As Matt says, the filling station as we know it to-day is a creature of the 1960s – although back then it rarely had a mini-mart attached. Where motorways come in is that IIRC the then Tory government insisted that more than one brand of fuel be sold at each service station (or perhaps it was different brands at different service stations, I forget) and the fuel was sold at a premium price. Therefore the “first” station off the motorway became a prime site – maybe this is what Matt is thinking of. But they were certainly also built well away from the (very few) motorways of the time – possibly so as to be able to trade on Sundays, which the “general store” forecourt couldn’t.

Why are we discussing this? Possibly because it’s an interesting example of how governments shape markets…

The NHS was part of the wider project of “cradle to grave” welfare.

Originally the tagline was going to be “from womb to tomb” ! Fact!

in 1914 britain was the global cetre of payments and a creditor nation. it was richer then than it is now.”

Wealth and prosperty isn’t on a national balance sheet. That is the fallacy of blurring individual prosperty with the so-called national interest. People have far more capital, physical and human, than we had even 100 years ago. Your notion of wealth assumes it is zero-sum, someone in credit, someone else in debt. It aint like that. We are (nearly) all better off than a hundred years ago.

They actually grew up alongside the motorway network, starting in the 1960s. (Unsure why this has turned into a debate about the origins of the service station but throwing my two pence worth in anyway)

People seem to forget how a lot of things in this country are based upon organic growth as need/ fashion/ emergency occurs.

And do you older posters agree that there has been a continual trend towards state power over the last 30 years? Even the police have not escaped tyranny by target setting. (And they introduced bonuses, the bastards)

I think that you misunderstood me about the 10 minute electric re-energising. There are boffins who believe that they can build cars with a 120 mile range that can be recharged in 10 minutes. To be proven, but we have to be optimistic.

Contemporary electric cars do fit your assumptions about 3 hour plus recharge times. Even the Tesla that looks good would be painful for a long journey.

If we accept that electric cars will have a range distance of 120 miles, we still need refuelling stops every 60 miles or so. As we have learned this week, some motorists don’t know that you should depress the clutch or select neutral when the accelerator pedal goes wappy. They will demand more help than contemporaries in 1896 or 1930.

The BMW cars that use hydrogen have conventional IC engines. No scandium, Tim. Are you thinking of metal hydride storage?

The best form of automotive fuel cell uses the metal which in my day job I’m the world’s expert in (“the” not “a”). Heck, I even part funded the research that shows it’s the best.

Not wholly convinced…..my g-grandpa opened the first one on the Belfast Dublin road and that was long before 1920.

However: if you’re saying that we need a network of electricity filling stations which don’t refill in 10 minutes, but take hours….and that those stations aren’t at home….then I think you’re nuts. The technology simply wouldn’t be worth having in the first place.

Say, you’ve got a 60 mile battery distance, yet you have to travel 150 miles. But it takes 3 hours to refill your batteries twice along the journey? That just doesn’t work at all. The technology is doomed whoever coordinates the filling stations.

If it can be done in 10 minutes then it’s simple enough to add it to existing petrol stations. Which means no coordination problems.

In the years immediately after 1896, there were no “filling stations”. The majority of motorists were wealthy hobbyists without mechanical aptitude. They relied on a new trade, automobile engineer, to change tyres, solder radiators, tune the carburettor and magneto etc; these new tradesmen conveniently sold petrol and oil, but in those early days, that was a side line business.

The filling station that we recognise today *probably* emerged in the 1930s when mass production and greater reliability made automobile ownership more widespread. For 1930s US filling station, think of the gas stop and restaurant that hosts The Postman Always Rings Twice. In the UK, we had road side pubs or transport cafes on the main trunk roads, and there’d be fuel pumps a few doors away. However, the filling station that doesn’t sell second hand cars or perform repairs is largely a 1980s invention.

Mass ownership of cars was gradual (albeit much faster than any previous adoption of technology) as was the evolution of the filling station. With electric-powered cars, adoption may be rapid if it is possible to re-energise vehicles in 10 minutes at a filling station. The idea of recharging your car overnight at home (like a milk float) is so last century

Filling stations that can provide this capacity will not be easy to build; by necessity, filling stations will have to be in remote places, possibly where there is no conventional electricity. Who wants to build them? Only the manufacturers of electric vehicles need them and they don’t show the will or expertise. All the same, I’m unsure how much I would want government to be involved.

