lol-lol

Oddly two stroke diesels are more efficient than 2 stroke with slow speed marine diesels. Big part of the reason for piggy backing is not range etc but the ferry probably is biult for inshore waters and very flat bottomed and not suited at all for deep sea travel and it would have very poor rough weather handling capability even though displacing a few thousand tonnes.

One has to complain and even politely ask for compensation. I recently got a V2L adaptor for free after complaining on one important issue which they conceded was not good enough.

Quite similar to my very good Renault - Dacia dealer called Savilles, single site dealership, best customer service i have ever had but I know Renault would insist on all sorts of things, bigger showroom, take models that probably would not sell ie those big cars Renault are not really reunion for. Sad and like many marque they end up with multi chain delearship that do not seem as caring. That said I gave found Startin of Worcester good but that is down to one great salesman I deal with !

I don't do less than today trucks and if want or need to go slower then just get off the motorway. Scenic does have a Misubishi cousin i gather now and the Nissan Ariya is also with the same under pinnings mainly though they have 4 wheel drive Nismo version with over 400 hp as one of the variants.

New Dacia Spring, big revision as the Dacia Spring, 45, 65 were pretty awful and the Spring 100, whilst big improvement, was still fairly naff. It shares much with the new Twingo I gather.... (Chukier, Heavier and Roomier ((but actually less power but torque not too bad for a 1.2 T car and makes it at low revs)).

As long as the EV is plugged in, and I tend to leave it plugged in much of the time, I can start or restart charging even when I am not at home, create a new charging schedule and alter the upper battery limit to stop or restart charging to take advantage of negative priced electricity. Think my lad can do that for his Mini but I can do it for the Renaults on the Renault App.

Negative priced electricity certainly helps running cost and there are 5 hours of that which is long enough to charge multiple EVs, as well as do household stuff too. I have found insurance high either and service cheap too ie less than £100 a year. Should be some very good deals, loss leaders to hit EV quota targets for some marquee who are behind target. Might be less 0% deals as cost of borrowing has gone up in the last few weeks in many countries, depending how the UK seller finances any finance deal. New Dacia Spring looks like it has been updated significantly as the UK's cheapest car not just EV !

The Excise Duty on fuel has been a brilliant tax collecting measure. It is the most efficient tax in relation to what is collected and what is spent collecting. VAT is still 20% on EVs like all cars so is significant revenue stream as is VAT on hydrocarbon fuel. In real terms the level of Excise Duty currently is much less than it was a decade or decade and a half ago. 3p a mile on EVs and 1.5p on hybrids will not fill the Excise hole by my reckoning.

With 30% of new car sales as EV and then plug in and'self charging' hybrids making up over half of new car sales and electric cars on average driving more than ICE the transition is not too bad on course i would say. UK always going to have a problem due to driving on the left and getting new cars 6 months or so later. With fuel prices climbing ever higher, even Trump says oil prices not coming down until at least after the November Mid Terms. Some even better and cheap EVs coming on to UK market in the next few weeks making the differential in running cost even wider suggesting to those who are cost contious rather than stubbornly anti EV pro ICE will see how much money they can save and spend on other things. The very cheap PCPs on some Stellantis cars and the Dacia Spring and small Renaults plus Leapmotor, BYD Dolphin must be tempting to the cost counting drivers.

Oil companies gave such power. They do pay quite a lot of tax and collect huge amounts too. Also can threaten moving their listing from London to elsewhere. Only consumers can really punish oil companies to sell at a fairer price. Dont fill up completely I use to do, just fill up 90% or 75%. When their sales fall they will react and liwet their prices a bit. The extra VAT the government collect on these high prices is very signicant and they will welcome in these crazy times of decades high bonds and gilts which is hiking their borrowing. Diesel and petrol sellers in the UK know they only have a few years of selling significant volumes of diesel and then soon after that selling petrol so making hay when the sun shines. Crocodile tears perhaps from government and in a tough situation so pleased to see big VAT revenue on fuel sales even if increasingly losing out on excise duties which peaked at £25B per annum but no rapidly falling to £20B and a steeping slope downwards due to more BEVs and Hybrids.

Toddington services near Lutton i gather. Profiteering !

Fancy a coffee and maybe a few litres of fuel ?

New Dacia Spring, sister product of the new Renault Twingo etech, will go on sale in Spring 2027 reportedly. Same small 27 KWh LFP battery and therefore 150 summer range and 120ish winter range so very much inter town or county rather than cross country. Price should be sub £15k. Bigger than the 45,65, 100 old model Spring and 80 hp. Apparently the 100 hp, sub 1 tonne Spring was as expensive as a Gilf GTI to insure ! 12 seconds to 60 in the new Spring. Torque presumably lowish line the power. Weight now over 1.2T but it does look much more sturdy.

