Electric Buses That Don't Work In the Cold

Norway is cold. Oslo is not as cold as it is in the mountains. You would think the busses they bought for Oslo would work in the cold. Too cold for electric vehicles! Brand new electric buses paralyzed miserably in Oslo, Norway because of freezing temperatures - Strange Sounds

Oslo wants to have its busses be "emissions free." (No word on how the electricity is generated.) So they spent €100 million to buy 183 busses. For reference, it has been something like 20 to 25 degrees Fahrenheit during the day, and 15 degrees or so at night in Oslo this past week. At least a couple of days that was the weather. That doesn't strike me as particularly cold. Not like it will be in a month or so.

The new buses from Solaris were highly praised in advance and everything went well during the summer. But now, with the onset of winter, the weaknesses of the electric vehicles are becoming apparent: although a range of 250 kilometers is actually advertised, the buses sometimes simply break down.

Hat tip to Granite Grok: ‘Experts’ in Norway Bought 183 EV Buses … That Don’t Work Very Well When It’s Cold

As we’ve reported on more than one occasion, electric vehicles lose reliability and range and might fail to work in the cold, and if the rumors can be believed, it gets cold in Norway for ‘several’ months out of the year. A fact the “experts” in Norway have just realized.

I love it when politicians pretend to be engineers.

The Norway Pride Celebration Terror Attack

I missed this story of terror in Oslo mass shooting being investigated as Islamic terrorism

What happens when an armed bad-guy shows up in a gun-free-zone intent on doing bad things? Bad things happen, because there is no one to stop them.

Terrified revellers at a gay bar in Oslo hid in a basement and desperately called loved ones as a gunman went on the rampage, killing two people and injuring 21 on the day the city was due to celebrate its annual Pride parade.

Authorities said the suspect, a 42-year-old Norwegian citizen of Iranian origin.

As is always the case, some are excusing the terrorist act as mental illness. But not everyone.

“Everything indicates that this has been an attack by an Islamist extremist,” Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere told a news conference.

It should be noted that even in America, bars are gun-free-zones, unless the bar has hired armed security. Some have. Some can't afford to. The Pulse Nightclub shooting in Orlando comes to mind. Also an act of Islamic terror. But I'm sure it was the gun's fault, actually.

The hat tip goes to The Gates of Vienna - The Islamic Terror Attack in Oslo: Swedish and Flemish Perspectives.

The two pieces ..., both translated by Gary Fouse, discuss the incident from Flemish and Swedish perspectives, respectively.

Real Benefit from the IoT

Usually I see IoT stories that are about hackers and mayhem. This reinforces the idea that there could be some benefit. Bridge In Distress Sends Warning Using IoT Sensors

There’s not much that can shake up Kjetil Sletten, a senior engineer who manages bridge maintenance for the Norwegian Public Roads Administration (NPRA). But when Sletten received an automated notification in April 2021 that movement sensors on a bridge in central Norway had gone off the scales, his instincts told him he needed to have a look with his own eyes.

It was an 80-year-old bridge, and one of the bridge had become separated from its support. (You can see movement in the video at the link above.) One end of the bridge was moving up and down with passing vehicles.

Sletten coolly blocked traffic in the northbound lane with his vehicle and called a road crew to manage traffic.

Which given that he didn't have an "official vehicle" was probably a bit of an issue, though maybe not the problem I would have envisioned in some places in America.

An interim repair was constructed to handle the traffic temporarily, and long-term replacement is under construction.

That 80-year-old bridge was part of a test of the IoT technology by the Norwegian transport agency.

“I don’t want to think about what might have happened if we didn’t have this instrumentation on the bridge,” said Trond Michael Andersen, director of Technology, division for Operation and Maintenance, NPRA.

In the video at the link above, it is noted that emergencies cost more than fixing things in a more proactive manner. Lack of time for planning, lack of time for a bidding process, and general stress all increase the cost.

The article mentions both the emergency closure of the Hernando De Soto Bridge in Memphis, and the collapse of the Morandi Bridge in Genoa, Italy.

Terrorism in Norway

A mass killing in the face of all that gun control? How can this be? Kongsberg: Bow and arrow attack appears to be terrorism - officials

The suspect, a 37-year-old Danish citizen, had converted to Islam and there were fears he had been radicalised, police say.

He is accused of killing four women and a man on Wednesday night in the southern town of Kongsberg.

People believe that it is impossible to manufacture deadly weapons. But the truth is, it isn't that hard. Even firearms can be manufactured with a little effort.

The destruction of Western Civilization continues.