Graham Butcher

I have zero idea how good Rivian software is, but not sure if it is good that new cars are so reliant on software, what happens when that software reaches the end of support. We all know just how bad that with our computers etc when Microsoft, Google or Apple decide to not support their products any longer. Is it just me or does anyone else also see similarity with the Renault 5?

Hell, if you were a private buyer in the first instance, then that amount of depreciation to even £6,000 is one bitch of a bitter pill to swallow, which just highlights that private buyers are not yet convinced of the viability of going electric for what ever reason, be it lack off road parking for charging, range anxiety of other factors. So if an EV is suitable for you and fits your needs nicely then plenty of second hand bargains to be had, which unless your a keeping with your neighbours type of person, is also going to further dent the uptake of new EV's, leaving the market more or less to the companies/fleets.

I had to format my card in the end as exfat32 and then extract the compressed file to that card using the extract feature built-in on winRAR which is the free decompression programme I use, to the SD card. Then you pop the card into slot 1 on the satnav head unit and follow the procedure and it does it all for you, it is slow though, around 40 minutes all in.

Well my experience with them has been pretty good, although the last brand new car I had was back in 2013, so things may have got bad since then, and we did also have the Covid period which has certainly affected the servicing side as some people would still it appears prefer to stick with Skoda for servicing/repairs. I have started to use indies for my cars now as every time I try the Skoda centres they are quoting something like 3 to 4 weeks away for bookings and they are still blaming the Covid backlog.

Hopefully it will be fine, if you read some of the comments on this forum you would think Skoda's were bad when they clearly are one of the better offerings from the VAG empire.

I have just been watching the latest Harrys Garage video only 4 hours old. He meets up with Jeremy Clarkson at his pub (The Farmers Dog) to talk about Jaguar and the future of the brand and other things and it gets really interesting from 17 minutes and 45 seconds into when they both discuss modern trends of screens and menu driven systems on cars and then a bit further on they get into electric cars. Spoiler alert, some of you will not like the electric section, while I know that some of you will agree with a lot of the comments they ake about the utter madness that some the cars are these days.

I take it then that once again you did not watch the video where Barrie actually proved the fake sales on Autotrader, I have no idea how much other proof you need. Those links you provided are of course not going to rock the boat for obvious reasons.

Anyone seen the latest video by Barrie Crampton, released just 11 hours ago. It seems Polestar is reeling from the faked sales of EV cars despite just a short while ago claiming a massive 185% increase in sales to todays reports from Polestar Polestar EV losses increase by 2957% to £703 Million.

@Ootohere there we go, people do learn from our posts, I did🤣🤣

@Ootohere I was not even for a single moment suggesting that mobility would be suppling premium cars, but that a lot of mobility cars would be electric as they are going electric to help push the numbers up, and as there are more people without home charging, so that they would be having to use public charging at the prices you mentioned. All EV's have far lower value than a ICE car of the same size etc after they leave the showroom, which as I was implying, if buying a new one, must be taken into account, which even if you can charge at home rapidly takes the shine out of the far lower running costs and that it might just still a better financial decision to buy a ICE car, depending on your annual mileage. But as I have always claimed, there is an argument to be made for EVs and I firmly believe that if that is a persons personal choice and it suits their life style, then it should be their right to have one. What I don't agree with is the slow banning and phasing out of ICE cars by legislation, it should really be down to market forces. Talking about EV's this test of a Ioniq 5 by Hub nut I thought was very interesting.

Sorry, I thought I answered this question, but subsequent checking, it appears I thought I had but didn't, so here goes. Yes I did read the last lines of your post but that is less then ideal as it then getting extremally close to the cost of running an ICE car with none of the conveniences of a 5 minute fill up from empty to full again, so would would an actual private owner want to do that, especially given the premium price paid for the EV over an equivalent ICE? Those that are actually doing it are probably driving a company supplied car or a mobility supplied one I would suggest.

Oh come on, where is the logic in that, can't keep using Covid for the reason of everything. And have you looked at the number of new ICE cars that are offered in manual format, even small city cars these days are increasingly only available as automatics. Also with EV's supposedly flying out the door, they are if they are pure EV, only like a automatic having forward, neutral and reverse selectors, speed being done by frequency convertors.

In other areas it is more likely to be near 100% as public transport is minimal. That said the areas you referenced with the tube is also the areas where a lot of the super rich have their mansions and will have a fleet of cars, large highly polluting ones, so it counters those that use the tubes?

Yes lieing to insurers is not to be reccomended, but the point I was making, badly it seems, is that it is likely to have a negative effect on the premium you pay and needs to be added to cost of EV ownership. While it is also true that ever home has a car, I would expect that the actual figure that doesn't have car is something in the order of 20%.

