lol-lol

Zoe looks like a city car ie short, tall, non-aero but always had the longest of the small EV range, just do not ask it to get good range if you cruise at or above National Speed Limit, better to hold near a mile a minute to get good range. Added the false boot floor to mine which robs a few cubic feet and not great having the cables in the boot when one has a boot full of pram or other luggage. This is why the frunk is such a good idea and EV makes should have worked harder to have frunk space for those charge leads. The Kia Soul, massive hit in the US with over a million sales, Soul EVs mainly sold in California and the a few other "enlightened" states with EV infrastructure. Again the false boot floor to put the "granny" and Chademo cable were suppose to go there but again below that can be a pain. Boot is sub 300 litres which is a surprise for the mark 2 Soul EV which is less than the Zoe. Will actually try the pram in the Zoe and then some of the other 5 year old plus EVs. Amazing how the well thought of Ionic has kept its value compared to similar EVs.

Quite a big pram, sort of the old style chunky ones. Did not realize LEAF boot was so compromised by the intrusions of wheel arches and suspension turrets. Car going to be a local run around but as one can get some ze40s for similar money to some 22 kws and 22s are so restricted by range then ze40 is stil! a possibility. Soul looks good, chunky and safe looking, not going to submarine in a crash. Did not realize they were also Chademo. Like the sound of a Merc B ev but they are like gold dust under 8.5k. Mentioned about some cracking deals on at the moment for new cars is out down 7k and pay almost nothing a month ie what one would pay for a mobile phone a month and give back in two years if one likes. Car market so bad that dealer might offer user a bit price less than balloon payment I expect.

Saw that on one of the references saying tesla battery.

Yes and it's the nice newer shape. Range not great but daughter only needs just over 100 miles most of the time and actually mostly just a few miles. Did 200 kph in the old shape merc A or B class ie tall wedge jobie and it scared me having so little front crumple zone but newer ones look OK. Many A and Bs had Renault engines but not sure where the EV power train came with these early EV mercs. Very rare they seem.

Zero must have a tiny boot surely. Is there an EV Merc B ? Improvement of safety over a 2014 Fabia would be good. Euroncap seems poor to help compare as it is so different year to year.

One of the daughters wants to trade her Fabia for an EV. Will need boot to take a pram. List to look at are: Kia Soul 27 kWh. Nissan LEAF mark one 30 kWh. Renault Zoe ZE40 Any other suggestions ? Budget only up to 8k.

Like the car park fires the main thing I draw from the NZ fire as well as the car parks is the lack of fire detection and or fire fighting equipment. These beach properties often contain lots of timber in their construction and yet if they had had good sprinkler system, which would have added 1 or 2% to the overall cost and limited the fire to one room or so. I have spent many days on firefighting courses as part of my at sea training, no point ringing 999 when the nearest fire service is more than a thousand miles away. The courses I have done, a lot wearing a BA set whilst fire fighting, gave me a huge respect of fire but apparently to some it is is not something that is considered important.

Not at all. I think these bullsh!tters are quite easy to spot as they seem to have similar modus operandi. They make assertions without quoting facts or credible sources and just seem to largely give their opinions. EVs are much less a self combusting fire risk than diesel or petrol cars. Hybrids that are diesel or petrol have the similar risks to pure diesels or petrols. I am not pro electric just for the sake of it. My EV costs a small fraction of my mild hybrid to run. It is very pleasant to drive. My hybrid, with its 600 mile range is good for longer journeys, even more comfortable than my little EV. I do not need a muppet to tell me their "facts". I have not heard one of them inform their credentials to comment on such subjects ie technical experts, owners of such vehicles etc. My time is precious and I can establish within a few seconds watch their videos that they are vacuous entities and not worthy of my attention. Plenty of other good sources and whilst not perfect I listen to the Electric Viking who details are verifiable and concise and informative. Each to their own but I will not be watching what I perceive as trash.

How do you mean tax contribution ? What is the VAT rate on the bi-directional charger ? Octopus continue to do great facilities for its users. I have just got £50 credit for getting one family member off British Gas and on to Octopus, BG were holding back nearly a grand in credit and would not let them have a lower DD. Visiting another family member who has a Heat Pump house so going to get him over to the Cozy Heat pump tariff which should save him a heap of money and give me another chunk of introduction bung ie £50 for them and £50 for me too, nice. Converting my octoverse points in to credit on to my account after each savings session so along with the above intro credits I am hoping to avoid any rise in my DD this winter.

