lol-lol

If you need to do a use a full battery's distance again. To me that is spending most of the working day driving. Driving two or maybe two and half hours, which most EVs of the last few years will do with ease, time your charge to your comfort break. most devent EVs charge at approaching 150 kw for their first 50%, gives you say 150 miles of charge and you can charge in 2 or 2.5 hours if you are on one of these mad southern England to Scotland journeys. Wll be very interesting to see the price of £40k to £45k EVs tumble below £40k when the VED hike hits in 60 days time. Yes still monthly cost of around £500k a month is not cheap but if on good finance deal, very low running and servicing, and with Salary sacrifice bring that monthly down to £300 or £400 a month and very low overheads one can see why drivers who do loads of miles go for EVs.

People are finding ways to avoid using public chargers or use them when they are much cheaper to use ie off peak. Charging at relative houses and sharing the savings, as I did with my brother a couple of times in the last fortnight. Good earner for both of us. I went for the Scenic, love the tech and the design but if I needed to be a motorway muncher I might have gone for a Polestar for example. Maybe a TESLA model 3 SR+ if I did not despise Elon Musk. These cars are efficient at motorway speeds and charge pretty quickly. If the journey takes 5 or 10 minutes longer than an ICE car, and remember are filling station are at home and we leave home with 100% battery full and no need to stop for 250, 300, 350 mile other than bladders and tummys. More house get built and they have drives, I expect my other kids, one already in a 3 bed semi with a long drive down the side of the house, cheapish house in South Wales but the others will buy modernish houses with drives. Older houses will eventually be demolished to make for new builds. Even if that is not for everyone then more public chargers at supermarkets like Sainsbury who are rolling out thousands of chargers even charging whilst parked with plugging in ie induction charging is round the corner. No length stops, even in my old school Zoe, ie 50 kWh charging, time I had been to the toilet got back to the car it was about five minutes before moving off, not much waiting there and with more 800V architecture, those that don't not run fire risk according to MacMaster, charging is even quicker and Chinese are producing cars that link to 560 KW chargers than can change in 7 minutes. Long wait charging is not really much if a thing now if one plans the journey with a bit of thought.

Considering how expensive they are, how super expensive the connection to the grid is and can see how operators think 79 or 85p per kwh is reasonable. Even in the last few weeks I have charged a couple of times at Gridserve Rugby and I have not begrudged them a penny of what they charge, it must be a multi million pound facility. What is so different to ice is that I can fill up to a degree of accuracy to round up to the nearest kWh and arrive home to the kWh I thought I would have and therefore margin I am happy with, a degree of accuracy I was nowhere near in ICE cars.

True in my case and I would reckon many EV owners. Many hundreds of charges at home but only a handful of public charges in 3.5 years. I can do a 125 trip and back in both of my EVs without charging and have used relatives homes to charge rather than public. Give them some cash and we are both quids in. Some home owners are selling their home electricity to strangers and making a tidy profit. There is an App to facilitate this. As long as you do not do more than a grands worth then HMRC does need to be declared to I heard. With many EVs now doing 300 or 350 miles in the real world then driving much of the day and coming home does not need a public charging. It is debatable whether we will need the 300,000 public chargers if EV range keeps getting greater with new EVs.

Indeed one option. I have one granny charger that outputs 10a with no other current choices but the new one i got, £89 from Amazon, does 8, 10, 13 and 16a, if it's can adapt to do that current. The e Golf has quite a small battery, about 30 kwh i recall but my Zoe is was looking for about 40 kwh. Brother is on Cosy tariff as he has a heat pump house so I try and run at 13a. Interestingly the amps displayed tend to be about half an amp lower than selected value. Voltage there seems quite low as only was showing about 225 volts. Seems good with the fat cable I have provided him with and I have a new one for myself. The fatter cable into the 3 pin plug pins seems to keep the plug cool as well. I saw that my new higher powered granny charger recommended changing the 13a sockets every two years, blimey.

We are told that 98% of EV charging is done at home and the majority of that is going to be on installed wallbox chargers plumbed in to the ring main but a significant few percent i reckon are charged on granny chargers. My brother does this for his daughter's e golf and I stayed with him a couple of weeks ago and his trailing lead, a orange cabled supposed 13a lead and 13a plug was too hot to touch. A video on you tube reckoned, using a power meter at either end of the 5m trailing lead was losing 60w when running ie about 2% of power. I visit last week and left him one if the lead i made up. I use 2.5mm blue arctic cable which handles 13a no problem and it stays no more than tepid even keeping the plug cool by moving heat away with the bigger live and neutral cables. If you are using a supposed 13a trailing lead please check the running temp and consider what I have done using even thicker cable when running a granny charger hour after hour. Brother's face plate for the twin 13a sockets are scolded and have small cracks and needs replacing. Might change one my 13a sockets to a commando socket so I run at 16a which continental sockets can run OK but in the UK we are normally limited to 13a which is a bit low and less than what many granny chargers can do but should not in the UK as the bottleneck we have with our UK 13a plugs.

