7 hours ago, lol-lol said:

I am still trying to get my head around that electrons go in the opposite direction to the current.

It's magic isn't it, like microwave ovens, radio waves etc.

Those electrons from the Denmark, France, Norway have to be declared at customs and then they might pop over to Ireland via the UK-Ireland interconnector. Wonder how long they spend in the UK or if one in and a different one out of the same quality.

Imagine the flow of electrons as the same as water in a pipe - you push water in one end and the water in the pipe already gets shoved out the other end “instantly” bringing water to you flowers, or electricity to a light bulb, but it isn’t really instant.

We are getting closer to our own French interconnector being ready, but it’s going to cause chaos with all those French speaking electrons mixing into our native English/Irish grid electrons. I really hope my toaster is able to translate!

8 hours ago, mac11irl said:

Imagine the flow of electrons as the same as water in a pipe - you push water in one end and the water in the pipe already gets shoved out the other end “instantly” bringing water to you flowers, or electricity to a light bulb, but it isn’t really instant.

We are getting closer to our own French interconnector being ready, but it’s going to cause chaos with all those French speaking electrons mixing into our native English/Irish grid electrons. I really hope my toaster is able to translate!

Is the UK taking a bit too much margin on handling power from France goin in to Ireland ?

These interconnectors, 1.4 GWs, seems to be a common size, are getting longer and longer lengths across the sea bed.

UK was evaluation an interconnector from Morocco !

A great tradition of laying sea cables since the great ship the Great Eastern was laying cables across the Atlantic in the 19th century.

If we could wire up the world we could provide more cheap solar, renewable power 24 hours maybe.

Then there is collection from satellites one day and beaming it down perhaps.

14 minutes ago, lol-lol said:

UK was evaluation an interconnector from Morocco !

The UK government decided to not progress with a Contract for Difference (CfD) for the Morocco – UK Power Project.

This decision was announced in June 2025, and left the project without an off-take route. This was despite it being privately financed in its entirety, with Xlinks taking on all investment risk.

Xlinks continues to explore alternatives to bring the Project’s value to both Morocco and Britain. You can view the official statement on the decision by clicking here.

The title of European Car of the Year 2026 will shortly be announced from the 7 finalists.

The Skoda Elroq is a fancied car and would break Skoda's duck on winning this competition.

Top Gear have chosen the Renault 4 as their favourite EV for 2026 but I doubt Renault will win a third in a row CoTY title after the Scenic win in 2024 and R5 win this year 2025.

The other 5 candidates are the Dacia Bigster, Citreon C5 Aircross, Fiat Grand Panda, Kia EV4, Merc CLA. All good cars. The Merc CLA near 500 mile range for an EV whilst not a completely silly price and will soon not be liable for the Expensive Car Supplement I gather. EV dominance seems to be well embedded amongst the 60 publications that vote for European CoTY, incl UK ones.....

Autocar

Which of these seven models will be 2026 Car of the Year?...

Car of the Year jurors gathered recently to whittle 29 new cars down to a shortlist of seven...

Why they call them car of the year for a year not yet here when there will be be new cars out next year is just the strangest of things. They are driving and scoring cars available now. this being 2025.

4 minutes ago, Stonekeeper said:

The UK government decided to not progress with a Contract for Difference (CfD) for the Morocco – UK Power Project.

This decision was announced in June 2025, and left the project without an off-take route. This was despite it being privately financed in its entirety, with Xlinks taking on all investment risk.

Xlinks continues to explore alternatives to bring the Project’s value to both Morocco and Britain. You can view the official statement on the decision by clicking here.

We have started to use Electric trucks from the tip of southern Spain and there performance is incredible as the power of the e-trucks is so much more the ICE trucks and the time saved during the journey to Madrid and beyond makes up for their charging time needed and I would like to see interconnectors from Spain which has so much solar etc. The do need more batteries to give the system inertia resilience as exposed by the massive outage earlier this year.

Morocco also has incredible solar production, not just photovoltaic cells but their focused sunlight heating salt to incredible temperatures which can keep electricity production thru the night until the sun comes up in the morning. Africa has super massive solar potential and supplying it to us northern nations. Considering how much per kwh the nuclear electricity is going to cost us from Hinkley and Sizewell what can be offered from Southern Europe and North Africa could be really cheap but we will be committed to paying the expensive stuff from the UK nuke sites.

Would like to see the Brittany ferries convert to electrical power as is happening on the Norwegian ferries, being able to charge ones EV when sailing across the Bay of Biscay. My Electric Dream.

