I am talking about the global phenomenon. Something like rox news does not exist here in Germany for example.
We always had right wing propaganda. But now we have social media too. And that produced a confirmation cycle. The propaganda channels spew lies, people spread does lies on social media, and the media cam say "look, there, normal people on X say the same thing, it must be true".
And of course, also the other way around
There are some studies. Mostly behind pay Walls. A good source I found a while back was this meta study.
Social media is to blame, at least in huge parts.
It offers a platform for unproven claims, and especially the short content formats are an issue:
You can not cover important topics fairly in those formats. Only populism can profit from it. And the far right does this.
We reached a point where people don't believe the published agendas of candidates and parties anymore. They only trust what the hear and see on social media.
Of course there are other factors, but this is an important one.
If the scale would not be consistent, the results is actual worse. The whole political spectrum is moving towards the right. Traditional left wing parties here in Germany doing right wing stuff is getting normal.
And I don't see any left party in the U.K. or U.S. parliaments.
While the soup attack caused damage in the historic frame if the picture, this protest did not cause any permanent damage. From the choice of glue to the choice of spraypaint, everything was well thought out. So no, I don't think this is proof that the Soutwark conviction is totally unreasonable
I am with you regarding the big ones. But what about smaller media outlets and journalists to try to make a living on their own ? We need them. More then the big ones. Then the solution is to just ignore all the big ones and read the smaller ones. With ads or paying for it.
We didn't care. We were the hosting provider nor the news outlets. But we had close contact to our customers. And a lot of the smaller customers had a hard time to even survive. The primary source of income was print until paywals came around. Some customers never had print and had to close down with the surge of ad blockers
That is true and false. Adblock plus takes money for the acceptable afs program, yes. But there are clear guidelines about the ads. Containing criteria for privacy, size in relation to content and more.
I work in IT for 20 years now. Half this time my salary was paid for by ads:
My company hosted big german news outlets. All money they made online was from ads.
More adblockers meant less income so their required more ads just to come out without losing money.
ABP tried to break this cycle.
Now we are having paywals, and paywal breakers. And at this point this is outright stealing.
If adblockers would allow ads that adhere to the acceptable ads criteria, the world would be a better place. Less paywals, less ads and maybe some companies would pay their employees a little bit more.
You have to unlock the box with the company charging card. And all charging costs are paid by the employer. So only the company car is allowed. The whole behavior of the payment partner is just bullshit at this point.
Yeap, still wrong ... i will fix this later if i have some time to do it on PC ...
In theory yes. We are lacking the wallbox for now. We moved just a few month back, and while there is a solution to get the energy paid if I charge at home, I would have to buy a wallbox for way to much money from the payment provider we use for charging. There I would pay around 5k€ for a 22kW wallbox. And this box can not be used for other cars.
But: My gf ordered her Cubra Born some weeks back. And a wallbox for ~1000 with it.
I can see the prices my employer pays for my charging. On the most expensive chargers, the costs would be roughly the same as for a Diesel. On some reasonable priced chargers it gets way cheaper.
But keep in mind that we have extremely high gas prices compared to the US. We tax our diesel and gasoline with a "steering tax", as the lawmakers want citizens to save on gas, and reduce CO2 emissions.
If I would charge at home, we could get a second contract with our electricity company, with about half the usual price per kWh for charging only.
That's perfectly fine. My employer has a form to fill out, and that is only required for insurance. It is common here that your spouse may drive your company car (at least in my field of work)
Damn, I indeed fucked that one ip. kWh/km is the correct unit and I somehow did this error constantly:(
EDIT: Of course, kWh/100km
Both. I am in IT. While I have to travel some times in my position, I am allowed to use the car for personal matters, including all benefits like free charging everywhere.
Hi all,
two month ago, i received my company car. I chose an i5, as i wanted an EV, need some space, and hate SUVs. I could fit nearly everything optional in the car (besides the air suspension), keep that in mind. Also it is "only" the M40, the rear drive only variant).
As i am from Germany, so no freedom units. Sorry to you over there on the other side of the pond.
I am living in the countryside, and we (my gf also drives the car) have to drive daily, either shopping, she to work, or i travel long distances across Germany.
My first impression on takeover of the car: This is a monster. Not only looks it mean as hell, it is wide and long. Dude. I instantly was glad about parking and lane assistance. I knew the dimensions before hand, but 2m width and over 5 meter of length are much bigger than i had in my mind. This is my only big issue with the car btw. I have a growing blacklist of parking garages and underground parking lots i am not comfortable to drive in.
That out of the way, the car is great. Interior, quality of life features, all well designed. I will only get into a few here, as this will be (mainly) focused on the EV aspect of the car.
