Graham Butcher

Makes zero difference if I get one or not, that's totally irrelevant, you now know that I'm not going to get one, how do you know that? As the technology develops and the current bugs and infrastructure get ironed out, I might do that, as I said earlier, as my need/desire for longer trips to airshows etc wane and my drives are more local, to the shops and family members. All are within the range of even a mini electric, except for one, who lives on the Isle of Wight, I could visit and make it back on the single overnight home charge twice over. That statement of yours is what I expect to come from some of the closed mind set participants of this thread, not from a person with a foot in both EV and ICE camps, tsk.

Oh, I see, that is not how your post read, it seemed that you had zero sympathy for the bloke and that it was another vlogger slagging off EV's, and that is honestly how it read. That is why I often go back into my posts just after posting them, trying to make it come across clearly by attempting to correct any obvious grammar, spelling mistakes or the phrasing to assist in clarifying the post. The Autotrader video (which I had already watched when it was released, I like Rory Reed), you added to your post, is what we desperately need a lot more of and is yet more proof of what I was saying earlier that the technology has a long way to go yet and needs to be sorted before there should be any legislation about all new cars have to be electric.

For a fan of EV cars I would have thought given the case as he presented, (granted we only have his word for) that you might have been just a tad more interested in the story! Hs stated at the end of that video that his mechanic said that the damage that was done to the truck would be about $25k, but with the replacement battery it would come to $84k when the truck new only costs $70k. Did you actually watch the video, or have you just assumed that the insurer was correct?

That helps to explain why the insurance costs are so high. But sadly this line of discussion has been derailed as folk have misunderstood the direction of my post, it was only really about the case of the EV battery as in the case of the Ford truck in Canada when the entire truck was written off with no visible damage to the battery pack itself when it had been proved it could have been repaired, as demonstrated in the video at a fraction of the cost and the truck thus saved from being scraped. I could 100% understand it being written off if the battery had shown signs that the integrity had been compromised, but it didn't and if the owner is to be believed, it was not even inspected. That was what I found so shocking, not my own personal experience as I was able fight my corner and get a sensible resolution out of it. I did think about buying my old car back and having it repaired, but 2 things held me back, 1/ I needed a car as it was in use daily to get my Sons to the place of works, 1 of whom needs a 26-mile round trip with very poor public transport connections 2/ The instant I accept a deal, the hire car ceases within 24 hours and no hire car company would entertain hiring me a car at my age, which I discovered when I went to hire a small van to move some furniture, prior to my accident.

Sorry, but you're just not understanding what I'm on about, lets draw a line under it, its off topic anyway. I think that we all need to remember this, as it is so true.

That kind of attitude is how this country has gone down hill. The whole point of what I explained, is all to do with the way that Salvage Rebuilds UK can take a crashed car and rebuild for considerably less than the official repair quote was for that lead to the car being sold as scrap and the insurance paid out far more then was actually necessary. In a few days time, the second part to the video that @classic shared will be ready and the entire costs of buying the car, the parts and their selling price will be revealed, it is an eye-opener for sure, and I think you will find, all for less than the payout was to owner. It's a shame that other companies weren't as honest as Salvage Rebuilds UK are.

All very impressive, but you know as well as I do, that system will allow for the worst case when structural damage happens in a crash, brackets that cannot be seen by a camera, but a few minutes on a ramp will confirm if they are required or not and a whole raft of other things, like headlights, fine if they are visibly smashed beyond repair, but so often they can be repaired for a few pounds with the addition of new fixing lugs/brackets, I've seen that done so many times. Headlights on a Superb are circa £1,400 each, repair lugs £10 etc. Many times second hands parts or pattern parts will be fitted as once sprayed, nobody is going to know any different. This means that the insurance company pay out lots and the body shops make the money by not fitting OEM parts and or repair kits, not new units. It is a system that encourages fraud.

That needs to stop, makes insurance costs go up, cost insurers more in the long run per repair if they end up just writing them off. Someone, somewhere lost a load of money, I had a hire car for almost a month, got £10.5K payout, and copart sold it for around £2k, so how does that work?

