1 hour ago, classic said:

My understanding is that EV manufacturers now go to some lengths to ensure their batteries have cobalt which is ethically sourced so I would say their (reducing) use of the stuff has improved matters.

Well, the other side of the coin would argue the opposite. Lets say for now that your right, they source from ethical sources, seeing as there is a high demand, those that were originally sourcing theirs from the same supply, who now cannot meet their requirements because more demand then supply, those others will obtain their Cobalt from not so ethical sources, whats the grand difference?

Wither way, because of the EV's increased demand over the years for Cobalt, it has lead to more environmental damage being done, just cannot escape from that aspect.

Yes and Yes, as more manufacturers switch their battery tech over to LFP, then there will be improvements, just as you say, that is also an inescapable fact, but however, that still resolve the other issues that already out there and as EV's grow in their artificial popularity and will in the powers to be, get their way will be the dominant mode of transport then their other inherent problems will come to the forefront even more and then we may be in even deeper water as a result.

Let me once again, reiterate that it is not EV's in there own right that I object to, it is the enforcement of their adoption as the ban on fossil fueled new cars gains more momentum. Remember this is not a natural consumer lead change.

Lets go back to the days when it was either walk, cycle or use horses, then Steam trucks were invented, then we saw the ICE cars slowly catching on. Was there at that time any forced adoption of mechanical transport? No, it was consumer driven and slowly the manufacturers improved their product, both in terms of efficiency and safety.

Lets come up to date a bit more and then we begin to see diesel being used as a fuel for trucks, and a few cars along the way. Then we had a massive coercion by governments to adopt diesel as the fuel of choice, it was the saviour of the human race, then they were told that it was not the magic bullet that they had believed it was and they have replaced that with the EV, history repeating itself all over again?

3 hours ago, skomaz said:

So your 10kw actually cost you £12...

Well it cost me just over a £5 for the very nice Costa Hot chocolate with extra chocolate and marsh mallows.

Son sent me £11 for the charge on my Electroverse account and his hot chocolate, I did not charge him for the Public Charging training session.

So £5.50 transferred in my account for the electricity put in to his Mini. My Octopus account is well in credit so the £5.86 for £10.29 kwh of electricity will not alter my £133 monthly DD as I am about £300 in credit after months of low electricity due to using solar during the day and lecky at 8.5 per kwh at night. Plus I have had over £10 credited by Octopus in the last few weeks due to free sessions and saving sessions.

Paid for the Costa hot chocolates on my Am Ex and this monthly I get £50 cash back. The £11 for the two hot chocolates will not hit my Am Ex for another 50 days so my £11 ca sit in an account getting 6.25% from Lloyds until then.

Prices are nominal when considering all the incentives and recrediting systems at play.

For a socialist I sometimes can be quite a good capitalist player of the system !!

7 hours ago, Graham Butcher said:

It would be interesting to see if those 8 chargers could actually sustain 8 cars even charging at 100kW, let alone 8 x 150kW.

Would not be a problem for the Mini Cooper E. 150 Kw chargers and even if the power was shared 75 kw for left bay and 75 kw for right bay the Mini Cooper E is 75 kws so no foul there. The chargers we went to part of the rapidly growing Sainsbury Smartcharge https://smartcharge.co.uk/ network being rolled out.

Might be a different story for my Scenic which can charge up to 130 kwh but these Kempower charger do Dynamic power allocation so important to pick a slower charging partner if only has to share a stall with another EV. Don't think it would be much of with any of my EVs and if/when the Zoe gets (45 kw charging) gets replaced with the Renault 4, which has up to 80 kw charging speed again no problem there with sharing the 150 kw charger output.

This email has been written with electricity at 8.5 p per kwh.

22 minutes ago, lol-lol said:

Well it cost me just over a £5 for the very nice Costa Hot chocolate with extra chocolate and marsh mallows.

Son sent me £11 for the charge on my Electroverse account and his hot chocolate, I did not charge him for the Public Charging training session.

So £5.50 transferred in my account for the electricity put in to his Mini. My Octopus account is well in credit so the £5.86 for £10.29 kwh of electricity will not alter my £133 monthly DD as I am about £300 in credit after months of low electricity due to using solar during the day and lecky at 8.5 per kwh at night. Plus I have had over £10 credited by Octopus in the last few weeks due to free sessions and saving sessions.

