Hybrid Toyota - get it out of your head

The New Factory has recently adopted a new company car policy. Procurement experts and financial planners have been bending over backwards to improve the way car are used by an organisation I work at and have worked it out. This week I had a chance to try out a demo car, in an identical configuration as the vehicles due to replace our current fleet. I took a trip to a provincial town in Poland, some 150 kilometres from Warsaw with three passengers (and me) on board…

The New Factory wants to boast of the lowest carbon footprint on the market, therefore it has chosen to use hybrid cars only (they opted for Toyota only). Also for some reason employees of The New Factory tend to heavily press accelerator pedals in company cars and their employer has apparently resolved to crack down on it.

The revised policy has in my opinion two major flaws which disqualify it from being hailed as eco-friendly.

Firstly, the replacement periods – the cars will be leased for a period of 2 years or 60,000 kilometres, whatever comes first (and then replaced by brand-new ones). Durability and reliability of a properly-looked-after car should let it be used over 5 years or 150,000 kilometres. Someone who has negotiated the contract has presumably not learnt how much CO2 is produced during vehicle manufacturing – I have looked for several data, they are not fully consistent, but on average, CO2 emitted before a car leaves factory gates is the equivalent of driving 80,000 kilometres under current stringent norms for petrol-fuelled cars…

Secondly, engines. A 1.8-litre engine for a Corolla and a 2.5-litre engine for Camry in the era of far smaller engines (compact cars do well with engines below 1.5 litres, mid-class cars with engines below 2.0 litres) is a big misunderstanding since whatever is saved when an electric engine is in use will be wasted while a petrol-fuelled engine kicks in.

If you shape a fleet policy, you should ask yourself a question, what purpose the company cars should serve. I do believe employees ought to be encouraged not to use them for commuting to work nor to drive around town. They should travel longer distances where it is not practicable or cost-effective to use trains, planes or other forms of transports. My two trips last week (first behind the wheel of a hybrid Corolla, second in my private car), both to district towns in Poland where it would takes around two or even three times longer (door to door) to get otherwise than by car are the ideal examples when the fleet is necessary.

Coming to the point, i.e. to driving impressions – with silence at low speed and decent parameters of the electric engine, the hybrid car is ideal for around-town driving, an ideal car for a… taxi driver. While if I move about city, I use public transport or take a taxi, not a company car. As mentioned in the previous paragraph, a city car does not rank among desirable means of transport. Beyond town, on a dual carriageway, then on an expressway, driving was a misery… The CVT automatic gearbox does not let a driver feel control over how a car accelerates. Maybe I am overly accustomed to manual transmission, but I felt uncomfortable despite considering myself a rather seasoned driver. The very reaction of the car to pressing the accelerator pedal when one needs to change a lane quickly or to overtake has little to do with what I consider safe manoeuvre standards. I am used to pressing the accelerator pedal and making a car picking up speed rapidly (in 1.4 turbocharged engines of my private Megane, or company Passat). A hybrid Corolla at first does not react at all, then it chokes and just then accelerates reluctantly. I would fear overtaking a truck on a single carriageway… On top, the car is humming at higher speeds (above 130 kmph) and wobbles as if it signalled an imminent disintegration… I believe it was not the fault of the specific demo car (just above 4,000 kilometres on the clock) since many of my workmates have taken test drives with other vehicles and their impressions are similar. For the first time in my life I am happy not to be eligible for a company car.

A quick look at technical specs (especially the torque) of the hybrid engine is self-explaining. I wonder how they have measured the average fuel consumption, since on an expressway at around 140 kmph computer of the hybrid Corolla with 4 adults inside showed current consumption of 12 – 13 litres per 100 kilometres.

If I were a decision-maker of a car fleet policy, I would proscribe to:

- abandon a company car as a perk – the top-rank staff should just get paid enough to afford to buy a decent car,

- broaden the extent to which pool cars are used – an analysis of historical long-distance car journeys would be conducted and a sufficient number of cars per team or department would be allocated, individual cars would be granted to staff covering historically at least 20,000 kilometres in business (this would also reduce number of parking spaces rented),

- lengthen the replacement periods to at least 5 years or 150,000 kilometres, whatever comes first,

- impose penalties on employees who do not look after cars they use properly.

I actually considered switching to a hybrid car in some time, but having driven one, mindful of how little I drive around town and knowing how much carbon footprint the manufacturing process gives off, I am intent on keeping my current car going for as long as possible.

