The EV fact thread

[ChipChop]

Already here, unfortunately not many people employed but secured like Fort Knox. Once embroiled in a tax saving scheme by the likes of Wayne Rooney and ****ne Wenger

Luckily a local company Sage are just across the road from Stellium and they employ plenty of people in the North East.

 

[markjay]

So instead of the site being a contributor to the electrification programme it will now be a significant consumer of electricity.

But it will run AI that will come up with clever ways to optimise our electricity use and reduce energy consumption.

 

[ChipChop]

But it will run AI that will come up with clever ways to optimise our electricity use and reduce energy consumption.

As grand plans go that is a fairly ridiculous one, unless AI comes to the startling conclusion that the best way to reduce overall energy consumption is to switch itself off.

 

[MikeInWimbledon]

As grand plans go that is a fairly ridiculous one, unless AI comes to the startling conclusion that the best way to reduce overall energy consumption is to switch itself off.

It’s being forgotten that Computing has a tradition of year on year productivity gains. “Moore’s Law.”

My first work computer was a water cooled IBM 370 which lived in an air conditioned, soft static floored purpose built room, with a dedicated clean power supply. A powerful thing, it could support up to a dozen users.

Today my watch has more processing power and memory than that IBM 370.

Listen to the architects of Chat GPT, like Sam Altman of Open AI, and they will talk through the enormous increases in scale they’re achieving from each generation of the software, as the software teaches itself to create smarter models thousands of times smarter. And more energy efficient.

 

[markjay]

The latest from Tesla is that the Cybertruck production is halted due to a design flaw with the accelerator pedal, apparently the pedal cover can slid upwards and get stuck in the car's trim causing (yet another) 'unintended acceleration'.

I suppose that the quick fix is to use sticky tape to affix the pedal cover in place.. or drill through both and secure the cover to the pedal with a screw or bolt... or jusr remove the pedal cover altogether and drive without it...

 

[MikeInWimbledon]

The latest from Tesla is that the Cybertruck production is halted due to a design flaw with the accelerator pedal, apparently the pedal cover can slid upwards and get stuck in the car's trim causing (yet another) 'unintended acceleration'.

I suppose that the quick fix is to use sticky tape to affix the pedal cover in place.. or drill through both and secure the cover to the pedal with a screw or bolt... or jusr remove the pedal cover altogether and drive without it...

Feature ruthlessly plagiarised from a 1973 Marina

 

[Dryce]

It’s being forgotten that Computing has a tradition of year on year productivity gains. “Moore’s Law.”

Productivity vs computing performance are two different things.

So you can have a processor that runs at GHz and GBytes of memory and Tbytes of storage - but it won't necessarily do any more real work than a system that used to run at MHz, have MBytes of memory and Mbytes of storage.

Yes there are workloads that do need all of the modern stuff. But I despair sometimes at how wasteful the IT world is in terms of what we manage to do with what we have these days.

My first work computer was a water cooled IBM 370 which lived in an air conditioned, soft static floored purpose built room, with a dedicated clean power supply. A powerful thing, it could support up to a dozen users.

Today my watch has more processing power and memory than that IBM 370.

Listen to the architects of Chat GPT, like Sam Altman of Open AI, and they will talk through the enormous increases in scale they’re achieving from each generation of the software, as the software teaches itself to create smarter models thousands of times smarter. And more energy efficient.

So I had some younger members of my team demonstrating ChatGPT and other whizzy related stuff to me a short while back.

After letting them show me the wonders of what they were doing I then scaled up the amount of time it would take to process one (just one) of the data collections we would be targeting - 11.2 years. So they then tell me they can optimise and refine it - so 6 months effort (cost) and 20x reduction preformance. So sort of 6 months. And then we started talking about the hardware to sort this out. Not cheap. Not cheap to run.

Our accounts dept has noted a significant difference in electricity costs from this part of the team who are located in a geographically separate office.

 

[MikeInWimbledon]

Productivity vs computing performance are two different things.

So you can have a processor that runs at GHz and GBytes of memory and Tbytes of storage - but it won't necessarily do any more real work than a system that used to run at MHz, have MBytes of memory and Mbytes of storage.

Yes there are workloads that do need all of the modern stuff. But I despair sometimes at how wasteful the IT world is in terms of what we manage to do with what we have these days.



So I had some younger members of my team demonstrating ChatGPT and other whizzy related stuff to me a short while back.

