Parking Assist - you are to ensure that there are no low speed collisions.

Reversing camera - get out of the car to ensure that there are no obstacles that the camera can't see.

Parking sensors - see reversing camera.

Traffic lane assist - keep your eyes on the road! Really? Don't rely on the display on the console.

Braking assist - ?

Speed limit assist - that shuts down when passing some road signs, or the car turns right/left or provides incorrect data or doesn't see a sign. All this is the responsibility of the driver. Learn the Highway Code!

If the system cannot be relied upon, then what is it worth? And what makes it even more damning, is that these shortcomings are designed into the system. In that way, a manufacturer is absolved of any responsibility of anything because the system has not failed. It meets the manufacturers internal specifications.

So whatever you want in the future, don't rely on it being given in a form that is of any real use to you.

The performance of the driverless car will no doubt be the responsibility of the driver!

Keith

I really don't see the point of your post. I find these systems REALLY useful, and it goes without saying that the driver is ultimately responsible for driving the car. Park assist for example is fantastic in crowded streets and the reversing camera an absolute boon when reversing in supermarket car parks. You don't say if you have any of these features, or whether your comments are just comments, but I value the technology currently available to those who want them. Anything to help in the crowded roads of the UK can only be good in my view.

As for totally driverless cars, I'll wait and see!

Derek,

Agree wholeheartedly!

Reading this Thread, I now realise why I have a 1935 Austin Seven Ruby, a 1957 Austin A35 and a 1967 Morris Minor 1000.

Not a computer in sight!

I can lift their bonnets and see everything, BUT best of all, I CAN REPAIR just about everything as well

Geoff - A happy motorist

Just to throw a thought into the EV mix, once all I.C. engined vehicles are no longer manufactured one assumes that the battlefields of the future will be amply provided with recharging stations such that tanks and logistic vehicles can continue to operate?

Dave W

I still don't understand where all the extra electricity is going to come from, nor how it will be distributed at the currents required for mass quick charging without rebuilding the entire grid.

Presumably, the internal resistance of the batteries is very, very low. This means that the entire stored energy could be dumped in no time flat - a massive flash-bang - far faster than a tankful of petrol could be converted into heat. Accidents or fault conditions could be interesting...

Interestingly enough, our two new Aircraft carriers were initially designed to be nuclear powered, unfortunately mainly due to public concern the design was dropped in favour of multiphase high voltage diesel electric drive.

The generators from MTU and Wartsila are capable of using different fuels and mixes of them,.

There will always be a diesel based IC engine of some derivative or other, whether it burns fossil or vegetable fuels is a matter of design and development.

Regards

Just read a newspaper article regarding the ranges achievable with ICE cars, seems 800 - 1000+ miles is becoming easily attainable. EV's have a long way to go to get anywhere near that. Isn't going to help getting the motoring masses to accept EV's.

A facetious thought is that after massive battlefield automation and electric stealth vehicle deployment the enemy successfully blocks their use with EMP weaponry such that we all resort to coal-powered steam tanks. Using slide-rules for windage and trajectory.

pgk

'I value the technology currently available to those who want them.'

Would that you had the choice.

I had a hire car recently that took me ages to fathom.

It seemed that if I wanted cruise control, I could only have it as adaptive. First time in use it that feature so surprised me that I nearly had an accident! It chucked the brakes on.....

Hate DLR lamps. Auto lights which make you think the guy in front is braking. I could go on!

I'm with Geoff. I need to get the Elan back on the road.....