seriously?

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pilvikki
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seriously?

Post by pilvikki »

pumping your own gas is so difficult that people refuse to do it?

https://www.boredpanda.com/pump-your-ow ... ws-oregon/

:lol: :lol:
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yogi
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Re: seriously?

Post by yogi »

I clearly recall when they changed the law in Illinois. I grew up and learned how to drive with people who would fill my gas tank and clean my windows as part of the service. They would check my oil too. When the self-service laws were passed some equally hilarious comments were heard, but in Illinois, at least, they had an ingenious solution. You could pump your own or have an attendant do it for you for the mere price of 5-cents per gallon. It's amazing how quickly people learned how to do it themselves.
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Kellemora
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Re: seriously?

Post by Kellemora »

Up until last year, we still had a couple of full-service gas stations. However, they were 15 cents per gallon higher than the pump-it-yourself pumps.
As far as self-service checkout counters. Unless they give a 10% discount, you are only slave labor, with no benefits or insurance.
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pilvikki
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Re: seriously?

Post by pilvikki »

it's funny how that works: up in the ontario "wilderness" they'd have an attendant they'd pay wages with few customers. in the city the traffic is steady, but no attendants.

here we have lots of full serve stations, but if do it myself, i don't have to talk to anyone... :mrgreen:
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Kellemora
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Re: seriously?

Post by Kellemora »

I had a friend from skewl who thought electric cars were going to take over back in the '70's.
We had two dealers in Kirkwood who were selling them like hot cakes. I even bought one to use around town.

He drove 50 miles away from St. Louis, on each major artery and bought or leased land off an exit.
At those seven or eight locations he installed six bay charging stations. They looked almost like the old Photo-mat buildings.
Two cars could park on each side, and one car at each end to get charged up.
He knew it would take awhile for them to get used more heavily. But what he didn't expect was they would not get used at all.
He had hoped all of his advertising at the electric car dealerships would have enticed folks to go beyond their range limit of getting back home.
Although he was losing his shirt, some folks just have a way of falling into a pile of manure and come out smelling like a rose.
He sold all of his charging stations to a small drive-through restaurant chain like Woofies. The buildings were just the right size for them, and needed little modification. They had the right amount of power, and the circle drives were already in, so it worked out great for him.
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yogi
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Re: seriously?

Post by yogi »

It so happens that there are a few, very few, full service gas stations in Missouri. Wife looked it up. The closest one is in ... Kirkwood, of all places. In spite of what our current autocrat has to say, electric cars will indeed have their day in the not too distant future. There are many places set on doing away with using fossil fuels entirely. It is entirely possible that I will be around to see it happen. It's that close.
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Kellemora
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Re: seriously?

Post by Kellemora »

I don't remember the exact year of her car, somewhere between 1904 and 1916 I think, but my grandfather bought grandmother an electric car. She loved that little runabout. Then grandpa had to go modifying it to get it to go a longer distance. After his modifications, he drove it from St. Louis to Jefferson City, spent the night, and drove almost all the way home. Broke down only about 3 to 5 miles from home, due to a mechanical failure. He fixed whatever it was the next day and drove it home.

I have a picture around here somewhere of my little electric car. Seems like I bought it around 1972 give or take. We didn't keep it for very long though. It had too many nickle dime problems and visits to the repair shop.

Technology has changed quite a bit over the past few decades, but unfortunately, automakers have gone hog wild with their gross overpricing and unroadworthy cars. If they do come out with an electric, it won't be affordable to those who could use it best.
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pilvikki
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Re: seriously?

Post by pilvikki »

electrics are in on this side of the globe, even our wee town/village has a charging station in the middle of it. haven't actually looked into it at all, but now i wonder how much those things would cost to run as electricity is hideously expensive.
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pilvikki
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Re: seriously?

Post by pilvikki »

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yogi
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Re: seriously?

Post by yogi »

I think Macron is one of those guys who is trying to get his country entirely off fossil fuels over the next ten years.
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Kellemora
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Re: seriously?

Post by Kellemora »

The only thing misleading about electric vehicles is how much of an impact to the environment making those batteries for them is causing. The emissions from the mining and battery making facilities is enormous. Plus the emissions from the generating plants making the electric to charge them up so often.
I have a hunch, if you add up all the emissions that go into making and using an electric car, the ratings may be higher than for fueled cars.
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pilvikki
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Re: seriously?

Post by pilvikki »

i have been wondering about that. now, if we could just run them on sunlight....
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yogi
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Electric Car Carbon Footprint

Post by yogi »

Gary is right, but it depends on where in the world you are charging your batteries. Some places are way more efficient and beat the fossil fuel carbon footprint. Others are not so clean. Here is an interesting article explaining it all. http://shrinkthatfootprint.com/electric-car-emissions
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Kellemora
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Re: seriously?

Post by Kellemora »

There is also the cost factor as well.
I read somewhere that would cost something like 24,000 dollars to maintain and charge an electric car over a 14 year time span.
This was with only changing out the battery system twice, not three times, and/or replacing the car with trade-in every 5 years. At today's dollars without inflation figured in.

We have a solar panel company a few blocks away. They were putting flyers on our mailboxes when they first opened.
If you added all the options necessary to rely solely on solar power, based on our current rate from the electric utility, it would take 30 years to break even.
If you wanted to rely on the electric company for part of your electric. In other words use solar during the day with supplemental from the electric company, and electric from the electric company at night, this would drop the time factor to break even down to around 12 years. 10 years if you sell electric back to the electric company, but they can only use it during peak times, like 10:30 am to 1 pm, and again from 4:30 pm to 7 pm. It really depends on whether your electric is coming from the nuclear plant or the steam plant if they will buy back electric as added to the grid from your system or not. Unfortunately, in either case, the meter to enable buy-back costs more than you would earn from them in 3 to 5 years.
They also had a small carport type solar system designed to charge cars during the day. Cost was around 12 grand, no storage of unused electricity, that is an optional accessory unit, meters, cables, etc.
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