Would you have an electric car if you had the money for a new car and were in the market for one?

[Mussels]

I tried voice commands once in my car, it started phoning someone i really didn't want to call. I decided being desperate to grab my phone to end a call while driving wasn't something i wanted to repeat so I've never tried it again.
It's not like we need extra controls. Cars without touch screens had all the controls i wanted while driving, all easy to operate without looking so they are making it more difficult because it makes for better photos in glossy brochures. If they do it to squeeze a sat-nav in then they can poke that as well, built in sat-navs suck so bad I've never tried one more than once.

[wheelnut]

Touchscreens are lighter, cheaper and quciker/easier to develop than a whole dashboard of buttons, I imagine that's got something to do with it.

The big players are doing a lot more of it now, but they still retain buttons and have more sophisticated haptics. The new Jaguar stuff is pretty good.

My feeling is that it’s a distraction from driving that’s unnecessary. It was noticeable to me that the driver of the Tesla I was in recently spent far too long looking at the screen to set things like temperature. My daughter’s new seat, everything is on the screen, setting temp etc involves far too many button presses, buttons that aren’t in the same place and have to be navigated through different screens.

In a car, the controls should be static, simple and within easy reach.

[Yambo]

By shear coincidence this vid just popped up on my recommended YouTube stuff. If you have a Tesla I probably wouldn't worry too much about the motor itself, it appears to be built like a brick shithouse.

I'm sure I could count 8 bolt holes on the Nissan Leaf differential, not the 6 he reckons. Is it possible two of those 8 holes are to lighten the structure? i doubt it.

Poor obs. Poor editing. Poor arithmetic.

But OK otherwise.

[Mr. Dazzle]

Yeah I did notice that too! Couldn't be arsed counting the bolts on the other ones.

[Horse]

Touchscreens are lighter, cheaper and quciker/easier to develop than a whole dashboard of buttons, I imagine that's got something to do with it.

Yup. Plenty of reasons for them to do it. Doesn't mean it's great for drivers, though.

The big players are doing a lot more of it now, but they still retain buttons and have more sophisticated haptics. The new Jaguar stuff is pretty good.

'Good' in what way? Obviously not in haptic feedback!

www.motoringresearch.com/car-news/mazda ... eens-cars/

Mazda has begun the eradication of touchscreens in its cars, starting with the new 3 hatchback. It’s often a marque to buck prevailing trends, but never without reason, and this latest dismissal of dashboard touchscreens is no exception.

Why get rid of touchscreens?
Touchscreens have been hot tech since they became mainstream over decade ago. They’re now getting up to a standard of clarity and responsiveness in our cars that we’ve been enjoying with our smart hand-held devices for the last 10 years. So why is Mazda ditching them?

There is method and logic in Mazda’s madness. Research has suggested that touchscreens can present too much of a distraction for drivers, finding usage both takes our attention away from the road, and affects our physical control of the car.

“Doing our research, when a driver would reach towards a touchscreen interface in any vehicle, they would unintentionally apply torque to the steering wheel, and the vehicle would drift out of its lane position,” said Matthew Valbuena, Mazda North America’s lead engineer for HMI and infotainment.

And voice operated? Ok, my car was 2 years old when I bought it, so knocking on 4 now, but the voice recognition is awful. First, a system has to recognise the words - but also both driver and system have to be aware of the vocabulary.

As a f'rinstance, if (and mine, AFAIK, doesn't even try to attempt this) you want to:

Clean the windscreen
Wipe ...
Clean the screen
Wipe ...
Wipers or windscreen wipers
Faster slower speed
Increase decrease speed
Intermittent or just once
etc

[Mr. Dazzle]

I honestly can't recall the specifics cause it's too long ago, but Teslas have some core functions on traditional columns still. Indicators and wipers for sure.

Jaguar have knobs still for climate, the screen around the knob can change and I think the screen also changes what the knob does.

I didnt struggle to drive either, but I've never tried driving them day to day either TBF. I'm also not really someone who adjusts very much anyway! In my car I maybe use the sat nav, but I honestly never change the climate control for example.

There's a balance to be struck for sure, but I don't think screens are intrinsically bad. Fighter planes and spaceships manage without many buttons now, look at the inside of an F35 or the SpaceX dragon for example.

[Horse]

I honestly can't recall the specifics cause it's too long ago, but Teslas have some core functions on traditional columns still. Indicators and wipers for sure.

Jaguar have knobs still for climate, the screen around the knob can change and I think the screen also changes what the knob does.

I didnt struggle to drive either, but I've never tried driving them day to day either TBF. I'm also not really someone who adjusts very much anyway! In my car I maybe use the sat nav, but I honestly never change the climate control for example.

There's a balance to be struck for sure, but I don't think screens are intrinsically bad. Fighter planes and spaceships manage without many buttons now, look at the inside of an F35 or the SpaceX dragon for example.

I'm quite happy with the balance of touch screen Vs 'physical' controls in the Leon.

But some windscreen wiper adjustments on the touch screen?

www.bbc.com/news/amp/technology-53666222

The Tesla Model 3 automatically adjusts the speed of the wipers depending on how heavy its sensors believe the rain is.

It can be switched on and off from the steering wheel, but adjusting the interval needs to be done on the touchscreen.

In this case, the driver had to navigate software menus and then choose from one of five settings, after touching an icon.

