Pensioners getting their Winter Fuel Payments in England / Wales & now in Scotland can maybe run an EV for the whole winter or even the year just from that money.

Or there is the Warm Home Discount as well in England / Wales for some, and a new set up in Scotland for some.

Maybe instead of using 'Warm Banks' etc to keep warm they can go sit in the EV using the cheap energy from overnight that they charged the car with, and maybe heated the house or storage heaters using.

13 hours ago, Ootohere said:

'AC on is not making a sound', it is the fan speed that will make a sound, or not.

Taking it out of town was just too simple an idea to be able to 'open it up'.

Dum and dim.

Why so negative, were you actually there when he took the little "5" on a test, he might have been given specific instructions not to take it out of the town etc, or he might have only had it for a certain time limit. He was actually being really glowing and was gushing about how good the car was and all you can do is knock him and poke fun at him?

Yes, it is the fan that makes the noise in air conditioning, but do you know where the fan is on the Renault 5 as opposed to where it is in his Taycan? For instance, my first car was a 1957 Hillman Minx and IIRC the heater fan on that car was right at the front in the engine bay next to the radiator and that made made it very quiet inside the car. That car also had a very ingenuous vent system that by pulling a knob beneath the dashboard a blast of cooling air would be directed right into front footwells that was ram driven direct from intakes directly behind the front radiator grill, a very useful thing on a really hot day.

Car designers of today could learn something by taking a look at just how things were done years ago, we really do make a lot of things overly complicated, just because we can, when sometimes keeping it simple might be the best option.

Edited 27 June, 202527 Jun by Graham Butcher

11 minutes ago, Ootohere said:

Pensioners getting their Winter Fuel Payments in England / Wales & now in Scotland can maybe run an EV for the whole winter or even the year just from that money.

Or there is the Warm Home Discount as well in England / Wales for some, and a new set up in Scotland for some.

Maybe instead of using 'Warm Banks' etc to keep warm they can go sit in the EV using the cheap energy from overnight that they charged the car with, and maybe heated the house or storage heaters using.

Maybe, but I bet most would use it to help their heating bill at home, would you like to sit outside in your warm car all day instead of being in the comfort of your armchair etc, watching TV etc, with the handy loo just a few steps away without having to get of the car into whatever the weather outside is chucking at you, and back again to car and risk catching something really nasty in process.

We all know that you love your electric car and are passionate about it and generally all electric cars in general and you can no problems with them, but come on not everyone shares that passion.

I do it often @Graham Butcher .

It is an option rather than going to some community centre.

But it was a non serious post.

Once the Regional Charging happens you lovely people in the South where there is energy shortages can pay the proper tariffs / going costs for the electricity.

Edited 27 June, 202527 Jun by Ootohere

PS, i did bother my backend to drive a R5 and pay attention to its bits an pieces and it modes and performance. & not just within a 30 mph speed limit. Tried the heating & cooling just to see how easy it was, and tried the voice control which is there and worked better than most that have issues with accents. BMW / MINI have had systems that were particularly sh!te.

Edited 27 June, 202527 Jun by Ootohere

2 hours ago, Ootohere said:

I do it often @Graham Butcher .

It is an option rather than going to some community centre.

But it was a non serious post.

Once the Regional Charging happens you lovely people in the South where there is energy shortages can pay the proper tariffs / going costs for the electricity.

I'd still rather sit in my own armchair/sofa than go to a community centre or sit in my car, each to their own I suppose, but thats just me with my logical hat firmly on my head.

Your not going to freeze to death are you even if you leave the windows open. Not exactly known for outdoor winter sports down south in the UK.

42 minutes ago, Ootohere said:

Your not going to freeze to death are you even if you leave the windows open. Not exactly known for outdoor winter sports down south in the UK.

We do get some cold temperatures here in the midlands, second coldest region in the UK.

Minus 20c back in 2010. We are the furthest from the sea in the UK. Also get high temps. Looking like well over 30c early next week.

Extremes.

Octopus GO rates from July 2025.......

Standing charge now gone to 4 decimals and day time energy cost to 4 decimals !!!!

