48 minutes ago, iantt said:

The KW rating should show up in zap map. What park and ride is it?

I've never done park and ride , what's that? 🤣🤣🤣

Martello Way, Monks Cross, Huntington, York. I had a look at zap map but it only shows the small number of rapid chargers in the "hyper hub" not the adjacent ones I was on about.

They are in the BP Pulse network - I had a search of that out of curiosity and it turns out they are 7.3kW as you suspected, so little wonder none of them were being used. 

6 minutes ago, iantt said:

Ok, I checked and it's a thing near cities. So you drive in your warm car to the edge of city then wait in the cold for a bus

That sounds a bit primitive. Ours have buildings with loos and you only have to wait inside for a max of 10 mins before your nice (electric) bus turns up.

 

22 minutes ago, StephenFord said:

Crikey, that is so cynical against the EV experience, it's like something I might have said 😂

Are petrol and diesel cars banned from these park and ride sites? 

53 minutes ago, iantt said:

Are petrol and diesel cars banned from these park and ride sites? 

Nope. The idea is to keep those nasty ICE cars out of the city. But here's a weird rule at the ones near York. You can park at the P&R and use the bus, or cycle into the city. But if you park and leave the sites on foot and walk into the city, you're liable to be fined £50!

 

2 hours ago, Eric Bloodaxe said:

Martello Way, Monks Cross, Huntington, York. I had a look at zap map but it only shows the small number of rapid chargers in the "hyper hub" not the adjacent ones I was on about.

They are in the BP Pulse network - I had a search of that out of curiosity and it turns out they are 7.3kW as you suspected, so little wonder none of them were being used. 

That sounds a bit primitive. Ours have buildings with loos and you only have to wait inside for a max of 10 mins before your nice (electric) bus turns up.

 

40+ 7kw plus a few 50kw. 

7kw fine for park and ride. 

I give up - I will be going electric within the next 5 years in an attempt to preserve at least some rights to travel freely in the foreseeable future.

I was horrified to listen to the rigorously well presented review below ... "horrified" because I don't think I had even heard of the Climate and Nature Bill!  Whatever, I certainly had no idea that such a Bill would include yet more measures to further restrict my freedom.  As suggested, I will most certainly be writing to my MP ... for all the good it will do ... 

 

Just as an aside, the current energy use in the UK of AI, exceeds the energy use of all current EVs. You gotta laugh!

(Source - LinkedIn tech article, unable to share as subscription only)

This different article now some months old, concurs the energy use of AI

https://www.pbctoday.co.uk/news/digital-construction-news/construction-technology-news/uks-national-grid-may-not-able-support-ai-energy-demand/140483/

2 hours ago, Linds said:

Climate and Nature Bill!

This Private Members Bill has been kicked around in various forms for over 5 years, and run out of time previously.  You can get the current version as a PDF by following the link here (where it says "get file":

https://bills.parliament.uk/bills/3707

1 hour ago, StephenFord said:

Just as an aside, the current energy use in the UK of AI, exceeds the energy use of all current EVs. You gotta laugh!

Well, you can see the attraction of artificial intelligence to governments (of all persuasions) as they don't seem to display much of the natural variety.😀

Accepting the EV mandate is not going to solve the freedom of movement issue. It’s just going to make it even easier for the government to decide exactly where you drive and how far you can go. I imagine that the geofencing technology is already installed in the current crop of EVs. Just like the silly little scooters that you can use through an App. They have total control over exactly where it goes and if it goes. So, it might be “your EV” to use, but it will be completely and utterly useable only if the authorities decide that you are allowed to drive it.