3 minutes ago, Evolution13 said:

Why they call them car of the year for a year not yet here when there will be be new cars out next year is just the strangest of things. They are driving and scoring cars available now. this being 2025.

Cars out now will be model year 2026. MY26 Next year they will be building MY27

2 minutes ago, Evolution13 said:

Why they call them car of the year for a year not yet here when there will be be new cars out next year is just the strangest of things. They are driving and scoring cars available now. this being 2025.

Not available in the UK but perhaps available in Europe as they will make a batch of the LHD ones before making RHD ones. We will not see the top selling Mk6 Clio, or the Twingo, until 2027 apparently. Which of the 7 candidates are not available in the UK yet. Sat in the R4 and Bigster.

R4, like my R5, compromised in the rear seating area. Joy to drive though, not quite a good as the Mini but fair bit cheaper. Bigster OK but nothing great I thought, some nice new engines though. Thought CLA is being delivered now but it is not that a different shape etc so probably would not notice one. Granda Panda sounds good value but worry about winter range as I thought heat pump was not standard. EV4 are being delivered I understood, Elroqs also being delivered I read.

@Stonekeeper I know all about how car model years are named MY26 after about the summer revisions. Makes no difference really. The All New Skoda Fabia Mk3 was AutoCar car of the years in 2014 for 2015 before any were driven in the UK or available to customers in right hand drive, then it turned out to just be one of the engine choices. It was good for Skoda UK advertising they had the 2015 Car of the Year before Christmas 2014. Sports Personality 2025 was this week. There might be a new superstar next year..

7 minutes ago, Stonekeeper said:

Cars out now will be model year 2026. MY26 Next year they will be building MY27

R4+ will have the new battery packs entitling the car to the £3750 UK EV grant.

More and more European cars will probably get the UK larger £3750 grant and Far East made EV will have to lower their prices to complete.

Did some work a few years ago on the import declarations of cars coming in to the UK, before my current employment who moves 4M finished cars, and I was stunned how low the import values were and therefore how different they were to the retail price. For the UK, as with the EU, there is an addition to the value of the UK buying the car from the Asian country of the cost of freight and that is a significant uplift in declared customs value and just shows amazing the Asian countries are in still being good value despite coming half way round the world !

Looking forward to the new 2026 KIA PV5 Passenger. Maybe a contender for car of the year 2027, or the New Skoda Epiq.

9 minutes ago, Evolution13 said:

@Stonekeeper I know all about how car model years are named MY26 after about the summer revisions. Makes no difference really. The All New Skoda Fabia Mk3 was AutoCar car of the years in 2014 for 2015 before any were driven in the UK or available to customers in right hand drive, then it turned out to just be one of the engine choices. It was good for Skoda UK advertising they had the 2015 Car of the Year before Christmas 2014. Sports Personality 2025 was this week. There might be a new superstar next year..

The thing that is not uncommon is when they drive Left Hand drives and then find when they come to the UK they are not quite as well handling as when on Continental European Roads, controls not really suited to Right hand drive cars, or there are issues needing ironed out like the brake pedal / firewall. There is also Haymarket Media Group / Autocar / What car naming cars Car of the Year and great reviews, and then a year or 3 later when the snagging faults are still not ironed out they say nothing. Maybe even making the Model their Used Car choice. Tha

2 hours ago, lol-lol said:

Is the UK taking a bit too much margin on handling power from France goin in to Ireland

I dunno, but I’d say it may have more to do with a certain “B” word leading to government decisions on trying to keep foreign procurement within the EU Zone.

I know it’s caused us several pains in the arse with tendering for equipment and services that get awarded to UK suppliers.

Even down to stupid stuff like the D&A urine test kits our CMO and random/post incident screening service use. Ended up with dozens of us having to be recalled for repeat testing because the samples being held in storage while a paperwork snafu - who’s paying the customs, us or the supplier? (Ultimately us, but directly or via the supplier on a re-charge..) - went on so long the samples were deemed compromised.

4 minutes ago, mac11irl said:

I dunno, but I’d say it may have more to do with a certain “B” word leading to government decisions on trying to keep foreign procurement within the EU Zone.

I know it’s caused us several pains in the arse with tendering for equipment and services that get awarded to UK suppliers.