Big ie 40% price plunge on Octopus Electroverse usage on several networks including Instavolt. Instavolt early bird discount on usage could well be a winner too i reckon.

Some, including Electric Viking, kicking off that the Five "only" got 4 stars in Euroncap. Euroncap seems more about counting safety systems more than crash testing which buyers should be aware what the Euroncap means these days. Religating the Zoe from five stars in 2013 to no stars in 2021, when it basically has the same shell and auto braking plus several other safety measures ie sign reading etc. Personally feel safe in the Zoe as i will in the 5. Fair bit better than the 850 mini use to zip about in.

It sounds like VAG group is so far away from the average CO2 per car produced it is due to get a $1.5B fine. Its EVs have not sold very well and it has sold a high proportion of high C02 cars and of course, after its massive issued with emissions scandal and the recalibration of CO2 tests. Over two thirds of its cars listed exceed the CO2 average of 95 gm/km. It is possible to make cars that do this or under but apart from the EVs and a few strong hybrids there are not many. Plug in hybrids are just about to be reclaissified as to their CO2 as they have been under report fro their CO2 pollution for years it is going to get much worse. I think VAG, and they are doing it but far too slowly, they need to ramp up the Skoda EV production big time to help get the CO2 number down, the Cupra Born too and the like, else they will be adding to their $200B debt and that will becom unsustainable with their shrinking output. Sadly need to move much of their production out of Germany to cheaper places. Volkswagen Touareg Estate 3.0 TSI eHybrid 4Motion Elegance 5dr Tip Auto 51g/km 127.5mpg £71,205 Volkswagen Touareg Estate 3.0 V6 TSI eHybrid 4Motion R 5dr Tip Auto 59g/km 108.6mpg £82,765 Volkswagen Golf Diesel Estate 2.0 TDI Life 5dr 115g/km 65.7mpg £30,715 https://www.fleetnews.co.uk/cars/Car-CO2-and-fuel-economy-mpg-figures?CarType=&Manufacturer=volkswagen&Model=&CO2To=&MpgFrom=&SortBy=CO2&SortDesc=false&FuelType=

Driving and owning EVs one does not have in mind engine/gearbox worries. After expensive repairs in my last ICE car, a mark 3 Fabia 1.4 diesel, nearly £800 to fix a simple thermostat issue as it takes 3 or 4 hours to fix as engines have become so complex. EV ownership, after nearly 4 years, no issue with either EV on mechanicals and servicing costs half to a third of previous ICE cars. Energy input costs about a fifth of previous ICE cars. Cannot see ever going back though it is comforting to have a hybrid on the drive also. In a year or two when EVs can do close to 500 mile range then I see no need to even have a hybrid as a backup.

Wondering just how much better the R5 is going to be than my Zoe ZE50 ? The Zoe has and still is proving to be just incredible. The office where my boss is based has moved from LIverpool to Felixstowe and therefore journeys if 246 miles round trip in now 390 miles. This means at least one charging stops and I mitigate the costs of this by stopping over with my brother in Cambridgeshire and charging at his house using a granny charger. The Zoe is doing over 200 miles of range even in the cold conditions. The really big difference in the 5 rather than the Zoe is going to be the public DC charging rate which is twice as fast on the R5, liquid cooled battery pack, compared to the active air cooled pack in the Zoe. The reports say the R5 is a good drive, will soon see in a few weeks, ie March, just how the R5 stacks up compared to the Zoe, same battery pack size of course. Charge curve looks fine, similar to 92 kwh Scenic but not quite as handsome as my 65 kwh version ie good to 45% SOC, OK to 75%, after that probably time to get on the road. Will see, thought aboiut the 40 kwh LFP version and will keep as eye out on the specs as it might be a bit bigger than 40 kwh and of course can be charged to 100% easier rather than usually only charging to 80,85, 90, 95 % as one does with the NMC Lithium batteries Renault have used so far in their cars. The R5 has 11 kw V2L as well which could be finanically good too. https://evkx.net/models/renault/5/5_e-tech_52kwh_150hp/chargingcurve/#google_vignette

