kgwilson

That is not hard when you control all of the media and jail everyone who opposes you.

It is already here. The CATL Qilin CTP battery uses LiFePo4 with integrated cooling to allow fast charging without degradation and higher energy density. The prototypes have already demonstrated this with Geely's Zeekr-1 achieving more than 1000km on a charge and the ability to charge from 0 to 80% in 5-10 minutes using a 350 kW charger. It went in to production in China in September and is to be released in Europe in Q2 of 2023.

Toyota only rolled out its first pure EV in May this year after being a leader in the Hybrid market for a decade and putting a lot of R&D effort in to Hydrogen fuel cell development. All of Toyotas rivals are way ahead in the BEV area so Toyota is playing catch up. Their plan is for 3.5 million BEVs by 2030 & 30 new BEV models in that same period. BEV sales world wide have increased from 130,000 in 2012 to 6.6 million in 2021. This is a 100% increase over 2020 when the world market contracted except for EVs which increased to 3 million from 2.2 million the year before. EVs now make up around 9% of car sales world wide. Car companies who do not embrace the change will not survive.

Toyotas debt has skyrocketed in the last year. Hybrids are the worst of both worlds. Toyota is failing to embrace the EV revolution and waiting for a miracle in hydrogen propulsion to happen. By 2035 there will be no more new ICE vehicles made. The largest car company in the world by market capitalisation is Tesla. BYD will cease manufacturing ICE vehicles by the end of this year. By all means whinge about what is the future. It won't make any difference. We either adapt or our tenure on the planet is very limited.

Teslas do not have a maintenance schedule as there is virtually nothing to maintain. They recommend checking the brake fluid and replacing aircon cabin & hepa filters every 2 - 3 years & rotating tyres every 10,000 km. Other EV brands have varying maintenance schedules. Tesla set up a purpose built battery recycling plant in the USA but so far have not recycled any except some that got damaged. Batteries from the very early Teslas have been re-used in houses etc as they still have a lot of capacity left. There was quite a furore when the distributor of the BYD ATTO 3 in Australia reduced the warranty provided to Chinese buyers and set an annual capped price service fee (there isn't one in China) higher than many ICE cars. They thought they could do this as demand far outstripped supply but a number of buyers cancelled their orders & they got pretty bad publicity. This is just commercial greed at work. I don't know if this has changed.

Maybe rental cars have them too as they are business assets. May also be true for companies & other businesses.

Yeah too late for an edit. the second ICE should read EV & that should be than.

Hub meters are on all commercial diesels in NZ but not on cars & utes. Diesel is sold at the pump free of excise tax. Trucking companies pay based on the size and km travelled as reported from the hub meter. Car & Ute owners do an on line mileage return & every year the vehicle is checked when it is certified roadworthy & the mileage entered into the government system so there is a cross check if you try to cheat it. Petrol cars do not get checked till they are 5 years old as it is here. I am not sure about diesel cars. they may have to go in for a mileage check only.

The standard for fast chargers is now 350 kW/Hr. These are all over China & 500 are being installed in NSW over the next 2 years. Tesla has 35,000 superchargers around the world & Tesla owners can get a 275km charge in 15 minutes. You don't even need a credit card, just plug, in grab a coffee & in 15 minutes you are away.

Lithium Ion Ternery batteries are the type that can combust but the ratio compared to ICE power vehicles is tiny. LiFePo4 blade battery as installed in BYDs won't. They have a demo video of a fully charged blade battery & they drill holes in it with a steel bit & the battery still works afterwards. As far as catching fire ICE vehicles are far more prone that ICE vehicles at 25.1 fires per 100,000 sales with 1529 fires per 100,000 for ICE vehicles. Hybrids though fare much worse at 3474 fires per 100,000 sales. Basically hybrids are the worst of both worlds. https://insideevs.com/news/561549/study-evs-smallest-fire-risk/

Janus Electric have converted a number of prime movers to electric & patented the worlds first truck exchangeable battery in May 2021. Changeover takes about 15 minutes, far less that the stand down time require for a driver who has just arrived in Coffs from Sydney. The cost of conversion is cheaper that a diesel overhaul. They now have different models where there are 2 battery packs each side and under the cab rather than the clam shell front doors of the original.

Battery and EV technology is improving at such a fast pace most people don't consider the massive change that there will be in only a few years and are looking to what there is right now or what was last year or earlier. For example the early Nissan Leaf had a range of about 115km. The latest model has a WLTP range of 450km with real driving range of about 385km. Teslas have over 600km of range now and the Zeekr-1 from Geely to be released next year will have well over 1000km of real driving range with the new CATL Qlin CTP battery. While everyone is worried about where all the lithium is going to come from other battery technologies are racing ahead. One example, the Sodium battery has until now been too heavy and had low energy density. Now a UK based company Faradion has the energy density of over 200W/KG approaching Lithium. And sodium is plentiful and cheap as it is 50% of salt & there are oceans of it. There are numerous companies racing to produce the first electric commuter aircraft. Plenty of prototypes have already been tested or are under way. There are also sea gliders, the ground effect electric aircraft that fly at between 10 and 40 metres above the sea. 25 of the 12 seat version will be flying around the NZ coast from 2025 at speeds rivalling normal air travel & they don't need airports. A 100 seat version is expected to be operating by 2030 & will have a trans Tasman flight time the same as an A320 or 737.

