lol-lol

True on both counts of cost and lift, I would still have the inert over the volatile. Sadly I would probably have to buy two tickets being XXXL as like rugby players I am not even close to the 75 kgs of lifts and airships person averages...

But an airship using Helium as the lift gas rather than hydrogen and you can use some of the helium gas to do funny voices rather than get blown to bits with one chemistry's most powerful energy releases. "When one mole of hydrogen molecules (two grams) combines with half a mole of oxygen molecules (16 grams) to form one mole of water molecules (18 grams), the energy given off turns out to be 242,000 joules, assuming that the water comes out as a gas rather than as a liquid." https://physics.weber.edu/schroeder/eee/chapter4.pdf

I love my Zoe R135 Riviera. Done 3500 miles but all on home or AC chargers so not used DC 50 kW yet. Zoe is King, or Queen, of the distance smaller EVs with its 52/55 kWh battery. Doing 200 mile range now and it will soon be back to 240 miles once above 13c. If I only use a fast charger for emergency that will be fine as they are expensive and I think the probably shorten the life of the battery. Got mine for about £28k on a low rate pcp ie £284 a month on 6k a year and well chuffed.

Solid state Lithium I would prefer... Lithium

@lol-lolBetter efficiency on 60 mph coastal roads in windy conditions but the temp getting towards the teens. Still with a hot battery it takes 80 minutes to get in near 32 kWh to take the battery to 99%. My charging finished at 94% and know how the Zoe, and most other EVs charge at over the 80 or even 90% mark I will not bother to top it off tonight but leave it charge later in the week. Only showing 164 miles range for that 94% but oddly I think it would show more like 180 miles if I left it charge to 100% which on the Zoe both charges and discharges for many minutes when showing 100% as the true finish of charge is more like 103%. But I will not get proper Reg, which can give me spikes of 30 kW when I harvesting down some big hills on the M40 so happy with around 90%, that will comfortably get me to my Heathrow office on Thursday where I will get the free charge on the works chargers, hopefully not ripping the face off another one of the rather lightweight ROLEC charger. Might order another charger lead ie a 7.2 kW single phase one as a would not want my 22 kW 3 phase one captured by a non-serviced EV posts. Aiming for 4 miles per kWh, hope the temp is above 10C which will help.

Opening up the Tesla network will solve a lot of problems.

Combien de kWs ? Typical Audi driver maybe ? Long live powerful AC, 22 kws please and several times more DC. AC/DC more please. Some kind of cool filming angles here......

Overtime at time and a half or double time or some other seventies practice I expect.

Ask the sparks to give you a connection to those big genies they often have ? Not really zero emissions mind you.

Forgot - bought my Granny charger from screwfix for £130 inc VAT, 5m cable variety, works very well and used it several times when visit my offices without proper post chargers, most warehouses have external weather plugs or internal 3 pin plug near the doors and then I use a 15m orange 16A extension cable so as not to loose too many volts over the 20 meter, 66 foot length, happy days.

My car has a 22 kW onboard charger and I charge it with either the 10A 220-240 volt granny cable or my 3.6 kW wall charger. No problem. All these chargers and the car are "intelligent" and adapt during the electronic handshakes. Some Zoe's have 43 kW on board chargers but will happily charger a 2, 3.6, 7.2, 11, 16, 22 or 43 kw with their Chameleon chargers. The patented system goes in to detail in the video below but the key information is actually that with Renault it uses the same piece of electrics that supplies the motor during driving, but working backwards, to charge the 400v battery pack, hence Renaults can charge from AC faster than any other mainstream cars including Teslas. Some Zoes, like my Riviera Zoe, as 50 kW DC charging too, though its maximum charge rate is only 45 kW at most as it throttles the amperage to 125 A but as the voltage hits about 370 volts it starts to throttle back the amperage to protect the battery pack. Sadly the new EV Megane will only have a 7.4 kW AC charging so bye bye AC charging it looks like except for these little 2, 3.6 and 7 kw domestic and destination chargers.

