This web page holds the scripts and notes on videos posted on the onefiniteplanet YouTube channel, and mostly provides an alternate way to view the same content.

From the youtube description: Self-driving cars rely on more than just hype — they need sensors that can actually “see” the road. In this video, we break down the four key sensor types: LIDAR, radar, cameras, and sonar. You’ll learn the pros and cons of each technology, the myths surrounding LIDAR, and how these sensors shape the future of AI, robotics, and autonomous vehicles. Whether you’re curious about Tesla’s approach, Waymo’s choices, or the broader race toward full autonomy, this guide gives you the foundation to understand what’s really going on behind the buzzwords.

This page (and the video) look at key questions on the future of cars & EVs: Will robotaxis mean really no one will want to own a car anymore? Even if people do still want cars, will EVs just die out or eventually take over? What about hydrogen, e-fuels, or the countries like the USA dropping any climate agenda? EV have improved a lot, but need to do more before they are fully suitable for _most_ people. If EVs & infrastructure are just not yet ready for most people, what's the next step?

This is just the introduction, and a series of pages/videos will follow on will AI & robots exterminate us, updates on technical progress and breakthroughs, and on how, whether, as technology as done in past, AI & Robots, driven increases productivity will result in more jobs becoming viable. But this page/video prefixes those points with a look at the long term goal: where are we heading, and concludes and we are headed for a revolution with who benefits from that revolution not yet clear.

From even back in 2016 there have been a virtual barrage of reports warning that robots and automation could displace even over 50% of the workforce in the next few decades. Now in 2024 with AI robots, is it still safe to predict jobs will remain as a solution to wealth distribution? During the almost 300 years of the industrial revolution growth age, new jobs have soon emerged to take the place of those replaced by automation, but although it is repeatedly claimed that this shows how technology creates as may jobs as it makes redundant, this deeper look makes it clear it's not technology that's been creating those new jobs, and as with Aesop's fable of the boy who cried wolf, while we may have lost faith in the profits of job losses, it doesn't mean those job losses will never arrive.

Is it realistic that Earth could reach peak population by 2055? Is there really already the largest number of under 35s on Earth there will ever be? Peak newborns already? What is the reality, and what are the implications?

The climate is always changing. The good news has been that Earth's surface went from molten rock to now supporting the bloom of visible life we see today as the Phanerozoic Eon, but the bad news is the bloom, and current wonderful conditions are just a brief moment, as the surface will naturally return to being too hot for any life to survive. Plus, as watching a volcano shows, things have cooled little inside Earth and while Earth currently has a relatively cool thin crust, relatively no thicker than an eggshell, it is still almost entirely a very hot planet.

This is a look at the V2-GHL technologies, how they work, and how they are going to impact EVs & future energy and energy prices for not just EV, EV-PHEV EV-Hybrid owners, but for everyone. Its 3 years since the March 2022 "The electrical grid, V2G and EV Home Charging" web page was published on OneFinitePlanet.org website, and now in 2025 its all happening.

Although, while in the midst of it all, it is easy to miss the real impact, we are experiencing what we may soon see as the greatest political upheaval since at least the collapse of the soviet union.

The first pickup or Ute from BYD, and apparently not the last. BYD is starting with the same strategy as with their first ever production EV, starting with a range extended EV, with differs from typical plug-in hybrids in the main power is the 320kW from the electric motors, with the internal combustion engine there to extend the range to 840km and make a vehicle as capable for towing as the Ford Ranger Raptor.

And yes, environment and climate are always changing. Even though we are creating quite a mess right now, realistically it's nature and natural environment and climate changes, not us humans, that will end all life one Earth. This look at the big picture of the history of environment and climate reveals while "Mother Earth" does seem quite nurturing right now, this planet is normally hostile to all life beyond "just slime" made up of microbes like those we kill we must kill to sterilize medical equipment. What we are enjoying is the equivalent of the brief bloom of life in the desert after rain. Yes, our technology brings risks and may "poke the bear", but without technology, when that "grizzly bear of natural climate change" wakes from its current short hibernation, we, and the species we cherish could perish. Following "the flip" not just us but all other complex life and even the microbes, eventually are doomed. For us humans, the threat is real and immediate. Or is it that, natural changes to climate, like "bears", are part of nature and nature would never harm us?

To many people, both those within the US as well as perhaps most outside the US, a vote for Trump is seen as something hard to understand and even seen as the uneducated or the domain "others": people seen as are very different from "normal people". Yet 50% Americans are not radically different "others", nor uneducated, nor stupid, even though around 50% will vote for trump. With around 80% of Americans believing the country is on the "wrong track", is it any surprise a large number feel if trends continue, they risk being disenfranchised by that "wrong track" and are desperate to believe only a big change can protect their rights?

BYD swaps places with Tesla for being 1st or 2nd biggest EV brand in the world, and is second to only Toyota in hybrids, and with BYD DM EV based hybrids is the world leader in plug-in hybrid sales and the world's second largest battery company. In 2024, BYD is a rising star in top 10 automotive companies for sales of all vehicles briefly overtaking Ford for 4th place in August 2023. In China, the world's largest vehicle market, BYD in 2023 took the lead from VW and Toyota as the bestselling brand of all vehicles inside China. No Chinese brand has ever been market leader in China before, and this not just of EVs but all sales including diesel and gasoline vehicles, despite BYD no longer selling ICE vehicles. In of March 2023, the Atto 3 from BYD rose to 3rd bestselling EV globally behind the Tesla Model Y and Model 3, but the world outside of China is only just starting to see the capabilities of BYD and quality of their vehicles and batteries.

While Tesla becoming the world leader in self-driving cars is still part of the dream, the US$30-trillion-dollar future is based on being the "Apple" of humanoid robots which will cost 10x what an iPhone does in the future be just as prevalent. Sadly, the dream no longer seems to contemplate being the global leader in EV sales, but does that matter? Surely if Elon can turn this dream into reality, he is worth that huge multi-billion dollar pay packet shareholders just voted to support. Problem is, everything has a limit, and even if Tesla overcomes all the risks to the plan, it still doesn't add up. Consider, how will everyone buy robots from Tesla if the robots take all their jobs?

