Tesla Car Australia Expands The Network Range.

A concern for owners and drivers of purely electrically powered cars is what’s called “range anxiety”. Much like a conventional car, range will vary depending on driving style, with spirited and exuberant driving draining charge quicker.

Tesla Cars Australia recently updated the list of charging stations available, with its 300th charge point being added at the Yarra Valley De Bortoli estate at Dixon’s Creek in Victoria. Over that, Tesla have added 100 charger stations in just six months and announced a global doubling of stations, demonstrating their committment to making having a Tesla car as convenient as possible.

With locations identified across South Australia, Victoria, New South Wales, Western Australia and Queensland, once completed and installed Tesla owners will be able to drive from Adelaide’s city centre to Gympie in North Queensland completely emissions-free.

South Australia and Western Australia will see their first Supercharger locations, whilst the other additions in New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland will allow for Tesla owners to visit popular holiday locations. Tesla’s milestone 300th Destination Charger is situated approximately 50 kilometres north-east of Melbourne near the towns of Yarra Glen and Healesville and is famous for producing some of the finest Pinot Noir and Chardonnay in Australia.

The winery is well suited as a Destination Charging site, which is designed to be installed at locations where owners of the award winning Model S and Model X will spend a few hours to recharge. Most Destination Charging sites are found at wineries, shopping centres, hotels, resorts and secure parking locations, utilising the same infrastructure as owners use at home.

Tesla Destination Charging stations are designed to enable Tesla owners to drive to key locations where Tesla owners frequent for longer stops with the knowledge they have a charging solution. Destination Charging stations use the same unit as the Wall Connector used at home and charge at a rate of 40km every hour on 32amp or up to 81 km per hour with 3 phase. All charging is dependent on a site’s power output. This style of charging is a replication of the convenience Tesla owners receive when charging at home.

(With thanks to Tesla Car Australia). http://credit-n.ru/offers-zaim/lime-zaim-zaymi-online.html

Really Keen Young Drivers!

One of my brothers, when aged around 5, found the keys in the ignition of Dad and Mum’s car and proceeded to start the car up and drive off.  That’s what you do with cars, isn’t it?  Dad and Mum were having a rest in the house when this occurred, and thankfully Dad heard the engine and rushed outside to stop him before he got away!

But he’s not the only one.  Just recently, in America (Where else!), two brothers aged five and two took off in their mother’s 2005 Ford Focus and headed off to their Grandfather’s place.  Life at home must have been a little dull at the time.  Putnam County Sheriff deputies believe the toddlers might have teamed up to work the pedals and steer the steering wheel.  The end result was a crash in the ditch, quite a distance away from home.  The car was wrecked almost 5 km down the road, the boys unhurt.  Prior to the jaunt, the boys were playing outside the home when they found the car keys under the mat.

Another child (8 years old), and in America, recently drove his sister to McDonalds to buy some food from the drive through lane – paying for the food with his own piggy bank money.  The police officer’s, family friends and grandparents then stopped him from driving any further.

A good reminder, if you own a car, is to keep the car locked up and the keys in a safe place out of reach of little fingers!  If you don’t mind the kids playing in the car, then make sure the keys are hidden away.

If your kids love cars, give them a pedal car or electric car (kids size) to let their imaginations lead to healthy and safe outcomes.  Another thing you can enjoy with young kids who like to drive is to take them off the road in a car and let them steer with you in control and in the driver’s seat.  Who hasn’t let their kids drive up the driveway or around a paddock under supervision while seated on your knees in the driver’s seat?

