lol-lol

Happy to register mine. Big enough to put a Reg plate etc on it. Insurance, already got motorcycle pass, indicator, lights etc......

This is my beauty......... 36v - 800 watts, I meant 250 watts. Remove the three very heavy lead acid batteries and replaced with three 92 Wh 12.8v Lithium batteries which made the scooter a good 6 kilos lighter. No fitted with battery powered indicators, lights, phone holder so I can see GPS speed. Worcester has excellent cycle paths over much of the city. Need to find a way to make sure it cannot do over 15.5 mph on public areas and hope law changes accordingly...... Even some spare space in the battery box after the batteries conversion. A regearing maybe too. The 48v and 60v version would be interesting. Quite a few e scooters now available with seats so one can choose standing mode or lob in the seat and seat post for longer journeys.....

You must be in line for saint hood ? Let him who has no sin through the first stone. I would be amazed if there is nobody who has paid for things in cash, window cleaner, second hand part from a scrappers. One said to me, I was wearing a pullover with HM Customs & Revenue knitted on the breast and he said " part is a tenner if you give me cash or twelve if it is a cheque as I have to put it through t books" . Yes we should all pay our taxes, not to do so is the road to society failure and we are already quite a way down that road in the UK. In HMC&E / HMRC we tended to concentrate on those who were really taking the pith rather and tiny corner cutting. Do miss TEST EATING and TEST BETTING back in the day. A high ranking customs Office once said to me, I needed to by a map to do a knock on a particular business, and he said "just a add a few miles to your mileage claim rather than go through the hassle of putting a claim for a separate claim". Shocked me, he probably saw it as "operational Need" is what I would regularly hear from Investigation Branch/CIU et Officers. The Greater Good. I look forward to your elevation to saint hood should I outlive you.

I think it becomes a product of mileage rates not keeping pace with motoring costs. As a tax auditor you see it occur more and more is difficult financial signs, food places fiddling their VAT more etc. Two examples that I do recall was fellow HMRC Officers actually claiming down to tenths of a mile, many would round up I suppose and Officers like myself withdrawing their cars in Feb or March as they hit the 10k miles, drove the senior Officers nuts as it was so much more inefficient. Start using the more expensive train rather than use the car. I gather HMRC Officers, according to the one I was working with last month, now are forced to use Enterprise rental cars ratgher than their own, or public transport. The Enterprise car may be in a street some distance away, not great for someone like me who can hardly walk half a mile and Uk gov will not let me ride by lecky scooter shame on them.

In my experience companies pay the HMRC Treasury rates ie 45p up to first 10k miles in the tax year, 25p a mile over 10k miles, unsurprisingly there is oft less miles done per month once the 10k mileage is hit until the new tax year starts then it goes back up again, funny that. Some companies pay more the 45p a mile and some play less, either way it either attracts tax on allows it to be reclaimed big time as I do (I get no mileage paid to me so reclaim the whole difference between 45 ppm and zero). Electric car, diesel, petrol makes no difference as to the mileage rate. It is just EVs can be put through the salary sacrifice scheme turning a £1k a month exitic EV in to a £580 a month car, nice. UK Treasury mileage rate are less than they were 33 years ago. I was getting 63 p per mile then (Rover SD1 were my weapon of choice and not the sub 2 litre one. Having it that doing company miles is not a loss situation colleagues of mine have been quite creative. Claiming more business claimable miles that actual done, ie take a shorter but slightly slower route and claim the longer quicker route. What do you put in on the claim ? Your odometer mileage, some cars over read, a few even under record. Google, AN Other route planner App. Journey over 2 hours ? Add in the diversion to eat, get fuel ? Lots of other scams in this area though companies can be pretty hoy on this, even HMRC ie detracting your home to base mileage from the claim, again shortest route using E class road to Base or quickest. EVs are great as a vehicle to do business miles, hybrids too that do great gas mileage. Many of those in my company ditched their old Euro 5 diesels for quick petrol hybrids, some have fuel cards, some not. Still a nice Benefit to have but monthly car allowance is the norm and that gets taxed and with the fiscal drag of frozen tax allowance some are getting caught paying much more tax thru PAYE. Fuel on a fuel card also gets directly taxed monthly and no longer is on the P11D to catch up year down the road.

With an election coming up then being tough defender of US jobs is key.

Yes for Most Favored Nation rate Chinese cars in to EU or UK. Was 25 % for China to US but will be put to 100 % if passed which it will as will get Democrat and Republican support.

