lol-lol

Think it was 2016. Great MPG, mark 3 Fabia lovely modern car in so many way but the engine, to do fixing on it was a big a nightmare as my V6 engine in Jaaaaag Type S. How can a small engine be so difficult to do basic stuff on ? I have had cars it would take me less than 15 minutes to change the thermostat and cost about £20. How can it cost 40 times more and call that progress.

Not all SUVs as sprinkling a bit of EV magic on to a turbo-petrol machine can produce some incredible results. Renault UK asked me to test the Austral when it came out last year and it is an impressive machine not just for the sheer amount of tech in the cabin, anti-collision for cyclist and pedestrians as well as other vehicles put it emissions and fuel consumption for a bid segment D car are remarkable. Car would slip in to EV only mode at anything south of 80 mph if the conditions are right. It will average over 60 mpg in the combined cycle. UK model just gets the 2 kWh hybrid battery but other countries ie LHD European mainland can get an Austral with a 10 kWh hybrid battery and plug in ability but UK might well not get that tech as it is just for mainstream markets. Personally looking forward to the prettier Rafela, same D segment platform to Austral and 1.2 turbo with hefty EV assist. Renault ask me to the Scenic launch but not too bothered but looking forward to the 5 launch soon.

My fairly experience with 4/5 year old cars is one of high cost. Car out of warranty, in my case it was a 1.4 diesel Fabia whose thermostat went south so, as it advised, when one goes that deep in to the engine one is recommended to change the water pump as well. £800 jut to get the car back to operating in the same mediocre way it was before the thermostat went. Out of VAG/Skoda's crap 3 year warranty so costly fox and what is to say something else goes wrong next month. Much prefer the peace of mind of car being under manufacturer's warranty, PCP deals can be got for less than £300 a month and then one can rest easy and as my cars are tools of my trade I do not think my clients would be wondering what is going on if one is turning up with a car of 4 years old and over. Doing 20K a year in my main car and about 10K a year in my low to middle range distance to client or office EV I need ultra reliable and I just the out of the blue expense that out of warranty cars can see, blown turbo, faulty auto gearbox which can also be mega expensive. No worries with a car on PCP with a 5 year warranty. PCP also protects, like in the case of the Zoe, price/value falls are at the risk and liablity of the manufacturer/ PCP-lease company. Or choose to pay the balloon payment if, like my Dacia Logan was, car was worth way more than the balloon payment. Winner winner chicken dinner.

Who buys cars ? Less than 10% of new cars are bought and the rest pcp, lease etc. Takes the risk out of fluctuating values and if you get a nice cheap lease then happy days. Nice to get a 5 year or more warranty too. EVs due to continue getting cheaper in real terms as Lithium Iron Phosphate becomes more the norm chemistry and mass production drives down cost and leasing. Problems in UK continue to be higher cost of RHD cars and high interest rates of course.

I have read that only the recent Model Ss and Model Xs, both not normally sold in the UK recently as only doing in LHD, aer fitted with Lithium rather than lead-acid 12V. TESLA is moving to 48v architecture for lighting etc so that might be the time to adopt Lithium, or more probably Lithium Iron Phosphate batteries for the 12/48v system. All nominal voltages of course as though lead acid is about 2.1v per cell ie 6 cells gives you 12.6 volts, LIthium is 3.6v per cell, so do you use 4 or what, and Lithium Iron Phosphate is a nominal 3.2V spiking up to 3.6v near 100% charge...... Four LiFePO4 cells then for 12.8v nominal.

It is an odd one that EVs have not gone all in on Lithium batteries and still have a lead acid 12v battery which is heavy and not that great at taking charge a 1C and above ie charging in an hour or less. Just shows what car makers do to keep cost down. I converted my Yamaha R3 to lithium and plan to do the same to my Yamaha Tracer and would like to do the same to my Zoe which is due a check of the lead acid at 3 years ie in about 7 months time. More money but should be OK for longer and sd not needed to provide a cranking current should be happy days probably get away with less than 50 Ah.

