2 hours ago, Evolution13 said:

Re Stellantis / Vauxhall Frontera. I met the driver of this NHS Fleet car last night then again this lunch time. The car has done 57 miles since delivered. He took his wife to show her how to charge it. That was Thursday evening. I asked why he was on the AC tethered, & that was because that looked the right charger head. Anyway charger stuck in Thursday and nobody could help. Not Charge Place Scotland who restarted the charger, not the RAC that did not Recognise the Car. Not the NHS Fleet people who were not on call. Anyway they were still waiting for Assistance from RAC at 3am and no local taxis were answering or coming out. A boy racer that came around took them home 15 miles for 20. Nobody came out or got back to him yesterday until evening which was when i met him, they never arrived. Appointment today for a Tech to come between 7am-12 pm. We were there at 1.00pm. No show. I could not help, i did not want to disconnect the battery under the bonnet. So i left him in the torrential rain waiting. Storm Dave just hit. We tried starting and stopping charger, using emergency stop etc. Locking unlocking etc. Ziltz success.

That is totally disgraceful.

@Graham Butcher this is real world with BEV,s far too often. RAC actually clueless and unavailable, Angus Council have SWARCO for Charger Maintenance but they are not assisting releasing the charger cable. Vauxhall Service Centre Dundee that mis-dealt with my car clueless or just unhelpful. I will see tomorrow if the car has gone. Luckily he had a Yeti.

3 hours ago, Evolution13 said:

Re Stellantis / Vauxhall Frontera. I met the driver of this NHS Fleet car last night then again this lunch time. The car has done 57 miles since delivered. He took his wife to show her how to charge it. That was Thursday evening. I asked why he was on the AC tethered, & that was because that looked the right charger head. Anyway charger stuck in Thursday and nobody could help. Not Charge Place Scotland who restarted the charger, not the RAC that did not Recognise the Car. Not the NHS Fleet people who were not on call. Anyway they were still waiting for Assistance from RAC at 3am and no local taxis were answering or coming out. A boy racer that came around took them home 15 miles for 20. Nobody came out or got back to him yesterday until evening which was when i met him, they never arrived. Appointment today for a Tech to come between 7am-12 pm. We were there at 1.00pm. No show. I could not help, i did not want to disconnect the battery under the bonnet. So i left him in the torrential rain waiting. Storm Dave just hit. We tried starting and stopping charger, using emergency stop etc. Locking unlocking etc. Ziltz success.

I have had a tug of war with 2 AC destination chargers where the locking pin failed to release my cable even though my car unlocked and charge stopped.

The locking pin is quite a little diameter jobbie and whilst some force was needed it was not massive, maybe 30 or 40 kgs and not 100 or so.

Not sure it counts as vandalism, they were my company chargers and talking to the engineer he blamed lack of periodic maintenance.

Some chargers have little lever tabs one can press with the right screwdriver 🪛 and some gave a little extra release pull tucked away but that needs panel access.

A new charge show above should not have such issues though.

@lol-lol The charger has nothing to do with it. The charger was powered down. The new car with 57 miles on it held in the charger head. In Girvan when i posted about the Jaguar left 4 days because nobody could release the cable, the cable was disconnected from the charger and bagged up. Re Jaguar I-Pace emergency release. Normally with the Unlocking you Double press the Key fob if the car locked it's self and actually in some cases it is not a double press needed to release the cable but 3 unlock presses. Then the other thing is is the cable is not releasing and you can get in the car and open the bonnet, beside the hinge there is a red nylon ring pull. Do not pull towards you, pull up. That releases the cable from the charge port.

Edited 4 April4 Apr by Evolution13

1 hour ago, Evolution13 said:

@Graham Butcher this is real world with BEV,s far too often. RAC actually clueless and unavailable, Angus Council have SWARCO for Charger Maintenance but they are not assisting releasing the charger cable. Vauxhall Service Centre Dundee that mis-dealt with my car clueless or just unhelpful. I will see tomorrow if the car has gone. Luckily he had a Yeti.

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?

@Graham Butcher The i-Pace was a long way from home. The golfer went back to Preston and took the keys with him. The Frontera driver had only just had a brand new car delivered. I doubt he did anything wrong but sadly seems to know nothing what so ever about EV,s other than they get a car and a card and free charging. Half the fast chargers there now with local Carers MG,s left charging and collected at the start of the shift, the other half are out of order and have been for weeks,

@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.

