Graham Butcher

None of the above is currently in dispute, but that might well not be the case in a couple of years time, possibly, only time will tell on that issue. This is what I was talking about, you're saying that "EV are so efficient @90% that they don't produce vast amounts of waste heat, only vast amounts of pollution." Your words, not mine 😉🤣

@lol-lolEh, what do you mean, your EV doesn't produce wast heat but does produce vast amounts pollution, I thought was their USP no? 😉 The point I was making though was what if, you arrived home with only a few miles range left because you planned to plug it in overnight, but an emergency cropped up before it had time to be charged, then you wouldn't have that half charged battery available to you! An ICE could swing into a filling station and get a full tank in less than 5 minutes, or if it came down to it, stuck in traffic jam etc, the emergency services could at least get a jerry can of juice to you to keep warm with. I'm not aware of any ICE having a heatpump either, counter productive really, when there is "free" heat from the engine. My car has a feature where I could switch the engine off and keep the heater blowing warm air from the hot water for a while and then run the engine back up to temp again and again to extract the engines residual heat. Never seen that before on any car.

Of course there have been incidents here where people have become trapped on motorways etc due to road closures etc, but this is the real danger, and it might never happen but nonetheless could happen, and yes I know there will be people saying you should always be prepared and plan ahead etc. But it is perfectly feasible for many reasons to low on fuel in both EV and ICE cars, and you suddenly find yourself thrust into a situation as a result of an emergency trip having to be made before you could top up the levels. I had this situation last year with my 92yr old MIL collapsing on her kitchen floor on the other side of the city and living alone, we were the only family she could contact, everyone else was in Australia visiting other family members, or working in London. I had planned on filling the car at my local Tesco the following day when I also did the weekly shopping trip. Now she could have been living in the next town etc and in the process of dashing to her aid, we could have been stranded in a blizzard etc and ran out of fuel as well. Now with an ICE car it is possible and has been done before that emergency workers could top up the tanks of ICE cars with enough fuel to keep the heater going, how would they be able to that with an EV in a similar situation?

This test is pretty interesting, is it just Tesla or do others perform as good?

Oh dear, Tesla caught bending the truth slightly.

Just don't hold your breathe on JS being at around Tesla prices.

Good grief, what ever next Well whatever, I've not had any problems with the standard tyres or the Avons, they have all provided me with enough grip under all conditions I have come across, including snow. The secret is to always use gentle inputs.

@lol-lolI can't say as If I've ever encountered temperatures that low, but we used to have to start Gardener diesel engines on the buses in the garages early mornings when it was well below freezing. We would have to flip the compression levers down to lower the compression ratio a little bit, get a rag and tie it to old school welding rod, dowse it in paraffin and light it and then take it to each bus in turn and stuff that rag into the air intakes while someone else cranked the engine over on the starter till it started. Once started, withdraw the lit rag, and flip the decompression levers back up and leave the bus ticking over. You can imagine how smokey the garage got with around 60 odd buses all running spewing greyish white smoke out, it was like a good old fashioned pea soup fog and it would make your eyes sting and water, forcing us outside into the freezing weather in order to not breathe in any more of the fumes that we absolutely had to.

As most of my cars have been company cars, the tyres were always replaced with the same make and type as they left the factory, when the ownership transferred to me and tyres were needed, I went with the advice of the tyre fitters for the best performance on all season tyres at the best price and compatible with any tyres that were still on the car and not needing replacements they were Avon ZV7. Having learnt my craft on skinny cross-ply tyres fitted to a 1957 Hillman Minx and was taught by a bus driver, who are trained in the art of giving smooth and gentle inputs to the car, be it steering, throttle, brakes and even clutch control. That is still the way I drive today what is the point of driving on the limits of adhesion, because one day that adhesion will disappear and these heavy footed and late brakers will find themselves will discover that are in a whole heap of trouble. Yes I have people in their BMW's, Audi's etc roar past me like a bat out of hell, only to find them sitting at the next set of lights or roundabout or even stuck behind a stream of traffic in front that I could see, but they couldn't until they passed me. Regardless of whatever speeds people hit on the odd occasion, they cannot escape the fact that the average speed for a trip of a decent length still comes out at approx 50mph at best unless you have the added benefit of blue lights and a two-tone siren.

Well, clearly @wyx087was not aware hence his question 😉 As to the tyre fitment, it is personal choice, but maybe some don't feel safe because they are always pushing the limits of grip and performance trying to first to get anywhere? I have never felt the need for other tyres and I have been driving professionally ever since passing my test at 17.

