Graham Butcher

I admit that I also tend to do similar especially on the homeward leg after a day out as the is no deadline to hit but on the outward leg of the trip I do tend to drive normally especially if going to an air show etc otherwise you get only a spot right at the back of the crowd line and is not as good for photography or indeed parking also tends to be miles away requiring more walking than I'd like. The best MPG I have managed so far is 71.7mpg using the tow of a truck doing 65mph on the M11.

Yes, a stitch in time saves nine, if you have prior knowledge of the car and have the time to invest, but sometimes these chargers are not on the road that the fastest and most direct route takes you, when you're trying to hit the delivery time slot at the receiving end of the drive. For instance, I once had a new car delivered to me while attending a sales meeting at a hotel in West Bromwich so the driver had to make sure that he would be there on time, otherwise I'd be gone. The car had come from a dealer in Swindon and I live in Chelmsford and the sales meeting had been urgently arranged for same day as my new car was supposed to delivered to me at home. The driver had to take my old car back with him to go to the BCA auction site. So its like I always say when people claim that these YouTubers that do these challenges like the McMaster claiming he had charging problems etc and people here come out and claim otherwise, unless you are there at the time and know just how these things at the time unfold, it is easy to criticize when you don't have the full facts. After all I could be following you along the same route just a couple of cars behind you and someone can "T" bone me from a side road putting my car out of action so few seconds here or there can make a huge difference to the final outcome of the event.

@Winston_Woof, Oo, I used that many years ago, then I decided to buy a portable NAV system and got my self a TomTom with live traffic updates which also with comes PC software and route finder so you can plan your route on a PC and then over the internet, send it to the TomTom in the car or as in the case delivery drivers I suspect that they use something like TomTom which is available for mobile phones as well. Not all cars come with SatNav and the drivers have to have a system that they can rely on.

Yes, the dealer for who he was delivering for never prepped the car for the Trip also as George pointed out, the estimated 165 mile range was because the old owner clearly understood EVs and drove it accordingly to max it's range. Mr Head drove it like any normal driver would do with a strange car, maybe with the ECO mode on but not fully understanding how it worked. My car has ECO mode but I can still manage to get poor MPG if I don't allow it to coast and keep at 70mph. Differances is that I did research my car before buying it, delivery drivers don't normally get that chance, turn up, get given the keys, told what it is, and the address to go go and then they have to do their best to get there at a sensible time to hand the car over to the new owner. I have had many cars delivered to me like that before I took over the purchasing off them, when I did deals with local dealers and I collected them myself.

I have the probably most common route planner and just punching in the start and finish locations it gives me the following directions A30 to Exeter, M5 to Bristol, M49 - M4 - M5 to Tewkesbury - A46 - Coventry - M6 - A14 - Kettering - A6003 - Corby. So that sounds like the same route he took. I doubt that he is the kind of driver that think he is as he is a professional and relies on his licence to earn his living delivering vehicles all over the UK on trade plates, and as such does have the luxury of getting to know all the inns and outs of each kind of vehicle he drives. So if the vehicle has all the latest maps installed on its nav system or the charging stops etc. Now I don't know how long you have your Zoe for, but you also have to remember that it was only his 2nd time in a Zoe, so there might well have been other setting he could have selected, such as ECO etc, but he did not have the time to research all the things that you have during your ownership of yours.

That is a possibility, but it is also possible that the rear doors are not actually fitted with a mechanical lock as is so common place these days with modern electric cars, opting instead for an electrical system. So many electric cars it seems to have an electrically operated front door locks with a separate mechanical system located somewhere else on the front doors. The problem there is that people get so used to using the electrical one, that in the event of a failure, or an emergency failure, muscle memory will always go to the handle / system that they have been so used to. It also has to be said this such systems, also rely on the driver and their passengers have actually read the owner's manual and are familiar with the location of the failsafe lock system. Telsa is one such make of cars that has this system fitted and many fire depts around the world have been urging them to fit proper systems to all doors and remove the electrical system for safety sake.

This video does not present Chinese EV cars in a very good light, in fact judging by what it shows, they are very dangerous, that said we have to rely on the presenter to portray the truth as some of the video has people discussing the cars but of course it is in Chinese and not being able to understand what they are saying, we have to rely on the presenter being factual. Comments?

Well you say that he is a click bait idiot and yet my TomTom route finder has just selected the same route as that he took, Exeter, Gloucester etc right through to Corby. Ok admittedly it does not yet take into account charging points, but that is most certainly the fastest and most direct route, which is exactly the route I would expect that anyone who is getting paid by the trip, rather than by the hour or someone doing that journey for pleasure would take. Don't forget, that it was not his car, he was just taking it from point A to point B for a client. What about the chargers and the issues he had there then? Renault Zoe should have tyre pressures of 36psi, 40psi is going to cause them to wear incorrectly in the centre of the tread instead of all over the width of the tyre, also result in a car that is going to be more prone to slipping and skidding on wet road surfaces.

Rumour has it that Albermarle Corporation is about shut its doors for good, this is bad news for the EV market as they are the 2nd largest producer of Lithium, the newest thing I can currently find on the internet is this Albemarle Stock: Holding Steady Amidst Declining Lithium Prices (NYSE:ALB) | Seeking Alpha has anybody else heard this rumour or can add anything to it?