Are electric cars relatively expensive or cheap ?? How about an ID7 for less than £30k rather than £60K ? Chinese buyers are not buying the ID7 even at just below £30k as they have high tech Chinese versions of a similar size at less than £25K. So are European made and sold EVs just not being made in an economic way or prices kept high ? France and Germany just discontinued EV subsidies for Chinese made EVs, presumably some TESLAs as well as Dacia Spring maybe and the BYDs, Geely cars ie Polestar and Volvos and SIAC cars such as MG4s and Maxus. Tesla just slashes prices again to keep the costs low and win that best selling car of the year status for the Model Y.

If the discharge and recharge does a fivers worth of damage but one gets a tenner or twenty or fifty quid supplying say £50 of resold lecky then might be worth it. If not doubling, trebling, quadrupling or more the return then would not be interested. Lithium batteries might not be worth such extra use than working as the car traction battery. Maybe Lithium Iron Phosphate batteries might be more suited as acting as a V2G. Think I likely stick to my purpose made batteries for home storage and only looked at sending lechy back to the grid if it is super worth it ie at the rates those peak like a pound a KWh but I expect TESLA will scoop all that up and make a killing. They can install container sized battery pack in less than 100 days they have proved.

The above video is by a click batting loon. Actual facts are:- https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/coromandel-luxury-bach-fire-ev-not-to-blame-for-cooks-beach-home-blaze/4LKGZP7MAVCLXFSOGXKV5KWVEU/ ......Social media posts and a media outlet then reported a witness as saying the fire had been started by an EV (electric vehicle) in the home’s garage. But Fire and Emergency New Zealand (Fenz) investigator Ed Hopping said that was not the case. “The investigation is still ongoing... but I’m comfortable to put it out there in the world that the fire wasn’t a result of the battery in the car failing,” Hopping said. He said the fire started within the home, while the car was parked outside the garage and was not plugged in for charging at the time. It’s just important to put out there that hybrid cars... aren’t that vulnerable to fires,” Hopping said. “And then in this instance, the car wasn’t plugged in and wasn’t inside the garage or the structure.” Another Youtube maligned fantasy piece of crap...

I would only consider using my car battery for vehicle to grid at those times, like we have had a of for the last few days with Octopus paying us back many many pence per kWh, as each time one charges and discharges one takes a small bit of life out of the battery, smae as running an ICE engine, putting hours on the run clock and moving it close to servicing or scrapping. So for the Lithium Iron Phosphate batteries then possibly use V2G if the price was right, 50p or a £1 or more per kWh and probably no way for the lithium battery in the Zoe despite its excellent protective BMS. There is talk of Renault 5 and its siblings being LFP with the high performance or long range options being still lithium and even talk of Sodium ion batteries making an appearance, good for the cold climate version. Some cars make get a mixture of batteries it has been muted. I am game if the price is right and battery damage very small.

In reality zoe drivers do not bother to switch off the singing, why would one ? It is EU it exists and UK effectively still follows. As Farage said in the jungle the UK now has a right to do its own thing even if it is worse for UK citizens. In reality the UK is too small a market to do something different even if 1 in 10 Zoes are UK or Ireland spec. Hoping to upload the sound of a Tie fighter to replace one of the 3 sounds.

Yes the capital expenditure is huge both on the cost of the actual charger units and the cost of site installation. The Single phase AC are easiest, then 3 phase AC then the big DC chargers. When my company owned Source London I recall seeing the import declarations for the units, not cheap. One has to sell a good few Megawatts Hours of lecky to recoup that capital investment. They need to make the money back before TESLA have enough charging stations to service non-TESLA in most places which they will do at 50p per kWH or less if one pays the £11 a month TESLA. I think Octopus have got it right ie not investing in actual hardware but just doing a deal with their Octoverse RFID cards which give a discount to users and get extra trade for the charger network. The planning stuff can also be a big headache. London with its 44 boroughs was relatively more difficult compared to Paris unitary authority I heard. ABB have a big DC chargers manufacturing in Italy, not aware of any similar facilities in the UK. https://new.abb.com/news/detail/92348/abb-e-mobility-opens-its-largest-dc-fast-charger-production-facility-in-italy https://youtu.be/qydRAhIW6QA

You not noticed Renault EVs, and presumably Dacias EVs as well, sing when the are moving between 1 and 19 mph ? THis is a Zoe ZE40, or ZE22, difficult to tell, but my ZE50 does the same thing. Works well.