Paid for the Costa hot chocolates on my Am Ex and this monthly I get £50 cash back. The £11 for the two hot chocolates will not hit my Am Ex for another 50 days so my £11 ca sit in an account getting 6.25% from Lloyds until then.

Prices are nominal when considering all the incentives and recrediting systems at play.

For a socialist I sometimes can be quite a good capitalist player of the system !!

Well all of that above is all very interesting to those who have the space and the ability to charge at home, off road, but at £12 for 10Kw it just shows one of the main stumbling blocks. I really don't know if the UK Government for example are even aware of the fact that they are just perpetuating a two tier social divide on yet another angle? There are those that that are the higher wage earners and are therefore far more likely to own their own home, or can afford to rent a home with off street parking and the ability to add in a home charger in order to take advantage of the added benefits that provides in considerably lower running costs. Then to further add insult to those lower paid people, the government actually giving those wealthier ones grants to purchase the cars.

While those in the lower income brackets, are more than likely to live in a house with no off street parking and no access to a home charger, they are also more likely to not be able to afford the payments on a new car anyway and driving a sub £5k car and even if they were able to get a secondhand EV for that kind of money, then even at 4 miles per kW , that 10kW is only enough for 40miles, thus making it far far cheaper to run an ICE car than to rely on having to charge at public chargers. 🤨

Edited 25 August, 202525 Aug by Graham Butcher

50 minutes ago, lol-lol said:

Would not be a problem for the Mini Cooper E. 150 Kw chargers and even if the power was shared 75 kw for left bay and 75 kw for right bay the Mini Cooper E is 75 kws so no foul there. The chargers we went to part of the rapidly growing Sainsbury Smartcharge https://smartcharge.co.uk/ network being rolled out.

Might be a different story for my Scenic which can charge up to 130 kwh but these Kempower charger do Dynamic power allocation so important to pick a slower charging partner if only has to share a stall with another EV. Don't think it would be much of with any of my EVs and if/when the Zoe gets (45 kw charging) gets replaced with the Renault 4, which has up to 80 kw charging speed again no problem there with sharing the 150 kw charger output.

This email has been written with electricity at 8.5 p per kwh.

Oh dear, there you go again, you really cannot see the problems can you. Yes, I get it that the mini cannot actually take 150kW at a go. You actually drive something sensible, but you know as well as I do that there are those who have far bigger more expensive cars, with bigger batteries and dual motors etc that are capable of accepting charges of 150kW and far higher.

I was asking what might for now be a hypothetical question but it is reasonable to expect that there will times when there would be 2 higher charging capable cars connected to the same charger and then they are more than likely going to throttling in action.

9 hours ago, Graham Butcher said:

Well, the other side of the coin would argue the opposite. Lets say for now that your right, they source from ethical sources, seeing as there is a high demand, those that were originally sourcing theirs from the same supply, who now cannot meet their requirements because more demand then supply, those others will obtain their Cobalt from not so ethical sources, whats the grand difference?

Wither way, because of the EV's increased demand over the years for Cobalt, it has lead to more environmental damage being done, just cannot escape from that aspect.

Yes and Yes, as more manufacturers switch their battery tech over to LFP, then there will be improvements, just as you say, that is also an inescapable fact, but however, that still resolve the other issues that already out there and as EV's grow in their artificial popularity and will in the powers to be, get their way will be the dominant mode of transport then their other inherent problems will come to the forefront even more and then we may be in even deeper water as a result.

Let me once again, reiterate that it is not EV's in there own right that I object to, it is the enforcement of their adoption as the ban on fossil fueled new cars gains more momentum. Remember this is not a natural consumer lead change.

Lets go back to the days when it was either walk, cycle or use horses, then Steam trucks were invented, then we saw the ICE cars slowly catching on. Was there at that time any forced adoption of mechanical transport? No, it was consumer driven and slowly the manufacturers improved their product, both in terms of efficiency and safety.

Lets come up to date a bit more and then we begin to see diesel being used as a fuel for trucks, and a few cars along the way. Then we had a massive coercion by governments to adopt diesel as the fuel of choice, it was the saviour of the human race, then they were told that it was not the magic bullet that they had believed it was and they have replaced that with the EV, history repeating itself all over again?