There is a lot of focus on climate change caused by humans, as there should be! But this focus can miss just how fragile the environment is even without us humans breaking things. This page looks at some of the surprises are in store when we explore natural climate change. This exploration of natural changes, and the history and future of changes even without human interference as background relevant when considering the potential impact of man-made climate change. A big surprise is that life on Earth is already naturally on a downward spiral, and Earths 'carrying capacity' for all life is in natural decline already. The natural decline is far more gradual than possible impact of humans but does illustrate the fragility of nature. Fortunately, we have millions of years to develop solutions to avoid the worst natural climate disasters, provided we first find a way to avoid prematurely destroying the already fragile natural environment ourselves.

Depending on who you ask, EV sales could be either booming or grinding to a halt. Even AI answered: "The web results are contradictory and show different perspectives", and Ford on same day the same company reported record EV sales and a plan to cut back on EV plans due to lack of buyer interest. So, what is really happening? Can biases be sidestepped to uncover a real answer? As is often the case, reality is a mix of both answers. Globally, EV sales are still growing, but growing slower, and in some places, sales are stalling.

We are in a time of disruption by electrification as planes, trains and automobiles, as well as shipping, all move to zero emission power. But it is the EV disruption of car industry that will have the biggest impact on consumers, and EVs have become "real" and desirable much sooner than many brands expected or wanted. New players such as Tesla, BYD and others will become the new leaders, and together with the globalisation of the EV centric Chinese car industry, combined, will take at least 50% of the market. So, what happens to the existing big brands of the legacy car industry sharing the remaining 50%? Either half die out, all halve in size, or some combination of both! The EV disruption will catch out many legacy car makers, with the shift skipping the anticipated interim step to hydrogen vehicles. There is a separate webpaper exploring why it is so difficult for legacy automakers to make a profit from EVs, and this page will track major 'legacy' brands through the transition to see which, if any, survive, as the new brands increase their market share.

George Washington was elected unanimously by the 69 electors from the 10 participating states in the in augural election of a US president in 1788. In practice how the system works in the 21st century's USA of over 330 million people is very different from in the USA of 1788 with less than 4 million people, the underlying principle is still that the states each choose electors to an electoral college who together determine who is to be the president, but in practice today the people of each state get to vote for how their states electors will vote. This is how it works, and a look at what could possibly stop it working as expected.

Like many others, back in February 2024 I wrote that A Biden-Harris ticket would not cut it for the 2024 election. The debate highlighted the problems of US voters again being faced with Biden and Trump: almost no one sees this as a choice between two good options. The Biden problem will be resolved, but no, it was not just about losing a debate, it was about his inability to maintain his train of thought during the debate, and the risk that presents for another full term in office. Arguably, the focus has all along been only on polarisation and wins for political parties, rather than visions for the future. Democracy should offer the people choices of a say in their future, but under current systems becomes more about personalities. Looking deeper reveals even without the current issues, it is unclear the US voters get a real choice and real say in what elections should determine.

These are the robots and companies behind the robots for those that took centre stage with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang at the Nvidia AI event in March 2024, together with robots absent but still significant, and they are the start of a revolution that will transform the world provided we can solve the economic question that sadly is not even being asked. While some companies on this list are in production with customer service and other robots, no company is in 2024 yet producing biped robots in the sufficient quantity to yet profit from biped robot production, and considering Tesla, founded in 2003, did not report a full year profit until 2020, profits may take a while. Significantly, some are beginning mass production of humanoid robots in 2024, and those some include companies like Fourier, UBTech and Unitree that have already had other robots in mass production for a decade.

Fairytales often contain significant element of danger, and with the label "Goldilocks zone", the danger is the concept can be dangerously misleading. Stars change from a faint young sun through their lifespan until they explode and die as a "nova", and this continual change means the temperature at any distance from a star will change dramatically over time, and it who or what it must be not too hot and not too cold for can also be very misleading.

Following the shooting at the rally on July 13, 2024, Elon Musk endorsed Trump and announced Musk would become potentially the largest donor to the Trump political cause. Speculation on why ranges from the shooting event motivated Musk to support Trump, to that Musk saw the shooting event as making a Trump victory inevitable and providing support is Musk's first step in managing an outcome he now sees as either inevitable, an opportunity, or both. All theories so far highlight problems with democracy in the US, and miss the reality that Elon Musk is now focused on agenda for a post-car future and craves having influence.

Vote centre left (e.g. Democrats in the US) to increase support for ‘idealist’, issues, such as climate change, or vote centre right (e.g. Republicans in the US) for a better economy. I (and others) suggest this is conventional thinking and there is a perception that the economy will be better under the centre right, but […]

The BYD Seal was very much a Tesla Model 3 rival, and soon the BYD Sealion 7 will be a Tesla Model Y rival.

As robots have been around since the 1950s, and humanoid robots have existed in science fiction over a century, it can easily be overlooked how AI humanoid robots could change our entire society and economic system when previous robots, which can be considered as specialist robots, didn't have that much impact. This is a look at the types of robots and technologies behind the changes.

Let me start by saying I do feel unauthorised migration over the US southern border has become a genuine problem and it would be reduced under Donald Trump. However, I also feel this problem is grossly misrepresented for political advantage, and even the southern border is better managed under Trump, it is not the real immigration problem and will make little difference to other very real problems facing the average American citizen. Not that Democrats are any better on the real problem. Joe Biden is so committed on using migration to grow the economy that he even labelled allies "xenophobic" for not using immigration to grow their economy, plus Biden trusts economic indicators telling him the economy is fine, instead of the US citizens telling him it isn't.