I was at a nearby shopping center in Ann Arbor, Michigan yesterday at about noon. The charging station in the parking lot was fully occupied with all the functional stations changing. The one on the east end has been inoperative for a couple weeks. So one Tesla was waiting for a place to get recharged. Two more EV pulled in to wait for a spot as I left. We have entered the coldest part of our winter season. This is always a great test for the range shrinkage controls on an EV. I would cold soak them outside and then go out and do a typical commute of about twenty miles to 30 miles in mixed urban areas with the seat and steering wheel heater elements on. It was interesting to see how much range would be available as the speed varied. I would data log the same route dozens of times over a two or three month period and then look at the histogram data in overlays. A picture of how the batteries performed in low temperature would become visible through this process.

many EV owners have issues with charging the battery and then after a night sitting outside in low temperature the available range becomes lessened overnight when they leave for work the next morning.

In Michigan we are contending with the coldest part of the winter, in Los Angeles, California they are getting used to the idea that a huge part of the communities around LA, some of the most expensive residential properties in the country have been burned to cinders. It all could have been avoided but the government and city decided long ago to stop clearing brush from under power lines and to cease any maintenance of fire containment lines. They also have long ago stopped keeping their reservoirs filled because they preferred to send the water back to the ocean. This might be the largest preventable disaster in the history of this country. This was the reward that the people got for voting in the leadership they had. This has been looming as a possible catastrophe for many years. Now it’s a reality. This is their reward for enacting laws that would “keep the land as natural as possible”. The people of that region are going to have a hard road ahead given that they are not really oriented towards allowing people to build something even as simple as a backyard garden shed let alone an entire community of homes. I imagine that building permits are going to be extremely difficult to get. The state and local governments really don’t want people to rebuild their homes. It’s going to be interesting to watch how the people who now own vacant land will be treated when they try to rebuild their houses. Just to keep this close to the topic, the government actions that lead to this catastrophe were done in the name of protecting the environment! The irony is too much.

10 hours ago, Scottman said:

It all could have been avoided but the government and city decided long ago to stop clearing brush from under power lines and to cease any maintenance of fire containment lines. They also have long ago stopped keeping their reservoirs filled because they preferred to send the water back to the ocean.

That's pretty much the analysis I've seen on the news channels over here. 

 

1 hour ago, Eric Bloodaxe said:

That's pretty much the analysis I've seen on the news channels over here. 

 

I believe it's why we now have so many issues over flooding as many years ago we had a comprehensive program of dredging rivers to keep them flowing, but the 'green tree huggers' said that was bad, so we stopped it |(for cost as well), now excessive rain has nowhere to flow apart from over the adjacent land...

 

1 hour ago, StephenFord said:

now excessive rain has nowhere to flow apart from over the adjacent land...

In a similar vein, I was having a riverside walk yesterday, having not done this particular walk for a couple of months.

In the meantime work has started on a development of over 400 dwellings despite bitter opposition from local residents who argued (correctly) that the infrastructure (roads, schools, doctors, shops, etc) is insufficient and the site is unsuitable anyway, being next to a river which often floods**.

Unsurprisingly, the river had flooded due to the recent bad weather, and part of the site was underwater yesterday!

In the meantime, National Grid were busy chewing up the countryside to site extra/bigger pylons as part of the "Yorkshire Green" project to transmit current from all the extra wind turbines.

(** Couple of examples from recent years below. In the second picture, the proposed site is to the left of the submerged fence in the left of the shot, while the actual river is over to the right behind the bushes you can see at the right hand edge of the shot!)

The disaster is FAR from ending in California. The rains will come and those burned hillsides are going to turn into massive mudslides. Some of the homes that “survived” the fires will be destroyed by the landslides of mud that will contain more than a few multi ton boulders that will be carried by the mud.

Nobody should view anything that is “normal in California as being considered normal in the rest of America! That place is seen by many people as being a very untenable situation for a dense population of people. Every time I have visited there it impressed me how insane the whole thing was!

OMG - TRUMP!! I love him...

He has just rescinded the USA EV mandate, stating he is going to allow citizens to buy the cars THEY want!  (Not government).

Also, 'Drill baby drill', making their economy skyrocket as they enjoy the benefit of cheap home grown energy, 'liquid gold', under their feet.

