lol-lol

The West is rising whilst the East sinks. Think it is all the oil and gas being removed from under the North Sea and the UK sliding in to the void.

Good thing about owning Skodas, and Renaults, much less desirable than the Audis, BMW and Mercs. Neighbour across the road had his M3 nicked by robbers breaking in, whilst he and missus were sleeping. Just horrible living in fear of this. Have a Q car. Superb with the 280 hp 4 wheel drive. Octavia VRSs can be fun but less on the nick list I would have thought than a Golf GTI. Need more EVs with Sentry mode like Teslas, even better with electroshock or the like.

What office in Chelmsford ? Alex House was the last one left in Southend. Yes when the Thames Barrage fails it will be incredibly expensive. Coastal marshes in Essex will be in permanent flood would think. UK needs new docks like London Gateway to keep working in the rising sea levels.

Got two lovely neices who grew up around Great Dunmow and nice around there, not that far from Chelmsford, county town/city a home of county cricket of course. Customs had several massive offices in Saffend, omg. Tilbury also not exactly Southampton. Much will returned to swamp when the floods come.

Essex ?

BMW are so wierd with their quoted battery storage figures. Also the 9 litre tank seems to actually give one a fraction of the mileage expected. One might expect well over 100 miles on the Range extending ICE feed by a 2 gallon tank ! As my Dad would say (lived quite a lot in Canada and USA) "A 10 gallon hat on a 2 pint head" (And that is US gallons)

Sacre bleu mon ami, zut alore. Avez vous un cuppa ?

Renault

So with banks of EV chargers at car parks, fast food outlets, garden centres and supermarkets, all who want you to "tarry for a while", say 15, 20, 30 minutes, sample (buy) their wares, mayber charge for cheaper than people can at home. They do not care if you have a drive or not but are offering access to their banks of charger, sometimes at very reasonable rates, hoping you will also pop in and they will get you other business. This is the way. Come up and charge

Dundee to John O'Groats, just over 200 miles isn't it, not exactly "a few" hundreds miles ? It is not like Berwick to Lands End , now that is a few hundred miles ie over 550 miles !

Actually a bit more complex answer than might first appear. The hybrid's ICE engine will, and can, charge the hybrid traction battery as well as provide motive power at the same time. ICE motors have terrible efficiency, ie less than 50%, compared to an electric motor of 90% approx and ICE are even worse when not in the zone of their efficiency ie just as the turbo is working efficiently, usually around 2k revs or in a non turbo efficiency is optimum in the mid range ie around 3k revs so Renault, for example, run the ICE in their ETECH cars to both add a bit of propulsion and do bit of charging say from quarter to three quarters filling the electrical traction battery. The the ICE switches off and will only come on again if substantial propulsion needed and charge is getting low. Works well, gets CO2 much lower and MPG up. As Hannah Montana says, "the best of both worlds".

