lol-lol

Apparently Tesla are adding a forth shift at Berlin and are aiming to hit 10,000 cars a week, gearing for the model 2 and it's taller sister car. Quite simply it appears Tesla intend to ramp up at such a rate which will decimate opposition unless the can move as quickly.

Another Geely-Volvo brand like Polestar but hopefully a much cheaper, like a Skoda is to VAG. Volvo are worried, according to the Electric Viking, that even the Swedish market is getting dominated by Tesla so they need a cheaper brand to complete without completely devaluing the Polestar and Volvo premium brands. The Chinese invasion, not just of Chinese Teslas but numerous other Chinese Brands, complementing MG's pathfinder advanced in to the UK market, brushing aside the 10% customs duty like it was not there, the EU made cars with batteries get tariff suspension to match the UK LEAFs etc going to the EU. EV new prices anticipated to fall another 10% despite the 10% inflation, and more, on many other things. Lithium prices down by half, new battery tech starting to emerge and intense competition bringing prices down so that ICE cars look even worse value across the period of operation 3 or 4 years.

I think the list above does combine drive trains but there are separate list for different power trains but the Model Y is king overall. Germany is now producing 4,000 Model Ys a week now they have added the third shift and achieving full production efficiency with 24 hour operation, this will destroy many of the European HQ based manufacturer who do not compete on value, safety, range and network of course. Tesla, I have heard reported, have continued to add to their pick up at the port system, at Southampton and other European ports. Certainly a way of getting the numbers up faster and cut out some dealer costs. Good idea when one thinks of it. Why stack a few cars on a lorry when they can be driven ? I can think of the fun a games as I was customs officer for Portbury Docks Bristols that had tens of thousand of car in the customs WH and it was hard enough to keep tabs then without drib and drabs going out through the gates. Below a picture of the beautiful Horizon terminal in Southampton which is usually the starting point for my cruise ship voyages. Hope some time soon to be picking up a Tesla under a nice salary sacrifice scheme which saves a few hundred quid a month in payments.

Pricing of everything is so volatile at the moment it is so difficult to make any mathematical modelling of projected operating costs over months never mind about years. ARAMCO, and the other OPEC plus members, has just decided to take a million barrels a day out of oil production which has seen oil jump by 10% to over $85 for Brent Crude, this jut after it announced its 2022 profit of $161B, the largest profit in history of any company I understand. Some say that Saudis were miffed at losing their shirt in the Credit Suisse wipeout. Saw petrol in LIverpool at £1.39 a litre a few days ago, still £1.45 in Worcester which seems to be always a bit more expensive due to no ASDA petrol station or other discounter. Every commodity in the UK seems to be sky-rocketing in price. I have my cheap Octopus GO price until mid September ie 7.5p per kWh which makes Zoe cheap to run and I have recently seen 5 kWh/m flash up whilst trundling around on local runs but sure that would drop to 4 on a run involving motorway or fast A roads. I think it is one of those scenarios where good to back several horses if one can, except diesel which on societal reasons I can no longer bring myself to do. I like my Arkana very mild hybrid and I read stories of some Renault ETECH users getting well over 60 mpg for the quite big Arkana in ETECH form but the acceleration is a bit naff. I find it hard to beat my early MK4 Clio with its 90 hp and it doing mid sixties MPG, no tech other than a turbo, cheap motoring. Think Road tax is £21 per year so 6p a day, not bad. Buyers are making their choices across Europe and the world, thinking of today and the months and years ahead and the direction is clear. HIgh tech EVs though pricey do a job, can be super low taxed using salary sacrifice, Model Y for less than £500 a month, or cheap basic motoring as from Dacia. I would like to see the Dacia Spring come to the UK soon. Golf finally deposed, Tesla Model Y EV king by a mile, Dacia models scoring as the value proposition Skoda use to be. Audi, BMW and Merc missing in action, Jaguar too. Many of these brands need to evolve or they will die in months or a year or two. To use my little ZOe EV I do need access to chargers where I can charge at sub 40p a kWh though, even if it is the 22 kWh AC that only The Alliance cars seem to be able to use and are a decreasing percentage of the whole EV charging network though we might see more destination ie work chargers of this type. https://www.best-selling-cars.com/europe/2023-february-europe-new-car-sales-and-market-analysis/#:~:text=In February 2023%2C new car,the top-selling model overall.&text=New passenger vehicle registrations in,month of double-digit growth.

