Graham Butcher

Still be less expensive to retain your old ICE car unless it requires thousands of pounds beibg spent on it. It costs around a thousand to have a home charger installed.

But we didn't need to be reliant solely on the importation of oil from those areas, did we? I used to work within the oil industry, and we are sitting on some massive oil fields that we should have a major stake in. The profits from that alone would also help to finance your beloved transition from burning fossil fuels to cleaner technologies. The entire world should have known that there was never going to be an everlasting supply of oil to be used as a fuel alone. What they should have been doing is using the profits from that to research other solutions before the supply begins to dry up.

On the topic of fuel prices and price gouging, there is a site dedicated to the price of fuel, and for those that are not aware of it, it is petrolprices.com

Makes my comments all the more pertinent.

A prime example of how the lack of forethought and planning will always bite you on the bum is because we have numpties running the show who, through their process of chasing an idealistic dream and goal, have clearly demonstrated that no matter how noble the end goal is, you must always plan for the worst-case scenario. Part of that planning is in decommissioning the wells in the North Sea. For those that were supplying Grangemouth, we failed to put in place an agreement with those countries that we granted licences to for the extraction of oil that we, the UK, should have an automatic access to the finished product in sufficient quantities, alongside the countries doing the extraction and processing, at market rates. If the US can ban the export of finished products, so can other countries, and if that happened, we would be up **** creek without a paddle, and that includes all of those with EVs, as we still need access to oil, and that will always be the case, and about 99.9% of everything that we all take foregranted in the shops, hospitals, DIY sheds, etc., all got there via roads and using diesel. On the other hand, common sense might suddenly spring back to life, and the illegal war be stopped, and everything return to normal again, about the same sort of chance as winning the jackpot on the lottery. This could well turn out to be the perfect storm and could be far more catastrophic than the problem of climate change, even though everyone is actually living a longer life than our predecessors ever did.

They must me reading your posts about the doom and gloom coming to us soon and decided that it was happening now. 🤣🤣

Might be worth another attempt. I heard that the buzz is no longer being mzde, support might be difficult soon.

Hence, what I said the other day about the UK has zero plans, etc., and yet we allowed Grangemouth to close, Port Talbot steelworks, gas reserves, etc., to be sold. All our utilities are foreign-owned, leaving us completely vulnerable. The UK is in a very bad position because of a whole string of poorly thought-out decisions that were not in the best interests of the country or the majority of the population.

@lol-lol That incident at RAF Fairford: the suspects have been released on bail and all come from London, and no explosives were found. The barrels in the vans were empty, and it would seem that they were attempting to steal diesel from farmers' fuel tanks and sell it because of the high London prices for diesel.

Well if your EV Scenic weighs in at 2340 Kgs, then it is heavy, my owners manual shows my Kodiaq, 4x4 TDI 110Kw Edition 5 seat and it has a large Ad Blu tank fitted, and comes in at just 1762 Kgs, 582 Kgs lighter . It is also 227 mm longer as well.

@lol-lol I just watched the Kei car special of the Grand Tour, a bloody good watch and a laugh.

I think the point @skomaz was making is correct for the average EV, not everyone wants a compact car with a small battery. I think it's more likely that even with your car, most would opt for the bigger battery?

@Evolution13 not really groundhog day, it's horses for courses, vans that are used for light duty are fine as EVs for most councils, but not so for the trades dept where Transists, Sprinters etc are the order of the day to carry 8x4 sheets of plasterboard plywood etc along with loads of heavy tools etc. My HA has a mix of both types for exap Mp

Again, you are not talking about the UK; we just don't have or will have the infrastructure to allow those trucks to become more common here, for sometime to come. I do accept, however, that for some companies and scenarios an EV could be the best solution for them, but for now, it is not a direct one-for-one swap. Also, tests done by various organisations here in the UK have shown that EV vans just cannot compete on the longer trips or those that are heavily loaded, with their ICE counterparts. Note, I'm not talking about last-mile delivery vans like those used by Royal Mail or other such companies, i.e., Amazon, DPD, etc., all of which may well appear to be fully laden if you look inside them, but the fact is that many of these cardboard boxes contain a smaller blister-packed item, surrounded by bubble wrap or other such protection. I have friends who work in council technical services, etc., and they report that their council trialled some EV vans, of the same type as their existing ICE ones. These EVs were quickly rejected; they could not complete a normal day's work without either running out of power to climb hills because of their load, or they were running out of battery and needed charging to make the return trip at the end of the day. Others have tested EV cars towing caravans and found them incapable of performing as well when towing and also dramatic reductions in their range compared to ICE versions of the same cars towing the same caravans

Exactly, but those speed limits where put in place before EVs were as common as they are now.

What actually makes you think that electric trucks will out perform ICE ones in terms of towing etc? That certainly has not been demonstrated by the electric vans, or indeed cars towing caravans has it? Manuefacturers hyped up claims are never ever matched in reality and nowhere is that more evident than in the EV world.

I think it was also mentioned at the time of introduction as a means of noise reduction for those living alongside the motorway.

That's on my viewing list this weekend as well. I have to say that I'm impressed with Francis Bourgeois; having known that he was a very excitable train buff, I never expected him to be so knowledgeable about cars.

like a Japanese K car

@lol-lol While you made some good points, I did, however, say that at the current time their decisions are indefensible. We don't have the transition to electric, and we will be dependent on other fuels for some years to come, and we have zero plan to cope. Our gas reserve and storage facility has gone, and so have all the sources we had.

Agreed but it still makes zero sense at the current time given all the other stuff going on and with many countries and Europe putting plans in place for possible acts of aggression on the horizon. Each of the decisions taken if looked at in isolation, look defencible. Now piece together those and see the negative effect if a bad player wanted to destabilise a country especially an island solely reliant on importing vital requirements?

I was aware that it is not operated by the UK. However, the fact still exists that the UK issues the licences to drill and extract the oil. So how is that possible that we issue licenses and collect tax on it unless we have a legal claim on it?

With the current global situation and its stability, that will come back to haunt them. If you have natural resources that are useful, then each country having them has a duty first and foremost to its own citizens, and once they have the stocks that will secure their future for a while, should they release some of the resources to others?

Yes, Brent crude oil is ideal for producing diesel, so with the amount of diesel and petrol currently being used in the UK, it is indefensible to the UK government not to be exploiting the oil and gas under the North Sea. How on God's green earth can it be right or green that we import such fuels from Norway when Norway extracts its crude oil from the Brent field and then produces the petrol and diesel that we then buy from them and ship across the sea to the UK again? If you ask me what the government is doing, it is virtual signalling that we are single-handedly saving the planet. We are not; all we are doing is to move as much manufacturing from our shores as is possible, along with jobs, all in the name of being green. When in reality all we are doing is moving the pollution that we would be making here to somewhere remote far from the UK, and thus making their pollution worse than it would be, and at the same time destroying communities here by the removal of well-paid jobs and increasing the unemployment figures. The fact Brent Crude is known as a sweet oil just means that it is easier and more cost-effective to refine the fossil fuels, petrol, diesel and jet fuel than it is with other crudes, which is a direct result of it having a lower sulphur content, so it is considered to be of a higher quality and thus is more expensive and needs far less energy to refine and less processing to extract the fuels. So it would kind of suggest that once again we are being sold the facts incorrectly, so in other words, more misconceptions? Here is a link to the fact that Brent Crude is perfectly capable of producing petrol, diesel and all of the byproducts that crude oil is used for. Brent Crude Oil: The mesmerising world of this black gold bonanza! | XTB What is Brent crude? Global oil benchmark explained | CMC Markets

Maybe some does, but not all of it.