Hoping the Gridserve rollout of both upgrading motorway services chargers and the rollout of dedicated charging stations. Along with Instavolt's network which also look pretty good. MFG are only just appearing in Worcester but I see a cluster in Bristol https://www.zap-map.com/drivers-rate-electric-vehicle-charging-networks-uk/#:~:text=In first place overall this,MFG EV Power and Osprey. I just wish more of the AC chargers were 22 kWh just in case the scant DC chargers were online or being used. Zap-Map user ratings for UK public EV charging networks

110 miles driven today in the little EV the Renault Zoe. Fully charged to 100% at the beginning of the journey on the 5p per kWh and the car showing 192 miles range, car started with miles per kWh at 3.7 so energy costs of about 1.35 pence per mile. Temperature only 7C when starting this morning as I heard North from Worcester to an RAF base north of Shrewsbury and 55 miles away. Arrived at the base with the battery state showing 78 % ! Only 22% used and miles per kWh showing 4 miles per kWh, some useful regen done on many of the downhills despite less regen available as starting at 100% as regen not fully available, some cab heating used of course using the heat pump. Even though the temperature warmed up a few degrees did not improve on the 4 miles per kWh as I gave it some real beans using the full 100 kWs of power for a few bits of dual carriageway, having some fun with some ICE cars who must be thinking just how much it is going to cost them when they fill up in a few hours or day times as they also press the throttle and wiz past the NSL after a few seconds after being forced to drive at 40 or 50 in a restricted zone with me knowing it is costing me a near insignificant amount of money to charge back up to my circa 200 mile range in a few hours or days. So arrived home showing 48% charge, took a wrong turn so ended up doing nearly 60 miles coming back to Worcester and having down about 115 miles today and using a reported 52% of the battery. Continuing to be so impressed with the Zoe. Looked at the charge network along the journey route and very poor with only a few Instavolt charges at some KFCs along the route sounding tempting as a stop over. Wind has been very strong ie 40 mph as the winter storms pass trough but do not seem to affect the weighty ie 1.6T Zoe with me and cargo being around 1.75T in total. 3k miles almost covered and looking forward to spring and hopefully climb back up from 4 towards 5 miles per kWh and close to the 240 mile quoted WLTP range. Also hoping, as yet another country's non TESLA users are allowed to start using the TESLA supercharger network as happens in France, Netherlands and Norway on some TESLA charger locations as this would help with confidence on fast charger access on the longer journeys as well as more GRIDSERVE motorway get upgraded and Exeter sounds better but still some issues with charge rates so not perfect. Roll on Plymouth dedicated Gridserve station.

Winter or summer I always try to use the EV with the only constrain being the challenge of a long journey where one does not know how good the charge network is on that journey and how good the chargers are at the destination. Monthly PCP charges are the usual outgoings or like the journalist Rorry you can buy one for as little as £4k but you will probably only get that sub 100 mile range of the early EVs or those small battery cars like the Honda. PCP cost can be less than £300 a month or all everything up cost of around £400 pm. Easily doing 600 miles a month since September and I think it is going to be hard to keep it down to 600 miles a month and I wish I had chosen 8k or 10k a year mileage but I probably will go well over the miles per year and buy the car at the end of the PCP. Cost per mile for energy is about 1.5 pence per mile so very cheap compared to diesel or petrol cars. Insurance was quite cheap for me but quite expensive to add my son. EVs, on average, do more miles per year than ICE cars. I suspect this is due to those hundreds of thousands of Teslas being bought, tramping up and down the motorways and using their supercharger network. Bjorn Nyland has mass data on driving in those cold Norwegian winters. Unlike UK there electricity costs are more stable as it is generated from hydro and not largely from gas powered generator sets. Great video of his latest 1000 km winter test. Shadow in centre of screen is a Moose he nearly ran in to...........

Apologies for later reply. As far as I can see they just bought the Play base model which sounds daft as, certainly in the UK, buyers were cajoled and convinced to go for the higher spec models with DC charging but also a host of additional safety features, Emergency Auto Braking being the main one, but lane departure and blind spot alert being other ones. The PCP payments were working out the same as the higher spec models, DC charging etc, were reckoned to be worth so much more at the end of the PCP the monthly payments were the same so one got a much better car for same money. On Autotrader the Play model is about 1% of what is on resell. Maybe a mode European mainland focused test if they bought a much more higher percentage of the Play spec rather than GT etc.

Always interesting when someone assemblies a mass of data and then brings conclusions out of it. I have liked the idea of a Mustang-e and it is a car that oft seems to be forgotten. Also not so sure about the range figures he has popped in, the ID3 a bit on the high side and the Zoe, for example, at 187 miles average, a bit on the low side for the average between summer and winter. Odd thing as a Renault salemans or perhaps ex-Renault salesman. When is there going to be a Skoda ID3 model launched ? No MGs in his spreadsheet which would have dominated several of the top positions in such a table that encompassed all current EVs. Have VW stopped selling the smaller battery ID3 as they now only list the 58 kWh and bigger and the cheapest ID3 is more expensive that the ID4 ? I am still hearing issues with both heavy energy consumption with the temperature less than 13C and heavy battery degradation in the ID 3 and 4 in the first year of ownership. https://www.volkswagen.co.uk/en/configurator.html Lands End to John O'Groats in 15 and a half hours is pretty impressive for an EV...Qickest time I can find and only 90 minutes charging, think they may having broken lockdown, not too sure what was the law then. https://www.zap-map.com/ev-charging-record-set-for-john-ogroats-to-lands-end-run/ Quickest, sure this can be broken.... https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-57777588 Impressively little charge time but took an age.. https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/114755-least-non-driving-time-from-lands-end-to-john-ogroats-in-an-electric-vehicle#:~:text=The shortest charging time from,July to 1 August 2021.

M5 has not been too bad for roadworks for several years now and average speeds in the mid sixties is no problem. Agree M6, M1, M4 and most other motorway are down in the 50s. M40 is generally quite good too where I would expect average over 60 mph, until I got to near the M25 anyways. Google maps time, considering all current motorway delays, from Worcester to Exeter Service is 132 miles in 2 hours 11 minutes. Average speed 61 miles per hour and that includes two miles of getting on to and getting off the motorway so junction to junction I would say 2 hours to do 130 miles so 65 mph average. Many drivers drive at a genuine 75 mph on their GPS where it is not restricted, knowing the police tend to set their speed equipment at 10%+2 mph on motorways etc so feel happy to run at 75 mph GPS and get their averages back in to the 60s or close to 70 mph, as long as you are not is really bad bits of motorway like the m6 between Brum and Manchester which seems to be half in the 50 mph restriction. Certainly helps with economy with my Zoe doing over 4 miles per kWh, close to 5 miles per kWh sometimes, and my petrol and diesel cars doing 60 and 70 mpg respectively. When cruising at these speeds a nice comfortable car is much more pleasant that a Clio RS/Megane-Trophy/Cupra R/Civic R Ring tool bone shaker.

We do have some speed limits in the UK due to air pollution hitting certain bad levels, in fairness these speed limits should only apply to ICE cars and the authorities should let EVs crack on at better speeds. My Zoe tops out at a measly 140 kph but here in the UK there are speed limits of 60 mph ie less than 100 kph due to pollution and I would like the right to do the 70 mph nominal on these roads as it is not be polluting and killing thousands tens of thousands of people per country per year. I can easily drive for two hours at the UK national speed limit, say cover 125 miles or so taking in to accounting get on and off the motorway itself and the huge amount of roadworks there seems to be at the moment and then pull in to a service station after that 2 hours and still have about 40% battery left and in twenty minutes add about 30% battery if it is just a wee and coffee collect break or if 40 minutes I reckon the car would be back up to about 90% ie easily enough to do another two hours at the UK NSL. What one cannot do is drive at those quick speeds of the German autobahn or probably even the French 130 kph for two hours and expect to charge up to near 100% unless one is driving a TESLA or something like an e-tron I reckon. They can add a kilometer of range every 5 seconds. If my wish to drive something clean clicked in, rather than having the Lotus Espirit 2.2 turbo I would have either a Rimac or a TESLA 100S Plaid ie the two fastest accelerating production cars currently allowed on the road. Sub 9s standing quarters.

I could actually afford to buy this, ie only went for £25k, but run it, not so sure..............

No "a" in Wetherby, maybe an aye. At least Wetherby service can serve both North and South bound traffic unlike our Strensham service which only has decent chargers North bound and a near 15 mile turnaround to the next junction ie Worcester South. Could use the Wetherby one going to York and then cut across.

One can fire up the pre-conditioning program but not if the car has less than 40% charge in the battery, whether it is on charge or not and do that from inside the car or via the phone app. Not tried it but I presume the USB ports work when one is sitting in the car even if it shuts off every few minutes. I thought I was going to get heated seats as standard in the Riviera version put did not so bought one that works via the 100w cigarette lighter and I still have another 4 other USB ports for other devices. I tend to carry other batteries ie 30000 mW power bank, a NOCO ICE battery starter and I will probably buy another seat back and bottom warmer for the other front seat and something for the back seats. We have not had a very cold winter this year in the Midlands, usually is a sting in the tail in mid February when we most commonly get some snow. I rarely go below 40% battery as use that hundred miles of range between 40 and 90% ie not below when one can use pre-condition or above that where the strong brake regen recoup works and one can get the 4 mile plus per kWh which seems to get messed up if I charge to 100% and therefore do not get significant regen and my miles per kWh stays in the 3 miles per KWh or only crawls up to 4 when I get down to 75% battery or less and regen starts to become 10, 20% or even 30% of the total energy used figure. If I did park up with less than 40%, say 30%, then I would have to wait about 12 or 13 minutes until it reached 40% as the car should charge at 45 kWh between 30% and 40% ie 5.2 kWh which should take about 8 minutes to happen so a quick run in for a wee wee and a coffee and if one had to go back to the car one could if one kicks in preconditioning when it hits the magic 40%. I think 30% or even 25% would have been would fine to allow the conditioning to start rather than 40%. It is the 12v battery that worries me quite a lot.

It was not just the thorax/head air bag was poor but under the 2021 EURONCAP they take in to account lots of other things, like whether there is a positive system to reduce injuries for pedestrians but also that EURONCAP bought the most basic model which did not have many of the measures that add stars rather than a mid range or upper range model which does have the safety extras and would have got a better score. Renault answered the zero euroncap rating within a week of when te details came out a couple of months ago....... https://www.world-today-news.com/renault-is-already-responding-to-the-zoe-debacle-in-euro-ncap-tests-worse-airbags-have-a-reason/

The most it shows is just how ridiculous the EuroNCAP system has become, The same shell was 5 star EuroNCAP 8 years ago and a apart from a questionable change to the head/thorax airbags system the Zoe ZE50, and the model most people buy ie the GT Line rather than the base model PLAY which they tested the model most people have, which they did not test, has Auto Emergency Braking and Lan Departure and my model even gets Blind Spot detection. I have written to Renault as I would like them to upgrade the head airbag to at least as good as the ZE22/ZE40 was. Renault have replied and said that the 3,000 serious accidents involving Zoes, of the 300,000 on the road, they could not find one where the old airbag would have made a substantial difference to the current one but the video is interesting in that the airbag seems slow to expand to the area where a short person sitting close to the steering wheel that there head may hit the side window being pushed inwards by the intruding pole of the pole test. Personally I sit as far as the seat will go back with my head inline with the B pillar and so does the other person who uses the car but one click less than fully back. So I wish they had tested the GT Line rather than the PLAY and that EURONCAP reported more about shell strength on real accidents that their test which does not seem to match real world accidents. The Zoe is a ten year old design due for replacement and I plan to move to a Megane which EURONCAP do not seem to have tested in 7 years, they seem to be a long way behind the curve in testing current cars. My Clio, Fabia and Zoe are all pretty much of a muchness I would reckon in a similar accident, maybe the Fabia and Zoe with auto emergency braking would have an advantage but one of my daughter rates the Clio after being hit by a 32 tonne truck on the M1 and surviving. I use to pay quite a bit of attention to EuroNCAP but no more when their rating depends so much on idiot proof gadgets rather the shell strength and airbag protection but I do hope Renault will come out with a safety recall on the head/thorax airbag to improve it to atleast as good as it was. Perhaps airbags should be mandatory replaced every si many years to make sure all the subsystems ie trigger, charge, bag integrity and all those sub components of the air bag system are working 100% or even better than new several years after the car was biult. Probably end up with a Japanese type system when cars over 7 years old cannot get an MOT and therefore be used on UK roads.

Just had my Fabia done for this recall, better (much) later than never ! Apparently the advice for cambelts have changed ie every 5 years now rather than 80,000 miles or so. Car is 65 Reg but has only done 23k miles so I think I will leave it another few months but look around for a cheap but good deal as local Skoda dealer offering £500 for just cambelt or £600 for cambelt and water pump. Who reputable does it cheaper ???

So looking forward to the Plymouth one......... It will be close to Plymouth Argyle's ground. Wonder if I could park up on a 22 kW AC whilst the match is on. Good luck to the Green Army at Chelsea tomorrow, 1230, and Worcestershire Kidderminster Harriers tomorrow at Aggborough with WHFC. http://www.plymouthchronicle.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Central-January-ad-proof-345.jpg