In a decade's time the world of wheels may well be battery driven. Photo/File
In a decade's time the world of wheels may well be battery driven. Photo/File
So let me set the scene.
It is 2029 and the age of the e-car or i-car or whatever the plug-it-into-a-socket things are called is well and truly upon the world...except for Cuba because 1956 Plymouths and 1963 Chevrolets do not run on electricity.
They are petrol drinkers and theirclassic kind have always ruled the roads of that land.
In a decade's time the world of wheels may well be battery driven.
That's the current prediction, and the way the top gun car makers are starting to turn them out it is highly likely that will be the way it will be.
I suspect we will inevitably experience not car-less days, as we had during the petrol-tight days back in the '70s, but charge-less days where every registered owner of an electric vehicle will be given one designated day a week on which they can give it a charge...to spread the power usage load.
Cos if everyone were to plug in on a Tuesday afternoon the lights across the land would all be out by tea-time.
So we'd all be driving around in our silent clean-running aeiou-cars looking for somewhere to have a meal but they'd all be closed.
I will very likely be one of those old early models of humanity who develops a business relationship with Castro Motors in Havana to buy a 1951 Studebaker.
For I am not keen on batteries because they have never been keen on me.
Unlike battery-powered devices which work, me and batteries have never clicked.
I've got one of those box-type torch things in the garage.
The ones with the handgrip upon the top and a thumb-activated button.
It looks the part, except that the batteries within are clearly on their last sparking legs.
Which is a shame because despite wrestling with every apparent attachment and component to the construction of the thing I can't find the way in to replace them.
It's not child proof.
It is adult proof.
Roger Moroney
Mind you, I suspect that if I were to hand it to a 10-year-old they would probably have it in three pieces in that many seconds.
Oh, and years and years back there was my dear old motorcycle I did some battery top-up work on.
Took it out, topped up the little channels in it and put it back in.
Went out for a ride later and it had started to rain.
At one stage I reached down to check the right side cover as it occasionally had a habit of coming loose.
I touched the steel framework and got a fine old bolt of electricity...the bike was live.
The casual familiarity of taking the bolt-on power lead attachments off, taking it out to top it up, and putting it all back in again....had got me.
I simply stuffed it up as something metallic was touching something it should not have been.
Then there was our dear old Mitsi' Tredia which died one afternoon...battery failure.
So I went and got a new battery.
However, as I removed the dead one I had not carefully taken in how it had been connected up, as it later transpired (it's alway later you get the picture) that there was what appeared to be an additional attachment apart from the usual positive and negative ones.
So I tucked the new one into its little tray and attached the power lines.
Got in, turned the key and fried half the electrical system.
Yesiree...I'm the lad who puts the two AAs into the tranny radio and can't get it to work.
Until I take them out and put them back in the right way around.
And so it came to pass I went out and got into my slightly weary (wary) Nissan the other morning and turned the key.
Nothing happened.
Except a sort of clicking sound.
The sound of a battery snoring as it slept.
So out it came, and I carefully noted how everything was attached and off it went for a charge.
Later in the day, after it had been trickled by electricity, I put it back in.
Turned the key and hello hello, it started beautifully and has thus far continued to do so. So is the tide turning?
Have the gods of electricity decided to smile upon me?
Has the time come for me and batteries to see eye to eye...terminal to terminal?
