All land rovers to be electric powered by the end of the decade
Join Date: Oct 2002
Location: West Wiltshire, UK
Age: 68
Posts: 412
Already possible, in principle. There's an electrically powered UAV being trialled for delivering a 25kg payload at ranges of up to 50km at the moment. The thing weighs 130kg and is autonomous once launched. Something like this is probably pretty hard to detect and shoot down, given that it will have little or no IR signature and only a small radar cross section. Swarm attacks with vehicles like this could be as effective as conventional bombing, despite the much smaller payload, as they have the potential to be far more accurate (pretty much fly in through a specific window accurate).
Join Date: Nov 1999
Location: UK
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Venus has had runaway global warming, (for different reasons to the Earth), and its surface temperature is 464°C !
Join Date: Sep 2019
Location: Outer ring of HEL
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Sounds like a platform for nuclear weapons as well (the vintage W54 warhead had mass of approx 23kg). Should be rather devastating even without a swarm.
Gnome de PPRuNe
Join Date: Jan 2002
Location: Too close to Croydon for comfort
Age: 57
Posts: 8,000
Join Date: Oct 2002
Location: West Wiltshire, UK
Age: 68
Posts: 412
I've wondered why Vlad hasn't looked at using something like this against his opponents. Got to be easier to get a small electric drone to release a nerve agent right up close to someone, from a safe distance away. Easy to make sure the target has been correctly identified, too, given that even toy drones have video links.
Join Date: Sep 2019
Location: Outer ring of HEL
Posts: 132
I've wondered why Vlad hasn't looked at using something like this against his opponents. Got to be easier to get a small electric drone to release a nerve agent right up close to someone, from a safe distance away. Easy to make sure the target has been correctly identified, too, given that even toy drones have video links.

Last edited by Beamr; 18th Feb 2021 at 11:35.
Join Date: Jul 2004
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Join Date: Aug 2011
Location: UK
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There are large parts of the world where short range electric vehicles won't cut it. Unfortunately, they can't compete in numbers of sales with the urban markets.
I regularly visit three other centres as part of my day job, all by road.
The nearest is 300km away. So I can drive down, get the work done and drive home between sunrise and sundown. Going electric, if you can recharge in 90-120 minutes might be doable.
The next is 1000km away. so its a two day trip with work in the afternoon of the first day and the following morning.
The third is 1500km away. 10-12 hours to get there, a day for work and 10-12 hours back on the third day.
Going electric and factoring in the need for regular recharging, the 100's of kilometres between potential recharge sites and the desire not to be driving at night will potentially add days to these trips.
Until they come up with a rapid charging system supporting a high speed battery range of 1100km its not viable for our local needs.
But I'll be retired before they fully replace turbo diesel with electric, so it's not my problem.
I regularly visit three other centres as part of my day job, all by road.
The nearest is 300km away. So I can drive down, get the work done and drive home between sunrise and sundown. Going electric, if you can recharge in 90-120 minutes might be doable.
The next is 1000km away. so its a two day trip with work in the afternoon of the first day and the following morning.
The third is 1500km away. 10-12 hours to get there, a day for work and 10-12 hours back on the third day.
Going electric and factoring in the need for regular recharging, the 100's of kilometres between potential recharge sites and the desire not to be driving at night will potentially add days to these trips.
Until they come up with a rapid charging system supporting a high speed battery range of 1100km its not viable for our local needs.
But I'll be retired before they fully replace turbo diesel with electric, so it's not my problem.
It doesn’t take 90-120 to recharge. You can recharge up to 80% in under 20 minutes.
Oh and you comment on “not viable for our local needs” and then go on about trips hundreds or thousands of kilometres away... um, not local. Dominic Cummings would love your idea of local.
Join Date: Jul 2007
Location: Auckland, NZ
Age: 76
Posts: 644
Doubtless, for some uses liquid hydrocarbon fuel is indispensable. That does not mean fossil fuel; synthesised fuel is surely possible, hopefully with carbon sequestration. It will require energy inputs, but the outputs of some sustainable energy sources are not a good match for demand, so such a process could use excess power. Doubtless, this will be expensive: to modify a phrase often found here, "If you think sustainability is expensive, try out-of-control climate change."
On small nuclear reactors, there's an interesting YouTube lecture:
The lecturer is a bit mannered, but he is pro-nuclear, and seems to know whereof he speaks. The devices he's talking about are perhaps a bit large for forward military installations; maybe an atomic battery would be a better fit: Atomic Battery (Wikipedia) I imagine, though, it could get messy if one of those took a direct hit.
The advantages of electric transmission are very real: the series hybrid or range extender layout is a solution to the problem of recharging batteries in the field.
On small nuclear reactors, there's an interesting YouTube lecture:
The advantages of electric transmission are very real: the series hybrid or range extender layout is a solution to the problem of recharging batteries in the field.
Join Date: Jul 2013
Location: Everett, WA
Age: 65
Posts: 3,185
This so sounds like a wind up... drive 1500km one way for a one day trip? And in 10-12 hours.. I don’t think so. What a waste of manpower. Fly and save the company hundreds!!
It doesn’t take 90-120 to recharge. You can recharge up to 80% in under 20 minutes.
Oh and you comment on “not viable for our local needs” and then go on about trips hundreds or thousands of kilometres away... um, not local. Dominic Cummings would love your idea of local.
It doesn’t take 90-120 to recharge. You can recharge up to 80% in under 20 minutes.
Oh and you comment on “not viable for our local needs” and then go on about trips hundreds or thousands of kilometres away... um, not local. Dominic Cummings would love your idea of local.
Doing that in any currently available EV would be a challenge...
Gnome de PPRuNe
Join Date: Jan 2002
Location: Too close to Croydon for comfort
Age: 57
Posts: 8,000
This so sounds like a wind up... drive 1500km one way for a one day trip? And in 10-12 hours.. I don’t think so. What a waste of manpower. Fly and save the company hundreds!!
Oh and you comment on “not viable for our local needs” and then go on about trips hundreds or thousands of kilometres away... um, not local.
Oh and you comment on “not viable for our local needs” and then go on about trips hundreds or thousands of kilometres away... um, not local.
Join Date: Mar 2014
Location: australia
Age: 78
Posts: 209
but with a landrover you only need a couple of spanners and a medium and heavy hammer and some fence wire to get you home. A Toyota need two technicians a customer service consultant a computer reading engineer and a workshop.
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Per
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Location: LFBZ (for a while)
Posts: 733
You must be thinking of Defenders
Join Date: Jul 2013
Location: Everett, WA
Age: 65
Posts: 3,185
There is simply too much money and too much demand for the Soccer Mom luxury SUV - that will never face anything more serious than a few inches of fresh snow - to bother to retain the serious off-road capable SUV.