with the cost of energy actually falling it is stunning that some of the EV charge providers are jacking up the prices by such margins. Fortunately there are hundreds of new chargers appear each month and some of them are at much more reasonable rates. Just seen that a charger put up at the Worcester community centre, Project EV charger with 22 kw AC outlets. Quoted cost of charge 28 p per kWh. Suppose to work with my Octopus Electroverse card. Spaces not painted as EV only so wombats are parking there willy nilly. Much cheaper than me charging at home if it is daytime. Hope to use it and use up some of my free £10 opening balance when I signed up to Electroverse. The future is getting better for EV at quite a rate but one must be aware of some companies, maybe particular the ex-dinosaure juice companies, who want to continue the exploitation they have with fossil fuel sales. At least with EVs we have tens of thousands of chargers to choose from and millions of other electrical outlets at homes and offices that are low cost, free or much cheaper than these near 80 p per kWh dispensers where one is paying as much as ICE drivers are paying to fill up.

Some quite expensive cars but no Teslas ? As I mentioned above I think it is mainly the high priced EVs that are falling and no so much the cheaper EVs. Maybe people are realising that EVs can cost half of what ICE cars cost to run and they are factoring that in their calculations and planning for the longer term when getting dinosaur juice becomes every more difficult and as EV charging stations pop up in ever more locations and they have to compete and basically sell electricity at less than the home domestic rate to entice EV drivers out of their homes. If Electric Viking is to be believed then there is a tidal wave of much cheaper EVs come out of factories as many factors come to fruition ie - Telsa willing to cut margins and selling price, ever greater economies of scale and improved production method, the falling price of lithium and move to no rare metals and even other elements. Glut a cars in China meaning Tesla can focus more on export sales. Add to this electricity prices likely to fall in real terms big time as more wind and solar come on line in the next few months, Europe already hit one third production from Wind this month. The Model Y has now replace the VW Golf as the best selling car in Europe and one can hardly see this ever going back to ICE cars. Those holding out for hydrogen ICE cars are quite probably having rose tinted dreams as hydrogen is so volatile and difficult to store safely. Electricity could fall to just the cost of maintaining the production equipment and cost of transition with a small add on fee future improvements and profit for the wholesaler meaning it drops to just a few pence per Kwh as it is for us now who buy the cheap after midnight lecky, 7.5 p per kwh in my case. Massive changes a head a this EV technology has so much momentum now few probably realise how fundamental and soon the change will be inescapable. I see Octopus had a negative cost event a few days ago....... https://www.current-news.co.uk/octopus-energy-embraces-negative-pricing-with-plunge-tariff/ Greg Jackson, founder and chief executive of Octopus Energy, said: “This tariff is groundbreaking. By reflecting the real cost of energy on the grid every half hour, customers can capitalise on times when prices are especially low. “Indeed, if the wholesale price goes below 0p/kWh, Octopus Agile will actually pay you to take the unwanted energy from the grid. As renewable energy production grows these events are only going to become more frequent.”

Graph for volume EVs only showing a relatively smaller drop that high value EVs as this is due to Tesla massively dropping the sales prices of their EVs which has affected those other EV sellers to the tune of 10% or more and add this to the economic downturn whilst not a technical recession is a massive hit on all but a few of the top percentage of earners. I am happy to see it, not to bothered about my Zoe being hit by a grand or two drop, it is still a good (warm weather) transport at amazing low cost and I wanted to see those new Long Range EVs ie Model 3 etc, that are over £40k currently, fall to less than that which it is looking like they will shortly.

