The company’s CEO, Håkan Samuelsson, recently told German publication Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung that Volvo’s current diesel engines may well be the last of their kind.

sauce

bum. wrong forum. sorry.

Interesting.

What’s that circle thing dangling from his left ear?

*awaits tag*

In ear phone, probably a wireless monitor for when he’s on stage.

You sure?

Is it not a microphone but as the camera is looking straight on it looks like its under his ear but a side on shot would show it further toward his mouth.

*awaits tag*

thought you’d served that out?

It’s a bit vague news isn’t it – the kind we have now will be the last of their kind, could just mean the new ones will be new.

But yeah, they could well be – the tide really is turning.

Personally though, diesel, petrol, hybrid, electric, fuel cell – they’re all ‘faster horses’ in my book, the answer isn’t trying to do the same thing we’ve been doing for the last however many decades better by refining it a little every few years – we’re going to have a ‘Concorde moment’ like the boomers say, but not in the way they mean – every morning and every evening millions of people leave their homes, get in their cars and drive 5 miles to work, the roads clog, it doesn’t matter if your car can theoretically do 8 or 80mpg, it’s shit in stop start traffic – even if you’re in an EV, it still uses more energy accelerating than it does cruising and it still needs to be produced somewhere.

Soon, a large employer is going to say, “you know what, this is madness – I’ve got a 1000 space car park and a 1000 seat office that costs us millions, I’ve got 1000 staff spending 2 hours a day getting here and back which costs them hundreds a month and for what? So I can see the people who work for me, who can see the people who work for them who can see the people who work for them etc – I tell you what – we’ll close the office and let everyone work from home – it’ll save us millions on offices, I might ask the staff to work an extra 30 mins a day for the same money which will make us millions more – they’ll still have more free time and save hundreds a month – everyone is happy” “ah, but someone will say, what if they don’t work? “Well, we’ll do the same as we do now, we’ll monitor their work computer, we’ll read their e-mails and we’ll listen to their phone calls”

So in the same way it wasn’t the crash, or the cost, or BA being dicks to Virgin that killed Concorde, it was the fact that even at 1300mph – it wasn’t even in the same league as telephones, e-mails, even faxes and that was 15 years ago. In the 80s only a very few of the most important, richest people could get to a meeting in New York in 3.5 hours (plus the rest getting out of an airport and into the city) nowadays the lowliest of wage slaves at the most smallest of firms can video conference with anyone in the world instantly. I believe that’s the answer.

Yes, I’m aware you can’t Plumb via Skype, and yes we’ll still want to drive our kids to school, and we’ll still want to use them for social stuff but if we could get away from this need to ‘show up’ we could make huge changes to how much fuel we use, far bigger than the latest generation of engines that can give slightly better performance in laboratory conditions – the technology is here, it works brilliantly – we don’t need offices anymore, we just need to make the mental leap.

Hopefully they make a petrol V40 r-design then 😀

Nice speech P-Jay. But you could presumably extend you argument to

we’ll still want to drive our kids to school

who could do remote learning, and just do the also important social aspects of going to a physical school in the local environment with the all the kids who just happen to live near them.

I’m with P-Jay, UK working culture needs to change. However “presenteeism” is still very much ingrained in British working culture…

Being first in the office and last out, still seems more important to some people than what they actually do in the intervening 10 hours or so…

Having said that, I drove to work today… In a diesel car too. 😳

remote working appears to be something of a pipe-dream i’m afraid. even IBM, who promote the idea to everyone else, is telling their own staff they can’t do it.
live local, ride or walk.

edit: thanks for moving the thread mods.

we’ll still want to drive our kids to school

I don’t want to drive my daughter to school. I have to so I can get to work on time. Working from home would remove that need.

Working from home creates another problem, the UK already has the smallest homes in western Europe, where the **** are people meant to set up a decent comfortable work space in their homes.

I would love to work from home a couple of days a week (I do need proximity to the data centre but I think that could be worked out with the team and 1st line support). But I live in a 1 bed apartment and would want a 2nd bedroom to use as an office.

I don’t trust myself to WFH. I’ve tried it. In fact I used to do it semi-regularly, when I wanted to slack off for a day 🙂

I wonder how reliable those batteries are considering smartphones need to be charged everyday … 😛

Hybrid is fine but total electric? 😛

edit: working from home means you will be working 24hr a day without knowing. You think you can get away? 😆

I rarely work from home – I find I’m less productive, and crave the social-interaction I get from sharing an office with 8 like-minded people.
I don’t mind it occasionally, though.

