@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???

 

 

 

Site operators will have to comply with clean air regulations once they are in.  And H&S of employees and 3rd parties.       Not everyone could not give a sh|te about the environment or their children or grand children's future and health.        So it is not big or clever really to think about what you can get away with not doing.       The house or lords / peers and MP,s might have a self interests in classic , collectors cars, and in the UK not even for those having one is a bit of a joke.    Qué sera Sera. 

Edited 23 May, 20242 yr by Ootohere

I would be banning air shows.  Let people watch planes on virtual headsets and let them sniff some fuel from a nose dispenser.    No reason that those with no interest that live in the vicinity should have to put up with the disturbance.     Actually same with Motorsport.  If the greens get any say in future government all that useless fuel use and noise pollution might end.  

Edited 23 May, 20242 yr by Ootohere

4 minutes ago, Ootohere said:

I would be banning air shows.  Let people watch planes on virtual headsets and let them sniff some fuel from a nose dispenser.    No reason that those with no interest that live in the vicinity should have to put up with the disturbance.     Actually same with Motorsport.  If the greens get any say in future government all that useless fuel use and noise pollution might end.  

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

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.......

 

 

Round and round and round the track and all the engineering and research and passes on the technology to the road and safety.    What a pith take really.   Like rallying, drag racing and much else.   But then Formula-e and X-treme off road is as much a load of micky taking.       There is no carbon offset or anything like it.   But that is how things are.  Smoke and mirrors and have fun and make money and provide entertainment.       The Red Bull Soap box stuff amazes me how spectators turn out for anything.   I do miss the days of making a carty from a pram,s wheels, a fish box and some timber... Hill climbs and sprints and off reading as well.   But then it is not like it has to be done.   Maybe just as well doing driving people to hospital etc.       Now maybe that could be a job for redundant race drivers, get a useful driving job as a volunteer.      PS.  I am not serious. Because we know nobody just gives up their play things, steam engines, tractors, cars, bikes, planes, boats or anything that is their passion or hobby just because others think they should. 

Edited 23 May, 20242 yr by Ootohere

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.

Is that a royal we?  No need to live in the UK or buy the electricity if people do not like the cost of it.    Plenty do not.  Most of the world don't.        

18 minutes ago, Ootohere said:

Is that a royal we?  No need to live in the UK or buy the electricity if people do not like the cost of it.    Plenty do not.  Most of the world don't.        

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

The UK,s National Grid which is not the UK,s and certainly does not take available electricity from around the UK but prefers to buy it from Continental Europe is part of the issue.  Then England not generating as much as it might because views might be spoilt is another reason. 

As you may have seen in the press the US is applying a 102.5 % Ad Valorem customs duty on Chinese cars.  The Chinese are protesting, not sure whether they will take to the World Trade Organisation but it sounds like they will put extra tariffs on those large (engined) European and US cars.

 

The EU is reportedly shaping up to put Countervailing duty on Chinese cars as an action against Chinese export subsidies, rather than an Anti Dumping duty as it can be seen that Chinese customs seem to be able to by the same cars at about half the price they are sold in Europe, US so ADD would not work.

 

Not only a West-East Trade War starting on cars put it looks like solar goods ie panels, controllers will be included in raised tariffs and the Chinese might response with throttling minerals, rare earth metals.

 

Quite possibly an upcoming Trade War will damage trade and therefore jobs all over the world and possibly call a worldwide recession or depression and why ?  Perhaps just because elections are occurring and candidates want to appear tough ?

 

On 20/05/2024 at 22:38, wyx087 said:

Nice. I'm assuming you are talking about Octopus Agile, so is it Ohme? Zappi does most of it, except Agile integration?

 

I've had Podpoint, as dumb as they come.

Now got Indra smart pro, seems smart with the sleek app and lots of options. But I'm not entirely happy with it because charging amps is not user adjustable, solar control is a blackbox with only a single on/off toggle. Only saving grace is the manual "boost" mode is a button directly on the charge point.

I'm on Zappi - used to be on Agile and it worked well with that. Now I'm on Intelligent Octopus Go, we averaged 8.5p per kWh over the winter for the whole energy bill - and we're an all electric house

On 21/05/2024 at 19:21, Winston_Woof said:

But it's not though.

There was a little thing a few years back called "Brexit" ;o)

 which contient is it in then? Asia or North America? Australasia? Do tell 🙂

 

50 minutes ago, domhnall said:

 which contient is it in then? Asia or North America? Australasia? Do tell 🙂

 

Already answered that question earlier 😛

Lets go... this is an interesting conclusion.

 

 

 

 

1 hour ago, Ootohere said:

 

 

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.

 

Not substantiated though about more affluent folk.