Depends where you live and which cities you visit. I gather all UK cities ULEZs are OK with Euro 6 diesel but there was rumour that Bristol was going ban or very heavily charge any diesel. Some cities in Europe still plan to ban diesels completely ie Paris, Madrid and Athen in Europe. I not sure Bristol introduced an inner inner are where diesels would be banned like this proposed map below. There is a massively glut of Euro5 diesels becoming pariah cars and their values falling away sharply. But this is just a fore taste of ICE cars in general plummiting in value as EVs become massively cheaper on year as the manufacturing process, particularly Tesla just bring the price down and down every few months so that the comparative overall running costs just blow ICE cars out of the water. The considerable portion of high mileage drivers ie those that do well over 10k a year and are forced to work to 25p a mile running cost can virtually only do this with an EV as virtually only the likes of Dacia can get close to being able to be run for 25p a mile whereas a properly run EV can also get down to these levels I reckon.

I never got the Canze app going for the Zoe and there was a big problem for ZE50 as it worked well with the Ze22 and ZE40 but not the ZE50 and it gives and some other packages give a wealth of information that can be so useful. I have just watched the first half of the Nissan Town star which seems to nick much Renault tech for the Nissan-Renault alliance and it seems to have born good fruit. Sub £30k with the EV van grant, 250 miles of city range, 22 kW AC charging and 80 kW DC charging. No charge-gate as we see with Bjorn Nyland's video. Tilting the balance to EVs for vans and making our city's air more breathable........

Similar for the well selling Zoe. RRP over £34.5k but got mine with 5k off from Renault central, another £2k from dealer, plus the Government grant of about £2.5k so true cost to me was about £25k and they are currently selling, with coloured paint, for around £25K new and a decent second hand one of 18 months old, like mine you might get for just under 20K so no big lose there and what will keep the cars value quite reasonable is that it can run for half the cost of an diesel or electric car when including fuel, servicing etc. Petrol now selling at some place at under £1.40 a litre and no government supporting grant, at least a reduction in the 20% VAT to say 5% on EVs would be nice and help save the world. EV's main problem, to me, is the huge dip in winter range which if I could get the car in the garage, charge the car in an home ambient temperature of 15 C and above would mean at least ones starting range at the beginning of the day is well up to the summer range and one might be able to maintain that until one gets home in the evening and pop it back in the garage if one is luck to have one. I think car manufacturers could do a lot more to keep the traction battery at at least 15C to maintain good range all year round. We had to keep the traction battery at over 50C for our solid state LIthium Metal Polyimide batteries in our Bollore BlueCar and whilst plugged in and awaiting hire it would keep the battery at 50c, its temperature could go up to 80C I understand, but the cars system, presumably vents or the like, kept the traction battery at optimum temperature along with a bit of power from the rid when plugged in.

My company already licences batteries to be used on Mercedes buses. Seven 64 kwh solid state Lithium Metal Polyimide batteries five in the roof space above the passengers, two in the spare space in the engine compartment as the lecky motor take up so little space. Bjorn Nyland popped down to Germany from Norway to do a feature on it. Thought we might get the Mercedes Truck but they went another way. We, Bollore, already do 12M EV single deck buses in France and Singapore using a combo of the EV batteries and Ultracapacitors, on daily running it is the capacitors I understand and the lithium MP battery is just to get it back to the depot. The charging at the bus shelters is positively surreal, 20 seconds in, 20 seconds charge, beat that fossil fuel fillers .....

Absolutely we must not forget that even little EVs like my Zoe can suck up more power ie two, three or four times, than the average house can ie Zoe at 125 amps and 370 volts at peak where as an average house would max at 60A and 220-240v before blowing the main fuse. I would be quite happy with 30 kW as that is two thirds of the max I can get, even 22 kw AC is half of my maximum but those with 60, 75, 100 kw potential downloading speed may be unchuffed to suddenly get choked from 60 to 30 kW, just waiting for the first report of public charger fistiechuffs over such a scenario. I still think there is a market for roving vans decked out with charging which hovers round over busy public charging hubs or rescues EV driver who have run out or a in tortoise mode. EV drivers just need to get to the point, and I think it is only a year or two away. Where every other garage decides to rip out its fossil fuel pumps and convert to EV power supplying. Potentially a much more massive profit margin as GRIDSERVE Braintree, Norwich, Gatwick next in a few months, roll on Plymouth hopefully next year.

