lol-lol

You forgot about science degrees being better than arts degree. I am very sad as I only got a 3.5% pay rise and therefore have a big argument coming up when inflation hit nearly 10% in a few months time and I feel the need to go back to my employer to keep wage inflation closer to actual inflation. Might have more time on my hands soon if we cannot agree a new deal !

Just wanting people to know what legal schemes are out there and if one wants to put an end to them then vote the right (not-right) way in two weeks time. Oh and I would like to thank the people who voted for BREXIT which has given people who work in customs such a massive increase in work to do but every cloud......

Those of us who have seen a vast amount of history know there is rarely anything new and this Ukrainian war slow down on the roads is a repeat of what we saw with the introduction of the Double-nickel in the US in the early seventies where a Federal law was introduced to override state speed limits and save oil as back then it was fear that a few Arab/Middle Eastern countries were starting to hold The West to ransom. Lots on this if one looks... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Maximum_Speed_Law Saved thousands of lives in RTAs and along with Carter's EPA minimum fuel consumption figures for cars, else the manufacturer paid huge fines, MPG started to improve. It is still tragically low with thermal efficiencies still not even 50% and with the switch in investment now to battery, maybe hydrogen, doubt it will ever reach 50% now. Car could have an aero drag coefficient of less than 0.2 and could weight more like half a ton rather than a ton and a half but governments never were brave enough to push it through and now it is too late. ICE cars are in their death-throws and quite rightly with the death toll of millions that can be put down to their pollution.

I paid over £1,600 in income tax and NI this month alone, I think I am paying my bit plus some !! Avoidance schemes are legal and facilitated by HMRC and have massive side benefits to society not just the individual ie result in investment in business via the pension investments ! Millions of jobs depend on future investment.

The UK tax law is what it is, substantially engineered to keep the wealthy being wealthy but it is also has to be implementable. My both my London offices have car charging points, over 20 AC outlets, fairly lower powered, but no way of metering who is using how much electricity from any individual charge point. So one get quite a few thousands pounds in car allowance through payroll but that is taxed at hugely with the income tax and NI which has never been higher than it is now for most workers and one is entitled to claim the difference in the 45p per mile up to the first 10,000 miles, 25p after 10k miles, with the pence per mile one claims. I claim nothing as I have a fuel card so I am entitled to claim the tax relief on the 45p per mile difference which is a mere 9 pence if, in the tax year, I am in the 20% tax on income bracket or 40% for higher tax bracket and this works by raising my tax code by say, £4,500 so I do not start to pay income tax until I cross £17K and do not enter the 40% tax band until £54.570. Electricity is still not technically classed as a fuel and until HMRC, who I worked for for many years and I have worked in UK and EU indirect tax avoidance for more than 3 decade. Worked as an auditor and even lead prosecuting officer in some cases with HMCE, as was. Biggest tax avoidance scheme personally is still the avoidance of PAYE income tax and the old and new NI level is the diverting of up to £40k per year in to pension fund up to ones £1.1M lifetime allowance. All approved, published and done in plain sight of HMRC. Everything is tax eventually, it is just putting off the date and reducing the impact. Sunak knows all about such measures and has used them himself.

But good for triggering wheelies on motorbikes.

The UK has a National Grid and has quite a large scale pump storage hydro-electric 9 GWh storage and 1.73 GW release in the Dinorwig station and it is quite reasonable to consider, always helped me get through my Science BSc, OND in Mech Eng to think of electricity as water, Volts as height, Amps as mass throughput when these EV chargers are connected to the Grid, sometimes via massive local lithium batteries of several MWh like with GRIDSERVE yes it is one common system and one electron going in from Drax in going in to the system just as an electron from nuclear power station in France or a solar panel in England or offshore wind turbine off the coast of Scotland is all going in to the UK Grid Pool. To me, who also generate my own electricity for my own use via solar, or family members who generate for Feed In Tariff to The Grid, it is just about making it carbon free, using 100% renewable, from the electricity pool as a net carbon zero and as an added bonus having much lower running costs than fossil fuelled vehicle as well as not polluting our fragile planet.

100% certified by Ofgem is just that. Drive an EV and use renewable lecky at home to stop sending over one billion Euros a day that buying fuel and natural gas is currently doing. Slowing down in ones fossil fuel car only slows the cash to Russia and slowing down has been more than wiped out by the recent rise in crude oil and natural gas price rise. Think I heard the number of nearly 10 billion Euros extra Russia is getting with the value rises in April alone !! https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/russia-expects-earn-96-bln-more-april-due-high-oil-prices-2022-04-05/

I would utterly taken aback if any of the EV charge companies listed about use anything but certified 100% renewable energy as do Octopus for their home or business electricity supply and that includes:- Ionity, which is part owned by the marques of cars you have ie VW and Skoda, I recall, is certified 100% renewable energy. Even Shell, that super big mega profit making from its oil goods, they also certify that the electricity on their Re-charge network is 100% certified renewable according to its website and would expect the same is true for all Octopus electric juice partners. With IONIC I get 5% discount off the price of the energy and it is then put on to my subsequent household energy bill. That is a better percentage than the Allstar fuel card I have which buys the fuel at a few pence less than the retail price shown at the pumps but the bigger saving to me is that I only pay 20% of the cost of fuel as a Benefit in Kind so fuel is only about 35p a litre to me bought. I tried to get a company fuel/electricity card but could not wangle it but still use the EV when I can due to wanting to pollute less and at my Heathrow office the charge is completely free to me which is the best sourcing of "fuel" to do those road miles and then still claim the 45p tax relief of course as I get no mileage claim provision just the fuel card and car allowance. My colleagues are "fuming", pun intended, as the 45p a mile HM Treasury allowance is now nowhere near covering their motoring costs in the Cost of Living crisis. Nice to be both green and very cost efficient currently !

