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jack will miss this server

@cstross Battery-electric vehicles are a dead end (other than e-bikes) - the future is predominantly electric vehicles powered by an overhead wire, with battery-electric filling odd gaps and hydrogen-electric at the odd fringes

28 Oct 2023 at 20:23 | Wall-to-wall | Open on strangeobject.space
9 comments
Charlie Stross

@JackEric You're talking about trolley buses. Quick question; how much do you think maintaining, repairing, and retensioning the overhead wires costs? And what happens if something snags and tears down the wires? Pay special attention to passing pedestrians and bicycles dealing with the 600 volt unshielded power ...

28 Oct 2023 at 20:25 | Open on wandering.shop
jack will miss this server

@cstross Trolley buses, trams, suburban rail, high-speed rail. There is not the street capacity to sustain personal-car-as-the-norm. Not aware that the OLE is a particular hazard, and the installation and maintenance cost of OLE rapidly breaks even vs the cost of sustaining and maintaining an on-board power supply on every vehicle

28 Oct 2023 at 20:32 | Open on strangeobject.space
Charlie Stross

@JackEric Well, as long as you're not advocating OLE for single user cars!

28 Oct 2023 at 20:34 | Open on wandering.shop
jack will miss this server
jack will miss this server

@cstross Good urban public transit, good railways (particularly sleeper trains), streets better designed for walking and cycling… car-club battery-electric cars and vans for occasional use… that's what I want to see!

28 Oct 2023 at 20:37 | Open on strangeobject.space
jack will miss this server

@cstross although, thinking of sole-occupancy OLE vehicles…

a two-axle trolley leaving a Melbourne tram depot on tram tracks, furnished with a tram control desk, headlight, destination display showing "BRUNSWICK" on a canvas roll, and a trolley pole. the driver is dressed in a 1980s Melbourne tram uniform complete with peaked cap and is having the time of his life
28 Oct 2023 at 22:24 | Open on strangeobject.space
Dave

@JackEric @cstross That guy also had a bright idea about how to solve the amount of space ICE vehicles take up...

Still from the getaway car sequence of the movie "Malcolm", showing the two halves of the getaway car about to evade the Police
29 Oct 2023 at 9:47 | Open on mastodon.nz
Jaddy

@JackEric

You surely have visited rural areas, right? Like, e.g. villages of ~2000 people, miles from each other and many more to the next city. Vehicles without any kind of stored power on board won’t work there. Not even trolley buses.

And then, there're lot and lots of service and delivery vehicles. Mail and stuff, work vehicles also collecting trash. Now, what about farm and forest work? Maintenance of PV and wind farms?

The odd fringes are much bigger than they might appear.

I guess there will be no silver bullet tech solution, once again.

@cstross

@JackEric

You surely have visited rural areas, right? Like, e.g. villages of ~2000 people, miles from each other and many more to the next city. Vehicles without any kind of stored power on board won’t work there. Not even trolley buses.

And then, there're lot and lots of service and delivery vehicles. Mail and stuff, work vehicles also collecting trash. Now, what about farm and forest work? Maintenance of PV and wind farms?

28 Oct 2023 at 23:40 | Open on friend.enby-box.de
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