This page is updated to track BYD plans, and upcoming models, set for widespread release in "the rest": the markets beyond China, USA and Europe. In 2024, EV marketing data still entirely focuses on 3 regions: China, the USA, and Europe, which so far account for 95% of EV sales. The remaining 5%, "the rest" is a huge over 2/3 of the world market of Oceana including Australia & New Zealand, Latin America including Brazil and, Mexico, the Middle East, Africa and Asian including India, Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore. While one strategy does not apply the same for the entire "the rest" market, there is enough in common between many markets to make this 2/3rd of the world a much greater prospect than the 5% suggests. In 2022, before BYD even became sales leader in China, BYD began to get serious about exports, and the export strategy continues to evolve and become more purposeful and includes plans for "the rest".

Is Tesla or BYD the world's leading EV maker? They both are! While who leads depends on over what period and how you count EVs, together they dominate world EV sales, and their combined position is strengthening. So, no undisputed world number 1 EV brand, even at year end 2023. These two are the current EV market leaders, and as EVs gain market share, these two are on trajectories to become no #1 and no #2 car carmakers worldwide when EVs take over, if no legacy brand passes them. But will either of them ever reach true #1 before the chasing pack catches them? This page reports and tracks progress.

Although this page was launched with information on side loading Apps to the BYD Atto, it is progressively being updated with more tips for BYD Atto 3 owners such as charging and battery care. For those considering buying an EV or other content on the Atto 3 and on BYD can be found on other EV pages on this site. Rather than a typical webpaper, this page is really only of interest to owners of BYD vehicles. See page contents dropdown for an index to this page and a list of what is covered.

The question is, do we seriously disrupt an economic system transitioning too slowly from fossil fuels, or wait until the system is disrupted by extreme weather. Most likely, we deal with a mix of both disruptions. We are living through many trends that are unsustainable for even another decade, and while it is not certain which trend reaching its tipping point will cause the greatest disruption, the environment and rising CO2 levels will play a key role by at the latest 2033. While some righteous environmentalists protest for everyone to embrace austerity and simply just stop burning fossil fuels, the action required is putting in place alternatives. In practice we can't switch off without alternatives, and progress on alternatives is progressing too slowly in a failing effort to avoid disrupting economies and the establishment. Reality is both the extreme weather events that further motivate action and those actions themselves will cause disruption, which will both combine with the disruption from AI and the collapse of economic Ponzi schemes.

This page began as a 'Should you buy an EV or not?' written from experience, but as it is impossible to cover every possible perspective, the example is an Atto 3 in Australia, so the more similar the vehicle being considered is to the Atto 3, and the more similar the country to Australia the more of this content that will be of interest. For comparison with other vehicles, I have a separate page soon to be published comparing the Atto 3 to both other EVs as well as traditional internal combustion or hybrid vehicles.

Meet the new type of hybrid that comprehensively outsells the RAV 4 in China: The Sealion 6. Just as BYD EVs have taken on Tesla, BYD DM plug-in hybrids will take on Toyota "step to EVs" hybrids, targeting those not yet ready for full EVs with technology that is crushing sales of gas-powered cars China, with BYD in 2022 BYD took vehicle market leadership in China from VW and Toyota with EV first hybrids that are simpler and perform better for the same money as regular gas cars. With hybrid technology so advanced even Toyota is considering adopting it, the Sealion 6 can offer many people what for them may be the best of an EV together with the safety of being able to refuel like a traditional car.

Batteries for EVs have progressed: From: very expensive even while delivering an impractical range.To: Less expensive with an acceptable range. Only now in 2022, are batteries showing signs they can soon enable EVs price competitive and range competitive. With the new world of EVs, comes a whole new world of understanding cars, with batteries at the centre. This page provides background, the rethink batteries bring, the different battery technologies, though to how to car for batteries, and who makes what.

If leading experts are correct, AI robots are coming and will take our jobs, so how will we afford robots to make our lives better? So far, there have been 3 steps, to understanding what is coming: 1) Seeing how already in 2024 AI and Robots have already reached a tipping point, 2) Reading what the experts say before dismissing the threat to jobs and assuming that new jobs will be created as they have in the past, 3) Understanding that Univeral Basic Income (UBI) won't be enough. Elon Musk and others currently propose a form of Univeral Basic Income UBI as the future, but the future for people like Elon Musk who work on and profit from the AI and Robots seems much clearer than for those who made redundant. How does Elon Musk asking for remuneration valued at $55 billion while Tesla is laying off over 10% of staff consistent with a world where everyone enjoys wealth through AI? If this AI and robot future is real, then the entire capitalist system needs at least serious revision, and the solution may come from everyone owning robots.

In April 2024, following a disappointing below expectations Q1 sales result, Tesla began layoffs to up to 20% of its workforce, announced a focus on "Robotaxi" in priority over a new more mass-market entry-level model sometimes referred by the press as the "model 2", and saw the departure of many Tesla senior personnel who had previously shared the stage with Musk at media events. Can the EV world really afford see this move positioning the company key to having brought EVs this far as a "not a car company". What is happening? Are the layoffs etc. just Elon Musk having a dummy spit, a period of turmoil, or does the shadow of Twitter mean the dream of Tesla becoming a leading carmaker over?

TLDR; The magic number is around 2.3, not the 2.0 you might expect, results in a stable population. This is an exploration of what 'births per woman' means, and how it is measured. Key to discussion about population is population growth, which is most commonly analysed from 'births per woman', which is also called 'fertility rate'. But what is 'births per woman'? Answer: not quite what you might expect, which means a small adjustment is required for interpreting births per woman when predicting population growth.

Just as BYD EVs have taken on Tesla, BYD DM plug-in hybrids will take on Toyota "step to EVs" hybrids, targeting those not yet ready for full EVs with technology that is crushing sales of gas-powered cars China. In 2022 BYD took vehicle market leadership in China from VW and Toyota with EV first hybrids that are simpler and perform better for the same money as regular gas cars and began EV exports taking on Tesla outside China. In 2024 BYD will now compete globally with "EV first" hybrids that took market leadership from gasoline cars in China from VW, expanding international sales in the "step to EVS" market, with hybrid technology so advanced even Toyota is considering adopting it. This page looks at how BYD "DM-i"s are different from other hybrids and make them great value "pure EVs" to drive that can be driven on gasoline or electric and reveal specs of BYD export DM-i and DMO EVs as they are revealed.

