Only one side of the street too.

There’s an historic section of a nearby town which is popular for tourists. Thousands of people a day just walking around all over the place, going shop to shop and whatnot. The whole place has street parking on both sides, a centre turn lane, and 50km/h signage that gets ignored at every opportunity.

Used to be a tram line ran through the town that connected to the neighbouring cities, but oh no, must make room for the private automobile. Luckily some years ago they started charging for parking, and since Covid-19 a dozen spots were given to restaurants and the like for additional outdoor seating.

Such a shock when it turned out a few parking spaces could generate more revenue for businesses when you put people on them instead of cars.

Don’t get me wrong, obviously people like yourself make these long ish trips regularly and you’d benefit either from more range or better infrastructure. If, like gas stations, there were two hundred thousand charging stations sprinkled through the country, less range in the car would be less of a concern.

I know someone from my college days that hung a 100’ cord out her third story window to plug in her little EV. Nissan Leaf or something of that class. Worked like a charm for puttering around town.

I’m sure the data isn’t perfect, but as far as the averages go, it’s accurate for my driving patterns. Those trips you’re taking nearly double your yearly mileage, so that would certainly change your average. Without them though, you wouldn’t be too far off based on what you’ve described. I’m fortunate that I live near a train line for my regular trips out of town. Not an option for the vast majority unfortunately.

Another option a couple I know took was a hybrid. Most of the time they don’t use the engine, but when they go see family or what have you, they’ve got the range they need without having to find a charger. Pretty convenient if you ask me.

Eventually we’ll have charging stations all over, or maybe light rail, and going hundreds of miles in a day without a thought to battery depletion, but I doubt I’ll be around to see it.

A 300 Mi charge would mean if you can’t charge daily, you would be able to go a couple of days without having to do so.

Given most trips are less than 3 miles, if you had a 300 mile range vehicle, that’s about three months of average driving, not a couple of days. My point was that people don’t go on long drives the vast majority of time and don’t more than fifty or so miles of range.

I’ll use Tesla as the example here only because it’s the prominent electric car brand. Directly from them:

A 120 volt outlet will supply 2 to 3 miles of range per hour of charge. If you charge overnight and drive less than 30 to 40 miles per day, this option should meet your typical charging needs.

They go one to say you can get a 10x improvement on the miles per hour when charging from a 240v outlet. Even accounting for installation of a new outlet to the garage or side of the house, this would be far cheaper than buying a vehicle with hundreds of miles of range and using a supercharger every other week.

Sodium could easily replace lithium in EV applications if people would acknowledge that only 2% of trips are more than 50 miles. Though it’s probably moreso the auto industry’s fault that people have this assumption they need to prepare for a three hundred mile journey on a moments notice.

If manufacturers were putting out cars that had four figure price tags with double digit ranges, they would become the best selling vehicles within a decade and no one would care if it was sodium, lithium, or sawdust. Of course, there is less profit to be made from smaller vehicles and so the corporations won’t bother.

While the labels give retailers the ability to increase prices suddenly, Gallino doubts companies like Walmart will take advantage of the technology in that way.

“To be honest, I don’t think that’s the underlying main driver of this,” Gallino said. “These are companies that tend to have a long-term relationship with their customers and I think the risk of frustrating them could be too risky, so I would be surprised if they try to do that.”

Rather than seeing an opportunity to use surge pricing, Gallino says retailers are likely drawn to electronic shelf tags to ensure consistency between online and in-store pricing.

This person must live on another planet.

Sure, the prices won’t be changing every six seconds, but anyone with half a mind can see these tags won’t be used only when stock or expiry are a factor. The prices will be up on the weekend to start. Then later it’ll be changing through the day to get higher prices between 4:00-7:00 when people are getting off work.

The arguments of no longer needing people to do yet another menial task and increasing utility of labels for consumers both have merit, but this alien even says the primary factor:

“The bottom line … is the calculation of the amount of labor that they’re going to save by incorporating this."

Agreed. The whole idea of these huge payouts could be eliminated and replaced with what exists for everyone else - severance pay. Calculated off a regulated minimum formula, based primarily on how long the person served the company.

I also agree with you that the top and bottom salaries should have a correlation. The C suite making the salary of a shelf stocker in one day should not happen. I think I could accept that the top gets somewhere around 10 or 20 times higher salary. Even 100x would be an improvement to the way it is now.

Like you point out, between stock options and whatever else, an executive salary could be a few hundred thousand, even if their total compensation is tens of millions. In fantasy land it would be nice if, once a company grows to a certain point, say a billion dollars in value, if it were required to convert to an employee owned cooperative entity.

It’s a shame things are the way they are. Maybe one day we won’t have politicians that can be bought. That’s a different discussion altogether.

In an ideal world, the penalties you describe are suitable. Though, gaming industry aside, for the executive level of most any corporation, being a scapegoat and handed a golden parachute is the worst case scenario for them leaving. In many cases floating across the street right into another executive position.

Jail time isn’t a likely outcome. It just isn’t the world we live in, unfortunately.