Wrong choice of words. I never turn mine off. I just don't look at it in the circuit as I am looking at all the traffic and making my calls.

90% of EV owners charge overnight at home. The technology is still in its infancy. When ICE cars were invented there were no petrol stations. You had to buy fuel from a pharmacy. The newest high speed chargers can charge the LiFePo4 batteries from 0 to 80% in 5 minutes. That means you can charge the Zeekr-1 with 800km of range in 5 minutes far quicker than filling up with petrol. Towing capacity is far greater than with a huge petrol guzzler. There are plenty of new Utes etc coming on to the market now even one being built in Brisbane. Tesla will be introducing its Cyber truck in 2023. There are 1.5 million pre orders.

Agree in the circuit ADSB may as well be turned off. It would just be a distraction. On XC with up to 40NM range it is very useful. Gives you time to change course if you think there is any conflict & you can always call the other aircraft as the rego is displayed, but is he on the same frequency as you?

Well, No. CATL is the worlds biggest battery manufacturer & supplies batteries for Teslas and European EVs. Geely owns Volvo, Lotus, Polestar, Proton. MG as well as a number of Chinese brands like Zeekr the worlds first EV with 1000 km of real world range. The MG4 & 5 have been praised by the automotive reviewers worldwide. Then there is BYD. They have just released 2 models in Australia with a LiFePo4 blade battery. They sell around 115,000 electric cars a month in China, the number is going up every month. Chinese electric car and battery technology is the best in the world. That is why Elon Musk built a giant Tesla factory in China. Whether you like it or not ICE powered vehicles are becoming extinct. None will be produced in Europe from 2035 if the planet manages to hang on that long. Companies like Ford & Toyota will disappear if they don't embrace the change. Hydrogen may become a great source of clean energy but keeping your eggs in that basket is fraught with massive risk

China is far and away the biggest producer of Electric vehicles, about 1/2 the worlds production with 100 manufacturers and about 700 models. They also have the largest solar installations, massive wind farms etc but with 1.4 billion people who have been brought out of poverty to being first world citizens there is massive demand for the trappings of modern society. They also have a lot of fossil fuel requirements and consume enormous amounts of coal and oil. Xi Jinping may be an autocrat with dubious methods and a ruthless MO but the rise of China during his tenure cannot be denied. The Lib/Nats got it completely wrong so we end up with billions in sanctions. Albo will try to mend that and perhaps agree to disagree on certain things and leave some things completely off the Agenda, like Taiwan.

I don't have any figures but it is obvious. Small turbines are not as efficient as large ones for a start. The amount of bypass is minimal so they are more turbo than fan. The diameter of large turbines with high bypass on long range ETOPS aircraft is greater than the fuselage diameter on a lot of executive jets, possibly all of them.

So the science is all wrong then. CO2 levels aren't rising, the oceans aren't becoming more acidic and global temperatures are not increasing.

You are on a merging course and yes a collision could occur. Both at the same altitude and without ADSB what about lookout/situational awareness? Don't just look ahead or bury your head in the cockpit looking at the Nav screen, scan the sky all the time. It helps keep you alert and allows the focus of your eyes to adjust from infinity to up close continually

Yes strobes are useful around the circuit but not a lot of use elsewhere. There was a long thread on strobe effectiveness years ago & the general consensus was that you only see them up close at night and on the ground.

It doesn't matter what colour you paint your aircraft you won't be seen more than a couple of NM away and if an aircraft is flying towards you the closing speed will be 150 to 300 knots. 150 knots at 2 NM is 24 seconds and only 12 seconds at 300 knots.

As we all should know, there are NO MANDATORY RADIO CALLS in CTAF other than to avoid a collision. There are of course recommended calls. I always make a 10 mile call even if I am just out for a local flight or lesser NM if I don't get more that 10NM away. I then make an overhead/joining call & if I hear nothing after both calls and see nothing I don't make any further calls and land. If others are on the ground or inbound or in the circuit I make downwind, base and final calls as appropriate. On takeoff I always make entering and intentions calls and a rolling call. Everyone should download and read the booklet "Be seen, be heard, be safe. The link is below. If you write to CASA they will send hard copies free of charge as well. https://www.casa.gov.au/sites/default/files/2021-05/radio-procedures-in-non-controlled-airspace.pdf When I am on the mower at our aerodrome I have a small airband radio receiver with earplugs under the earmuffs tuned to 126.7. Some people make heaps of calls some make only a few and some none at all. On Friday there were several visitors. One of the aircraft left and I heard nothing at all. The pilot may have not made any calls, been on the wrong frequency or his radio was not working. This is why ADSB would be beneficial in all aircraft, though not for me on the mower. Nothing is guaranteed though as radios and Nav aids have to be 1 working and 2 turned on.

I don't know the cost of the FLARM licence but they did it for SE2in Europe & Avplan has it so it can't be that expensive.

NAIPS integration with Avplan & Ozrunways may toe the official line but it is less accurate in most cases than Windy which uses several forecasting models. GFS (US & fairly basic & not that accurate), ECMWF (UK based & very accurate), ICON (German model fairly good), METOBLUE (Swiss, very accurate in Alpine areas, average elsewhere), ACCESS G3 (BOMs model, OK & where most NAIPs data is sourced). I compare them and ECMWF is my choice almost all of the time.