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Latest episode has a comedian called Ross Noble. He comes from Cramlington - 10 miles from where I come from (Ryton on Tyne). The accent you hear is a rather softened local dialect called Geordie. Which is basically my accent too.

If he had spoken in broad Geordie (in other words not softened) you would not have been able to understand much. Except perhaps Birgir - Icelandic has the same Scandanavian roots as Geordie.

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Thank heavens he is OK in a way he wasn't in the rocket car a number of years back.

As to what causes the fire - stored energy in batteries. Suppose you have 1000 hp - 740kW. And suppose you can run at that level for ten minutes. Battery stored energy 450MJ. A hand grenade produces about 800kJ. So the stored energy in that supercar batteries is equivalent to 600 hand grenades.

Even if that hand-wavey order of magnitude physics shit is wrong by a factor of ten, there is still massively enough energy in the batteries to cause a major fire or explosion.

Now, how badly do you want that Tesla?

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The liquid electrolyte in typical lithium ion batteries is flammable and enough external force will short the electrodes so they are indeed like grenades, and they are neatly packed together so if one of them goes off it can set off a chain reaction. Hopefully they will be replaced by solid-state or other safer kinds of batteries soon.

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Good to see his is relatively undamaged after that fearsome crash.

I also was not far off on energy storage in the batteries. From the Rimac website, the battery (650V!) is 90kWh capacity. Which is 324MJ, 27% less than my engineering estimate of 450MJ.

But it is a bit of a beast. 2.5 seconds to 100km/h, top speed of 355km/h, 1224hp, 1600Nm torque http://www.rimac-automobili.com/en/supercars/concept_one/

Edit

Just to put those numbers into context, I have an old early 80's, V12, 5.3 litre Jaguar. That takes 8 seconds to 100km/h, top speed of 250km/h, 350hp, 480Nm torque.

 

Edited by Craig Sawyers
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Stuff like this is why I find electric cars and their rapid development so fascinating.  They are going all out in solving the charge issues (hello high voltage) and the performance is just incredible.  I've been toying with the idea of picking up a used Nissan Leaf as they cost nothing to run here, the electricity is so cheap.  There are also new seat rails available which means I can fit in the bloody thing...  ;)

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OK - 210 units of booze and 420 fags a week is sure going to take its toll.

My dad was a 60 a day man (much less booze though). Had a femoral artery bypass at 65 and died at age 72 in 1995 through heart failure. Every photo I have of him (dozens and dozens) he has a fag between his fingers.

I only kept one small item of furniture, and when we moved it in, I washed it

 

DSCN1126small.jpg

And that is what Clarkson is heading for.

Edited by Craig Sawyers
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