Even down to stupid stuff like the D&A urine test kits our CMO and random/post incident screening service use. Ended up with dozens of us having to be recalled for repeat testing because the samples being held in storage while a paperwork snafu - who’s paying the customs, us or the supplier? (Ultimately us, but directly or via the supplier on a re-charge..) - went on so long the samples were deemed compromised.

A sad time indeed. My employer was of the super massive logistics companies and i think we were one of the beneficiaries of the B change and doubley sk for Ireland using the UK as a land bridge as most goods did.

INCOTERMS dictate who pays etc the fees ar the time, though I would presume cars can sit in a customs wh, Cork, Dublin, Rosslare, if not a order fulfilment. The ship that brought my Renaults from Northern France calls in Ireland but mist goods come via the the UK land bridge j would gave thought and we do a customs transit as the UK remained part od the Union Trabsit agreement but it all adds to the cost.

France spent hundreds of millions of Euros on new systems. Declaring car customs entries were extra fun as the VIN needs declaring which led to the number of lines being huge when the car boats can have many hundreds or even thousands of cars on board. Being the customs Officer for one of the Japanese car companies was also fun as cars were valued in Yen which meant the declared numeric values were well in to the billions.

So many issues with the B situation, but where they is muck there is brass as they say for us doing the clearance, for the other 99% of businesses a nightmare without a happy finale. Hopefully big improvements in the not to distant future and cheaper most things but the Anti Dumping on EVs must be a pain and I wonder if RHD cars, nearly new, make their way from the UK, not northern Ireland as that is treated as EU I suppose, to avoid that near 50% of import duties on some makes of Chinese EVs ie MG, Maxus, SAIC...

EY's press release on 2026 on car sales in general.

Think they have the trend wrong but an interesting opinion....

A response by EVangilist, as MacMaster would say, a strongly worded response and veiled accusations referencing Toyota etc , his vid below the EY extract. Be interest to hear what my Alma Mater "pwc" as well as Deloittes and KPMG are saying on the subject as well......

---

Half of global car buyers plan to choose internal combustion engines, a 13-point jump as electric vehicle demand softens

• Range anxiety, charging gaps and geopolitics fuel growing hesitation towards battery electric vehicles (BEV)

• Consumers prioritize essential connected features, with nearly four in ten citing high service costs as a barrier

Global car buyers are putting the brakes on adoption of electric vehicles, with many shifting back to internal combustion engines (ICEs) and reassessing electric vehicle ownership, according to the new EY Mobility Consumer Index (MCI), a global survey examining sentiment and buying intent across major automotive markets.

Global consumers driven back to ICE vehicles as EV enthus...

LONDON, 9 DECEMBER 2025. Global car buyers are putting the brakes on adoption of electric vehicles, with many shifting back to internal combustion engines (ICEs) and reassessing electric vehicle owner

FFS, Council chargers in Scotland. I have been in 4 council regions this past week and 50 kW CCS chargers only put out 26 or 30 kW max from low percentage of the battery. It is not the car because i put it on a TESLA and a MFG Ultra Supercharger when over a 50% to see & got 52 kW showing & still charging at 30 then 20 kW right up from 80% then 90 % til at 99%. 65, 70 & 75 pence a kW on Council Public chargers & 55 & 79 on the Ultra Rapids. Damn right on going ICE when you are paying money from your own income and even on a State pension plus you are still being taxed & paying this much public charging. Not interested in the Cheapness of home or work charging, or others paying for it. That is their kettle of 'Much cheapness'. Retired, Social, domestic, leisure, recreational, WORLD IS YOUR OYSTER. Cheaper by petrol or diesel. Even if you 'Just got a Tesla'. Because you are not always charging Offpeak hours or even maybe near Superchargers.

Edited 23 December, 202523 Dec by Evolution13

Many of the YouTubers have reporting similar events across the whole of the UK for some considerable time, as I have posted about before but so many piled scorn on the reports claiming there were no issues with the charging infrastructure at any time and with proper planning etc etc blah blah. Perhaps those people will believe it now you have reported it as well?

Edited 23 December, 202523 Dec by Graham Butcher

Some you tubers with big battery cars went to low output chargers and said how slow they were when the vehicle could be charged at Ultra Rapid chargers. Some seemed to on purpose head to these slower chargers. Business users, Video Producers, driving props for their videos. I watched @domhnall,s (Enyaq Gorm / Blue Enyaq) Vid Short yesterday where he was in Dundee @ an Ionity charger saying that the infrastructure is not as poor as some might think (Paraphrase_ ) That made me laugh because Dundee has lead with the best or most charging per head or EV drivers anywhere in Scotland. ....... You pay the high tariffs from commercial providers and you pretty much get the speed and the reliability of these faster / more powerful chargers. It is a higher cost for many private drivers not getting paid to travel. When the cost for pathetic unreliable chargers then that really is a P1th take. The infrastructure public money paid for can be total crap. In Scotland so much waste of public money on paying for such poor charging infrastructure will be investigated at some point probably, at a further waste to the public purse.