Now that is not the attitude to take is it? I thought this was an open debate, not an ICE owner V EV owner and does absolutely nothing to help / assist more people to make the move over to electric when it seems that EV owners cannot or are not willing to enter into free discussions where both sides of the divide may actually learn something via the discourse. Also of course you also have a foot in both camps do you not, with your diesel BMW estate for the longer trips and electric for other others, when that itself is a luxury that many will not be able to afford, many struggle to run one car even.

The thing is that if you are the owner of said car and you lie to the insurer about where your car is kept overnight, then you also accept that they will have the perfect excuse not to pay out in the event of a claim being made by you. As to Reps/Travellers/Contractors then you must also understand that for the majority of those they will not be the ones responsible for the insurance, that will the companies who own/lease the cars, and so is the risk if they fail to provide adequate cover.

Yes, I accept that is the case, Johhny Smith of the Late Brake Show has one with free charging for life, but even without it, it still remains a major draw for other customers towards the Tesla brand, for instance for a long time, here in Chelmsford, there was only the Tesla super chargers at their premises in the North of the city and remarkably there is a huge concentration of Tesla owners on the estates around that location as opposed to the rest of the city.

Not disputing that there are people doing it, but that takes away the big bonus point that so many of you EV'ers rant and rave over, the ability to charge while you sleep and set off in the morning with a fresh cheap as chips (and no free lecky) charge which is a clear advantage over ICE cars, not that 5 minutes at filling station cannot cure and provide a full tank. Also, if you have declare to the insurance company that your PHEV is actually parked/stored overnight at some random charging location, will increase your premiums. These are all points that every owner of a car, regardless of its power plant also have to consider.

But that still requires the ability to park your car off the road and within reach of a available 13A socket which is a luxury that still huge amounts of people do not enjoy, and of course it takes far longer to charge on a 13A lead true?

@lol-lol Interesting as your reply is, it still does not address the question I asked does it? The Scenic is not available as an ICE car so you are not comparing apples with apples. In fact it is about as much use as me thinking a Skoda Enyaq which is an all electric car is the same as my Skoda Kodiaq when the actual dimensions are as follows: Enyaq 4649 x 1879 x 1616mm with 585 litres boot capacity. Kodiaq 4758 x 1864 x 1659mm with 2035 litres boot capacity. I suggest that you were deliberately only looking for electric cars when you selected the Scenic as your car of choice. You can only really be fair when doing a comparison when the option of both power trains is there and hence my selection of the Mercedes Benz. Your throwaway comment of the Mercedes Benz being a premium brand is not the point, the point is the buyer might be looking at a premium brand range of cars, and in that scenario is also highly unlikely to be keeping the car any longer than 3 years before buying another new model. Is that buyer going to be willing to accept a potential higher loss on their investment at the end of 3 years by opting for the electric version (given that EV residual values drop like a stone). The big difference between most ICE owners and EV owners is that EV owners generally do seem to be incapable of understanding the differences in real terms between the 2 types and they quickly turn the discussion towards other issues, such as running costs, charging while your sleeping etc. On the other hand the ICE owners tend to be a bit clued up about about both types as there will simply loads of ICE owners who would love to be able own an EV but as has been already mentioned before many people, we are currently a nation of the "haves" v the "have nots" when it comes to the ability of home charging, and thus is a REAL barrier to more ICE owners making the switch.

Not strictly true, just for a starter, the only camera on my car is the built-in one on the windscreen for lane departure function. But if they restrict its access to their own charging network, the repaired car instantly drops in value to anybody as that is one of the reasons for owning a Tesla, is the ability to charge at their large network and at their lower rates.

The thing is that it is not all about finding a cheap electric car in isolation only, the car has to be able to carry all the people you need to, also have the same level of space as its ICE equivalent and also offer the same levels of comfort etc, it is not just the running costs now is it? I just looked at the Mercedes Benz range of cars that come in both power trains and are the same exact overall dimensions etc, the difference in the on the road price is absolutely staggering, so I would like you to be 100% honest with yourself and the rest of us, to do your homework and tell us, how many miles you would to do in the electric car before you erode the massive cost difference alone. Also be 100% honest and tell how long with your current average yearly mileage, how many years it would take you to do it? The cars in question are MB GLA180 OTR price £36,230 and the MB EQA Sport+ with OTR price of £49,760, some £13,640 lower price for a car that looks very similar to each other, offers the same space, comfort and are precisely the same physical size (weight excluded) so if one fits in a given size of garage, so will the other, exactly. I know that that saving would pay for approx 5 to 6 years driving for me, and for people, they would be looking to replace the car long before that time.

With cars that have the SOS system currently that may true, but we all know that if asked or mandated to hand over the data, they will all have no option but to comply is that not correct? Currently all VW cars the SOS system is only active as far as the owner/driver is concerned for the first year of its life, after that if you wish to make use of the feature, it is like so many other things today, subscription based.

I think that is more a fact of that it will not move until the crash data is reset etc.

I see that they replaced the water pump, did they also do the cambelt as well? I hope so as they are both supposed to be done as a pair because of the amount of work needed to gain access to either.