ahh. i like our local utilities! charging points are getting more and more interesting! here two of the more interesting ones i’ve encountered lately: one of the best charge points for zurîch city: a charge point fully covered in fake grass! surprise whilst parking at the marriott zurich… wasn’t listed at lemnet.org. i liked the flowers and the plastic lawn carpet! (still, it’s just a copycat installation 🙂 what next?
my commute to work
just wanted to let you know how my everyday trip to work looks like! i’m very happy to live in switzerland! this is the view i am treated to every day. (in case of good weather, that is!)
check your rims, often!
last thursday evening, on my way home, TW560 experienced a major problem: a rim broke whilst going around a corner at about 55 km/h. it was a harrowing experience. first of all, a big bang. then loss of most maneuverability. after that, VERY ugly splintering and scraping sounds coming from behind whilst trying to break and trying not crash into some containers just a few metres away. after what seemed an eternity, TW560 came to a shuddering halt. i stayed in the TWIKE for a few seconds to draw some deep breaths and then got out. what i saw hurt […]
happy new year!
happy new year! thank you for reading this blog! TW560 has been a trusted companion for over 19000kms in 2013. i am looking forward to an exiting 2014 with many happy e-kilometers!
world record attempt in zurich july 6: with TWIKE 560
this weekend louis palmer, organizer of WAVE2011-2013 (TW560 took part in WAVE2011, in india) wanted to end the current WAVE with a challenge: beat the current world record bringing together as many electric cars as possible. the current world record stood at 255 vehicles. after reaching out to his network, louis arranged to have all cars converge in zurich on the morning of july 6. below is a video walking along the cars waiting for the start signal. (i started about half way in!) in any case, we TWIKE pilots were here in force! about 60 TWIKE’s were to be […]
visiting fine mobile, the TWIKE manufacturer
after a good nights’ sleep, i rise refreshed from yesterday’s marathon drive across germany. i have a nice balcony on which i enjoy my breakfast, looking down on rosenthal. breakfast over, i head to fine’s HQ… after chatting with some employees, i head for lunch with fine’s ceo, martin möscheid, his brother and the first official twike2fly (in german) partner from morocco, silvia brutschin (a.k.a. twikezora). after lunch, martin möscheid took some time to explain the history of how TWIKE production was transferred to fine mobile after swisslem went out of business. he filled in many blanks i had and […]
visting new dreifels HQ
dreifels, the company founded by the three people responsible for creating the vehicle in 1986 have recently moved from sissach to gelterkinden, switzerland. their new hq (see above rendered picture, since i forgot to take a picture myself) is, obviously, an extremely energy efficient building. they combine many interesting technologies plus an avangarde-style bus-based management system which even controls which kind of music can be heard in any given room. anyway, i wasn’t there for sustainable architecture 😉 during the last few years, founders peter, ralph and christian have been very open towards my requests / questions / challenges / […]
TWIKE club general assembly
once a year the TWIKE drivers’ association twikeklub organizes its general assembly and invites all interested to a full day centered around sustainable mobility and obviously the TWIKE itself. whilst the activities are different every year, the assembly itself follows a structure mandated by swiss law for clubs and associations which charge their members for membership. since there are more and more TWIKE pilots from germany nowadays, the club decided to conduct the 16th general assembly in rottenburg, southern germany. pilots from switzerland were invited to drive in a convoy starting at möckli elektrofahrzeuge with prearranged charging stations along the […]
a new home for emissionless.ch/emissionslos.ch
you might or might not know that emissionless.ch/emissionslos.ch (among many others) is hosted at my home. everything is based on linux and i run my own dns server. apache is my good friend on the webserver side. up until now the setup was based on a single 1u poweredge, non-redundant and my RTO was basically undefined. (not good!) today thu, may9, i’ve undertaken the task to upgrade the infrastructure: redundant server setup better hardware: hp DL380’s dual physical quadcore with 8 gig ram etc. UPS for about 3 hours coverage when power is down Check Point 2070 firewall for extended […]