Electric Vehicles

I am writing this in March 2012 and I forecast that electric vehicles will dominate the worlds roads in about 25 years time.

Well, that’s unusual for me. I’m not a big fan of electric cars at all. So what has changed my mind? Quite simply it is the result of the nuclear disaster at Fukushima. Bear with me whilst I join up the dots!

At present, electric cars are, in my view, rubbish. The manufacturers have just been playing with it to cope with demand from the Green Lobby. But since Fukushima, Japan have had a major re-think on all sorts of issues. They are clearly ditching nuclear as a power source. And remember that Japan has no natural oil reserves, so they have to import to meet demand. Combine this with the Japanese being major car manufacturers. Now join up the dots and why not go “proper” electric vehicles?

Well, why not? What are the indications that things are changing? Quite simply, just 12 months on from Fukushima, the Japanese car manufacturers are now chucking money at their racing divisions. By doing this, major advances will result because that is what has always happened in motor racing history. There will then be, over time, be massive advances in technology and hey presto, it filters down to every day vehicles.

It’s not just aimed at cars either. This year on the Isle of Man, I am expecting at least 3 separate manufacturers to break the 100mph average lap speed. Now that is progress.

I have recently read a couple of press releases that have inspired this article and I have reproduced them below should be interested to read further.

***********************************************************************************

Tadashi Yamashina, Toyota Motor Corporation Senior Managing Officer and Toyota Motorsport Chairman, said: “Toyota has entered Le Mans before, but by using our hybrid technology this time will be a completely new challenge. We want to write a new chapter in the history of the Le Mans 24 Hours, as in the FIA World Endurance Championship, through our use of hybrid technology.

“In addition, we aim to learn from the experience of competing in such a challenging motorsport environment to enhance our production car technology. Le Mans is a legendary race and I would like to thank the ACO and the FIA for their constructive and positive co-operation over the last few months.

Toyota Motosport’s award-winning engineering services and all its current motorsport projects are unaffected by the announcement of the new racing programme and will continue as before. Toyota hopes the new enterprise will provide further impetus to Toyota Motorsport’s successful business development.

Toyota last competed in the Le Mans 24 Hours as a manufacturer in the late 1990s racing the GT-One, a car which famously established a new race lap record in 1999.

*********************************************************************************

A new electric race car prototype has been officially revealed by Lola Group and Drayson Racing Technologies (DRT).

The Lola-Drayson B12/69EV is a technology demonstrator that is aiming to break lap records for electric vehicles at tracks around the world.

Built around the current Lola LMP1 group B12 Le Mans chassis, the new vehicle uses a DRT electric drivetrain to generate 850Bhp, propelling it to 60pmh from standstill in 3.0 seconds. The weight of the car is 1000kg, slightly in excess of the regular 900kgs in the present LMP1.

Headcount

A farmer named Sid was overseeing his stock in a  remote moorland pasture in  North Yorkshire when suddenly a  brand-new BMW advanced toward him out of a cloud of  dust.
        
The driver, a young man in a Brioni suit, Gucci shoes, RayBan  sunglasses and YSL tie, leaned out the window and asked the farmer, “If I tell  you exactly how many cows and calves you have in your herd, Will you give me a  calf?”  
                
Sid looks at the man, obviously a yuppie, then looks at his  peacefully grazing stock and calmly answers, “Sure, why not?” 
 
The yuppie parks his car, whips out his Dell notebook computer,  connects it to his Cingular RAZR V3 cell phone, and surfs to a NASA page on the  Internet, where he calls up a GPS satellite to get an exact fix on his  location which he then feeds to another NASA satellite that scans the area in  an ultra-high-resolution photo.
         
The young man then opens the digital photo in Adobe Photoshop and  exports it to an image processing facility in Hamburg, Germany . 
           
Within seconds, he receives an email on his Palm Pilot that the  image has been processed and the data stored. He then accesses an MS-SQL  database through an ODBC connected Excel spreadsheet with email on his  Blackberry and, after a few minutes, receives a response.     
 
Finally, he prints out a full-color, 150-page report on his  hi-tech, miniaturized HP LaserJet printer, turns to the farmer and says, “You  have exactly 1,586 cows and calves.”         
                  
“That’s right. Well, I  guess you can take one of my calves,” says Sid. 
         
He watches the young man select one of the animals and looks on  with amusement as the young man stuffs it into the back of his car. 
               
Then Sid says to the young man, “Hey, if I can tell you exactly  what your business is, will you give me back my calf?”          
      
The young man thinks about it for a second and then says, “Okay,  why not?”
      
“You’re a Management Consultant”, says Sid. 
        
“Wow! That’s correct,” says the yuppie, “but how did you guess  that?”
  
“No guessing required.”  answered the farmer. “You showed up here even though nobody called you; you  want to get paid for an answer I already knew, to a question I never asked.  You used millions of pounds worth of equipment trying to show me how much  smarter than me you are; and you don’t know a thing about how working people  make a living – or about cows, for that matter.  This is a herd of sheep.  …

          
Now give me back my dog!

Technology

While I don’t claim to have a perfect set up, it seems to be flexible and I have very few problems. So in other words, it works for me! And as a “one man” business it is very easy to integrate new technology very quickly if needed. Anything to make life easier has to be good!

Computers

I have two. A desktop and a laptop. The desktop is where I do most of my “business work”. It is not connected to the internet. It is at least 6 years old and works flawlessly.

My laptop is connected to the web. The only work on it is my tax return program – because I have to file returns online. I do not play games on it and rarely download programs

Why two computers? Well, if a virus comes along and knocks me out, I can still work. Also, how can you hack into my work machine if it’s not connected to the internet………Yes, I take security very seriously.

Telephones

I do not have a landline. Bet that surprised you! Instead, I use Skype. No line rental and very cheap call rates. Skype is loaded on my laptop and I also have a separate Skype phone. Call quality is excellent and I rarely have a dropped call. Oh, and can video conference as well via webcam. Highly recommended.

I also have a mobile. Well two actually. Ones for business calls. The other is a Smartphone for private calls. I can do the following on the Smartphone:

• write this article as it has word, excel and PowerPoint loaded along with Acrobat Reader (PDF)
• download email and surf the net using “3.5G” – if available in the area. £7.50 p.m. For 500mb download limit. Doubt I download 500mb in a year! Cheap at the price though 
• I can also surf via my home Wi-Fi network
• sync contacts and diary with Outlook when connected to my laptop
• if I need to use my laptop when out and no Wi-Fi connection is available, I simply plug my phone in and use it as a modem. Somewhat slow, but it works
• and I have a nifty free program called Fring loaded. This gives me Instant Messaging, Facebook, Twitter and Skype all in one program.
• Oh, and it has a 6gb memory card with music etc. And my entire client files as well. And yes, it password protected and can only be accessed on my phone. No one else’s. How clever is that!!

So it’s a “proper” business phone. Not an iPhone toy (ouch).

Fax

Unbelievably, I do have a fax number as the odd person still likes to do things the olde fashioned way. What they don’t know is that I don’t have a fax machine. Instead I pay an annual subscription to Faxtastic for the number. When a fax is sent it arrives as a TIFF file via email. So I can access it wherever I am. Neat. And way cheaper and more reliable than a regular fax machine.

Software

The best bit of software I have is a PDF conversion program. I can convert word, excel and tax returns into PDF files and then email them straightaway. No postage and  instantaneous receipt. Well worth the investment.