Oh, of course. A filling station closed up in my neighbourhood, and the hole they dug out in preparation for putting in residential units is huge. And this is for a filling station that was in the middle of a residential area.
Google Maps link for those interested, as it’s been going on long enough to be in the satellite view.
I think it would have happened with the semantic approach of using xml instead of html. But it didn’t catch on unfortunately.
edit: though that might lead to anomalies like how some news sites automatically translate distances so you see:
The man then ran half a mile (0.804672 km) to safety
No thank you.
Electric vehicles do not meet my use cases and the way batteries are being optimised makes them less and less useful for me.
I live in a city. I do not have access to a garage. If I got a pure electric car I’d have to spend at least 40 minutes charging it, after spending time driving to the charge point and maybe waiting for someone else to complete a cycle. I’m better off with a bus.
It also kills the ability for long trips, which is mostly why I would keep a small, cheap car.
Add into this electric vehicles have a lifespan of ~10 years as opposed to ~20 for ICE vehicles and you’re doubling the impact of the vehicle manufacture. It’s not like nickel and lithium mining are super great for the environment either. If you’re in the UK, where a lot of the power comes from natural gas then you’re not reducing anything - you’re just shifting the production further up.
The “it’s fine” use case is for the rich suburbs - where you’ve got a two car garage and can charge your electric runabout overnight and keep the petrol car for longer trips or into areas where there’s no charge. But I don’t live that way and I suspect a lot of people outside of the US don’t.
Somebody estimated that there are more English speakers in India than in the US. (The corollary is that they speak proper English, and that Americans have a weird accent.)
For Firefox users, there’s a plugin that automatically converts everything to metric units. I don’t use it, so I can’t speak to its usefulness.
Official numbers aren’t in yet, but the range estimates I’ve seen for the electric Mini suggest it could be much lower - like 115. That’s probably fine for commuting, but so far I don’t think any company has really succeeded with a commuting car, either electric or gas. That’s because commuting cars are a luxury - a second or third car for just about anyone except those committed to the electric lifestyle (which involves long stops to charge on longer rides, or renting another vehicle). Range anxiety is real, and an impediment to electric vehicle adoption, but it’s also legitimate; if people have to take a trip over 200 miles even just a few times a year, they want a vehicle that can do that. That’s why Tesla is winning the electric car race, and why an electric Mini won’t be terribly popular.
@breadlord: excellent point. As populations become more urbanized, low range electric vehicles make less sense. At least until an urban electric charging infrastructure is in place. I live in a city too, and have a car. My neighbor has a Tesla Model 3 and he street parks it in front of his house. He has to be vigilant with the alternate side parking for street cleaning to make sure he gets it in front when he needs a charge, and he literally runs an extension cord from his front door across the sidewalk to charge his car. I admire his commitment. I might even do the same if I didn’t live in a fourth-floor apartment; dangling an extension cord from my window would be a bit more difficult.
Is there also one for Imperial units? I want to know all my distances in fathoms or furlongs.
And based on the posts here today, a persecuted minority at that.
He made a Google Chrome version as well. Seems to work well with Amazon.
No - they will love you, because they can just look at at it and say “no” and you are forced to buy a new tyre. £100 for them instead of £20 for a repair.
Cannot tell what the gripe on reddit was. Does foam also mess up the wheel/rim and need unpleasant cleaning by the tyre professional? Is that their gripe?
That’s applying a technological solution to a spiritual problem.
They dig it out as the dirt is contaminated (inevitably), and the volatile contaminants penetrate water supply! Nice, eh?
They certainly do not. I’ve worked with many Indian colleagues and their use of English is sometimes bizarre. Listening to some of them talk among themselves on conference calls is an education.
And the new Mini may not succeed in that respect … the original Mini One from BMW was a compact car. The latest iterations look like they are on steroids. Someone told me the latest Mini Countryman (albeit 4 doors so not a 2 door traditional Mini) has the same wheel base as a Land Rover Discovery!
Hardly a small city runabout.
Indeed. There are at least three abandoned gas stations near me that have sat empty and unused for years. I can only assume due to the high cost of removing the underground tanks. Maybe with the EPA having become the polar opposite of what it once was, removal of toxic waste will now be much cheaper or even free. /s
Prius has a sloping rear - how well does it accommodate large boxy things, I wonder. Ideally, I need a proper, vertical estate car tailgate behind a large boxy space, and max length to back of front seats. Wardrobes, people, wardrobes. 
@teknocholer The rear passenger seats apper not to fold flat/level. I’d soon get fed up of shoving stuff through the rear door onto a sloping surface and later finding it at the back of the car
Considering how many people are driving 4WD vehicles that never see mud or snow, or how many people I see driving empty pickup trucks, I wouldn’t discount how many people are willing to pay for functionality that they only occasionally or even never use. Sometimes their choices are aspirational, rather than practical.
And sometimes their choices encompass the occasional, too, without being aspirational. But I fully support your point - ‘Chelsea tractor’ is the common UK epithet for some of these huge 4x4s. If their owner lives in London their vehicle probably never gets out of it.
I take it you have never beeen to India.
While your other objections are well-taken (or at least, not totally off the mark) this paragraph ranges from misleading to outright wrong.
Ah, the inevitable car bloat. What part of “Mini” don’t they understand?
I am willing to read papers proving me wrong, but you can’t just state that I am. That is not discourse.
The conclusions here:
Do not agree with you regarding production. I accept that per-mile driven carbon generated by BEVs is around half of equivalent petrol engines, so I’m wrong on that one.
