1 hour ago, LHookins said:

The Medieval Warm Period 

 

Oh yes. Caused by a reduction in volcanism, increased solar activity and shifts in ocean circulation patterns. Not global of course.

The Romans did like their wine. Fruity and sweet they say, just how I like it, I dont like dry wine. 

Hmmm....from Chinese cars to Medieval "Warming" to wine??  What's next??  I bet leon's next Starship "Big Bang
Theory".   Back on track, guys! 🥷

1 hour ago, LHookins said:

If anyone here has driven or owned a Chinese EV, I'd be interested in hearing your impressions.  I'll trust most people from here before I'd trust most outside sources.  Too many agendas.

 

The only EV's I've briefly driven are Tesla. My daughter borrowed a BMW EV while her new Toyota was being serviced. I was the passenger when she had occasion to execute an overtaking manoeuvre.... I dont know if this is a word not allowed or not but bloody hell! Boy do they move!

Re Chinese, I can only go by YouTube reviews of the cars and they have been very favorable..

43 minutes ago, birdguy said:

So you see, transportation is an evolutionary process.  That process will continue until we eventually have battery powered automobiles, trucks and railroad locomotives and possibly even passenger aircraft.

 

Exactly, well said. Human beings dont like change. I spent a lot of time working on cars and all my cars have been manual transmission. Its taken me a while to adapt to my daughters automatic. 😁

As for planes, depends what you mean by "passenger" planes, in terms of how many. Aviation Alice is well in to testing and carries 11 people over a reasonable distance. There are coverted Beavers flying too, eBeavers they call them. They were the worlds first electric commercial aircraft, I recall. 

I'm less interested in the fact that China is making EVs and loading them with cool tech gadgets than in the fact that: "cost and quality is far superior to what we see in the west."

If China is making vehicles of a quality equal to, for example, Volvo or pre-merger Mercedes, I want to know about it.  It's not that they can, it's that they're willing to put in the effort.

Hook

 

51 minutes ago, LHookins said:

(This year, GS-13 step 10 with the Washington D.C Locality Payment is $156,755.)

And they get a lifetime pension after 30 years to boot, payed for by me and you.  Law enforcement gets a pension after just 20 years.

But those in charge tell us that it's just too hard to cut any spending, unless it's cuts for us ordinary folks, that is.

Dave

55 minutes ago, birdguy said:

It's evolution guys.  You can't stop it.

Yes, Noel, eventually most vehicles will be electric.  Electric vehicles are superior to ICE vehicles in a number of ways, actually.

My beef has always been that the promoters of them hype up their benefits and downplay or refuse to acknowledge their shortfalls, because although they may be better, they ain't perfect.

They require enormous inputs in the form of new mining and processing which requires a lot of energy, not to mention drawing even more power from an already overtaxed electrical grid.  Some people naively glorify them as some sort of miraculous technology which will save the planet, but that is simply not the case.  Are they more efficient than ICE vehicles?  Yes, which is a good thing, but they still use a lot of energy in the form of electricity, so in switching to EVs we're just shifting from gasoline power to electricity, more of which now has to be generated.  Just wait until there are a couple hundred million of them charging up every day along with more electricity-hungry AI data centers.  Hopefully capacity will catch up, but I promise you that solar and wind ain't gonna cut it by a long shot.

Dave

OK, hang on to your butts....here's the answer for charging EV's

 

 

1 hour ago, charliearon said:

OK, hang on to your butts....here's the answer for charging EV's

Thanks for posting that.

I can see a time in the future where batteries are light weight, safe, and very high density, charge efficiently from sunlight and have enough storage to run for days without sunlight, can be easily and quickly charged if necessary, are cheap enough for average people to afford, and have a thriving used car market.

By this point people will prefer EVs over petrol based cars as a matter of course.  

This point will not come by 2030.

Put EVs on the road while developing the necessary improvements, give them rebates and incentives, but do NOT make them mandatory.  Allow the market to make its own decisions.  This is kinda how automobiles took over from horses.

Hook

Edited August 10, 2025Aug 10 by LHookins

2 hours ago, charliearon said:

Hmmm....from Chinese cars to Medieval "Warming" to wine??  What's next??  I bet leon's next Starship "Big Bang
Theory".   Back on track, guys! 🥷

This is the hangar chat, not a support topic and in my experience, the best face to face discussions do move from subject to subject, often a long way from the original subject and why not?
 

Edited August 10, 2025Aug 10 by Reader

1 hour ago, LHookins said:

If China is making vehicles of a quality equal to, for example, Volvo or pre-merger Mercedes, I want to know about it.  

Volvo cars and Polestar, their EV offshoot, are both Chinese owned already.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volvo_Cars
Mercedes is still German owned.

Edited August 10, 2025Aug 10 by Reader

2 hours ago, dave2013 said:

And they get a lifetime pension after 30 years to boot, payed for by me and you.  Law enforcement gets a pension after just 20 years. But those in charge tell us that it's just too hard to cut any spending, unless it's cuts for us ordinary folks, that is.

I paid software engineers more than that 3 years out of college, with far more generic skills.

Trust me, if you abolish the pension you'd have to pay market wages. I assure you that would be far more expensive.

Cheers

31 minutes ago, Reader said:

Mercedes is still German owned.

I had to check this out.

Quote

Daimler-Benz (maker of Mercedes-Benz) merged with Chrysler Corporation in 1998. The merger resulted in the formation of DaimlerChrysler AG. However, the partnership was short-lived, and Daimler eventually sold off its stake in Chrysler in 2007. 

Best news I've heard all year.  That explains why my 2006 ML-500 is a piece of word not allowed.  It has the star on the grill and some Mercedes features, but the quality is abysmal.

Good to see it's back in German hands.

Hook

46 minutes ago, Reader said:

This is the hangar chat, not a support topic and in my experience, the best face to face discussions do move from subject to subject, often a long way from the original subject and why not?
 

Guess again!  Ain't gonna happen.  Stay on topic without much drifting around or the topic WILL be closed!

12 minutes ago, charliearon said:

Guess again!  Ain't gonna happen.  Stay on topic without much drifting around or the topic WILL be closed!

Thanks.