I was looking at the Volt a couple years ago but the only ones around were over 25k. Then I started looking for a BMW i3, but, like so many of the cheaper EVs, there’s not many for sale. It’s a shame these smaller vehicles, even a hybrid, aren’t pumped out the factories left, right, and centre.

It’d be so much safer - and quieter - in the city if smaller cars were more pervasive.

It’s almost like they knew in the sixties that they were in for some problems and have since been devising ever more complicated methods of disinforming the public in order to maintain their wealth. Does my head in sometimes.

Without knowing any examples of the vehicles that are for sale everywhere except, roughly, half the world, I can’t really say much them. What I can say is that compared to the monstrous subsidies the oil and gas industry recieve, it does seem like those tariffs could be done away with. At least on the face of it, perhaps the issue is more intricate than that but I’m sure you grasp my meaning.

I see what you’re getting at but this would be difficult for a publisher to stick with in the event the game does horribly. Requiring them to keep their word to the date advertised would end up with them only guaranteeing a week, or send ramifications through all industries requiring truth in advertising.

A middle ground would be simply to legislate that when games require online connectivity for any reason, the appropriate software is released to allow a locally run server to enable online function at the time the company decides to decommission their servers. Then require them to hold these files in an accessible manner for at least as long as the servers had been active for.

That would be difficult in the event the company goes out of business, but I’m sure this would be a difficult thing to explain to most politicians so maybe not so simple after all.

When 52% of all trips made are less than 3 miles and less than 2% are over fifty miles, I don’t think battery swapping is something any individual needs on a regular basis.

I could get on board if manufacturers were making $10,000 sub 50 mile vehicles that were compatible with a swap station so you could switch to a larger battery for the weekend. This would have to be a standard adopted by all however, and even before that, they’d have to make small cars. Which they won’t, because we all know they are too busy making trucks and SUVs.

I see what you’re saying, but it wasn’t too long ago a similar sentiment was said of motorized construction and farm equipment.

Ultimately, if each piece of equipment had a viable electric alternative that would operate all day without needing a charge, it wouldn’t take that smart of a bean counter to realize there were a lot of savings to be had if they started projects with an electrical charging area for the new equipment that could potentially be repurposed for customer or resident charging once the job was done.

It would become an anticipated start-up cost, similar to the transport of the equipment itself, delivery of materials, set up of portable offices and toilets and the like. Obviously this would be out of reach for a small operation, but a company that’s building out row houses or shopping centres I could see making the switch.

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Ignoring that they shouldn’t be getting any of these ‘gifts’, could you imagine being one of the others only recieving a few thousand a year. I’d be rather annoyed.

Not sure if this image from the DOT is actually of this specific shipment because I found this image from April when they moved the eighth part and it’s less that half the weight. Here’s a two minute video of it.

Do you live in a city or an are with a lower population? I strap the helmet on in the city or doing some speed, but when we’re out visiting with family in the country or a small town, we usually go without it.

I’ve been using Shokz for a decade now. They’ve replaced a couple sets at no cost. I wear mine every day. Even for the occasional swim.

Listening to podcasts definitely gives longer battery life than listening to music. Though even the odd time I’ve drained the battery in a day, I charge it with a battery pack for fifteen minutes and it’s charged again.

Not many products I’d say are worth every cent, but from the quality to the customer service, Shokz are great.

I agree. A truck can be a good option for some, but as you point out, most people aren’t doing a DIY project each weekend. The F150 can be optioned out to a six figure price tag. It’s inconceivable to me.

I’m acquainted with the owner of a middle sized plumbing company, and he had a close call with a dog that got loose one day. Not his fault, and he was able to stop in time, but nonetheless it bothered him. Couple months go by and he switched all his service trucks out for transit vans.

The newer style vans with the slanted front end gives far more visibility, twice the cargo space without having to climb up into the bed, they don’t weigh as much, and are more fuel efficient. All at the same price point.

An unfortunate side effect of modern life is that many people see purchases like a vehicle or a house as these monthly costs that, on the face of them, they can afford. The trouble is they don’t consider the overall cost of the purchase, let alone the ongoing cost in terms of routine maintenance and unexpected repairs.

It’s a shame, but when something is marketed as though it’ll make you the toughest in town, who wouldn’t pay $181.50 _weekly at 0% APR ~for the first three months~.

Couldn’t put it on the roof? I saw a wagon once with a chest freezer strapped to the roof and couldn’t stop laughing.

U-Haul is a titan of the moving industry, but it’s still surprising how few people would consider an occasional rental, be it a trailer like you used or even a truck, as part of owning a regular car. You spent around $100 to rent that trailer for a day? Imagine spending quadruple that - every month for a decade - just to ensure you have 24/7 access to 24 square feet of cargo space. Not to mention double in fuel compared to your Jetta.

Even ignoring the renting aspect, pretty well everyone knows a couple people that already have a pick up truck. Just borrow it for a day or two when you do a project or buy a new stove, fill the tank, and buy them their beverage of choice. It’s not complicated.

More people should be like you.