One alternative to electric powered cars is hydrogen. BMW lease liquid hydrogen powered cars in the USA (California only?) and Germany. In each country, you can refill with hydrogen at a handful of locations; BMW conveniently allow the cars to run on normal petrol when the hydrogen runs out. BMW is about 5% of the market in wealthy countries and 0.5% elsewhere. I am unconvinced by this strategy too.

I take the point about clause 28, although you will recall that gay *social* culture (FGTH, Culture club, the whole 80s club scene, fashion and film) was at something of a zenith in the mid/late 80s.

“I am not convinced that public health provision was the solution to this, and the NHS certainly isn’t the best way of delivering public health provision. But I can’t point to an example of a wonderful medical system in an advanced country in the absence of regulation.”

so it’s not the best way but you don’t know of a better way?

also doctors were extremely opposed to the creation of the nhs.

“There is no political system in the world that could have delivered our current level of infant mortality to those in 1914. We weren’t as rich and we didn’t have all the technology we have now.”

we weren’t as rich?

in 1914 britain was the global cetre of payments and a creditor nation. it was richer then than it is now.

“…our prosperity right now is, in part, due to the role that relatively free markets have played in the past.”

free markets within a colonial empire.

I think many gay people might beg to differ: the aforementioned Clause 28. And surely the health campaigns New Labour are currently obssessed with began with the (legitimate) AIDS iceberg ads?

Also, as a horror fan I certainly felt the iron hand of Thatcher. I could have faced fines or imprisonment for possessing material I can now pick up for £2 from Asda’s bargain bucket.

“Moreover, early car consumers could store fuel at home and carry a limited amount with them. Therefore, the early car market could lead the filling station market. The opposite will be required for electric cars.”

‘Erm, the early electric cars are to be expected to “fill up” at home overnight, surely?’

I was really talking in the context of the differences between the public infrastructure required for a national network for recharging electric cars compared to what prevailed with the early petrol cars. My point is that with distances traveled, an existing alternative., the modern network would need to lead the product market. For example, an electrical appliance goods market is not going to exist in the absence of an electrical transmission network. Historically as the transmission network evolved the product market took off. Therefore, the network led the products. This was not the case with the early car market where the products led the network.

Just for the avoidance of doubt….capitalism and “free” markets are indeed entirely different things. And if we *have* to make a choice to have only one or the other I’d go for markets and capitalism can go hang in a heartbeat.

I’m still entirely unconvinced that if you have anything even close to a “free” market in forms of organisation that you’ll end up with something all that different from what we’ve got now. Largely capitalist with a sprinkling of mutuals, partnerships and worker owned co-ops.

The same point was made further upthread. Firstly I was referreing to the *closest” thing to libertarianism I have personally exoperienced

Secondly I disagree that Thatcher was socially authoritarian – I don’t recall government campaigns at the time exhorting me to eat less salt, walk to work, have 5 fruit and veg a day etc etc. I don’t recall the government trying to micro manage my life. Thatcher was socially laissez faire, perhaps not “liberal” in the modern (Here are your “rights”, now bloody well use them) conception of the word

Thirdly, the amount of money spend by the state in 1983 as a function of GDP was probably due to the early 80s recession, de-industrilaisation and very high umeployment, and low GDP In effect it was a hangover from the last lab govts ecomonic mess. If you look at what happened between 83 and 97 when the Tories handed nulabour low unemployment, a current account surplus and a balance of trade that balanced, it gives a more balanced picture.

For example I know that, in the industry in which I operate, there is widespread price fixing (completely unlawful under the Competition Act) but the OFT completely ignore it, despite specific evidence.

That would be the building industry, would it?

[52] Capitalism is not defined by the employment of wage labour. Capitalist enterprises can exist in non-capitalist systems. Remember Lenin’s New Economic Policy?

[53] To the extent that A has more property than B, and a major function of the police is the protection of property rights, then, yes, the rich do benefit more from the police than the poor. To the extent that the other major function of the police is the prevention and detection of crimes against the person, everyone benefits equally. If you did not know this before you read a particular book/website then I can only suppose you must have been fast asleep. Indeed, if I were to be told that many of the posts on this thread had been written by sleepwalking undergraduates, I should not be at all surprised.

When Gordon Brown and Victor Blank did their deal on HBOS we got the worst of all worlds and anyone interested in the real world effect of monopoly banking on business should have a read here.

http://www.ianfraser.org/?p=910

But for example, with power generation: sure the Grid is a natural monopoly. But power generation isn’t. Which is why one is regulated and the other is a market based system.