Intelligent Speed Assistance is still due to become EU law in July 2024 so less than 200 days and if the EU is doing the UK has to follow suite as it is making most of cars made in the UK for other markets. US looks like it will follow suite within month of this too. Legislation covers much more than just speeding..... EU) 2019/2144 https://www.legislation.gov.uk/eur/2019/2144 We might see thousands of cars registered in Q2 of 2024 ie removed from customs WHs and put in to UK Free Circulation as there are some cars that need a big design to make ISA work on the vehicle. Renault UK HQ asked me to test drive the new Austral, very impressive dash and sensor systems. Its ability to sense cyclists and I presume pedestrians is awesome. Felt a bit too futuristic and I miss not having a tacho which seems to be one of the things that go along with gear number indicators which I like. Its garlic bread ie the future. Irish quick explanation, them still being an EU country and not still sorting out which laws to follow......

I would not rely on an analogue speedometer and I am pretty sure most professional drivers ie truck drivers, reps of various types, use either: Their car's digital display which is normally quite a large figure ie one or two inches tall Their GPS device displaying the GPS speed displayed at screen level A GPS HUD, head up display device, which can be had from £9 and upward, depending on features .... No excuses. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Display-Speedometer-Motorcycle-OverSpeed-Reminder/dp/B0CMXW3ZVN/ref=sr_1_3?crid=16CX4Q369KOYB&keywords=gps+hud&qid=1702654632&sprefix=gps+hud%2Caps%2C377&sr=8-3

Governments, City legislators, transport departments, analysts in to the statistic disagree. Bit surprised we have not heard more noise from businesses ie in my industry of logisitics, particularly last mile logistics. I am personally offended that the Devonian Mr Prowse was again dubbed in some of the Green Cross Code man videos, just like in Star Wars playing Darth Vader. James Earl Jones has a great voice but I would buy a video with the Devon accent Darth Vader. Any road up, New York city has introduced a 25 mph city wide speed limit which I think was throughtful to go a middle ground. Drivers would then perhaps kee to truly under 30 rather than driving up to 35 mph. Road speed and taxes, people seem to want to push the nominal limits by 10 or 15%. As long as we catch those who do 16% or more that is the aim I reckon.

This is the vid from about 15 years ago as part of the Think campaign. At 20 mph odds improve by a further third I heard. my ol

North Devon has much smaller population centres than South Devon is the reason for the less lanes to North Devon than South. Trucks have just been approved to be longer by about 6 foot so overtaking might be even more dangerous. Another reason I went for the mild hybrid Arkana rather than the etech version as that version is slow overtaking. Etech owners complain about overrevving and Renault do a "fix" but I would rather have the revs and better acceleration I think. OK on motorbikes usually but a heavily ladened Grockle box is a recipe for disaster for summer roads in Westcountry, Wales, Scotland etc.

Act better than 4 average human drivers I expect.

Questions not specifically at you but I presume there are lots of young deaths by RTAs in France as well Oll sweats like me have decades of experience of driving. Probably around a million miles in my case and in Canada, France and Germany as well as UK. If we are to get the death toll down lower measures do we think will work ? Winter tyres being one thought I have amongst others.

COP28. https://www.unep.org/news-and-stories/statements/unep-executive-director-statement-closing-cop28 “COP28 has delivered, for the first time at climate talks, a clear call on countries to transition away from fossil fuels. The deal is not perfect, but one thing is clear: the world is no longer denying our harmful addiction to fossil fuels. Now we move beyond bargaining to action. As the Secretary-General has said, the phase-out of fossil fuels is inevitable. “This means real action on a rapid transition away from fossil fuels, especially for the G20, and real action on the many other positives agreed at COP28: the framework on the Global Goal on Adaptation, operationalizing the Loss and Damage Fund, and new commitments on sustainable cooling, methane reduction, tripling renewable energy targets and nature breakthroughs. “The reality, as outlined in UNEP’s Emissions Gap report released ahead of the COP, is that we are not on track to deliver a resilient, low-carbon and just world. This reality has not changed yet. Now the hard work of decarbonization must begin. “To have any hope of doing this in line with what the science demands of us, we must unleash far greater finance to support countries in a just, equitable and clean transition, which is especially important for developing nations that must leapfrog to low-carbon development. Financing and means of implementation are therefore critical, as every developing country must have the capacity to urgently end energy poverty, realise its sustainable development potential and deliver on the SDGs. “We have the solutions; we know what needs to be done. And action can no longer wait.”

There will be details to some ie Police, Accident investigators, council I presume as not a Trunk Road, and locals will know stuff. Was it front to front collision, did the A1 rebound off in to the metal railing or brick walls. I regularly drive through South Wales and in winter the roads are oft very wet and I very cold, I have seen -10C and below. Since Summer tyres fall of in braking performance at 7C should we go like mainland Europe and to All Season or Winter tyres in mid November perhaps ???