Graham Butcher

And there was me thinking that the learning process never stopped, just hope that your teachers managed to cram all the available history, geology etc. along with all the maths etc into the limited time we have at school and to gain access to and read the encyclopedias from cover to cover, when did you ever manage to fit day-to-day living in I wonder? Incidentally, how are the dogs doing, I don't recall seeing any posts of them lately?

Wow, I never knew we had any extinct volcanoes here in the UK, yet another example of how we can learn from each other😉

Thanks, that's why I said in the first post about it being the government's car park, to make it clear to those reading it that it was not a public one. Hence my comment earlier about double standards.

And likewise, it was available to anybody else at the time, so if I couldn't find it (thought I did) anybody else could have done and discovered I was right? Sometimes you and others post things and make some passing reference/comment to something, what do I do, I try and find it myself so I can actually understand what people are talking about, I try and usually succeed to do my own research instead of having it handed to me on a plate 😒

It is the underground car park, this is also made clear by the fact that the article also makes reference to chargers in speakers court area of the estate. This plan view shows the areas and a quick look on Google Earth Pro will also show the New Palace yard to be open-plan area behind large security fences which is the public entrance. The same view will also show the barriers to the underground car park as I indeed previously mentioned. I have spent many hours on crown estates in my working life, including Buck House and HOP and the surrounding offices of MOD etc, I would not make things up.

Source was posted at the time, and @Stonekeeper and I have once again posted some sources, of which are all on Google, a few simple clicks and you have it.

Oh doubter, I think you will find that I actually posted the link to the UK government removing charging from their HOP underground car park, anyway a quick search on Google revealed these snippets of golden nuggets. You know, I'm beginning to think that the MacMaster has it right about some of the EV owners! Not Zero! Parliament scraps its own EV chargers due to 'health and safety' | This is Money Electric vehicle (EV) charging points in the New Palace Yard car park at the Houses of Parliament have been removed for health and safety reasons, following a review by safety and fire teams. The decision was made because of concerns about potential fire risks and the inability for EVs to be charged overnight. Four charging points in Speaker's Court are still available but require a special charging card. Reason for removal: Safety and fire teams reviewed the charging points and determined they posed a health and safety risk. A key concern was that EVs could not be left to charge overnight, reports Safer Highways. Where they were removed: The chargers were removed from the underground car park in New Palace Yard. What remains: A limited number of charging points remain in Speaker's Court, but these are only accessible to those who have a charging card obtained from the Speaker's Office. Future plans: The House of Commons has stated its intention to increase charging capacity in the long term, but future provision will depend on the latest EV and fire safety guidance and the availability of infrastructure. There is somewhere a Hansard document also to this effect. So it would seem that the government were at the time concerned about the possibility of them catching fire, oh, no, hang on, but I think you'll find according to the stats that diesels are far more likely to catch fire 🤣

Well that is really welcome news for many I'm sure, however, as it is also law that nobody has the exclusive rights to park outside their own house, it being very often a free for all, first to the spot gets it, that news about the gully is little comfort unless they also make illegal for anyone other the owner, to park where a gully is installed. Does anyone remember the sitcom of the 1980s called Bread, where the Boswell family used to put out traffic cones to keep their space outside the house clear so Joey could park his Mk2 Jag there, that could become a reality in some areas and fights in the street. For example, I live in short close (no through road) I live 2nd from the dead end, my neighbour on the right, has 2 cars, my neighbours on my left, thats 5 houses in a row, have 3 cars to each house, so thats a total of 15 cars to fit in, so there is little chance of being able to park adjacent to your own gully in order to charge your car, unless you make sure the first one to get home. Seeing as the UK government also had the charging points removed from their own covered car park in Westminster, that news you linked once again smacks of hypocrisy, its not good enough for them, but it is for everyone else. A clear example of dual standards.

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?