Not for many years as have not had an ICE vehicle. When my son went from ICE to EV about a year ago we tended to go to MFG stations and they seem to get the future as they oft seem to have EV chargers and petrol pumps. Do go in to the Tesco fuel station but only to get a meal deal but they always ask if I have got fuel and I can so no each time. Our Tesco is quite a poor one as no EV charging there and Sainsburys seems to be getting the jump on Tescos and I expect Tesco to lose a lot of customers due to their lack of foresight.

If the rate of recharging keeps going up as quick as it has been recently ie 1 MW charging and faster, perhaps we will get a similar trigger mechanism, maybe with a locking trigger like US and Canada, bar Quebec province as state government don't trust their citizens !

Tescos had contaminated fuel a fuel years back. Silicone contamination. Quite a few people got compensation for engine damage. £8M paid out. Thurrock plant contamination.

Rain saps power in ICE cars similar to EVs it is that EV have far superior data systems we can measure small difference in energy usage. ICE vehicles ars so wasteful of energy, most themselves energy goes out of the exhaust pipe as waste heat, that a mile per gallon list in rain is no big deal. When charging it is easy to monitor the electricity going in to the Joule, program to stop the charge on battery level, which i do alot. Just got to make sure one does not pick up an idle charge. Worse than downloading more power than one intends, at big expense, is to be charged dosh for being connected but not charging up, that would hurt. Never had that thankfully.

Done that too.

Superb still has a good sized tank ie 66 litres, and has not suffered so much of the trend of smaller fuel tanks on B and C segment cars. Cars was modified with non standard tyres ie more energy efficient ones, had the Greenline smooth underfloor, something EVs have as fairly standard now and who knows what else. Probably cooled fuel to reduce volume ie put in a fridge before the run and the absolutely brimmed like I would do when I use to get my Tescos 5p /8p off tokens. Still and impressive mileage and especially as set on roads and not track like when an RAF team near doubled the miles travelled compared to WLTP ie over 480 miles compared to 250 miles WLTP but that was done at Thruxton and average speed was 20 mph not not really practical and therefore must have taken nearly 2 days, must have been a lot of fun, not. Couple of other points. Diesel is 2.25 Euros per litre so fuel tank would cost about 150 Euros to fill ie about £130 so not cheap compared to ICE home or destination charging costs or even some public charging costs at the right times. That 66 litres of diesel 2.5 GJ of energy and burning it would produced 177 kgs of CO2 being added to the Earth's atmosphere. Energy per mile would be 1.42 MJ per mile, normal driving and normal car would be around 3 MJ per mile. An EV would typically average about 0.9 MJ per mile so way more efficient than even the most extreme effort to be efficient. EVs are at least twice as efficient as even the most extreme ICE effort, on average more like 3 to 4 time more efficient. Running costs similarly so.

Can be done, ie get WLTP range and more, only happens in exceptional circumstances ie battery over 15C and a driver who knows how to maximise regen. My son just drives our EVs, doesn't play with the regen paddles, draft that Transit van doing the 60 mph or so and that is fine but he's a smooth driver so get quite good milez per KWh. The Mini EV progressively throttles power and is better than the Renaults for the novice but I don't think it will go much beyond 0%. The Renaults will go more the 5% past 0% before even warning of performance restriction. It will then go another 2 or 3% before conking out so my little 5's range in summeris over 200 miles and the Scenic is over 275 miles in truth before Restriction warning pops up and one really should charge up. EVs BMS needs to be better and more consistent across the makes as the vary massively in how they inform and perform in the lower gentiles and negative of informed state of charge.

Electrics have always equated in a hydrodynamic way to help me understand. KWh is volume capacity, KW is flow rate like litre per hour or so. Congrats to Pierre Gasly taking poll at Monza, great for Alpine-Renault and Enstone Oxfordshire. Just need to convert to podium tomorrow, especially after being robbed of Monte Carlo podium.

As with finance about a third of people just don't have the numbers and understanding of energy capacity, energy transfer rates etc. Not sure I know the answers, maybe PHEVs.

Never meet your heroes. Was at the Hawthorns, as oft am, and Frank Skinner was walking around talking to various in the crowd, he was miserable. Managed to shout to him his tv series, which he wrote appeared is SH1TE which is how the public reacted to it too. Like his stand up, but Shane was bad.

He does, genuinely seems to speak up for the poor. Chalk and cheese compared to Sean Connery who seemed exactly as a Scot abroad with so much to stay on Scottish independence. I like Brian Cox the actor and he seems to appear on UK tv ie Question time a few times. I like SNP actions on green issue, they appear more socialist than Labour.

Brian big SNP supporter of course. Some of in England belief Scotland will only be properly free when it gets total political autonomy and we would be fascinated how it does. Hope to see it in my life time. If you love someone let them go.