{"id":13499,"date":"2025-12-23T11:44:13","date_gmt":"2025-12-23T11:44:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.teignrail.co.uk\/scouting\/?p=13499"},"modified":"2025-12-26T17:53:29","modified_gmt":"2025-12-26T17:53:29","slug":"electric-miscellany","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.teignrail.co.uk\/scouting\/electric-miscellany\/","title":{"rendered":"Electric Miscellany"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Here are some of the scout’s observations around Exeter<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When the time came to change\u2014or it could be said, return\u2014to battery electric road vehicles, staff at Christow always prayed that the opportunity would be taken generally to reappraise transport requirements. If good sense prevailed, public transport would be greatly expanded and thoroughly developed, and such self-centred transport that was then necessary would adopt a very different form, befitting a reduced role. Electric vehicles as nothing more than a practical means of transport, devoid of sexual or status symbolism, would surely be lighter, slower and smaller.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the event, all the signs are that there is a stampede underway to replace every vehicle on the roads like-for-like, with the only outward difference being their sounds. They will be heavier and, if the whole production process were laid bare, dirtier. And what hope is there for an end to idiocy and aggression when a smug Tesla <\/em>driver told the scout, after admitting that he had been a worshipper of petrol tin gods, that he had “never driven anything with the performance of this one”?<\/p>\n\n\n

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Happily, the scout has seen at least one exception, so far only on a dealership’s forecourt in Marsh Barton. The Microlino <\/em>, a reinvention of the the 1960s “bubble car,” embodies the ideal in the eyes of those at Christow and would take the doctor and the district nurse\u2014to name two of those who need their own transport\u2014swiftly and comfortably to their patients.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

More car chargers have been installed every time the scout goes to the Services at Junction 30 on the M5, which he does occasionally to “slum” with motorists in the canteen area.<\/p>\n\n\n

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The scout has never seen another cyclist here. Behind the billboard, where the scout locks his bicycle, is a short path to Moor Lane which skirts Sowton Industrial Estate. +<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n