Luckypants

I forgot about the Gridserve forecourt. They make such a hoo-haa about building them, when they finally arrive I've mentally filtered out the news.....

Shamelessly stolen from SpeakEV forum, these have opened in the past two weeks... Instavolt, Frankies Farm Shop, Staplehurst, Kent, TN12 0JT. 8x 160 kW CCS/Chademo. Instavolt, Cobbs Farm Shop, Hungerford, Berkshire RG18 0SP. 6x 160 kW CCS/Chademo. Shell Recharge, Arno's Vale, Bristol BS4 3EX. 8x 300 kW CCS, 4x Chademo BP Pulse, Hounslow, W.London, TW5 9BA. 6x 150 kW CCS, 3x Chademo BP Pulse, Crown Walk, Milton Keynes, MK9 3AE. 7x 50 kW CCS, 1x Chademo EVC, Great Park, Rubery, Birmingham B45 9FP. 6x 300 kW CCS PoGo Charge, Farmhouse Way, Solihull, B90 4EH. 10x 200 kW CCS Gridserve, Phoenix Park Spar, Nottingham, NG16 1AE. 6x 360 kW CCS Shell Recharge, Waitrose Lincoln, LN2 4DS. 5x 120 kW CCS BP Pulse, M&S Pudsey, Bradford, LS28 6AR. 2x 150 kW, 5x 50 kW CCS. 6x Chademo PoGo Charge, Pavilion Shopping Cen, Stockton-on-Tees, TS17 9FF. 16x 200 kW CCS Ionity, Shawfair, Edinburgh, EH22 1FD. 6x 350 kW CCS

With Italian bikes, unreliable speedos was the least of your worries 😆

My speedo is pretty accurate, reading 20mph at gps speed 19mph - this is the important one for Wales. Its a digital display, so easy to keep in the limits. The numpty in the video should have made use of the speedo in his cars, then he wouldn't be banned. I don't understand people being so stupid as to get banned under the totting up procedure, you've had at least 2 and most likely three 'warning' speeding fines before being banned.

At least he acknowledges its not 'just an EV' thing. As he points out, list prices and actual sale prices of new cars has gone up massively over the last few years. EVs have turned up in volume during that time, so historically appear expensive to buy new. Unfortunately for all car buyers, the second hand car buyers -especially second owners - are not prepared or able to buy at the kind of price a 50-60% residual represents. Manufacturers could help by setting list prices as the same as what they are actually willing to sell for. The Astra EV is a prime example, where they can be bought for £8K off list. His program is focussed on the same effects to the supercar market and how huge the depreciation can be, but I see this as an any new car problem. An entry level Ford Focus is £27k now, far cry from when a factory worker could save up over a few years and buy a Ford Escort on 'ordinary wages'.

Love the colour!

Sainsburys have opened a new hub in Biggleswade. Bew to the charging market this year, they now have approximately 60 ultra rapid hubs in the UK.

I take it the adjacent AC post was not suitable? I'm guessing 7kW rather than 11kw? Was the Buzz waiting for a charger or was that just for 'cool points'? 😎

'now based in Australia'.... so knows very little about whats happening on the ground in the UK and evidently gets his news from the Daily Heil. Really balanced piece.... These VED changes will make ICE vehicles more expensive for most but I suspect the effect will be most stark on leasing prices where VED is paid as part of the monthly. For those buying (whatever form it takes), VED is an often overlooked part of the cost of ownership, so likely will not be a factor in the buying decision.

Another 6x150 Osprey hub opened today. 3 new Tesla sites opened last week, one of those open to all. A new Be.EV hub opening 7th November in Sheffield. (half price charging if you are around there for the opening day)

When I first drove a car I knew how to fill it up as I'd seen it done countless times. I'd even worked as a forecourt attendant as a summer / saturday job and had filled many cars. Its 'general knowledge' via familiarity. When I got my EV, I knew in theory how to charge but still did a trial charge to familiarise myself with the process as it was not 'general knowledge' - so I know real world how to charge before it was really needed. In future charging will be 'general knowledge' as more and more are exposed to it. I think these guys knew in theory how to charge but had not become familiar with it until crunch time. Just common sense to familiarise yourself with a new process.

