It all depends on local conditions.

1. The “last mile” loop will be different in Europe, in Africa, North America or Australia. It shapes your need for speed and range, as well as required safety (how long will it take to get assistance in case of need).
2. In rural applications you rarely need strictly personal transport. On average it is a 2-5 people and some cargo, with occasional trailer.
3. Serviceability is an important factor.

For Eastern Europe, where I live, I would recommend a slow (~45km/h) pickup (2 + 1000kg) - the one pictured below. For extended range you can add a PV canopy and even a small gas-powered genset for emergencies.

https://www.melex-ev.com/cargo/

Hello again. Here is the updated map of our “Looking Up!” platform for education, information and inspiration towards community resilience. Pattern language is located there as an independent layer, on top of existing semantic wiki (Software stack to be determined yet). Such approach will allow us to work on it in parallel, independently for general platform development.

My suggestion is: let’s meet at cryptpd.fr (my profile link), where I already started a document collection. We can also use a matrix room, either here or at min.tepewu.pl (my address: @kanenas:min.tepewu.pl).

In few days I will be announcing our flagship project for 2024. Once it is done, I will get back to the pattern language topic (which also fits nicely as one of “legs” of the said project). Meanwhile, I am looking for other relevant resources, so we will hopefully have something to start with. Hope for your contribution, too.

I believe the answer will depend on local circumstances. The copper will always be needed - it is a matter of mix proportions. As long as we can keep the supply chain short-ish and local, we are good.

Great contribution, thank you. I am an admirer of 19th Century engineering and inventions, and it is good to have someone around, to ground me, so to speak. 😆

By your permission, I would like to tap more of your knowledge.

Would you care to provide more information?

Infrastructure

Public services - especially regarding persons with disabilities (PwD) - are being increasingly starved.

In Poland, effectively 1st of January, the caretaker support (for people not employed due to taking full time care of their disabled relatives) has been replaced with “supportive money”, much harder to obtain and in lower amount. New parliament is promising substantial rises, but there is no money in sight to back them up.

In UK, as almost 20% of municipalities warns about imminent bankruptcy, an old idea to “warehouse” PwD looms again.

So, after 3 years, did this post age well?