Skip to main content

How to make the heat-pump transition take off | Letters

Denise Griffin would like to see a practical plan for town and country. Mark Vernon calls for a communal system

I have a heat pump (Letters, 5 January). It’s not much use to me today as the electricity is out because of the bad weather, my house is beyond cold and what I’d give for a fire – at least I could burn furniture to keep my family warm!

Our heat pump has broken down on several occasions and no local plumber can deal with it – as they don’t know how – so we have to wait for “specialists”. I also have an electric car – I love it but have severe range anxiety as there are very few chargers around here. I’d love to save the planet and I try to do what I can, but let’s have a practical plan that works for town and country. Can we have “experts” who have no agenda but who want to make it work for everyone?
Denise Griffin
Castleisland, County Kerry, Ireland

Continue reading...

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Nissan open to making cars for Chinese partner in Sunderland, says CEO

Ivan Espinosa says UK plant will not be hit by cost cuts as Japanese firm reveals seven factories to close Business live – latest updates Nissan’s new chief executive has said the Japanese carmaker would be open to building cars for a Chinese partner at its factory in Sunderland as he confirmed it would not be closed in a round of deep cost cuts. This week Nissan revealed plans to close seven factories and cut 20,000 jobs after sustaining heavy losses. Continue reading...

The car made pedestrians second-class citizens. Don’t let driverless vehicles push us off the road altogether | Adam Tranter

If we want autonomous tech to succeed it must be designed to share space with us, rather than forcing us to adapt to it Adam Tranter is the co-host of the Streets Ahead podcast. He was formerly West Midlands cycling and walking commissioner under mayor Andy Street This week, the UK government announced its plans to fast-track driverless vehicle trials in the UK. One of the key companies involved noted that London presents a significant challenge: “It has seven times more jaywalkers than San Francisco.” There’s more than one problem with that statement – and it encapsulates so much of what’s already going wrong in the adoption of driverless cars. For a start, “jaywalking” isn’t even a thing in the UK. We thankfully have no such concept or offence. Unlike in many US cities, pedestrians here are free to cross the road wherever they see fit. And thank goodness for that. Adam Tranter is the co-host of the Streets Ahead podcast. He was formerly West Midlands cycling and walking co...

EU carmakers pave way for Chinese rivals as balance in market shifts

Many European motoring manufacturers are in retreat with plants to off–load – while China’s industry is on the march Chinese carmaker Xpeng is on the hunt for a factory in Europe. Volkswagen is aiming to reduce the number of its factories. It seems like it should have been the perfect set-up for a deal. Yet there was one problem with the plant on offer, according to Elvis Cheng, Xpeng’s managing director of north-eastern Europe: “It’s a little bit, I would say, old.” Continue reading...