Understanding Wright's Law, is key to knowing what technology, at what price, is coming next, and how prices of current technologies will change. It also has significant implication on completeness of USA vs China vs the rest how AI can revolutionise the cost of introducing new products.

It seems like the human population has forever been growing, but any analysis makes it clear growth must stop eventually at some level. Perhaps consider that the wealthier each person, the less people the planet can support when answering the question of at what level should growth stop? Do we go for the maximum possible people just before everything collapses, even if average living standards could be far better with a smaller population? When caged hens are farmed for eggs, people advocate for a lower population to allow living free-range for a better existence, yet with people being farmed by multinationals, billionaires and politicians growing the human population to grow the economy, it seems that denser and denser housing and reduced resources per person for human workers is accepted. Most countries seem to agree that global population growth should end but and state that ends its own population growth faces economic disaster.

Immigration is short-term symptom of a potential long-term problem of the challenges to targeting an ideal population. We live an overpopulated planet where many governments use immigration to boost what would be otherwise falling population numbers while blaming 'illegals' for the very real negative consequences for their citizens from the boost to the population. It can be argued that reaching sustainability would address the question of overpopulation, but what would it take to end the need for deception, resolve the conflict, and have everyone work towards the conditions experienced in the countries with highest levels of happiness?

I read a story on population in China that I found surprising in three ways. 1. The story reports China has already reached peak population. 2. The author believes that despite over 700 million people in China in around 1970 being considered too many people, 1.4 billion people today is not enough. 3. Population growth is even suggested as a solution to the problems of housing and education.

Surprisingly, humanity is at 'peak child' and looks to be heading to population stability. The population explosion may arguably have left us with an overpopulated planet, but the explosion is ending, due to 'births' per woman falling from over 6 prior to 1900, and to around 2.2 in 2022. Some Economists panic about that and fear humans 'leaving peak population' and correcting to a lower population, even though that could benefit most of us. When first analysing the population explosion, I found a paradox as popular explanations for the fall in birth-rates like the "education of women" and other coincidence theories simply don't fit all the data. No, the Taliban are not onto something, as the real best answer is that people are motivated to have the number of children to give those children the best life possible in environment and situation, which may require environmental security and reducing inequality to limit the economist nightmare of further falls in birthrates.

There are a lot of claims that Trump "lies all the time". But consider for a moment, what if Trump is not lying, but instead actually comes to believe the things he says? What if we are watching someone go down rabbit holes as they receive adulation when saying crazy things? And what if this is what happened to Hitler? There are clearly times it when fact checkers don't support what Trump has said and many times, when what Trump says contradicts what he said earlier. A key question is, is this because Trump is lying, or because Trump actually believes, more significantly, comes to believe things he did not believe before? What if Trump is changing? Opponents often claim Trump knows the truth because he has been told, but then again, having been told the truth doesn't seem to stop flat earthers. Hidden behind the answer to how often, if at all, Trump is lying, may be answer to what did happen in Nazi Germany, and while Trump is not Hitler, how Trump could be on the same type of path to Trump's own form of extremism.

History proves that it is not only in fiction that even the most questionable agendas imaginable can attract many followers. And, like Voldemort, Trump also has a plan to return even if he has no right to return. Trump now has the weight of a political party behind his likely actual belief that the electoral process in the USA cannot be trusted to declare the genuine winner the right to rule, and to Trump followers, after the next election he will be their president no matter who is initially declared winner. Even if Trump is not declared winner from the vote count, he could still be appointed, and if not, there will be the threat of a coup to end elections from tens of millions who will see Trump their president in internal exile. If Trump does become president again, he will take steps to prevent the "injustice of 2020" ever being repeated again. Perhaps it makes sense that his enemies are called the "democrats". The global consequences of Trump being returned to power go beyond the US and beyond democracy.

This page is more under the heading of 'fun facts'. The first 'fun fact' is that while everyone knows how the length of daytime and nigh time vary throughout the year, it may come as a surprise to realise the length of the entire day, also varies. Partly because, second fun fact, the a day is a longer than one rotation of the Earth, which lead to the third fun fact: we just had the shortest total day ever recorded.

AI does not yet join all the dots to be seen as life and the threat to humans over the next phase is from other humans controlling AI, but our destiny is determined when it becomes the joining of those last dots becomes inevitable and AI as a new level of life that will then surpass us is locked in. That AI could rise to shape the future of life, does fit with existing life on Earth. Although it is common to think of all life as a continuum from simple to complex, but from another perspective, life can be divided 4 distinct levels, and with a 5th level potentially now emerging. Every time life "levels up" the new level of life provides a new step in the mechanisms of evolution, which has at least so far allowed each new level to be able to shape the future of the planet. Will AI Robotic life become a new level and what might that mean for us on level 4?

From my research, the Ecovacs T9+ is at least the equal of other current robot vacuums in 2021, but there are still some caveats on what robot vacuums can achieve at this time.

All economics seem to agree that the Taylor Swift Eras tour boosted the economy everywhere she went, but while it is clear that there was a boost to spending, it is not so clear people benefit beyond getting to enjoy a concert. This is a look at whether, at least in some cases, factors that boost an economy may do nothing to increase wealth within that economy and could even reduce wealth within that economy.

Is there such a thing as freewill? Aren't we just complex chemical reactions where the results of the reaction are entirely determined by the ingredients? It is very common that steadfast belief in freewill leads to its own form of victim blaming and even racism.