Have any of you  been in a situation where you (when under 10), your siblings or your own children have sought to drive off in your parent’s car when aged well under the driving age?  Do share!  These days, Google helps to teach us to drive, and I suppose any bright kid can learn off Google! http://credit-n.ru/offers-zaim/online-zaym-na-kartu-payps.html

The Sounds Of…

Much of the appeal of any new car – apart from factors like practicality and power – lies in the visual and tactile arenas. We admire the sleek lines or the bold aggressive chunkiness. We smile at the bug-eyed appeal of round headlights, such as those on the VW Beetle, or appreciate the clever styling achieved with pretty daytime running lights – or the classic Ring of Fire tail lights of an HSV. Chrome, interior lighting packages, exterior paint colour… it’s all visual. The interior styling also tends to cater to our senses of touch and comfort (kinaesthetics) with leather-wrapped this and that, lumbar support, heated seats and the like. Even a car with powerful acceleration and superb handling around the corners appeals to our kinaesthetic – it’s a human thing to enjoy the sensation of G-forces during acceleration and cornering.

We don’t tend to give the sense of sound much thought when picking out a new vehicle or even when driving, apart from what the sound system’s like (number of speakers, location and quality of speakers, input type…). However, we use our sense of hearing quite a lot when we’re in and around cars, although we’re less aware of it.

The role of sound in motoring was brought home to me rather acutely when I had a very close encounter with a hybrid vehicle in the supermarket carpark the other evening. It was getting a bit dark and I was waiting for a stream of cars to go past so I could get back to the old faithful Nissan with my groceries. One car goes past, then the next, so I tune out for a bit; then, as I hear the sound of an engine trailing away to one side and no sound on the other side, I start to stride forwards… only to pull up sharply as the hybrid that was last in the line of cars crawls past.  No damage was done, but this is something that we’re all going to have to look out for – literally look out for – as hybrids and electric vehicles become more common on our roads (and in the supermarket carpark).

As pedestrians and cyclists, we rely on our sense of hearing as an extra warning signal that something’s coming, especially when we can’t see down a driveway. I’m probably not the only one who had the mantra “Stop, Look and Listen” drummed in as part of road safety training and learning how to cross a road (along with Look Left, Look Right, Then Look Left Again).  I’m certainly not the only one to get a bit jumpy about the safety aspects of how silent hybrids and electrics are: last year, the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration legislated that quiet cars like these have to emit some sort of noise as a warning.

At the other end of the sound spectrum are the cars that you certainly can hear coming – like a former neighbour of mine with his 7-litre diesel Chevy. We all know the ones – the big bore exhausts, the V8 motors, the “muffler” that’s carefully tuned so the roar of the engine sounds just right. Now, these drivers are certainly aware of appealing to the sense of sound. Even if you’re not into big bore exhausts, most of us are not completely immune to the sound of a powerful engine doing its thing, even if we don’t quite go as far as former Top Gear presenter Jeremy Clarkson (the one we all loved to hate) doing a “Listen to it!  Just listen to it!” rant. And just don’t get me started on the Dukes of Hazard sol-mi-do-do-do-re-mi-fa-sol-sol-sol-fa horns…

Somewhere in between these extremes comes the driver who is indeed highly tuned into the sounds the engine – and indeed the whole car – is making. Maybe you are that driver.  This is the sort of person who drives passengers batty with a constant “What’s that noise?  I can hear something rattling!” This gets followed by frantic groping around the interior of the car trying to find and eliminate the cause of said rattle, with the end result that the offending pair of sunglasses in the glovebox has to be wrapped up in a beanie to silence it. This is punctuated by complaints about Funny Noises made by the engine that are only apparent to the driver. To be fair, car manufacturers go out of their way to reduce the on-road noise heard in the cabin and the sound of the engine does get used by mechanics as a form of diagnosis.

On the whole, however, the sound of an engine tends to be a subconscious or subliminal feature. We may not even be aware of it until one day, we hear a particular engine note and become overwhelmed by a rush of nostalgia, suddenly reminded of the car our parents drove when we were little, or the first car we owned. We have those moments when our hearts skip a little beat as we hear one particular engine amid lots of others, like a familiar face in a crowd, and we know that someone special to us has arrived.  And oh, the disappointment when we realise that what we heard was only another car of the same make and year… The sound of a car engine is something that affects us more deeply than we probably realise.

