lol-lol

Here in leafy Worcester Warndon Villages sweet suburbia I would say it seems about half the houses solar panels on the roofs, some even on NW,N or NE facing, how does that work out ? Some good (ie bad) solar sale persons there. Impossible to tell how many have home batteries coupled with their solar. We need a good long power cut to see who is lit up like Crystal Palace and who is on candles. (even more dangerous than batteries I would be reckoning?) EVs between 1 and 3 per household, the odd ICE dinosaur juice car still around sadly, waking the neighbours when starting off. Not like my Jean Michelle Jarre singing car. Love Skoda advert..... Same geniuses who did the fantastic VW adverts of the last decades past it seems.....

It is home generation that is surging as this recent report states. More than 1.5 million households in the UK have solar panels, according to the latest government data. That means 5.5% of the UK’s 28.6 million households have gone solar. As recently as December 2020, fewer than a million UK homes had solar panels – which shows how far we've come in relatively little time...... More than 1.5 million households in the UK have solar panels, according to the latest government data. That means 5.5% of the UK’s 28.6 million households have gone solar. As recently as December 2020, fewer than a million UK homes had solar panels – which shows how far we've come in relatively little time..... South West England has the highest percentage of homes with solar panels, as you can see in the map below. 8.5% of households in the South West have gone solar, which puts the region well ahead of its closest competitors. Wales is second with 7.2%, just ahead of the East of England on 6.7%. Wales is also the most enthusiastic about solar of the four UK nations, ahead of England on 5.2%, Scotland on 5%, and Northern Ireland on 3.8%. How many homes have solar panels...How many homes have solar panels in the UK? [2025]Here's how many homes have solar panels in the UK, which areas have the most, and how the UK compares with Europe.

We know how the electricity supply to residential works via Octopus's Agile tariff which tracks the market and sometimes goes very low, zero and even negative. We know that almost £1B of electricity gas been lost by switching off generating sources. It's cheaper to give away this power than actually get the generators to stand down and then power backup again when the next peak occurs. Octopus customers, and other electricity suppliers, can pass on power and not charge customers and everyone benefits. Greg Jackson has been asked to work with UK government to improve the UK' electricity supply even more than the revolution he fas already implemented.

Looks like the long battery warranty and after market issues must be meet not just clean production Renault etc will need to up their warranty to what it was, if worth adding that and it is less of a cost than getting the extra 2250 EV grant.

Completely wrong. Free Electricity sessions occur when a combination of good wind in the North Sea and UK solar means it price drops to zero or below so Octopus can give electricity away without financial cost to themselves..

Hour of Free Charging today between 2 and 3. I was at the Cricket watching worcestercestershire stuffing Zummerset. Watched by free charging going in to the EV at the cricket. And tomorrow wr are going to do it all again with another hour of Free Charging. Is the something similar with ICE cars ?? Car filling itself with diesel or petrol when one is miles away from the vehicle ? One day maybe one we have robot drivers doing the filling but not Free Fuel I suppose. Have to give robot one's credit card but no different to out it on smartphones !

Well done. Hopefully cheap night time charging will stay for many quarters and years to come. We do need some wallies to buy ICE cars, the hybrid con cars too so they keep paying the excise duty and VAT on diesel and petrol to keep up as far as possible that £25B a year taxation contribution. Hopefully with more and more solar and wind coming onboard for the UK, plus the nuclear, wr will enjoy cheap electricity so we can fill up our vehicles for about a fiver rather than £75. Relaxing driving, traffic light bursting off the lines and the cheaper running costs all great.

Not that I know of as it is mainly FTSE 100 and Gilts ie UK government debt. One can find the recent half yearly hear.... https://www.volkswagen-group.com/en/financial-reports-18134# Other numbers quote 52,000 workers to go. Tough for all the European car companies of course against the Chinese impetus with EVs and EU Anti Dumping Duty providing some protection and one wonders if that is needed for hybrids as well at some point so ie similar levels of customs and ADD to protect that European sector too. Volkswagen Says 20,000 Workers A...Volkswagen Says 20,000 Workers Agree to Early Departures (2)Volkswagen AG said about 20,000 employees will voluntarily leave the company by the end of the decade as the carmaker restructures its German operations to cope with uneven demand for its vehicles.

I worry that SEAT and Skoda could go down with VW.

