Graham Butcher

@Ootohere So what you are trying to tell me is that although BEV cars have a green band on the left of their plates, which stands out from a normal plate, when I see these cars being driven or parked, that I only see the expensive cars, really? Whether they are privately owned or company cars, I agree that is impossible to say, but probability suggests that a large proportion of these more expensive cars are likely to be private as I cannot see companies buying expensive cars for their staff. From experience of being a long term company car driver, they are more than likely to be matching the cars to their rank within the company. Lower ranks will get the more average low spec/class of car, while middle ranks seem to get Passat / Audi A4 level cars and the higher ranks seem to Audi A6, BMW 5, MB E class cars. I also doubt that companies would make it compulsory for staff to drive BEV, especially if they do don't have the means of home charging, there has an element of their staff also wanting to benefit from the lower BIK tax rates. Now, as I'm retired and tend to drive during the working day, it is possible that most of the lower ranks of company car drivers are out at work with their cars and the ones I'm seeing could be the middle ranks working from home, or the bosses even, who knows, but I do know what it is that I'm seeing.

You say that, but you really need to see what kind of BEV's are being driven around here, I can tell you that the most common ones I have seen been driven are Telsa's, Audi etrons, Porsche Taycans, MB EQS, Jag I-Pace, BMW iX and i7, and those are not cheap cars.

One of the best and balanced views I've heard and falls broadly in line with my own viewpoint, it should down to choice particularly during the infancy of electrification and his analogy with CFL lamps v LEDs is great. He also mentioned the early adopters are likely to be the more affluent folk, who have driveways etc and may not be doing long distances etc and judging by many of the those that have BEV's is pretty much on the money. Thanks for sharing.

I put an offer on one of the Octavia panels, looks to be same but minus the heated seats option. The offer has been accepted so now I have to wait for it to arrive👍

There is a good reason why it looks like your hand..because it is, I did a cheeky crop of your photo to save me having to take one of my car 😉. There is a Octavia panel going pretty cheaply on eBay that looks like its the same panel but without the heated seats option. I may make an offer on it and see if they are the same size rings. There is a good chance on them being identical, as that's what VW group do, raid the parts bin as much as possible.

All the panels that are certain to have the correct rings and knobs are £65 and up, but there are some Octavia panels, while not identical the chrome rings may fit, but I'm wondering if the rings/knobs may be of different diameter?

@ApertureS Thanks, but it sounds like a lot of work for something that hardly likely to be used that much and will cost plenty.

I have the chrome ring missing, and I was wondering if these were available separately at all anywhere. It seems that everyone wants to sell me a complete module which I don't need or want as the chrome ring is just snap fit onto the control knob?

@ApertureS Was this TV tuner fitted but not working, or is something that you have sourced and added yourself? I'm asking because my old MK2 I ordered with that fitted, but my new to me MK3 does not have it, and it is something I'd like to add if not too expensive or difficult.

Lets go... this is an interesting conclusion.

I have the same issue so I'm interested to see how you get on with it, I'm also wondering if there is going to be vapor/smell attached to this solution when the vents are blowing air out?

I was of course talking about the price of electric at public chargers, not that derived from home wind generators or solar arrays, or via V2H

Just finished watching that video and it was an eye-opener to see just how much we are being ripped off over here for electric and just how poor the supply appears to be to what charging network we have, McMaster claimed he had zero issues with cost or chargers and all the chargers were superfast, indicating plenty of grid power being supplied so there was no slow down if 2 or more cars charging at the same time. And the roads, wow, did they ship all of their potholes over to us? Lets hope and pray that after the GE is over and the new party get settled in that we can start to address those areas.

Now then my friends, lets go... It seems as if the McMaster has at last learned how his Taycan works and the car is now better than it has ever been, lets see.......

Actually, I thought F1 was going green, with the downsizing of their engines etc.

@Ootohere Well here is the interesting bit and as far as I can see it makes zero sense. There is apparent date or a plan to introduce a date/plan for anything larger than a van to be mandated to be electric and as anyone with half a brain cell will be aware, a truck or a bus, or construction site machinery will give out many times the levels of pollution of the most pollution car or van, odd? Now currently there are no plans as far as I can see to scrap the classic status that applies to vehicles older than 40 years which are exempt from MOT and VED and also LEZ charges and there are currently 338,697 classic cars on the roads and unknown amount of commercial vehicles, some of which take part in the annual London to Brighton rally. So what about Net Zero then, what gives there???

There is also the Turners of Soham who now have depots all across the UK, Home (turners-distribution.com)

What I'm say, clearly I thought, was that it is fine having the electric trucks but to get anyone switching over to them, apart from those who actually know that they can get back to either their own base or another depot each night to charge, than there needs to be some serious effort put in to develop a national charging infrastructure for trucks.

Will Shiers is clearly who I meant, I thought that his name might have been Shires judging by the way he said his name. It was a long time ago when I did a bit of truck driving, but nothing has changed in the meantime apart from there are now many more smaller hauliers out there and fewer of the Eddie Stobart's and I have friends who are doing just that right now, started with a van doing express couriering, grew to a few vans and now moved on to bigger curtain sided trucks, living in the cabs during the week and trying to get back home at weekends.

Will Shires actually made my point for me, it one thing to have the truck, but it is useless without adequate charging infrastructure for trucks as most of the trucks go out for a week or longer at times before returning to base. This is especially true for owner operators who pick up loads and deliver them and then pick other loads etc all the time, they will need that infrastructure. He also said that even in Norway and Sweden, there are not enough truck friendly public chargers and that infrastructure will be critical in transferring trucks over to electric. Currently electric is fine for the last mile type of delivery and firms like Amazon and some other ones are already using them as they return to base every night and can get charged overnight.

That's good to know if ever I need to sit in the back. I think it does not seem as wide in the front, but thinking about it, the centre consol is wider than the mk2, so I expect that is where the extra width is then and not in the seats.👍

Again I know all of that and that is fine for large companies with a few depots dotted around the UK, I was working for a small company, based in Haverhill, Suffolk who made table and standard lamps and sold them to mail order catalogue companies like Freemans, Janet Ward etc, and shops like House of Frazer, British Home Stores, Marks and Spencer etc and I was the only truck driver they had doing all the deliveries on the out bound journey, and on the return trip to Haverhill I would be picking up all the raw materials for the production of said lamps, drums of cables, barrels of resin, sacks of moulding powder, threaded metal tubing, class bulbs etc. So if there were still in existence, without charging support along the way, they would have no option but to continues down the diesel path. To achieve the full electric goal, they will need to get suitable chargers installed for trucks to also make use of as there are many such companies around who only have the one depot etc.

@Ootohereyes I all that and that is fine for trucks that keep within their range and return to base each day. There are many that go out on a Sunday and only get back to base on a Friday. I used to do that in Ford Truck a few years ago, sleeping in the cab with my trusty dog for company, driving all over England, Wales, Scotland and both parts of Ireland on a regular basis. On the trip I would fill up the massive diesel tanks many times.

Hmm, if the US only has 7 heavy-duty charger locations for heavy trucks, how many does the UK have, none I suspect is the answer? Wanted: 142,000 electricians to decarbonize America's supply chain - EV Engineering & Infrastructure (evengineeringonline.com)