My standing charge is now 2.1453 p cheaper per day and my day time peak rate 0.0001 p per kWh cheaper, whoopie!

Suppose one should take into account inflation ie prices have not gone up so therefore effectively have gone down relatively.

That would be, assuming 0.85% inflation per quarter, off peak and peak unit rate has dropped by 0.24p per quarter and daily standing charge is going down to by 2.58p per day in real terms.

Little disappointed but overall OK. More investment in batteries and solar needed I think.

Edited 27 June, 202527 Jun by lol-lol

🐙 IOG rates....

Looking back, diesel was £1.20 to £1.45 per litre back in 2018.

In today's money is:

Yet diesel are less than £1.40 at most petrol stations I've seen. In effect, price of petrol/diesel had been going down over the years. A fuel duty increase is long over due.

Electricity price have been taken on a wild ride due to price structure tied to fossil gas. https://www.carbonbrief.org/factcheck-why-expensive-gas-not-net-zero-is-keeping-uk-electricity-prices-so-high/

However, with adequate home provision, one can easily make sure electricity price don't change much, even see it go down. From 12p/kWh off-peak economy 7, to 10p/kWh on Bulb EV tariff, to IOG at 7p/kWh.

A electricity pricing system restructure is long overdue.

From that, we can only see bigger variations between peak and off-peak due to highly variable nature of renewables. Giving more room to lowering electricity bill for those prepared.

14 hours ago, wyx087 said:

Looking back, diesel was £1.20 to £1.45 per litre back in 2018.

In today's money is:

Yet diesel are less than £1.40 at most petrol stations I've seen. In effect, price of petrol/diesel had been going down over the years. A fuel duty increase is long over due.

Electricity price have been taken on a wild ride due to price structure tied to fossil gas. https://www.carbonbrief.org/factcheck-why-expensive-gas-not-net-zero-is-keeping-uk-electricity-prices-so-high/

However, with adequate home provision, one can easily make sure electricity price don't change much, even see it go down. From 12p/kWh off-peak economy 7, to 10p/kWh on Bulb EV tariff, to IOG at 7p/kWh.

A electricity pricing system restructure is long overdue.

From that, we can only see bigger variations between peak and off-peak due to highly variable nature of renewables. Giving more room to lowering electricity bill for those prepared.

Totally agree on the maths but the Con and Labour government both feared putting tax on diesel and petrol as it is such a vote loser.

What UK should do is adopt an adaptive daily or weekly change in Excise duties so the tax per litre ie excise plus VAT for those that pay retail. When oil is cheap add a but more excise and back it off when crude is high cost.

It would mean government gets its circa 80p a litre no matter what the price of crude is. I think Belgium and a few other countries do this. Smart taxation IMO.

Businesses might complain but would perhaps prompt a bit more and quicker transition to EV on heavy goods vehicles which seem to be lagging cars and vans.

Edited 28 June, 202528 Jun by lol-lol

Seems to be a swell to stop/de-incentivise EVs charging around tea time ie 1630 to around 2000 hours.

As with the Octopus Cosy tariff for Heat Pump the fix seems simple to me.

We EV drivers are happy to benefit from our 7p / 8.5p cheap tariff in the early mornings and I think most of us would be OK with say 40p per kwh at the peak tea time period especially if me get a bit of a discount for the normal day time period. Maybe a drop to 25 or 24p for 6am to 1600 as well as 2000 to 2359.

If it stops dirty gas etc peaker plants firing up at tea time I am all for it and will work around the expensive peak time. Surprised it has not been put out there and applied already.

If one needs a bit of charge at peak time then will have to pay the premium, drive slower or find another way from A to B.

Public EV charging hub and car park and near KFC, and McD. Issue is arses at the council and the wrong bins. Ones birds can just pull stuff out of. Crap mobile reception area as well. Not good with EV charging.

Those bins are perfectly OK, more likely the people don't actually understand what litter is maybe, we have similar bins down South but not the amount of litter. Down here McDonalds operate a litter patrol and collect any of their discarded packaging etc into plastic bags and then put them into their own hinged lids on them.

