lol-lol

Another Octopus fee hour of lecky 1300 to 1400 BST. I am away in Liverpool so will not be able to exploit it so well. Wonder when these free lunchtime session will come to an end. Probably as we get close to the Autumnal Equinox/ Equilux. Sol is not a point of light but a sphere of about 860,000 miles diameter https://www.timeanddate.com/astronomy/equilux.html

Great experience working for PW and then pwc. Amazing talent to work with but tough ask justifying ones £2k a day charge out rate. Buildings with Arboretums, make partner and you start off on more than quarter of a million and pwc has thousands of partners. Increasingly the action is in the Far East where it is even more franetic. Canada, Oz or NZ would have suited me in retrospect. Seem to have ended up in logistics somehow which I thought I might have done in the middle rather than the end. Started work at 15 as a Merchant Navy Engineering Officer cadet and finishing working for CMA shipping company uk logistics arm. Full circle.

Was an employee of HMCE until offered double bubble to work for ones of the big six accountancy/consultancy firms. One is still cover by the Official Secrets Act, as amended, even as an ex employee of course. In the 80s the OSA was amended to include not to tell anyone, civil service or not, about "anything they do no need to know", very wide brief. I think it was fellow Plymouth girl Sarah Tisdale who told about the cruise missile storage at Greenham Common that tightened things up. So many good stories. Working with the SBS, the Investigation Division and as we have more powers than the police, ahh fun days, mostly not well paid except when on Cutter and preventive duties but a good pension compared to trying to save for a decent private "equity" based pension !

Easy to still get captured by the ANPR cameras but unless one is charged differently for different roads then why not take the sorter A and B road route rather than motorway. Less miles on the car, the pay per mile hopefully, siuts EVs as they are better in towns, villages and non motorways. Only problem is claiming the longer route on one's mileage claim but the system having proof one took the more direct route. Going to be a killer for claiming the longer distances !

In HMRC we would report to government not just how much we collected from the various tax types but how much it cost to collect those taxes. Collecting Excise Duty on hydrocarbons is the most efficient tax of all. A small number of staff collect the £25B in hydrocarbon excise duties. This will fall as there are less diesel and petrol cars on the road of course. Whilst there is looking like being about a 9% rise in the energy cap prices on October 1st there would be a rise in VAT revenue on the that electrical supply but it looks like more and more people are installing solar and therefore the will be importing less energy from the national grid and paying the VAT on it. As I said above the tax has to be collectable and the UK government cannot the electricity people make themselves from solar. They could raise the vat rate on the supply of electricity to homes and that will raise much more revenue in the winter. The 5% rate of energy supply could move to 6,7,8, 9, 10, both 8 and 10% has been the VAT rate previously. Of course this hit everyone and especially in the winter and with winter allowance being means tested I have heard with much more power of the government to get energy companies to supply the winter fuel allowance rather than supply it to the royal families and other super rich. Fuel duty has not kept up with inflation and it really should or even better have a duty and VAT controlling mechanism which keeps diesel and petrol say between £1.50 and £1.60 a litre and this range is index linked, maybe slightly less for Central and North Devon, Cornwall, West Wales and Northern Scotland where locals may deserve cheaper petrol and they do not pollute towns and cities. Tax can be very flexible and targeted but it needs a bit of imagination and blue sky thinking to be as fair as possible whilst help protect the environment as well as refill our depleted coffers. I do not believe pay per mile will work as people will use the motorways less and drive through Cotswold villages and the like to take a shorter route, that will not go down well.

I know a giant 6'6" South Afrikan whose car of choice was the 300. There are few cars I do not put the seat right back to the stops and some smallish cars let you do it but the room behind that seat would be for primary school persons or younger. Use to be that many cars from certain countries seemed made for the smaller stature. Tried a Hyundai Coupe and it was just way too small for those over 6 foot. Original 10 foot long Mini could be setup to accommodate those 6 foot 6 but needed the stop tabs removed from the seat rails and the little bracket to drop the steering column down. Zero room for legs of the passenger. I will test out the Scenic on those well over 6 foot tall relatives but the spec looks fine for them, as long as there is not 3 across the back seats.

One reason I have gone for the Scenic as several of us are 6 footers and daughter no 1's man is 6 foot four, his brother is 6 foot 10. Head room and knee should be fine, only the cabin width might be a bit short for say one or two kids chairs and adult size people. Megane would have been too tight but Scenic has lots of good reviews fo those 6 foot plus a few inches. The Passat and Superb had been the go to cars for the giants, maybe a Cryshler 300 and maybe the ID7 might be the VW tall persons car of the future and perhaps Skoda will do a version of that. ID 7 seems to be being met much more widely praised than the ID 3,4 and 5 with the Skoda Enyak being further up Journo list than the smaller IDs.

My Renault Arkana was built in South Korea. The Scenic, sister car to the Nissan Ariya has the LG battery packs. I see Nissan shares have gone to junk status so wonder if they will survive. Japan just did not get BEVs like China and South Korea and it may cost them their auto industry. Manufacturing in Siuth Korea should circumvent the massive EU and US trade tariffs. (Ibcluding cars supplied to Ireland North and South.