In Germany with their special problems. Having just come back from Germany and watching lots of the news stories about Germany it is a story which all of Europe and probably further afield is watching. When EV subsidies ended sales of EVs crashed somewhat as well as the Germany economy has been having a bad time, ironically, in some considerable part, because they, VAG, BMW, Mercedes, failed to make good and good value EVs and hence that part of the automotive sector are in real problems. VAG do make good EVs ie the two Skoda EVs and the ID7 is getting plaudits but the ID 3, 4, and 5 have not worked out well. One point of note is when the 7,500 Euro subsidy was taken away the cheapest EV on sale, the Dacia Spring, just reduced their sale price to cover the subsidy ie it went down to around 15k Euros as EV manufacturing costs, mainly due to batteries becoming much cheaper, are falling like I stone, now with parity costs to ICE and by th ned of this year cheaper than equivalent ICE. This has now given the crown of being the largest EV market in Europe to the UK and with so many very good EVs appearing on the car market throughout Europe I think the 28% share o for EVs can be reached due to EVs cars, vans and trucks offering such great economic sense to buyers. Renault contacted me during the week to look at trading my excellent Zoe for a Renault 5 which something I look forward to and helping the EV sales. The Zoe is a great car and even 3.5 years on it surprised me and I learn how good it is. 2 journeys in the last two weeks, one in the 2024 European Car of Year Scenic ,smaller battery version, and secondly in the Zoe ZE50, that near 200 miles journey, 40 mile round trip, in cold conditions, achieved at low cost, high profit as claiming the 45p per mile tax relief. Charge at my brothers in Cambridgeshire and a quick zap charge at the excellent and awe inspiring Rugby services, 10 minutes in Scenic, less than 20 minutes in Zoe, will be less than 15 minutes in the Renault 5, and happy days, home for 8 o'clock footie. Ever significantly better EVs are coming out also by the month. Shame the battery tech in mainly Chinese or Korean the West really missed out on that technical bandwagon and with the exceptions of TESLA Berlin and Renault the Western Automotive companies have really failed to grasp the EV technical brief and economic opportunity. Germany is in a right pickle and it shows up in their economic news as being Europes Automotive powerhouse to finding itself in an existential crisis, sad to see and a lesson to us all. Now China has rejected German cars, as they produce good cars at a far lower price now, and with the USA now about to slap punitive tariffs on EU cars being imported to the US their goose looks cooked. The should look at producing more Skodas and SEATs and make cars in cheaper manufacturing companies else they will not last out this decade.

I have been aware of the effects of climate change since the 1970s and in line of what you say above have been very conscious of where one lives in terms of increased flooding risk and this in the UK that is mostly quite resilient against flood risk but with particularly concern for London, as you say, but also the Somerset and Gwent Levels, The Fens etc. Here is Worcestershire and Gloucestershire the flooding of 2007, the devastations to Tewkesbury and Worcester stick in the memory. Worcester has millions spent on it for flood defences and this is the nub of the problem in my view. Not slowing down climate change has a cost of its own meaning more flood and sea level defences. As we have just seen with the Éowyn and its record wind speeds climate change has multiple effects, higher wind speeds, more water being carried by the storm, each 1% rise in temperature means that 7% more water is carried by the storm. The effects of climate change have a material cost in both countries, counties and individual have to spend much more to protect oneself against these increasingly violet elements. In my industry if storms are more violent then, for example, there will be hours or days when we cannot get a container ship to dock in Felixstowe, the UK's business container port. Not doing climate change restraining measures has its own cost. Some of us are watching what New York State is doing in relation to adding an additional levy on hydrocarbon sales to fund defences against the effects of climate change. After the severe flooding on the southern edge of Manhattan island, flooded streets, tubeway stations it was a wake call for cities and states as to what can happen with these more violent storms and their surges flooding coastal land which cost billions to repair after the floods and billions to then build sea, river defences, who should pay for that ? New York has decided that Fossil fuel companies should pay which should help the transition to electric as it prices ICE vehicles out. Yours and my generation have already got the igmany for being the first generation in known history of the following generation being poorer than our generation due to handing them a Western economy that is providing less economic benefits we enjoyed and now it is becoming clearer that will will also have massive climate adaption costs as well economies that are being out stripped by Asian ones like China and now we can see there is billions that need to be spent on climate resilience. Better choices we make now could save the next generation and the ones after that those massive bills for weather resilience and I want that for my kids and grand kids. https://www.spglobal.com/commodity-insights/en/news-research/latest-news/crude-oil/010325-new-york-to-charge-fossil-fuel-companies-75b-under-climate-cost-recovery-law#:~:text=January 03%2C 2025-,New York to charge fossil fuel companies,under climate cost recovery law&text=The state of New York,Climate Change Superfund Act (S. "The state of New York will assess oil and gas companies a collective $75 billion over 25 years under a new climate law signed by Governor Kathy Hochul on Dec. 26. The Climate Change Superfund Act (S.2129-B) aims to shift the burden of climate mitigation from taxpayers to fossil fuel companies by charging them for the greenhouse gases they emitted between 2000 and 2018. The funds, to be collected at a rate of $3 billion per year, will help pay for infrastructure upgrades, extreme weather response, cooling systems and other climate-related investments, which could "easily reach several hundred billion dollars" in state costs through 2050, according to the legislation's text. "New York has fired a shot that will be heard round the world: the companies most responsible for the climate crisis will be held accountable," state Senator Liz Krueger, a Democrat and lead sponsor of the legislation, said in a statement. The legislation, creating what it formally called a "climate change adaptation cost recovery program," was first introduced in January 2023. It passed the state Senate in May by a 43-17 margin. The law applies to producers and refiners that emitted more than 1 billion tons of greenhouse gases over 18 years. Krueger said the "polluter-pays model" mirrors existing state and federal Superfund laws, which tax companies to cover the cost of cleaning up hazardous waste sites. Earlier this year, Vermont passed similar legislation that applies this model to greenhouse gas emitters. "

