36 minutes ago, Eric Bloodaxe said:

It's a funny message they're giving out here. In my correspondence with my MP lately on the topic of mooted further incentives for EV buyers (which he intimated were quite possible)

Incentives to buy EVs demonstrate a total failure of the market to provide vehicles that customers want to buy. I absolutely do not want my taxes to be squandered in such a way. But hey, I'm still upset over government squishing £37 BILLION on a total waste of a useless & unnecessary 'track&trace' scheme during their lockdown policy. Government have NO idea how hard it is for ordinary folk to earn a £1, never mind how to correctly spend it...

 

1 hour ago, StephenFord said:

I absolutely do not want my taxes to be squandered in such a way.

This was the nub of my recent correspondence, extract below:

 

"The point of my email was that I do NOT consider Incentivising the acquisition of privately or company owned EVs to be an appropriate use of public (ie taxpayers) funds, particularly in the current world political and economic climate.

 

I take the view that if a product, be it a vehicle or anything else, is manifestly superior in terms of performance and whole life cost to what has gone before, the customer will choose it."

 

 

I went on an Ev tuk tuk tour round Seville, shame I breathed in the diesel buses and cars fumes as we went round the city tour. That should be the priority in my view getting inner city transport fumes free. 

8 minutes ago, iantt said:

That should be the priority in my view getting inner city transport fumes free. 

Virtually all our local buses are now electric, and most of the parcel delivery vans are going that way too. 

I never drive into cities these days any way. Why have the hassle (and ludicrous parking charges) if you have a decent (and cheap) public transport service.

Rural areas are a problem - poor public transport and very little EV charging at present.

I smell the fumes, but taste it in my mouth. Bet if I sneezed it would come out black. Yuk. In the narrow streets it was better with electric trams and municipal / delivery vehicles electric.

 

44 minutes ago, iantt said:

I smell the fumes, but taste it in my mouth.

Did you ever follow a bus in the 90s, watching the fumes and inhaling them, when government pronounced diesel as the fuel of the future?? They truly are the most incompetent group of people... (whatever flavour we get!)

Another "you couldn't make it up" story?

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14597135/Millions-coal-save-steel-Net-zero-madness-taxpayers.html

(Slightly off topic on the face of it I guess, but steel goes into carmaking😀).

2 hours ago, Eric Bloodaxe said:

Another "you couldn't make it up" story?

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14597135/Millions-coal-save-steel-Net-zero-madness-taxpayers.html

(Slightly off topic on the face of it I guess, but steel goes into carmaking😀).

It's good to see that much mainstream press are now seeing through the lies and folly of Net Zero... Shame it's about a decade too late to save proper cars, where if everyone tomorrow swapped to an EV would make no significant change to climate whatsoever...

I've commented before on poor EV charging provision in the upper Dales. Nearest to where we have our caravan have only been no more than 7kWh up to now, and you need a app to pay.

I was up there for the last few days and interested to see a new point had appeared in the Council run car park in Hawes which accepted contactless. Oddly I couldn't see either a name of the network operator or the capacity, but just had a look at Zapmap** and its 22kWh which is more like it. At an average sort of figure, say 3.5 miles/kWh, an hour should be enough to give me an emergency "get you home" top up charge, though at 40p/kWh plus parking I wouldn't want to use it very often!

I use that area as a sort of personal "EV feasibility yardstick", so certainly food for thought for the future.

**Only gives the operator as "other" so that's still a mystery. I'll nosey around a bit more next time I'm up there.

31 minutes ago, Eric Bloodaxe said:

I use that area as a sort of personal "EV feasibility yardstick"

It's still not too late. Psychiatric help is available on the NHS 🤣

17 hours ago, unofix said:

 Psychiatric help is available on the NHS 🤣

And did it work for you?😀

Joking apart, I'm just thinking ahead (though at my time of life, that's probably not very far). Were I to consider another small-ish car with a bit of go, there's only the Polo GTI and MINI Cooper S left as a pure ICE car, and both those are DCT auto only anyway.

So something like an Alpine A290 might be worth a look in future, if I could satisfy myself I could get where I want to go (and get back again!), without panicking about charging. The approx £10k additional cost for the full fat version is another matter of course!

I get to where  I want to go and back again without panicking about charging. 20k miles last 12 months . 