[Horse]

Re 'new' car makers:

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2021/ ... e-warning/

[Mr. Dazzle]

But some windscreen wiper adjustments on the touch screen?

www.bbc.com/news/amp/technology-53666222

The Tesla Model 3 automatically adjusts the speed of the wipers depending on how heavy its sensors believe the rain is.

I do remember looking at this when I was seriously considering a Model 3 (back when I commuted loads and the fuel was a major factor)...IIRC the 'intermittent' wipe is adjusted via the screen, the normal/fast continuous wipe is still on the stalks.

My BM is similar, intermittent wipe isn't actually intermittent, its based on the sensors. You can adjust how sensitive it is, but there's no option for just "every 5s". The adjustment is on the stalk but I never use it.

Its tiny little details like this which make/break the system and they're still figuring it out. Its also part of the reason car manufacturers are tying up with Google et al, the latter have a better understanding of human/computer intuitive interaction.

[Mussels]

I think your are right about Google. My phone sits in a cradle next to the touch screen, I can use features on my phone with much less attention than the car screen needs. The car screen is cluttered with lots of things I'm not interested in and I have to find a small button in the middle of the mess. If it was reconfigured with fewer and bigger buttons it would be much better.

[demographic]

The everything on a screen is one of the things I'd want to avoid.
As Horse mentioned, the stalk control is an excellent interface and to me getting rid of safety controls and putting them on a screen looks cheap.

I can understand it if the car is going to be a driverless taxi and in that case it's likely OK to get rid of controls.

[demographic]

This is worth watching, it covers a bit about the energy markets, the countries that are using grid tied massive batteries, blockchain to allow many more small energy transactions and some about the US grid system problems.

[Kneerly Down]

This is worth watching, it covers a bit about the energy markets, the countries that are using grid tied massive batteries, blockchain to allow many more small energy transactions and some about the US grid system problems.

I didn't feel he synthesised the info very well, and he does an awful lot of reading what's on the screen.

And energy storage already IS the 'fourth pillar', given that e.g. the mass of windfarms up this way couldn't operate anything like the efficiency they do without existing hydro pumped storage, let alone the planned investment of billions in additional storage to cope with the fluctuating supply inherent in much of 'green energy'.

The amount of pumped storage already in the USA for instance would take around 500-1000 of the megabattery installations to match it.
What the batteries are very good for is very quick response. e.g. for allowing the interconnectors to continue working when a big element of generation goes offline.

A (very little) bit like in my house where if we have a power cut, my TV, phones and broadband don't drop because they are on UPS'.
If the power cut is going to be for more than 10 minutes or so though, I nip outside and crank up the diesel generator.

[Horse]

All you need is a source of high energy radiation which doesn't generate more nuclear waste. I.e. Nuclear Fusion.

It's all coming together!

In 50 years.

Saga (or CJ, can't remember the usual source) will tell you that the correct description is:
"Just around the corner - and has been for 50 years"

Ready tomorrow? Soon? 2025!

https://spectra.mhi.com/the-inner-worki ... on-reactor

Imagine a power plant so powerful that it’s like bringing the energy of the sun to Earth. It might sound like science fiction, but a project in southern France is working to make this a reality.

The ITER plant will be the world’s largest nuclear fusion reactor when it comes online in 2025. It’s been 35 years in the making

[Mr. Dazzle]

ITER leads into DEMO, which is planned to be the first 'real' nuclear fusion power station, coming online in 20ish years time I think.

[Wreckless Rat]

Change the century and you might be into something but I’ll have a soapy no commercial fusion plant will ever exist in our lifetime, if ever.

[Cousin Jack]

Change the century and you might be into something but I’ll have a soapy no commercial fusion plant will ever exist in our lifetime, if ever.

They must be nearly there by now.

I can remember in about 1970ish, I think it was Tomorrow's World on the BBC, saying that by the year 2000 fusion would make energy as cheap as chips. The BBC wouldn't tell lies.

[Wreckless Rat]

Change the century and you might be into something but I’ll have a soapy no commercial fusion plant will ever exist in our lifetime, if ever.

They must be nearly there by now.

I can remember in about 1970ish, I think it was Tomorrow's World on the BBC, saying that by the year 2000 fusion would make energy as cheap as chips. The BBC wouldn't tell lies.

They have come a long way, but have still got pretty much the same issues. Tritium being a big one and parasitic energy consumption, as well as the lithium issues, and recharge issues...

Also they are not that clean....well certainly not as clean as they are made out to be. There as plenty of very educated scientists who believe it will always remain a dream.

[Mr. Dazzle]

I think what's actually gonna kill fusion is renewable being cheap.

Even if you had a fully functioning technology today it would still cost you a couple of billion to build a power station. It still costs hundreds of millions just to build a big gas power station. Building big stuff costs!

As I said a while back, when you can build a small wind farm for £50 million OR a big one for a billion OR a medium tidal turbine for £75 million and so on, and only spend a year or two doing it, the big multi billion pound decade long programmes are harder to fund.

And that's before you have to find the billions to actually get to the point where you can start building a fusion plant.

[Asian Boss]

I was on a call with some key stakeholders about the road map no Net Zero.

It turns out some of the polluters don't want to pay! They effectively want to do a big old deuce on the living room carpet, say "that was me, I'm not cleaning it up and I'm going to do another". Of course they will pay. And pay dearly.