Saturday, July 03, 2010

Bibi van der See is a fucking wanker

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A lot of reporting is clearly complete bollocks. The combined effects of a Propaganda model at work and the broader dumbing down of printed media in my life time, combined with the UK public's addiction to panic porn, sees us at a stage in our civilisation where baldly asserted lies can be printed on the front page of a national newspaper with little or no accountability. I generally feel the Graun to be ahead of the rest in terms of the quality of their analysis and the objectivity with which it is presented. That's not to say its good.

One of the most annoying things about the Graun is its lack of consistency. The absence of an editor knocking back the sort of shite that van der Zee has regurgitated on the Graun "Environment" pages. van der Zee's brief is to cover fluffy environmental stuff. I’ve only noticed her work once before and that I found baffling.

The current target of my ire is a video report of hers on London’s three year old project trialling electric Smart cars in a variety of roles. The video itself was irritating enough with a seemingly nonplussed van der Zee spouting ridiculously poorly researched guff within seconds of it starting.

"Today we’re going to be trying out one of the 340 electric vehicles that are being tested around the UK as part of a massive government experiment to find out if electric vehicles can work. The government’s gonna be collecting information about how far people go in them, how long they need to charge them, how often they charge them and whether they really work."
First of all, Bibi, electric cars work. You don't need to find out if they work because people have been driving them for more than a hundred years. You twat.

Secondly, this project has already been running since 2007 and this is its second wave with an improved vehicle design. I know that the Graun doesn't have infinite time to invest in its fluffy pseudo-green puff-pieces but some people might consider that mention of this and a little background to the project may well be newsworthy. Van der Zee doesn't seem to appreciate this at all and instead launches into a review of . . . well, a review of any smart car- electric or otherwise. Which is, frankly, utterly redundant.

"This is a commute car and its not for taking the kids to see your mother in law or . . . not for doing the world’s biggest shopping trip because you couldn’t actually get that many shopping bags in the back then. Its for commuting and if that’s what you want it for then its perfect.”

The follow up to this journalistic recycling is the "science bit", which van der Zee knocks out with the sort of smooth patter that Loreal marketing executives go weak at the knees for.

“Its got a 30KW engine, which is, again, equivalent to about 40 horse power and it takes about eight hours to charge, and that’s a long time. However, financially, as they always argue with electric cars, that’s about 2p per mile. So its cheap to charge. It just takes a long time. If you’ve got eight hours to spare.”
Wow! That depth of analysis and keen insight into the practicalities of electric vehicles has really opened my eyes to their overstated potential to revolutionise city transport. Its clear van der Zee thinks electric vehicles are a pointless waste of time and money for anyone who doesn't regularly have an unbroken eight hour period in which to charge it. Somehow, I don't consider that to be too much of a problem for that section of the population who have TO SLEEP!

Sniping at the concept of BEVs because current, affordable battery technology means that they take many hours to charge is like sniping at internal combustion engines because they need servicing every 5000 miles. I mean, who wants to own a vehicle that you have to take off the road at fixed intervals? That's a pretty weak analogy but I can't be arsed to think up a better one and I think you get the point. Van der Zee also fails to point out that the smart car can receive 60% of its charge in three hours; a very useful extension of range if you are suddenly required to nip across town after work to pick something up. Bizarrely, these facts were presented in a photo montage accompanying an article on the Graun website about the smart ED, published two days later and which improves considerably on almost all of van der Zee's reporting. Hmmmmmm . . . .

The gist of van der Zee's reportage, if you haven't already gathered, is that electric vehicles are cheap but slow to charge. She conveys this in a manner which implies that they are fundamentally unsuitable for commuting without any attempt to justify this and doesn't seem at all bothered about reporting on essential details which might allow us to judge that for ourselves. For example, the follow-up article I linked to explains quite reasonably, that plugging the car in to charge it at night can be a challenge due to the lack of charging points unless you want to string a power cable out of a bedroom window and down into the street. Van der Zee goes to the trouble of being filmed parking her car next to one of these charging points and plugging it in without bothering to mention how their scarcity presents a significant challenge to anyone wishing to emulate her. The follow-up article- also quite reasonably and in a credible attempt at journalism- points out that Boris The Clown has pledged to greatly expand the number of kerbside charging points. A piece of information that anyone mulling over the acquisition of a BEV might find very interesting. You see, Bibi? You see how this works? You present a relevant piece of information and then embellish it with appropriate facts. That's called journalism, fuckface.

