Graham Butcher

@lol-lol In that case, you might be an ostrich. and have a skewed bias yourself? I really do think that you should actually watch some of his latest videos, see the evidence that he gets from their own website and then try to justify your viewpoint and statement about him being biased.

Are they using their own data? If so, then it's quite possibly flawed. Check out Barrie Crampton's videos on YouTube for the evidence.

@Evolution13 Well, you read what I read, and that info is just not present. What it does actually highlight, in theory at least, is that the data is just not being recorded correctly, that also seems to be the case in the US. A car fire, is just recorded as a car fire, it does not specify what type of car, its fuel, where it started and maybe not even if the car was in a road accident, etc. Wouldn't you have thought that that kind of data ought to have been recorded in order to learn from the resultant data in order to ensure that we make progress in the right directions rather than assumptions?

According to the Daily Mail, the fire services are starting to investigate and record the actual cause of car fires after claims the hybrid cars are 3 times more likely to kill the occupants in a fire than a normal ICE car. Interestingly, the government are saying that according insurance analysis the opposite is correct, but they will not share their findings publicly. It seems that Tusker, insure 30,000 company cars say that they find the hybrids are more likely to catch fire. So it seems that we shall have to wait to see what the truth is when the fire services actually get some useful data from their findings in due course. It has been mentioned before that the figures that have issued by the insurance industry is flawed, hopefully we get to the truth either way. Victory for the Mail on Sunday as emergency services start tracking cause of fires in hybrid cars | Daily Mail Online

Well that suggests to me that the national power generation is currently not really able to cope with the demand unless it is both windy and sunny, hence the mention of sunshine in the article. I still cannot see a time when we will have sufficent electricity to cope with all the EV vehicles that the government are hoping will on the roads by 2030, especially when you factor in that the vast majority of heavy transport are going to have battery packs in the realms of 600 to 900KWh each and the size of some the haulage fleets, it looks highly unlikely to happen.

If this free electricity actually happens as reported here, maybe a good time for those with EVs to fill their boots with a cheeky daytime boost as well? Households could get free electricity for doing washing on sunny weekends - BBC News

Do you think that will be enough, as the number of BEVs grows, many of them will be capable of this type of charging? Stand at any busy filling station and count the number of cars being filled in an hour, and given that currently an ICE car is capable of many more miles between fill-ups than BEVs are, that means that as ICEs are phased out, there will be massive demand for such chargers as BEVs are going to need twice the charging to rival what some ICE cars can achieve per tank. I can't see just how that is sustainable, even when Hinckley Point and other power stations come online. The demand for electricity is going to be massive.

So just where do you think here in the UK or in any densely populated country that would require it to be able to service a reasonable stream of cars in a given time period is going to get its energy from if not the grid? Even with the BYD Power Bank batteries, they have to be charged up as well.

While this is getting the charging times to a point where they almost could match that of refilling an ICE car (depending on the tank capacity), has anyone actually stopped to consider where the energy is going to come from in order to cope with recharging a few cars one after the other in a similar fashion to how a regular filling station can service loads of cars on the same pump? The size of the grid connection to a charging hub with, say, half a dozen of these chargers is going to be massive and so is the cost of running the grid connection to the hub site.

Well, that's exactly what my sister-in-law's car does. She was advised to take the car out for a 20 to 30-minute drive at least once a week to make sure that the 12V battery is kept charged. I think the entire car depends on the 12V battery for both electric and ICE modes for the control aspect. If that battery ever goes flat, then the car is going nowhere until that is rectified.

As indeed are many cars, my sister-in-law's Toyota Yaris Cross hybrid (HEV) is setup the same way, but once that stored power is used, the ICE kicks in and takes over the driving and also recharges the battery at the same time. The point is, however, that the public are voting to go either full on ICE or some form of hybrid, such as PHEV or HEV, not full on BEV. At least her HEV will always start and run in EV mode as long as there is power in its battery. The PHEV, however, that is not the case, is it? If the car is never plugged in, it will always default to the ICE system and indeed this is what most of the PHEV cars do, the drivers mostly do not plug them in but vote for a PHEV in order to still get all the benefits that are being offered by the HM Government. I agree about the Dacias, but they are incredibly basic cars when you compare them with even my 2019 Kodiaq, but then, some people don't like power windows, etc., and are very happy with a really basic setup and interiors. That's not for me, though.

@lol-lol correct, but they all have an ICE engine as the main power unit, they can only run in EV mode for short distances.