US doing this under trade statute 301 and not Anti Dumping, Countervailing our Retalitary duties but still could go to the World Trade Organisation for decesion. EU and UK could do the same and China might well stop certain minerals which they have a virtual monopoly which will harm some sections of electronics it is expected. Trade wars can harm both consumers and some manufacturers, hopefully get sorted. China will setup in some other countries, including Mexico probably, which is NAFTA, so circumvent these direct US on China goods traffic that way.

US to introduce 100% Ad Valorem tariff on Chinese EVs. EU and UK to do something similar to prevent Dumping on their car markets ?

Diesel theft has been a big problem for us and many logistics firms. The mess these guys leave behind is biblical ie drill a tank with hundreds of litres in it and find the can only take a few tens of litres with the rest making an oil spill that costs hundreds or thousands of pounds to clean up.

Indeed, all true, and presumedly it is an aluminium alloy and with a move to 48v or another higher voltage and less current the automotive industry is considering that but still actively evaluating as much of the car being aluminium, body, engine and electrics. Grid uses aluminium in huge quantities I thought. Latest cars have more panels made from plastics it seems which in my view is what oil should be used for and not inefficiently burning the stuff.

Copper used in the big cables from batteries to motors but some movement to make them Aluminium for ease of recycling.

Even more important than the converting of cars over from ICE to EV, and up there with delivery van fleets from ICE to EV the HGVs doing the same is key to further cleaning up our air and putting less CO2 in the Earth's atmosphere..... UK Government backed ie you taxes........ th

Thanks. Terrible MPG and CO2 figures for both models it looks like.

Cannot remember ever seeing one and I car that fugly would stand out. One in 5,000 UK registered cars is a Tarraco, wow. I will look out for them, see if better or worse in the flesh. Looks like they sold 50-ish in 2022 and 2023.... https://www.howrareismycar.co.uk/seat/tarraco/

Only current VAG wiesel car of this sort of format is the wonderful SEAT Tarraco, so good VAG do not even bother to sell in the UK from I have seen but it was put to VCA for cetification. According to VCA the 2 litre 110 Kw engine ie 150 hp CR wiesel engine gave CO2 figures of 142 or 144 gm Co2 depending on the model. MPG average of 54. What is the point of such a car unless you are towing ???/

my lad filled up Saturday night, drove the Hawthorns and back, mainly motorway but some 50 mph zones as they are putting in lots of laybys they should have put in the first place of the Smart motorway, 75 mpg showing. perfect weather ie about 20 C and dry. In winter probably looking like about 60 mpg. Still quite good though.

Not sure it is the same method of measurement compared to last decade. 119 sounds like VAG got it just under the 120 gm and all know now what a bunch of cheats VAG were then. As I said before we are less worried these days about CO2 than NOX and PMs. On cold rainy days diesel cars which do not get their Cat up to temperature are pumping out pollutants several times highervthan their lab figures. Renault diesels too sadly. Petrol cars get their engines up to temperature quicker as we know. Oddly start stop does not really help keep the cat up to temperature of course.

Yes this 1.6 litre naturally aspirated engine linked to a quite small ie 1.2 kWh traction battery does well in urban environment. Nearly 40% of distance in pure EV mode fuel consumption around 55 mpg in quite good, not great, I have seen the Clio with the same engine get much better ie around 80 mpg. What put me off the Arkana etech was Top Gear did sub £40k family car comparison test and in the acceleration the Arkana e-ech was last I think, beaten even by a Berlingo. The 0-62 for the Arkana etech is about 11 seconds compared to 9 seconds for my 1.3 MHEV , put it in manual and use paddles to go though the 7 gears, though I think one would only need the lower 3 to hit 62 mph, it will do over 100 in any of the top 4 gears. Happy with it, only £25K new does pretty much everything well, just glad I do not have to pay full price for fuel in it because if I did it will probably go.