EV production has not really focused on limo type cars. The battery packs have tended to make the SUV/MPV or tallish city cars the way to go in their design. Chinese have probably more EV models, something like the BYD Han, which is probably slightly above the Superb in size etc ie E segment in car parlance. I would rather stick with French cars the go Chinese. Polestar 4 perhaps. This cars are about complete another level or several levels above even the 280 hp 4 wheel drive Superb. Did they now stop producing that one and now it is just this 200 hp versions and less ? Hopefully EVs and cars in general will have executive saloons available as these are the cars to munch the miles but then that is going to be harder and harder, accept in Germany, where we have spies in the cars like a nagging mother in law telling you are doing over 70 mph. I will just stick the Scenic in eco mode, which only allows 71 mph, and just chillout look at the starship enterprise dash. Maybe use kickdown once in a while perhaps.

Also the fact ones money is not burning up at something like 12p a mile on fuel but rather 2p a mile. Also the fact that an expense service is not coming up quickly also !!!

I know you do not like the Zoe seats, be interested to see what you think of the Scenic if you get a chance, but would not be having such issues in a Renault ie 22 Kw AC charging (hope my Scenic is getting 22 kWs like the Zoe) plus the 275 miles summer range of the Zoe/Scenic 60 kWh you would have halved your need to charge and time to charge, just saying. Renault very emboldened, cocky really, saying, quoting Autoexpress, better range and value than a Y. Of course new TESLA Juniper model Y is out next year and quite likely to take Car of the Year next year 2025, as the Scenic did this year (2024) ............

Far from it. I have a company Fuel card for petrol but not for EV charging (there is a problem here with all EVs except TESLAs) but I use the EV where I can as that use renewable, or nuclear base load, electricity which will be UK or Danish or French or Norwegian generated probably rather than using the climate damaging petrol derived from oil that has probably come from the Middle East. Same as I do with my pension investments ie choosing ethical investments rather than no ethical ones. It's a life choice and made to give my children, grandchildren a better chance to live in a world where they are not paying for my choices whether that is EV or investments.

One of my daughters just kick BG in to touch as they had nearly £1k credit but BG would not let me lower their DD. It is not all about the very lowest energy cost rates but the service and flexibility as my family member found out ie set a DD rate, got into biggish credit and Octopus gave them a payment holiday and drastically cut their DD payment. Just what you want on maternity leave !!.

Not EV tariff limited. One just has to be an Octopus customer and click to join in. One needs a Smart meter obvious so system knows one has used the power in the hour slot. Octopus have now passed Centrica ie British Gas due to their prices and service. A Shining example of the Third Way of living. A business but massively benefits the customers and not only the owners. Greg Jackson is a super star.

I probably will not bother to plug the car in you an hour but will charge up some of my batteries, put a washing and/or clothes drying cycle and any other charging up of devices. No driveway required for the above.

Octopus announce another free hour of electricity tomorrow ie Sunday 18th of August 2024, between 1 pm and 2 pm BST. As a response petrol stations have announced two hours of free petrol. Nah, I made that up. This free lecky is becoming a thing all over the world where solar, along with wind energy is in such abundance the good lecky suppliers are happy to give away for free. This is likely to extend to longer mid day periods going forward here in the UK but also in Oz, mainland Europe and other places where, despite massive battery storage continuing to be built, closing coal plants for good in Oz, China, Germany and many other countries. Negligible cost for motive energy, very low services costs and falling EV proces.The truth about electric cars. (And low to zero emission so help saves the planet for our kids & grandkids)

The dropping of EV subsidies in Europe, particularly Germany, had much to do with the drop in sales. EV do not need subsidies any more. UK got it right dropping those subsidies more than 2 years ago. Subsidies should be more about keeping public services running which is very difficult when one if expecting drivers to run their cars for 45p per mile !! Yet Gilmour and Waters have not really got on for decades.

Why does he talk in such an affected way and is so self righteous in his presentation ? Do you know if he has any engineering qualifications ? There are valid points here, such a Mercedes using parts many Europeans would regard as below par as well as owner neglect and building safety system being switched off. As sometimes said it often takes two to have an accident or in this case maybe 3 errors ?

Gaza death toll over 40k now I gather. Q park Liverpool not discriminating against EVs. They have actually just installed EV chargers on level 0. Presume fire detection and suppression has been considered at least.

Unfair to those who charge in public and have to pay the higher rate of Value Added Tax. One of Con MPs highlighted this during PMQs and Sunak did not answer the question at all. Pathetic. Hope Labour sorts this out even if it is lowering the VAT rate on public supply in several stages. IMO should restore the Excise duty escalator at least inline with inflation.

But one pays that anyways on one's electrical supply. As another bonus one is only charged 5% VAT rather than 20% with dinosaur juice with all the noxious byproduct gases when burning and then producing the carcinogens.

Octopus giving an hour of free lecky from 1pm today. In a counter move the petrol station are thinking of giving a happy hour of free fuel. Nah, made that bit up.

He said about old Zoes using Chademo ! To quote the football anthem for referees "You dont know what your doing". Generally like Fully charged and this presenter but the lack of basic knowledge undermines credibility.

Smaller engines are oft worse at emissions as it is the high cylinder temperatures that create the nasty NOX. Skoda moved from the 1.4TSI to the 1.TSI EVO, same power but better emissions. Allowed them to lower cylinder temperatures and they introduce cylinder deactivation of course. Ford ECOBOOST engine not so good on emissions, maybe OK on CO2 but not so good on NOX. Good petrol hybrids can provide low emissions and not always cost the earth like the Clio etech shows which if you do not want a little Yaris is widely regarded as the best cheapish, still £22K mind, full hybrid. But this can improve year on year with bigger lithium battery, or LIFEPH as they constant improve on energy denisty whilst becoming much cheaper too.