The definition of hybrid seems to be very elastic. My "Mild" Hybrid Renault Arkana somehow gets called a hybrid but cannot drive in electric mode as my lad's Clio ETECH does or obviously the Zoe does. All the hybrid does do that is supposedly is to use the alternator/generator to get a bit of regen and, though one cannot detect it, apparently helps with a bit of shove in acceleration seem to remember reading somewhere 8 Nm which is pretty small but Renault claim about an 6 to 8% improvement in fuel consumption and lowering of CO2 over the previous 130 hp, 240 Nm engines. It may be ideal ambient temperature at the moment in mid September but from what the car's systems are telling me I am doing nearly 70 mpg in a tall C segment car, range showed 710 miles upon fill up, drove 120 miles and it is still showing 630 miles so if I continued to drive that motorway and town driving I would be looking at around 70 mpg and 750 miles out of my 50 litre tank, which I have never got more than 46 litres in. Renault range figure disappears as soon as fuel light comes up weirdly. So I would say fuel consumption can be awesome in a hybrid. I was in no rush, often on the car telephone system so only doing around 60 mph but super impressed. Last winter it was in the low to mid 50 mpgs but it certainly loves the warmer times in the fuel consumption figures. Son's ETECH is more of a proper hybrid, can spend much of its time in EV mode. The Clio ETECH hybrid has much to commend it I think.He is only get 60 mpg average but he likes to not think about being economical, keeps it in the My Sense adaptive mode rather than ECO or Sport. As above some can get 80 mpg plus out of the car, I suspect I would if I was driving it. The mixture of ICE and hybrid works much better than I thought. EV to start the journey off serenely but when you want it the little 1.6 naturally aspirated engine kicks in with quite a nice note, repowers the traction battery then when cruising or braking the ICE shuts down and one is back in pure EV mode. The emission, particularly NOX are incredibly good. Range can be 550 miles upon a fill up from its little 39 litre petrol tank. Price was not massive on purchase, interest free made it a sweeter deal. Much better for the environment than pure ICE but the range of an ICE. Good pickup with the electric motors adding to the typical ICE poor torque from just over tickover. Must admit better than I thought it would be. New Austral with the 200 hp 1.2 turbo engine and ETECH was next level. 80 mph in EV mode, 700 mile range but low CO2 etc. Do miss the tachometer and paddle shifts I have when driving the mild hybrid Arkana but pleasant. Probably hybrids will be redundant when genuine 500, 600, 700 mile EVs come along which should be within a couple of years for the mass market as the current pace of battery improvements but also tumbling traction battery prices it should not be too long that hybrid are also yesterday, but maybe hydrocarbon hybrids will be to be replaced by hydrogen hybrids.

Just relax and bimble around. If on a motorway do not zoom along at 70 or 75 mph. Gentle acceleration, light foot, enjoy the scenery. Gentle to mid level braking so always using regen rather than wasteful squeezing of those disc brakes. Hypermiling bit of foresight needed but no more than the police and advanced driving teaches..................

Storm in a tea cup. I can hardly imagine a car being make without a bit of hybrid, even in tiny bit like my Arkana which did nearly 70 mpg back from Liverpool yesterday. Son's Clio ETECH can do over 80 mpg if coaxed using its hybrid system to drive on electric half or even three quarters of the time. The hybrid system on the above two cars seems to add only about £2k on to the retail price over the non hybrid and then as soon as you start running the hybrid it is doing 5, 10, 15 mpg better than the ICE only car. One would have to be certifiable to even not want a non hybrid as it is better economy pays for itself I would reckon for anybody doing an annual mileage around or above 8k a year and the driving experience is so much better. Automatic, a whoosh of electric power upon take off. There is so much to like and little not to. 2035 is the real date. 2030 is a non event really in my opinion.

You make a great point. Some car makers, and Stellantis is probably top of my list of marketing cars which are really bad value for money when one takes account of the failure to use the fast progress in both energy density and also battery chemistry and for Vauxhall Stellantis to be trying to sell the Astra for £40k with a 51kwh battery and the older Lithium Ion tech is incredible. Yes I think they are already offering some 0% financing but such an offering is just stunning considering the value for money offered by other car makers. I expect we will see a Model 3 for less than £40k soon it avoids the luxury road tax. For £40k I would be expecting a 75 kWh battery, car with heat pump and lithium iron phosphate battery with charging rate approaching 150 kw or at least 125 kWh for most if not all of the charging curve. There are always some that get convinced by the sales person to go for the deal but it really does not sound a good deal to me compared to many if not most offerings my other car makers.

Good article but would like the temperatures in Kelvin rather than Fahrenheit.

The Mercedes van is conventional Lithium battery I would have thought and I have not heard anything about the even though I am based at Heathrow. Issues with vehicles of all sorts are not unusual. The Bollore bus fires, these buses use solid state Lithium Metal polyimide. Cyril Bollore, the owner of Bollore stated that the fire appear to have started in an electrical component which eventually seem to spread to the battery, I expect there will be a long court and technical battle over this. Questions might be if the electrics had been modified or non approved component replacement as oft is looked at. There are many of these buses in Singapore in an environment which is much hotter and humid than Paris. WiIl be interesting to see how this one ends. Just to remind all of the stats ...... https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2022/12/gas-vs-electric-accident-and-fire-safety.html the Bureau of Transportation Statistics and the National Transportation Safety Board. The site found that hybrid vehicles had the most fires per 100,000 sales at 3474.5. There were 1529.9 fires per 100k for gas vehicles and just 25.1 fires per 100k sales for electric vehicles.

