lol-lol

Just ordered, my son actually, a new electric mini, the E rathervthan the SE so the small 36 kwh battery. Lighter than the SE with the 49 kwh battery and elreports say better dynamically for it. O to 60 in 7 seconds with its 181 hp motor and 290 Nm of torque. Range is still quite low and as we took out the test car it wad showing 105 miles of range with about 80% charge but probably being driven in Gocart / sport setting mostly during tests. Just a hoot to drive and much lad will have the option of driving the Scenic or the ZE50 Zoe if he needs a 250 / 200 mile range car. British Racing Green, level 1 pack so head up display, adaptive lighting, heated seats etc. Due off the boat from Great Wall Motors in August. Be glad when they are made here in the Midlands ie next year as will be BMW MINI to avoid those EU, US Anti Dumping Duties !!

I found the R5 very nice to drive and the 150 hp version felt quicker than my 170 hp Scenic. Back seats not really big enough for Adults on long journeys and especially when those adults are closer to 6'6'' in some memfer of my family than they are to 6' ! Rumours that Expensive Car Supplement trigger level will be raised.

Very much of personal taste as there is so much choice out there now but there is so much choice there is something to suit most people I reckon. The Renault Scenic I have was European Car of the Year last year ie 2024. The rear passenger space is very roomy and one has 4 USB C. Renault UK reduced the price of the Techno and Alpine version to under £40k to avoid the Expensive Car Supplement. Range 300 miles or so even in winter. Most nice EVs, with plenty of rear space are over £40k RRP. Struggling to think of any other in the same league as the Scenic. It is front wheel drive and "only" 220hp. Charging up to 150 KW though it does dip when that hits 50%. Running costs are low with both energy, servicing and even insurance all relatively low.

R5 is a very good all round small EV. A290 is fair bit more money and whilst handling is even better the addional benefits over the R5 not substantial enough for me. Would like to see and R5 with bit more power, 170/175 and base A290 with 200 plus. The Cooper E we have just ordered is 181/185 hp. 0-60 in 7 seconds and seems to handle well and that is £31k with head up display and Adaptive lighting etc. Still planning to trade my Zoe in for a R5 but it will be a 40 kwh LFP batteried car at £23k RRP and a good finance package I expect. Maybe we will get a hot/warm Twingo offering too ie 120 hp plus.

My laddo looking to get a Great Wall Motors Mini and the E version rather than the SE version so smaller battery but the acceleration is very similar between the E and SE ie 184 and 218 hp versions, torque us more similar than power and E has less weight of course. ZEPREF site test results gave the 184 hp E at 7.2 to 100 kph and the 218 hp SE version at 6.8 seconds so pretty close. Always the issue with Minis, even Chinese built ones, the adding of packs etc can make car more expensive than first expected. SE with Exclusive or Sport pack adding up to £35k retail. E can be had for just over £30k with Exclusive trim and non standard colour. I like the green but lad leaning towards blue. Range probably not great but he will have option of my Scenic or maybe an R5 if he needs more range than the 140 to 190 miles rated on the Mini E. Thought the E might be LFP but gather it us also NMC Lithium like bigger battery Minis.

Goes quite well. Seats are awful and need adapting. Very cheap and could siut many as a city run around or second car. Finance deals on new also very good, prereg not so good deals.

Lots of potential especially here in the South Wales and South West from tidal in the Bristol Channel but I think the Welsh want to rename it the Cardiff Channel. Whether it is right across Channel and could generate 10% of the UK's need or just bay tidal like Swansea etc. What did Merseyside and North Wales do to pay such high costs for day charge and pet kwh ? Happy with the Midlands rates and look forward to even lower day rates and gas is getting well cheap but I am already on a fixed deal at 6.3p per kwh. Chinese have most the lithium and LFP EV batteries even the hybrid batteries in UK and probably EU cars though Renault seem to go to LG Chem for their batteries and that seems to work well with good performance, buffers etc.

