lol-lol

Lindsey Oil refinery in Lincolnshire goes in to administration. Lindsey supplies about 10% of UK fuel and after Grangemouth recent closure we will see if UK government props Lindsey refinery or lets it go under.......... Higher oil prices might be another boost for EV sales ?

Micra is a 4M car, LEAF is a 4.5M car different segments. Don't know about the LEAF, which is clearly a C segment car when the Micra is a B segment car but the deals then and now are far better on EVs than they were and are on ICE cars. Just comparing RRP is a false comparison. My Zoe was £34K RRP in 2021 but after numerous discounts and subsidies the bottom line is what you pay per month so my Zoe has been £280 a month and with servicing and tyres for24k miles it has cost about £500 or about a tenner a month so still way under £300 a month and insurance has been quite cheap also. Fuel cost for 24k miles has been about £500 too so around £300 a month all in I would say. If a Mirca, or say a Clio would have cost less than £300 a month for lease cost, fuel, servicing and tyres I would be surprised. Lease would be £200 to £250 a month, fuel a good £60 a month servicing two to three times a Zoe EV, a couple of tyres for £200 like the Zoe. So at least £300 a month. One thing in favour of EVs is that companies seem to be happier to give Fuel cards out than EV charge RFIDs. Maybe as Fuel Cards are easier to check they are not being mis-used for other vehicles. Running a Dacia Sandero is probably cheap motoring and why it is one of the most popular cars bought. "The Dacia Sandero was the best-selling car in Europe in 2024, with309,392 units sold." https://media.dacia.com/record-market-share-for-dacia-in-2024-and-still-on-the-european-podium-for-retail-customers/

Seems to be a swell to stop/de-incentivise EVs charging around tea time ie 1630 to around 2000 hours. As with the Octopus Cosy tariff for Heat Pump the fix seems simple to me. We EV drivers are happy to benefit from our 7p / 8.5p cheap tariff in the early mornings and I think most of us would be OK with say 40p per kwh at the peak tea time period especially if me get a bit of a discount for the normal day time period. Maybe a drop to 25 or 24p for 6am to 1600 as well as 2000 to 2359. If it stops dirty gas etc peaker plants firing up at tea time I am all for it and will work around the expensive peak time. Surprised it has not been put out there and applied already. If one needs a bit of charge at peak time then will have to pay the premium, drive slower or find another way from A to B.

Totally agree on the maths but the Con and Labour government both feared putting tax on diesel and petrol as it is such a vote loser. What UK should do is adopt an adaptive daily or weekly change in Excise duties so the tax per litre ie excise plus VAT for those that pay retail. When oil is cheap add a but more excise and back it off when crude is high cost. It would mean government gets its circa 80p a litre no matter what the price of crude is. I think Belgium and a few other countries do this. Smart taxation IMO. Businesses might complain but would perhaps prompt a bit more and quicker transition to EV on heavy goods vehicles which seem to be lagging cars and vans.

🐙 IOG rates....

Octopus GO rates from July 2025....... Standing charge now gone to 4 decimals and day time energy cost to 4 decimals !!!! My standing charge is now 2.1453 p cheaper per day and my day time peak rate 0.0001 p per kWh cheaper, whoopie! Suppose one should take into account inflation ie prices have not gone up so therefore effectively have gone down relatively. That would be, assuming 0.85% inflation per quarter, off peak and peak unit rate has dropped by 0.24p per quarter and daily standing charge is going down to by 2.58p per day in real terms. Little disappointed but overall OK. More investment in batteries and solar needed I think.

We do get some cold temperatures here in the midlands, second coldest region in the UK. Minus 20c back in 2010. We are the furthest from the sea in the UK. Also get high temps. Looking like well over 30c early next week. Extremes.

Even my 2021 sings when it is sub 20 mph, sounds a bit like a Star wars Tie fighter. The Scenic has 3 choices of slow moving sounds including a composition from Jean Michel Jarre which i tend to use as a massive JMJ fan. If anything the safety systems are over the top. A big leaf blowing across the road can trigger the auto braking. Feel very safe in the Scenic. Looking forward to the Mini Cooper E level 1 Exclusive, though it is my sons and it is what to replace the Zoe with is the next question. Might wait until Q4 when the really good deals should emerge as companies have to hit the 28% mandate. Also finance should be cheaper as interest rates in UK and EU are falling. Rosy future forever EVs especially in the UK which is the leading EV country in Europe for sales quantities. I do not see home chargers being hit with extra cost ie vat at 20% or so. Would just charge with a training lead, Arctic spec, and charge at 16A or even 32A via home ring main using Commando socket tech. Non runner trying to charge extra via home chargers IMO.

Just put the car in ECO mode would help. Scenic has 4 different "mapping". Perso mode is configurable. Traction control is very good, sometimes too good as takes bit of fun out of it. Tyre wear does seem a bit higher than my Arkana is both the Zoe and Scenic but that is expected as vehicles are couple of hundred kilos heaver and the torque does eat the tyres a bit quicker. Tyre sizes of 16 and 19 with not too crazy widths make replacing quite cheap. Prius added a little 10hp lecky motor to get going in snow in some versions. New EVs are now expected to not even have rear disc brakes and only regen breaking units which is an interesting move to say the least !