That’s my challenge to you this week: think about how your car sounds a bit more consciously (or mindfully, to use a buzz word). Are you a noise lover, a hypersensitive or do you like it quiet? Or do you have any suggestions about the sounds that hybrids and electrics ought to emit for safety purposes? http://credit-n.ru/zaymi-nalichnymi-blog-single.html

Towards Zero: The Dream And Why It Won't Work.

Every government around the world will tell you that they would love to see a zero road death toll. Anyone that has lost a friend or family member in a car crash will more than likely tell you the same thing. In early 2017, the state government of New South Wales launched a new safety on roads initiative called Towards Zero. Here’s a quote from the website: “Initiatives to ensure safer roads, speeds, people and vehicles need to be implemented together so the road system not only keeps us moving, but safe and protected.”

The idea is admirable. Make our roads safer so that no one will die. Great idea. A wonderful idea, especially when you read: “People are human and sometimes make mistakes – a simple mistake shouldn’t cost anyone their life.” and “Roads, roadsides and vehicles need to be designed to minimise crashes or reduce forces if a crash happens.”

Leaving aside the lack of an Oxford comma in quite a few parts of the website, the idea of a zero road toll, using the two of the three opening statements listed, really appeal and make it look that it isn’t as far fetched as their dream would seem to be. But it’s here where this dream is seen as fanciful and unrealistic: “Road safety is a shared responsibility – everyone needs to make safe decisions on and around the road to prioritise safety.”

Governments in Australia have a huge focus on road safety and quite rightly. However that focus is narrow, myopic, and singular. Each and every government will sit down with you and with a look of utter sincerity tell you that speed kills. They’ll also shake your hand slowly and tell you that the only cause of fatal crashes on our roads is speeding. Then they’ll burp and remind you of fatigue being a cause also. Fair call there.

Let’s look at the numbers as prepared by the NSW Bureau of Statistics and provided to the NSW Transport Department. In the twelve month period that ended on March 31st, 2017, there were 373 fatalities in NSW. That’s 373 people per 100,000 people of the population. Per 10000 vehicles it’s just 0.7. The rate per one hundred million vehicle kilometres? 0.5. Yes. 0.5 per one hundred million vehicle kilometres travelled.

Using the month of March (as the most recent month completed) over the last decade, it sees an average of 28 fatalities per month. That’s just shy of one per day. From a population of over five million alone in Sydney. In March of 2017, 15 of the 29 deaths were driver related. That’s down three from 2016. It’s also eleven down from the previous year’s three months ending March and the third lowest January to March total since 1945.

The ages of those killed tell a startling story. 5 drivers were between the ages of 17 and 20, whilst 17 were between 30 and 59. Read that again: 17 drivers died that were between the ages of 30 and 59. This is the age group range that, theoretically, SHOULD be the safer driver’s age range. Somewhat unsurprisingly, 22 of the 29 were male. Locations varied also; seven were in the area classified as Sydney, and six in the southern region. The Hunter Valley and Western regions shared five apiece. Given the population of NSW at the end of September 2016 was an estimated 7,757,800, the 22 deaths outside of Sydney in March of 2017 represent a disproportionate amount.

Strikingly, NONE of the 22 were on a road classified as a freeway. 9 were on state highways whilst 11 were on roads classified as Main/Secondary/Tourist with a further 9 on roads classified as…unclassified. In areas classified as metropolitan areas, only Sydney saw a number of fatalities, compared to Wollongong and Newcastle. But virtually half, 14, were seen as being listed under “Country, non urban, greater than 80 kilometres per hour”. It’s here a cynic might claim that speed kills…

Of those 29, 17 were in cars. That’s four less than March 2016. Five were light trucks. 13 less than the same time last year. Even fatalities for heavy truck crashes were down, 11 less than before. Now for some good news. Although the NSW government would have us believe that we’re in a real spot of bother when it comes to fatalities, it’s a consistent DOWNWARD trend since 1989, where somewhere in the order of 1000 people lost their lives. There’s been a couple of gradual rises and a spike or two, noticeably in 2006 and 2010, but the trend is most definitely on the way down.