Indeed Renault have stopped advertising the MHEV as its CO2, about 130 gm/km is just too high and Renault will get knobbled for being way above the average 95 gm per Km average it must adhere to our get fined. The Full hybrid Arkana uses the same sub 100 hp naturally aspirated 1.6 litre engine with the two electric motors that can add 250 Nm of torque to propulsion. The set up is exactly the same as we have in the Clio etech but the Akana weighs quite a bit more. The MHEV Arkana is much more spritely, better acceleration and if one uses it mainly for motorways and not town driving, as I do, good MPG can be achieved from the MHEV so particularly as I have the Zoe the MHEV Akana seemed the right car to be my long distance vehicle. Renault continue with the 1.6 litre naturally aspirated engine linked to the electric motor with it being used in the new Symbioz and Capture as well as the Arkana, all in the C sector. In the D sector Renault have a 1.2 turbo engine mated to a 2 kWh lithium ion battery. Renault HQ asked me to test this in the Austral at my local dealer. Better engine etc setup for the bigger ie heavier car but ore expensive to built in to the car. Renault will hope it sells lots of Megane-e and Scenic BEVs to meet its 22% threshold but I suspect there will be some mega deal on these cars come fall. They could introduce variants we do not get in the UK ie the 100 kW engines and 40 KWh batteries fo the Megane-e which could boost BEV sales. So I can see the Zoe going for a Megane-e later this yea and the Arkana going for a Rafela, same platform as the Austral next year. Breezing along at 70 mph, or even low 80s in non UK roads in EV mode is what it can do, big car, averaging over 60 mpg, 200 hp, 300 hp if one goes for the other available version is where I plan to be but if BEVs continue appearing in 400 miles plus range and te running costs ICE to BEV continues to widen maybe it will be a BEV, model 3 or Y.

Been quiet about a Fuel Price Escalator for many a year. Fuel Duty has not kept pace with inflation or even close to it. Electricity should get cheaper and cheaper, particularly in the summer and with more North Sea wind coming on line but I expect in winters it will get more expensive and then drop each time for summer as seems to be happen with the UK energy price cap. Q3 2024 looking cheaper but to bounce back in the winter. Of peak tariff of more interest to some of us. https://public.flourish.studio/visualisation/17859750/

Bit more than a soap box for me as customs is what I do. Been a while dealing with cars, more in to aerospace and other verticals. SO many new customs procedures, sanitary and photosanitary, seal, cat, dog, weapons of torture and soon to be carbon I am beginning to think the devil is in charge as in bedazzled.... "Everything I have told you is a lie, even that is a lie"

If you are "coasting" then some battery has to be powering the electric power steering, lights etc, Arkana choose the lithium battery I gather but both lead acid and lithium are working fairly closely. Clio e-tech has a level of charge just like the fuel gauge, Arkana has nothing but then its battery is a sixth the size of Clio etechs, the big D segment Austal has a 2 kwH and there are European versions the UK does not get which has about a 10 kWh that has a PHEV port to charge it with. Not sure why it was decided not to bother to import to the UK. The Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV seemed quite popular even with its pathetic sub 30 mile range. Nissan is a sister company to Renault of course and share quite a bit of tech. Mitsubishi (Motors) was bought by Renault-Nissan many years ago, might have been during an emissions scandal and they were cheap to pickup. The Qashqai did not get all the tricks the Arkana did and now they have gone there own way with this electric drive setup. If made in UK hope it sells OK for the UK plant sake, have not seen any real MPG figures which will be interesting.

Not sure that is right. UK public seem quite unaware of laws that are coming in and UK continues to be largely aligned with the EU as I think the UK-EU Trade Cooperation Agreement would be dissolved if we were not, which allows European ie UK and EU originating goods to be imported with no customs duty hit. EU is bringing in CBAM, Cabron Border Adjustment Mechanism and UK will bing is basically a copy of this. BEV will be hit by this, French have been working hard on lowering carbon hot on much of their goods. Eliminating carbon, whether it is in fuel or goods, is a juggernaut on a worldwide scale and we are only just stating this journey. Whether some car companies will get anything like £15K to transfer a BEV credit to those ca companies who are under the 22% threshold, I suppose that would spread across four ICE cars which are hit for these types of vehicles. One can imagine a reluctance for ca companies to even sell ICE cars unless they are making a very good margin. Expensive sports cars and luxury car makes are probably OK despite this, lower end of the market. Perhaps see more movements of lower end of the car markets moving to cheap labour countries who also get zero import tariffs to the EU and UK. Already happens a lot for cars and motorbikes. Company I work for now moves more cars around the worked than anyone I gather, just finding more about it as we get absorbed we get absorbed by the super massive French conglomerate.

No, no, no. In my long distance driving the MHEV, and same with HEV to quite a degree, is coasting along, usually on a slight or fairly steepish downhills the car shuts down the ICE and uses the extra lithium battery to power the cars electrical system. It has gained this energy but providing extra deceleration, alternator acting as a generator to top up the 12v hybrid battery. Energy for start/stop, which is handled by the led acid battery manages as a normal pue petrol/diesel with start stop I reckon. Might only be a few percent of a journeys is with no ICE running but it really seems to add a few mpg to the car which is very welcome. What seems to be quite pronounced is how much better the whole system works in warm weather rather than cold weather ie about 10 mpg difference. ICE burn some fuel even when ticking over of course. MHEV is turning the ICE off for only 5 seconds sometimes but on other times it seems like half a minute or even over a minute.