Thwaites is a Bell Weather which is nice as a visible prompt. It contributes about 4% to global sea level rise so the total rises are about twenty times its own contribution to sea rise. The concern is that it has doubled in pace of melting since about 2000. British Antarctic Survey produced this a few months ago. I think we might not see the worst of it but it will be our children and grandchildren. The higher sea levels will be whipped up by ever more violet storms due to the increased energy levels, due to temperature energy which will overtop sea defences.

Yes West Country and Western England, Wales and West Scotland rising and east coast falling in to the North Sea. At some point Thames Barrier will not be enough. With the Thwaites Doomsday glacier now breaking up sea level will rise quicker than previously thought.

With Northern Europe it is a much colder climate rather than a warmer with the reduction of the American Gilf stream which had kept Northern Europe warmer than the East coast of Canada. More violent storms as Ireland, Northern England and Scotland are going to see this weekend. Rising sea levels and flooding on Eastern UK, Severn Estuary, Merseyside are looking like thing UK will see. Bangladesh and other Asian river delta areas flooding killing many too.

Wonder if they ever pop up to Yeovilton to get somewhere quicker than driving ie take a helo perhaps. Poole is so poorly connected by road is it not still.

They would have the same system was we had in customs, yes you get flashed and you would get a PNC check but that goes to a rather obscure registered address which the PNC'ing Officer will be checked to see if their motives were valid and nothing happens ie the request for who was the driver just goes nowhere. I presume they do the same of their own tailor made high speed driving / pursuit 3 to 5 week courses which they will do practice driving at up to 140, 160 mph on British roads, we would see these drivers coming out of the Devizes police HQ on the course and bombing across Salisbury Plain, Forest of Dean and Brecons, Welsh mountains roads etc doing their practices. Would hope they do a bit of practice at Thruxton which is the UK fastest track I understand. Certain organisation have exceptions. My x-ray van was over the 1.5T it was suppose to be max'ed out at, we had no insurance as we had Crown exemptions. The law can not apply in certain circumstances. As Captain Bryant said in Bladerunner "you either cop or little people"

Slightly odd place for them to be based in a place with no motorway connections. I think the SBS did hold the record for south coast to Aberdeen in a ridicously small number of hours. Range Rover flat out, must have had to stop for fuel couple of times at least as probably doing about 13 mpg.

I could tell you but I would have to silence you later. Anybody who says they know probably is Billie bull****ing. As SBS is closely associated with the Marines I suspect they could be all over ie Lympstone, Aberdeen, or anywhere in the world including undercover in hostile countries for weeks or months. These UK military personnel are nowhere and everywhere, we would have them join us on a customs cutter, arrive in the night on a super fast RIB, keep to themselves, have lots of scary guns as we had none but great to have them with us when boarding vessels we expect were tooled up. Even family members do not know where or what they do they just go off and then come back, not a word said. We have loads around Plymouth and Devon. Like Hereford best to be nice to anyone who looks like they are special services and they don't all look like muscle brawn men but quite normal maybe except for a steely stare.

Home of the SBS !

I think tonnage it might be Hull estuary due to the amount of bulk cargo. Tens of millions of tonnes if memory serves. When in British Merchant Navy never came to UK as Antwerp, Hamburg and Rotterdam are well massive.

Us from Plymouth don't like Portmouth due to naval dockyard competition, Portsmouth and Southampton have hated each other for decades going back to Southampton workers breaking a dockyard strike that was going on. One thing we all have in common is terrible football teams.

Southampton is not the Ocean port on the South coast as Plymouth is the Ocean city and Poole, Portsmouth and Southampton not. Even though Southampton has Ocean Village where the ex Chancellor has major property. Nice place to catch a cruise liner I suppose.

I think the key determining factor is navigatable. By water going vessel to transfer goods from land vessel to sea vessel.