Graham Butcher

Hmm, OK then so why is that I seem to have a pretty constant list of things that need repairing in the electronics sphere I wonder, I'll have to ponder that won't I? Could it be that I'm older and have more experience of things and that I've discovered that things are seldom, what the marketing teams are trying to convince you, that they are? I have asked you before to divulge your age, but you side step that, but I can't help but get that feeling about you that you are fairly young in years. Just like many teenagers think that they know everything and us old fogies know nothing. I used to poke fun at my late Father, especially over his politics, but now, I'm beginning to see his view point and I have to admit that with age comes wisdom and the things that told me to watch for, are indeed beginning to emerge. My sons also went that know it all stage, but I can see how that brashness is slowly slipping away as time goes by... Edit. The other thing about modern electronics is that are assembled by robots and even the dearest bits of electronic test equipment etc actually has built-in obsolescence with parts designed to last x years and production stops and yet the equipment would still be perfect for the job, but they have just designed another that makes the older one obsolete.

Well, no, you have misread the situation again. What I was saying, and I also know a thing or 2 about electronics which you may or may not have picked up by now, was that in the olden days the only electronic part in cars was the condenser wired across the points of the distributor as a spark quencher and that the average person with any mechanical knowledge could sort out most breakdowns and get the car going again. That no longer is the case and anyone of those SMD parts or indeed TH parts can quickly ruin your day if they decide to pop their clogs. Some things are self-evident when they fail and others not so, and also today there are not many people who could repair such circuitry as schematics and spares are not available. You should know that the method these days is not to spend time trying to track down what went wrong and failed, but to replace complete units. When was the last time anybody saw a television repair shop, once upon a time there used to be 2 or 3 in most towns, not any more, we are now a throw away society and replace and that is not cheap nor good for the environment which I find it odd that you don't appear to appreciate that aspect and yet you champion the EV as being good for the environment. It has to better to keep things going for as long as possible, rather than expending a massive amount of energy making new things all the time and disposing of the old when it could be fixed up. It is the TH larger electrolytic capacitors that do often fail, but that can also be quickly and easily replaced and also normally easy to spot as they normally either disgorge their inwards and electrolyte all over the circuit board, or they bulge and vent. Occasionally they might dry out and cease to do any function, but is again easy to spot using the right test equipment which I have.

@lol-lol No problem, I understand about the scheme, but when I retired (already well over retirement age) the small private pension plans from previous employments would have only brought in a few hundreds of £ a year between them and even less if I took a lump sum. I had a few £ saved away that I inherited from my late Mother's estate, which was sadly not what it could have been, but the various recessions had done to her cost of living had entered into a equity release scheme based on her house, for which she received a pittance of a monthly contribution to state pension, so the equity company made a small fortune when I had to hand over the keys to the house. I took advice on what was the best way to handle my pension and was advised to leave it where it is for the time being and manage on the inheritance as the rate of interest on my savings was far lower than the pension pot could hopefully produce based on its performance at the time. Then as the "B" word began to be implemented bit by bit, the shares where the pot was invested took many hits and has seen over 40% of its original value wiped off it. I'm tracking it, and it starts to slowly edge its way up again and then Westminster has a reshuffle, or a new PM etc and it crashes again. I also know from my Mother's experience that they take into account any savings you have and from that it pretty certain that I won't get any help from them as they have also been squeezed by Westminster as they would deem I'm a needy case because I still have a bit of savings. Like you, I also find public transport a pain in the butt to use, even though I have a free bus pass it carries restrictions on the times I can travel free and there never seems to a bus running where I need to go and carrying bags of shopping on the bus is a joke these days. I did my apprenticeship with my local bus company and they were good days, these days public transport is a shell of its self and is no longer fit to be called public transport. As for road tax or VED, I thought I did good when I got my 2nd hand replacement car after my other one was written off for me by some idiot, the tax on my car is only £35 a year, but sadly my insurance renewal following the accident, even though it was a no fault on my part and the other party's insurer has paid out in full, my new quote for this year has increased by 108% which making me think seriously about selling the car and give up on driving.

Be great to get that amount of free charging all the time

@toot Totally agree with you, some of the EV drivers are so ignorant that they cannot see there may be others who really need to use the faster chargers as they be in a rush to continue their journeys, the same as these service stations that also have mini supermarkets in them and someone, fills and then goes and do their shopping rather than parking elsewhere and freeing up the pump for others 🤬 With red/orange thingy, I never realised that the display was animated and that your photo happened to catch it mid-movement 👍