2 hours ago, Evolution13 said:

Re Stellantis / Vauxhall Frontera. I met the driver of this NHS Fleet car last night then again this lunch time. The car has done 57 miles since delivered. He took his wife to show her how to charge it. That was Thursday evening. I asked why he was on the AC tethered, & that was because that looked the right charger head. Anyway charger stuck in Thursday and nobody could help. Not Charge Place Scotland who restarted the charger, not the RAC that did not Recognise the Car. Not the NHS Fleet people who were not on call. Anyway they were still waiting for Assistance from RAC at 3am and no local taxis were answering or coming out. A boy racer that came around took them home 15 miles for 20. Nobody came out or got back to him yesterday until evening which was when i met him, they never arrived. Appointment today for a Tech to come between 7am-12 pm. We were there at 1.00pm. No show. I could not help, i did not want to disconnect the battery under the bonnet. So i left him in the torrential rain waiting. Storm Dave just hit. We tried starting and stopping charger, using emergency stop etc. Locking unlocking etc. Ziltz success.

On 04/04/2026 at 17:52, Evolution13 said:

@lol-lol The charger has nothing to do with it. The charger was powered down. The new car with 57 miles on it held in the charger head. In Girvan when i posted about the Jaguar left 4 days because nobody could release the cable, the cable was disconnected from the charger and bagged up. Re Jaguar I-Pace emergency release. Normally with the Unlocking you Double press the Key fob if the car locked it's self and actually in some cases it is not a double press needed to release the cable but 3 unlock presses. Then the other thing is is the cable is not releasing and you can get in the car and open the bonnet, beside the hinge there is a red nylon ring pull. Do not pull towards you, pull up. That releases the cable from the charge port.

My Renaults will not move if the cable is still attached to the car ie a movement lock. Suppose I should find out how to unbind the cable from the car if it came to it, on the Mini Cooper e too. Will check the location of both, or 3 including the Scenic, so I can use if worse comes to worse. Found this link, might be a bit generic but it does sound a common feature to have a manual release mechanism tucked away in the "engine bay" somewhere.... https://leap24.co.uk/support/cable-stuck/

In other news I had my first Octopus bill covering mostly March but a bit of April. Average electricity cost 8.35p per KWh including Day and Night rate for the 163 KWh of lecky used in the first 4 days of April. Be looking forward for plenty of that for the next 3 months. If electricity goes up 20% in July then new challenge. Whether to go for one of this Balcony, plug in solar systems but I would probably always have a storage battery between solar collection and my ring main as I tend to only be using about 200 W most the time in the day with occasion 3KW boiling the kettle and with 90% of power use during Night time period to keep the cost down. More batteries needed but one that can run over 3KW loading I reckon. But then the Renault 5 can act as Vehicle to Load which could be useful when electricity prices go nuts in July.

@lol-lol That link is a good guide. Pity that after TESLA and until recently Stellantis was the other major BEV manufacturer with so many brands but basically the same platform but no mention. ? Did you not get a chance to fix your tariff for 12 months and your low rate?

54 minutes ago, Evolution13 said:

@lol-lol That link is a good guide. Pity that after TESLA and until recently Stellantis was the other major BEV manufacturer with so many brands but basically the same platform but no mention. ? Did you not get a chance to fix your tariff for 12 months and your low rate?

Had a look but not enticing for either electricity or gas.

It is the Night electricity rate which is key for my cheap running and that us not ruled by the price cap but at the discretion of Octopus and the other firms who offer dual rate tariffs.

My 12M Gas is set at 5.39p per kwh until mid June abd I will start looking at fixes next month.

Pla. To biuld up a but of credit, get my solar to provide all the day tine owerri need, even on cloudy days and find a nice big battery before Q3 starts. Less £100 per kwh in a criteria and at least able to supply 3 kw. Of course cpukd use thd R5 car at times as V2L.

Some signs ships might get thru in bigger numbers soon.

Eon Next brought the Offpeak night rate down the same pence as the day tariff.

