Graham Butcher

It is exceedingly bad practice to use your car in such a fashion; you should always be thinking that once your SoC reaches zero, that is it, no more left. The same applies to ICE, the car might well drive on for a few more miles once zero has been reached, but in an ICE car you might well be building up issues with all kinds of debris being sucked into the system. On a BEV, that extra buffer you go on about all the time is more than likely the batteries safety zone, reserved to ensure that your battery does not become a brick. Rechargeable Li-ion batteries once they reach a critical point will no longer accept a charge.

True, unless you're buying a pure petrol or diesel secondhand cars, then buying a used car is now going to be a real minefield and is highly likely to be an expensive ownership proposition. The reason being that any of the alternatives, MHEV, PHEV or BEV there are so many factors that can and will come into play. A BEV, you can get a SOH report on the battery to take away some of the risk. But with hybrids, you get the added levels of complexity which could well cause buyers massive bills. Some petrol cars these days come with Active Cylinder Technology, shutting down some cylinders once at a crusing speed, which again adds further complexity.

What makes you believe that load of guff? Most ICE drivers are well aware of what their MPG is and you don't have to be a rocket scientist to quickly calculate how many gallons are required to get you back home and possibly to another filling station where much cheapness can be enjoyed on the fuel, for instance, there is a Shell garage near me that has diesel @ £1.69 a litre and there is a BP garage where I can get diesel @ £1.33 a litre. Now my car is currently doing with a mix of urban and town driving roughly 45mpg so that 31 miles that Evolution13 speaks of only costs me £4.13.

And to just add further insult to injury, if you was in a petrol, you are already paying a massive amount in fuel duty so inadvertently assisting the government to pay its way. When in the BEV you will soon be charged an extra 3P a mile so that brings your cost for 31 miles to around £6.63 and if in a PHEV to around £7 for fuel. So that makes a BEV suddenly one to avoid unless you can either do all or most of your charging at home – much cheapness there, then – or you don't pay for your charging, as it's a company car.

And the the only electric motor in sight was the starter motor.........

Its interesting when you consider the sheer amount of HP that the Yangwang U9 Xtreme (308mph), has (2959HP ) compared to the 1578HP of the Bugatti Chiron which did 304.773mph. It really is not all that good at converting that HP into MPH is it. I can't help but wonder just what could the Bugatti do with that same amount of HP under the hood. While Thrust SSC wins hands down on the sheer top speed, you couldn't actually call it a car in the true sense of the word, it would not be capable of being used as a real car.

Well, considering it is just shy of 3,000 HP, almost double that of a Bugatti, is it that surprising??

@Lee01 Yeah, I know, the relevant parts have even more slop so you never read the Scottish Power article either 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

Then quite simply, don't is the answer to that. However the original article where I copied the section in quotation marks, came from article about EON who used that technology in Germany and also had or have a trial somewhere in the UK. That said, however, it did not come up just now in my online search, but that means nothing, it might be in the process of being edited or something. Interestingly this article How does the Data Communications Company work with smart meters? | Gas and Electricity Company | ScottishPower from Scottish Power did come up in the search and if you read, it does indeed say that some meters do send data from the meter via the powerline (the one that runs along the street distributing single phase and three phases as required. I have a smart meter installed for both gas and electric (no digital display unit) and this meter sits in the intake box, which is steel box built into the house wall, which is a Faraday cage. Radio signals are therefore unable to penetrate the cage so the only way for that data (send every 30 minutes) is over the powerline cable in the street. Which goes off to a collector unit somewhere in the area where all the other meters connected to the output of the local area substation transformer and extracted and sent to a mast-mounted antenna.

Lee, you could start here? https://www.briskoda.net/forums/topic/499506-the-truth-about-electric-cars/page/427/#findComment-5975387

Well it does say on the website Smart Utilities and mentions water and also electric meters but does not go into any real details. So it could be for electric meters, as I read that EON were using the local power lines (240/415v lines, not the grid HV lines) to carry data from meters, digitally encoded to collector boxes where that data is filtered off the power lines and sent to local wireless transmitters. Each one of these transmitters could handle the traffic from so many meters in a given area. So I say, never say never, the technology does actually exist. Whether these poles are used for electric meter data gatherings or not, who actually knows for certain?

Back in Oct 2025, @wyx087 claimed that smart meters used wireless technology to send the readings back to the service provider for billing purposes. I said that the data is also carried on power lines to the radio equipement, which he disputed, saying that data could not coexist with corrupting the data, how does he explain this then I wonder??

Some people actually like the sight of the turbines with their blades slowly turning SWMBO does for one🤔

Oh, sorry, but the way you phrased it sounded like you didn't like the pylons carrying power south into England. Made it look like you were saying that the English didn't care about the pylons spoiling the countryside in Scotland, as long as the English got cheap power. And of course it won't just be the Scots who will see the pylons is it, The English will also have to put up with them, they want the power. It's a bit like my other half; she wants the gear, landline, internet, TV etc but no wires and no ripping the walls out to bury them – in other words no mess🙄

Lets return to more on-topic things, shall we? I think this is a well-balanced view of the current position on the push towards electric cars.