I have to say it, but there does seem to be much hype about the lack of servicing required, but that is not what I'm seeing here at all, the big difference is the lack of engine oil and oil filter changes, everything else is much the same. True brake wear is reduced but the amount of wear on any car reflects the manner of driving, and I don't rely on my brakes, I was taught to drive by bus drivers and so use the engine and being a diesel they have a higher compression ratio and provide pretty good braking, and coming to a halt with the minimum of effect to passengers as it is possible. Fuel filters only need checking/replacing at best 60,000 miles, something like 6 to 8 years driving for a lot of people. All of these self-service videos also make use of something that so very few people have access to, a inspection pit or a hoist. the underbody trays on modern cars almost make one of those a must or at least 2 people laying on their backs beneath the cars, not normally possible for many people, me included. What was that $20 dollars for washer fluid?? I get concentrated fluid and mix it with water as required, this costs around £1 and lasts over 3 years and washer fluid needs topping very regularly not just at servicing time. Brake fluid, absorbs moisture regardless of if the brakes see much use and so need to be replaced regularly, and is not that expensive to do. The cost indicated of $720 for 5 years servicing is not that much different to an ICE car with variable servicing, which will vary according to how hard and the driver's style of driving and from personal experience and I have seen plenty of Tesla drivers and also Porsche Taycans etc., who drive like they own the road and simply must be at the head of the queue and are often the ones doing dodgy overtaking where others would hesitate, and then I normally get to pull gently to a smooth controlled stop behind them at the next road junction or traffic lights etc, and then they go off again like the hare only to and more than likely caught up with at the next hold-up.😏

Well, I have to say that the display does not make it abundantly obvious to anyone without having read up somewhere how to understand the information being displayed. Traditionally, on say a mobile phone, green in the battery symbol would mean that the battery is full and orange or red would mean that the battery requires charging. Think you explaining it, it might come in handy if I get an EV.

Please enlighten me here, I'm having a bit of difficulty understanding these 2 photos. The top one seems to me to say that the time is 07:40:41 and the green battery showing that the car is fully charged. The bottom indicates the 08:25:46, 45 minutes after the first photo was taken and yet it shows the battery is charging and reached approx 33% of charge? Or are the photos taken on 2 different days, or have I got that all wrong??

I fully appreciate that, what I was saying is that there are more of those in EV's and got knows there are simply loads in most modern cars anyway. In my Superb diesel there are no fewer than 19 ECUs with their own CPU's etc and when you look back to the days when there were none of these gadgets in cars and most knowledgable people could bodge something together to get going again, that is not normally the position these days so unless the car goes into "limp home" mode, you get to sit at the roadside for hours on end waiting for support to arrive. It happened to me twice in my previous car and the RAC took ages to reach me.

I'm not quite sure what you're trying to say here.

Just in case there is anybody here who is a bit puzzled by what I was referring to my post about the surface mount resistor here are some photos I've taken of a computer monitor video card (1) that is responsible for the images you see on your screen, the cables are going to the power supply printed circuit board which funnily enough is some 3.5 times larger. I placed a 5 pence piece on the board and photographed it (2), then placed it under my microscope and took another photo (3) then zoomed in and took another photo (4) . The items highlighted in red are the surface mounted resistors, those highlighted in yellow are transistors and item highlighted in white is a capacitor and any single one of those failing has the potential of bringing your car to halt and really spoiling your day big time. In EV's there are going simply loads of these types of things, maybe running to thousands throughout the car some of the integrated circuits called "chips" can have billions of transistors within them such as the case of microprocessors or as they are more commonly called CPU's. How Many Transistors Are in a CPU? [Updated 2023] | DeviceTests

All cars these days are complicated when they go wrong and when they do it is most likely to something electronic. Just smallest thing like a ultra small surface mounted resistor on printed circuit board, the resistor probably only measures 2 or 3mm but can kill your car. This is true regardless of how the car is powered. That said however EV's employ much more electronics than ICE cars. Think back to the days when the nearest a car got electronics was the capacitor across the points on a distributor. All other functions were controlled via switches and anybody could repair almost everything apart from the radio. These days some cars like Tesla's even have touch touch control for the heater etc via a large digital screen. It just adds an extra layer of complexity to things that are not really required.

Sorry, I was confused with the different numbers being quoted, between tens of thousands and the then 2,000 but like others have said it was not made particularly clear, and that I can understand as one's brain races ahead faster than, at least it does for me, I can type and I often have to back and read and edit it and read it again many times before posting and then sometimes bits are missing lol. I have now changed my reaction to like.

Nice colour, that was my first choice of colour but I had to change it because SWMBO didn't like it when it first came out on the Mk1, now she has kind of warmed to it.

Agreed, he is haming it up and also his titles are clickbait, but then again that is his only income, so he has to attract views in order to get monetised. What he is doing is no different to what newspapers do to entice buyers to buy their paper to read the latest piece of spiced up news.

I must say that thinking about, it sounds a bit far-fetched, as someone else hinted at, it maybe have a far darker reason for that and that may be revealed in time if we all wait until the code is cracked. I think it would all depend on the value of that unlock gave you, in the UK that $4,500 certainly add to the BIK as the retail value has shot up. So it also have a knock affect on VED as a private buyer. I'm not so sure if that is the plain truth, I find it exceedingly hard to find a Tesla has managed to build up their own network of Tesla owned and operated service centres on the global scale that their website suggests when no other company has done that. Furthermore, I think its much more likely that it is a franchise system like McDonalds where they insist that only their name is used for the business. There is a large showroom and service centre in my city on the same site as Mercedes Benz and they operate as Tesla Chelmsford in one building and Mercedes-Benz Chelmsford in the other building. Hardly the same as having 28 plus drivers, all competing for just 4 chargers overnight so that can commute to their place of work in the morning is it 🙄 Well, we know at least 5 of them still appear to be there, see my other posting.

