Graham Butcher

This news just in about Daihatsu, which is owned by Toyota and also affects other brands such Mazda, Subaru and also Toyota etc. Di

This is really proving my point for me, EV cars only really make real sense (ignoring the emissions at this point) if you do more local journeys than you do journeys where you need to use public charge points, as opposed to home charging, especially if it is your own car. Company cars are different because you are effectively being paid to spend time at charging points.

WTF, 87p a KWh, surely to god if EV's are to be the motive power of the future that pricing model has to get to be stamped out, even the Tesla and Porsche system is totally unfair. If liquid fuel had such a massive price swing there would be regulators crawling all over the system. Yes, before anybody says it, I know that there are loyalty cards for some brands of liquid fuels, but they only offer about 1p a litre discount, back at some point in the future, if and only if you have accumulated enough points to earn £5 at a time back so everybody pays the same price at the pump.

Very true, cheap fossil fuel supply does not encourage users to think green at all. All the great oil producing countries love their gas guzzlers and that's one reason why the overall air quality is so bad. If these vehicles were to be replaced with say a maximum of 2.5 litre turbocharged engines we would all be better breathing cleaner air.

18 stops for charging, I could do that trip with 7 fill ups, just saying. Then I could actually stop anywhere of my choosing along the route for breaks, rather than being dictated whereby the availability of chargers. 😉

What a nice considerate EV driver to leave the other charger for others to use, well done that man.

Ok, I'm tempting fate here, what is this infamous VAG water pump issue then? I have had 4 Passats in 12 years, 5 Superbs in 20 years making it 32 years straight that I have VAG cars and never had a water pump problem. I don't see why you can't raise a concern about the tail hatch latch if its a commonly known problem. Its costs nothing to ask about it, although there is a good chance that they may try and fob you off if the reports are anything to go by.

If the droplink is a known issue then while it may not be that much of an issue to do a recall, it certainly should be service item that is to be replaced FOC at the next service and the fact recorded to prevent any unnecessary incidents happening.

Not a nay sayer at all, Tesla already have the best-selling car anyway. I was just thinking that with all of Elon Musk's boasting about having the best car, that it was a shame that his engineering and customer service didn't match his boast.

@RootedNo not really, just sort of thinking out loud really, I guess that they would do the same as Audi, take mobile chargers with them.

Oh, thats a given, but the suspension breaking and control arms etc, don't expect that to happen with all the hard and extensive testing that they are supposed be given under the harshest of conditions, but I suppose we can cut them a little slack, as to test them in the same really tough conditions that they test ICE cars in would be a little difficult without the infrastructure / support items being in place. Trouble is though that the items that are snapping etc are major safety items and I suspect maybe they have tried to compensate for the extra weight of the batteries by trimming other items down in thickness etc to safe some weight so as not to impact on the acceleration so the can market the performance?

You don't expect that kind of problem with what is supposed to be a premium brand, well not on any new car really do you.

Following a news article on the BBC about Tesla's trying to deflect warranty claims, I wondered if there was any truth in the claim at all so while looking to conform or debunk it, I came across this and there are others by Reuters and the like, so it looks like they may well be some substance in the story? Tesla Model S, 3, X & Y Suspension Issues: Owners Discuss Defective Parts (insideevs.com)

Thanks for the link, I really enjoyed that as computers are also another thing I like, as indeed are watches, which he mentioned that many car people are also into. It was also refreshing to hear him talk about the first few years of doing YouTube where he actually said that some months he only made about £100 a month and so was far from breaking even. That again confirmed what I had seen from some other YouTubers on the electronics side, which is another thing I quite into and possibly the world's biggest electronics forum which I'm part of has discussed the earnings of the YT channel, which was also very low in the early years. In reality though, he is just like the other YouTubers I follow, it started out as a passion and slowly grew into becoming a full time thing, and they are all (motoring ones at least) passionate about cars of all types, none of them are fully fledged journalists having come from a media degree or similar, they are in my view on the edge of journalism and one or two have slowly begun to get invites from manufacturers to attend the launches new models etc.

In what way do you say he is a journalist, is because he is a YouTuber or what? I'm not aware of him being a journalist in the published sense of the word, unlike Clarkson for instance? As far as I know, James Martin used to be a cameraman on the Car Throttle channel (maybe still is?). But he is a massive car enthusiast and decided to start his YT channel about 7 years ago and has driven/tested many different models over the years including EV's and has no axe to grind one way or the other about EV's apart from the concerns that he has already stated in the video. So to me, he is just another YouTuber with a passion for cars and maybe a little more clued-up than some of the others and as such does not have to rely on clickbaits as much to get views as his channel has running for a while and is thus more established.

That is the point that Jayem was making was it not? Yes maybe there is not enough help on hand at some filling stations, but considerably more than there is at recharge points is there not? I think you're shooting the messenger here rather than agreeing with him. 🤔

By registered disabled driver, I mean she is disabled, needs crutches and has a blue badge and a disabled parking bay outside of their house, of course.

OK, all the same he is the first YouTuber I have come across that has dared to go against what the others do. He has brought those issues further into the glare of public scrutiny which has to be a positive thing, right? As to the issues with refuelling of ICE vehicles by the disabled, the situation is not as bad and apart from stations such Asda with their at pump ones, there is assistance at most stations but it does take a few minutes to arrange. This I know because my Eldest sons girlfriend is also a registered disabled driver.

Strange, but this disability angle was one of the very points that JayEmm on Cars made in the video I posted yesterday, if anyone watches it again, pay close attention to around the 14:00 mark in the video where he raises that question. I found that there were a good number of very valid points he raised which need, again as he mentioned, urgently need addressing, including the need for ideally home charging, which is as I have repeatedly stated, is not available for a large proportion of the population throughout the UK along with price regulation.

Oh, I haven't seen that thread yet.

This just now was on the BBC news site so over to the man in the region for comments, Rooted, Scotland. 'My electric car dreams turned into a nightmare' - BBC News

This is what it says in my manual. oil checking.pdf

Come down this neck of the woods and I'll gladly show you some aggressive bumps, even at 10mph they are more than capable of making life unpleasant for the occupants! I must admit I had a chortle at them being passive 😉 though.

Oil will naturally be showing higher on the dipstick when it is cold as the oil will slowly trickle down.

Some would see that as a massive upside as it means that the battery is being given extra protection against being struck from beneath, such as bottoming out on aggressive speed bumps (something my son's Ford Focus does) and also of course added protect from floods, no?