As I understand it the energy recoup is about 90% efficient ie 90% of the kinetic energy is converted to electrical battery energy. When used back in to motive power it will be another operation of about 90% efficiency so all in all it is about 80% for the in and then back out again. What one does in practice is monitor the actual speed limits and either let the car roll down the hill without any use of pedals ie regen or hopefully wasteful disc brake braking and then jab the gear lever in max regen when one hits the speed limit or in in anticipation of a lower speed limit one can see ahead. I use freewheelin sometimes ie put the car in neutral down a long hill as that is the least drag on the internal fictions and then dab back in to low or high regen when speed limits near. When I look at the car's internal stats for a full to near empty battery usage the regen'd energy usually is about 10 to 15% of the energy that has been used so a good extension of some 20 miles or so of range due to the regen mechanisms. So flat journeys would be possible to do a bit more range as there would not be that need to regen and redeploy the energy but with both regen and with heat pumps both the hilly terrain and colder temps can be mitigated and it needs to as both hillyness and coldness are quite plentiful in the English Midlands, Wales and Devon where I do most of my driving so I am pleased to drive well engineering products like the Zoe ZE50, the Clio e-tech and even the mild hybrid Arkana with its coasting.

It constantly surprises me the low level of knowledge. The LED lights that Renault have been using for some years now using about a quarter of the power that the 55/60 watt bulbs car use to use. The traction battery in the XE50 Zoe has (52x60x60) ie 187 M joules of energy. The headlamps are probably taking around 30W. If my maths is correct the traction battery could keep those headlights running for 5 years continuously. Having the headlights on and, or charging your phone in the car aint going to make any real difference to the range. The various dash systems probably take more power than this ie the TFT screens, 9 inch Google maps system could easily be a 100W I suppose but one is still talking small beer. EV's tend to have great displays and when I can cruising along on the Zoe ZE50 the sort of figure I like to see for the motive power usage is 10 to 13 kWh so I know I have about 4 to 5 hours running at that power output perhaps just skimming around the double nickel 55 mph or so and that power usage is 13,000 joules (ie watts) per second to shove the 1.75 tonnes of me through the air, overcome hysteresis tyre rolling resistance (thought to be about a quarter of losses on an EV compared to only a fifth on an ICE cars due to EV's extra weight) and the up hill down dale but I get 90% of that energy back via regen. I think heating is the only major draw, even on a Heat Pump fitted car like the Zoe one might be using 500W or so on a really cold day. Heated seats are very efficient I think. Mine did not get fitted ones as it was a victim of the part shortage so I got a couple of pair of heated seat covers sent over from China, £12 each including freight costs via Amazon, even on low ie sub 30W do not need them to have the cabin set at more than 20C so climate control is only using a few hundred watts at most. Lights set on auto, charging phones etc iva the 4 USB ports it has front and back. Looking forward to the Renault 5 launch in a few days but the Zoe is a hard at to follow, except maybe on looks where the 5 kills it of course.

Worth watching all the way through. Yes great to have the cheapest EV which is the cheapest car to run bar none but have a one year to 18 month Zoe for the same money with a nice interior, bigger boot and twice the battery and range ! Balanced video despite the picture and first half of the rant on basic nature.

No luxury VED on the RWD models as RRP is less than 40k. Tough choice though Astra e or model 3 Highland RWD, not. I am due to drive the Scenic next weekend at an open day but that is 41k, 87 kWh battery though. Want to avoid luxury VED as I always plan to give uk government as little tax as possible.

Got 16k miles out of front tyres on the Zoe but I change with 3mm left as police and tyre companies advice for good wet weather braking. So Zoe burns through tyres quicker than Arkana which has similar power but is lighter. My zoe only uses the 16 inch rims rather than the 17 inch option so tyres were £65 rather than more like £80 for the 17s each. Fitting etc less than £20 per tyre plus complementary hoover and wash, very happy. OE tyres were Mich Primacy EV tyres so had less tread, new tyres Toyo comfort, A grade wet grip, seem good in all respects including energy consumption and I expect will last 20k miles even with the tyre shredding torque of the EV. Cheap running costs for energy, services and tyres.

So much more pushing the laws of physics for battery tech too..... https://www.ey.com/en_in/automotive-transportation/why-are-all-eyes-on-lmfp-an-lfp-battery-with-a-manganese-booster Current LFP, such as the latest CATL battery and where it is expected they will be in the next generation in a year or two. Much more powerful but actually cheaper.

And there is so much room to continue the improvement of electric batteries as well as solar panels. As I said 10, 20, 30 % improvements in capacity whilst cost is dropping by 20 and 30% means the deathnail of vehicles burning hydrocarbons which are struggling to improve whist their cost remain high and their future in the mass market will only be for another decade or so when linked to a hybrid EV with the capability to drive as pure electric for at least a few miles and by then it will be difficult to find petrol as the stations close down for lack of custom. Breath the clean air.