Van der Zee's final nail in the smart car is the following passage, which- if you've ever driven a smart car with an internal combustion engine- might make you splutter into your pint.

"I like this car on corners. I like the way it goes when you’re actually moving But I hate the feeling that you get when you start to accelerate and you just get this MMMMMMEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEUP and it sounds like one of those electric wheel chairs that people whisk around the pavements on. But it is fast, it’s very nippy. It’s a nice little car . . . if you’re eighty. I can’t say that can I. (laughs)"
Now, I've driven a smart car. They're a crap drive. Not just bad, they're outright crap when compared to any hatchback or saloon car. Despite the reasonable poke in the engine they handle like a frying pan. But that's quite the point. It is not a hatchback or a saloon car. Its a city car or supermini or ratwagon or whatever you want to term these things and whatever you call them they are not designed to be a glorious driving experience! They are designed to be small and convenient in a city. You might hope that someone who reviews one might appreciate this and even have tried their hand with other variants to get a point of reference. Not our Bibi. No.

So, in despair, I'd like to offer my own take on the smart ED and hope that someone stumbles across this rant and sends a link to it to Mighty Guardian Reporter van der Zee. Better still, they might send it to her editor and demand to know why she's doubtless being paid close to six figures to produce such content-free shite.

Here's what I'd want to know about this vehicle.

The smart Electric Drive is- obviously- a smart car with an electric motor in it in place of the original 700cc petrol engine. That means that much of the running gear is duplicated in thousands of cars across the country and is easy and inexpensive to maintain. This version of the smart ED- the second to be deployed around London- is driven by a motor capable of 30kw peak output for short periods (~40hp). It does 0-60 in a very sprightly 6.5 seconds but is limited to 65mph for economy reasons. The improved lithium-ion batteries in this version can be charged from 20% to 80% in three hours by plugging the car into any mains socket with the included power cable. To put that into miles driven, you can go 67 miles and then plug it in for three hours while you do some work or have a lunch break Ford Prefect would be impressed with, and then go another 50 miles before you're all out of amps.

In practical terms, its just another smart car with all the advantages of small size and nippyness associated with them. Don't expect to drive to Scotland in it for the weekend, though. On the other hand, the boot will just about hold a week's shopping for a small family. There is also something pleasantly rewarding about sitting in a queue of traffic and being smugly aware that you are not contributing to some of the worst air pollution in Europe. A further advantage is that the smart ED, as with all BEVs requires considerably less routine maintenance than an internal combustion engine. On the down side, however, the batteries' working life is only a few years and they cost a lot to replace. Battery technology evolves fairly rapidly and, although investment in science and technology in this country may be on the bones of its arse, there are many countries around the world with the foresight to invest in green technology and so future developments are bound to bring costs down and ranges up (okay, I might have got a bit distracted and ranty there).

Battery electric vehicles came of age more than a decade ago and are more than capable of competing with internal combustion engines on a majority of journeys in a city. The only problem is the availability of charging points in the city but with Boris Johnston's pledge to expand the current measly 300 to a rather more practical 25,000 you can expect their convenience to rise rapidly. In terms of their green image these cars still require electricity from the grid which is generally produced from coal, gas or nuclear and so their green credentials, while superior to your average petrol or diesel car, posses a distinctly brown hue. Sourcing your electricity from a supplier of sustainably generated power can profoundly improve this to the point where your journeys, providing you own the car for long enough, become effectively carbon negative.
Notice how I clearly define the potential applications of this vehicle? Notice how I mix advocation of green technology with criticism of its current shortcomings? See how a little research puts the technology into context in terms of its sustainability? Surely someone reading the environment page of the Graun is going to be a fully paid-up tree hugger and keen to establish whether the technology in question has the potential to save the planet AND the whales simultaneously?