While part of the problem is like with the boy who cried wolf people are not listening, the recent revelation that the planet will most likely reach +1.5°C by 2026-2027 makes it seem very likely climate scientists are also being very guarded with how much of the truth they are prepared to reveal. It is not that climate scientists are lying, but what is being said tends to be so heavily qualified that people are able to read whatever they want into what is being said. The lack of clarity allows "religious environmentalists" to hear that we must all suffer for the planet, the politicians to be able to say: "we are on-track with our climate commitments" and those reliant on profits and taxes from the oil and gas industry to believe "we have until 2050". What is needed to get a clear enough picture of where things stand for action to be appropriate to the risk?

Even after the "peak child" the population on this planet could continue to grow for decades, as the "population pipeline" creates inertia and a situation analogous to how a super tanker can continue forward even after the engines have stopped, or even switched to reverse. Population growth is the difference between the number of people who are born, and the number of people who die, and as there is a lifetime delay between those two events, at any one time the people being born are from a world separated by many generations from . People enter the population pipeline at birth and remain in the pipeline until they die, which on the current world average current world average of 73, which means deaths today reflect the global population of 73 years ago.

Human birth rates are falling at a rate that has some fearing population collapse, but could this be a natural instinctive biological response to ensure optimum population of the future generation, rather than any cause for alarm? Looking at nature, clearly it is not just the species with maximum children that survive as the fittest, but the species with the optimum number of children. Most species don't just multiply whenever possible at maximum rate like bacteria in petri dish and survival of the fittest doesn't just mean the species with the maximum children, it means the right number and at the right time. Analysing mechanism that vary reproduction in other species may provide some interesting insights and possible answers to at least a large part of what is happing with human birth-rates that will determine whether our future is population is one of: continued growth, collapse, or stability, on a planet where population of all life is not growing.

Globally, peak child arrived just a few years after this was first published, although this global picture is not experience at every individual location. Data now clearly confirms that globally, the world has returned to 'peak child', ending of three centuries of a population explosion, and perhaps even millennia of more gradual growth prior to the explosion. Return to peak child means we could either return to the gradual growth levels of prior to the industrial revolution or become a mature species and exist in balance with nature and other living things. Perhaps even stop displacing other species?

A step back for Biden would be to run for vice-president in 2024, and for Harris it would be off the ticket. From this point on, it seems hard to argue that age will not hinder Biden's chances of defeating Trump in 2024, and without Harris having generated sufficient enthusiasm, the Democrats really need a team refresh to take the polls. While technically they have plenty of time, in practice to make a smooth change they are running out of time and would need the support of both Biden and Harris.

Why your own life expectancy is greater than the average, and the rise in life expectancy from the just 32 years at the start of 20th to now being over 70 years by the 21st century does not mean what most people think. What has changed is less about ever longer lifespans, and more about people living an increasing percentage of the same full lifespan. Despite the lower life expectancy during earlier times, most famous figures lived to around age 70 not only in 1900 but even 2,000 years ago and Ramesses the Great lived to 90 back over 3,000 years ago! Infants are rarely famous, and as it is the reduction of child mortality that has the biggest impact on life-expectancy, despite the ageing population you don't see as much difference when looking at how long adults live, but we may soon!

This is the lead webpaper for all content related to personal vehicles, cars and trucks and their future. While most content is on the EVs and hybrids that I see as the future of transition of personal vehicles, the overall focus is on the future of car ownership. Many, even including Elon Musk, claim that in the future, people won't need to own a car. I suggest that sentiment misses that cars don't get gets us from A to B, but instead are places we spend the part of our lives while getting from A to B, and sometimes are even our home base when simply at B instead of A. In fact, a future where only the wealthy can own their own vehicles is heading towards the direction of reducing personal living space and "caged humans" where it could also be suggested "people won't need their own home". While site embraces moving to EVs, but no the agenda that EVs most be only ever smaller city cars, or better still just electric bicycles. EVs should allow the vehicles we want to own to be sustainable, that is provided we don't also succumb to living in cities that seek ever …

Despite many claims that EVs have a dirty secret in that they are not really green at all, the real secret is how long it takes for the green payback. The claims are based on two realities: 1) the driving of EVs still results in emissions when EVs are charged from our current dirty electrical grids, and 2) the building of EVs also creates emissions, and sometimes increased emissions over building ICEVs. However real data from critical studies shows that even in the worst case, overall, an high build emission inefficient EVs charged from a dirty grid still result in less emissions than ICEV. Just in that extreme case, only a marginal reducing in emissions! However, already not all grids are "dirty grids" and as vehicles have an average lifespan of over 20 years either dirty grids will improve during that 20 years or we may have bigger problems. Build emissions from EVs largely track EV prices, and Wright's law dictates both EV prices build emissions will soon fall below those for ICEVs. The real conclusion from examining this question, is there is no quick fix green EV transition, but any delay in reducing production of ICE vehicles is creating …

What are these competing ideologies, and why do they clash? This page is the exploration of the what and the why of the left and the right. I expect to keep revisiting and updating this topic, as it seems too deep to fully analysis in one attempt. In particular interest to me is the question: why are the things people champion grouped, when they can be so diverse? Why do so many people seem to choose almost all of the left policies, or all of the right policies, rather than varying mixes of each?

I just watched a video I found disturbing on CNN arguing the case that America is a better place than most American's believe. It was disturbing not because like everywhere else, the US has imperfections, or that America is a bad place, but because it felt like the commentor, and member of the press, was not focused on interests of the people of America but considered only commercial interests when evaluating the direction in which the country should be headed. In looking at the instincts of the free press even in a leading country like America, there may be valuable insights is to what is wrong across the planet.

Most of us have heard of confirmation bias which is a part of human nature that can drive polarisation. The power to influence is now adoption strategies such as opportune arguments, which are like a weaponisation of Chinese whispers, where the message is intentionally changed before being passed on. This and other techniques use people's confirmation bias as a path through their defences. Start with a message accepted through confirmation bias by a person with one set of beliefs, then add a twist designed to take those people down rabbit holes into new beliefs. When the new beliefs can be used to trigger outrage, those pushing opportune arguments can become as manipulated by the ideas as their audience.