I think the answer is to encourage people to WFH maybe 1 or 2 days per week, that way journeys are reduced by 20/40% and offices can be 20/40% smaller.
Interestingly, I’ve just caught sight of the current company car list, from which I’ll be ordering a replacement for my 2.0 Diesel Passat in a couple of months time.
80% of the cars on the list are diesel, and every car which ‘suits my needs’ is a diesel.

MSP – Member

Working from home creates another problem, the UK already has the smallest homes in western Europe, where the **** are people meant to set up a decent comfortable work space in their homes.

I would love to work from home a couple of days a week (I do need proximity to the data centre but I think that could be worked out with the team and 1st line support). But I live in a 1 bed apartment and would want a 2nd bedroom to use as an office.

Ah, but do you live in a 1 bed flat because you want to, or because of the cost of housing in the UK?

Imagine if you could live in one place and work in another completely? Of even if you can’t – imagine of most people could? How do you think it would affect our housing crisis?

Assume you never had to commute, or at least rarely do you go for option A or Option B?

http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-64651220.html

http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-59526373.html

Or Option C – say you have to go to the office once a month for a ‘team meeting’, well middle managers have to justify themselves somehow, why not move to France, or Germany, or Spain where the housing market is more balanced – okay, when you bring a monthly flight into the equation you start to question the environmental benefits, but they’re all options.

When it comes to home working, unless you have to physically touch something at another location to do your job, there are few barriers to home working, none that can’t be overcome and nothing seems like it’ll ever happen, until it does.

Well when I was a lad dads used to walk to the pit.

Working from home may sound good in theory but I think it’s only truly workable in relatively few instances. Besides, how many of us have a Pret or Starbucks in the street?

I’m all in favour of reducing commuting time and distance but a lot of seem to work in town and want to live out in the sticks.

remote working appears to be something of a pipe-dream i’m afraid. even IBM, who promote the idea to everyone else, is telling their own staff they can’t do it.

Not true across the board.

But IBM, like all consultancies are subject to their customers’ whims.

Assume you never had to commute, or at least rarely do you go for option A or Option B?

I am not sure what you think you are comparing there, 2 properties in the same city, 1 bigger but needs a lot of work, I don’t see what that has to do with working from home (unless you think you could skive off and do up the house).

I don’t see what that has to do with working from home

When WFH you can roll out of bed at 7am and get straight to the computer whilst still yawning, having your breakfast as you work, and be done by half past three. Gives you way more time in the evening to work on your house.

we’ll still want to drive our kids to school

Most kids that are driven could walk or cycle. I bet most travel less than 2 miles.

Round these parts roads are noticeable quieter on Mondays and Friday’s, my office is dead on a Friday. So I think a good number are already working from home a few days a week. Tbh if your work is a task you can take away and do solo then locking yourself away is a no brainier. Anything else is more difficult even with Skype etc…in my opinion.

I’ve just bought a petrol to avoid the incoming congestion charges.

I will also be picking up #1 son from nursery on the bike, but, I only do this in nice weather. Can be bloody dangerous as well with the roads, so until someone sorts the weather and road safety out I think lots of people will still need cars for nursery and school runs….

So, Volvos, right?

I think the WFH chat is missing the point of the OP a bit.

Yes, more WFH will help to reduce the amount of traffic on the road, but it’s impact will be limited. Particularly when you realise how few jobs could really be done from home.

Volvo’s move is about meeting requirements for NOx emissions and CO2 emissions. The only way that is realistically going to happen is if we move away from the idea of burning stuff to get around. Moving towards EVs seems to be the preferred solution to this.

I work from home and have a diesel Volvo. What do I win?

Particularly when you realise how few jobs could really be done from home

You think?

MSP – Member

Assume you never had to commute, or at least rarely do you go for option A or Option B?

I am not sure what you think you are comparing there, 2 properties in the same city, 1 bigger but needs a lot of work, I don’t see what that has to do with working from home (unless you think you could skive off and do up the house).

Okay, let me break it down for you.

I assume you’ve heard the phrase “location, location, location” yeah? It’s the unwritten rule that says that if a home is in location A it’s worth a lot more than location B.