Efficency
After using the car for a while, i was surprised by the efficiency of the car. Our regular trips into the neighboring towns, shopping, visting friends, are coming out with around 20KW/km. Autobahn tours with free flowing traffic and a target speed of 130km/h are between 17KW/km and 19KW/km.
With the 82KWh battery pack, ~330km distance in our mixed usage and 80%-10% SoC, are typical.
Charging
Charging was promoted with 205KW and that checks out. I even seen charging rates of 210KW, reported by the car. The maximum charge rate is reached usually between 15% and 55%. On most stations, i can forget to even reach 180KW, but that is more on the state of german charging infrastructure, then on the car.
Using the charge planning feature of the satnav is just a great experience. It keeps stops at a bearable amount of time and recommends target SoC with enough reserve to accounts for possible detours or other delays. Charging stations can be filtert by network, for all those network members. I didn't test this feature, as an all-network charging card is part of the car in my company.
If a charging stop takes longer, on board entertainment is great. Multiplayer games, TV streaming, or offline media, it does not get boring. I have the Bower&Wilkins system and ConnectedDrive. ConnectedDrive is required for the games and streaming features. The HiFi system just transforms your lokal slow charger to a mobile cinema.
Heated and vented seats
Vented and heated seats are great. For range! Instead of heating and cooling the space in the car, roughly equivalent to the space in a German student apartment, using those comfort features and lowering AC gives you a few hundreds Wh. I tested this on some very hot days. I was alone on the car, and set the temperatures to a comfortable value. Without seat venting, this was around 22°C, with seat vending, went up to 25°. This saved ~300Wh/km. I did multiple runs, and the that seemed pretty stable. I will report back after some real cold days, and lets see how the values look.
I have vented and heated seats in the front and heated seats in the back. Both features are optional.
Space
This is the only non-electric feature i will talk about, but if you got this far, you are most likely interested in it.
And the space is amazing, on all levels.
Driver and passenger seat have leg room, you can fit 3 crates of german beer in the room on the passenger side.
The back seats also have enough space. A 2,03 meter friend sits comfortable there, with enough head and leg space.
And then for the trunk. I moved a single household of a friend in 3 tours. Bed, kitchen appliances and his office. The backrest has 3 parts. It took me a while to recognize this. You can lay it flat, and it looks like two pieces, but the center piece as a separate latch. So if you fit in something long (like some cable conduits), you are covered.
Conclusion
I like this car. While it does clearly have not the longest range or the fastes charge reads on the market, i don't find this limiting. Never was i annoyed by a charge break (only by broken chargers...), and on long distances, charging breaks are refreshing.
The 340PS are fun, and sometimes, just pedal to the metal, is just amazing.
And all the comfort features, from vented seats over the gesture media control to the onboard AI voice assistant, are well thought out and implemented.
Hands free driving on the Autobahn is a nice idea, for those who like it, i don't. I use the full steering assistant, but i am not comfortable taking my hands of that round thing in front of me.
Lane Change assist and parking features keep this monster manageable in rush hour traffic on the Autobahn and squeezing into tight parking spots.
But: There is a price. Literally. The car as it is standing in my driveway, comes in with 94k€. I am in the privileged position to get this car as part of my salary. If you can afford this amount of money, and are looking for an EV, give it a look. You get a solid BMW station wagon that drives like an BMW station wagon. It just is fun to drive it. And you get a lot of space. More then in most SUVs out there.
If you have questions, AMA
I feared as much.
It is getting late over here, so thanks for the great discussion!
Amd I wish you good look in a few weeks. Feeling with you over there
I see your point. But that is such a toxic environment, and as you mentioned this can be observed from a far, that I would assume many prefer to stay under the radar to be able to at least something and not thrown under the bus by other Republicans.
Having more parties solves this part of the issue. And if the MAGA party or the Republicans end up with more votes is a completely different thing. And a thing I am scared to think about
Exactly. And there comes in the issue: if you want to vote conservative you have to take the far right bullshit. There is no in between. There is no "conservative without that nazi bullshit". So, if they could separate bit still have some power in the sense of seats in the parliaments, would that impact the political landscape?
Anyway, the US is stuck with American voters. So I'm glad our election system enforces patience.
I take that ;)
But srsly, it is not voters or voting system. It is both.
Imagine there would be a MAGA party with equal chances like the Reps, how would that change the policies of those parties? And would this influence the voters behavior? That is not a rethoric question, it is a thought play. I, as an outsider, would assume that the extreme right wingers would unite under the MAGA flag and their policies would adapt accordingly while the Republicans would go back to their kind of normal.