A huge problem with the steps needed to stop burning fossil fuels is they save money, which means less opportunities for profit than there are with fossil fuels. While "free razorblades" are good for the public, they are just not good for business. Renewables just lack that ongoing revenue stream since none so far profits from the supply of sun and wind. Even EVs erode ongoing revenues streams in the automotive industry and thus negatively impact the economy. The problem is that while the economy reflects what is good for big business and tax revenues, the economy does not always reflect what is good for the people. So, which is better, continuing with fossil fuels in order to produce ongoing revenue streams for the economy, or an economy that works for the people with systems require less consumables?

Why is it so hard to make money from making EVs at a competitive price? This is an exploration of the profitability challenges, and the answers to "Do only Tesla & BYD profit from EVs?" and "Why make vehicles at a loss?". Auto makers must either 1) find a way to make EVs at profit, 2) close down, or 3) hope there will still be a large enough ICEV market for them to survive. Highly funded research indicates that in future just 5 EV brands will dominate 80% of vehicle the market, and the reality is only one of the top ten automotive brands from 2021 is a likely contender.

There is much talk of a 'hydrogen economy'. A hydrogen future has long been the dream of the fossil fuel industry, and much of the traditional automotive industry, but what is the nature of the element hydrogen that is behind it all? There are clear practical uses for hydrogen, but the questionable hype is the use of hydrogen as a fuel or in energy storage. It turns out much of the attraction around hydrogen fuel is that it can generate a value chain for suppliers as it more expensive than alternatives and could provide a revenue future for the fossil fuel industry, if only a reason to compel its adoption despite the cost barriers. This is a look at hydrogen itself, its abundance, and the blue and green etc sources of hydrogen, as background for pages on hydrogen cars vs EVs, on carbon capture, and for this page highlighting which "hydrogen projects are viable, and which are scams?"

A tragic lost opportunity. Why didn't those proposing the voice make changes to remove ambiguity and eliminated enough of the negative perception to win over enough support instead of simply declaring" "No, if that is how you see it you are either racist or stupid!" Was it just that there was no willingness to listen? Australians had an opportunity in a constitutional referendum to righteously shout loudly "I am not a racist" by voting for a proposition that, at its core, could be seen as fundamentally flawed, divisive and even potentially racist, in the hope even a risk of moving in the direction of apartheid is still better than nothing. The referendum resulted in a huge setback for action on indigenous disadvantage and while it did seem unlikely to do anything to unify Australians and offer more than some possible affirmative action, the division resulted with even sometimes "yes" voters being encouraged to also be racist. This is a deeper look trying to see each side from the perspective of the other, with the reality that both sides had a point, and a vast majority of people do want equality and unity. Perhaps it little more work could bring things …

The world and usage of SMS has moved on since the introduction in 1992, and the system lacks many features now seen as essential, including even the ability to see if a message has been received. Apple has its own proprietary "iMessage" SMS/MMS successor for communication between iPhones within the Apple walled garden and the bubble wars, Facebook has its own messages system and has "What's App", but is there room for a true SMS successor that is not a walled garden fully controlled by one technology company to create division into "tribes", and instead is able to connect all devices just like the original SMS system? RCS is simple to enable and is the best messaging solution for Samsung and other Android phones and to end culture wars and walled gardens.

From childhood I had assumed human population was growing because the world was not yet fully populated and life was still expanding, but reality is most the recent "garden of Eden scenario" occurred over 500 million years ago, and since then the planet has been fully occupied with a total biosphere of life in fact gradually shrinking. It turns out that no species on Earth can keep increasing population without quicky on geological timescales reaching its population limit. How has the human population kept growing if we have long been at our limit? By raising our limit through accessorised evolution and in turn lowering the environmental limits of other species. We have been, by the same principle of evolution Darwin declared "survival of the fittest" that allows new species to arise and grow their populations, competition from humans has been partially or fully "evicting" other species from their environmental niches. While when there were less humans this had little impact, it has now reached a scale labelled the Anthropocene where, if the human population continues to evolve and grow, other species face decline or face extinction.

The defining difference between humans and other species is that the "accessories" we make evolve independently of our genes. The difference between humans of 50,000 years ago and the 21st century can be seen by anyone, while birds' nests, beavers' dams and bees' hives only evolve when the species evolves. In the spirit of Batman and Ironman, our 'accessories' or 'tools' allow to outcompete other species confined by biological evolution and provide humans with enhanced abilities that could even be seen by past generations as superpowers. Genetically we may be similar to humans of over 50,000 years ago, but our accessories make us very different in ways that impact us from our population to tolerance of others.

When you look deeper, battery capacity of an EV matters far more than you might think, as it effects not just range, but also battery life and vehicle power. If a battery is quite small, as is usually the case with a hybrid (HEV), and even most plug-in hybrids (PHEVs), there will be limited total distance that can be driven "emissions free" before battery degradation, which is why use of fossil fuels is a necessity for most hybrids.

Yes, he may come across as a mega-rich collector of exotic internal combustion engine vehicles looking to find any way to delay their demise, but while the fascinating recent article by “Mr. Bean” does get so much so very wrong, it also does get somethings right. From the fascinating article by Rowan Atkinson on EVs: […]

"A giant meteorite wiped out the dinosaurs" is the catch phrase.  The first twist is that we now know "only the non-avian dinosaurs". Birds evolved from surviving types of dinosaurs. It was the biggest most spectacular dinosaurs that died, and in fact many of the largest were already extinct. But have you ever wondered "why the dinosaurs, when so many other animals survived?"  Alligators survived, fish survived, mammals survived, even dinosaurs that became birds and other reptiles survived, and even frog species that seem so sensitive to any change in environment survived that meteorite. The common factor was that the biggest ones died and did not reappear either. So why the largest dinosaurs?  And what is the lesson? These answers after first some background and myth-busting. While I do literally mean the actual dinosaurs, there is also a lesson in the answer for the metaphoric dinosaurs that big companies can become, and in the knowledge that if all is left to nature, humans will soon follow and suffer the same fate as the bigger dinosaurs.