Cambridge services looks good with its both Gridserve and Instavolt banks of chargers and only less than half full but there have been reports of busy times when there has been queues. Gridserve mention on their website about putting in secondary charging wires ie CCS-UK but warn this lowers the Amps so chargers typically go from 60 kw to 30 kw. I can imagine the car/driver getting 60 kW that then suddenly gets 30 kW would not be happy. I would not be too bothered in the Zoe when I can only get 45 kw max and it dropping to 30 kw, a rate I would only get anyways for the 0 to 10% or the 85 to 100% anyways. I could charge off the AC at 22 kW if it had it but I wonder if there has been some harsh words for the second car going along and sharing the feed from the 60 kW GRIDSERVE charger ? Could be intense.

Renault EDC 7 speed there or thereabout similar to the 7 speed dry clutch DSG. Had couple of 6 speed Wet DSG in SEATs and Skoda, OK but not great on fuel. Jag ZF box good in my Type S Jag and great in BMW especially with 8 speed. Merc 9 speed box they use is the one I have been in a car with probably the best. Arkana with 7 speed EDC fairly good, little snatch at take off, Coasting feature great as it was in my Octy, if not a little weird. Good value car, built in Korea. Not yet convince in the ETECH system which sound better in the Austral with turbo engine and 5 speed, plus two electric gears, rather than only 4 ICE gears on ETECH Arkana, Capture, Clio. Skodas, or any VAG, not so good value or as relatively well made to far east cars. Electrics are about to make all ICE cars look costly to run as they fall in price by 10 to 20% a year at present and cost half as much to run and they are all automatics of course !

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Re EVM's video on the A1 reinforces the issue of insufficient operational chargers and he raises the charge rate, fair enough, would not bother me with the Zoe as I can only get 45 kWh at best but the % of out of order chargers is a big issues without us knowing exactly why is happening, is it:- Lack of staff to fix them of these ? Lack of parts ? Economic woes of these mainly smallish companies (perhaps with their banking with Silicon Valley Bank UK) One hears of chargers down for months. If it is not working and earning money for operators one must be suspicious of the business model maybe ? Instavolt generally look good, I want to see more Gridserve. Happening very slowly and bang up to date information can be hard to get.

seems to in the Zoe version though I never charge at public chargers so have not tested if right up to date, only charge at destination charges at my offices or clients or at home.

Google map but also regularly press the alternative routes icon and then pick shorter routes which may be a few minutes longer but are miles shorter. Some people even claim the longer journey, unscrupulous. Google and other routeplanner will direct the longer way round even if many miles further but just a couple of minutes less. Tomtom use to be good a offering good alternates but traffic avoidance seems best in Google maps to me.

In a former life I was a marine engineer and loved my 20,000 main engine with 1,000 hp generators and what they could do ie push a 100,000 ship through the water and round the world so diesel, and petrol, torque from an internal combustion engine is something I appreciate. I did not know about this and this is so impressive I think. Somebody had a brain storm particularly replacing those massive 1,000 litre saddle diesel tanks with battery packs which can be changed faster than the old diesel tanks could be filled with diesel. Maintenance and running most massive big wins. My big worry would be gangs stealing the battery packs which are worth an absolute fortune !!! e

Just like the 2009 economic problem it will be the expensive to run cars that the middle income £30-100k pa gross that will collapse whilst economic cars will stay strong I predict. With Road tax a bit of a killer combined in J RS Hunt quite possibly going to restore the 5p back on to Excise duty, in combination with the cost of living crisis it is easy to predict those high performance cars ie 250 hp north, to drop quickly in value. I have been monitoring my Arkana 1.333 TCE, Clio 0.9TCE and ZOe ZE50 and they all seem quite strong in retained value and I expect that to continue. How does one get I buy any car to stop chasing one ?