This is the issue, people just make it up as they go along.

 

This mornings 'Wake up to money' on Radio 5 live is worth a listen.  27/05/2024   Available for 29 days on BBC Sounds.

http://bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001zm6b

 

Edited 27 May, 20242 yr by Ootohere

38 minutes ago, Ootohere said:

Not substantiated though about more affluent folk.

This is the issue, people just make it up as they go along.

 

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.

Edited 27 May, 20242 yr by Graham Butcher

@Graham Butcher  as i keep having to say, where you are is where you are, not where a lot of the UK is. 

You are not going to meet people charging cars until you do and since you have few chargers near you and only do a drive-by you are not likely to.

 

Your issue is you are not where there are many BEV,s that are not the over £35,000 or even £30,000 prices.  Or your maybe just not seeing them.

Get around the country and see how many Green Plate cars there are now and parked on roads, in car parks and where ever and not just on driveways. 

 

There are lots of people with very expensive cars that also do not go far. There are wealthy people that have vehicles ICE or BEV and have no off street parking.

Or parking at their place of residence.

There are a lot of the lower priced EV,s that are used by employees that are given them to use. 

That applies with more expensive ones as well.  Not every nice car is driven by people who can afford to buy one or even lease them. 

They are out there being driven though.

I got an EV a few months ago, a Jaguar I-Pace. Prior to signing on the dotted line though I looked at a number of other options including the MGs and even briefly considered a BYD, all of which are significantly cheaper than the Jag and not much more than a decent spec ICE car. The estate I live on is largely a council estate, which is how I was able to afford to buy my house, and it does come with a drive. The estate I grew up on though was not a council estate but because of when it was built none of the houses have a drive. The issue around the drive is, IMHO less to do with how affluent a person is and more around the age of much of the UK's housing stock. There are parts of central London where house prices are lottery win money where there isn't a drive to park your car.

@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.

43 minutes ago, apd007 said:

I got an EV a few months ago, a Jaguar I-Pace. Prior to signing on the dotted line though I looked at a number of other options including the MGs and even briefly considered a BYD, all of which are significantly cheaper than the Jag and not much more than a decent spec ICE car. The estate I live on is largely a council estate, which is how I was able to afford to buy my house, and it does come with a drive. The estate I grew up on though was not a council estate but because of when it was built none of the houses have a drive. The issue around the drive is, IMHO less to do with how affluent a person is and more around the age of much of the UK's housing stock. There are parts of central London where house prices are lottery win money where there isn't a drive to park your car.

Around here, we have many ex council estates, which are HA owned and some of the newer ones do have driveways, but they are few and far between. WE do also have loads of older style larger houses with huge gardens and drives, all are private houses and simply loads of new private estates being built all around the outskirts of the city which either integral garages and or drives and it is these areas that has the most of the higher end electric cars, and a few have 2 electric cars, of which Tesla's seem to be the popular choice (white ones of course).

@Graham Butcher You are so out of date on Rep Mobiles. Commercial Travellers, company drivers, technicians.

Scotland is a wealthy country with jobs for technicians and others that get good means of transport, higher range EV,s as an example.

 

Really what you see or as it is do not see and who you do not meet because you re not charging an EV is the issue.

The Expensive cars are very much used by employees, and directors and sole traders and covering high miles and public charging while doing it.

I know one company owner that during Covid gave his employees Jag EV instead of Transit Connect after he got one himself because they only had a few boxes of their product to deliver and he got the loans, cut the fuel cost and he was fed up of the speeding tickets the Fords were getting due to their limited max speed.

 

There are thousands of pre Green flash, MG,s, Zoe, Leaf, Mini Corsa, 208, Mokka,s are around all over the place in Scotland as much as Tesla, Jags, Audi,s, Porsche and other.

Many on personal plates.

Then since Green Flash the easy to spot EV,s and sometimes ones that have you surprised it is an EV. 

.....................

Basically, Go north young man and you might see the difference from the south.

& make it further than the north of England which is not even half way up. 

 

Edited 28 May, 20242 yr by Ootohere

42 minutes ago, Ootohere said:

 

I know one company owner that during Covid gave his employees Jag EV instead of Transit Connect after he got one himself because they only had a few boxes of their product to deliver and he got the loans, cut the fuel cost and he was fed up of the speeding tickets the Fords were getting due to their limited max speed.

 

 

 

well that seems like an eminently sensible idea, replace a slow vehicle with a fast one ;o)

Surely he should have been passing the speeding tickets (and associated points) onto his employees though  so (other than a small amount of admin work ro advise who the driver was at the time) why would he be fed up? 

People with points and approaching a ban (especially if their job may be affected) tend to be (IMHO) more observant of speed limits