Good luck  even getting a modern car in a garage of a house . Only car I could get in my garage was my triumph vitesse.

 

I think the integral garages in the UK is a bit on a non issue, VERY few modern cars will even fit in a garage.

Those garage where designed around the size of a car in the 50s or 60s not cars of today,, insurance would be probably more concerned about the fire risk of the junk most folk have in integral garages.

1 minute ago, Mark-UK said:

... insurance would be probably more concerned about the fire risk of the junk most folk have in integral garages.

Junk? JUNK?? I'll have you know that every bit of junk I have is a treasured item 🤣

1 hour ago, StephenFord said:

Junk? JUNK?? I'll have you know that every bit of junk I have is a treasured item 🤣

Still junk. 😂

I've got junk in my garage. All sorts of flammable chemicals for cleaning the car, also lots of tins of half empty paint that we keep for some unknown reason. Problem with junk in the garage and even cars in car parks is most containers are plastic so a small fire can become a big toxic fire quickly. An example of paint tin. Used to be primarily metal so the contents wouldn't burn. Now plastic so Tim burns then contents too. 

The outside of cars are covered in more and more plastic compared to older cars. Even the flammable liquid is contained in a plastic tank and plastic fuel lines. Once a car catches fire it will burn so much quicker than a cortina would have. 

If you have never seen a car fire then it is hard to Imagine how intense they are. My Capri had an underbonnet fire when I was driving it a long time ago.

The Fire Station was only a few minutes away but nevertheless the heat melted my Battery flat and the front tyres exploded, and the paint on the car burned very well. It was a Cellulose based one on top because I had resprayed it a few years earlier to get rid of the Loud Metallic Light Green that it originally was (I bet you that colour brings back some memories).

In my case the fire never spread into the Interior, so the Firewall did its job very well. The Fire Brigade did manage to pull my Fuel line from under the car to stop it drip feeding the fire though. I would Imagine if it was Diesel it would have run down the road alight and been worse instead if burning right away.

Thanks to the UAW strike Ford is making the best of a terrible situation and ending a shift on the F150 Lightning assembly plant. They are also supposedly preparing to conduct a recall on certain sold units of the Lightning as well as retrieving unsold units from the dealership lots for what’s being described as “quality control audits”.

I have been watching several dealerships in my areas of travel. I have seen several Lightnings at different dealerships that have been sitting on the lot since early August!

My guess is that Ford is going to quietly buy back a fair number of these trucks from the dealer’s. Two months is just about as long as any dealer will tolerate a slow selling vehicle. And that tolerance is not meant to imply that they are happy to have it sitting for even two weeks!

a vehicle that is not selling not only costs the dealership money for that vehicle. It raises the costs of all the other vehicles because they calculate the floor plan costs with a formula that considers the turnover rate of the entire inventory. It’s a financial formula that strongly incentivizes sales performance.

If Ford is at all savvy, they will leverage the strike to help them retreat the F150 Lightning from a market that cannot afford a nearly $100,000 USD pickup truck, and a dealer body that is not prepared to shoulder the costs of selling what should be considered a boutique or niche market product.

Ford might be able to save itself from falling deeper into the black hole of failure.

EVs having a tough time getting insurance. I'm sure this will be sorted out soon, but plenty of folk, recent owners, are now in the situation of being a guinea pig for what the market will do...

https://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2023/10/22/electric-cars-risk-becoming-uninsurable/

(Original article in Daily Telegraph, but you need a subscription!)

Another example of Tory miss-management and dysfunctionality,  Sunak does not want an oil alternative, probably because his wife's investment company this year sign a 1.5 billion oil deal, and the reason we are still lacking EV charging stations.

 

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/oct/24/1bn-fund-to-expand-ev-charging-network-still-not-open-after-three-years

 Moto is Pick your EV wisely for insurance. I was lucky with mine , no different to my Mondeo. 

48 minutes ago, Mark-UK said:

Another example of Tory miss-management and dysfunctionality,  Sunak does not want an oil alternative, probably because his wife's investment company this year sign a 1.5 billion oil deal, and the reason we are still lacking EV charging stations.

 

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/oct/24/1bn-fund-to-expand-ev-charging-network-still-not-open-after-three-years

Tesla will come to the rescue . They seem to be able to fit and get running in no time at all with there  chargers. The v4 chargers are the latest that all EV owners can use. Tesla also aiming to be a supplier of elec to homes too. 

Wether Tesla will be good or bad for the home elec market I've no idea. 