Arguably mankind's greatest achievement, the near eradication of infant mortality, has resulted in a population explosion resulting in overpopulation that we prefer not to mention, even though it may yet kill us. Technically we would not die from overpopulation itself, just as people don't really die from "old age", and the real risk is that an already present threat will be exacerbated and become fatal because through our greed we ignore overpopulation. Unlike old age, the overpopulation risk factor could be avoided or reversed, we may be influenced by economists dependant on Ponzi schemes, the worlds' largest corporations and billionaires who thrive off the resultant increases in inequality into believing that living conditions required by ever increasing population levels benefit everyone and not just those living in mansions.

It can seem all those tech companies are so dumb giving away services for free. I recently read another comment containing the "I don't want Google getting more of my data to sell" and it reminded me of the question, 'why is your data valuable?' people too rarely ask. The common myth is that Facebook and Google etc want your data so they can sell it, but even with companies that do sell your data, it still requires someone to turn data into money, and enough money to fund the "free" services of the tech companies and allow them enough spare to make profits beyond anything seen in the world previously. So how does the data turn into so much money? There is no such thing as a free lunch. Google and Facebook etc make their money from advertising, not from selling data, and unless they use can the data to persuade you to buy products at prices inflated by advertisers paying part of the sale price to Facebook/Google etc, they would lose money. Your data is used to inflate the cost of living and earn votes for politicians with an agenda that gives them a budget to spend. They …

A recent article on how even during the July 2023 heat wave the US republican party was still falling in line with Donald Trump and rallying against climate action because those wanting action were silenced by the support for Trump. The result is the world’s largest economy and one of the most powerful forces in […]

While there are still valid reasons for most to hesitate before buying an EV in 2023, it's definitely late to risk buying a new ICE vehicle and may be a better time to instead plan a combustion engine exit. Considering the trend from where EVs were 5 years ago to today, and then projecting EV sales growth over the next 5 years, and it seems almost certain almost all new ICEVs of today face an obsolescence risk. While this does not mean everyone should rush out and buy an EV, it is an opportunity to prepare for an aspect of the future that may catch some unawares.

In the 1970s, there were the 'Oil Crises'. Then, and at other times it has been suggested that one key reason for moving to renewables, is that as there is only a finite supply of fossil fuels which will come to an end one day. But when? There is also a mistaken belief that 'peak oil' projections are a result of supplies of fossil fuels becoming exhausted. Whether you are worried oil supplies will run out, or are hoping oil supplies will run out, although prices may rise, they won't run out. In fact, we can't possibly use all fossil fuel.

The title 'one finite planet' can be mistaken to be yet another proclamation of how we live on this amazing planet which could even be unique, and we humans are foolishly placing it all at risk. Boring. No. Instead, the perspective is we are living on a planet that is naturally hostile to humans, where nature dictates only a limited total amount of life, can only exist for a limited time, and that time is almost at an end. When seen from this perspective, even the environment mission changes from just not interfering, to the more complex task of tackling the challenge of overcoming nature, while yes, quite importantly, not bringing life to an early end in the process.

There is a real need to protect the environment, and advocacy for the environment is great, but that advocacy can acquire traits of a religion, which at the extreme can even result in far-right eco-terrorism, and more in the mainstream can result in righteous environmentalism and embracing austerity and sacrifices as "an opium". The "righteous environmentalists" preach this austerity as necessary life of the future to an audience that just see the rich becoming even richer. This blindly serves an alternate agenda and needlessly alienates and disenfranchises much of the population. The result is do-nothing politicians to get re-elected instead of motivating voters for real action on climate change and electing leaders who will act.

Big oil has been investing heavily in swaying public option against both climate action and electric vehicles for decades now, but it is reported that now in July 2023 they have taken the new step of creating video advertisements to boost their campaign against EVs. However, reading the reporting of this event quickly revealed the […]

If coal fired power can no longer compete on price, then why is China building two new coal power plants per week? Is China somehow able to use coal fired electricity to gain a competitive advantage against western manufacturing which increasingly relies on "clean green" but more expensive energy, with the result that emissions and jobs are simply transferred to China? The current politics of climate agreements encourage rich countries to offshore some emissions to those countries often forced to be more reliant coal and with higher emissions. Could we fix the problem of China syndrome emissions if there was the political will?

War relies upon both sides feeling the other side are the "bad guys" The invasion of Ukraine has reached a point where Ukraine has defeated Putin in the global PR war, labelling Putin and the invaders the "bad guys", and requiring Putin to escalate measures to try to ensure the new does not spread to much in Russia, and in the military. Meanwhile, there is still a physical invasion war going on, and as Putin's desperation to hide reality increases, so will the resulting devastation.

What if Russia and China both intended that the invasion of Ukraine would trigger global inflation and food shortages, and a potentially new financial crisis? That Putin sees himself in the image of Peter the Great and restoring the Russian empire is no secret, and is generally portrayed as evidence that Putin has completely lost the plot. But what if there is a bigger plan involving both Russia and China that starts with triggering a global financial crisis? A dangerous game by two desperate leaders needing to bring others with them as their own economies collapse.

Putin taking on 'the whole salami' in Ukraine, has advanced the world to a crisis with two potential outcomes: The invasion stalls long enough for Putin to lose power in Russia, leading to an end to expansionism not just in Russia, but most likely also improving the worlds relationship with China.The invasion succeeds, showing the response of nations as powerless in response to aggression, greenlighting a path that could lead to an extension of age of tyrants, and potentially WWIII.

Was Feb 24th, the start of WWIII? Is it a world war of sanctions, troops and tanks, or nuclear? NATO, and specifically the US, seem to feel the risk of WWIII is so real, that they refuse Ukraine any assistance that could defeat Putin's forces and anger him further. Their hope seems to be "let him win on the battlefield but lose through sanctions".