It depends on your beliefs about climate change. You can’t really compare the horse - steam - diesel/petrol evolution to electric road vehicles as each was a huge increase in performance that sold itself.

Without legislation to push it, what is the alternative - wait for sea levels to rise ?

7 hours ago, Graham Butcher said:

Well all of that above is all very interesting to those who have the space and the ability to charge at home, off road, but at £12 for 10Kw it just shows one of the main stumbling blocks. I really don't know if the UK Government for example are even aware of the fact that they are just perpetuating a two tier social divide on yet another angle? There are those that that are the higher wage earners and are therefore far more likely to own their own home, or can afford to rent a home with off street parking and the ability to add in a home charger in order to take advantage of the added benefits that provides in considerably lower running costs. Then to further add insult to those lower paid people, the government actually giving those wealthier ones grants to purchase the cars.

While those in the lower income brackets, are more than likely to live in a house with no off street parking and no access to a home charger, they are also more likely to not be able to afford the payments on a new car anyway and driving a sub £5k car and even if they were able to get a secondhand EV for that kind of money, then even at 4 miles per kW , that 10kW is only enough for 40miles, thus making it far far cheaper to run an ICE car than to rely on having to charge at public chargers. 🤨

The two, or more, tier society and even where the will is there to try and redress this, rather than the Con party who wish to conserve the status quo it is difficult but things can be done and I wish the UK government would do some of them.

Since the UK has left the EU over 3 years ago it then had the power to do more with VAT. So I would suggest they drop the Public charging VAT rate down to what was previous VAT rates ie 17.5%, then 15%, then 12.5% then 10% and then 8% and eventually 5% same as the home rate VAT.

The problem is that charging at home, for those of us that can, uses that base level supply of GRID electricity which can be offered very cheap from about 11 PM to 6 AM in the morning. If Public charging was made much cheaper then drivers might want to charge say on the way home from work or in the evening if they go out. Home charging at levels such as 7 kws suits the Grid. Cheaper fast public charging could cause big spikes in the requested supply. A lot of Infrastructure needs to be built to handle that and we can see how little the successive Con government have lacked investment in that area as well as so many other areas. It makes one wonder how the UK got £3T in debt, Covid's £400M apart, where did all the money go.

7 hours ago, Graham Butcher said:

Oh dear, there you go again, you really cannot see the problems can you. Yes, I get it that the mini cannot actually take 150kW at a go. You actually drive something sensible, but you know as well as I do that there are those who have far bigger more expensive cars, with bigger batteries and dual motors etc that are capable of accepting charges of 150kW and far higher.

I was asking what might for now be a hypothetical question but it is reasonable to expect that there will times when there would be 2 higher charging capable cars connected to the same charger and then they are more than likely going to throttling in action.

Sensible - Dual motor Teslas ?

Generally I am very critical of Toyota but with the latest Prius they have a little electric motor at the back, think about 10hp, to help get it moving in icy conditions. Good "sensible" thinking.

I always go for the smaller battery if I can as I can general exceed the WLTP range ie I can get close to 300 miles out of my 63 Kwh Scenic, it can get most of a charge it 36 kws, is a overnight charge and we are suppose to only charge it to 80% normally of course for NMC chemistry. Mini's usable battery is 36 kwh so again can get charged from zero to full in an overnight session on that cheap lecky due to few others wanting to use the power at that time.

To create cheap public it would have to be at those 11 pm to 6am currently. It will change as battery storage units are co-placed with the Public charges but there economically has to be a premium to cover the capital cost of the battery storage units.