Have you had the brakes cleaned / lubed or just done the TEMPORARY hard braking fix?

Well I feel they should have at least familiarised themselves with DC charging before setting off, but that seems par for Chinese designed cars. MG and now BYD have trouble with some chargers due to implementing the CCS specs a little loosely from all accounts. MG needed a few software updates to the MG4 to finally iron out the CCS gremlins with their cars. Tesla chargers are fine as long as you go to one that is open to all, just telling the sat nav to take you to a Tesla charger is no good if it is a Tesla only site - the video didn't say where they were or what the issue was. I still plan long drives, not trusting to just being able to turn up and charge. Mainly this is to minimise costs and is also something I did in my ICE cars.

Another hub opened on the 'edge of the world' in Wales. Eon Drive open a 10x300kW plug hub. (might be 150kW per plug if both plugs on the charger are in use) https://www.eon-uk.news/news/eon-drive-launches-first-ultra-fast-ev-charging-hub-in-wales

The approved mileage rate applies to folks using their own cars for company miles and not to company car drivers. It is intended to cover the cost of extra insurance, fuel, wear & tear etc. The same rate applies to all types of cars and has not changed since 2012. So when paying 7p/kWh its a good deal for EV drivers, but paying 79p at a public rapid charger not so much. Company car drivers have a rate of 9p per mile if claiming fuel costs but most will get fuel paid by the company. The 9p rate also applies if drivers reimburse the company for private miles. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/rates-and-allowances-travel-mileage-and-fuel-allowances/travel-mileage-and-fuel-rates-and-allowances

One for those living in Norfolk, from the beginning of this month. https://www.ospreycharging.co.uk/post/new-hub-hirsts-farm-shop--cafe-great-yarmouth

Just to keep things ticking along in here..... Wetherby services had 12 new connections added over the weekend. There is a total of 39 connectors there now,

I've been doing the same for the past two winters. I've settled on 50C flow temp (oil boiler will not go lower) which seems to work OK for my house and radiator set up and 52C for DHW, which like yours has a long run to the shower. Oil combi boilers are not as fast to react as gas and have a small buffer tank, which is down to 45C by the time the burner lights but provides sufficiently hot water in winter. What the lower flow temps have shown is one radiator is incorrectly fitted so does not get fully warm and one small one in the utility is undersized. I'm confident now that a heat pump will work in our property when its time to replace the boiler. The other upside to these experiments is a tank of oil lasts 2 months longer than before, 🙂

You, amongst others plus the general media and other ill-informed people. I live in 'poorly served' area and have no problems with public charging. It has also improved tremendously since I bought my EV 3 years ago. You get all offended and shirty when the facts are shoved under your nose. The thread is called 'The Truth About Electric Cars', but some don't like having the truth pointed out.

and another nail in coffin of the lie there is no infrastructure... 4 new Tesla supercharger hubs opened to all cars this week, Now up to 79 open to all and total of 153 SuC hubs.

....and to underline how quickly the charging landscape is improving PoGo Charge launched a new ultra-rapid site at J24 of the M5 with 10 plugs from 5 200kW chargers. So more chargers for the south west @PetrolDave.

Fair enough Dave, I've never driven down there in my EV. However, the charging map gives me confidence it won't be a problem. My experience is that there is no issue with charging but take your earlier point that this might not be true for all 60m of us.

Not only did grid level batteries respond almost real-time fast, systems such as Axle were able to make 100s of domestic batteries respond within 30-60 seconds to help local grid lower demand for generation. This helped facilitate the recovery operations.

Everyone was agog when Rugby services opened in April 2021 with 24 ultra rapid chargers (12 Gridserve and 12 tesla), by 2022 folks were complaining about queues at peak times. Rugby services now has 52 ultra rapid chargers (24 Gridserve and 28 Tesla) with a further 12 Gridserve in the pipeline (replacing the original 12 Tritium chargers that don't integrate to the backend). Build it and they will come clearly born out by experience. Gretna services another good example of this. Exeter services is another. The area around Larkhall has Fastned and Tesla hubs for all to use handy to the M74. They are everywhere. There is no limited public infrastructure. See this snapshot of Electroverse charging map. Thi is the reason I get tired of the 'no infrastructure' argument