Friday 24th June 2023: Prigozhin Tells Russians the truth about the war and then launches what looks like an attempted coup. The result seems to be a weaken Russian military, and a weakened Putin. But what really happened, and what will happen next? What just happened? It is still not entirely clear. What has been […]

Once the darling of Hollywood in the wake of "green" image built by the Prius hybrid, Toyota has more recently prompted shareholder complaints, and calls for boycotts by climate groups in response to Toyota anti-climate action and anti-EV lobbying that has seen the company reach the status of no 3 climate enemy company in the world, behind only Exxon-Mobil and Chevron. Either Toyota is ideologically against action on climate change, or senior management see no way for Toyota to survive the EV transition.

The third largest exporter of fossil fuels behind only Russia and Saudi Arabia, Australia could already be regarded as a fossil fuel superpower, but can Australia become a "clean energy superpower" as suggested by many including recently by the Fully Charged Show. What is a clean energy superpower? There are several different possible interpretations ranging from greenwashing to world changing. Inspired by the Fully Charged video that looks at one modest by realistic interpretation, this is a deeper look at the possibilities. Despite the rhetoric and enormous potential, Australia shows little commitment to any more than an attempt to move from "clean coal" to "clean gas" and miss potentially huge opportunities, not only for Australia, but perhaps even for the planet.

Full sequestration of carbon is the reverse of burning fossil fuels. Full sequestration does work and is part of the process of producing E-Fuels and the process of photosynthesis in plants. But full sequestration requires at least as much energy as can be extracted from the forms of previously sequestrated carbon that we call "fossil fuels". What can't work, is the illusion of using energy from fossil fuels to reverse the process of burning those same fossil fuels, and then still having a form energy left to sell as a product. Yet that is exactly the "blue hydrogen" proposition.

It can be very hard being a CEO. In a company the size of BMW, harder than anything I have experienced. But does it explain a failure to “read the room”, or is there a degree of climate denial required? This week there are headlines such as from Top Gear: BMW boss: July 2025 target […]

At least, not a direct substitute. Solar and Wind have proven to be successful partial cost-effective substitutes for fossil fuels, but fossil fuels are stored energy, and solar and wind are not. Renewables are a disruption, and disruptions are usually not one-for-one substitutions. There are two strategies for replacing fossil fuels in the grid, and they can be used together: 1: Add energy storage for when renewable energy levels fall below a threshold. 2: Base load "solar and wind": Design to provide base load at a low threshold of wind and light. Without such strategies, it is impossible to reach the goal of removing reliance on fossil fuels. With the right strategy, it is possible to realise benefits go far beyond just replacement.

At a time when much of the world is preparing for a transition to EVs, Australia is finally doing what other countries did decades ago and adapting a fuel efficiency standard for internal combustion engine vehicles, or ICE vehicles. While many advocates for the environment are heralding this as a good thing, I have to […]

I heard an on-air debate about the merits of the program in light of the explosion of the SpaceX starship rocket on April 20th. Viewpoints were of course varied. They included the “we have this beautiful planet already and it makes no sense to be spending so much to go elsewhere” and very much focused […]

A quick internet search with the keywords 'lead crime' in the search bar will reveal many articles which all propose that lead pollution in the air caused a dramatic increase in violent crime. Any victim of violent crime in affected locations has a right to feel disturbed by this, but what about perpetrators of violent crime, and should society share the guilt?

There is no universally agreed definition of either race or racism, with no clear agreement on whether race is real or not, and there is more agreement on the reality of racism, there is less on exactly what constitutes racism. This is a look at both the concept of race, and what it means to be racist.

It was a reference to the wonderful children's politician's fairy tale of 'trickle down economics' that started me on the question: How do the wealthy get wealthy? The answer is by collecting wealth from many people, the more people contributing wealth, the more wealth to be gained. The effective path to great wealth is farming humans to collect a small amount of wealth or 'egg' from a percentage of humans 'in the farm', so the more humans in the farm, the more wealth for the farmer.

Around the world, many countries have both a battle with equality for some racial groups and minorities and also a battle with crime-rates within and by those same groups. Should we consider crime rates the real sentinels of problems and a solution require focusing on factors behind crime rates? Or is the correct response to rising crime rates or crime rates within specific groups an adoption of being "tough on crime", thus increasing rates of incarceration and even deaths in custody for oppressed minorities and racial groups? This is an exploration of not adjusting the level of penalties and instead focusing on the core issues and inequalities behind crime-rates. It is clear that it is "damaged people" in general rather than specific racial groups that correlate with elevated crime rates, so why not use crime rates to identify who is facing inequality?

Now for something not Covid-19, which is a rarity lately! A different topic for this blog, but 5G came up in a recent conversation, and what I thought I 'knew' about 5G was: significantly higher mobile data rates were possible (true) 5G is based on higher frequency radio than 4G etc (false) 5G works for far more people even in a crowded spaces (true) towers for 5G must always be close in order use 5G (false) 5G data rates could potentially match/replace fibre optic cable (false) As you can see, turns out what I had thought prior to research, was all a collection of misunderstandings, but when I did research, I found more conspiracy theories than facts.

COP26. It sounds like a police officer who can't be named. For me it raises questions such as: Why "COP26" and what happened to the first 25 COPs?Are all decisions are made in advance, or is anything really agreed at the conference?Is there more than politicians and fossil fuel companies agreeing spin and token gestures?

If you follow car industry publications, there both facts and well recognised predictions that combined, signal a storm for the car industry. Reality: Why The Makers Are Lying. In less than 5 years, electric vehicles will become less expensive than ICE (internal combustion engine) vehicles, and are already significantly less expensive to maintain. Lower cost […]

Reports from COP27 seems indicate the key initiative this year to make wealthy nations cover the cost of the damages poor nations will incur as a result of emissions that have main originated from those wealthy nations. The proposal as it stands has a missing an essential piece, and trying to cover for that essential piece, appears most to likely to increase emissions, and move COP away from a focus on solving the climate crisis and instead toward just fighting over the cost. This is a troubled look at the key flaw in what has been put forward and the real solution that should be in place.