There are some areas which seem to be doing OK. Car production may still have a future. Nissan in Sunderland, JLR now we gave a US trade deal and we are getting closer to the EU. We have our film industry and the sports side seems to do well. Aerospace and Defence might do well but that is mainly UK taxpayer money and equipment for ourselves. Current weakness in the US dollar means imports are cheaper than last year. Life is getting harder for Western economies as the Far East and India power ahead.

Is the drop in industry due to the UK failing to keep much of it ? We do have a lot of warehouses I can attest to. I suppose that can loosely be described as industry. A nation of shop keeper and bankers.

All the power is in the law and in combination with insurance companies. I presume these ultra performance cars are group 50 insurance and would cost thousands per year to insure. When I changed from my mild Arkana (140 hp) to the "lower" powered (170 hp) Scenic the insurance actual went down. The Scenic has even more safety systems. Will even stop one backing in to walls etc. In Australia I gather it is not allowed for young driver to drive powerful EVs. We have had this in the UK before with motorbikes ie the 12hp and 45hp rules. The 30 mph rule for "moped" was one of the most ill conceived pieces of transport legislation. Very young riders ended up riding in the gutter even on30 mph roads and i dread to think of the toll. TESLA issued an update a few years ago which gave about anther 100 hp. Insurance companies presumably have to right to jack premiums accordingly. No wonder TESLA insurance premiums went so high.

How far are we away from our cars grassing on off for doing over 80 mph, or more. I like to know how accurate the speedo is and what the top speed is. Fortunately my EVs only do about 85 and 95 mph with their single gear and motor hitting the rev limiter. Gone are the days of seeing over 150 on the Octy VRS speedos and a good think but if I did go for a drive in Germany it would be nice to do 250 kph or so.

MG has the lowest reliability of any brand in the recent What Car survey. VAG seem to lose its quality, and value, reputation around 2010 I feel. The stories about VAG car plants in Germany, several reported by Electric Viking, are a sad story of the mighty fallen. Good to see Mini, including GWM, up the top of the survey and Dacia and Renault, which i see as the value ie quality with fair price, acknowledged for their good performance over the last decade and a half. Miss those great Skoda VRSs and L&Ks, cheap but awesome.

Octopus doing free electricity between 2pm and 3pm today. Garages doing some free fuel to compete ? A few litres maybe. BOGOF on the first 4 litres.

I build my own extension cables for EV charging. I use Arctic cable spec of either 2.5mm or 4mm thick cable if I can get hold at of reasonably priced. The thick cable runs as a good heat sink. Even so it is recommended to change 13a sockets every couple of years if being used regularly for EV charging. I plan to one mains socket to a Commando 16a socket and commando plug and socket but pushing a socket through letter box is another challenge. EU spec houses seem to have better specs than UK houses sadly.

In other news the cost of crude oil has jumped 8 % due the the military action between Israel and Iran. In other other news Octopus is offering customers free electricity sessions as well as cheap overnight charging allowing EVs to charge up and cost only 2p a mile for energy / fuel !!

Seemed a good choice to do 4 year PCP. No worries about battery, brake fluid etc just hand it back after 3 £99 services. Two tyres which we about £70, front of course which get a bit chewed with the torque and weight. Well less than £300 a month, partly due to subsidies and cheap finance available. Renault 5 40 kwh still the likely replacement bur will evaluate. Maybe lwr them sweat and ve without second car for a few weeks and see what quarter four finance deals and available. With interest rates falling EU and UK plus Renault needing to hit their 2025 EV target of 28% there should be some great deals around.

Ex colleague of mine, 178 mph on his speedo on the A12 some years back. Gixer 1000. Was it Top Gear who tested and confirmed you use to be able to go quicker than some speed measuring system could cope with ? Its odd that you can fly a few hundred miles over to Germany and legally drive on some motorways at 155 mph. More if you want and had the car delimited and, of course told your insurance you have done so. Renaults and Volvos are now limited to 113 mph I gather and many EVs will barely do 100 mph as single geared and hit the rev limits. Some EVs have 2 gears and can do more than 125 mph, some even more than 155 true speed. Even digital speedo seem to overread by 4 or 5% or so. Quite happy to be limited to 100 mph. Getting to 30,40 or 50 mph quick is more important. Looking forward to the Mini Cooper E and Go Kart mode.

