Something Different: Hybrid Cars.

As someone who is in the industry, I've been looking at what to expect in the future from automotive technology.

Electric cars are fairly straightforward: You charge a big battery, the motor drains the battery and when coasting the motor becomes a generator and the kinetic energy is returned back to the battery under regenerative braking. The only voodoo in an electric car is the efficiency of the motor and combining the regen and hydraulic braking.

The main focus on electric cars is range. Getting more capacity out of the same physical size battery and keeping that range long-term as well as improving efficiency of the electronics and the motor. Minimising the production of waste energy in the form of heat is the key.

Motor efficiency is the holy grail, trying to get the best mileage out of the battery capacity. Modern electronics can be designed with greater or lesser efficiency (see Chinese electric cars for the latter), the way the motors are wound, and how those windings couple magnetically at different speeds is a science all of it's own.

Battery technology is another science where much can be done to improve range, with the main battery technologies well understood. It's getting the formulation of the chemicals right and also maintaining the capacity of the battery over a large number of charge cycles is where the boffins are working.

The most technology goes into hybrid cars of all things. Trying to meld a petrol engine and an electric motor seamlessly requires a lot of effort and technology.

It's a shame that governments have effectively killed off the internal combustion engine, because there's a lot more technology that could be incorporated into a hybrid power train. Hydraulic valves that could be lifted independently of the pistons, so an engine can be turned over matching revs to the motor before the valves are sequenced as normal and the fuel and ignition are started, so the change from motor to petrol power is seamless without wearing out clutches, ultra-low emission engine like the new Mazda skyactive-x or petrol compression ignition engines could clean up the ICE part of the powertrain.

But I guess that manufacturers won't pursue ICE technology much further, given that the future is either battery powered, or Hydrogen fuel cell powered. Already compact hydrogen fuel cell generators are available for off-grid use, it's just getting the hydrogen that is the problem as there aren't many filling stations.

Such a shame. But when you see a hybrid car, just smile and think to yourself: "That's gonna break one day" and it will. Because all those complex electronics will fail. Thanks to the eco-loons, even automotive electronics moved over to eco-friendly solder, with less lead content. The lead keeps the solder flexible and without it the solder becomes brittle and resists vibration less. Oh dear, a bit of a requirement for automotive electronic applications.

The electric car suffers the same to a lesser degree because there's a lot less in the way of electronics to manage the powertrain.

So it's a case of when one of those many thousands of solder joints fails and renders the car helpless, not if.

The future of automotive technology is bright: (for the electronics repair facilities).

The Challenge and the Opportunity of Artificial Intelligence

There's no doubt that Artificial Intelligence poses a great challenge to Governments across the globe.

Not only directly, as corporations like Google and Facebook use A.I. algorithms to manipulate information as they do at the moment, but in the future as A.I. rolls out and affects the employment market.

The last challenge like this was during the Thatcher years when mining and heavy industry in the UK became uncompetitive and suffered badly. I well remember the nightly lists of companies closing and job losses incurred on the Ten O'clock News.

Those communities heavily reliant on those industries have still not recovered 3 and 4 decades later.

I've blogged before that this new wave, the A.I. wave of redundancies and job losses won't be confined to the working class. It will be a predominantly middle-class problem. The working class jobs have all been automated. The middle class, the thinkers have been more or less unaffected. Not any more. A.I. is a direct threat to the sort of thinking jobs that were historically safe.

Being a middle-class phenomenon, it's a greater threat to middle-class political parties. How they manage the revolution and support the middle class determines if they stay in power or suffer the same fate as the Labour party.

Brexit produces an  exciting opportunity for an enlightened UK government - if it choses to be enlightened.

Free from the shackles of sclerotic EU legislation, a UK government could (much in the way that the Thatcher era government championed IT) start to champion cutting edge technologies like A.I.

A good start would be to start to move education system away from it's current blurred focus on vast quantities of graduates. The QUALITY of the graduates has to change. There has to be a laser-like focus on producing the brightest and the best and bringing them on. Education has to change from merely providing mediocre education for all, to focussing on identifying the brightest and the best from ALL walks of life and providing the streams to suit them that allows them to attain.

This is my biggest frustration with education at the moment. The leftist ideology says that everyone gets the same education. But.... what happens to those bright and talented in a "one-size-fits-all" education system? They fail to attain. They become bored, they are never challenged by a grey, bland just-for-the-sake-of-it education system.

Education I've said before is a strategic resource. It cannot be allowed to be just for the sake of it. It has to provide talent the country can use. An education system that provides a university graduate that eventually ends up sweeping floors is not fit for purpose. All that money, all that time, the resources, the teachers, lecturers, the talent of the graduate, are all wasted. If you are a teacher or a lecturer that is happy to churn out graduates that eventually end up wasting your time, you shouldn't be in the job.

A primary focus has to be on changing early education to identify talent.  Once that's in place, secondary education has to then focus on growing talent, providing multiple streams. Stem, Creative, Historical, Vocational and Caring subjects (to cater for an increasing elderly population) streams should be available.

How these specialist subjects are provided needs some work. But several specialist streams could be provided by a single school.

Further education then works to make experts out of those specialists. Not just in STEM subjects, but in Care, in Vocational subjects like Building, Plumbing. We need people that can manage whole projects as well as wire a plug or plumb in a boiler. But those managers also need to have practical experience of how a plug is wired or a boiler is plumbed and how long it takes.

Anyway, I've digressed. Back to A.I.

Hopefully, with an education system producing the brightest and the best in specialist subjects, we can then tailor that system to produce A.I. experts. Or graduates ready to exploit any emerging technology. I'm sure A.I. will become a feature in the lucrative market of weapons technology.

Britain can then exploit this boom, rather than be exploited. If necessary Government can invest in innovation, although the best would be private investment. Possibly government can kick-start innovation and then hand it over to private business for a price, with a decent and almost immediate return on the investment.

Eventually after we become the world expert on emerging technologies, the UK can go on to export its intellectual property and it's experts across the globe. Just like we did with Scottish shipwrights and Boiler makers, Cornish and Welsh miners back at the start of the industrial revolution.

Or we could do things the Leftist way and tax every A.I. or every company using A.I. to offset the cost of providing benefits to people made redundant by new technology thereby making the UK the most uncompetitive country to use A.I...….. in the world.