We talk a lot about dealing with traffic and being stuck waiting to go nowhere quick, but one place we take for granted is the lack of lines at the gas pump. That’s not the case in Oregon, though. Oregonians have become accustomed to long lines at their gas stations because they do not allow you to pump your own gas. All gas stations are full service. The people of Oregon have had enough though, and have just passed a bill allowing you to pump your own gas. This alleviates the lines as people no longer have to wait for the attendant to finish the car ahead of you before they can begin pumping your car. This is great and all, but if you ask me, getting more of those cars off the road would also help take the stress away of filling up your tank, but I guess that’s none of my business.
We have electric cars, we have solar power, we even have solar cars, but a twenty-one year old Romanian inventor just constructed a fully operational car out of LEGO bricks that runs completely on compressed air. The vehicle is made of over 500 thousand LEGO bricks and 256 air-powered pistons propel the car to speeds as fast as twenty miles per hour. The entire build took eighteen months to complete. Raul Oaida, the inventor who created this LEGO car says that its only downfall is how uncomfortable it is to sit on seats made of LEGO.
The two main issues most consumers have with buying an electric car are, the price and the range of the battery. According to a couple recent studies, both of these worries are poised to rescind if not go away entirely in the coming years. Researchers at the Stockholm Environmental Institute found that the costs of lithium ion batteries are dropping by about eight percent per year. Because battery costs can make up for as much as half of the price of an electric car, if these prices continue to drop we can hope to see car prices drop alongside them. The batteries are performing better as well, not just falling in price. A study at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab shows that even after a battery has lost twenty percent of their original charge, it will still meet the needs of eighty-five percent of US commuters. Hopefully with these advances we will start seeing more and more electric vehicles on the road.
Thinking of taking the bus to work? Never done it before? Worried you may not be able to figure out how the system works and find your stop? Put the worries aside, it’s so easy that a four-year-old could do it. Literally. A four-year-old girl in Pennsylvania snuck out of her house at 3:00am and boarded a bus by herself. Why would she do this? She had a craving for a slushie, what else would cause someone to go out at 3:00am? So the next time you decide to drive to work by yourself because you’re afraid of the bus, just think to yourself “what would a thirsty four-year-old do?”
Paris has had trouble with pollution lately. The smog in the Parisian air has become bad enough to obstruct views of the Eiffel Tower. In an effort to combat the pollution problem, Paris is stepping up their green game. They are cutting the number of cars on the road in half. They are only allowing cars with even-numbered plates to drive one certain days, and cars with odd-number plates other days. The exception to this is unless you drive an electric or hybrid vehicle, or are driving with more than three people in the car. This inevitably will cause some issues for people that need to get around, so Paris has also decided to make public transportation free to the public. These drastic changes are sure to bring about positive change, curious to see exactly how much change and in what time though.
