lol-lol

750 ? My buddy bought an ex police Dunstall tuned commando, produced about 20% more powerful than standard, 5 star fuel, a kick start not for the sub 10 stone riders. 0 to 90 in 9 seconds the cops would tell the Aston drivers etc of the time. Great memories.

If Iran has its way the price of oil will become almost unaffordable. UK government should have an excise variable rate so the excise and VAT is about a £1 a litre and world shock in supply from the Persian Gulf does not create a hike in diesel and petrol and therefore inflation too. Electricity prices should be as affected.

I do though nice not to have to as with more advanced dsg 7 speed box as was in Octavia rather than Fabia vrs. Renault Scenic has coast no regen on the paddles lowest setting. Clio hybrid on has to select neutral rather than B or D setting on the gear shift. Done very gently so as not to go accidentally in to reverse though I suspect it would not actual go in to reverse as it is all fly by wire rather than actual mechanical stick shift, unlike a BL car once did that and it did not like it, hire car fortunately.

Not sure if true or fake but quite funny either way......

I got an OK trade in on my Arkana mild hybrid which I needed to clear off the drive to make room for the full EV. One has to second guess the dealer but I think they were quite happy to get a lowish mileage petrol mild hybrid which they could probably bend someone towards rather then selling a new ICE when they can only sell 3 new ICE cars for each full EV they sell to hit the 22% mandated government target. I wad hoping to maybe chop in my Arkana and my Zoe but they definitely did not want the Zoe back just yet as Zie residuals and way way under the pcp balloon payment due to the flood of Zoes coming back off leases. Many factors affecting particular models of EVs and ICE but some great deals out there with some great finance deals but more so for EVs I suspect. I learnt in the last few years RRP is one number in the equation. With the Zoe the dealer will not want me to just hand back the Zoe as EV 2nd hand values are relatively low, indications are they are willing to do a deal which will mathematically mean quite a big hit for the manufacturer but at least they will get the 2nd hand EV bought by the person who originally took out the PCP and they do not get another 2nd hand EV on their forecourt when they want to be selling new Renault 5 and 4 EVs.

As low as I can, as you say about 18C oft. If cold outside I might wear a little gillette over my work shirt, sue the heated seat rather than heat the whole car's air mass. new car picked up Saturday ie Scenic 60 kWh ie small battery version, going to have to be frugal with energy usage sometimes. It has a heat pump and I am building up the miles so the seen and hidden miles per kWh registers ie display and hidden value, getting them up to over 4 kWh is current mission. Tyre pressure pumped up to full car pressure ie 36 on the front and 40 psi in the back which should help efficiency and therefore range. Yet to do the charge to 100%+ and get it to do the cell balancing to get the max range. So temperature will be set low until I know I have the range I want. I will be more enough with a second layer. Compared to motorcycling it is like toast even with the aircon off !! A temperature set at about 291 Kelvin is fine, none of the centigrade crap.

It's mostly fake I think.

Atomic batteries and turbines......

Many get off at Plymouth, Xecteter or Truro of course. Good argument to stop the train at Truro or Plymouth as cannot be economic I would have thought. Romans thought so too.

Not had chance as been playing with my insanely complex new Renault Scenic. It seems to be as much of a mobile computer station as an actual car to drive. Will get round to it. The massive flooding all over the world is not good for either EV or ICE vehicles or their infrastructure or homes and industry. Narrowly missed it when in Europe last week, Berlin was fine but Poland, CZ, SK etc were badly hit and it causes so many problems like we saw with Tewkesbury in 2007.

Well I expect the EU would like us to fall in line with the tariffs and to a degree the UK is required to under the Trade Cooperation Agreement ie our leaving deal to retain much of the trade between UK-EU-Uk to be zero duty, as long as it meets origin rules, Nissan are/were very worried about this of course. Some argument that our cars for our market are Right Hand Driver whilst all the EU countries, bar the Republic of Ireland, are Left Hand Drive so there should not be a flood or UK bought cars being moved over to the EU a few a weeks/months of UK registration. We will see. Nice source of new revenue for UK government if they did slap a hefty CV duty on the cars. It hards the consumer but it is a great election thing to say government is protecting EU, Canada, US jobs by introducing these new tariffs, even if it really hurts some consumers.