As I mentioned recently I see much more variation of charging through the day ie higher prices like my brother sees for his Heat pump system on the Octopus pricing. Have to be some warnings that prices may change during charging ie start charging at 1555 and then the price jumps up at 1600 as below. When I visit i plug in via a 3 pin plug, start charging around 1900 and unplug 7 am. Pay him a bit over the odds for what I have used, everyone's a winner. https://octopus.energy/smart/cosy-octopus/

If I did not have a drive to charge 2 or 3 cars the simple solution is to get a Public Charging subscription. Tesla, sadly its Elon of course, do some very good charge rates considering the 20% VAT rate but there are others ie Ionity, even Gridserve do something I gather. Those of us with wall home chargers have paid out for these wallboxes, one way or another, they are not freebies in a box of cereal. Those who use public charging, at that is pretty much all of us even if we use home charging 96% of the time must realize the capital cost of these units. When my company owned Source London I saw the import costs of these units, staggering. I wish AC had taken off more. Going from 3 phase AC to DC is not as efficient within these chargers and hence there is a charge for the losses of course which can be several percent. Multiple complex issues I hope you appreciate and UK government has big decisions which due to those complexities are difficult to get across in a 30 seconds news headline.

9 hours ago, lol-lol said:

Well it cost me just over a £5 for the very nice Costa Hot chocolate with extra chocolate and marsh mallows.

Son sent me £11 for the charge on my Electroverse account and his hot chocolate, I did not charge him for the Public Charging training session.

So £5.50 transferred in my account for the electricity put in to his Mini. My Octopus account is well in credit so the £5.86 for £10.29 kwh of electricity will not alter my £133 monthly DD as I am about £300 in credit after months of low electricity due to using solar during the day and lecky at 8.5 per kwh at night. Plus I have had over £10 credited by Octopus in the last few weeks due to free sessions and saving sessions.

Paid for the Costa hot chocolates on my Am Ex and this monthly I get £50 cash back. The £11 for the two hot chocolates will not hit my Am Ex for another 50 days so my £11 ca sit in an account getting 6.25% from Lloyds until then.

Prices are nominal when considering all the incentives and recrediting systems at play.

For a socialist I sometimes can be quite a good capitalist player of the system !!

So overall the charge cost you £16... The point I was trying to make was that because you were there for so long you paid an extra £10 for two drinks... Something you probably wouldn't have done at a petrol station where you stop for 5 minutes?

I wonder how many EV users account for those 'hidden' extra costs?

1 hour ago, classic said:

It depends on your beliefs about climate change. You can’t really compare the horse - steam - diesel/petrol evolution to electric road vehicles as each was a huge increase in performance that sold itself.

Without legislation to push it, what is the alternative - wait for sea levels to rise ?

If you really want to know the true state of the air quality, then take a look at these snapshots taken just a few minutes ago.

It shows the parts of the world where real efforts need to be made to improve the air, but by and large, the UK and Europe is not one of them.
The last chart shows 12 years of historical data for just one monitoring station, at Stanford Le Hope, the same for the chart above it which shows the CO2 and Nox levels etc, and it also shows where the sources of the data have come from, the same sources as government and TFL etc get theirs from, form your own opinions on if we are being told the real truth or not.

Edited 25 August, 202525 Aug by Graham Butcher

#Some girls do and some girls don't, some girls need a lot of buying drinks and food and others don't'.

Same with boys.

Many will charge an EV at public chargers and not feel the needs to splash cash on sitting in or taking away drinks or food.

Or might do that even if they drive an ICE vehicle.

Car parks are occupied by people not driving ev's at various locations and doing what they do.

It takes all types of people.

I am of the tight type of person that eats what i want or need and budget myself to my means.

Home charging and saving loads can maybe mean i spend what is saved on whatever.

Public charging and paying more than running an ICE vehicle makes me tighter fisted and liable to have food or drink with me. Or if i want to splash out i do.

Meal Deals at Filling Station with a Bakery maybe. Or a McD or KFC something.

Not £3 or more for a hot drink when a 100 gram jar of coffee i have at home is £1.15

Local Crematorium in the countryside. Simply clever. More going in.

@lol-lol Sensible - Dual motor Teslas ?, who ever said that they were?? To me that is as bad as having a V6 or V8 stonking great motor under your bonnet, you like me, drive something sensible, yes I have a great Skoda Kodiaq 4x4 diesel, but it is only the 2L 150bhp one and returns on a decent run upto 53mpg.

Why I say that the modern combustion engine is head and shoulders cleaner and far more efficient overall than its predecessors is because when you consider my fist car was a 1957 Hillman Minx, weighs 968kg, 35bhp, 1200cc, 4 cylinder, did 31mpg, top speed of 66mph with a 0-62mph figure of 39.7seconds. Compare that with my 2019 Kodiaq, 1968cc, 150bhp, 1714kg, 53mpg, 0-62mph of 9.6seconds and a top speed of 122, they are a completely different breed of engine and getting better year on year.

