HarrySeaman

They said the same thing about things from Japan until their high quality lower cost cars destroyed the sales of Detroit and European gasoline hogs. Now Japan is known for its high quality products. China is on the same track toward high quality manufacturing as Japan was. This includes an incredibly rapid shift from ICE vehicles to EVs, meanwhile the Japanese, Detroit, and European manufactures, especially the auto manufactures, are suffering from paradigm blindness and falling further and further behind the Chinese.

You can buy a Wuling Hongguang Mini EV Urban EV* for four people in China for the equivalent of around USA $9000 to $12,00 depending on the model, and it sells at a profit - $4. ???? There are a number of models available for less than $20,000. The Ora Good Cat is another good example of a very low cost Urban EV. Other companies have even larger EVs with 300+ km ranges in the $15,000 to $30,000 range. Considering the cost of gasoline vs electricity and the added maintenance of an ICE car the cost difference for a new EV verses a new ICE car is smaller than most people think, and shrinking quickly as the cost of EVs steadily decreases over the next few years. In my opinion, and the opinion of lots of others who are much more knowledgeable about EVs than I am, the crossover point where EVs outsell ICE cars worldwide might happen by 2025, but certainly by 2027. Forget the ICE vehicle manufacturers and Wall Street analysis. They have had their collective heads up their places where the sun don't shine about this since Tesla started selling EVs and they still have their heads in the same places. It isn't a linear replacement, it is an exponential change like all other disruptions such as auto for horse and buggy or smart phones for land line phones - 3 vital skills for the age of disruption. By 2025 the value of second hand ICE will already have fallen vs now, so yes, you will be a able to get a cheap second hand ICE car, but you better figure on writing off the cost in a couple of years because the market for second hand ICE cars will dry up. By 2030 ICE cars will only be sold for special needs or will be dumped in the poorest countries. The carnage among the old ICE vehicle makers will make Wall Street analysts and ICE manufactures stock owners weep. * Urban EVs are small and have a short range on a charge. They are perfect for taking the kids to and from school, grocery shopping, or commuting in a city to and from work but not for long trips so you just rent one for long trips.

Do they really think all the Thai farmers who have always made sato (Thai sticky rice wine) or distill fermented rice to make lao khao or "medicinal" whisky will actually register? I have never seen any evidence that the government cares about that unless some idiot doesn't know how to separate the methanol (BP 64.7) and ethanol (BP 78.4) alcohols when distilling his lao khao. Just invest in some brewer's yeast for your Sato – Thai Rice Wine or your fermented rice and you eliminate all but traces methanol (you will always get some when you ferment anything). If you have a moonshine still with a thermometer to tell you at what temperature the distillate is condensing at you can easily make sure the distillate you collect for drinking is ethanol, not methanol. Here is a fancy moonshine still from Amazon, Premium Copper Moonshine & whiskey Alembic Still 3 L w/thermometer aprox 1Gallon. Personally, when I finally move to my wife's farm to live home made sato is going to be on my menu. You can buy bottles of filtered and sterilized sato at places like 7-11 but it the taste is horrible, unlike the taste of fresh sato.

Having a grid backup agreement with Nissan and Mitsubishi is basically meaningless. Why this is true is in the last paragraph below so skip to there if the rest doesn't interest you. Until the last year or two most electric vehicle and power storage batteries used the same ternary (Mn, Ni, & Co) anode batteries. Some of these were cylindrical batteries, some were pouch cell batteries, but they all used roughly the same chemistry. The bad thing is that MNC ternary batteries use a flammable organic electrolyte, meaning they burn nicely if damaged or short circuited so that they overheat. Typically they also lose about 20% of their power storage capacity after around 800-1000 discharge/charge cycles. For a 300 km/200 mi range EV that is more than enough for over 10 years of use for most people. Power storage batteries also lose capacity with discharge/charge cycles but a greater loss of capacity is acceptable for that application. Over the last two years or so lithium iron phosphate batteries that use a non-flammable electrolyte have become more popular for EVs, and especially for power storage batteries. These don't hold as much power as the ternary batteries or release that power as fast but importantly they aren't flammable and they can be discharged/charged 2-3 times as many times as the ternary batteries for the same amount of capacity loss. The cost of electricity is less than the cost of gasoline/benzene to drive an ICE car a similar distance, especially if you charge it at home. EVs do need new brake pads, tires, and windshield washer fluid just like an ICE car, but they don't need oil changes, new spark plugs, etc. that ICE cars need so you save money on maintenance. A myth is that lithium ion batteries are environmentally unfriendly since they can't be recycled. This is simply not true and there are already a number of companies that recycle lithium ion batteries with up to 98+% of the battery materials being recycled. Something the article forgets to mention is that Japanese auto makers Nissan, Mitsubishi, Honda, and Toyota almost exclusively sell straight hybrid (HEV) and a small number of plug in hybrid cars (PHEV). HEVs and PHEVs give you better gas mileage than an ICE car, but you still have the maintenance costs of an ICE vehicle. The number of PEV sales by the Japanese auto makers is minuscule compared to Tesla or to a variety of PEV manufacturers from China, Europe, and Korea.