Are you a subscriber to that channel? I am, and it is a must-watch channel in my eyes, they have taken on all kinds of cars, even EVs. Some of the cars, like that Golf will be, are turned around with just the Chris and Rob working on them (apart from paint, which they farm out) are so often turned around and restored to as good as new again in a just few days, sometimes, the same day. I'm not so sure your theory is correct, it might be in your area, but there are loads of accident repair centres around here. When my Superb was taken to the insurers preferred body shop, the estimator said it would be about £5.5k for a new front bumper, grill, N/s, bonnet, wing and headlight and the bonnet had a slight bend on the edge where it met the grill and the wing, which could easily be straightened. They valued the car at £7k and that was their final value and fixed offer. That was the broker and I said I was not happy with that as other cars, with more miles were costing £11k so I declined. In the meantime, I went to the first body shop to remove some personal items as I felt that the car might be written, and discovered that they had done further damage to the car while it was in their care. The person who I spoke to there had said that it was a lovely car and that they were looking to buy it from the insurer. That struck me as being rather odd. After more wrangling, the broker passed it over the underwriters, who said that they would return the car to me as it should not have been taken away and left without my permission and that they would have it reassessed, which they did, but still not enough, then I found three example of similar spec, age, condition cars on Autotrader (driven over a 1,200 miles looking at other cars) and submitted the findings, and they did eventually lift their offer to £10,500 which I accepted and found another for £11.5K but a MK3. So there it is, it was purchased from Copart way under the asking price (circa £2k) and was back on the road 2 weeks later, so it would have been far cheaper to have had repaired in the first place without body shops trying to rip the insurance companies off. I think that they have made the whole process more expensive and time-consuming by relying on body shops quotes and photos, instead of inspecting the damage themselves.

A good and interesting video for sure and we need far more people doing what he does and I suspect that if the owner had tried to make a claim on his insurance that he would be saying goodbye to his beloved Telsa as they would write it off and with the payout, he would be struggling to find another 2018 model with the same spec of his old one without having to add a big wedge of his own money to it. Thanks for sharing.

Precisely that, I also had to do that when my lovely 2013 Superb L&K, which had from new, both as a company car and then became the owner and the only driver of it ever apart from mechanics when in for servicing, got written off by someone doing stupid things on the road. In a no fault accident, then you should be automatically reinstated in a similar car and condition, so you are not in a worse position than you were in prior to the accident.

Exactly @Evolution13, there is no need for anyone to get hot under the collar or personal in this or any other thread, but sadly we do have some who do. The same goes for content from other countries, be it good or bad, just because something like that has not happened here in the UK, does not mean that it won't. We can all, learn things from each other if we keep our minds open to different points of view. The moment we take up combatant positions, mutual respect for each other flies out the window, and then admin has to step in, which none of us want that.

Oh OK, I made a typo, nothing that you haven't done many times before, but I have the ability to realise that it was a typo and make an issue out of it, do I? You know perfectly well that I have an ICE car and that I have never owned or driven and EV, as do the other regular contributors. I also do not question or criticise any of you for choosing to go electric, I'm not anti-electric, I am anti being told that that people wanting to buy a brand-new car have to consider going electric and will be forced to have one before long if they want a brand-new one. This is because the technology still has a long way to go before it can rival everything that and ICE vehicle can do and do it well. Also I'm amazed that you have a downer on anyone deciding to have a YouTube channel featuring their life with an electric car and making money from it, its their choice just and if they can make money with it, then good luck to them I say, if they can make a living from it, why not? Add in to that, Just Get a Tesla is not all about bashing Teslas any more than the MacMaster is about bashing Porsche or electric cars full stop. I'm sure that he would be the very first to admit that he was a hypocrite if that was the case. He freely and open admits that he loves the car and the way that electric cars generally drive, yes there are certain aspects about it that he does not like, just as there are with mine and if you're honest, you must have about your car(s). No car is perfect, ever.

Oh, now I know who you are, talking about irksome guff, it is also a 2 way street you do realise that many people may be just as irritated by some of the guff coming from many EV owners. I hope that you will also understand that anything coming from you EV owners is also going to be 2nd and 3rd info to us ICE owners? Also, there is simply loads of Anti ICE stuff from many EV owners so as I said, its a 2 way street. Oh and for the record, it would appear that we now have a 100% electric bus here in Chelmsford running some routes, not sure if it is permanent or a bus being trailed?

I really don't get the negativity of some EV owners towards ICE owners or why so many apparently object to an ICE owner like me posting in this section, it most certainly does not send out any vibes to encourage anyone to join in with the go electric move, does it? I was asking a question about that poor Canadian owner's experience, which if that is typical, likewise does not help the cause of EVs growth does it. While I don't currently have one, reasons already explained elsewhere in this thread, it does not stop me and many other ICE owners being interested in them, does it? And for the record, my interest is one of professional interest as I have been all my life an electrical engineer until I retired, and still have a interest in all things electrical, apart from the fact that if my circumstances chance, I might also consider getting an BEV car as my long distance trips become less common and more city trips and much cheapness with charging.

@Evolution13 I see, well I guess the answer is yes, they are paying out, but I think the point he is making is that they are making the value of repair far higher than it actually is and what they are offering is not enough to enable him to buy another vehicle of a similar type, age and condition and that with sensible and proper inspection and estimating it could be repaired for far less and thus make the insurance cost and also the claim on insurance far lower generally. This is precisely what happened with my car, I had to fight them to understand that a Superb is not just a bog-standard entry level one, they come in various trim, almost doubling the cheapest options, and yet they base their valuations on the lowest spec cars when it comes to paying a claim, even though they demand that you fully declare the precise spec of the car when taking out a policy and also say that failure to disclose everything about the car and any modifications will invalidate the policy. My own car was never ever inspected by the insurance company, was eventually sold off at knock down price by Copart and is now once again back on the road again. It makes zero sense to me, and it is most certainly not helping with the net-zero push either, being far greener to keep a car that has already added its carbon footprint to the scrapheap before it has used up that footprint and then adding yet another new car to the road, adding more carbon.