mustang e only gives max power for 5 seconds I heard.

euroncap has become Boll -ocks marking near worthless driver aids so important rather than structural integrity. Totally happy in my zero stars Zoe, which was 5 stars just 8 years ago. Yes my Arkana has better satety but Zoe is better than anything I had pre 2000 probably. My Dacia Logan was a cracking car, same engine as my beautiful Clio Nav S. Happily have a new Sandero, Duster or Jogger.

Usual Crazy weather at Philip Island Australia. Great result for John McPhee upon moving from Moto3 to WSS and getting a podium for 3rd in his first race......... Jonny Rae up there in WSB of course. https://www.cyclenews.com/2023/02/article/2023-australian-worldsbk-results/

Arkana, Capture and Clio, use the 1.6 NA engine with the 4 speed box connected to the drive alongside the 2 speed ETECH system which Renault say is derived from the F1 tech , for better or worse. Gets some impressive mpg ie high 60s many owners report but some also report much lower figures. Several reports of this model revving it nuts off when being used on steep long hills due to the 1.6 NA not having much torque below 3k revs and when the little 1.2 kWh hybrid battery runs low it is all down to the not very torquey 1.6 NA engine. Recent software update suppose to help the over-revving but it cannot software its way our of not having a turbo for more low down torque of course. I have the simple mild hybrid 140 hp 1.33 l engine much used in the Alliance and also provide to Mercedes in large numbers, matched to a 7 speed dry clutch box like the DSG but called EDC in Renault parlance. I get 50 mpg without trying 55 mpg when trying. 1.33 is about a second quicker to 60/62 and has a top speed of 127 instead of 110 which the EDC is limited to. 160 hp engine a bit quicker of course. It looks like Renault are phasing out the 1.6 NA engine being combined with either the 1.333 Alliance/Merc engine or a new 1.2 l three cylinder and a more powerful ETECH whacking over 400 NM, this is being used in the new Renault Austral ...https://www.renaultgroup.com/en/news-on-air/news/all-new-renault-austral-less-co2-more-pleasure/#:~:text=The 160 HP 12V Mild,starting at 136g%2Fkm*. If/when exactly Renault are going to release the newer turbo engine with more electric power too, including the 5 speed box linked to the drive instead of 4 and with the turbo should solve the annoying high revving occurrences and some of us hope to see the Renault Austral model. But I would like to see the Dacia Spring and more variants of both Dacia and Renault models as they appear to be such good value, like Skoda use to be and I had best part of 20 of them going back to the Felicia but now I am all Renault, although the Arkana is actually built in S.Korea and is really a Samsung XM3. Had things been different it might have been made in Ukraine, or Kazakhstan or Russia. Happy with Korea as seems to be screwed together OK. I would only go ETECH if I was going lots of urban driving (and I did not have a fuel card maybe), quite high weight penalty for all this electric drive gubbins, circa 100 kgs.

Home charging at 7.5 p/kwh, Zoe now back over 3 kWh, closing in on 3.5 kWh as it warms up. Range was down to 150 miles, even 140 miles in well under sub zero temperatures but range back up to 170 miles and should be back over 200 miles in about 5 weeks, vernal equinox and then climb back up to 240 miles high summer when temperature here in the Midlands stays above 15C. Just over £1 to get 4 hours of the cheap charge, only have a 3.6 kW charger but car only being used for 25 miles a day and charger adds 50 miles of range for the £1 so car is charged every other day normally. Still awaiting Octopus Salary Sacrifice details, but only looks half decent with a long lease. Suppose with the all in costs it can look quite good but leaving the job and having to settle has to be considered. Cheap motoring is a rarity but my 9 year Clio gets close, paid for, tiny road tax and does 65+ mpg. servicing is about the biggest shock.