This is the guy i listen too..... https://www.youtube.com/@wgowshipping/featured He just sounds credible and balanced by me, someone who worked at sea on merchant vessels and has been dealing with car transporters in to Immingham and other ports. EV fires on vessels is probably about 1% or less of maritime mercantile issues. The Red Sea lack of safety is a massive issue and the extra long routes between SE Asia and Europe ie going down and round South Africa and the consequences of that for costs to importers and those few exporters sending goods the other way. We have already brought on line 4 of these 7,000 car transporters and much of the new tech is in early detection of fires and dealing with them ASAP, much easier to deal with one small localized fire than a deck full of course, that area I am seeing coming on leaps and bounds. EV risk would have to many many times greater to get even close to the catastrophes related to carrying oil. There are hundreds of massive maritime oil pollution disasters and end to think of the Torrey Canyon. Sooner EVs and other methods replace any need to move oil, gas or coal I will sleep better....... Occasional EV car carrier incidents, which I expect to diminish due to better tech are as nothing compared to the problems with oil tanker ships !! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torrey_Canyon_oil_spill https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_oil_spills https://www.youtube.com/@wgowshipping/videos

Fire fighting at sea is very specific and take i these click bait videos with handfuls of salt. There is a huge technical challenge as whole length of the ship decks for loading the cars on to is the norm and has been for decades. Our Indianapolis class car carriers, including the Silverstone commissioned a few weeks ago, has 12 separate decks and multiple fire fighting systems. Being a trained at sea fire fighter, trained in marine engineering, naval architecture, sea survival i would give some credibility to such videos if he listed his actual credentials at some point in the videos. There is a guy who I do listen to and it's not this guy. I expect there will be review of these fires on these smaller vessels and lessons learned as fire fighting at sea, like on land dies evolve. CO2 flooding of compartments has long been one of the main tools but there are even newer and more effective systems now. I'll post the name of the guy I reckon to be more qualified to comment when I find his details.

My employer moves more finished cars than any other i gather and we gave been launching very big car carriers. 7,000 car carrying capacity, LNG fuel usage to be greener. Latest fire fighting systems. BYD getting big in the car carrier business with similar sized carriers. Car carriers I have read about seem to be the older and smaller carriers. Don't think there will be any problem bringing the every growing amount of full EVs and hybrids with ever bigger batteries, lithium ion or LFP. We have extensive lithium battery handling process both for storage and if any runway does occur both at sea and in the just in time supply chain for the production lines here in the UK and numerous other countries.

Not phased by the MG reliability placing in recent surveys ? Hopefully you have a good one and MG do right by you if it needs anything !

Shout out to Cord-EV. Ordered an nice 10M 22 Kw,3 phase therefore cable in the lovely pus colour as shown below. Sadly the ran out of pus so I got one with white ends. Weighs a bit mind you as I think there is a fair old bit of copper in there. Good bit was the price, a bagatelle at £89 including the VAT. Nice lady phoned to apologies I was not getting the stunning colour below but all good at that price ! Can now charge a car behind the two on the drive nearest the house so no more shuffling the car to the front pairing now ! https://www.cord-ev.com/ev-cables-portable-ev-chargers.html

Damn, cannot have both, shame. R4 just arrived at local Renault. Would have opted for 40 kwh LFP but not confirmed it is coming to uk. Only getting the £1500 off so far notified. I think Renault miffed that they might only get the 1500 when cousin company Nissan might get the full 3750, looks a bit of a fix up to favour uk made EVs.

I would just be wary of this new surge for plug in PHEVs. One might say twice as much to go wrong but I would say 4 times as much to go wrong. Our Clio non plug hybrid went in to control system melt down just as RAC charged a tyre. Hybrid system went bonkers, did not know which of the 15 modes of ICE and EV to choose. Dash lit up like a Xmas tree. Too complex for its own good. Loving the new Mini Cooper E pure EV. If Renault 4 does not work out am thinking of a 5 door cabriolet Mini for myself to go along with Scenic !

The rise of the SUV, literally and metaphorically. OK if one does not go at UK NSL and above where that aero drag really tells. I was over in Germany couple of times with a fellow employee. First time Audi A6 and then some Skoda beginning with a K. My God there was a difference in changing lanes at 220 kph (A6 felt whole heap better due to its lower CoG. One thing EVs tend to do well at as their CoG is low as those batteries are as lower as an Adder's bladder.

Kodiaq quite a dirty car according to UK VCA...... If it were a petrol car it would be near the limit of NOX. As even as a diesel a score of 57 mg/km is 71% of the maximum and that is kind lab conditions. VAG introduced the cleaner twin SCR in late 2020 to help reduce this rather high NOX figure, shame thereis not a retrofit program....

If one can then it is good for both businesses and the government ti sometimes overpay. If we all take a scrimp policy then government would not be able to afford pensions, state and public servant ones, which are paid out of the ongoing public purse and not a put aside pension fund. I want to spend money freely, pay heaps of VAT to go in to the public purse. Usually on productive items like more solar panels and batteries which can save me money but occasional luxuries especially if it is employing young people who safly will not have tge kind of life most of us in our twilight years due to the decline in the UK since WW2. Costa gave one of my daughters lots of work through here degree time. Trained Barista, oddly does not drink coffee or tea. Think it was Aldous Huxley in Brave New World who praise consumption ad necessary to keep the world economy turning and people employed and governments collecting revenue and as an ex Revenue Collector I can go with that.

