I Give Electric Car 10 Years, Tops.

 The reason for the title? Well, once people begin to live with electric vehicles long-term, as opposed to early-adopter with enough money to overcome issues, they will have a very short life-span.

It's pretty clear that electric vehicles with enough range and a battery charging network fast enough to compete with fossil fuel vehicles is pie-in-the-sky for ordinary folk.

Tesla will continue to lead the market for the while, until the other manufacturers band together to provide an open-source and unified charging network. 

I mean, who on Earth is going to spend hundreds of thousands on a premium top of the range Porsche or Bentley EV, only to rely on a pound-shop charging network.

A charging network that relies on multiple phone apps, chargers that rely on phone apps that don't work when there isn't any network coverage, are not a premium customer experience.

Each charging network should be forced by law to accept contactless direct payments by bank card. No apps, just tap and charge. In addition the ability to pay by PayPal, Google or ApplePay without signing up to yet another app would be a boon to personal security, rather than having a dozen different additional apps on your phone, with a dozen different providers holding your personal information including card information.

Like with pay at pump for fossil fuels, it may be necessary to authorise a higher charge than is eventually taken. But the £100 authorisation before dispensing fuel seems to not have stopped people using pay at pump.

However they do it, the charging network for non-Tesla EV owners needs to improve dramatically. It also need to expand dramatically as the tales of EV owners being fined for exceeding time limits in car parks whilst in the queue waiting to use a charging station are becoming almost daily now. 

Finally 10 years will give lots of EV owners the "joy" of the battery replacement experience at least once, maybe twice. Joy for those that have leased their battery and probably paid over the odds for it or the pain of buying a replacement battery outright from the dealer, if it's still available. 

I've already heard some EVs have have their batteries discontinued. I have no idea what you do then, apart from buying a few thousand Lipo cells and soldering them into a replacement battery bank.

But don't say I didn't warn you. I've a feeling there will never be a cheap EV. Sure the electricity to run it may work out cheaper than a tank of petrol for now, but even that's changing as the cost of electricity increases with the various eco-tariffs upping the cost.

Airport Chaos: A Case of Piss-Poor Management and Unintended Consequences.

 Well, it looks like the Airport chaos is due to continue. I know of two families that have had holidays cancelled by TUI. By text. When they were at the airport waiting to check in. 

Then there's the cancellations by EasyJet and others.

I checked FlightRadar this morning and the sky was chock full of aircraft. The corridors South from the UK were nose to tail. I suspect there will be other cancellations this weekend.

The latest is the chaos at Manchester Airport: baggage handlers ending their shift on time leaving aircraft stranded on the runway. Either waiting to take off with baggage not loaded, or waiting to offload baggage after landing.

Airport management cite the lack of staff and the difficulty in recruiting staff. And that is a factor. But in my opinion it's the airport management themselves that have created the conditions for chaos. 

This could all be avoided with decent management. But unfortunately it appears the quality of management at airports isn't the best.

Basically airports around the country have eradicated staff parking along with short-term parking for passengers for drop-off and pick-up in an attempt to reduce congestion. Instead of providing subsidised parking, they are now providing subsidised buses into the airport. But the problem is that the subsidised transport is not flexible. They are contracted to pick up staff and transport them to and from the airport at allotted times. There is no flexibility. If staff work overtime, they miss the transport home. If they had a car, then working an extra hour wouldn't be a problem: they'd work the overtime, then hop in the car and get home an hour late. 

I mean, why would airport management pay for (say) an hourly bus service available 24/7 when for 3 -4 hours that bus service isn't used? 

If your shift ends at midnight for instance, then there's no alternative transport: you're stuck at the airport until the public transport intended to serve passengers starts to run. Most airports don't serve passengers 24 hours a day, there is usually a lull between midnight and 5 or 6 in the morning. So instead of being an hour late, you're not getting home until 7 or 8. That extra hour or even 30 minutes can have a huge knock-on effect for the workers at the bottom of the food chain. You've missed out on all that sleep, plus the rest of that day is virtually written off. If you have plans then they're out the window. 

Now of course if there was adequate compensation that registered the hardship that working an extra half hour causes, then fair enough. But I bet there isn't. 

It's almost like the management that came up with that strategy cannot comprehend that staff don't want to work under those circumstances. Of course management being office workers I'm sure work office hours that can use public transport, or work at an office block away from the airport with parking. No hardship for the people making these stupid decisions.

As I said, piss-poor management is to blame. They bring in strategies blissfully unaware or maliciously uncaring of the consequences of their decisions. 

Oh, and one thing that has not caused it is Covid. That ship of an excuse has sailed. It's been several months since lockdowns and travel restrictions were eased and things started to get back to normal. Plenty of time to recruit the numbers needed and train them up. But of course the management says that no-one is taking the jobs. 

Maybe the airport management need to look in the mirror at the reason why workers are not applying for the jobs they are offering.

In my opinion airport management are really the root cause of the issues.

Forced Medical Procedures: Shouldn't the Person Forcing You to Have Them Indemnify You Against Sdie Effects?

 Me and the Mrs have a cruise to Amsterdam booked for July.

One of the requirements of the trip is that you are supposed to have had a Covid Vaccination or booster within the previous 270 days of boarding the ship.

Now my Covid status as far as air travel is concerned is that I've had two jabs and I'm good to go. But that's not good enough for P&O.

Effectively they are forcing me to have a medical procedure in order to "enjoy" their facilities. Now of course there's the point of view that if you don't want to comply, then don't book it. But on the other hand, Covid restrictions are relaxing all over the world and given the rules for international travel to other countries has relaxed, really the cruise companies should follow suit.

Ah well, I suppose I'm now going to have to suck up the inevitable side effects of the jab. But really, if P&O are coercing me into having the jab, surely they should be liable for any financial or physical effects of that jab. I mean, no medical procedure whether it's vaccination or heart surgery is without risk. 

So surely the person making you go through the procedure should indemnify you against that risk?

I just wonder how quickly the rules would change if P&O or any company doing the same were held liable to cover lack of earnings if the jab made you ill, or life cover if you died as a result?

You see, it's all very well these companies glibly handing down rules without regard for the individual consequences, but really they need to be held liable for something so serious.

I can understand dress codes etc. but they are not medical interventions and as far as I'm aware have never killed or disabled anyone.