D’Hondt method

Before I move on to the actual topic, a word of clarification. Last week I pledged to catch up on lousy time at work. Things have shaped up a bit, though some disasters loom ahead, but I believe a distanced look with hindsight would be preferable if what is happening these days is to be saved for posterity. Come hell or high water, the experience will leave me wiser.

Seat allocation in the parliament in the Polish system where d’Hondt method gets mixed with complicated quotas per constituencies is like teenage sex: everybody talks about it, nearly nobody knows how to do it, everyone things everybody else is capable of doing it, so everyone claims they are doing it. In fact very, very few people know secret of formula which translate voting results into seats. I have taken (much) trouble to get to grips with uncanny formulas (which is anything but easy, even though I consider myself rather bright) and then to convert them into an algorithm in a working Excel file which can come up with seat allocation within seconds.

The entire process has taken me some three hours on Thursday evening, but I can proudly boast of results. Please do not ask me to explicate the entire (much simplified) formula in simple words. I consider such challenge barely doable. Actually explaining it is doable, but it is far too complicated to put it into simple words… And to go over it again.

All online calculators I have found produce outcomes with straightforward d’Hondt method and they would prove wrong, since they fail to take into account intricacies arising from allocating seats per smaller and larger constituencies (41 in Poland) and underestimate allocations for groupings receiving larger percentages of votes.

My calculator, after running it on results of parliamentary elections from 2005, 2007, 2011 and 2015 produces deviations up to 2 seats per party which I consider to be a tolerable room for mistake. The guide to use it is more than simple. Into cells B2 – F2 you enter percentage of votes received by specific parties and in row C the sheet spews out the numbers of seats in the parliament (marked green).

The file (sadly, blogger does not allow to share files, but whoever knows my identity might turn to me via unofficial channels to get the file) can be helpful when it comes to decisions on strategic voting.

Among committees which stand a chance to bring their deputies into the lower house of the Polish parliament are:

Prawo i Sprawiedliwość, the odds-on favourite,

Koalicja Obywatelska, the most probable runner-up,

Lewica, committee not registered as a coalition, to lower the entry threshold from 8% to 5%

PSL-Kukiz ’15 committee, as far as I am concerned running as a party. Incidentally, I do not keep my fingers crossed for them, as I do for Lewica, since if they go in, they are bound to be a coalitional partner of PiS (in a scenario PiS somehow does not win simple majority).

The worst possible scenario is constitutional majority of PiS – two-third of seats giving power to amend constitution. In order for this to materialise, PSL and Lewica would have to get below 5% of votes (I do not believe Lewica would not go in, they have too strong electorate to be defeated that badly) and assuming KO would receive 30% support, PiS would need to get 57% of votes. Mark my words, I do not believe this is possible in 2019.

Another threshold is three-fifth of seats, giving power to overthrow president’s veto (if today’s opposition’s candidate won the election). With Lewica and PSL outside the parliament, this could be doable with ca. 44-45% of votes, with Lewica in the parliament, around 47-48%. Such support for PiS is imaginable….

PiS would definitely strive to keep up simple majority. In a scenario Lewica gets ahead and PSL falls off, around 39-43% (depending on allocation of votes between KO and Lewica) would be sufficient to reap 231 seats. In a scenario PSL gets in with bare minimum of 5% of votes, the threshold increases by 1 or 2 percentage points but sensitivity remains small.

PiS, despite several scandals and slip-ups, keeps holding strong which does not bear positive testimony on Poles’ wisdom. Given the reckless economic policies it has pursued over its term, I believe if it is to be ousted from power for long, we have to wait out a while and let them pay the price (though we as citizens will do it) for their short-sighted spending spree.

I still hope for an outcome of support for PiS low enough not to get 231 seats. Needless to say, they would buy off deputies from PSL or Kukiz’15 and thus solve the problem, but the majority would be fragile.

Hope they measure up against effects of economic slowdown in the face of lack of one-off cash injections to the budget. The sad side effect would a misery for ordinary Poles, but maybe this is the price for stupidity we have to pay as a nation.

I swear, I swear

As pointed up recently in the local media, common usage of foul language has become a plague in Poland. Presence of swear words used in abundance in workplaces, in public areas takes nobody aback. It is no longer a domain of blue-collar-worker males. These days people from all walks of life swear and this no longer is a reason to be ashamed. I cannot deny I am an exception, I do use foul language, at times a lot or even too much, yet I my (lame) excuse is that I have rules.