Edited 24 December, 202524 Dec by Evolution13

25 minutes ago, Evolution13 said:

Some you tubers with big battery cars went to low output chargers and said how slow they were when the vehicle could be charged at Ultra Rapid chargers. Some seemed to on purpose head to these slower chargers. Business users, Video Producers, driving props for their videos. I watched @domhnall,s (Enyaq Gorm / Blue Enyaq) Vid Short yesterday where he was in Dundee @ an Ionity charger saying that the infrastructure is not as poor as some might think (Paraphrase_ ) That made me laugh because Dundee has lead with the best or most charging per head or EV drivers anywhere in Scotland. ....... You pay the high tariffs from commercial providers and you pretty much get the speed and the reliability of these faster / more powerful chargers. It is a higher cost for many private drivers not getting paid to travel. When the cost for pathetic unreliable chargers then that really is a P1th take. The infrastructure public money paid for can be total crap. In Scotland so much waste of public money on paying for such poor charging infrastructure will be investigated at some point probably, at a further waste to the public purse.

I'd the answer to have battery cabinets clise buy ? They are getting so much cheaper and will do increasingly with LFP and soon sodium batteries.

One significant problem here is the theft and vandalism of cables and with battery packs next to the chargers they would be a target too. More design and hardening required for these valuable assets.

Yes the batteries would cost a bit but the batteries next to the charger coukd charge up in cheap overnight lecky and be mire profitable for operator as well as improving their margin.

Edited 24 December, 202524 Dec by lol-lol

We will see. Castleview Park & Ride Stirling. Millions spent, there are canopies with Solar panels and there is battery storage and over 60 AC charger points and only 4 DC 50 kW and they are giving out a max of 30 kW for weeks now, even when AC chargers near empty. A Max charging time 40 Minutes then £1 a minute on the DC. There is 1 Electric Bus charger sitting in an awkward place and never used. If you park on a pavement next to the bus stance you could use to charge your car. For this the DC is 65 pence a kWh and the AC 50 pence.

Edited 24 December, 202524 Dec by Evolution13

You have a different remberance of events to me. I think it was happening in a lot of cases because they either could not find a suitable charger, or there were chargers but also had a queue for the more powerful ones because they were not as common then as they might be now, or as in the case of Car Wow tests and many other general automotive channels, that in many cases they were still being installed at various motorway services where they take all their cars along the same route inorder to give them a proper test in as near as possible identical conditions (regardless of whether they are ICE, PHEV, Hybrid or BEV) for comparison testing, (hills, road surfaces, speeds, distance, and time of day etc). By doing so they can get a good measure of how the various cars handle the conditions and how they rate for overall comfort and economy etc. Harry's Garage and Number 27 do just that as they get a feel for how each car drives and feels on the same stretch of road, to get a fair test of each car.

Strangest cases. Taycan driver, daily drive, using lots of chargers, never remembering how to position car, how different chargers would start, order of plugging in etc. A pantomime. Set up to fail and show failures.

2 minutes ago, Evolution13 said:

Strangest cases. Taycan driver, daily drive, using lots of chargers, never remembering how to position car, how different chargers would start, order of plugging in etc. A pantomime. Set up to fail and show failures.

MacMaster? But he is not a what I call a proper automotive channel, more of an entertainment channel, Carnage and Geoff Buys cars are more of an automotive channel than he is.

Edited 24 December, 202524 Dec by Graham Butcher

The very one. Passing the subsidised charging from Porsche, or paid really by Porsche buyers. Lease a business vehicle, tax benefits, reclaim VAT etc. Using as a works vehicle & mumping about Insurance, Maintenance, cost of tyres, charging, etc etc. Real World for a Youtuber, not for many Porsche Taycan driving Business Users or even private drivers. It is the real world that matters, and not the expensive cars, or the big battery ones, the ones out their in the majority, the ones that should be electric, town and city use, charging at public chargers. Plenty of those are parked up though and fleet cars, and councils etc. Using the chargers and parked for many hours and meaning The General Public are denied their use.