I was just looking at Chelmsford on ZAP map as I found it rather odd when you were saying there was not a decent choice of cheap public charging that you are aware of and Chelmsfor does seem to be rather poorly served by cheap and available public EV charging. Which is not the case for much of Essex. Chelmsford is less than ten miles for the the Braintree Gridserve super EV station which has 32 public chargers of various output including AC ones of up to 22 kW at the fairly reasonable 49p per kWh, use the right credit card and get some kick back too. Or pop in to Chelmsford at park at Q park in town the charge rate is 24p per kWh for, might be 25p or so for non Octopus Electroverse customers, that cheap than most people pay at home and could offset the parking charge and its Sunday rate is pretty cheap and 4 hour rate not too bad either at 115p per hours. Chelmsford might well get the proper EV charging at its Morrisons like Clackton got with its 20 chargers of various sizes. Its all going, one either sees the work going on at the site or if plugged in to the EV info channels like ZAP map one may well get a notification of a bunch of EV charge points getting switched on as part of the 2500 to 3000 points commissioned each month. I do not pay much for my EV PCP, well less than £300 a month and negligible fuel running costs and low servicing costs plus a very serene driving experience. Perhap lucky in Worcester with its location but there are not many places in England at least where running an EV is much of a trail, drive or no drive.

Is not the solution easy ? Charging a standing charge, by the minute of being plugged in so that there is a point where ones cost of electricity effectively rises to well over £1 a minute and people will move. https://www.zap-map.com/ev-stats/how-many-charging-points 2,500 new charge points being added every month and now UK has 76k and that will hit 100K next year whilst petrol stations will start to close or covert as that market for hydrocarbon fuel continue to diminish as with Shell in Fulham... This Shell station removed all of its gas pumps—now, it’s being called the ‘gas station of the future’ Ben Stern August 14,2023 One London gas station has totally reimagined what a refueling area can look like. Since the beginning of 2022, a Shell station in Fulham, England, has removed all of its gas pumps to instead offer rapid electric vehicle (EV) chargers for those who need to recharge, as reported by Bloomberg. https://news.yahoo.com/shell-station-removed-gas-pumps-100000919.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAEEU3NqXb2ocOuBg6LlK2WAwUAq2iQ6fvpqLda0GvDWCOc0cLbGMTPNlr0EWf7MyIdz3kq5C7c7JV7GBSOTEHpNJHbysgGaZDviClL1UJ6cDzPFTZmoQ8Y2IlTwiZvPKJtsa-h5W-vaY7K_NWXyCiODhhwIKw9aU6hrXCAchEcFU

Worcester is/was a cheap place to buy. 1997, after the house value collapse of the early and mid nineties, which we are seeing again of course. 4 bedroom detached with single garage, £93k. Yes now worth 4 times that but I go to my colleagues house in London, worth well over twice my house but a Victorian/Edwardian house and therefore no drive or easy charging option in those streets so one has to adopt the options I describe about or do the dedicated post or street light incorporation of chargers, even 3.6 kWs like I have on my drive. The options increasingly available is to pop to the numerous public chepaish AC charging places and those who do need to drive stop thinking of reasons not to convert to EVs whilst tens of thousands suffer from poor air quality. Salary sacrifice is the premier UK government scheme currently, not my choice to assist UK EV roll out. I benefited a couple of years ago from the EV and charger installation financial assistance but they disappeared well over a year ago and now EVs are so much cheaper the EV grant is no longer needed. I gather some people can get grants, not those with home owners with drives but many other groups. Again not a problem, I have the charge point fitted on my house and it increases the value of my house, in part thanks to the £500 grant subsidy. Electric vehicle chargepoint and infrastructure grants for landlords 27 September 2022 Electric vehicle chargepoint grant if you own or rent a flat 12 December 2022 EV infrastructure grant for staff and fleets: customer guidance 21 November 2022 Guidance EV chargepoint grant for flat owner-occupiers and people living in rented properties: installer guidance 17 November 2022 Guidance EV chargepoint grant for landlords: installer guidance 17 November 2022 Guidance EV infrastructure grant for residential car parks: installer guidance 21 November 2022 Guidance EV infrastructure grant for staff and fleets: installer guidance 21 November 2022 Guidance