5 hours ago, Mark-UK said:

Another example of Tory miss-management and dysfunctionality,

The article, read in full, does seem to be a little more balanced than as suggested there, eg:

The fund has, however, faced investigations from the Competition and Markets Authority over the potential for the subsidies to distort competition between motorway service area operators, which published its final report in June. Companies then pushed back against proposals to boost competition by requiring two charge point operators at each motorway services receiving funding.

and:

Although designed to support charging point installations in locations where they lack commercial viability, some companies believe taxpayer funding is not always necessary.

Maurice Hochschild, executive chair of Osprey Charging, said his firm would consider bidding for the funds – depending on the terms – but added that most of the industry was not suffering from a lack of funding, given the interest of global energy companies and infrastructure funds.

“There is certainly a view that the money could be better applied elsewhere,” he said. “With my taxpayer hat on, is it needed? No, I don’t believe it is.”

But, as we've said several times, all this is a consequence of governments of all political stripes in Europe and the US, both deciding on the outcome they want to see (in this instance, "carbon neutral" transport) and  specifying how to achieve it, which many would argue is outside their competence.

 

 

 

 

15 minutes ago, Eric Bloodaxe said:

The article, read in full, does seem to be a little more balanced than as suggested there...

Makes you wonder how we came by our current infra structure of petrol stations. Did the government poke their nose in and demand stations at all their current locations, or, did the demand for more convenient filling points urged on by motorists, make many entrepreneurial folk to think, "oh, I could make money if I put a station here"?

 

30 minutes ago, StephenFord said:

Did the government poke their nose in and demand stations at all their current locations

But I guess the difference between them and now, was that governments weren't telling people to use petrol, that emerged as the preferred solution from the possible alternatives at the time.

 

4 minutes ago, Eric Bloodaxe said:

But I guess the difference between them and now, was that governments weren't telling people to use petrol, that emerged as the preferred solution from the possible alternatives at the time.

 

Indeed, people saw that petrol cars were better than horses, so government didn't need to outlaw horses, the market decided what was best. In exactly the same way they still should be able to decide what is best for them... without government interference

37 minutes ago, StephenFord said:

In exactly the same way they still should be able to decide what is best for them...

I chose VHS 🤣

I had to chuckle when I read the article and the part about the fund administrating the subsidies “being investigated over the potential for the subsidies to distort competition”

That is the PURPOSE of subsidies! 
If you hand out free heroin and needles, you will eventually get an increase in the number of people who are using the drug. It’s not a great intellectual leap to understand that.

 

Been reading with interest. The proposition of how petrol stations spawned sparked my interest and got the grey cells bouncing. Petrol stations are like coffee shops now and the ethos gulp and go, similarly petrol stations gulp and go on our cars. Who has a few hours to sit and charge thier vehicle on a petrol staion forecourt. Home chargers overnight or cheap rate is the way forward.

12 minutes ago, Jimpster said:

...Home chargers overnight or cheap rate is the way forward.

This government report states that 25% of drivers in England alone will have no access to a 'home charger', and would you fancy leaving your £40k car way off site & sight of your home to charge it? (How would you get to it for a start LOL). So not a full solution...

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/6234a51f8fa8f540edba36f1/public-ev-charging-infrastructure-research-report.pdf

52 minutes ago, Jimpster said:

Been reading with interest. The proposition of how petrol stations spawned sparked my interest and got the grey cells bouncing. Petrol stations are like coffee shops now and the ethos gulp and go, similarly petrol stations gulp and go on our cars. Who has a few hours to sit and charge thier vehicle on a petrol staion forecourt. Home chargers overnight or cheap rate is the way forward.

Was it the first 50 years of petrol cars you had to go to your local chemist to buy a can full? I read it somewhere. 😂😂

8 minutes ago, iantt said:

Was it the first 50 years of petrol cars you had to go to your local chemist to buy a can full?

I don't think it was quite as long as 50 years 🤣 but it did make sense to buy petrol from a chemist back then as it was the place people bought Paraffin for heating, and oil for lamps.

4 minutes ago, unofix said:

I don't think it was quite as long as 50 years 🤣 but it did make sense to buy petrol from a chemist back then as it was the place people bought Paraffin for heating, and oil for lamps.

Aren't I allowed to exaggerate then? Thought that's we are supposed to do on this thread. 😂😂

Just now, iantt said:

Aren't I allowed to exaggerate then? Thought that's we are supposed to do on this thread. 😂😂

Now I've told folk a million times not to exaggerate on here! LOL

1 minute ago, StephenFord said:

Now I've told folk a million times not to exaggerate on here! LOL

And who takes any notice? 😂😂

15 minutes ago, iantt said:

Was it the first 50 years of petrol cars you had to go to your local chemist to buy a can full? I read it somewhere. 😂😂

Was it not carried by the man with the red flag ?????