We have millions of mechanics globally who fully understand them and can do carry out repairs in a timely manner, compare that to modern BEVs with anything other than normal day to day servicing, requiring specialists to work on them and we have a global shortage of skilled mechanics with the right skill set and qualifications to actually work on them with repairs taking months to complete.

What is the road tax band/ cost per year for your 4x4 Kodiaq ?

Edited 25 August, 202525 Aug by lol-lol

11 hours ago, skomaz said:

So overall the charge cost you £16... The point I was trying to make was that because you were there for so long you paid an extra £10 for two drinks... Something you probably wouldn't have done at a petrol station where you stop for 5 minutes?

I wonder how many EV users account for those 'hidden' extra costs?

It is a new Costa and I would not normally pay £6 for a hot drink it was as much showing support for a new business that had opened.

Was only there 11 minutes and Costa were quite slow getting the drinks. Would normally get the small option rather than the medium which is cheaper and not the mallows on top too either. Will check out the Sainsbury local next time. This new place is only 9 minutes from home and we went their to show my lad the ropes of public charging. Could have taken a hot chocolate with me in a travel cup but one needs to support a newly opened place else it will reduce its hours and staff and even disappear if not supported.

Must get a Costa card to I get every tenth one free and other offers.

3 hours ago, Graham Butcher said:

@lol-lol Sensible - Dual motor Teslas ?, who ever said that they were?? To me that is as bad as having a V6 or V8 stonking great motor under your bonnet, you like me, drive something sensible, yes I have a great Skoda Kodiaq 4x4 diesel, but it is only the 2L 150bhp one and returns on a decent run upto 53mpg.

Why I say that the modern combustion engine is head and shoulders cleaner and far more efficient overall than its predecessors is because when you consider my fist car was a 1957 Hillman Minx, weighs 968kg, 35bhp, 1200cc, 4 cylinder, did 31mpg, top speed of 66mph with a 0-62mph figure of 39.7seconds. Compare that with my 2019 Kodiaq, 1968cc, 150bhp, 1714kg, 53mpg, 0-62mph of 9.6seconds and a top speed of 122, they are a completely different breed of engine and getting better year on year.

We have millions of mechanics globally who fully understand them and can do carry out repairs in a timely manner, compare that to modern BEVs with anything other than normal day to day servicing, requiring specialists to work on them and we have a global shortage of skilled mechanics with the right skill set and qualifications to actually work on them with repairs taking months to complete.

You can quite happily keep running that Diesel Kodiaq for as long as you like and its brand new equivalent will continue to be sold until 2030. In 2035 you could buy a used 2029 Kodiaq if you wished to do so. Basically you aren’t going to be forced to do anything you don’t like for at least 20 years when the future supply of Diesel Kodiaq may start to run out.

21 minutes ago, classic said:

You can quite happily keep running that Diesel Kodiaq for as long as you like and its brand new equivalent will continue to be sold until 2030. In 2035 you could buy a used 2029 Kodiaq if you wished to do so. Basically you aren’t going to be forced to do anything you don’t like for at least 20 years when the future supply of Diesel Kodiaq may start to run out.

Yes, I'm well aware of that, but it does not fill me with happiness as I'm unlikely to be in a position to be able to buy a brand new car, or be still be driving in 20 years from, I'll be 95 then.

I do still firmly believe that unless the policy is reversed in double quick time to be 100% electric, that you younger people will be in a very sticky place indeed as the folly of banning fossil fueled cars will be become a nightmare as the flaws become apparent.

18 minutes ago, Graham Butcher said:

Yes, I'm well aware of that, but it does not fill me with happiness as I'm unlikely to be in a position to be able to buy a brand new car, or be still be driving in 20 years from, I'll be 95 then.

I do still firmly believe that unless the policy is reversed in double quick time to be 100% electric, that you younger people will be in a very sticky place indeed as the folly of banning fossil fueled cars will be become a nightmare as the flaws become apparent.

Did not use the quote function but I was asking what your car VED bracket is and what does that cost per year or month I was wondering ?