Much depends on circumstances in which one curses. In a casual conversation, unless in a specific circle of males and the talk is not heard by no one else I see no reason to use foul language. I also detest using it too frequently instead of a comma. When women (with some exceptions of those which also swear and I have palled up with) are around or when I talk to people I am not familiar with I also hold back from swearing. My major principle is to throw curses at a specific situations or behaviours, not against a person, therefore I refrain from insulting people personally.

In which situation do I find swearing acceptable? In anger or impatience to let off steam. For me, in terms of getting irritation off my chest it works perfectly and immediately. To a moderate extent, foul language is tolerable to emphasise some phenomena or describe some events. Funnily enough, I seldom swear behind the wheel (which does not mean I do not get infuriating by other traffic participants), although Poles excel at aggression in their cars which could be a topic for a different post.

In practice 90% of foul language flows from my mouth in the office… This prompts me to smoothly move on to another topic, namely #metoo, but let me leave it off for a separate posting. Not having a good weekend for work-related reasons (fretting rather than toiling away and to avoid confusion, nothing to do with #metoo), I will catch up some time later. Keep on hoping karma always returns.

Global warming

Although the conviction that global warming does exist and is a man-spurred phenomenon is more than prevalent among scientists, there are still single human beings who call this into question, just to mention the president of the USA (he recently begrudgingly confessed he noticed the process of warming, but back in late January 2019 when Chicago was hit by a cold blast, with temperatures down to -31C, he had denied it), or to quote the recent front cover of a PiS-affiliated newspaper (which incidentally does not live up to standards of gullet press).

The opponents of the man-caused global warming claim climate on earth went through phases of warmer and colder periods and what is happening now is just another cycle coming over. In principle they are right in the first part of their assertion, pertaining to history of our planet. They just badly ignore the pace of changes taking place. In the history, process of climate warming was spread over centuries; today we are witnessing it progressing decade and decade, i.e. the climate change is accelerated by the mankind.

To illustrate what is so wrong with the global warming, if anything at all (one of PiS politicians said recently the global warming is good,since water in the Baltic Sea would finally be warmer), imagine the atmosphere is a like a pot of water. When the water is cool, you can see it is smooth, but once you heat it up towards temperature of boiling, you can see particles fizzling around. The same happens on a global level in an ever-warming atmosphere – air moves over more quickly which means more extreme events occur around the world.

To use statistical measures, you may say mean temperatures would generally rise, but because of the “pot-of-boiling-water” phenomena, standard deviations from the mean across the globe and over time will be increasing. Also the frequency of extreme weather will get more intense. In 2019 we had 12 days heat (defined as day-time high above +30C) in Warsaw while the yearly average is 5. If each year actual readouts beat the average, something is wrong with the average (answer: it is derived from 1981-2010 period). Winters will actually get milder, but cold snaps and heavy snowfalls might hit heavily. Droughts will be interspersed with floods, just because of uneven distribution of rainclouds in the atmosphere.

Some side effects might disturbingly work the other way round. Ice melting in the Arctic and cooling down water in Northern Atlantic Ocean might impair the Gulf Stream which mildens the climate in the Western Europe, in a consequence making it harsher. Other side effects work as a self-propelling mechanism. The growing popularity of electricity-consuming air conditioning boosts energy production and consequently emission of greenhouse gases during heat waves. In such sense, each single heat wave gives rise to another one or exacerbates itself.

What to do to halt the global warming? It is untrue only governments are responsible for tackling it. The broadest answer is to consume less. What we consume must be earlier be produced while manufacturing of goods is generally responsible for emission of greenhouse gases. We should teach ourselves not to give in to aggressive consumerism and to buy only things we need to possess, look after them and use them as long as possible rather than replacing them out of whims. This pertains to clothes, footwear, consumer electronics, furniture and personal belongings, but even more to vehicles, the way we use them and how often we change them. I do not encourage you to stop using a car at all, but to give up nearly altogether on short-distance communing (disturbingly, 40% of passengercar journeys in 2014 were shorter than 2 miles, such short distance I last covered by car before Easter when I had to drive to the hypermarket to a big shopping) and switch to public transport where reliable (in big cities absolutely doable). Instead of an SUV changed every five years a compact car with a petrol-fuelled (not diesel!) or hybrid engine replaced every fifteen years. Plus we should vote for politicians who can boast being aware of the problem and active in tackling it. Here hats down to the mayor of Warsaw who is an excellent example of environmental-mindful local governor.