1 hour ago, StephenFord said:

we have a fine tradition of burning tires on the '11th' night

Do they use petrol or diesel to get the fire started, or just park an EV next to it 🤣

16 minutes ago, unofix said:

Do they use petrol or diesel to get the fire started, or just park an EV next to it 🤣

Just an ordinary match, on a bit of leftover Semtex 🤣

Maybe I can start a new annual holiday here in the State’s! I just need to choose a date for the annual “EV bonfire of the insanities!” First we shall stack them up in a pyramid shape and then commence the rhythmic dancing followed by some group singing and then “passing of the cups” until everyone is well lubricated. Then we will set it ablaze and drink some more until we lose the ability to walk straight and our women misplace their clothing (except for the really ugly women,of course). After that we will fire our shotguns into the air as if to answer the explosions of battery packs with a defiant roar. By that time the fire department will arrive to hose down the celebrants and clear the area and allow the conflagration to burn itself out. God bless America and brain dead Joe Biden!

9 hours ago, Scottman said:

Maybe I can start a new annual holiday here in the State’s!...

Don't you do all that already, on the 4th July?? 🤣

Yes we certainly do celebrate Independence Day. But, that is only a “partial nudity” holiday. 🤪

On 4/7/2024 at 10:19 AM, mjt said:

We definitely should not be taking hundreds of acres of productive agricultural land out of use for solar farms.

On holiday in France.  I see they are roofing over (already established) supermarket car parks and covering the roofs in solar cells.  Seems preferable to blighting agricultural land. 

43 minutes ago, Linds said:

...  Seems preferable to blighting agricultural land. 

I've seen huge swathes of land covered in solar panels in USA and I find them quite aesthetically pleasing.  Though I also love the look of windmills too as I find them beautiful mechanical objects, would love one in my back garden! Maybe it's just me ..... 😂

1 hour ago, StephenFord said:

Though I also love the look of windmills too as I find them beautiful mechanical objects,

Who wouldn't love a quaint old windmill in the back garden ? 🤣

9 hours ago, unofix said:

Who wouldn't love a quaint old windmill in the back garden ? 🤣

Where did you get that picture of me?? 😂

I like the “idea” of a windmill. The reality of them is that they are massively tall and when in operation make a constant roaring noise that isn’t pleasant to hear for any length of time. I think living in the landing path of a medium size airport would be less intrusive from a noise level perspective.

On 4/12/2024 at 7:50 PM, unofix said:

Do they use petrol or diesel to get the fire started, or just park an EV next to it 🤣

No need, it was always burning since the world was turning;

 

Looks like a new Focus cost the same as a small fleet of BYDs 🤔 

8 hours ago, Alex.S said:

Looks like a new Focus cost the same as a small fleet of BYDs 🤔 

Ah, but ford gives you 3 year/60k mile warranty. 🤣🤣🤣

Know of one Chinese ev manufacturer now give you 10 years warranty/servicing/connected services. 

Looks as if an increasing number are realising that the emperor has no clothes...

 

 

3 hours ago, StephenFord said:

Looks as if an increasing number are realising that the emperor has no clothes...

 

 

Trouble is, the various newspapers all have a "position" on this which makes it hard to get a balanced view. E.g. The Telegraph, Daily Mail and Daily Express are generally "anti", while The Independent, Guardian, etc, are "pro".

I wrote to the i this week about the following article they published:

https://inews.co.uk/inews-lifestyle/money/motoring/switched-electric-car-saved-7500-3044162?ico=related_article_inline

As I said, it's no surprise the guy made savings by switching to a Zoe from his "old Jaguar". They didn't mention the fairly low initial price of the Zoe in 2015 was because they were then sold on a split ownership basis (you bought the car but leased the battery).

I pointed out that a more valid price comparison would be between Renault's own Clio (currently from £17,995) and the last price for the Zoe (now off sale pending replacement by the new 5 EV) but last offered from £29,995.

When they mention hybrid or EV they don't make any distinction between the various types of hybrid and certainly don't mention that virtually all remaining ICE cars on the market are hybrids of some type, even if only MHEV, such as the latest Suzuki Swift. So it's hardly surprising that a high %age are "considering a hybrid or EV" as there is effectively little alternative.

All this stuff is little help to the private motorist who wants to balance doing the right thing for the environment with his household budget and would like clear, unbiased information on the pros and cons of the choices available.

 

4 hours ago, Eric Bloodaxe said:

I wrote to the i this week about the following article they published:

Good to see another member writing to the press, I do that frequently, though I'm sure by now my address is labelled as spam 😂

19 minutes ago, StephenFord said:

I'm sure by now my address is labelled as spam 😂

I wouldn't be surprised if mine is, also!😀

8 hours ago, Eric Bloodaxe said:

Trouble is, the various newspapers all have a "position" on this which makes it hard to get a balanced view. E.g. The Telegraph, Daily Mail and Daily Express are generally "anti", while The Independent, Guardian, etc, are "pro".

I wrote to the i this week about the following article they published:

https://inews.co.uk/inews-lifestyle/money/motoring/switched-electric-car-saved-7500-3044162?ico=related_article_inline

As I said, it's no surprise the guy made savings by switching to a Zoe from his "old Jaguar". They didn't mention the fairly low initial price of the Zoe in 2015 was because they were then sold on a split ownership basis (you bought the car but leased the battery).