@lol-lol , the VED band is E and annual tax is just £195 which is more than the old Superb was at just £35, but that was a lighter car, but still at £195, it is still fairly low.

2 hours ago, lol-lol said:

It is a new Costa and I would not normally pay £6 for a hot drink it was as much showing support for a new business that had opened.

Was only there 11 minutes and Costa were quite slow getting the drinks. Would normally get the small option rather than the medium which is cheaper and not the mallows on top too either. Will check out the Sainsbury local next time. This new place is only 9 minutes from home and we went their to show my lad the ropes of public charging. Could have taken a hot chocolate with me in a travel cup but one needs to support a newly opened place else it will reduce its hours and staff and even disappear if not supported.

Must get a Costa card to I get every tenth one free and other offers.

Well, as a pensioner, there is no way that I'd be paying out £6 for a hot drink, new business or not, I'd not be able to afford that level of support. Many pensioners are scared to turn the heating on in the winter months even and £6 would buy a reasonable amount of warmth at home. I can get almost 3 jars of instant coffee from Lidl for that £6 and that will give me many cups of coffee.

11 minutes ago, Graham Butcher said:

@lol-lol , the VED band is E and annual tax is just £195 which is more than the old Superb was at just £35, but that was a lighter car, but still at £195, it is still fairly low.

Very good for a 4x4.

Are you seeing over 50 mpg actually on the dash ?

Roughly the Kodiaq diesel is producing 200 grams of CO2 per mile. How many miles gas it done to work out how much CO2it gas produced in its working life so far I wonder.

NOX does not seem relatively bad as I have seen numbers of 26 mg per km compared to the limit of 80 for diesels rather than 60 mg for petrol cars.

I had a 2 litre common rail VW diesel in an Altea XL SEAT I had. It seemed slower than the 1.9 PDs I had in Audi A4, A3 and Octavia estate L&K ans in drag races it lost. Also these 1.9 PDs did 10 to 20 mpg better with the Audi A4 capable of nearly 1000 range. These 1.9 PDs were the last diesels I thought were great to own and run. Yes they were a bit flattery but very impressive over the petrol of the time

Then petrols got a lot better, turbo, direct injection and almost matching the diesels mpg but with much lower NOX pollution.

Now both are outshone by EVs in running cost if one can home charge of course and the second and third hand EV market is now receiving lots of EVs thru it but not great EVs as they generally only came to market recently with possible exception of TESLAs which haven been outstanding EVs for a decade or more and Jonny Smiths £5k TESLA with free fuel for life shows an interesting options.

13 minutes ago, Graham Butcher said:

Well, as a pensioner, there is no way that I'd be paying out £6 for a hot drink, new business or not, I'd not be able to afford that level of support. Many pensioners are scared to turn the heating on in the winter months even and £6 would buy a reasonable amount of warmth at home. I can get almost 3 jars of instant coffee from Lidl for that £6 and that will give me many cups of coffee.

If one can then it is good for both businesses and the government ti sometimes overpay.

If we all take a scrimp policy then government would not be able to afford pensions, state and public servant ones, which are paid out of the ongoing public purse and not a put aside pension fund.

I want to spend money freely, pay heaps of VAT to go in to the public purse. Usually on productive items like more solar panels and batteries which can save me money but occasional luxuries especially if it is employing young people who safly will not have tge kind of life most of us in our twilight years due to the decline in the UK since WW2.

Costa gave one of my daughters lots of work through here degree time. Trained Barista, oddly does not drink coffee or tea.

Think it was Aldous Huxley in Brave New World who praise consumption ad necessary to keep the world economy turning and people employed and governments collecting revenue and as an ex Revenue Collector I can go with that.

Edited 26 August, 202526 Aug by lol-lol

Hello children.

I’m currently touring the Fjords of Norway in a rental EV. Despite the remoteness (this village has 1 hotel and zero other restaurants) there is ample charging. So far I’ve only needed to charge non-Tesla on Tesla superchargers whilst doing other things (comfort break, lunch, supermarket for supplies)

Got a rental Volvo EX40 twin motor, fully loaded with pano roof etc, only has 2000 km on the clock and not a scratch on alloys. One of the label contains a QR code for its battery passport. It says 50% cobalt is recycled.

