lol-lol

Quite a road the NDLR. I was with Exeter South West Regional Office Dept of Transport and NDLR was just being finished off and we were just stating on the Second Crossing of the Bristol Channel, which took 8 miles off the trip from Devon to South Wales !. NDLR was one of the first in the UK to have automated ice warning from sensor to signage. The road has oft been in the top ten most dangerous roads in England. I usually stayed on the A38 unless there was probably with the 38 or fancied a change when going directly to my sisters on Dartmoor. All the 3 Moors think are blanket 40 mph signed. Why did God make sheep fog coloured ???

Teenagers killed in the 20 mph zone on Monday were in collision with the bus it is reported. Details are almost nil about the crash. Question is what lesson are to be learnt. Should persons under 21 be allowed to carry 5 passengers for instance ? Audi A1 is a small car and has one of the better safety rating, even way back in 2010 at launch but, as we know, as car with 5 star rating a decade ago can be zero stars now so what do we do to help protect our young adults. Restrict young adults to 2 or 3 passengers ? Insist the only can drive cars with certain level of safety features ? That they cannot more than 1 passenger unless they pass an advanced test ? Maybe do this for those under 21, 23,25 and maybe those over 67 ? New car system can tell a car and driver the max speed, I think all three of our Renaults read road signs and they know what limits are from Google as well so should the car limit its speed to 10% over the published speed limit ? Think most of us agree that sometime a little spurt of power can get one out of trouble as well as in to trouble. Perhaps like the US have a no passing of buses policy in some circumstances when they are alighting passengers ? After all these deaths, especially in Wales, we need some fresh thinking I reckon. I did spend a year with Dept of Transport in part doing truck road accident investigation. Bigger killer back then but still way too high numbers both killed and badly injured with life changing injuries and experiences.

North Devon Link Road, lots of up hill and then massive down hill bits to build up speed, probably not even in gear. The wild wild west. Cops nicked some big vehicles at almost 90 mph down Holden hill like the arctic coming off the Plymouth ferry catching up time. Thats a lot of kinetic energy.

You have missed the word "nominal" out from your sentence above as the speed limit, in a 20 mph marked zone in Wales or other UK police force areas is actual 24 mph as the cameras etc are set to 20 mph, plus 10% tolerance plus 2 mph for other variances ie tyre size options, inflation etc. Freedom of information reveals Welsh cameras set to 24 mph. I have been driving in Wales this weekend. Zoe's digital speedo is quite accurate to GPS speed, I travel along in the 20 mph at an indicated 21 to 24 mph, occasionally someone comes speeding up behind me, clear driving at around 30 mph but they usually just match my speed until one of us turns off, no flashing lights or signs of frustration. If speed was set to "nominal" 30 mph drivers would be oft driving in the low 30s. So much more dangerous to pedestrians and drivers in a close urban environment. Three lads killed last night in a 20 mph zone in Rhonda in a Audi A1, same platform as Skoda Fabia of course. Road was urban 20 mph zone. long bend in the road, no sleeping policemen or crossing. Two other lads from the car fighting for the lives and with probable life changing experience/injuries. Twenty is Plenty. (Because human nature is to push limits and drive more than the prescribed limits).

Yes guilty as charged, twin charged. Never a problem doing so. Did about 70k in my Fabia 2 VRS. Best tankful was 630 miles, mind you could get 50 litres in the tank by supressing the little black button in the filler neck. Later cars, the mark 2 Oct with the 7 speed DSG, a lovely L&K 1.8 TSI, OMG< better than the VRSs in my opinion, short stroke EA888 engine revving to 7k revs, 0-60 in a nidge over 7 seconds, 160 hp the hell it was, way quicker than the wiesel VRS. Any road up that would it was either than one or probably the 1.4 TSI with the 7 speed DSG would open both dry clutches and drop the engine revs to zero, effectively coast the car, touch the brake or accelerator and the car would nigh instantly put itself in gear, great fuel saver, well in to the 50s mpg. Now the similar 7 speed EDC Renault box in the Arkana does the same, setup coasting in the menus and revs drop to zero when no load, batteries, not sure if it is the 12v lead acid or 12v hybrid battery maintains lights, electric power steering and fuel consumption benefits big time. In the summer well into the 60s mpg with the 1.333 litre Mercedes/Nissan/Renault engine almost instantly ready to reapply power when pedals touched, great system. These cars need heat pumps, like my Zoe has, to work better in cold weather as these mild hybrid, as well as the fully hybrids are great with fuel during warm weather but not so great in cold weather. No so great freewheeling/coating in a manual but seems fine in semi and full autos I have had, even coasting in the Zoe quite often ie stick it in neutral rather than using regen. keeping within the speed limits of course.

Their economic model is just uneconomic. Their production technology overtaken by China and TESLA. The 21st century is the Asian century. Europe still has a lead in Aerospace but that is about the last industrial area left to go East.

VW accelerates its cost cutting exercise and the move from Germany to China........

The only reason I can think of for a diesel is to tow where the low down torque and the extra weight of a diesel is actual a plus. Fuel tanks are becoming smaller and smaller. My old A4 had something like a 67 litre tank. Saw 980 miles on the range, 1.9 PD engine, noisy but good. With decent hybrid lecky assistance the torque is impressive but system will not allow that assistance to apply for more than a few seconds. No good for towing a rig up Holden/ Telegraph hill which will take a minute or two of sustained torque/power to rise up from the Exe flood plain to the piedmont of Dartmoor.

Think so. Dinorwic has these sheds every kilometers or so to pump air to cool those 2 GW lines. Think they have moved them recently after the near 30 years they have been operating. The Norway and Dennark interconnectors are 1.4 GW, what is the Morocco interconnector size ?