Edited 30 June, 202530 Jun by Graham Butcher

@Graham Butcher actually not ok and you can sit watching while charging and birds will pull stuff out. The bins are often set on fire as well so replaced often with just another single one. I have asked why not a lidded bin, cleansing managers reply is people do not use those. Well this one gets rammed full, overflows during a weekend and rubbish and scraps all around. And rats. Which is why the dog likes being here to check them out as well as chasing birds. Vorsprung Durch Technik, not with this council. Others can do it better. PS. As at fast food places there can be bins that you throw stuff towards the big opening and birds can not get in. Like a big trumbone / euphonium opening. With large capacity . Much cheapness. We have 3 Wheely bins per house. Public places a Wheely bin or 3 padlocked to a post. Square hole cut in lid. Like at some lay-bys.

Edited 30 June, 202530 Jun by Ootohere

@Ootohere well that to my mind speaks far more about the attitude of the natives and also of course of both KFC and McDonalds for not keeping the litter collected up and removed from site or is that perhaps a reflection on the local council for not making that a condition of granting them a permit to trade? The bins are much same as those employed in most places and you can't blame the poor old birds for them pulling the litter out looking for the odd titbit.

You say the bins are often set on fire as well, I suppose you have to thank the local youths for that, probably bored out of their tiny brains as they can't be much else going on to occupy their minds I'm guessing, seems strange to me as for some reason, my impression of Scotland was that the people seemed to be more civilised and well behaved then the English, how wrong was I?

KFC and McDonald's do keep theit nearby litter collected. But this is a council parking hub at council buildings and near by. Ladies and gents that are Friends of the Loch tidy up, hang bird feeders etc. Maybe if they did not the Council might actually have to put someone on the job. Oddly the various departments employees with EV,s charge there but are selectively Tommy. Deaf dumb and blind. Like they were in the Scottish Government over charging hubs. Toilets etc.

Edited 30 June, 202530 Jun by Ootohere

This is quite a good comparison of a Nissan Leaf and Nissan Micra Petrol, both purchased new and kept for 3 years, 48,000 miles and after 3 years, and even assuming you was able to charge your leaf 100% free while your micra would have cost you £6,400 for petrol, the micra would still be the more cost effective car overall by £13,800 saved in your back pocket.

Now that amount would vary for other cars and of course does not cover things like tyres, servicing etc, but even with the micra requiring servicing which the leaf wouldn't (allegedly) you would still be better off with the micra.

1 hour ago, Graham Butcher said:

This is quite a good comparison of a Nissan Leaf and Nissan Micra Petrol, both purchased new and kept for 3 years, 48,000 miles and after 3 years, and even assuming you was able to charge your leaf 100% free while your micra would have cost you £6,400 for petrol, the micra would still be the more cost effective car overall by £13,800 saved in your back pocket.

Now that amount would vary for other cars and of course does not cover things like tyres, servicing etc, but even with the micra requiring servicing which the leaf wouldn't (allegedly) you would still be better off with the micra.

So what I'm hearing is excellent news for second owner? Much cheaper vehicle + cheap charging = cheap motoring :)

But the assumption of the video is that brand new Leaf costs £30k, Micra is £25k.

Most expensive Leaf I can find on autotrader, pre-reg because Leaf have stopped production, is £18k

https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202503130102481

There's some man-maths going on here in the video.

'Luckily it's on lease, so it will go back'.

As it always has been from the day it was ordered and specced up and a load of money put up front.

Yet the song and dance continues. Get shot of it, if it was not such a good little earner.

Edited 30 June, 202530 Jun by Ootohere

3 hours ago, wyx087 said:

So what I'm hearing is excellent news for second owner? Much cheaper vehicle + cheap charging = cheap motoring :)

But the assumption of the video is that brand new Leaf costs £30k, Micra is £25k.

Most expensive Leaf I can find on autotrader, pre-reg because Leaf have stopped production, is £18k

https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202503130102481

There's some man-maths going on here in the video.

But he said if you had bought three years ago?