Solar panels currently only about 20% efficient and battery prices falling like a stone plus both are advancing technically with energy density improving more than 10% per year. Solar panels expected to leap to around 50% efficiency soon with new materials. My solar panels are making some good power in early feb, jan was crap though.

Better to pay 2k on a large portable solar panel or two, 400w, 600w, and a portable battery, like my Allpower s2000 Pro, or ecoflow or Bluetooth like Byorn Nyland has in his drive until they die tests. Portable, use at home and in the car, prices are tumbling, down by a third from last year.

There are several different paradigms for cars being used for a companies business. The company car schemes have faded a lot and cash allocation is more the norm with salary sacrifice cars growing in popularity due to their tax avoidance benefits. Company car cash is a problem as one is going to get nobbled with losing 30% or 42% of it through PAYE taxation through the pay packet, even worse now as the freezing of the tax thresholds ie at £12,570 and £50,270, for those with no tax code amending claims or negative BIK ie like fuel provided under a fuel card which I also have. If one has a fuel card then one does not usually claim any business miles from ones company but one can claim on the fact one is not getting business mileage at all so one can claim tax relief on mileage not being given, even though one has a fuel card. So I get £7K added to my code for not getting any mileage. Fuel card costs are now added monthly to ones payslip so if I fill up 3 times in the petrol cars and say £200 is added to my Benefits and taxed through the payslip monthly rather than declared on Self Assessment. The trick now days, made more difficult by the freeze in tax allowances, is to try and keep just under the Higher tax allowance, if one can live on the £51K Gross salary in one's current lifestyle, suppose that is a net of around £40K but one has hopefully packed enough in the pension pot to make retirement comfortable. Con government now allows more than £40K in a year to be diverted in to one's pension pot ie up to £60k pa, said by Jeremy the Hunt to try and keep medical consultants in the working environment but it will be used by many others. So cars remain a place where well planned tax avoidance can work well. Getting companies to give a good car allowance is a problem. Levels of say £350 a month do not give much choice to run at a close to neutral stance. I have just seen the Ora car now quoted as a lease price of less than £200 and no deposit which is awesome only 5K mile pa though. The 45p a mile is looking so low these days when looking at overall running costs. 25p after 10K miles even more incredible low. I use to get 63p a mile back in the early nineties paid to me when working for HMRC. Heard of some workers say they will not do long trips after they pass 10k miles but will put them off to After April 5th ie new tax year. EVs are great for cheap running costs if one can home charge most the time and servicing costs are low too. Though my Arkana only needs serving every 18k miles and does well over 50 mpg in the winter and the fuel car means petrol is effectively only 28p a litre as I do divert tens of thousands a year in to my pension to stay a standard rate taxpayer. Hoping to join Octopus car salary sacrifice soon and TESLA model 3 standard range LFP battery Highland version looks a good fit for me with it 300+ miles range except in very cold conditions. Lease under £400 a month it looks like. Just need the TESLA charge card either with the company or privately so I can claim, not sure how one passes on charging done at home, might get a second charger for that, one which use Octopus Intelligent. Not a great perk but gets one in a newish car for less money.

Not just TESLA as a lot of other EVs have heat pump tech. I have been working in Manchester during the week for a couple of months now and I can do the 210 mile tip without recharging in the Zoe and each time I have used the Zoe it has had 30 miles or more range left when I get home to Worcester. Temperature has been anything from just over 0 C to about 10 C. Range has oft said I only have about 210 miles but I have managed to exceed its predictions by 10% or more. Zoe has a Heat Pump tech for many years, Renault were first to use Heat pumps in a production car and whilst they only claimed 200 Km, 124 miles winter (proper winter ie well below zero) range with the right driving style and usage of cabin heating that can be far extended and in my ZE50 with the 52 kWh battery, I think it would have to be very very cold to get less than 200 miles range. Heated seats are better than trying to hold the air temp over 20C with all that glass losing heat which TESLA have got round I gather by now double glazing the glass so a double benefit of even quieter cabin and less heat loss through the glass. One has to do ones research. I tried the well thought of Mangane-e but the cheaper models did not get a heat pump so even though they have a quoted range of 280 miles, better than my quoted 238 miles in winter the base model megane-e would probably do about the same range as my Zoe or in every cold weather even less range. The i-pace is a good example of an expensive car with key tech missing for whatever reason. Buyer beware. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Renault Range OptimiZEr maximises everyday driving range, bringing together the benefits of Michelin ENERGY™ E-V tyres, heat pump and new-generation regenerative braking technology to extend the range by up to 25 per cent........ 2. Heat pump – a production first: The heat pump in ZOE is the first time such an innovation has been used in a production car. It is also standard equipment on ZOE yet remains a cost option on several of its competitors. To cool the cabin, the system works like a normal electric air conditioning system. To heat the interior, it reverses the operation cycle: air is taken from outside the vehicle, compressed and heated and then directed into the car. This means the cabin can be heated with minimal impact on range. The heat pump uses up to three times less energy than a conventional system to produce an equivalent level of heating. Moreover, the desired cabin temperature is reached more quickly and maintained at a more stable level than in an ICE vehicle, where cabin heating depends on wasted energy from the engine. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 15503-ZOEPressKitFeb2019.pdf