14 minutes ago, iantt said:

I get to where  I want to go and back again without panicking about charging

It all depends where you go, I guess. Some of my destinations have not been well provided for, so far, so the new charger I mentioned is an encouraging development - if they've put one there, I'm sure a lot of other places will follow.

 

 

20 hours ago, Eric Bloodaxe said:

I've commented before on poor EV charging provision in the upper Dales. Nearest to where we have our caravan have only been no more than 7kWh up to now, and you need a app to pay.

I was up there for the last few days and interested to see a new point had appeared in the Council run car park in Hawes which accepted contactless. Oddly I couldn't see either a name of the network operator or the capacity, but just had a look at Zapmap** and its 22kWh which is more like it. At an average sort of figure, say 3.5 miles/kWh, an hour should be enough to give me an emergency "get you home" top up charge, though at 40p/kWh plus parking I wouldn't want to use it very often!

I use that area as a sort of personal "EV feasibility yardstick", so certainly food for thought for the future.

**Only gives the operator as "other" so that's still a mystery. I'll nosey around a bit more next time I'm up there.

Bare in mind 22kw  in reality is 7kw or 11kw at best unless you have the odd vehicle that accepts 22kw. 

Not that most folk are interested but the national trust are busy putting in 22kw ac and some DC rapid chargers at some locations if your a regular  national trust visitor. 

20 minutes ago, iantt said:

Bare in mind 22kw  in reality is 7kw or 11kw at best unless you have the odd vehicle that accepts 22kw. 

Ah - that's worth knowing.

20 minutes ago, iantt said:

national trust are busy putting in 22kw ac and some DC rapid chargers at some locations if your a regular  national trust visitor.

Lol, I was - but quit recently after many years membership - they're getting too woke for my liking.

Quite a few stories like this one in the media today:

https://inews.co.uk/news/electric-cars-chinese-parts-banned-from-military-sites-spying-fears-3644639

Most modern vehicles, not just EVs, are similarly laden with sensors and have internet connectivity. Even Ford have over the air updates (when it works).

16 minutes ago, Eric Bloodaxe said:

Most modern vehicles, not just EVs, are similarly laden with sensors and have internet connectivity. Even Ford have over the air updates (when it works).

Anyone that has used a PC in the last 30 years should be quite rightly concerned. It's bad enough on your desktop getting a BSOD (Blue Screen Of Death) and having to reboot, but the thought of your car system going down when you're doing 70mph or, the local 12 year old 'hacker' practicing his craft  is just terrifying...

34 minutes ago, StephenFord said:

. It's bad enough on your desktop getting a BSOD (Blue Screen Of Death) and having to reboot

I was watching a documentary a while back about modern aircraft. It showed an F-35 Lightning failing to start - sure enough the "cure" was switch everything off and reboot!

 

19 minutes ago, Eric Bloodaxe said:

I was watching a documentary a while back about modern aircraft. It showed an F-35 Lightning failing to start - sure enough the "cure" was switch everything off and reboot!

 

25 years ago my best friend worked for ServiceAir at Belfast airport (ground crew support). It wasn't a myth - 747s were known that when they had a starting issue, they had to turn off the computer and reboot!

And aircraft computers use windows xp! 

And floppy disks

 

3 hours ago, iantt said:

aircraft computers use windows xp

Yes they do, and so does air traffic control 👍

7 minutes ago, unofix said:

Yes they do, and so does air traffic control 👍

I was delayed on my flight due to the aircraft computer not updating properly via floppy disk. Had to do a reboot and try again. Wasn't overly confident the flight would make it to Madeira without an inflight reboot. 😂😂

1 minute ago, iantt said:

I was delayed on my flight due to the aircraft computer not updating properly via floppy disk.

Happens more often than you might think.

I had it happen twice on the same flight coming home from Japan. The planes equivalent of the BCM had to be rebooted. Fortunately they have two plus an emergency spare, so no big deal as the Captain announced and apologised for the interruption to the in flight entertainment system and the lack of personal cabin lights.

17 minutes ago, unofix said:

Yes they do, and so does air traffic control 👍

That's why I am currently holding 2 fingers up at MS when they 'pop up' warn me that my Windows 7 is out of date - it's my decision to spend my money on an update, not theirs 🤣

Stil, I did get compensated for the 4 HR delay. £1050 came my way in less than a week.