Hmm, yes well, I presume that you just now checked for chargers in the Leyborn area that he mentioned? How certain are you that these you found aren't new ones. His vid was in October 2021, things might well not have been as they are today, back then?

Yes, but correct me if I'm wrong but I think he did say that he had driven to a 50 or 100Kw charger but when he got there it was out of order but his app never showed it was out of service, so maybe we had better give him the benefit of doubt.

Very few chargers near me, mostly 7Kw, some 22Kw and a couple of 50Kw.

But isn't that just like the vast majority of drivers. Not many drivers that I'm aware of any idea of what happens under the bonnet of their cars or the differences in the grades of petrol or diesel for that matter. Most just drive along, even when they are getting low on liquid fuel, will wait until they get the warning bong and pilot light telling them to refuel and then they will pull in at the next petrol station and if they forget to pull in, will attempt to push on to the next one along their route?

@tootI have no idea how many of those 5 are still working but it does make a good illustration as you confirmed that ZapMap and PlugShare are nowhere up-to-date with their information, so when that guy with Porsche is a click bait kn** as stated by @lol-lolmade a video about how he got caught out when using ZapMap, 5 months ago claiming he almost froze to death (which is clickbait I admit, but thats just what the MSM does all the time and people get their info from the biased MSM), it seems that he was actually telling the truth about the infrastructure is not fit for purpose. Its hardly a good advocate to help encourage people switch to EV. The key players in this push towards having no new ICE cars for sale in 2030 and net-zero by 2050 have really got to grab hold of their socks and pull them up double quick. It does bugger all to help either when the PM has just ordered a new Audi A8 (ICE) as his official car, he should be leading from the front as should the entire government and be using EV cars.

Considering the above photo was dated 2017, there has not any further movement to provide charging posts and considering the size of the entire housing complex, those 5 posts are no where enough as what the photo does not show nor does the text explain it, but Haldane Place is just 1 side of a massive 4 story housing estate. As far as I can see there is not even a parking space allocated to each dwelling so it would seem that some tenants would not be able to have a car even if they wanted one. And this scenario is played out across the whole of the UK in large urban areas with social housing as opposed to private estates, which do usually have driveways as claimed. But there are many more older private and social estates where that is not remotely possible. The only way that can happen is to demolish every thing and build afresh, highly unlikely.

How certain about the 24v supply are you? I'm not so sure, the street lights around here are now largely LED heads as you say, but they are fed from the normal 240v supply to the pole base and then terminated via a time clock and the photocell at the top (belt and braces in case the time clock gets welded contacts leaving lights on 24/7) into the LED driver and then the LED head. Lamppost charging in my street I would suggest is a non-starter with just 4 lampposts, in a street 140 metres in length and 20 houses, each with at least 1 car and 2 houses with no fewer than 5 cars each. There would be pitch battles over who gets to charge their cars overnight.

@lol-lol Generally agreed with a lot of what you said, however the locations you specifically mentioned are by and large relatively modern estates and also likely to be largely private housing and not social housing, looking at Google Earth for your village that certainly looks to be true, and also you mentioned Bradley Stoke which I know to be the same. I used to work on the Aztec West Industrial Estate but there are loads of places in the older parts of the older established towns and cities that have streets similar to the one shown below (2023 image) and these are also privately owned there are no driveways and there are loads of social estates with houses just like these or high-rise tower blocks and there is no charging points available. Working from home is still a big thing around here as some bosses have come to realise through the pandemic that the work still got done and therefore maybe they didn't really need to have such a large office after all. In this part of the country, many office blocks are now being converted into luxury flats, some of which have now been requisitioned by the Home Office to house asylum seekers. Good luck if you think the Government will stop at a £100 as the acceptable level for EV VED. Extra EDIT: My current car has a VED of just £35 but I fully expect that will sky rocket in time too. If I had to choose between a Hybrid and a EV, I'd take the EV as it is likely to be the cheapest to run overall and also more than likely the most reliable as a daily runner. With a Hybrid, when it comes to servicing you have effectively 2 cars to service, an ICE and an EV, ouch. EDIT. In the street below, there are just 8 lampposts and the street itself is 260 metres in length and this view point was from the middle looking south. Lamppost charging is not the answer here either. The infrastructure is a long way off being suitable for an EV future.

@tootYes I accept that is the case, hence why I said that the servicing is not always cheaper, this will obviously vary from brand to brand, BUT the basic checks will be the same regardless of the brand and only involves for the first service in this particular case, be a visual check only, and maybe a cabin/pollen filter swap. Servicing for my Superb cost around the £300 last time including all fluids etc. I also ended up by saying "it might well become an urban myth that EVs are far cheaper to run than their ICE counterparts", this statement would clearly vary for make and also model to model. Dealers will not be happy to forego the lack of servicing profits, so you can reasonably expect prices will rise to compensate, and the rate of rise will get more pronounced as the EV's gain ground and become the new norm.