Octopus planning to biuld its own grid..... https://www.energylivenews.com/2024/01/26/octopus-to-build-own-electricity-pylons-challenging-national-grid/ UK National Grid and the old CEGB did some amazing work, bring the UK on to a single network, load balancing, building and plumbing in Dinorwig to the Grid. Things are changing though, like with Octopus and microgeneration. Whether their business has peaked as lecky becomes something that is not a monopoly and significant numbers of current UK consumers find ways to circumvent the ie drive vehicles that are sucking up power at public sites and running their homes from their vehicle or mobile batteries which have CCS connections to also charge from public charging points like the Allpowers R4000. Collecting lecky could become like collecting bread and milk.

Reducing the VAT has got to be the more obvious candidate. Since leaving the EU there has been 3 years of opportunity to reduce VAT rates and change VATable status be very little, bar sanitary towels which UK gov deserves some credit. Just lower VAT on non luxury EVs ie less than £25k say I reckon could spur on EV sales and get those old Diesels etc scrapped.

Yes with the subsidies but like when I bought my Zoe in the UK there were subsidies which went to the car dealership and manufacturer so the car, an LFP model 3 or my Zoe is closer to 35,000 or 40,000 dollars before the subsidies and you taxpayers stump a good few thousand which goes back to the ev manufacturer as well as the reduced after subsidy payment. US states are adding Federal and State subsidies. When I bought the Zoe it has UK government, Renault UK and local dealer bungs in it. £34K car ended up closer to £25.5 k I recall.

He is full of Sh1te as 1.5 million mortgages, probably effecting several million peoples mortgage renewal this year is tragic ie interest going to cost them double or triple. UK Gilts in a bad way currently with pensions falling so low they are worth less than people put in. Delusional.

Be more interesting to see by sales values as tesla do not make cheap cars yet ? Also to compared these companies market cap ie worth as is TESLA not worth more than the next 4 put together ?

Quite cheap to build a prototype and have plans but reality is having a production line spitting out a few thousand cars a week ie investing the billion dollars in that. ID2 still seems a way off but Renault 5 and citreon e3 are imminent this month or next. Ford, GM and the others, maybe not Hyundai, and making big losses on each ev they sell as the cannot get the cheap batteries or make a car in ten hours like TESLA and BYD do. So what do they do ? Cut back EV production to buy time. Get their government to remove EV subsidies and next step to add extra duties above the ten percent customs tariff for Chinese EVs.

Apologies for delay in responding but on a slow internet at Manchester hotel compared to my fast home connection. VW CEO describes the VAG company as having the roof on fire. They are some 11B Euros out on their finance and are looking to make savings. They are laying of 1 in 5 employees, in Europe, over 100,00 employees, EV production line have gone down to single shift whilst TESLA are building new factories, Berlin, Mexico and now have the best selling car in the world whilst VAG and other legacy companies who use to have the number one selling car are now slipping down the sales charts.... I will dig out some of these statements which are either from the VW CEO himself or can be seen in the sales charts and news items about cutting down production, job losses etc.

Bit of a narrow article, again, mentioning all the darker issues and not any of the large number of highlights. Dacia have sold bucket loads of Dacia Springs, hopefully at a bit of a profit though I do not know how that is even possible at 13,000 Euros as in Germany. SAIC MG have been a massive success as have the Maxis vans based on what they sell them in Europe and what they sell for in China and elsewhere. Surprised at Polestar but with the European subsidies disappearing and TESTLAs shareprice is something that Elon has said he is not too bothered about if cutting his selling prices and therefore margins is fine for a while if it succeeds in destroying opposition which it appears to be doing with most the American and European legacy car companies.