Still, we have Milliband who'll be spending £ Billions on Chinese windmills 🤣

As an added bonus, he has stated it's USA policy now that there are only 2 x genders, male & female - whatever next 😁

Trump is grounded in reality. He often says things that set people on edge a bit, but overall he’s actually pretty moderate and he’s for fair trade. He isn’t going to make the manufacturers end EV production. But, he’s not going to force the taxpayers to subsidize EVs. Which is how it should be. The liberal side says Trump is destructive. 
a large majority of the population here has decided that it is worth the risk to see if they are wrong. I like his fair trade policy and the idea of letting the people decide what they drive and how much they spend on emerging technologies. The ridiculous heat pumps and solar panels future mandates are also on the chopping block. The sheer size of our government needs to be reduced drastically. Much of it does nothing but increase costs and reduce our productivity and economic growth. Basically, many of us here believe that the 21st century way of thinking has been butting heads with our 19th century government! Many of whom ( in government) keep talking about the importance of maintaining our democracy at the same time they are trying to crush it. My point is that we are a Republic first and foremost and that requires the government to take care in making decisions that affects many citizens in bad ways because of their one size fits all mentality.

 One constant about America is that even when we screw up our situation we eventually get things back on track.

I liked the “only two genders” comment by Trump. I think there’s more than enough confusion and misunderstanding between the two genders that we don’t need to create any more than just the two!’

https://www.nao.org.uk/reports/public-chargepoints-for-electric-vehicles/

300m mot records show EV cars last as long as petrol and diesel powered ones.

 

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/jan/24/electric-cars-lifespans-reach-those-of-petrol-and-diesel-vehicles-in-uk

11 minutes ago, Mark-UK said:

300m mot records show EV cars last as long as petrol and diesel powered ones.

Its worth reading the source article which is linked in the Guardian report for a fuller picture and the assumptions used. As the authors mention, the results could be slightly skewed by the impact of various scrappage schemes for ICE.

However, I can't see any particular reason why an EV shouldn't last as long as an ICE vehicle. The traditional killer has been corrosion, which won't change unless different body materials have been  used. The other factor, I think, will be the obsolescence of in-car tech, such as safety systems, which would impact any vehicle, however powered.

1 hour ago, Mark-UK said:

300m mot records show EV cars last as long as petrol and diesel powered ones.

 

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/jan/24/electric-cars-lifespans-reach-those-of-petrol-and-diesel-vehicles-in-uk

And when they can be 100% fully refueled in 5 minutes, we may just be on to something 😁

1 hour ago, Eric Bloodaxe said:

The other factor, I think, will be the obsolescence of in-car tech, such as safety systems, which would impact any vehicle, however powered.

Though it shouldn't drive them off the road. My 20 year old banger has very few 'safety systems', it's still a viable mode of transport...

9 minutes ago, StephenFord said:

Though it shouldn't drive them off the road. My 20 year old banger has very few 'safety systems', it's still a viable mode of transport...

Indeed, but most of this stuff** wasn't mandatory back then. We're now in an era where cars are festooned with cameras inside and out, radar systems, plus all the sensors so there's a lot more to go wrong/be superseded by newer versions. A bit like Microsoft stopping support for earlier versions of Windows every couple of years (or so it seems).

I can see cars of today (EV or ICE) going to the scrapper in 20 years or less because the hardware and software that gives you the now compulsory warning that you're tired (or whatever) has given up the ghost and is no longer repairable, even if the basic vehicle still works fine!

**https://www.thatcham.org/thatcham-research-explains-new-eu-vehicle-safety-regulation-and-what-it-means-for-uk-drivers/

2 minutes ago, Eric Bloodaxe said:

A bit like Microsoft stopping support for earlier versions of Windows every couple of years (or so it seems).

As someone that still has a working XP desktop, and windows 7 laptop, I guess I'm just a bit of a maverick 🤣

I've got a Windows 7 desktop and a Windows 10 laptop so I must be less of a maverick than you