AI Overview

The Nissan Leaf Tekna OTR (On-The-Road) price for the 2022 model was £28,495.

AI Overview

The On-the-Road (OTR) price for a new Nissan Micra in 2022 varied depending on the trim level and optional features, but generally ranged from £12,995

Depreciation is terrible, if someone went in with £30,000 a bought and owned the car.

Some will have, and might then want to sell after 3 years of maybe very cheap charging.

Loads of money lost.

Not if they keep 6 years or more and have cheap charging and servicing.

But, it was a Lease car. Did a job, rental paid on it, tax saved if a business user.

If i Bought an Electric MINI at £35,500 & now find 18 months later i could by the same for £15,000 or less that is lots of depreciation.

But Motability bought it, and never paid anything like £35,500, more like £25,000.

I am paying over 3 years £11,000 for driving it. plus buying electric.

Maybe at 3 years old the supplying dealer or some other will buy it for £10,000 & advertise at £12,500.

Or that was how it was but maybe not as things are now. I hope in 22 months to get the one i have for £11,000, or one to the same spec, fully loaded.

To get a Petrol Cooper S 3 years old i will have to pay maybe £12,000 on a car that was £26,000 new.

If generally the Micra ranged from £12,995 then how much was the cheapest ones if the AVERAGE is just below that and the moat expensive ones more than double that?

Was it £12,000??

There must have been lots of very very very low priced ones being sold, and very very few of the expensive ones.

Edited 30 June, 202530 Jun by Ootohere

3 hours ago, Stonekeeper said:

But he said if you had bought three years ago?

AI Overview

The Nissan Leaf Tekna OTR (On-The-Road) price for the 2022 model was £28,495.

AI Overview

The On-the-Road (OTR) price for a new Nissan Micra in 2022 varied depending on the trim level and optional features, but generally ranged from £12,995

This is the swings and roundabout of EV prices.

In ~2017, there were a dry period for EV enthusiasm. So Nissan were doing many deals even on their used EV's. I scored a less than 3 years old 2014 Leaf for less than 1/3 of its RRP after all the incentives by Nissan.

In mid 2022, there was a period of huge demand. EV were in higher demand than ICE vehicle due to petrol price shenanigans and queues at the petrol station.

After 2023, EV market entered a price war. Many deals to be had.

So of course 2022 3 years old Leaf would be more expensive than it's worth and it would have taken a huge depreciation hit. It's Chademo, equivalent of buying Betamax kit at highest RRP after VHS had clearly won.

But at the same time, I could have sold my 2014 Leaf in 2022 to WBAC for no less than what I paid for it back in 2017. That was crazy times.

Let's examine something more realistic and close to me:

https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-search?advertising-location=at_cars&exclude-writeoff-categories=on&homeDeliveryAdverts=include&make=Tesla&maximum-mileage=50000&minimum-mileage=40000&model=Model+Y&moreOptions=visible&postcode=al2+1bx&sort=price-asc&year-from=2022&year-to=2022

Model Y LR AWD 2022, 40-50k shows £22k to £27k range.

New price was £55k.

Depreciation: £33k over 3 years. (worst case, 55 - cheapest)

Let's say Volvo XC60, new price ranged from £49k to £70k.

https://www.parkers.co.uk/volvo/xc60/review/

Used price range from £26k to £38k.

https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-search?advertising-location=at_cars&exclude-writeoff-categories=on&homeDeliveryAdverts=include&make=Volvo&maximum-mileage=50000&minimum-mileage=40000&model=XC60&moreOptions=visible&postcode=al2%201bx&sort=price-asc&year-from=2022&year-to=2022

Depreciation: £23k to £32k over 3 years (lower - lower, upper - upper)

So let's say about £3k more depreciation on the Tesla than Volvo, if we make an effort to compare similar (add volvo's autopilot, upgraded engine for closer to 5s, glass roof, etc). Hardly poor value in the EV's when those 50,000 miles could have cost EV £1250 whereas the Volvo diesel will cost over £5000, more in petrol.

When man-math is removed, the truth is it's much sameness.