I did the same as a kid. Like if I was in a classroom with noisy classmates ("study hall") I'd shut my eyes and actively try to not hear them and embrace the nothingness "around" the voices. Kinda interesting that I have distinct memories of doing this _years_ before I was ever exposed to "meditation".
IMO a lot of stuff humans have 'invented' (like meditation) are really just sort of tied to our nature as animals. I think meditation is something we're all (most?) inclined to try in some way, but then some specific geeks studied it really hard for thousands of years and turned it into what it is.
To me it all still comes down to charging infrastructure. The current state of batteries is good enough for me, but I live in an apartment and can't charge at home, and the availability/reliability local charging stations are a crap shoot, nevermind charging on a road trip.
But when (if?) I own my own house and can charge at home, I'll be in even with the current state of batteries.
My primary concern with the charging infrastructure is how well it will handle a large number of people taking emergency trips at the same time. How do you evacuate south Florida with an incoming hurricane, for example, when most people have switched from gasoline to electric cars?
That scenario pushes the existing fuel delivery infrastructure to its limit already, and electric chargers provide significantly fewer passenger miles per fueling minute than a gasoline pump does. In practice, a lot of emergency plans will need to be completely overhauled to not assume most people will be able to drive themselves out of the danger zone.
This is a good point and I think the answer is that solutions for in-place charging will need to be regulated or subsidized into existence in step with the shifting market share of electric cars.
The typical range of a fully charged electric car these days is sufficient to get out of the way of almost any predictable natural disaster. So the trick is just keeping them all fully charged at home. Any homeowner can in theory have a charger off their home power grid, but for folks in apartments and condos there will need to be a lot more than just a few chargers in the corner of the garage. There may even need to be street-side solutions. But it’s all doable and the engineering is straightforward.
People allow gas cars to sit with nearly empty tanks because it is so fast (and expensive) to fill them up. Electric cars are slow and cheap to “fill up” so the mindset and culture about it will change over time.
During Hurricane Rita in 2005, over 2 million Houstonians got on the road to avoid its wrath. It took anywhere from 12 to 36 hours to reach their destination.
Many ran out of gas but roadside assistance were able to fuel them up and get them going again.
Well, the thing is that EVs are just “less bad” version of personal automobiles, which are a very inefficient way to get a large amount of people from one place to another.
Houston is a city that is so large that it should have frequent passenger train service to other metropolitan areas, but it doesn’t because it has been designed for cars and planes.
You can fit a lot of people in a train, and in emergencies even more people can occupy the train in standing areas.
When cars get stuck in traffic where they’re going <25mph their main flaw is revealed: the fact that you can frequently beat a car stuck in traffic using a bicycle.
> The typical range of a fully charged electric car these days is sufficient to get out of the way of almost any predictable natural disaster.
Maybe, and maybe not. The one time I had to do this myself, I started with a full gas tank and still ended up stopping to fill a couple of times. An evacuation is hardly the ideal condition for range, with lots of stop-and-go traffic. You need to not only get out of immediate danger but also find some safe place to lodge overnight that doesn’t interfere with the people behind you that also need to get out.
I always bought into this "meme", in part because just about every EV review I've seen mentions having to compensate for the extra weight which makes those cars less performant at times, so decided to look it up based on your quoted vehicles here, and figured I'd save anyone else the same search:
A 2023 Rav 4 has a curb weight of between 3615 and 3775 lb [1]
A 2023 Ioniq 5 has a curb weight of between 3968 and 4663 lb [2]
So a difference of between 193 and 1048 pounds between the two. That's actually a lot less than I expected, at least on the low end. 193 pounds is basically equivalent to just having one extra person in the car.
As noted in replies, though, these _do_ take into account different drive trains, so the comparison is not not great from the start.
Not to devolve into splitting hairs, but your minimum range is comparing the heaviest premium AWD ICE vehicle to the FWD-only standard model electric, and the electric is still heavier.
Yeah, I missed that there were the two lines for the Ioniq 5 weight based on the drivetrain, and a column that was not obviously hidden with my window size, my bad.
Look into autocross, if you haven't before. It's probably the most accessible way to get a taste of time-trial racing in real life, and events are held all over the place -- basically anywhere there's a community and a free, empty parking lot. You just need a car (any car as long as it runs and is safe), a helmet (probably the most annoying part), and usually less than $100 for admission.
The lives of all they occupy, their eyes in dismal gloom
The all-piercing, dead oculi, mirrors of our doom
Oblivious to the trespass as you gaze into the black
The demon of surveillance insultingly staring back
Into you
Into you
73 MPH? Must be a leisurely Sunday church drive (at least here in the Atlanta metro, where cars engulfed in flame on the side of the interstate are not as rare as they should be).
Yeah, that's a fair point. But if things are flowing I regularly see 80+ (which probably lends itself to eventual 20 MPH when someone wrecks and causes awful traffic).
Definitely don't mind those late night drives, as long as you keep an eye out for people not signaling or not having their lights on.
It'd be awesome if we could invest in actual public transport instead of more lanes but...
I had a situation a few years ago driving down a highway at night when all of a sudden I noticed a weird "thing" in the sky in front of me. It got closer and I swerved, but not enough to avoid it hitting the side of my car, taking off the side mirror and gouging up the front half of the drivers' side. Then I realized it was the plastic bed liner of the pickup truck in front of me that became unattached at highway speeds and flew into the air like a kite. My car was still operable, and I had a (poor quality, especially at night, but operable) dash cam, and the truck ahead of me didn't stop, so I sped closer to close the distance to the truck and for assurance, read out the license plate number aloud so the dash cam's microphone could pick it up before pulling over.
Contacted the police, took them about an hour to respond, and the officer gave me his email so I could send him the video. It was hard to make out but you could definitely see the object leave the truck, and a few seconds later appearing in my view, and me swerving.
Contacted insurance, they arranged the repairs, and I was out the deductible. About a week later I got a call from the police saying they looked up the plate and lo and behold, it wasn't even registered to a white pickup truck, but a blue sedan, so the plate was either stolen or swapped from another vehicle, at which point there really was no recourse.
Long story short, even if you have a dash cam, sometimes you're SOL. I _did_ use that as an excuse to upgrade my dash cam to one with better quality and night vision, but yeah, shit happens, and if nobody got hurt sometimes you gotta just accept it.
The police in your area doesn't do anything about swapped or stolen plates? It's odd since they seem to be the group that would care most about the accuracy of plates matching the car.
I don't know what you expected the cam to do, lol. It seems your insurance paid out? If so, how does getting a good picture help at all? The guys a deadbeat with no insurance either way (assuming the apposing driver can be held responsible for damages, not the case in all states).
Assuming you have fault based accidents and can sue for the full cost, again the guys a deadbeat. I don't think this is the money saving idea that it seems. I'm not sure what you're hoping to accomplish, honestly.
> Long story short, even if you have a dash cam, sometimes you're SOL
Quite simple: Explain how you would have benefited at all, or why you were SOL. It sounds like the outcome could not have been improved... I guess maybe you think that there's a better chance of the person getting caught.
Are you just sad they weren't able to put someone in a cage, even though there's no financial impact on you whatsoever.
I'll second this but add _without a subscription_. I like the idea of Oura or Whoop but I don't want want the monthly fee, and just want the minimal amount of data (acceleration, heart rate, maybe temperature), in something I can wear along side a legit mechanical watch.