Very good for a 4x4. Are you seeing over 50 mpg actually on the dash ? Roughly the Kodiaq diesel is producing 200 grams of CO2 per mile. How many miles gas it done to work out how much CO2it gas produced in its working life so far I wonder. NOX does not seem relatively bad as I have seen numbers of 26 mg per km compared to the limit of 80 for diesels rather than 60 mg for petrol cars. I had a 2 litre common rail VW diesel in an Altea XL SEAT I had. It seemed slower than the 1.9 PDs I had in Audi A4, A3 and Octavia estate L&K ans in drag races it lost. Also these 1.9 PDs did 10 to 20 mpg better with the Audi A4 capable of nearly 1000 range. These 1.9 PDs were the last diesels I thought were great to own and run. Yes they were a bit flattery but very impressive over the petrol of the time Then petrols got a lot better, turbo, direct injection and almost matching the diesels mpg but with much lower NOX pollution. Now both are outshone by EVs in running cost if one can home charge of course and the second and third hand EV market is now receiving lots of EVs thru it but not great EVs as they generally only came to market recently with possible exception of TESLAs which haven been outstanding EVs for a decade or more and Jonny Smiths £5k TESLA with free fuel for life shows an interesting options.

Did not use the quote function but I was asking what your car VED bracket is and what does that cost per year or month I was wondering ?

It is a new Costa and I would not normally pay £6 for a hot drink it was as much showing support for a new business that had opened. Was only there 11 minutes and Costa were quite slow getting the drinks. Would normally get the small option rather than the medium which is cheaper and not the mallows on top too either. Will check out the Sainsbury local next time. This new place is only 9 minutes from home and we went their to show my lad the ropes of public charging. Could have taken a hot chocolate with me in a travel cup but one needs to support a newly opened place else it will reduce its hours and staff and even disappear if not supported. Must get a Costa card to I get every tenth one free and other offers.

What is the road tax band/ cost per year for your 4x4 Kodiaq ?

Sensible - Dual motor Teslas ? Generally I am very critical of Toyota but with the latest Prius they have a little electric motor at the back, think about 10hp, to help get it moving in icy conditions. Good "sensible" thinking. I always go for the smaller battery if I can as I can general exceed the WLTP range ie I can get close to 300 miles out of my 63 Kwh Scenic, it can get most of a charge it 36 kws, is a overnight charge and we are suppose to only charge it to 80% normally of course for NMC chemistry. Mini's usable battery is 36 kwh so again can get charged from zero to full in an overnight session on that cheap lecky due to few others wanting to use the power at that time. To create cheap public it would have to be at those 11 pm to 6am currently. It will change as battery storage units are co-placed with the Public charges but there economically has to be a premium to cover the capital cost of the battery storage units. As I mentioned recently I see much more variation of charging through the day ie higher prices like my brother sees for his Heat pump system on the Octopus pricing. Have to be some warnings that prices may change during charging ie start charging at 1555 and then the price jumps up at 1600 as below. When I visit i plug in via a 3 pin plug, start charging around 1900 and unplug 7 am. Pay him a bit over the odds for what I have used, everyone's a winner. https://octopus.energy/smart/cosy-octopus/ If I did not have a drive to charge 2 or 3 cars the simple solution is to get a Public Charging subscription. Tesla, sadly its Elon of course, do some very good charge rates considering the 20% VAT rate but there are others ie Ionity, even Gridserve do something I gather. Those of us with wall home chargers have paid out for these wallboxes, one way or another, they are not freebies in a box of cereal. Those who use public charging, at that is pretty much all of us even if we use home charging 96% of the time must realize the capital cost of these units. When my company owned Source London I saw the import costs of these units, staggering. I wish AC had taken off more. Going from 3 phase AC to DC is not as efficient within these chargers and hence there is a charge for the losses of course which can be several percent. Multiple complex issues I hope you appreciate and UK government has big decisions which due to those complexities are difficult to get across in a 30 seconds news headline.

The two, or more, tier society and even where the will is there to try and redress this, rather than the Con party who wish to conserve the status quo it is difficult but things can be done and I wish the UK government would do some of them. Since the UK has left the EU over 3 years ago it then had the power to do more with VAT. So I would suggest they drop the Public charging VAT rate down to what was previous VAT rates ie 17.5%, then 15%, then 12.5% then 10% and then 8% and eventually 5% same as the home rate VAT. The problem is that charging at home, for those of us that can, uses that base level supply of GRID electricity which can be offered very cheap from about 11 PM to 6 AM in the morning. If Public charging was made much cheaper then drivers might want to charge say on the way home from work or in the evening if they go out. Home charging at levels such as 7 kws suits the Grid. Cheaper fast public charging could cause big spikes in the requested supply. A lot of Infrastructure needs to be built to handle that and we can see how little the successive Con government have lacked investment in that area as well as so many other areas. It makes one wonder how the UK got £3T in debt, Covid's £400M apart, where did all the money go.