Have you watched the video at all, are the answers not in there? The insurance company must have been fully aware that the truck was an EV at the time of taking the policy out, I don't see the point of your line of questioning/logic here, help me out?

Although this car would not fit my personal needs, it does embody lots of the points I have long stated are completely unnecessary in so many new cars of both types of power trains, less reliance on touch screens, more actual buttons etc, less acceleration, smarter seating and lower costs as well as less tech that are just there because they can. Those 4 dots (leds) on the steering wheel are a great idea.

Yes, I'm aware of that thread, I started it and I drive and indeed it was about ICE cars as well as EVs, but the point of the video I linked to was about one particular insurance company and their attitude towards EVs, which I have zero experience of insurance in conjunction with EVs.

All I was doing was highlighting the various ways that you could be vulnerable, as EV cars are already packed full of extra technology than ICE cars are. My ageing TomTom after market sat nav keeps getting new tricks after each software update, none of which were ever even I suspect were envisaged when the model was first launched. Also to this effect, the more modern ICE cars also carry far more tech on board than, models say of 10 years ago. One of which is the digital mileometer to prevent car dealers turning back clocks, that data as more and more computing tech is introduced could be brought into play for PPM at some point in the future. But now, it most be a person who has limited knowledge of computers and electronics to completely dismiss these possibilities out of hand. I did say at the start of this debate, something along the lines of don't be lulled into a false sense of security over the possible measures that RR could introduce and with the combined facts that A/ EVs don't pay for fuel duty which is a massive revenue source for any government, B/ VED is not the same as for ICE, so again a net reduction in revenue raised, C/EVs are able, or at least some are, able to be accessed remotely, software updates over the air etc are perfectly possible, so logic says ideal candidates for the very first PPM system. This video, in case anyone missed it which clearly shows that some EV's can be accessed remotely courtesy of the mobile internet.

Ok, lets get back to the truth about electric cars, this video of an electric car/truck owner in Canada believes he has discovered why electric cars are being written off so easily. I'm an electric car owner/user, so I'm throwing this open to you lot who are, for consideration, what are your thoughts on this?

You like to see the gory details, try this one for size then, so scary, no warning at all.

@wyx087 good grief, firstly, I never stated any county in my posts, but the fact that EON are using BPL shows it is possible for data to coexist on powerlines, thank you. Secondly, there is NO need any extra hardware installed in the AC charger or socket on the car for data to be dumped onto the power line. That hardware could be anywhere in the car and 2 wires attached to the circuitry anywhere, as long as there is nothing to block it's passage around the cars loom. The wiring in your house also does not require any extra hardware, the wiring is just a means of transporting a low voltage high, frequency signal which is also extremely low power, it's a conductor only. The data only requires hardware at the point of it being extracted from the local power supply. This could be a very small box located at the end of the street and can extract the signals for every house in your local neighbourhood as long as they are on the same power phase. No tin foil hats involved, its entirely possible and there are secret tests of loads of things going on right in front us every day that we are not aware of. That is how new ideas etc are tested to discover if they work or not before they even get mentioned in trade press etc.

Twist it whichever way you want, but you're both twisting what I said if you read it correctly.

No, you're wrong, I did not say grid lines, I said power lines and one of those articles I posted showed a diagram of that happening for a group of houses and the data went to another interface further down the line. So now you are now claiming that the article about EON doing just that with 200,000 houses is fictional, WTF? Wrong again, there is so often a world of difference between what they state and what actually happens. How do you know that secret trails are not being carried out? All it takes is a simple software change or are you also going to claim that modern cars don't keep records of miles driven in their ECU's. The info is there already; it only requires that memory location to be addressed, and there it is. Also, the sockets that I plug my Ethernet over power adaptors into are ordinary, standard sockets, so is the mains power cable; they do not need any extra hardware. That on an EV, could already be built into the car itself. In case you have not yet got the concept, I need 1 adaptor plugged into whichever socket I want to use as the feed, and 1 in each socket I wish to access the Ethernet from, so I have 5 more scattered around the house and input and output units are identical with 1 RJ45 socket on each that a cat 5 cable plugs into. The power circuit in the house is not modified, so broadband and other data can and do get carried on standard power cables/lines, deal with it. Your opinion because you cannot accept that there could be another side to things that you cannot see, open your mind. Would you jump over a wall without looking at what is on the other side first to see what you could be landing in/on?