That's really the crux of my complaint: a reviewer of BEV should not be allowed to make direct comparison's with existing technologies. Its not appropriate, its not fair and it certainly doesn't help any of the thousands of Londoners who succumb to an early death due to that city's air pollution. More to the point, it plays into the hands of the techno-skeptics and Clarkson's of this world who want nothing more than to see another attempt to break the car companies' monopoly on transport fall by the way side.

I thank you.

2 comments:

  1. Bibi van der Zee05 October, 2010 19:50

    Hi, my name is Bibi van der Zee and I appear to be the subject of this piece. Or, according to the author, a "fucking wanker".
    I wanted to make 3 points. Firstly, don't accuse me of not doing my research and then completely fail to do you own. A very simple search would show that I do not cover "fluffy environmental stuff", for example.
    Secondly are you aware that it is the editor of a film who determines the content, not the presenter? It was the editors choice not to include the 15 mins I spent talking to the man who runs the company behind the recharging points about a lot of the points you've mentioned, for example. I have however discussed them elsewhere several times.
    Finally I have respnded to this becuase I am so very tired of people writing on the internet as if anyone who appears on a camera or a screen is some distant imaginary construct. I am a real person - a tired 38 year old mother of three with ill parents and money worries if you really want to know. Your article really hurt and upset me. That's all.

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  2. Hi Bibi, for some reason your comment got flagged as spam and I've only just come across it. In reply to your three points:
    1) I was being deliberately offensive. I'm not so stupid that I can't Google your name and find out what you claim to cover. In my opinion, you cover fluffy environmental stuff. I haven't seen anything to suggest otherwise.

    2) I was not. I didn't think that the piece warranted an editor. Its the sort of crap any mug with a Mac and a handycam could knock up in a day. If your not in creative control of the story then you're not a journalist, are you. You're a presenter. I understand in this day and age that the lines between the two roles are heavily blurred but ultimately, if you're unhappy that you're not getting across what you feel are the important issues in your piece, then you are either in the wrong job or not good enough at it to have been entrusted with editorial control.

    3) I'm sorry, you want sympathy??!?!?!!! There's a saying: everyone's a critic. If some kid penning rants on a laptop in his bedroom genuinely "hurt and upset" you then either you're a little too fragile for the very public position you occupy or my criticisms genuinely touched a professional nerve.

    Look, Bibi, if you spent the time to read around this blog you'd find that I call pretty much everyone with whom I disagree a petulant cunt or a poisonous little fucktard. If you are so hot at research you would have picked that up. Face it: your piece was weak and lacking in content. Sadly that's not at all unusual in this day and age. That doesn't make it acceptable. I don't fuck around in the lab doing half an experiment and then invent the rest of the data so that it hides the fact that some agro chemical company's product is an ecological holocaust that's going to poison rivers and cause birth defects. I read that piece you did in August 2008 on the economics of renewable technologies and blogged about it. As I wrote back then:

    why are the Lord's conclusions so negative? Or- why is Bibi's spin of their results so negative? A skeptic might point out that the above documents were produced by organisations inherently favourable of renewable generation, whereas the government's position on the issue- as revealed by their actions over the last decade- are actively hostile to it. So where does the middle ground lie?

    Anyone reading your piece in search of an answer to that question would be wasting their time. As with your Smart ED video there was no depth and no analysis. No context within the wider issues of sustainability, energy security, climate change and the struggle for progress in an unrepresentative and corrupt system. You regurgitated the Lords' words uncritically, despite the UK government's legacy of sabotaging renewable generation projects (see- another example of how to embellish a narrative with supporting information). In this day and age, when our civilisation's responses to the issues I've mentioned will determine whether I live to a ripe old age or die scrabbling in the dirt in my fifties, forgive me if I expect a little more from my information sources than the content-free shite that you piss out, you fucking wanker.

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