Probably do similar mpg in the Arkana which shows how Diesels are no longer needed for new cars. Pollution from the diesel going thru tge cities, as he does with Newcasle and Edinburgh I expect the residents will be happy to see, or rather breath the less polluted air.

Heat. It cost a fortune to do this from Dinorwig to the National Grid as Snowdonian national park demanded the cables were buried to not spoil the park.

Can we have the French pylon design as they always looked prettier than uk ones ?

What drivers want with EVs is Cheaper, Easier, Quicker one presumes...

If Land/Range Rover guy has a fuel card then he may not be so bothered about cost. Apparently Fuel cards account for £16B of fuel bought out of the £40B or so which is nearly half and probably a lot higher than many might think. Also I doubt most people do not know that that fuel bought is not paid for a the pump price shown as fuel card companies charge the card holding company a bit less than the displayed price and the agreement the fuel card company has with the fuel sellers. Much diesel used is actually sold in bulk to transport companies who also get a discounted price. My uncle ran Cornwall's largest trucking company 50-odd artics, and would buy the diesel in bulk for his own tanks at the depot, diesel company cars also got filled from there I think. The eleventh commandment. Never pay retail. Octopus Elecktroverse card helps me do that with public charging as well as a hydrocarbon fuel card for the dino juice mode for my "mild" ie hardly at all, hybrid Arkana. Looking forward to the Rafela launch next year. Over 60 mpg, 700 mile range, low emissions. Might be a tough choice between this and a Model 3 or Y.

Over 20p per mile, no wonder few bother to plug in their PHEV, it is just a tax dodging wheeze. Who is going to plug in when the effort bring zero to little reward.

It is very hard to find the actual truth as on the owner forums one reads pages of complaints and hybrid versions but much less about the mild hybrid ie versions without the motive element of hybrid, my mild hybrid Arkana only does coasting and that is it. The mild hybrid is substantially quicker in accelerating, weighs 100 kgs less but it does 10 mpg less. But then much of the complaints of the full hybrid are not about the drive train but other areas of electronics oddly. We have the full hybrid in the Clio etech we have which is very pleasant to drive with the electric motors, yes two of them, adding quite a shove at low revs where the naturally aspirated 1.6 engine would not have the torque. In the mass produced Clio the etech works very well. MPG is in the upper 50s and my lad drives it with no real thought about being economical. Renault have decided to bring back the little 1 litre engined module after dropping it because Ford have stopped selling the Fiesta. The car market is quite screwy really. One reason I bought the Arkana mild hybrid is that I have a petrol fuel card but company will not provide an Allstar EV charging card so I am better off using a fuel card, effectively paying 30p a litre for fuel and this keeps me having a petrol car This will finally change when we get the Salary sacrifice system going and I can get a model 3 for sub £40k and 3 hundred and something pounds monthly payments. Hybrid, the full type. also lose quite a lot of boot space ie nearly 100 litres, in the case of the Clio, which is nearly quarter of the boot space. Zoe has more boot space than the Clio ETECH. Can get 80 mpg out of the Clio ETECH but one has to hypermile the hell out of it to do so. With petrol at about £1.40 a litre not much incentive to be frugal. Choice of car is more complex that most people might think. Best not to under estimate the massive attraction of salary sacrifice on EVs and this is why, I think, we see a lot for EVs and hybrids than once might expect ie UK government tax breaks via salary sacrifice and the taxation rules around CO2. The CO2 one is not well targeted in my view as CO2 figures for PHEVs are just crazy low numbers and not at all close to reality ie 100 and 200 mpg. Nonsense.

Probably is wide for UK rules and UK needing Right Hand Drive, and Japan, Oz etc means both delays and slightly higher cost, KPMG once estimated 6% I recall.

Have they ever been high on the reliability scoring ? Complex machines, except 2 wheel drive versions which there are some. Some uk and other military, police etc go for them. Be interesting to see if cybertruck eventually take some of JLRs sales/supplies.

Big on going business. Eastern Europe for many of them. Only get one in a twenty footer or two in a 40 footer but containers are quite a cheap method of delivering all sorts of goods these days. Less than a grand to many places in the world. As big a cost is the getting the box to and from the ports which can cost similar to moving a container thousands of miles.

Second hand car prices are crashing at over 4% per month as the UK slips in to what feels like a recession even if it is not a technical one due to inflation making it not look quite so bad but turnover in volumes are well down we can see my imports and exports. With Land Rovers it is even more pronounced maybe as they keep getting stolen or catching fire.

Use to be more snow in Australia than Austria and Switzerland put together. Maybe not so much now with climate change. Less snow just about everywhere.

Cargo ships waiting weeks for their slot to go thru Panama, almost quicker to go round bottom of Chile. Maybe we will have ships attempting the NW Passage next summer... Got to be a couple of million tonnes of shipping there. Over 25,000 died during the construction. Ships I travelled on ie The Welsh City, was Panamax class, made to just fit thru. 72,000 tonnes bulk cargo capacity.

Panama canal running lower and lower with its water level meaning moving bulk goods across America. This climate change is a barsteward.

They serve coffee ? My side of the river. Must pop in there for a look around and try the fare. Consider a liaison customs post in Bogata one time, free armoured car with the job !!

Swarco are the company who have just put in about 100 charge points at the Worcester University just across the severn in the western part of Worcester, it is where MuckMaster and Geoff nice but dim went to a few days ago, never have so many youtube minutes been filmed with so little actual worthwhile content though the Columbian coffee shop did look nice and more worth a trip over to see. Big question unanswered is do the charge points take contactless, American Express preferably ? I have one RFID card and that is the Electroverse/Octopus one. Do not want to get another one for any network. One card to rule them all (until I get a TESLA card of course).