Gee, I thought maybe the tortoise (worgeordie, I'll take your word that it is a tortoise.) had a license plate and he was playing the lottery using that number.

Like soisanuk said, the Pattaya City Expats Club. http://www.pattayacityexpatsclub.com/

Have you tried a tight fitting T-Shirt? That is all a "rash guard" shirt appears to be. A T-Shirt would be a lot cheaper to try and if you aren't satisfied with the result you can always wear it as casual wear and then buy a rash guard shirt.

The house I rent has an ugly and slippery tile floor, under wood laminate flooring. The farang who bought it from the original Thai owner added the wood laminate flooring and lived in the house until he could no longer negotiate the stairs to the upstairs bedrooms. Termites love the downstairs pressed wood backing of the thin laminate layer and now the wood laminate flooring needs to be replaced. My current landlord agreed to do this before Covid, but of course nothing has happened since then. Hopefully this Winter he will get the flooring replaced when AC isn't needed so I can sit and cook outside. We agreed on a Chinese tile that looks like a wood flooring with long tiles that have a surface texture similar to wood grain to make them non-slip. These tiles are more expensive but are stronger and accurate in size with vertical sides so that they fit tightly together unlike Thai made tiles. Well worth the added cost.

When I developed rheumatoid arthritis in 2011 I got to the stage where my Thai wife had to help me dress because my shoulders wouldn't bend and my hands wouldn't close beyond a claw. My cardiologist recommended I go to WIROAJ SUKARASOJI, MD., who is a rheumatologist at Ramkhamhaeng University Hospital in Bangkok. I couldn't have asked for better care or a better doctor. Rheumatoid arthritis is a autoimmune disease where the body mistakenly attacks the joints as though they are foreign bodies. Initially I was prescribed chloroquinine, which Dr. Wiroaj Sukarasoji explained was an immune system moderator. This medicine was then freely available and dirt cheap at pharmacies. The chloroquinine plus rehabilitation restored full mobility in about 3 to 4 months. Later I accidentally overdosed on chloroquinine and developed an allergy, which presented as dry itchy skin. Dr. Wiroaj Sukarasoji switched me to Hydroxychloroquine Sulfate (Plaquenil) which I am still taking two days out of every three 11 years later. I occasionally have a few twinges of pain from the ankle I broke in 2000 (which still has the pen and screw inserted to to hold it in place) but then I simply take a Hydroxychloroquine Sulfate (Plaquenil) tablet every day for 5 days before skipping a day. Normally I then go back to my regular schedule of tablets for two days and one day without. The pain has never continued beyond a second 5 day sequence. Unfortunately false information that Hydroxychloroquine Sulfate (Plaquenil) could be use to treat Covid-19 was distributed by science and medically ignorant politicians in the USA and a run on the drug resulting in many who needed not being able to obtain it. This run on obtaining chloroquinine or Hydroxychloroquine Sulfate (Plaquenil) then snowballed worldwide. To make sure that chloroquinine and Hydroxychloroquine Sulfate (Plaquenil) was available to those who really needed it medically many governments, including those of the USA and Thailand, made these drugs available only by prescription. In Thailand it is only available from hospital pharmacies. The result is that either of these two drugs now cost far more than in the past. Please give thanks to the science and medical ignorant politicians for screwing the common man once again and make sure you help get them reelected so that they can screw the common man in some other new way.

from the 2000's: From the '70s: