lol-lol

Macron's Rafale is 4.85m as it has been stretched by 130 mm to give room for all the toys. Peugeot do a 325 hp 5008 which was not chosen but Rafale was for whatever reasons and French Presidents have had PSA cars, including DSs of course which many say is the coolest car ever made..... https://www.autoexpress.co.uk/citroen/101998/citroen-ds-worlds-coolest-cars

Like most, if not all taxes, they have to be collectable in that they have to be levied with an expectation they will be paid so setting the Expensive car tax which the Con party did in 2017, and by the Bank of England Inflation calculator 40k in 2017 is £54k such was inflation in the second half of the reign of the Con party in government so £54k would be the Expensive Car tax if at the 2017 level. Sounds more like it. But then the UK Balance of Payments were in such a mess from then and even now are out of kilter between Spending and Tax collection so all tweaks have to be considered in that light. The effect of the Expensive car tax has been to put RRP prices lower. One could generally haggle several percent of the new price of a car and I still think one can even after manufacturers pushed many prices down to come in under the Expensive Car tax and again further to come within the EV grant criteria. I am amazed one can get even more huge chunks off these massively downward moved prices with Blue Light type discounts but if the RRP is over £40k then extra £2k in those first 6 years has to be paid. Renault have been providing Presidential cars for over a decade. Skoda,, and especially Laurin and Klement had some very luxuries cars back pre WW1 and I loved my L&K Octavias I had, better than the VRSs I reckon. Renault GroupMore than one hundred years of history for Renault vehicl...Over the past hundred years and more, many Renault flagship vehicles have served as the official car of the French presidency. Inflation calculator | Bank of E...Inflation calculatorUse our inflation calculator to check how prices in the UK have changed over time, from 1209 to now.

Only the top of the range Scenic now in the Expensive Car band and that is down to gimmicks like the Photocromatic roof, very clever but a bit unnecessary in UK which is dark and dull for large parts of the Autumn, Winter and Spring. Its other features got it voted European Car of the Year last year and owning one i can see why. Not so sure about the Renault 5 being European Car of the Year his year. I struggled to get in the back at 6'1" so I think you probably would not even attempt it. Would expect the £40k to nudge up by a grand or two soon but with EV batteries dropping from about $50 per kwh down to half of that in tge next year or two, with the move to LFP and sodium chemistry even the mega expensive Audis, BMWs and Mercs might get closer on their smaller models.

Absolutely on point 2, whack an extra charge on electricity used in the 1600 to 1900 time on weekdays and upon everyone whilst charging or at Home, when expensive Peaker plants are being used to reflect their true cost. Difficulty is for families with young children who are goung to have tea time then, may older folk too, might need some sort of special rate for them or increased Child Benefit I suppose.

One of reason i choose the smaller battery Scenic that it was under the £40k luxury car tax band. EV RRP have been falling like stones and now so many EVs are under the £40k and even the £37K RRP and with Blue Light type discount and the EV Grants can be well under £30k to actually buy ! I have no problem paying £200 a year Road Tax from next year when it kicks in for EVs after many EV owners did the "retaxing" in Q1 2025 which pushed the relaxing date to Q1 2026. Quite a few caught out with the luxury car tax it sounds. Thought they got a few grand off and brought it under £40k only to find out it was the RRP that counted not the price they paid. Tesla soon to launch stripped out 3s and Ys to get under the £40k RRP. They looked stripped out already so one wonders how basic they are ongoing to be and how small batteries. LFP batteries certainly, maybe even some Sodium ones at some point ?

With Plug in Hybrids being a popular choice currently it is looking like Fuel Duty has got a couple of decades of significant uk government income stream. With our Clio hybrid, non Plug in, it was great in some circumstances ie lightly throttle, using EV mode even at motorway speeds and doing up to 80 mpg. In colder conditions, these hybrids rarely have Heat Pumps it seems so have to rely on getting jacket water up to temp i think it's mpg was actually worse than the one litre pure ICE variant. Will be interesting to hear the backlash when PHEVs starting getting stung from next year, could ge similar to the Diesel backlash of a few years ago. But more revenue for tge government when PHEVs start paying a more accurate figure for their level of pollution based on the Euro 6e BIS standard, plus an inflation matching hike for all of us, including EV VED and an inflationary rise in Fuel Duty may well be on the cards it would be logical to assume.

Times how many vehicles, about 40M is it ? Some vehicles pay thousands in road tax, cars and trucks ! EV trucks starting to pay road tax as well I presume.

If, as I predict, there would be much more use of A, B, C, D and even E class roads rather than motorways the death and injuries would go up a lot due to that policy as these roads are less safe than motorways. Having been in these sorts of government meetings I am sure they are considering lots of the angles. Just jacking up VED to £200, £220 pa or so is much simpler i reckon.

We are due to start paying road tax same as ICE cars but taxing "usage" is going to be a tough one to implement. More EVs using country roads rather than motorways could be a consequence of pay per mile. Have not heard any detailed rumblings of policy on pay pet mile for all cars as I expect government will not want to derail its move to cleaner transport. I will be interested to see if fuel duty rises with inflation. I already know my Night time charging rate is unlikely to change this year and it has been the 8.5p per kwh for a couple of years now and even opened up from 4 hours to 5 hours with Octopus. VAT at 5% from tge wallboxes same as the household supply of course. A few extra billion need for the government but the Fiscal Drag of not upping the tax bands as well as new taxes such as CBAM should bring in extra revenue. Not car related but the starting level for paying tax should be raised to £13k pa i reckon though I gather it is possible to get £5k of savings interest tax free if one income is under £12.57k pa, all so complex !

Importantly the revenue from diesel and petrol has stayed fairly flat. 2022 was Covid time so not a normal time for fuel usage, particularly petrol which passenger cars are increasingly using and reducing diesel usage form trucks is only starting to get going with Electric Trucks starting to make inroads on which fuel type used. The circa £25B being collected on fuel duty per year will need replacing eventually. As I have said the EU and UK are probably both happy that hybrids, particularly Plug in ones, are proving popular as well as BEVs with the VAT on those sales and leases as they are expensive and still will consume petrol and pay taxes on that too. Not sure plug in hybrid drivers know that the new Emissions regs will treble the taxes on them ie Euro 6e BIS.... These ridiculous figures of 700 mpg and 10 gm/km CO2 will be swept away and PHEVs which use on average 350% more fuel than adverts say. See attached....... Legislation to reduce impact of...Legislation to reduce impact of new emissions test on PHE...The legislation will reduce the impact of a new, stricter emissions test for plug-in hybrid electric vehicles from 2026-28. PHEV-report-May-2024.pdf

Most Renaults have had 22 kw charging capability but I gather this is being lost and going down to 11 kw due to the adoption of V2L capability. I have used 16 kw as well as 11 kw but rarely found 22 kw that actually gives 22 even when labeled as such. I have found AC quite difficult, or impossible sometimes to initiate and i am not always sure why it fails ie payment or the car setup. But DC just seems to start right away as soon as it plugs in and that is great. Hopefully will have a portable generator at sometime to work from home and to take with me for charging the EVs. Technology moving at such a pace.

Petrol retailers doubling their margin on diesel and petrol sales it seems. Oil has been around $65 a barrel, which is 159 litres from memory, for many months. Maybe petrol retailers upping their margin as they sell less as more and more go over to EVs ? Maybe upping it so UK Chancellor less likely to remove the 5p Covid reduction or raise Excise duty on fuel by inflation ? More VAT collected on the higher price for the retail sale of course which will help the government coffers. Interesting market dynamics. For EVs drivers the overnight charging cost stayed fixed on Octopus GO and IOG (I presume) ie 8.5p per kwh making energy costs still around 2p per mile so one can see the increasing attraction of going EV as well as the several other incentives...... Petrol stations have been accused of overcharging drivers after the competition watchdog reported a sharp rise in fuel profit margins. The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) stated that retailers are now taking a significantly larger share of fuel spending than in the past, with profits on every £1 spent more than doubling at some supermarkets and rising substantially at other forecourts. Luke Bosdet of the AA said drivers are “still being ripped off at the pumps” while struggling with tight household budgets. He pointed to a “postcode lottery” in fuel prices, where neighbouring towns often see large differences, with many areas paying far more than others. According to the CMA, supermarket fuel margins averaged between 8% and 9.1% in the three months to June. That is up from 4% in 2017 and slightly higher than the 7.9% to 8.3% seen in the first three months of this year. Non-supermarket petrol stations made profits of 9.9% to 10.6% on fuel sales in the three months to June, compared with 6.4% in 2017. This means drivers are now paying about 10p from every £1 spent on fuel directly to retailers, up from just 4p eight years ago. Share TalkUK Petrol stations under fire for ‘ripping off’ driversShare via: Facebook X LinkedIn WhatsApp Pocket Messenger Copy Link Telegram Email More Petrol stations have been accused of overcharging drivers after the competition watchdog reported a sharp rise...

High price, was on Dartmoor last weekend, several of the chargers round there £1.08 per kwh, now that pricey and that was on slow, not fast, AC chargers. Place is a desert for EV chargers, 365 square miles with almost no chargers. I dropped down in to Plymouth where there were 12 fab Gridserve chargers at the new M&S site on Crown Hill, so not so hard to drop down from The Moors down to there. Yes 79p per kwh but just charged from 24% to 90% and it cost less than £32 which is about half what I would pay for three quarters a tank of gas. Thinking of both a Griserve and an Ionity card when I retire in a few weeks and do more travelling. Of course I would still hope to do 96% of charging at home or at a relatives and pay them so we both gain ie I pay them better than 30p a kwh so they make money and I save money. Consolidation needed in the Public charging area in the UK. More than 85k chargers but just too many providers. There needs to be mergers. Mer look good but locally they have been vandalised ie robbed of their cables like thousands of other chargers and operator seems reluctant to repair until measures are taken to stop it happening again ie security systems, armored cable or whatever. Backed by Norwegian oil wealth fund so they have the resources but don't think they will repair until confident it is unlikely to happen again. Ionity rolling out some new locations and particularly looking forward to the one at Hardwicke Gloucester plus several others. Smart in putting them near Maccy Dees where there is 24/7 activity and cameras and less chance ie more risk for thieves and vandals attaking the charging infrastructure.... EV PoweredExtra to boost motorway sites with nearly 200 new Ionity...Motorway service operator Extra MSA plans to almost quadruple its EV charging provision within the next 16 months.

Ionity doing a couple of subscriptions which effectively pay for themselves in 1 or two charges..... I likkme their chargers and they are rolling out more location. Magor near Newport Gwent is good and Gloucester coming soon. Cannot beat Gridserve for performance and location and although not cheap the occasional £30 of charge is not killing me but my Scenic only has the smaller 60 or so kwh battery and I only charge to 90% as it slowed down to 30 kws then. IONITY – Flexible EV charging su...IONITY – Flexible EV charging subscriptions at fair ratesCharge more. Pay less. With IONITY Subscriptions. Sign up now via the IONITY app and pay 30% less for the first month. Save when charging your EV at over 700 fast charging stations across Europe. F...

With car sales it seems to be quarterly sales and the manufacturers tweak their finance deals to tru and make a profit. Renault have redone theirs for Q3 and their interest rates went up even though central bank rates dropped in Europe and UK. Manufacturers and dealers can make more money on the finance side than the car selling and then count on making significant money on servicing and various repairing contracts whilst the car is being used. Car manufacturing had been a very tough place and margins low or negative but it had been so important for every job manufacturing there us another 3 or 4 in the tier 1, 2 suppliers and of course companies like mine doing the national and international logistics. We have lots of premium car makers and Nissan and Toyota cars plus Stellantis van manufacture so not small but smaller than Germany, Spain and France. Big part of jobs and export earners and these cyber attack is not helping in either regard !

I like my local Renault dealership called Startin and when i deal with them I drive the best deal I can but also want to see they have a margin and continue to survive. Pleased with the sales side as I have a good relationship with one of the sales guys but I am buying a new car off them each year as I run two and my lad had a Clio recently. Would be odd if they go the same way as the Mini dealer who just gets £500 Agency handling fee for selling a new car and no percentage margin. They did a good job and aiming to get the second hand trade in and make a better margin there i reckon. Oddly Startin , biggish group here in West Midlands, is losing the Skoda dealership which they have had for many a year though I did not rate the sales staff myself, and they are getting the Nissan dealership. Whilst Nissan appear to be in a huge reorganising I hope, as a UK citizen, that they are successful so Sunderland can flourish. Nissan and Renault are cousin companies ofcourse along with Mitsuishi and Samsung cars. Last two European cars of the year ie 2024 and 2025 is helping keep this Europan brand going against the Chinese onslaught, albeit the Dacia Spring is Chinese made as is the Mini. For us consumers the price of EVs just gets lower and lower due to the batteries becoming about 20% cheaper year on year. Good for the buying, or PCP of, though slightly annoying that when you buy something today it is much cheaper tomorrow. Reverse to ICE cars when I could by a Octavia VRS for about £17k a decade and a half ago and now they are closer to 3 times the price !

Human mistake like getting magnetic fields and microwaves mixed up. Make haste proclamation, regret at leisure. The Mini insurance went down loads compared to the hybrid Clio. Probably as much to do with readjustment after the post covid spike but going from 145 to 185 hp and a more expensive car but insurance from petrol hybrid to EV almost halved. Nice. Offsets the higher PCP payments with the cheaper insurance, fuel costs and cheaper servicing !

I think it is more about the calendar year and 28% of sales EV mandate hence the best EV deals are inQ4 of the year.

The special discount of 3 times the "normal" discount, usually about 5% but sometime a bit more when dealers need to sell a few more to hit the next target level and tap in to another 1 or 2 % themselves has been there are long as I have been buying new ie over 30 years ago when I bought my Skoda Felecia, before VW even fully owned Skoda. Always been like this, not really different today. Car companies like Ford and GM have mega discounts, particularly to fleet buying companies. Skoda did the great "we pay the VAT" deals about 20 years ago, mega deal for mega cars ie TSI VRSs. What I was talking to the dealer Renault dealer was this "Blue Light" type discount, 3 times the normal discount because of that one is, or was, a certain occupation. I am being offered this due to being CSMA member ie ex Civil Servant. Only downside is not getting the 0% finance but that is fine as I am due to get my retirement lump sum soon. I don't know the dealer psychology of offering certain segment of UK society much more discount but it is quite a wide industry thing, more so by European car makers than Korea or Japanese firms maybe ? Just happy to get it, free metallic paint as well as the hyper discount !! Probably applies to ICE as well as EVs but EV was the only option I wanted.

It is effectively a small part of what would collected in the 20% of the VAT. Government still collects load of tax on new car sales.

Frankly I don't care what type of sale it is as long ad it gets another EV on to the market. Schemes such as Salary Sactlrifice for EVs have helped deliver many thousands of EV registrations in line with the previous government's aims as well as this one. The penalties for not hitting the 28% of all sales being EVs are very severe so they will take cars on as demos etc to hit the Reg target. Second hand cars offer additional sources of profit for dealerships and car sales Agencies. 2nd hand cars are usually sold with higher rates of finance and dealers would make more money in that way. I was at the dealers on Friday organising the replacement for the Zoe and the Megane-e looks a logical replacement. Renault offering 4 years interest free and a proce thousands less than they were 2 or 3 years ago. Then add in the UK government grant. Wow what a deal. Chatting around all sorts of stuff and then somehow occupation, motoring organisational discounts cropped up. Oh my God. I was looking at getting 5 or maybe 6 %. With Occupational discount stuff, boom, 20%, saves extra thousands. EV sales, getting on the UK market by various routes, does not bother the UK government or those of use supporting EV adoption and whilst fellow Worcester people ie Geoff buys cars, blow hot over it most are not concerned. As long ad there is not fraud over the EV scheme, think there was reportedly quite a bit in PRC, not bothered and great for getting more EVs out there.

About a decade late on the expose. China uses mostly LFP batteries now, Europe gradually catching on a wave of LFP batteried cars come to the market which are much cheaper than Lithium EVs and ICE.

EY report on EV sales around the world...... China surging ahead, Europe licking along at a good pace US moving towards EVs but at a much slower pace...........

Local BMW dealer charged our Cooper E to almost full 10p % charge when we picked it up but guide seems to say 80 % charge "normally" but I have noticed that 80 % had dropped from being 145 miles to closer to 135 miles as the temp is dropping down to 10c at night. Neighbour opposite has a BMW X1 3 something, supposedly equivalent to a 3 litre ICE, but he seems to be under impression that regikarly charging to 90% is ok. Thinking of setting car to 90 % if it drops much further. Also was going to look in to if car could / should to second phase of charging at noon as my lad sets of at 1pm so battery and cabin pep just before leaving might help. He is only doing about 80 miles from Worcester to Gloucester recovery day but the spare range is dwindling as weather gets colder and if he gas to do a diversion if M5 up the creek. He is not very switched on with hypermiling. There is a software up date waiting to be run I see which changes tge setup so it can start in Green Eco mode whereas before it started in Core mode and you had to set it from Core to Green after starting off. Still quite nippy in Green I expect not like my Zoe which is like an petrol car with two plug leads pulled off when in Eco. Scenic is good in Eco as can do 72 moh indicated so a good licence saver. Mini will do 100 indicated even in Green mode I gather abd get there respectably quickly. Still loving the Mini as it is so fun one can forgive it the limited range.

Hi George, Does your Mini's range start dropping when temperature starts to go below 15c ? We find mileage prediction range very good. Do you charge to 80, 85, 90, 95 or 100 % summer or winter or same ?