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 […]
where our electricity comes from…
being in spain, not renting, but rather owning an apprartment affords me with some perks other people don’t have when they come as tourists… first of all, i, usually, at the end of july, get to participate at a property owners’ meeting where very important issues such as the change of the parking entry gate (after 18 years use) is discussed. on the other side, however, i get to open the utility bills which have been accumulating during the year. my wife was here in march, sometimes we spend a week or so in autumn in spain, too. at any […]
TDE2012 – a few days off
quick update on TDE2012. cruizing around alicante and creating quite a stir anywhere we go. JC & I have been planning the next leg of TDE2012 > a map with the exact route will be posted here shortly. jc is staying until thursday and then will head up north towards the atlantic. the GPS tracker will be active, so the global positioning page and location badge on the first page will be accurate during the next few weeks. jc will send me photos and videos and i will publish them here. text-wise, however, there will be less content… i’m looking […]
TDE2012 – preparations
above you can see all the cables and adaptors we’ve chosen to be part of TDE2012. this is – according to our experience – what you need to be sure to be able to connect anywhere you are. in our small grey box, (click to zoom) you will find our trusted multimeter and some leads. all other cables are more or less standard, except the IEC2, for which i will dedicate an own post when we’re ready. most of the cables are seasoned travellers – we took about 90% of all connectors with us on wave india 2011! if you […]
follow us on twitter: #TDE2012
during TDE2012 we’re going to update you continuously via twitter – look out for hashtag #TDE2012. newest messages are going to appear either on twitter, here in the sidebar or via your mobile phone twitter app. you may interact with us instantly – we’re very happy to know you’re out there!
Zurich Airport parking buddies
parking around zurich airport is usually prohibitively expensive, except for motorbikes, twikes … and CREE SAM’s. today en-route to the french part of switzerland, i parked TW560 besides a beautifully kept CREE SAM these vehicles are very rare – i’ve had the chance to drive one with a large lithium battery last year – interesting, but, as with most speciality vehicles, i would not go from driving a TWIKE to driving a SAM anytime soon! 🙂