Why is that? Well some places are just nice to live in I guess, parks close by, bit more room, nice houses, nice view whatever – but that is really only a factor in close proximity – you might what to live in one place because of the above, rather than a mile down the road, but the core reason why a flat might cost £1m in London and a 7 bedroom house in Hull might cost half that is ‘access to the job market’ the main driver for people to live in London and other Cities big and small is opportunity but if more people could WFH, it doesn’t matter if you’re in London or Hull – your ‘base’ could be in either so as a worker you can live in a pokey flat in London or a massive house up North or anywhere in between.

Assuming for a moment, the reason why you have 1 bedroom and not 2 is cost, remote working allows you to live somewhere cheaper – and I’m not talking about some rough estate kept warm by burning stolen cars, but just places that aren’t in commuting distance to large business centres.

Even if you want to live in a densely populated area, there are enough people who don’t to ease the pressure and prices will fall.

I would estimate that even if 10% of people who are currently office bound workers, had and took the opportunity to WFH, the change in the job market, housing market and emissions we produce in the UK would be noticeable and would be create a momentum for others to follow.

Trying to bring this back on point – with 80m workers in the UK, even if only 50% of them work in single location, and of them only 50% were suitable to work from home, and if only 50% of them drove to work that still 20m trips a day saved (assuming they drive to and from work) we wouldn’t need the next generation of super complex, looks good on paper emission producing engines – we’d be cutting output hugely.

I wonder how reliable those batteries are considering smartphones need to be charged everyday …

what is unreliable about your smartphone’s battery? you know how long it lasts, and you take steps to charge it before it runs out ( or accept it’ll go flat ).

Hybrid is fine but total electric?

hybrid? meh. unnecessary for a lot of journeys. average car journey is 7 miles.

Volvo’s move is about meeting requirements for NOx emissions and CO2 emissions. The only way that is realistically going to happen is if we move away from the idea of burning stuff to get around. Moving towards EVs seems to be the preferred solution to this.

And then you need to move away from lithium and similar for energy storage because there really aren’t enough of them. Rare earth minerals in the motors are even more of an issue.

I work from home. It’s ace. We also had a Volvo S40 for a bit which was also ace. So, yes, Volvos.

The only way that is realistically going to happen is if we move away from the idea of burning stuff to get around. Moving towards EVs seems to be the preferred solution to this.

Ride a bike or walk. EVs just move the problem to a CCGT round the corner instead of clogged up city centres (so yes, better for NOx and particulates, but still a poor general solution).

Agree that bike riding or walking are better solutions where appropriate, but sometimes you just need a car/van/lorry to move people/things about. There are loads of things that governments can and should do to reduce our reliance on motor vehicles but eliminating their use is not realistically likely.

As for EVs being a poor solution to pollution levels – that depends on the carbon intensity of your power grid:

Shades of Green – Infographic

Currently EVs in the UK are comparable to a new hybrid car for CO2 emissions. However there is still lots of scope to decarbonise our power grid – far more scope than potential savings through more efficient petrol/diesel engines. So while we do currently burn a lot of stuff to keep our EVs moving, we don’t have to forever.

I just don’t buy Skype etc. as an acceptable alternative to face to face discussion. Yes it’s a good aid, but if you have a job that involves a lot of different ‘experts’ and interactions, then face to face is often the best and most productive way.

Ovlovs, nice cars.

When’s the XC40 diesel out ?

*Waits in the wings..

What’s that circle thing dangling from his left ear?

It’s the foam tip to a microphone, you see lots of people using them, particularly for stage use where there’s lots of moving around because they’re very light and unobtrusive. The rest of the mic is just a thin wire that goes round the back of the ear.

molgrips – Member
Particularly when you realise how few jobs could really be done from home
You think?

You clearly aren’t. You obviously live in a rarified fantasy world where nobody does warehouse work, sells all sorts of physical goods, assembles components into things to be sold, builds things, prints things, makes clothes, fixes things…
Try engaging your brain, Mol, before making statements that are likely to have small children pointing at you and laughing.
🙄

Daimler constructing €500 million lithium-ion battery factory in Germany. German automaker wants to bring 10 new electric models to the market by 2020.

Hybrid/Electric is the future. German/French manufacturers bet on diesel, Japanese and lesser extent US manufacturers have focused on electric. IMHO that was the correct call. Diesel has been “found out” in the emissions scandal, reports coming through of lower fuel economy after VW’s software fix in Europe. Diesels are gling to be banned / severely restricted in Paris, its only a matter of time.

I have certainly bought my last diesel…