Very good point that ICE drivers fail to comprehend. This is one of the many factors of non-EV people not understand what the new offering of EVs is. I can stop at an EV charger and do a quick bit of mental maths, something many English people, I have found are quite poor at, and let us not even go to the place of compound interest, that I can calculate with 5 miles or so how many minutes of charge I need to arrive home with 10% or whatever percentage of charge I feel happy with. The depth of information I can get on my EV's systems are on a far higher level that my ICE cars. Lithium cars, te out going tech, do not charge as fast over 80% and if I am charging at a public rapid charger I would only put in the kWhs I need which probably means cutting the charge off at just over 50% which gives me the range I probably need to get home. It is great living in the Midlands, other than not seeing the sea very often, as in the UK I rarely need to add anything more than half a battery charge as I can be back home to get the 2p a mile charging cost. EVs are very efficient at slower speeds so crawling on the M25 approaching Heathrow instead of only being say twice as efficient as an ICE car in transforming store power in to motion the gap becomes even larger and even with ICE cars having start/stop few have devices such as heat pumps. The only plus of an ICE car is that it produces so much waste heat ie more waste energy in the transfer of heat in to the engine cooling water ie more than it does to the vehicle's traction, and in very cold weather one can use that waste heat to warm up the passengers. Fortunately this matches when lithium power EVs are not at their best so good to have an ICE car in very cold weather. That said Norway has the highest percentage of EVs probably in the world and is one of the coldest countries in the world. Judging by the popularity of the EV chargers at my local, actually one district over, EV owners without driveway chargers can find chargers at similar prices to home charging. We have 26 chargers at the Worcester Parkway railway station at 36p per kWh, a dozen a Spetchley Gardens for 42p/per KWh. Well over 100 chargers for a small city such as Worcester and many more being added each year. When you have an ICE car one is effectively lining the pockets of Putin and the Saudis and other questionable oil suppliers.

Like this quoting of statistics of 88% growth compared to 1% of petrol . This is despite no cash grants but UK EV sales are encouraged by the salary sacrfice tax avoidnce scheme of course. EVs is becoming cheaper and cheaper due to economies of scale and tumbling battery prices due to lithium price falls and move to lithium iron phosphate batteries whereas oil prices continue to rise making the case for EVs stronger by the month. Please watch some vdieo that quote facts and not just click baiter's views based on something between nothing and hearsay.

Luke warm, hmm Logic, like sales numbers..

There is huge effort to make available charging at car parks. Here in little old Worcester there is over a hundred charger at in town shopping centres, garden centres, the railway station with prices from 36p a kWh to 45p a kWh, barely more, and in my case less than my daytime rate of my electricity. Generally on the mileage people do one would just need an occasional visit to one of these sites to get a chunk of charge. Lots of other options in front of drivers for the next 12 years even if pure EV is not for everybody. My son's Clio hybrid is rated at almost 70 mpg, in urban driving will get well over 80 mpg as it spends half to three quarters its time in EV mode with the optimising My Sense set, not even eco. Then there is ever cheaper options of the petrol phevs, the Capture able to do 40 miles in urban EV driving, the MG HS PHEV with it 16 kWh battery, both effectively sub £30k RRP and cracking buying deals. There are some great deals out there now and looks like new cheaper cars and cracking deals as car makes are chasing not that many buyers do to the flat lining UK economy.

Many us with EVs have heat pumps so using air con is not much of a hit on energy usage ie range.