After letting them show me the wonders of what they were doing I then scaled up the amount of time it would take to process one (just one) of the data collections we would be targeting - 11.2 years. So they then tell me they can optimise and refine it - so 6 months effort (cost) and 20x reduction preformance. So sort of 6 months. And then we started talking about the hardware to sort this out. Not cheap. Not cheap to run.

Our accounts dept has noted a significant difference in electricity costs from this part of the team who are located in a geographically separate office.

Yep. It’s been that way for all my career, right from introducing calculators to salesmen, through accounting software, word processing, office automation, spreadsheeting, SQL, outsourced data centres, offshored services, internet, and cloud.

It’s just evolution.

Should one go back to Sekkertries, telephonists, NCR girls, draughtsmen, bookkeepers, personnel clerks, and production planners and purchasing schedulers, and stock clerks?

Maybe. But careers aren’t made of this

 

[BTB 500]

Report on EV trends across Europe in the Telegraph yesterday:

Four charts that reveal the scale of Europe’s electric car crash

The reasons why drivers ‘are better off’ waiting to move away from petrol and diesel

www.telegraph.co.uk

Interesting stats on public chargers e.g. over half of them in the UK are under 8 kW, and only 8% are 150 kW or above. Also big regional variations in the ratio of EVs to public chargers, with the North East being better than London!

Some of it is a bit silly though e.g.

Sales of both conventional and plug-in hybrids combined rose by 17pc in the first three months of 2024, according to ACEA
...
The pace of sales growth is notable given this is hardly new technology.

That will presumably be because manufacturers have recently dropped many pure ICE models to try and meet emissions targets.

 

[markjay]

Interesting stats on public chargers e.g. over half of them in the UK are under 8 kW, and only 8% are 150 kW or above.

I have not driven my EV around the UK, but from reports online it does seem that there's a shortage of fast chargers along main routes to facilitate long range travel in EVs.

Having said that, I don't think that the ratio of slow charge to fast chargers is a relevant metric. Where Shell installed chargers in lampposts, there will be hundreds, if not thousands, of slow 4.7-5.5kW chargers, mostly unused, and this can skew the statistics.

A good metric would be the number of fast chargers (150kW and over) per intercity miles of road. This is what you really need in order to have convenient and efficient long journeys in an EV.

Ultimately, the number of people adversely affected by a 15 minutes stop every two hours or so will be very small.

 

[BTB 500]

A good metric would be the number of fast chargers (150kW and over) per intercity miles of road. This is what you really need in order to have convenient and efficient long journeys in an EV.

4,667 of them across the whole UK, but that's individual chargers ... presumably the number of locations would be significantly lower as there would typically be a number of fast chargers at each one?

 

[Trickythemerc]

I was collecting one of the vans yesterday after paying a 5K bill for a new DPF, I asked why they could not do an MOT ? An electric van had caught fire while parked overnight in the MOT bay. Five miles down the road and the FECKIN EML is on again.........................

 

[ALFAitalia]

I assume the 5K was for rather a lot more than just a DPF!!!

 

[markjay]

I assume the 5K was for rather a lot more than just a DPF!!!

I don't know if Trickythemerc was trying to make the point that EVs can catch fire, or that Diesels are bloody expensive to run......

 

[Trickythemerc]

The 5K was for a new DPF plus an ADBLU injector all inc VAT and after a 5% discount on parts and labour.

 

[ALFAitalia]

Wow.... being 100% DIY I'm out of touch with retail mechanic prices...but I'm sure I'm not alone in thinking that's outrageous. Did you have a solid gold DPF fitted?
If you had to get that job done more than one it might make people think that potential (and far less likely) EV battery replacement might be the cheaper!

 

[Trickythemerc]

Subframe and engine out 15 hours labour and the other van we bought at the same time has the same issue. Registered 07/2020 with 176 K on the clock, been serviced on the dot and mostly motorway work.

 

[ChipChop]

Subframe and engine out 15 hours labour and the other van we bought at the same time has the same issue. Registered 07/2020 with 176 K on the clock, been serviced on the dot and mostly motorway work.

A Mercedes Sprinter?

 

[Trickythemerc]

Fiat Ducato

 

[ALFAitalia]

Engine out to change a DPF?... Great design!...... that explains some of the cost. I can get my "close coupled" DPF.... so in other words it's bolted straight to the exhaust manifold....... out in about 20 minutes! I had to recently to change the dipstick to block seal which is hidden behind it.