To further substantiate what I was saying about the Superb being available in some markets with the pre-heating and de-icing similar to that of some EV's of the car without the engine running and also as it turns out with the added bonus of warming the engine to at least 50oC to aid cold starting as well as warming the interior up, page 125 to 127 of the Superb manual cover this topic and it can be downloaded from here 😉

Because some of the Superbs can be fitted with a diesel powered heater system and can be programmed to switch on and off via the onboard management systems so it does need the engine running. Similar heaters can also be fitted into caravans for example. Here is a similar system for Volkswagen T5/T6 vans that have the heater mounted beneath them and the hot air ducted inside. Eberspacher Airtronic D2L Externally Mounted Diesel Heater With Easystart Pro Controller For Volkswagen T5/T6 | 12 Volt Planet There is one of these fitted into this superb self designed and built camper van and if you goto around the 10:50 area you can see it and they describe it.

Its not so much the fact that they are not using OEM tyres, I mean they must be suitable or otherwise they would be fitting them, would they? My car is still on all weather tyres as fitted when new. It's got far more to with the engine power at the sometimes pretty big torque figures available and the drivers' inability to understand just how to drive on slippery roads, be they icy or snow impacted, we don't get enough of the bad weather for them to get used to driving in such conditions and for many it might well be their first experience of bad weather. So many people get these big powerful cars like BMW's etc and then just like Clarkson go "Power" and bury their foot in the carpet and wonder why their wheels are spinning, and TBH I can predict this getting worse as there seems to be a race to develop ZEV's with even more power and torque being delivered to the wheels right from the off, I can see many accidents being caused by the massive acceleration that many are now capable of and insurance premiums going sky-high as a result. I do agree that it is nice to have the ability to preheat / de-ice before setting foot in the car. Some can Skoda's have that ability, mine can be sadly they don't seem to be approved on models destined for the UK 😒

Haha, I can assure that I do get and about and have done for many years, especially the South, South East, East, Home Counties and the Midlands. Draw a line from Kings Lynn to Birmingham and down to Southampton, is that a big enough area for you? There have been quite a few trips to Swansea, Liverpool, Barrow In Furness and Newcastle upon Tyne as well as places in Scotland and the Emerald Isle, so I think I know my way around the country, don't you? I'm not talking about the speed limit dropping to 20mph for a short stretch of road through a village, or past schools etc, but whole towns, estates etc. For example, in my city there is a whole massive estate of well north of 40 odd streets suddenly becoming a 20mph zone, there are zero schools on the estate, zero hospitals and zero shops except for 1 street which is full of shops and yet that street is a 30mph zone, go figure. This whole estate is bounded by 3 main roads, one of which is an "A" road and the estate has only 4 access points, hence the local council wanted to split it up into quarters and it becoming known as the "quarters", erect physical road blockages to stop people using it as a local rat run and they made the mistake of well publicising it. The locals organised themselves and had proper big window posters printed saying "No to Quarters" and almost every house on the estate displayed this poster in their windows as it would mean that themselves would then be adding to the overall traffic gridlocks as they attempt to get into and out of their quarters which could add upto 45 minutes on a trip to circumnavigate the estate in order get back to their homes after shopping etc. The council then dropped the plan and now without any proper consultation slapped a 20mph zone on the entire estate and another that borders onto it, this is universally disliked by residents and seems to be done as if it was a punishment for thwarting the "quarters plan". This is the objection to these 20mph zones I have, they only make sense in certain areas such as schools, homes for the elderly etc.

These so-called communities that want lower speed limits are really a case of its the squeaky wheel that gets the drop of oil. The vast majority of people just can't be bothered to take part in any consultation meetings in the belief of "I don't think this is going to happen", or "I'm sure that others will prevent it from happening" syndrome. I must admit to being like myself at times and I'm sure that these meetings are deliberately timed in their announcements and the very short duration for which they are open, hoping not to attract any negative opinions to their proposals. Do they ever take the trouble to write to the residents in the affected areas? Its been my experience that they don't, they announce them in various low-key ways to avoid drawing attention to them, just like when the newspapers have to publish an apology, its in small case, tucked away in the middle of the paper so as not to draw attention to the fact that they had to do it. Yet when they published the article for which they had to make the apology for, it was more than likely on the front page and was in big bold letters to get people to buy the paper. Sometimes I only hear about certain issues when someone decides to flag it up on my neighbourhood website because the consultation period has closed and someone has just spotted the published announcement tucked away out of site, or on the local authority's website, which we all regularly visit and scrutinise don't we? 🙄

Exactly that, otherwise wouldn't they have been displaying a lower speed limit of say 20mph? This is what happens when the police are becoming ever more reliant on speed cameras to catch speeders. Years ago there would have been more traffic patrols both in the famous batten burg cars and also undercover cars patrolling the roads catching not only speeders but also those drivers under the influence of drugs, booze or just downright dangerous driving, standards have been dropped and the country is going downhill.