I’ve had both shape Volvo s40’s and 840 before.

I’m not a fan of this Volvo, it is clearly still a XC40 ICE vehicle and thus very cramped interior, transmission hump, rear seat are like church benches. Google interface looks nice but it is as laggy as my 2014 Leaf in some places, this lag is why car reviewers think touch controls are distracting. Driver map display doesn’t show nav when using CarPlay, pointless. Pilot assist steering is very twitchy, this 2025 new car is nowhere near as smooth, as capable as my older HW3 Tesla AP. Despite perfect 15-20c weather, it is struggling to get under 300 wh/mi.

Personally, I think this EX40 twin motor is worth no more than £45k if bigger interior, similarly speced, equally capable in range and power, more efficient Model Y LR AWD are asking £50k. But pricing it up it is £60k, this is why legacy car makers are in trouble.

£6.00 for 2 Hot Drinks out.

£6.00 for 4.546 litres of petrol to take you 45 miles.

The same £6.00 a day for electric and gas is enough for heating and cooking in a house. £180 a month.

£2,160 a year. The UK is not The Arctic. You surely have a few months without needing the heating needed in a UK winter.

Pensioners in England are getting £200-£300 'Winter Fuel Payment 2025/26.

Then the £150 Home Warm Discount for a few million people. Credited onto your Electric Account.

Many pensioners if that is people 66 or over are taking the total pIth when they go on about being able to turn on the heating.

They had 50 years to think on about where they live and priorities and there have been Schemes for 50 years on Insulating properties etc.

If truly they never afforded luxuries through their working or not working life and only scraped by then that is one thing.

If they smoked, gambled, drank alcohol, had holidays etc and now can not manage if getting £227.10 a week if single or £346.60 from Pension Credit, Home Warm Discount of £150 & the Winter Fuel Payment there isw something far wrong. Because Pension Credit qualifies them for more benefits.

As to a Pensioner just on the State Pension of £230.25, they might be much worse of than those getting Pension Credit if they have very little extra in the way of a works pension.

Anyway, pensioners might have a damn sight more than Hard working or hardly doing a hands turn non pensioners.

But then plenty spend more on a Smart Phone or devices monthly than others spend just on Electric & Gas.

Cut your coat according to the cloth.

Edited 26 August, 202526 Aug by Ootohere

14 minutes ago, Ootohere said:

Many pensioners if that is people 66 or over are taking the total pIth when they go on about being able to turn on the heating.

They had 50 years to think on about where they live and priorities and there have been Schemes for 50 years on Insulating properties etc.

If truly they never afforded luxuries through their working or not working life and only scraped by then that is one thing.

If they smoked, gambled, drank alcohol, had holidays etc and now can not manage if getting £227.10 a week if single or £346.60 from Pension Credit, Home Warm Discount of £150 & the Winter Fuel Payment there isw something far wrong. Because Pension Credit qualifies them for more benefits.

As to a Pensioner just on the State Pension of £230.25, they might be much worse of than those getting Pension Credit if they have very little extra in the way of a works pension.

Anyway, pensioners might have a damn sight more than Hard working or hardly doing a hands turn non pensioners.

But then plenty spend more on a Smart Phone or devices monthly than others spend just on Electric & Gas.

Cut your coat according to the cloth.

I'm not one of them, but I have however, never smoked, gambled, or drank, never had holidays away from home. I have however raised 3 of my own Sons and a step Son, whose Father never paid any maintenance, worked full time and for a number of years when the kids were little, also had 2 part time jobs in the evenings and as my Father died young, I had to help support my Mother and help with the upkeep of her home, which needed replacement windows.

Worked 2 years after my official retirement date and never started taking my occupational pension until this year and this month should be my first month of it starting to pay me an income., So from £1226 State Pension, I have to pay £1008 a month, for rent, council tax, gas, electric, so leaves very little for anything else. I have been told that I don't qualify for any of the benefits that you listed as my savings are too high and this government have also grabbed my winter fuel benefit, and I don't get any Council tax relief or housing benefits either because my sons chip in each month as does my wife otherwise we would be up **** creek.

I used my tax free pension pot to finance the Kodiaq.