Got my Octopus Electric Juice card arrive in the post today and it covers the following charging networks at our below and certainly Octopus and I would have thought any company that Octopus would partner with it would have to be electricity from renewable power so whether at home or on the road I will be using renewable power so the only sources I have to be concerned about is charging at my works or if I charge up at a clients chargers.

Of course EVs should still be allowed to drive at 77 mph or whatever is the old limit plus tolerance

I am looking forward to plugging in the Zoe and getting 22 kwh and smirking at the other users. Q43 Zoes are rare and they can get the 43 kWh ac.

Little bit more info and talk with project leader...

Thanks but just cannot find it. There is a Huawei App gallery that looks like an App centre but not sure that that is it. I have put ABRP on my Huawei P40 5G and my work Huawei which is the older 20 model but that one is still allowed to access Google Apps store so all good but I will be going back to Samsung in a few months, S21 or S22 I reckon depending on the deal. Fabia has Android Auto and Zoe is real time Google maps displayed, the old Clio is an old 2014 NAV S edition so will stick with phone in cradle with either ABRP or Google Maps running hoping to catch that developing traffic block we all fear (extra hour on the M40 a few days ago). Ta

The ABRP does work with some very high (verging on illegal ?) assumed cruising speed. It reckons I can do my 121 miles from Worcester to Heathrow I do as my occasional trip to that one of my offices and reckons, without traffic, I could do it in 1 hour 57 minutes ! Wow, best I have done is about 2 and a quarter hours as although about 90% is motorway there is a mile before I can get on the M5 this end and about 5 miles of 40 mph at the Heathrow end with lights and roundabouts so averaging 25 mph for that last 5 miles is some achievement I would say ie it takes 12 minutes to do that bit so just trawling if I can set the software to do say 90% of the speed limit rather than the full speed limit.

Gloucester services, like Forest Green Rovers and the Stroud area of frowning on those humans that eat other animals. Gloucester is a "Farm" service, the biulding half buried in soil to keep the heat in. Spend £30 on the food and get 10p of a litre of fuel, not that they want you using fuel as it is un ecological of course. Upgrade EV charge stations bit of an improvement. Four lead to each EV charger. Really ? ELECTRIC VEHICLES There are two Gridserve machines at Northbound and Southbound, with four leads to each machine. Contactless payment accepted at all machines.

Thanks. Could not find WattsUP but found ABRP and uploaded it. Seems to think I am want to drive at about 75/80 mph ie start at 90%, burn through 70% of my fuel in just over 100 miles, have a 20 minute charge up to 50% and arrive in York with 10%. Needs a bit of personal tailoring I think but does look good so thanks for this. With a newish Huawei that cannot use Google Play this is rare good news to use a popular App !

If diesel is very short next weekend I might need to make my first super long journey between Worcester and York but I cannot see any decent bank of CCS Chargers anywhere on the normal route so unless I go via Rugby, bit of a diversion as I would normally do the M42/A42 to Nottingham else it will be relying on the sad parings of GRIDSERVE or occasional INSTAVOLT charger which is somewhat scary. Recommend any tools in addition to ZAP map to find out if there are any nice banks of CCS opening up in the last few days I have not heard about ?

Not far from there is a beautiful Coffee, Tea and cafe place called The Leaf and Ground at Dursley, Glos which EV drivers picking to cruise along the A38 at 50/55 rather than the M5 at 60/65 in ECO mode is sometime preferable. Chargers are free to guests, much nicer than 50p a kWh on the Motorway and I think both posts are genuine 16 KWh post so and nice hour stop for some for gets a another 75/80 miles in the summer enough to get home to Worcester or down to Devon with plenty of margin. Not cheap grub but very goods quality IMO.

Program was a bit lightweight IMO, could have been so much better.

The lady goes to several 22 kWh charger, all look like AC ones and I have never heard of a 22 kWh DC charger but she witters on about plugging in to these chargers but does not seem to work out that she is only getting 7 kWh out of any of these, oh dear. Not to good at maths and not even ready the spec of the car she is testing or perhaps understanding what these specification means ie 7.4 kWh onboard charger means that is your limit of what you will get from that AC charger. Be interesting to try and explain single phase and 3 phase electricity to her. This is one of the problems with Youtube I suppose that you do not need any qualification, GCSE Physics or anything to make such videos or at least run it past someone with a half decent level of technical knowledge so you do not look a muppet and mis lead potential buyers.

Charge more per KWh for the AC chargers and more again for ultra rapid ones is already a plan adopted by some charge companies. The AC chargers cost more to install, consume more power per kWh to supply DC compared to the AC which is straight through to the vehicle. Free destination chargers is you want to encourage shoppers ie for the 7 kWh and then progressively more for the high powered DC units. This will encourage us Zoe owners to sup up the cheaper 22 kWh points rather than occupy a DC one where we are only going to get 45 kWh at best, probably closer to 22 kW when we are charging between 5% and 20% and 80% and 100% when the car throttle the power take up anyways.

Some very good points, the massive growth ie doubling of the Model 3 in about 6 months and no real increase in the Tesla Supercharger network I reckon will cause EV drivers to look more favourably at non Tesla purchases. The new GRIDSERVE station at Exeter Services have made me think that the near 200 mile journey from Worcester to Plymouth is on in the little Zoe though at holiday times it could get rammed I expect. Hope they keep the 22 kW AC charge posts if all the CCSs are being used. GRIDSERVE a bit rubbish in Scotland for some reason.

Top speed over 160 mph and sub 4 second 0-60 and a standing quarter in less than 12 seconds.................. Please post any detailed tests here for us EV fans to share of this amazing German/Italian challenging product.