What I actually said was that the majority of people don't have an issue with speed limits being too high in general. That does not however mean that they neither have children, or don't care about children in their own areas or areas that they drive through, you are misunderstanding what I am saying there. I seriously doubt that there are people around who actually think like that, and I also believe that such lower speed limits of 20mph are justified in certain areas such as schools and that most people would also fully support such limits. I have a friend whose wife used to be employed as school visitor giving talks and presentations to children parents alike at schools on road safety, cycling safely, and the green cross code and was appalled when the county council pulled the funding for her role and made her redundant years ago. Maybe I'm cynical but I can't help but see these moves as a means of driving cars off the roads, combined with 15 minute cities, cycle lanes that now reduce the road width for motorised transport even if it means that ambulances are now struggling to take patients on a 999 call to the A&E hospital near me, along with reduced speed limits coming in, LEZ and ULEZ and ZEZ in some cities like Oxford for instance that are banning everything but cyclists and ZEV from parts of the city. It all strikes me as a bit too contrived.

There will always be people who think speed limits should be lowered, but that is not to be confused with the wishes of the majority, who don't think they should be lowered as there is not an inherent problem if people actually stop and think about their own safety and use the green cross code. Where the traffic is higher they install zebra crossing or even pelican crossings to enable the people especially the elderly, and they have microwave detectors built-in on the pelican crossings to detect slow people still being on the crossings and will hold the lights at red until they have safely crossed the road. Yes lower limits could save lives, so the 10mph reduction gives a 2.5% chance of death if hit by a car, if we ban cars completely then they can claim 0% chance of death by being hit by a car. What about the last mile delivery vans, cyclists, motorbikes, buses, ambulances, fire engines etc. I think that deaths might well rise because pedestrians will become complacent and make the fatal mistake of thinking that there is no need to think for themselves any more and step into the road and get struck by an almost silent EV vehicle.

Well, here is a aerial view of my area of the city and it seems that I have the lions share of schools in my locality S1 is infants and junior, S2 is junior and senior Catholic, S3 is preschool, infants and junior, S4 is preschool Catholic (often used to see Suzi Quatro there as her children used to go there, and now I think her grandchildren do), S5 is infants and juniors, S6 is Girls County High School and S7 is an ex senior school, now planned to be a new housing estate and C1 is 6th form college. The stretch of road that is a 20mph zone is the 400yds, shown by the red line and the only fatal accident involving a pedestrian is as far as I know my drunken neighbour coming home from the pub one night who stepped out from behind a parked car in the road between S5 and S6 back in the 1960's. So I don't think that 30mph is a bad thing as long as people understand that roads are for vehicles, footpaths are for pedestrians and when they need to cross the road, think about it and remember the green cross code and cross over directly in a straight line and as quickly as possible.

Yes, although, where I live I have 5 schools and a 6th form college, located on 6 different roads, they are 160yds, 300yds, 400yds, 520yds and 540yds away as the crow flies, and they are all within 30mph zones except the college 400yds away is in a 20mph zone. I've lived here 30 years and there has not been a single incident I'm aware off and the ages range from todds that are preschool to 16 and 17year olds.

But 30mph has never been a problem and is there any proof that 20mph is better in any way at all?

Doesn't that in itself say something about the world that we live in today, that we as parents feel that it is no longer safe for our children to walk to and from school? In my time as a child, it was rare to see children being driven to and from schools. Its yet another sign of just how soft governments have become on law and order these days.

@@LeeWell that was an obvious thing, they want to discredit the Welsh government as we are heading into election time. I have zero problems with 20mph zones near schools or hospitals, but they should accompanied by flashing signs when speed limits are in force, especially the school ones as schools are not open 24/7 so when they are not open, speed could be returned to 30mph safely. As to the stupid slogan “20 is plenty where people live” people live everywhere and if governments spent some money educating children that roads are hazardous and need to be treated with respect, learn how to cross roads safely, and that they are not playgrounds, ever, then the number of accidents involving pedestrians will fall significantly as a result and air quality will also improve as cars are more efficient at 30mph.

@RootedThanks for the info regarding Hertz, not looking too rosy there, is it. Shades of another Post Office style scandal there, with the arrests and jailing of innocent hirers.

That would make sense, I've always thought that the current range available from BEV's is woefully inadequate, but however they make perfect sense (if the figures they keep quoting are truthful), that they are ideal for cities and large urban areas for trips in and around the immediate area and thus making massive differences locally to air quality where the most of the population are. There is no problem with air quality outside these areas. So the small last mile delivery vehicles make the ideal solution, use ICE power to local hubs, and then distribute the goods to BEV for the last mile delivery, perfectly logical.