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Post by EspadaIII on Aug 26, 2024 17:54:08 GMT
On Day Two of my annual south coast trip. Started yesterday thriving from Manchester to London and then back up to St Alban's. Today I drove to Christchurch and then tomorrow will end up in Penzance.
Radar cruise control is a blessing and a curse. As Dixi noted a few weeks ago new one drives at 70mph anymore. You're either stuck in the middle lane behind people meandering along at 65. You pull out to overtake but it's not long before you are bullied by people who are doing 75 or more and you get pushed back into the middle lane despite wanting to overtake a whole line of cars following each other along like train carriages.
Having said that the drive down the M1 was relatively stress free and I found a tiny service station off Junction 16 which has some really fast chargers which were mostly empty. As mentioned on another thread, this was a great opportunity to test the pee and coffee experiment. Parked up, plugged in, went to the loo, ordered the coffee, collected the coffee and went back to the car. In that time I added 100 miles.
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Rob
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Post by Rob on Aug 26, 2024 18:40:28 GMT
You're spot on about people trying to bully you out of the way even if you're doing say an indicated 78mph and overtaking cars. I will get out of the way when there is a large enough gap.
Another annoyance is when someone behind wants to go quicker and driving close to bully you out of the way when all of the cars in front are actually doing the same speed as you, even if it's not even the speed limit. Something ahead is causing the holdup and the person behind will bully all of them. But usually they are all driving far too close so I do get out of the lane for safety reasons.
There are idiots more than ever on our roads.
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WDB
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Post by WDB on Aug 26, 2024 20:00:34 GMT
Radar cruise control is a blessing and a curse. I simply don't get it. Of course, I now have a car with the option but I've not used it and probably never will. Speed control on motorways is about more than just maintaining a safe distance to the vehicle in front. You also need to consider your position relative to traffic in other lanes, and I don't think any form of adaptive cruise control yet does this. If there is traffic to your left, you are overtaking it, not merely running parallel, so your job is to get past it and back into your lane. But time and again, I've found myself in lane 1, closing on a slower vehicle, with the car in lane 2 dozily maintaining station on my starboard quarter. I'm forced either to drop below cruising speed while it drifts sedately by, or to put on an undignified spurt to get out in front. Nice and effort-free for the lane 2 driver, but a pain in the arsington to everyone else and just poor, sloppy driving. The same Nissan did this to me over and over again on the M1 last month. |
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bpg
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Post by bpg on Aug 27, 2024 6:17:04 GMT
I don't think active cruise control was ever intended for heavily congested motorways of the south east, more for open spaces and big distances to cover. It can and does work down to zero mph in an automatic and will move with traffic if stationary only for a few seconds otherwise manual intervention is required to resume. Humans are better at smoothing out stop start traffic than the current active implementations.
Belgians are pretty bad for playing the boxing in game. They think it's funny and use it as some form of entertainment during their two minute East to West journey across their whole country. The only way to deal with them is to move out well before they get close or a burst of speed to get away though the proliferation of cameras in Belgium now will mean more people picking a lane and sticking with it.
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Post by dixinormus on Aug 27, 2024 7:42:57 GMT
Just completed my weekly round robin tour of clients in Auckland; 11 hours out and about, 500km covered, 6.9l/100km showing on the trip computer and a third of a tank of dino juice left. Yes it’s old skool, but no complaints from me.
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WDB
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Post by WDB on Aug 27, 2024 8:07:43 GMT
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Aug 27, 2024 8:38:26 GMT
Radar cruise is for the US and Canada. And maybe the Zagreb-Belgrade highway.
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bpg
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Post by bpg on Aug 27, 2024 9:05:18 GMT
I'm not sure Norm is the boogeyman here with his 300 mile, 41mpg trip. You would need to drive from New York to Vegas in a 22mpg car to release one tonne CO2e all while governments are selling EV CO2e "savings" as carbon credits to industry. A bit self defeating as the pollution is not being removed only shifted. Maybe that's what net zero really means, no reduction just a shift from one source to another. |
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WDB
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Post by WDB on Aug 27, 2024 9:16:13 GMT
Of course, there are worse offenders that Norm, but as long as we go on pretending that what's convenient is OK, we're all the problem.
(Although I might challenge your maths. 5000km at 200g/km would give you a tonne, and I think 22mpg would emit a lot more.)
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bpg
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Post by bpg on Aug 27, 2024 9:38:08 GMT
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WDB
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Post by WDB on Aug 27, 2024 9:48:18 GMT
…although now I’ve done some looking up too, NYC to LV is more like 4,000km. Your source’s gallons will be US, so more like 26 imperial. So, with those adjustments, it about works.
Norm’s figures over 500km give us about 79kg CO2e; maybe 89kg if we allow for the petroleum supply chain being 88 percent efficient. 100kWh of New Zealand’s 82 percent renewable electricity would have propelled him the same distance and emitted more like 13kg — all of it in the supply chain, of course.
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Post by dixinormus on Aug 27, 2024 21:29:17 GMT
My (American) employer could have chosen to supply me with a more efficient (aka expensive) hybrid vehicle, but didn’t…. So that’s an example of the corporate world passing the buck to save a few dollars..!
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Post by EspadaIII on Aug 28, 2024 6:53:48 GMT
interesting day yesterday. Charged up to 90% in Christchurch, then started on my trip to Penzance via Blandford Forum and Yeovil, with a detour to a cider press. 220 miles.
If it wasn't for the lack of decent chargers near where I am staying, I would have gone all the way without even thinking about State of Charge. Certainly would have made it with at least 20 miles remaining. So that would be 240 miles on 90% charge. I am pleased with that and the 175kW speed I got at a Shell Recharge place, about 30 miles from my destintion, so I wasn't there long. Also decided only to charge to 50% so that I can get a full fast charge as I go through Cornwall on the way home and then don't need to charge again until after Birmingham.. Who wants to stop near Birmingham?
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Aug 28, 2024 7:27:29 GMT
Fulham FC did, last night.
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Post by dixinormus on Aug 28, 2024 8:25:00 GMT
Yes, Esp, but all this planning ahead and strategising about where to get the next charge for the EV seems ever so slightly tedious to me! No offence intended of course! It just seems to be the curse of the EV driver on a long trip.
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