Graham Butcher

@lol-lol I remember all of those jokes and it was the same at my last company, when I joined the national manager told me no it gave the wrong impression to customers. The MD said I could though👍

Found this video to be interesting generally. Do you get the feeling that he loves his mode of transport? Always a pleasure to see someone get really passionate about something, and I think he does, and that makes it all the more interesting. https://youtu.be/WXla-XE3b4U

Totally agree with you, I don't think my son would have another Audi. When I was working, all my peers were driving A4s while I opted for the Superb for the same reasons you mentioned. In a previous job I was given Passats to drive while management had A4s, based upon nothing but badge snobbery. My manager preferred my car over his, both for comfort and space but was not allowed to have one.

Quite agree with you, but I'm trying to look at it from most people's view point who aspire towards better things in their life. My son drives a Audi A5, his choice, nothing to with salary sacrifice etc, his money, his personal ambition in life.

Already covered that, and I admit that many EVs will out-accelerate my car and, indeed, most combustion-engined cars. But the topic is not about Top Trumps; it was about why EV makers don't try and match the actual performance of sensible sized combustion-engine cars, not those with massive big engines. in the name of conserving energy and maximising range. How many of us actually ever get anywhere close to top speed in the UK anyway? The NSL is maxed at 70 mph.

Agree with you there, but look at cars coming from the more premium makers, Audi A4 and upwards etc.

I agree, it is faster to a given speed but it also tops out at around 99 mph whereas a Superb 280 is good for 130 mph. I take your point about the tyres, though. Some think that the OEM tyres on Dacias are pretty diabolical and even dangerous at times.

Nobody is trying to tell anyone how to drive, regardless of the type of car that they are driving; it is just an observation of what I see and what others have said about why they drive at those kinds of speeds. Some even sit in the slipstream of HGVs to help increase their range on long trips.

I accept that you, like me, are happy to drive about 60mph, but that's not everybody. Many people have places to be and timetables to keep up with, i.e., those that have not retired yet. The HP I was talking about is for most EVs that are equivalent sizes to my car, for instance, and well, even your R5 has the same HP as mine, but it is actually smaller physically. I think you have 150ish HP; I have 150 HP in a stonking great 4x4 with massive ground clearance and far greater frontal area to push through the air as well. It may even be heavier. Top speed for me is around 122mph with a 110kW engine; yours with a 110kW motor (E-tech) is 93mph. So I can go faster on motorways (ignoring NSL, of course). Now I know for a fact that on an average day, driving at, say, 60mph on motorways, I can do at least 490 miles and up to around 600 miles on a single tank. Yours, what, 383 miles to a charge? A Tesla Model Y, for instance, has an HP rating of 335 at the front and the same at the rear, and yet it has a top speed of 125 mph and a range of 311 to 386 (under ideal conditions) [those are Tesla's words, not mine], but that seems to be about the same size as mine, but the HP is higher, but the range is way less.

I've never understood why the EV world has gone all out for all this crazy HP stuff, blistering acceleration figures, and so on. I mean, what is the point of all that HP and being able to sprint away from traffic lights, etc., ahead of the combustion cars if, once they get on the trunk and motorway roads, they all slow down to cruise at about 50 to 55 mph in order to maximise the range only to have all those combustion cars that were thrashed at the lights, etc., go roaring past and leave them for dead? Most EV's I come across on these types of roads must be doing that speed because it gets the best performance out of the battery, as there is virtually zero regen with that type of driving. It is well known that EV cars excel in city driving with all of that stop-start type of driving, bags of regen to be had, and so on. But on fast roads that is not the case.

I was always under the impression that there was a small well at the very bottom and the suction tube that feeds the pump actually sat about 50mm above the very bottom of that well so any water, debris, rust, etc. would find its way into that well and thereby be less likely to get sucked into the pump.

I can believe its a hobby, a bit like me when I try and get more MPG using eco mode, but I'd never risk getting stuck, when running low, I'd always shove a few litres in as a buffer, just to be safe and not sorry. Besides, its not a good idea to run too low and start sucking all the crap up from the bottom of the tank and risk blocking the fuel filter or worse.