NOW: some better news in the battle against some things we’re told are the causes of fatal crashes. Please note those two words: fatal crashes. A recent analysis of 340 serious casualty crashes in Victoria and NSW between 2000 and 2011, using data gleaned from forensic examination of crash scenes and anonymous interviews with drivers has found that in 0.9 per cent of crashes the driver was using a mobile phone.  0.9%. As the information source says: “If using mobile phones is significantly dangerous then we could expect to see a dramatic increase in traffic accidents in the last decade.  In fact, the reverse is true. “Between 1997 and 2011 seven fatalities were recorded in which using a hand-held mobile phone was a possible contributing factor. However, it is not known to what extent other factors such as alcohol, speed and fatigue also contributed to these fatal crashes.

The study from the Monash University Accident Research Centre (MUARC) found that intoxicated drivers caused 13.5 per cent of crashes, drivers falling asleep resulted in 11.8 per cent of crashes and 3.2 per cent of crashes were caused by passenger interactions. Here’s a list of causes:

Note something? Not one mention of speeding aka excess velocity for the posted limit. That’s why you’ll hear the pithy line of “almost 40% of fatal crashes had speed as a factor” because the car was in motion at the time. The reverse is: “over 60% of fatal crashes DIDN’T have speed as a factor.” What is hard to find is the posted limit in which this excess speed factor was a factor.

Another factor is, which to Toward’s Zero’s credit, they address, is road design, which includes traffic light timing. In NSW there’s a peculiar leaning towards having traffic coming off a freeway being given a green light only to be heading towards a red light, which aids traffic flow not at all. In peak periods some roads that badly need more green light time see drivers, utterly frustrated with five seconds, break the law and run the red light in oreder to save minutes of waiting. Then there’s the adsurbity of Sydney’s freeway designs, where two major inbound lanes merge within just a couple of hundred metres which causes gridlock every morning and afternoon.

However, there is one factor that is a constant, a factor that will always be part of the reason “Towards Zero” is doomed to fail. Some call it the OVI, the Organic Vehicle Interface. Others call it the nut holding the wheel. Quite  a few call it “that f**king useless idiot”. It’s the driver that believes they have a sovereign right to not indicate, to tail gate, to drive at night or in rain without headlights on, to run red lights (such as: Ran red light for food), to not stop safely for amber lights, to have trailers not connected properly, to not reach highway and freeway merge speeds, to not react at the appropriate speed when given a green light, to drive at the wrong speed in a lane other than the left, to listen to headphones whilst in a vehicle with a perfectly serviceable audio system, to comb their hair or read a book or eat breakfast or just act, as James May might say, like a complete cock.

The bottom line is this: we’ve been fed a diet of lies, obfuscation, misdirection, when it comes to why people die on our roads. We’re effectively told that a blanket reason for fatal crashes is excess speed. What I haven’t included here, simply, is the sheer outright cost to the community when it comes to crashes that aren’t fatal. The costs of hospitalisation, insurance, road and property repairs, but is a fair bet that they’ll be of huge numbers and, again, not strictly speed related. Driver training seems, nowadays, to not impart anything more than “Hop in, turn on, select D, go” and that also is a reason why we won’t see a zero road toll. No engagement in driving means real awareness of what it means to be a DRIVER will always not be a part of the driving experience. And in a nutshell that’s why Towards Zero will fail.

Information sourced from http://www.keepyoureyesontheroad.org.au, http://www.towardszero.nsw.gov.au/, http://roadsafety.transport.nsw.gov.au/downloads/dynamic/nsw-road-toll-monthly.pdf

Opinion is that of the author and not neccessarily that of the site owner. http://credit-n.ru/offers-zaim/viva-dengi-credit.html