And in other good new Mini top reliability ......... https://www.whatcar.com/news/reliability-survey-most-reliable-cars-brands/n26159 Skoda best VAG in 13th, shockers for Audi and SEAT. MG OMG. Brand reliability for cars aged up to five years oldRank Brand Reliability rating 1 Mini 98.3% 2 Lexus 97.9% 3 Suzuki 97.7% 4 Honda 96.6% 5 Toyota 96.1% 6 Dacia 96.0% 7 Citroen 94.1% 8 BMW 94.0% 9 Renault 93.6% 10 Hyundai 93.5% 11 Kia 93.4% 12 Volvo 92.8% 13 Skoda 91.8% 14 Ford 91.5% 15 Tesla 91.4% 16 Mazda 91.1% 17 Cupra 90.6% 18 Volkswagen 90.5% 19 Peugeot 90.3% 20 Jaguar 90.1% 21 Porsche 90.0% 22 Mercedes 89.7% 23 Polestar 89.3% 24 Audi 89.0% 25 Fiat 88.2% 26 Seat 87.5% 27 Land Rover 87.1% 28 Nissan 85.9% 29 Vauxhall 84.7% 30 Alfa Romeo 84.1% 31 MG 76.9%

Thanks. Very good videos on the 30 kwh 2000 to 2023. Do like the"Out of Spec" guy. Does some great content. Talking the Zoe ZE50 round the Nurnburgring is one of my favourites and getting the motor to over speed it's 11500 ram limit. The 2024 to present mini with the 36 " useable", 40 kwh smaller option battery is supposedly about 30% more range. Don't think the E version is available in some markets so Bjorn Nyland only tested the bigger battery SE with the 49 kwh battery. Shame as the E sounds the better dynamically not suffering the extra weight penalty. What really sold us the E over tge SE was driving both the E felt quite close in acceleration performance and the ZEPREF website confirmed there was only about 4 tenths of second ie 7.2 to 6.8s to 100 kph between the 2 versions. £3K lower RRP and that can be spent on moving up the level packs and level 1 exclusive seemed to have some nice add ons. £500 off currently. Same figure Mini Agents get as they have to declare this now. Mini dealers probably make more money on second hand sales.

Drove my Fabia 2 VRS almost 20 miles past zero. Without taking out the pump and look for cavitation or trying to judge if there is pump motor damage would probably too difficult ie fuel pump a sealed unit. The twin charge vrs, electric supercharger as well as exhaust gas driven super charger was a marvel but probably an economic disaster for VAG as such a high percentage need warranty work. The matched dry clutch 7 speed as had a bunch of problems. Mine was fine for both engine and gearbox and I was lucky. Could get over 600 miles range, 0 to 60 in a bit over 7 seconds. Liked expensive 98 or 99 or 102 octane fuel. EV are massively simpler, cheaper to run, cheaper to service. The range and speed of charging can be issues but if not in a rush not a problem. Spend the money you save on coffee, BK etc.

One wonders how many of these fires, land or sea, are arson. Be odd for new vehicles but BEVs can lose very fast, as we know, as the new tech ie range etc, make EVs devalue quickly as new BEV tech just so much better than that of a few years ago whereas ICE tech seems to gave relatively stagnated.

Renault have this policy unlike the many VAG cars i have had. Whether pure ICE, mild hybrid, full hybrid or pure BEV they blank out the mileage left when only 5% or less left. Whether they don't want to be seen to over estimate and people run out i don't know. The fuel gauges seem to be very good ans is the percentage display though as mentioned it is showing the nominal amount of battery that they want you to use not what you can use ie 12 miles easily in tge BEV Scenic and even the tiny batteried Spring did 15 miles past zero as well as still taking 10 miles more charge when showing full giving 25 miles more range than tge quoted 130 ish it said was the 100% to 0% battery amount indicated. Probably not good, particularly in lithium NMC chemistry to regularly go below 20% or above 80% but a few hundred times, rather than a few thousand, I reckon would be ok. Still leaning towards the LFP batteried R5 when it comes out in August but the ZE50 Zoe is a hard act to follow.

Fuel pumps can cavitate and get damaged also suck up muck and water in fuel tank when there is only a few litres left in the fuel system and tank. EV's, particular European spec ones I gather, have "conservative" Battery Management Systems, BMSs. My Scenic issued a suggestion to use ECO mode when it got down to 5% battery ie about 15 miles of indicated but actually did not issue a "restricted performance" warning to 11 miles past indicate no percentage of battery left. Actual battery capacity is over 8% more than quoted nominal capacity. Batteries tend to be guarantee, albeit to something like 75% original capacity for 160k km or 8 years. Only ICE cars I have heard of such warranties were the vvankel engined cars which buyer were concerned over so extra long warranty was issued. There are about 100,000 merchant ships. Car carries do sacrifice fire control for speed of loading and discharging, perhaps that need to change for safety sake. 100,000 tonne merchant ships I was an officer on could flood individual holds, or the whole engine room. A space equivalent to quite a large tower block ie ten stories high and a floor area of say 2500 m squared so probably about 50,000 metres cubed. But to flood the entire cargo space, perhaps 250,000 cubic metres there was not enough CO2 in the hundred or so large bottles to do that. This smallish car transporter was headed to Mexico so not going to attract the Donald taxes so arson was perhaps not a negligence case on preparing the cars for transport hybrid, ice or the few EVs that were onboard. If it does not sink then the Loss Adjusters will gather what info they can. Work with these guys and they will try to get to facts. Difficult if the ship is 2 or 3 miles down under the waves and thousands of miles from shore.