Isn't the real problem here the fact that being able to charge at home is actually turning some people into Scrooge McDuck? This is brought about by the huge disparity between home and public charges per kW, and that alone encourages some people to try and push on way past the point when they should have stopped to top up for safety. Nobody in their right mind would attempt to get back to a particular filling station once the low fuel light came on, as any incline or diversion due to RTAs, etc., could mean that you risk running dry before reaching the safety of the station. The factor that I guess could also encourage some to push on is the added time on a public charger adds further delay to the journey? The sane

@Evolution13 I just revisited that article and it does seem that their figures don't quite add up, the fires have increased, but not by the figures they printed.

2020? The figures are supposed to be from 2023 to 2026 that QBE are quoting aren't they? So, that does suggest an increased risk. I'd like to see their figures.

Still 100% increase though? BEV, increased by similar amount? Of course, it all depends on the accuracy of those figures.

Have electric cars increased their numbers by 133% in 3 years? According to QBE Insurance, the number of electric cars catching fire has increased 133% in the last 3 years. Can that be true? Number of electric car blazes attended by fire brigades up 133% in three years | This is Money Is it an excuse for increasing the insurance premiums? Or is it that as the cars mature, the problems begin to develop, and the fires are as a result of this ageing? Which would kind of make sense, the same as it is more likely that ICE cars will also become more prone to problems and possible fires as they age.

@lol-lol Yes, that stars Steve Coogan; I heard him talking about this programme on the radio the other day.

I know; I have had my tank checked at roadside checkpoints on many occasions before.

I thought farmers used red diesel, which is not road legal; road vehicles have to use white diesel, which is significantly more expensive. Farmers are, however, struggling with higher costs of red diesel, as the current Iran/US/Israel war has dramatically increased their overheads, just as it has for all oil burners.

No, it was not meant to be clickbaity scaremongering but a real, genuine question. Had I not been retired, I would have known the answer to the question, as I would still be a company car user and getting a new car every three years. My son has an Audi A5 which has a phone app to control certain aspects of his car, and he has to pay an annual subscription, and that car is 6 years old. So, therefore, a good indication that, as the video stated, the European makers were going down that route. My current car is of 2019 vintage, and what was fitted to the car at the time of 1st sale is still there and working, and I'm the 2nd owner and just about to enter my 2nd year of ownership of it. The people in Covid masks are in keeping with the time scale, as many things were introduced from 2020 onwards, including Covid being declared a global pandemic, and my son's A5 could be a testament to that, it would seem.

What are your thoughts and feelings about this new twist in modern cars, and especially on the electric cars which are ripe for this kind of extortion? It just shows another side of this push towards electric cars. Once enabled, it only requires a server glitch or a company going out of business, etc., and the car could/would be permanently disabled to some sort of degree. To my mind, it's akin to having many of the car's main functions controlled via the central touch screen, which can and does at times become frozen, rendering the system inoperable. I have just purchased a new aftermarket satnav from the biggest name in these devices, TomTom. And it has already managed to completely break the BT connection to my phone, thus losing live traffic, camera, and speed limit data. Another time it lost and still has managed to completely wipe all of my saved data, so it has none of the saved destinations or any POI stored within it. Software-driven systems are becoming a real liability and are heading into life-threatening territory here. With the old-fashioned systems, workarounds can be found for things such as a particular switch, etc., no longer being available; they are replaced with another type, even if it means drilling more holes in the dashboard and physically moving the switch. The older ones among us must have already come across this before.

Oh, now I understand, but that wouldn't make any difference to how it works. I have a Nextbase 622GW which also has a socket on the mount to which the power lead plugs into and the dashcam then has a multipad magnetic connection to the mount and picks power up via this connection, enabling the dashcam to be taken of the mount. But the camera can also be fed directly via its USB connection, it just makes in slightly harder to remove the camera and plug into your PC.

All dashcams that I have had and seen are powered via a USB lead that plugs into the dashcam itself. Is the USB that you're seeing? I have had mine hardwired into the car's electrical system so that it automatically switches on when the ignition is powered up, but the cable running to the dashcam is always a USB and, depending on the make and age of the dashcam, will be micro, mini or USB-C. The other end of the power cable terminates into a power adaptor that converts the 12V to 5V for the dashcam, and the wires are normally connected into the car's fuse box.

Well with the current situation with USA v Iran, it is going to be far easier to hit the target this year, and the longer the uncertainty goes on for in this conflict, the greater the chance of hitting it is.