Great miles per kWh at 5.5. Is the miles measured accurate baring in mind the reports on TESLAs mis reporting mileage covered ? Happy with my 60 kWh Scenic, more like 65 kWh with buffers. Done 260 mile trips to Heathrow and 245 mile trips to Liverpool no problem without public charging. 60 kWh Scenic now deleted from UK sales listing and now only the 87 / 92 kWh long range Scenic available. 370 miles range nominal though we are waiting for latest version with one pedal driving software which adds a few more miles range and I should get that as an Over Air Update on mine. Been meeting with HM Government this week and specifically with Trade Remedies department staff. Going to be interesting to what UK does, especially in regard to Chinese BEVs as UK aligns closer to EU. Son seems to want the Mini EV, middle spec with 220 hp and the 50 kWh battery which seems a good value car, now Mini have pitched below £30k. Be glad when they start assembling them at Oxford. Styling weird but hey ho.

The Twingo is coming too, hurray !!!

Generally found motorcycling as the best way to commute in to big cities. Zooming through the traffic and seeing all those in their metal boxes. When the weather bad might take a car but even in light rain and even temperatures down to near zero the motorcycle could do the journeys in about half the time. Just looking at 3 wheeled motorcycles, quite some interesting machines in that class.

Another thing with some PHEVs is the driver can configure the car that the battery and electric motor are not setup to help fuel consumption but to just boost performance, acceleration etc. I know some PHEV company cars drivers who are barely getting 30 mpg and drive their company car like and F1 car. Some companies and government departments would get mpg figures and ask drivers, especially those with company fuel cards, can get questions as to why their mpg is so bad. As we know some cars are near impossible to get near their published mpg. Maybe only 70% even being careful.

Some off these PHEVs will be bought because they are good tax dodges and the driver may also have a fuel card so working out the saving on actually taking couple minutes to plug in and couple minutes to unplug the driver will think " cannot be arsed".

Thousands of pounds of extra cost, maybe Expensive Car Suplementary VED to hit drivers next year. If one has an 80 mile battery range and a sub 80 mile drive to work there could be big savings on fuel costs if one can charge at home or work at low or zero cost. My lads hybrid Clio only cost £22k and can easily do 70 mpg plus in warm weather. Full BEV so cheap to run but initial or monthly cost quite high. Cheap servicing compared to ICE, PHEV and HEVs I find.

Car sales down in general. Petrol less than 49 % now, diesel a tiny 5% of total. Pure electric 20.4%, PHEV up big at 11.7% now there are PHEV that can do 80 miles on battery. HEV's at about 14%. There are bound to be some mega EV deals in Q3 and Q4 and cheap finance. Resistance to sell ICE vehicles even more so likely.

Two dead and one seriously injured sadly. Think the Marshall knew it was bad just after the high side and t boning. Such brave individuals to take up the sport and so sadly paid the ultimate price for these super brave young men.

BSB Crash in Supersport race at Oulton Park today - best wishes for all those involved riders, families and teams.... Remainder of days racing abandoned. Sad start for BSB seasons as last race of 2024 at BH was one of the best I have seen in 50 years. The SunRace abandoned after 'severe & catastrophic' crash saw 11...THE opening round of the British Superbikes Championship has been abandoned after a horror 11-bike crash. One bike caught fire after the terrifying pile-up at the start of the Supersport Feature su…

Not sure it is going to sell well in the 50 kwh guise at a price of £30k, maybe more of the 40 kwh nominal battery size will sell especially with some great finance deals.

As has been said only about 4% of charging is at public charges, the rest is at work or home where it is half, or a tenth, or free to charge. Trip to Heathrow earlier in the week. 250 miles, nearly all motorway, I have the smaller 65 kwh battery rather than the 90 kwh battery in most Scenics, made the journey without any need to charge. Cost of about £5 of charging cost. Mileage tax relief claim on Srlf Assessment will go in later. If I could not charge at home from my two wallboxes would have to find the best public charging deal or use the work ones, some are 33p a kwh, some are free. Getting over 4 miles per kwh currently. The truth for electric cars are they are very cheap to run ie energy, servicing etc. Sadly still get pictures etc.

You would think the guy would hold up rechargeable battery rather what looks to be an alkaline Duracell.

Saw this. Battery Leasing, with recovery included had its plus points but now appears bit of a pain. All the 22, 40 and 50 kwh packs have the same form but must have different wiring, software and a host of other electrical components so if no more 22 or 40 kwh packs all a bit pointless. That said with the 40 kwh pack it is reported there were many dormant cells that could be brought on line to bring the overall capacity back over the warranty replacement threshold.

