The white-and-lime-green cars are becoming a common sight on the streets, people are getting used to them. By-the-minute car hire has been around in Warsaw for a few years (Panek and Traficar), but having electric ones that can zoom along bus passes is an advantage. And Innogy Go! only charges by the minute, not by the kilometre.
Before going any further, a digression about electric vehicles.
A few years ago, I took a close look at the range-topping Tesla S at an event in Łódź. I was struck by how tinny the doors sounded when they closed. There is a reason (Toyota's hybrids also have doors which make a similar sound). The doors - the entire car body - has to be built as light as possible. With fossil-fuel-engined cars, if you need to put in an extra weighty feature to help make the car more attractive, you add a few cc to engine's capacity. "I want the car door to shut making the sound of a door of a bank vault!" says the car designer. "Yes," replies the car engineer, "to achieve that, the car door will have to have the weight of a bank-vault door." "Quite so. Make the engine bigger to compensate!" Easy enough to do with petrol or diesel, a tough ask on an electric engine - or more accurately, on the battery that powers it.
So electric cars have to be lighter, thus more fragile. And so, the vicious circle will be broken. In this, the automotive industry has been making ever-heavier cars more powerful - therefore kinetically more dangerous to other road users in a crash, leading to heftier safety cages, crash bars and other passive measures, making cars even heavier - therefore needing even more power, and with it more kinetic danger, leading to more defensive measures. A bit like the the naval powers building Dreadnought battleships with ever greater guns and armour. Or the nuclear arms race.
I have sworn never to buy a fossil-fuel engined car ever again. But then, do I really need to own a car - any car? I'm entirely happy pottering around Warsaw on London on public transport and on foot, and hiring a car when necessary.
Will I ever use an auto-na-minuty? On Tuesday after work I went to Ikea in Janki to check out a few things. I went by public transport and was there quick enough (SKM from W-wa Śródmieście to W-wa Rakowiec, from there a 15 tram to P+R Al. Krakowska, and from there a 711 bus to Janki.
Whoever was responsible for planning the shopping centres at Janki assumed that literally no one would want to get there by public transport. The bus stop is over 900m from Ikea! After my retail experience was complete, time to go home. The journey home (a mere 8km as the crow flies) took the best part of 90 minutes because of the vicissitudes of the suburban bus routes weaving around various villages calling at empty bus stops along the way. And it was bucketing down with rain. A good time to use an electric car for a short-distance journey. According to Google Maps, the journey home from Ikea in Janki should take 16 minutes by car (through Falenty, Łady and Dawidy Bankowe); at a rate of 1.19 złoty per minute, that would be under 20zł. Now, the cheapest rate taxi would be around 30zł for this ride. Is this an attractive saving? Your first ride is 1 grosz for the first 15 minutes... Now, that's tempting.
A fair-weather alternative to the electric car is a electric scooter (skuter as opposed to hulajnoga). Operated by Blinkee, these are cheaper, but you need to wear a helmet (in the box at the back). There are 200 of these scattered around Warsaw - find them using the app.
Below: the alternative, in the pouring rain.
Pricing: electric car vs electric scooters in Warsaw | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Units | Driving per min | Parking per min. | Daily fee | ||
| InnogyGo! (e-car) | 500 | 1,19 zł | 0.50 zł | 236 zł | |
| Blinkee (scooter) | 200 | 0.69 zł | 0.09 zł | 89 zł | |
This time last year:
Sunday shopping issue solved
[After a year of doing the Big Grocery Shop online, I won't return to doing it the old way! It's 25 minutes of my time to order, receive and unpack the goods, rather than 90 minutes including the 7.5 km drive there and back.]
This time three years ago:
Mszczonów - another railway junction
This time six years ago:
The Devil is in Doubt - short story, part I
This time seven years ago:
Stormclouds are raging all around my door
This time eight years ago:
Floods endanger Warsaw
This time nine years ago:
Coal line rarity
It sounds like the manufacturers of electric cars are discovering the 'build in more lightness' lessons long familiar to aeroplane designers. Light does not have to mean flimsy. A few years ago I was invited for a short flight in a four-seat helicopter, and was amazed by how tinny and minimal the structure was. But clearly strong enough.
ReplyDeleteI'm also reminded of the different approaches taken by fighter plane designers in the US and the USSR during WW2. The former had access to more powerful engines and designed larger aeroplanes, such as the P47 which weighed around twice as much as a Yak 9 (and 50% more than an Fw-190).
@ WHP -
ReplyDeleteThis from my blog (December 2018)...
"From 1970 to 2010, the aviation industry has decreased the amount of fuel burnt per passenger by 73%, while the car industry managed a meagre 17% decrease. Why? Cars have been getting bigger and heavier, needing ever more powerful engines to propel them, then they need beefing up to make them safer at those higher speeds, all of which tends to mitigate the efforts to make those engines more efficient. Why? Because the motor industry tells us that's what we want. Unlike the aviation industry. Only airlines buy airliners, and airlines will always chose the most cost effective product."
Fighter plane designers have numerous parameters to juggle with - top speed, climb rate, manoeuvrability, weapons payload, while airliner designers are obsessed by one - cost per passenger mile.
I applaud the change of priorities from the automotive sector - belated though it is!