15 minutes ago, Evolution13 said:

Eon Next brought the Offpeak night rate down the same pence as the day tariff.

What rate was that ?

I would be very happy with anything around 10 p per kwh at least for a few hours a day.

I think this Gulf war will encourage massive hone investment in batteries and balcony / plug in solar and with the nassive amount of wind power both in UK and other northern European countries there will be some hours most days and other periods of very cheap lecky it is just a case of storing it for a while.

Newspapers reporting thise eith incomes of less than £35k pa could get heat pump grants of 9k to 12k as well as plug in solar grants effectively reducing annual energy bills from £2k ish to a few hundred pounds a year and therefore vastly reduce any household dependable on the sky high cost of electricity, gas and heating oil !!

Wealthier households will be expected to adopt heat pump and solar solutions at their own expense or just put up with the high prices !!!

Charging the 3 EVs will continue to be our main electricity usage with the house being an add on which benefits from the Octopus dual time of use tariff with the incredibly low Night time tariff rate.

Edited 6 April6 Apr by lol-lol

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

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.

1 hour ago, lol-lol said:

What rate was that ?

I would ve very happy with anything around 10 p per kwh at leady for a few hours.

I think this Gulf war will encourage massive hone investment in batteries and balcony / plug in solar and with the nassive amount of wind power both in UK and other northern European countries there will be some hours most days and other periods of very cheap lecky it is just a case of storing it for a while.

Newspapers reporting thise eith incomes of less than £35k pa could get heat pump grants of 9k to 12k as well as plug in solar grants effectively reducing annual energy bills from £2k ish to a few hundred pounds a year and therefore vastly reduce any household dependable on the sky high cost of electricity, gas and heating oil !!

Wealthier households will be expected to adopt heat pump and solar solutions at their own expense or just put up with the high prices !!!

1 hour ago, Graham Butcher said:

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.

Think of the massive VAT collection from diesel and petrol with these evaluated prices. Maybe not wanting to kill a golden goose ?

7 hours ago, lol-lol said:

Think of the massive VAT collection from diesel and petrol with these evaluated prices. Maybe not wanting to kill a golden goose ?

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.

3 hours ago, Graham Butcher said:

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.

EV buyers, adopters still pay far more than they get in the handouts.

I got the biggest handouts under the Con government ie £3k, the VAT on the car was about £6k so tax v handout was still a sizeable net receipt rather than handout for government.

Scenic did not get a handout and wax actually a lower RRP than the Zoe such is the dramatic fall in EV cost.

The Renault 5, bought under the Lab government reign got a handout half the size than under the Cons and I was either expecting or motivated by it as it came along after I ordered it. Again the handout was less than the half the size of the VAT on the car so government a real net gainer on the tax versus handout. It is like the net effect is that the VAT rate for EVs being lower than Standard rate rather than a big handout!

Then there is the massive tax one gets on a car allowance which the government gets. In my case that was £3,600 a year of tax being paid.

With ICE cars there was also the tax being paid on fuel on a fuel card, both by the employer and the employee which the government starts to miss and has to find elsewhere which is another dimension.

The big miss on net taxation is where tax payers get to use the EV salary sacrifice scheme. Introduced by the Con government the tax avoidance on that can be massive. I was looking enviously at the numbers on an Audi etron where instead of paying £1300 a month one could be paying £900, a near £5k a year saving, or loss to government.

All done by Cons of Lab to help achieve the lowering of pollution and reliance on non UK energy I suppose.

@Graham Butcher EV,s have onboard AC chargers so not being able to unplug a tethered cable from an EV,s charge port is not going to be old connections if cars are brand new or nearly new. Or even getting your own cable uplugged from the car.

Re E Fuels. While there are Energy Issues globally then producing E Fuels required lots of Electricity. Good if there are excesses of Solar, Wind, Wave etc. Like in Scotland, renewables going unused because of the National Grid. Time to have E Fuel production in Scotland then.

Just now, Evolution13 said:

@Graham Butcher EV,s have onboard AC chargers so not being able to unplug a tethered cable from an EV,s charge port is not going to be old connections if cars are brand new or nearly new. Or even getting your own cable uplugged from the car.

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.

Edited 8 April8 Apr by Graham Butcher

1 hour ago, lol-lol said:

EV buyers, adopters still pay far more than they get in the handouts.