I just watched this video of a delivery driver taking a Renault Zoe from Cornwell to Corby, any Zoe owners care to comment on this at all, I have zero idea if this is correct, but I have no reason to doubt it either?

Before the use of GPS based speed camera detectors, they sensed radar wave lengths (so I'm informed) and when going close to shopping malls, airport terminals etc, they would give false reactions as if there was a speed camera. Police used to use radar guns before they switched over to lasers and the old detectors would also warn of them. These days you are only allowed to use GPS detectors as they only warn of the proximity of a camera, they cannot detect if they are functioning, unlike the old radar detector type could.

Are you not aware that the these doors use low power radar to detect when people are approaching them? They cannot use passive infra-red detectors as these will vary their performances due to the ambient air temperature. Some speed cameras use radar to detect speeding motorists etc.

That being said, you have to give him some brownie points though because there is a lot of truth in some of those points he raised, now I don't expect you to agree with some of them as you actually have an electric car and so you are living with some of the issues he highlights but have just accepted those as part of the experience. He did clearly show that there was a queue on day 1 (because the muppet got his setting wrong, he had to go back and re-record some of it) but on day 2 there was no queue and this was in spite of some EV owners previously saying that these events never happened to them and that he must have stage-managed them for effect. I seriously doubt that for a single minute, these are I believe his own true experinces as it happened on the day / time filmed. The only way that anybody can 100% honestly claim anything else, is if they were actually there with him at the same time. As to the electrical fields and the magnetic fields having no ill effects on the human body, I can't really vouch for that, yes some people claim there is, others claim the opposite, some wear a magnetic bracelet and swear that it helps with rheumatism etc, again, that is their belief, is it mind over matter, or is there some benefit to be gained? But what is 100% guaranteed is that today we are far more exposed to these fields then we used to be years ago, there are also more radio waves, particularly high frequency ones and more radar like, those on shop doors that will automatically open when you approach them, and the other thing similarly guaranteed is that there are more cases of Cancer than there were years ago. I'm not saying that there is any linkage between these, but the fact remains that we really just do not know for sure either way, an open mind is an inquisitive mind, others might call it a conspiracy theory, but only time will tell us for certain.

@pinkpanther were those taken at Duxford?

@Ootohere Yes that dafty in a Taycan is a bit of a drama queen at times, however I wouldn't dismiss everything as BS. Of course, being in electric car is not worse than being in a microwave, within a very short shift he would have been reduced to a pile of steaming hot ready cooked meat if he was in a microwave 🤣 but the actual of radiation might well have an accumulative effect that might become apparent further down the road, we just don't know for certain. Plus of course he did state that he does not read instructions, so the possibility exists that he is using that meter incorrectly, lets see what the next video says about it.

That's what my boss said, and he should know, as he was the Mechanical Superintendent for the National Bus Company that we both worked for. He and I would travel to out laying smaller bus depots where they only had a handful of buses and were deemed too small to warrant a full-time maintenance team on site, so he would do the mechanical, and I'd do the electrical work on site a coupe of times a month. If the mechanical work was too much to do in a day, then I'd drive the bus back to Chelmsford, where we had a full team of around 20 engineers, or I'd go out with another engineer in the tow truck and get towed back if it was not drivable.

Only in America apparently.

Yes, I had a boss years ago who was very proud of his Skoda Octavia, I remember that most of us who worked with had other thoughts though, then he purchased a Citroën 2CV and thing, although it looked as it just thrown together with god awful panel gaps etc. It was actually quite well engineered, it was completely flat underneath and everything was hidden behind sealed steel plates so was great for rough ground. I had many rides in it to other depots of the bus company we both worked for as at the time I was the auto electrician on the buses and I had to cover a few smaller depots but was not able to drive, so he took me in his car and although it was noisy with its twin cylinder air cooled engine, it was smooth as silk in its ride, very impressive.

Holly smokes, I saw my first street public charger point, just the one, in Chelmsford today.

Sadly, the more tech we build into cars, the more there is to go wrong. I'm dreading the day that the new speed limiters actually take direct control our cars. Imagine a car that is working correctly and drops the speed to say 30mph is followed by one with a defect and does not drop speed from the 70mph, slamming into the back of the other one.

I've had the alarm activated about 12 times in the last year but its never slammed the brakes on and each time there has a vehicle in front and for some reason, it seems the thing I have not noticed or reacted to it, which not the case as I have always been braking at the time.

How can it be cheaper by 63p when you say it went from £384 to £434? As you say with reduced miles a year, then your exposure to having an accident has been reduced therefore logically you expect a lower bill.

Strange how they have not taken it off the market in Germany?

Well it would seem that Geoff Buys Cars actually has real genuine content on his channel, who would have guessed that eh? Volvo has withdrawn the EX30 electric car from sale, only pre-existing cars in stock can be ordered he claims, (I think he has that wrong as they have or are refunding existing owners) and they have taken the car down from their online configurator because it has so many software bugs. And by way of supporting evidence, here is a link to their online sales website, where it also states that the EX30 is no longer available for customer configuration. Configure your EX30 | Volvo Cars UK The Volvo EX30 Just Got Delayed Until 2025 (msn.com)

Well here is the first trip, taking my son to work, a round trip of 26 miles in individual mode with normal for all modes etc comfort for dampers and eco driving mode. A dismal score of just 52 and 53.2 mpg.