Oh come on, we have hundreds of miles of overhead pylons crisscrossing England and Wales so you're no different to the rest of us. Its the price we all have to pay for modern convenience.

You're going round and round in a circle. I have never mentioned anything about what type of pylons; in fact, I don't care what type they use or care about what route they take. All I was ever pointing out to you was that the subsea cable system was coming ashore in Norfolk; the rest of the route was always overground on some sort of pylon.

@lol-lol the option of going underground has already been suggested and thrown out on the cost factor alone. Extending the subsea cable has also been thrown out. What they are chewing over now I think is the final route of the pylons.

Yes, you can edit your posts; simply click on the 3 dots in the top right corner of your post and select the last option (Edit) and away you go, make your changes and then scroll down to the bottom of your post and click on "save", job done

Err, you are partly right on that one. There is a subsea cable going into Norfolk that is correct, but it is then planned to go up on pylons all the way to Tilbury in south Essex, on the Thames. As this article shows, 15th Jan 2026 is meeting stiff opposition. Huge line of pylons will 'irreversibly destroy' Essex countryside - Essex Live This is the planned route for the Essex part of the line.

Nobody is disputing what you are saying in essence; yes, anyone could do this or that, but they first of all have to have the money, what you call a little money might be an impossible amount to others. There are so many reasons why a person cannot or doesn't want to do it. Maybe if your batteries were to fail and take your house with them, then maybe you might think to yourself that just maybe, you took it a bridge too far? For many people this is a real concern for them. Who knows? My wife wouldn't like me to go down that route, it was bad enough getting the solar array accepted, and even more so when it sat on the roof for a year, dead as a dodo, after the company looking after it did not want to come and fix it. Like I said earlier, you really could with your unbridled passion for all things electric and your unshakeable belief that there are no problems with it, get yourself a job on the Fully Charged Show. You need to accept that others don't see it as clear-cut as you; there are conflicting scientific reports on the subject from many respected universities. Why is that only those backed by the government get the oxygen? After all, the government are only career politicians in the main; very few of them have any scientific background or engineering degrees or experience, and they seem only too willing to back the ideas put forward by think tanks. Who also happen to bankroll many of them, for example, the Lettuce who only held office for 44 days. 😁 Liz Truss: UK Prime Minister’s campaign funded in part by wealthy who stood to benefit from controversial tax cuts | CNN These people don't provide backing without the prospect of getting that back with a massive profit margin built in Politics is a dirty business don't you know?

@lol-lol yes, we all get that and how it affects you and also how you use it and plan to take it with you should you move etc. The thing is even if everybody was to do that, bearing mind that plenty could not afford to do that or even wish to have solar arrays or storage batteries for cost or many other reasons, not forgetting that for many home charging is impossible. That is still not going to be able to meet the energy needs for all of the EV vehicles in time for the governments plans with the HGV's etc and the power stations and transmission lines from Scotland will take far longer to get in place and operation to meet the plans.

Do you believe all the BS that is out there from parties with a political agenda, in this case the BBC being a government mouthpiece? They are no better then many other sources often quoted who have vested interests in a certain outcome where they gain some benefit from. All of these people so many EV'ers claim are biased against them actually do not know the truth. All they want is the same as me, the freedom to make their own mind up. Like the other examples I have shown you. If the products are really genuinely far superior and the public can see that, then they will migrate towards them naturally, no pressure required. Look back in history and see how many things you used to have/use in your past but you have moved on along with the rest of the world, where are the cassettes, vinyal records, Betamax, VHS, Laser Discs CRT tvs and monitors, Incandescent and CFL lamps, Steam engines, etc., etc.? All gone and no legislation required to make the switch; the consumers did that globally. So they will with EVs if they really are that good and they can prove themselves, but currently, they are not doing a good job of it are they?

You are still not seeing the larger picture, I large battery storage unit is not going to solve the UK issues is it?

To anyone with logic, surely the bleeding way forwards is before you start planning and mandating things, you get the technology in place and working first to ensure the first basic promise that was made to UK public, make damned sure that the UK was 100% self-sufficient for energy, bring the cost down to enable the UK to become competitive again and give families some well-earned respite from crippling bills. Not force the things onto people which is so obviously currently not even remotely possible for vast masses of the population. Be that for physical, financial, or infrastructure reasons, so that practically everybody currently with a ICE car could also afford to switch over. And that does not also involve the other elephant in the room, and that is ensuring that the technology is perfectly safe, or at least as safe as current ICE vehicles are. Until we find methods of doing that, a fire in any car park or anywhere where cars are parked, gathered or stored together is a real major disaster just waiting to happen. We have all witnessed the terrific consequences that a few EV cars bring to car-transporting ships, where only a part of the cargo were EVs, resulting in the total loss of those ships. In a few years almost every car will be EV so that potential will be everywhere. We need politicians to understand why their plans are not working, but that will never happen, I fear, as they lack the vision for the future and the possible consequences of getting it wrong. They only care about themselves and a 5-year plan. If it all goes tits up, they get removed at the next election, and the massive mess they leave behind is left for others.