I got the biggest handouts under the Con government ie £3k, the VAT on the car was about £6k so tax v handout was still a sizeable net receipt rather than handout for government.

Scenic did not get a handout and wax actually a lower RRP than the Zoe such is the dramatic fall in EV cost.

The Renault 5, bought under the Lab government reign got a handout half the size than under the Cons and I was either expecting or motivated by it as it came along after I ordered it. Again the handout was less than the half the size of the VAT on the car so government a real net gainer on the tax versus handout. It is like the net effect is that the VAT rate for EVs being lower than Standard rate rather than a big handout!

Then there is the massive tax one gets on a car allowance which the government gets. In my case that was £3,600 a year of tax being paid.

With ICE cars there was also the tax being paid on fuel on a fuel card, both by the employer and the employee which the government starts to miss and has to find elsewhere which is another dimension.

The big miss on net taxation is where tax payers get to use the EV salary sacrifice scheme. Introduced by the Con government the tax avoidance on that can be massive. I was looking enviously at the numbers on an Audi etron where instead of paying £1300 a month one could be paying £900, a near £5k a year saving, or loss to government.

All done by Cons of Lab to help achieve the lowering of pollution and reliance on non UK energy I suppose.

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.

8 minutes ago, Graham Butcher said:

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.

Dont see it that way Graham.

I pay tens of thousands in tax every year.

I did not apply for the EV grant it is just the dealer who did the paperwork. He would have looked at me very strangely if I said no thanks. Possibly would have claimed it and added it to their margin.

I have been a massive net tax contritutor. Don't use ISAs and happy to pay tax on interest on savings over the limited allowed.

Like the EV grant my employer operated Salary Sacrifice in to pensions. Only opt out is to not pay anything in to pension which lets them off their contribution so as with the EV grant it is not sensible to not get it.

There tends to be rules with all these schemes, minimum values to get it so the government never losses out and always gets a net receipt with it.

Now Heat Pump grants is an entirely different scenario and scale.

£7.5k grant, reportedly going to £9k or even £12k in certain circumstances ie low income. Now there is some big handouts but sound like we can get people off gas and heating oil and on to cheap lecky.

Edited 8 April8 Apr by lol-lol

@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.

2 hours ago, lol-lol said:

EV buyers, adopters still pay far more than they get in the handouts.

I got the biggest handouts under the Con government ie £3k, the VAT on the car was about £6k so tax v handout was still a sizeable net receipt rather than handout for government.

Scenic did not get a handout and wax actually a lower RRP than the Zoe such is the dramatic fall in EV cost.

The Renault 5, bought under the Lab government reign got a handout half the size than under the Cons and I was either expecting or motivated by it as it came along after I ordered it. Again the handout was less than the half the size of the VAT on the car so government a real net gainer on the tax versus handout. It is like the net effect is that the VAT rate for EVs being lower than Standard rate rather than a big handout!

Then there is the massive tax one gets on a car allowance which the government gets. In my case that was £3,600 a year of tax being paid.

With ICE cars there was also the tax being paid on fuel on a fuel card, both by the employer and the employee which the government starts to miss and has to find elsewhere which is another dimension.

The big miss on net taxation is where tax payers get to use the EV salary sacrifice scheme. Introduced by the Con government the tax avoidance on that can be massive. I was looking enviously at the numbers on an Audi etron where instead of paying £1300 a month one could be paying £900, a near £5k a year saving, or loss to government.

All done by Cons of Lab to help achieve the lowering of pollution and reliance on non UK energy I suppose.

So despite your argument to the contrary there was still a net reduction in contributions to the Chancellor's coffers that needs to be 'redressed' by some other means...

But, the Chancellor and the Government on purpose fail to see the bigger picture which is, if people have more money left from lower costs for transport they spend it on something else. But if the are higher than average earners with more money than needed it could be on foreign holiday, or even 2nd homes. Tax the frequent fliers then and tax holidays homes x3. It is like Benefits and allowances, people spend and money stays in the economy. As it is with car buying it is the Chinese economy benefiting the most now it seems, be it BEV,s PHEV,s or ICE Cars.

Edited 8 April8 Apr by Evolution13