@skomaz I think what lol-lol was hinting at is that his beloved electric theme would be dramatical catapulted forwards and that ICE powered cars and lorries would be in decline. finally. Strange how many people seem to think that BEVs are flying off the shelves and yet.. they aren't. Top Gear Magazine report that the top 10 selling cars in the UK right now are powered by ICE for their main means of power. These are the UK's top 10 best-selling cars of 2026… so far | Top Gear

Forget all about politics for a second, you said in an earlier post about acts of God. Well, is it not an act of God that we and many countries are sitting on large deposits of oil and other natural resources? Is it impossible then to modify either oil or the engine to make the diesel that our own oil resources produces work together? War is not an act of God and as has been seen that relying on the shipping oil to other countries is not a very sound policy when an event like war, or an act of God in the true sense can leave another country on its knees because it relies on imported goods too much. There is a video that Jeremy Clarkson has produced where he talks about this, and he makes, to me at least, an awful lot of sense. But that is way off topic, but for those that want to understand a bit more, he is talking about the basics of life, food but the same logic holds true for other things, as he explains, and here is the link for those that want to know more. Britain Is Sleepwalking Into A FOOD CRISIS. Clarkson WARNS Nobody Is Listening

It is not about you and you being comfortable with it, it is more about whether the whole overall picture is right. Perhaps we should make sure first and foremost that as many countries as possible become energy secure by using their own natural resources. Bring manufacturing back to the countries where the consumers are instead of shipping finished products around the globe. That would reduce the overall level of emissions coming from both cargo planes and ships. Bring employment back so more people are able to contribute by way of taxes and thus reduce the amount of benefits having to be given out. The fact that sales of EVs dried up is the true sign that the public can see the true picture that many EV'ers cannot see. The offerings are not yet capable of being considered as a direct replacement for everyone. When they become considered as such is when they don't cost a premium, and everyone can enjoy the all the benefits that currently only some can and for those that can't take advantage because they need the range etc. of an ICE car, that can see that they are not being made to feel inferior or treated like second class citizens and made to pay through the nose for the fuel.

But is it not true that the higher-than-average earners and the already wealthy people do their level best to avoid as many forms of taxation as it is possible to do? In lots of cases, they even have their bank accounts and savings done where they can get away from tax? Now give the lower earners more money in their pocket; they are the ones that are most likely to go out and spend it on other things, amassing the things that they think the those with more money already have, and in doing so, put money into the country's coffers?

@lol-lol I never said or intentionally implied you did anything different. The fact is All taxpayers contribute to all EV cars. The acid test would be if all concessions were withdrawn would companies and private owners still elect to having EVs. Then freedom of choice makes an appearance and I fully defend anybodies freedom to select what they actually want and I have done from the very outset and introduction of the Toyota Prius. Just as I and others defend a another person's choice to drink alcohol or to smoke.

I accept all that you said, but the fact still remains that you did receive a handout, and that handout has to be funded by none other than the taxpayers; it does not magically appear. So your choice to have an EV does, in fact, mean that every person paying tax is actually helping you and other EV owners or drivers to have your choice of propulsion and drivetrain.

I understand that, but it could just be the result of a poor connection causing a heat rise in the socket of the car and thus possible welding of the connection pins/tubes or the plug and socket combo. This bad connection could be located either on the car itself or in the plug connected to the charger. This is right in my wheelhouse, and as a fully qualified electrical engineer, I have seen this scenario play out many times before on all kinds of plug/socket interfaces. I do not have to have any experiences with owning or driving an EV to be able to have an appreciation and an understanding of the various failure modes that can exist in electrical systems. That fact alone could also be the cause of some car fires, just as it can be the cause of many other fires, like the overloading of extension leads, etc., which also causes fires.

Maybe, something has to pay for the all the handouts to those accepting to have a zero emission car? More likely just rubber stamping the EU proposals so we can continue to have sort of motor trade and it's massive financial contribution to nations coffers. Or of course it could all be just total BS and normal business after all, either way we will have to wait and see.

Maybe, we are not about the cessation of new ICE cars, as the UK government have said that they are going to re-examine the ZEV mandate.

This video shows what could possibly be part of the problem when plugs cannot be extracted from the cars on charge?

@Evolution13 Thats the problem with cars today: so much complexity in them that is all software-driven, and if we have learned anything, we should know how 1 digit or 1 line of code out of maybe millions, can, under the right conditions, wreak havoc and cause all kinds problems.

Imagine if that happened a hundred miles or so away from home, I've never heard of a filling hose getting locked in the filler of an ICE car (just saying). I wonder if that was the result of a bodged over-the-air software update or software bug?

That is totally disgraceful.