The UK and probably most countries do not have enough resilience in their power systems. In these countries they are supposed to respond with telling certain industries that the Grid power will be scaled back for them but public will stay on line. This looked like a cascade failure of which there have been examples of this in the US where the have so much of a fracture power supplier market. After the big Texas power outage of a few years ago they have gone massive into renewables and battery storage of electrical power and now they are much better for outages but then citizen, including Spanish and Portuguese, will have a lot more renewable and battery storage at a personal but questions must be asked, like with Heathrow's recent outage, just what is their plan B for electrical resilience. We had plans B, C and D at sea whereas lots of these major business seem to not have a backup plan or test it as we had to do. Got this solar generator coming in the next few days. 1000W output, well under £200 and bought two of the kits in the second picture, cost £14.29 for all the bits in the picture ie battery, 3 LED bulbs, USB charge cable and little solar panel, well prepared for outage.

More so for TESLA parts but less so more other makes maybe ?

Supposedly accurate to 1% or about 1 mph which considering the Earth is not a sphere but satsuma shaped, polar radius 13 miles less than the equatorial radius. 3900 miles compared to 3913 miles i recall from Albedo 0.39 by Vangelis. Some facts have been refined shall we say.... https://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/factsheet/earthfact.html Maximum distance from the sun: 94 million 537 thousand miles Minimum distance from the sun: 91 million 377 thousand miles Mean distance from the sun: 92 million 957 thousand and 200 miles Mean Orbital velocity: 66000 miles per hour Orbital eccentricity: 0.017 Obliquity of the ecliptic: 23 degrees 27 minutes 8.26 seconds Length of the tropical year: equinox to equinox 365.24 days Length of the sidereal year: fixed star to fixed star 365.26 days Length of the mean solar day: 24 hours and 3 minutes and 56.5555 seconds at mean solar time Length of the mean sidereal day: 23 hours and 56 minutes and 4.091 seconds at mean sidereal time Mass: 6600 milion milion milion tons Equatorial diameter: 7927 miles Polar diameter: 7900 miles Oblateness: one 298th Density: 5.41 Mean surface gravitational acceleration of the rotating earth: 32.174 feet per second per second Escape velocity: 7 miles per second Albedo: 0.39

The @outofspec channel use Sat nav for speed setting, in general the Tesla over reports it's speed by at least 10% which is why they set fsd to 85mph where possible Wow that is a lot and more than the 10% max error that I thought manufacturers were suppose to adhere to. Great for doing ones mileage claims if one relying on car odometer, lots of extra monies being claimed. First Japanese bikes were renown for over stating speed compared the more accurate Smiths speedo. Probably helped them sell much more bikes ie my 250cc bike does well over 90 mph, no is does not as it is the speedo well oer reporting. Italian bikes the same with their Veglia instruments or "vague-lio" as we used to call them. Interesting it is reported the TESLA are allegedly massive overreading distance and speed to get to the ned of warranty sooner, not cricket. Renault, seem to over read the speed by a few percent, I would say 3 or 4% but under read the distance by 1 or two percent. The speed, despite being a digital speedometer, I can understand to help people not lose their licences but the odometer under reading seems odd ie get people in sooner for their 10/18k servicing or whatever. Quite common to set the car cruise control at 11% over the nominal speed limit for these reason and police general setting their speed detection at 12% above nominal though that is cutting it a bit fine IMO and certainly not optimal car range speed in many EVS where 65 to 70, genuine speed, is optimal it has been shown but if one has a fast charging car and deep pockets cruising at this grey zone of speeds is oft done.

UK has quite a low speed limit compared to many countries ie France Italy and especially Germant but some US states have quite relatively high speed limits to the UK. Not sure if one can use the 10 %, plus 2% rile in all place ie speedo and tyres possible error percentages. Many EVs ate not great efficiency at high speed Polestars and Tesla seem to be but I would only consider one of those options. My Scenic not great with a Drag Coefficient not much under 0.3. Waiting for more over the air updates to introduce more regen levels including one pedal driving which gives a few miles more range. Better lower rolling resistance tyres would be a good addition. I need my breaks. My bladder is not longer range than even my 65 kwh car !!!! Charging at C times 2 ie 130 kws is good enough but over 200 kws for replacement car is expected with the rapid advancement of EV batteries and UK charging infrastructure.