I pointed out that a more valid price comparison would be between Renault's own Clio (currently from £17,995) and the last price for the Zoe (now off sale pending replacement by the new 5 EV) but last offered from £29,995.

When they mention hybrid or EV they don't make any distinction between the various types of hybrid and certainly don't mention that virtually all remaining ICE cars on the market are hybrids of some type, even if only MHEV, such as the latest Suzuki Swift. So it's hardly surprising that a high %age are "considering a hybrid or EV" as there is effectively little alternative.

All this stuff is little help to the private motorist who wants to balance doing the right thing for the environment with his household budget and would like clear, unbiased information on the pros and cons of the choices available.

 

Trouble is whichever side of the ev debate your on , all the newspapers want is a click or two and not interested in any balanced view. Always one extreme to another , any figures can be made to fit the agenda. 

I see Stellantis will be selling imported Chinese EVs (Leapmotor) through their outlets in Europe/UK in the next year or so.

Apparently they hope they hope by doing so they will sell enough "zero emission" EVs to avoid penalties under ZEV mandates. 

 No mention made of the emissions created by manufacture in a country with a huge number of coal fired power stations, steel produced by coke, etc, and shipping halfway round the world.

Am I missing something?

 

54 minutes ago, Eric Bloodaxe said:

Am I missing something?

Not really, unless you haven't factored in the proposed new tariff for Chinese EVs from a new UK government, with USA already adding 100% on them!

Oh, and that China has over 3000 coal fired power stations, whereas UK has 1 - no, that's not a typo, ONE LOL

1 hour ago, Eric Bloodaxe said:

Am I missing something?

For balance, apparently I missed that Stellantis have taken a 20% stake in this Chinese company, and plan to assemble the smaller car in Poland.

23 minutes ago, StephenFord said:

unless you haven't factored in the proposed new tariff for Chinese EVs from a new UK government, with USA already adding 100% on them!

It seems they're not worried.....

https://www.fleetnews.co.uk/news/tariffs-on-ev-imports-not-worrying-chinese-ev-manufacturers

It will be fun to watch Stelantis learn how Chinese companies handle warranty claims and recalls. I predict that the relationship will become “rocky” at best! 
I believe that they are going to try to outsource their entire product development and manufacturing processes. Many people in the industry have a fascination with the idea of doing nothing but quality checks and sticking their nameplate on the boot lid. 

 

It's often been mentioned in this thread that the UK doesn't have enough generating capacity to cope with a total transition to electric propulsion so I was interested to hear a discussion on Radio 4's Inside Science yesterday. It was about the idea of manufacturing large volumes of small modular nuclear reactors. Some time ago I'd heard Rolls-Royce were working on this concept but hadn't seen any mention of it recently. The discussion went into more detail than I'd heard before. The basic idea is to mass-produce the units in a dedicated factory. They would effectively be sealed units that could be dropped into place wherever needed and  maintenance, repair and refuelling would be carried out by returning them to the factory, which would be responsible for handling the spent fuel. Most of the internals would be reusable which would considerably reduce the amount of low-level nuclear waste compared with decommissioning a large power station. Apparently studies have shown they would be much more cost-efficient to manufacture, presumably because of the economies of scale, than large centralised stations.

It seems an interesting concept. I'm not sure how the general public would feel about having a nuclear reactor close to them but it seems to me they do have advantages over centralised stations. It would give more resilience to the power grid as it would address what I've always thought was a weakness of building the massive stations, namely they become strategic targets as has happened in Ukraine. A distributed system would be much more difficult to knock out. They can be used to progressively build up the generating capacity as needs change, which must be better than trying to forecast demand 30 to 50 years ahead. Manufacturing sites such as steelworks with a heavy demand could have their own dedicated generator.

I'll be interested to see what comments the above provokes . . . .

41 minutes ago, mjt said:

Some time ago I'd heard Rolls-Royce were working on this concept but hadn't seen any mention of it recently.

Yes, it seems to have been talked about for years but nothing seems to have happened. Seemed to me a preferable solution that could be sited nearer the actual demand, rather than a few massive  nuclear installations.

There are (or were) plenty of redundant coal fired power stations sites which could have been utilised and already had the distribution infrastructure in place.

As it is, the Grid is in many cases wrongly sited to connect to the plethora of windfarms, so National Grid will apparently be spending £30 billion building new pylon overhead lines. We'll see what the green lobby think about that!

2 hours ago, mjt said:

It's often been mentioned in this thread that the UK doesn't have enough generating capacity to cope with a total transition to electric propulsion so I was interested to hear a discussion on Radio 4's Inside Science yesterday. 

Can't see why we can't produce enough electricity.

Currently (😃) Orkney produces more power than it consumes but we can't export it due to constraints in the cable network, however this is being improved with a massive, for Orkney anyway, infrastructure upgrade. 

If this was upscaled throughout the whole country, and yes 'Dismayed from Hampshire' this would mean seeing wind turbines (not windmills) out of your window along with the power lines to transport the power, I don't see why we couldn't be self sufficient.