BYD, the only vehicle manufacturer that can source nearly all of the components from themselves, not sure about tyres. My firm has ordered some of the 19T trucks.... https://www.fleetnews.co.uk/news/byd-unveils-new-line-up-of-electric-vans-and-trucks Quoted range seems low for a battery over 255 kwh ie only 155 miles, not yet a motorway muncher to Scotland or even Felixstowe but it will get their with YoY, MoM improvements. . BYD ETH8 eTruck A further debutant in Hannover from the Chinese manufacturer is the the BYD ETH8, a 19t electric truck with a multipurpose platform for different operations and two wheelbase options. It comes with a range of 250km (155 miles). It also offers an abundance of onboard equipment, and a spacious ergonomically designed cabin for driver comfort. Like the BYD ETM6, it uses BYD’s eTruck platform which includes a five-in-one controller for optimum performance and efficiency, as well as ease of maintenance. It has a large 255kWh battery capacity which can be charged from 20% to 100% in two hours.

Saw the price cut in Youtube advert think it was. BYD, Geely, SAIC etc will be massively focusing on the UK market as Canada, EU and US become closed off with the additional 38% to 100% customs duties. Northern Ireland will get hit with these EU CV duties of course. So the Chinese manufacturers, which includes many supposedly European brands who get some of their cars built in China, will have to think again ie stop the Chinese government subsidies or assemble in the EU, or Turkey, which some like BYD and Gelly are planning to do, not sure about SAIC, they may move Chines production to assembly in other SE Asian countries to circumvent the EU rule but meanwhile UK is a place to sell whilst they can.

Scenic Comfort collected. Range showing 192 miles with 3/4 battery showing full. Tyre pressures set to my preference ie higher and we will see where the range settles down to. Dealer mention one of their fleet Megane etech has shown over 300 miles guessed range. As I mentioned I agreed a price much closer to £30k than £40K ie just over £400 a month on PCP. Image attached.... Good video. Well done Polestar 2 but it is a saloon rather than a SUV which most people seem to want. 322 miles at 70 mph and in rain. Whilst this long range version ie 92 kw h version has an RRP of £41k it can be had for much less than that. Q6, more than twice the price highlighted VAG Group issues, wish they had the Skoda Enyak on the test, either battery size. With proper set up and safer driving ie tyres pumped up a bit more and cruising a little slower, as the French do ie drive a little slower in the rain, say 65, they could have gone much further but then they would have gone even deeper into the night getting these cars to run out of charge.

Another factor is carrying ladies, or children, or thin people, who want the cabin temperature in the low twenties. my Zoe has a heat pump, as do all Scenics after the debacle of only some Megane etech having them and not getting even close to WLTP in colder weather but I find having a heated set on, fitted or after market, and having the cabin temperature at 18c works fine to me. Cars struggle to keep the upper part of the cabin warm as the glass part lets the heat out more so now that the body but having acoustic glass, like the Scenic has has a double benefit of sound deadening and heat retention. Preheating good to and when I collected the Scenic 60 kwh tomorrow it will be the first time I have had heated steering wheel and seats since my L&K Octavia Mk 1, luxury. Heat pumps should be standard especially in places like the Midlands where we get temperature like Northern Scotland ie down to -20 C in some winters.

The source you quote implies there is the weather patterns and they have gone for decades and will likely continue to do so. I think they divert attention from the manmade affect on climate and the changing environment all humans and other air, land and sea creatures are having to cope with.... https://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/carbon-dioxide/?intent=121#:~:text=Note the colors change as,to over 420 ppm currently. Virtual free from floating sea in both the Arctic and Antarctic oceans is looking like a possibility in our lifetimes ie the 2040 decade..... seaice_202408_fig5.pdfseaice_202408_fig5.pdfhttps://climate.copernicus.eu/sea-ice-cover-august-2024#:~:text=Arctic sea ice extent reached,in the satellite data record. seaice_202408_fig5.pdf

Heat pump can mean only a 10% loss of winter range instead of up to 40% !!!

