week 11: Sweet Dreams
Enviado: 25 ago 2011, 14:04
week 11: Sweet Dreams
"Robert ponders electric cars, long journeys and the human body
By Robert Llewellyn on July 8, 2011 12:45 PM
This is going to sound a little sad, but I did actually dream about driving the Nissan LEAF last night. I’ve put it down to sleeping in an unfamiliar hotel bed, maybe it was that unusual beer I had last night, but gone are the days I dream of meeting a beautiful woman on a tropical beach who was madly in love with me. I now dream about electric cars. I’m not proud.
I’ve Googled it, I can get help, there’s a balding man with a long ponytail in Northern California who will do dream workshops with me while I sit in his hot tub in the woods. ‘Let me re-shape your dreams into life affirming positivity.’
Umm… maybe not.
In the dream I was zipping along a German autobahn checking the sat nav for a re-charge symbol. This may seem rather obscure, but for the past few days I have been zipping along numerous German Autobahns in a diesel Volvo at what we in the UK would consider highly illegal speeds while being tailgated by black Audi and Mercedes saloon cars who want to go much, much faster.
To explain, I’ve been shooting a series of films for Volvo, which required numerous far distant locations.
As I sat for many hours covering enormous distances, I did start to ponder on the glorious contradictions of human existence. For a start, everywhere you look in Germany there are enormous wind turbines majestically turning on the wide-open planes generating gargantuan quantities of electricity. At least half the houses I passed had most of their roof space covered in solar panels. I saw steep hillsides covered in a patchwork of vineyards and racks of solar panels. Not one or two dotted here and there but huge fields containing thousands of black, south facing panels. The Germans are 20 years ahead of us in terms of renewable energy and yet how ever many cycling vegetarians there are in Berlin (in case you haven’t been, there are lots) there are still an impressively large number of single men in expensive fast, black automobiles travelling at way over 120 miles per hour on the autobahns.
Germany is a much bigger country than the UK but you can really cover a lot of miles in one day, as I have just discovered. However, if you look at this popular activity in terms of energy efficiency, well, don’t bother. A big heavy saloon car that’s advertised as achieving say 33 mpg in average driving is not quite going to get that when travelling at over 100 miles an hour. Maybe 12-15 mpg at best.
At the moment the journey I’ve just done (well over 1,500 miles in two days) would be impossible in any existing electric car other than a Tesla, even with a comprehensive fast charge network.
I got depressed about this for a bit. I started asking myself, maybe electric cars just don’t work, maybe the vociferous Clarksonian lobby is right.
When I climbed out of the Volvo I’ve been driving and tried to stand up straight, I had to get young people to help me. I was locked in the driving position even though I was technically standing. This isn’t a design fault in the Volvo, it’s a design fault in human evolution. Apparently the human body isn’t meant to stay motionless for seven hours in a sitting position while concentrating on controlling a complex machine at speeds that make your eyes water.
I was doing precisely the sort of journey I hear about from many people when the subject of electric vehicles comes up. ‘Well, I couldn’t drive to Stuttgart in one day in one of your puny electric cars, they just don’t have the range.’ I have to agree, no way could you do massive car journeys in one day using battery electric technology, but maybe that’s a good thing.
Maybe – and I’m thinking globally; I’m taking a macro level overview here – but maybe creating an infrastructure that allows, nay, encourages high speed long distance driving is just a little bit mad.
As I pulled in from the fast lane to allow another string of black Audis and Mercedes to pass me, something overtook all of us on the far side of the autobahn. An ICE train (Intercity-Express). It’s only when you’re travelling at over 100 mph and a train overtakes you like you’re standing still that you realise how fast those babies go.
The ICE train is powered by electricity, 20% of which is from renewable sources in Germany. If you want to go a long distance in a short time, that kind of makes sense doesn’t it?
The Volvo is very nice; it does the job really well. If you drive it with care it’s much more efficient than previous generations of diesel cars. Even at a steady 110 mph it’s getting over 40 mpg, which is an incredible technical achievement. But it does all feel increasingly bonkers.
‘I just couldn’t do that journey in an electric car,’ is not only true, it’s also maybe a little sign from silicon heaven that maybe we shouldn’t try. Maybe we should organise our lives so we don’t have to do those sorts of journeys. Catch the train to somewhere close to your destination and then use a pre-charged leased electric car for the last leg? Crazy crackpot notion or gentle adjustment to a slightly more efficient way of getting around?"