Weather was quite OK in Berlin last week, it had been freakishly warm day before I arrived ie 32C and then dropped to 16C for most of the week, I gather its back up to over 25C as the Autumnal Equinox comes up this week. In Switzerland they were getting early snow and in the last few days there has been massive flooding in CS and SK which has impact Skoda operations in those countries. Hottest summers on record, sea water temps several degrees above normal picking up 200 ft yachts and smashing them to pieces on water spouts. Nothing going here, continue as normal burning stuff. SBS (Stop Burning Stuff) https://stopburningstuff.org/ & https://stopburningstuff.org/myths-facts/

Octopus Energy do it again. Whilst the Day rate has gone up 10% to just over 25 p per kWh the 5 hour Night rate has stayed at 8.5p per kWh !!!!! Now I have two wallbox chargers which can add about 55 kWh in that 5 hour period plus scheduling house lecky use should mean big saving. Thanks Greg Jackson and the Octopus team progressing The Third Way.

Did you ever pull the umbrella out of the door ? One of my favourite things in the whole world is blowing people's preconceptions away.

Many newish cars on the road are not a choice of jonny done well splurging their wealth but on having a car allowance and an expectation that the car allowance is spent on a suitable car and my company, largest mover of finished cars in the world and top three shipping line, expects one has a car that that has 4 doors and is kept tidy. There are occasions where one will be expected to collect and take high ranking international business persons and one's own international Directors in the car from airports, where I oft work, to our local offices. One's own Directors would take a dim view if you turn up in a car over 5 years old. A previous employer of mine, specialist customs software company, would not let me have a Skoda company car as they thought it brought the company image down. Oddly they would let me have a SEAT but also had Audis and Volvos.

Owning a car usually means settling for a car of more than 5 years old for most people. Most use HP or PCP to get in to the car they want to use. This means being in a car less than 3 years old that does not need an MOT and one that does not pollute as many 5 and 10 year old car which us important to some drivers. As long as the economy is OK, there are jobs out there with good rates of pay and interest rates are lowish then new cars get taken out of the showrooms and the total amount of pollution are vehicles are emitting goes down. Maybe not so much fit moves from diesel to petrol as this can mean a bit more co2 rather than less but probably much less NOX. Housing stock in the UK is on average old compared to some countries and is going to be slow to change so we have to look at retail parks and the like to provide cheapish EC charging under government plans but the have way less than no money ie a £3T national debt.

I have been experimenting with both rigid conventional solar panels and now these foldable take anywhere portable panels. I will get another two of these 200W, four pane foldable panels, they only weight about 7 kgs so as easily moveable, then I will wire them in series. The solar generator I feed the portable panel output in to can take up to 60v so three panels with a open voltage of 18v I think it is will go in series nicely giving me 600w max. I could then put another three in series and mount them in parallel to the other three panels so giving a maximum of 1200w. One could keep doing this up to the limit of the solar generator's limit. I would eventually like to put a sun tracking array where the washing post is to maximimise solar capture. Those of us with this interest are watching the prices as they fall for solar panels, solar generator batteries, especially for discount events like Black Friday and Cyber Monday to get the bargains. I rarely use main electricity during the day now knowing I can use the cheap night time electricity to top up the solar batteries if the day's solar electricity generation has been poor. Electricity companies have to charge a daily rate which assumes the worse ie that people are going to come home at teatime and and use electricity which the electricity companies have to pay a premium from the electricity generators. Those who can defer and advance download electricity, or/and alter there life style will naturally, under optimising economic conditions, save themselves a packet plus have resilience if the light go out.

Yes I have seen it, not in my last week trip to Berlin but recently when flying in to Frankfurt and popping down to Darmstadt, it was only about 21 km test scenario, it makes certain EV truck work like trams with overhead over the cab pickups for overhead lecky power........

Sunshine and wind is in everyone's hands and not only if one has a bit of garden or roof as in many countries people are handing foldable solar panels off balconies. I bought a 200W foldable 4 solar panel (sub £90) travel array it can be put pretty much anywhere, hung from a fence etc. Germany, Spain residence without either gardens or roofs are getting on to the solar train to slashing their annual bill. Add a battery of a few kWhs and happy days and nights. I can see certain peaks in energy consumption being expensive, possibly upto or over £1 a KWh being charged by suppliers, I think I read Octopus Agile customs can sometimes be hit with costs of that level but it is a freak occurrence and increasingly outweighed by free of negative cost sessions. Flat daily rates will increasingly be bad economic choices, they are already for EV households with home charging.