Em: http://www.thechargingpoint.com/opinion ... reams.html
"Robert ponders electric cars, long journeys and the human body
By Robert Llewellyn on July 8, 2011 12:45 PM
This is going to sound a little sad, but I did actually dream about driving the Nissan LEAF last night. I’ve put it down to sleeping in an unfamiliar hotel bed, maybe it was that unusual beer I had last night, but gone are the days I dream of meeting a beautiful woman on a tropical beach who was madly in love with me. I now dream about electric cars. I’m not proud.
I’ve Googled it, I can get help, there’s a balding man with a long ponytail in Northern California who will do dream workshops with me while I sit in his hot tub in the woods. ‘Let me re-shape your dreams into life affirming positivity.’
Umm… maybe not.
In the dream I was zipping along a German autobahn checking the sat nav for a re-charge symbol. This may seem rather obscure, but for the past few days I have been zipping along numerous German Autobahns in a diesel Volvo at what we in the UK would consider highly illegal speeds while being tailgated by black Audi and Mercedes saloon cars who want to go much, much faster.
To explain, I’ve been shooting a series of films for Volvo, which required numerous far distant locations.
As I sat for many hours covering enormous distances, I did start to ponder on the glorious contradictions of human existence. For a start, everywhere you look in Germany there are enormous wind turbines majestically turning on the wide-open planes generating gargantuan quantities of electricity. At least half the houses I passed had most of their roof space covered in solar panels. I saw steep hillsides covered in a patchwork of vineyards and racks of solar panels. Not one or two dotted here and there but huge fields containing thousands of black, south facing panels. The Germans are 20 years ahead of us in terms of renewable energy and yet how ever many cycling vegetarians there are in Berlin (in case you haven’t been, there are lots) there are still an impressively large number of single men in expensive fast, black automobiles travelling at way over 120 miles per hour on the autobahns.
Germany is a much bigger country than the UK but you can really cover a lot of miles in one day, as I have just discovered. However, if you look at this popular activity in terms of energy efficiency, well, don’t bother. A big heavy saloon car that’s advertised as achieving say 33 mpg in average driving is not quite going to get that when travelling at over 100 miles an hour. Maybe 12-15 mpg at best.
At the moment the journey I’ve just done (well over 1,500 miles in two days) would be impossible in any existing electric car other than a Tesla, even with a comprehensive fast charge network.
I got depressed about this for a bit. I started asking myself, maybe electric cars just don’t work, maybe the vociferous Clarksonian lobby is right.
When I climbed out of the Volvo I’ve been driving and tried to stand up straight, I had to get young people to help me. I was locked in the driving position even though I was technically standing. This isn’t a design fault in the Volvo, it’s a design fault in human evolution. Apparently the human body isn’t meant to stay motionless for seven hours in a sitting position while concentrating on controlling a complex machine at speeds that make your eyes water.
I was doing precisely the sort of journey I hear about from many people when the subject of electric vehicles comes up. ‘Well, I couldn’t drive to Stuttgart in one day in one of your puny electric cars, they just don’t have the range.’ I have to agree, no way could you do massive car journeys in one day using battery electric technology, but maybe that’s a good thing.
Maybe – and I’m thinking globally; I’m taking a macro level overview here – but maybe creating an infrastructure that allows, nay, encourages high speed long distance driving is just a little bit mad.
As I pulled in from the fast lane to allow another string of black Audis and Mercedes to pass me, something overtook all of us on the far side of the autobahn. An ICE train (Intercity-Express). It’s only when you’re travelling at over 100 mph and a train overtakes you like you’re standing still that you realise how fast those babies go.
The ICE train is powered by electricity, 20% of which is from renewable sources in Germany. If you want to go a long distance in a short time, that kind of makes sense doesn’t it?
The Volvo is very nice; it does the job really well. If you drive it with care it’s much more efficient than previous generations of diesel cars. Even at a steady 110 mph it’s getting over 40 mpg, which is an incredible technical achievement. But it does all feel increasingly bonkers.
‘I just couldn’t do that journey in an electric car,’ is not only true, it’s also maybe a little sign from silicon heaven that maybe we shouldn’t try. Maybe we should organise our lives so we don’t have to do those sorts of journeys. Catch the train to somewhere close to your destination and then use a pre-charged leased electric car for the last leg? Crazy crackpot notion or gentle adjustment to a slightly more efficient way of getting around?"
Em: http://www.thechargingpoint.com/opinion ... reams.html