23 minutes ago, StephenFord said:

Also, if you're old enough, you may remember diesel use to be half the price of petrol, then the government subsidised diesel cars, pushed the bejesus out of them, and when they reached critical mass, hiked the tax on it to make it more expensive than petrol!

Yeah, I saved a fortune for the first few years after switching to diesel for my company car, then everyone got in on the act egged on by the government! If I was still in the golden wheels club no doubt I'd now be (temporarily) making hay while the sun shines with a Tesla or similar on a salary sacrifice scheme until we're all hooked and by then they'll have found a new way to tax EVs!😀

On 3/28/2022 at 12:44 PM, TomsFocus said:

Had hoped to at least switch off the storage heater in the bathroom with the warmer weather, but it's forecast to get colder again at the weekend so will give it another couple of weeks I think.  It's only on low now tbf.

Well, I've woken up to snow...and only 17c in the bathroom, with the heater ON!!

Looks like I'll have to turn the heating up, when I was hoping to turn it off!  

I know I asked on here before but does anyone have a spare old electricity monitor they'd send me?  Eon & British Gas were giving them away free before Smart Meters came out so there must be plenty knocking around in lofts & cupboards!

Warm and toasty in your bathroom @TomsFocus ours was 14.5 this morning but only had a slight dusting of snow on the car and roof of the summerhouse but still bitterly cold outside.

 

Was checking out Google maps for something and just noticed this on screen. Aahhh... the good old days, just a few months ago LOL

Our Google visit must have been a little more recent

Doesn't matter what the price is when there's panic buying again. ***** queues at our stations. Unbelievable. 

And car nearly empty !! 

Petrol at 159.9 and Diesel 178.9 locally. Thankfully still got over half a tank left.

Not looking forward to our next fill up though.

Down at the local Tesco this morning and saw a chap at the EV chargers apparently struggling to connect his 22 plate Jaguar i-Pace, so strolled over to see what was going on.

I had naively assumed that to get the "free" charging at Tesco you would just plug in and it would give you "x" amount of charge, then shut off. But no, apparently you still need an app (Pod Point) and this chap didn't have his phone on him.

Then it seemed only a couple of the points were actually "free", the others were chargeable and of various degrees of rapidity. We did find one that said it accepted contactless card payment but it wouldn't accept any of his cards including a Tesco credit card!

Further complication was some of the points had leads/plugs attached, like a petrol pump, others just had a socket where you needed to use your own cable and plug.

Despite frequent promises from Government to get this sorted, it still seems to be a lot harder than filling a petrol car for no good reason as far as I can see. 

Certainly the chap I was talking to was very unimpressed with his EV experience so far!

 

 

3 hours ago, Eric Bloodaxe said:

Certainly the chap I was talking to was very unimpressed with his EV experience so far!

 

Absolutely ludicrous situation. Imagine needing a Smartphone to buy petrol/diesel. My 84 year old mum would be simply lost. Keep telling folk, EV cars are for the rich, and a whole tier of the population already struggling with poverty will simply be banned from the road......

Isn't it only the VW chargers that are free at Tesco?  Any others would be chargeable...  (No pun intended!  )

I've just had a couple of tickets on this...  https://www.aspirecomps.co.uk/competitions/2018-vw-golf-gte-hybrid-pure-white-5-door-13th-april/

Got more chance of winning lottery tbh...and I haven't even bought a ticket for that.

I was wondering though...Tesco is 1 mile away (2 mile round trip).  If I spent 15 mins there with a Mk7 GTE (PHEV) plugged into the free charger, how many miles would I be likely to get?  Does anyone know the quick maths for that's it's beyond me at the moment!

 

My situation is obviously different to most...but it's now been 8 months since I could drive far enough to reach a fuel station.  For a month after that, I was still able to reach Tesco and grab a few basic groceries.   So plugging in might be a reasonable alternative for me getting back on the road, but there's no way to do it at my current property.

I don't think there's any quick maths Tom. You'd need to know your average consumption in miles per KWh and then how much charge you can put in in 15 minutes, also in KWh, which will depend on the charger and what your car can accept. I'd have thought 15 minutes would get you a lot more than one mile though.

47 minutes ago, TomsFocus said:

Isn't it only the VW chargers that are free at Tesco?  Any others would be chargeable...  (No pun intended!  )

it's a VW/Tesco/Pod Point "thing" but yes, as far as I can see only the 7kw chargers (pretty slow I'm told) are "free".

Presumably Tesco can bask in their green credentials, VW get a bit of a plug as a leading EV brand and I assume somewhere in all that someone makes some money from what isn't free. As far as I can work out, in most cases the "free" bit would just about cover your cost in getting to Tesco and back home!😀

Still worth having I suppose if you can (a) find where the chargers are, (b) find one that's working and not in use and (c) work out how to the heck to plug in!😀

https://pod-point.com/rollout/tesco-ev-charging

Incidentally, Channel 5 have "Should I buy an electric car?" on Wednesday at 7.00pm.

 free are usually the slow 7kw chargers. It's 7 ÷ 4  X miles per kWh. Most economical electric bev  gets 5 miles, normal will be half that realistically I'm guessing without looking on VW site

So approx 4.375 miles from  a 15min charge , may be more. 

If paying for elec at home that would now be 52p approx or in a petrol car about 83p 

Folk are Struggling to find diesel in my town this afternoon. 

I'm away for a few days and would normally fill up just as we leave. Fortunately my partner nagged me to fill up at the beginning of the week , used some for work this week , but still got 650 miles left to get us away. 

Heard of a few people unable to get diesel for there trips to airport. First world problems 🤣🤣

Mines petrol but noticed diesel pumps not on here today..Glasgow 

Belfast, 100% availability - just expensive! LOL

Not seen a problem round here (yet) - but as mentioned on another thread, seeing a premium of 15 to 20p per litre for diesel over E10.

1 hour ago, StephenFord said:

Belfast, 100% availability - just expensive! LOL

That’ll be red diesel straight from the pump Stephen? 

1 minute ago, Alex.S said:

That’ll be red diesel straight from the pump Stephen? 

How did you know we have pumps for that?? LOL

4 hours ago, Eric Bloodaxe said:

 

😀

Still worth having I suppose if you can (a) find where the chargers are, (b) find one that's working and not in use and (c) work out how to the heck to plug in!😀

https://pod-point.com/rollout/tesco-ev-charging

There are two near me tbf, I never saw anyone plugged in to the nearest one as it's only a small shop, can't spend long in there.  Though the other always seemed to be full of Hyundai Ionic's.

If we take Ian's ~4 miles per 15 mins, it wouldn't really be worth the hassle for me though.  Will just have to keep hoping I can move to a ground floor property and charge at home I think!

Went out for meal with my family tonight and went past 5 or 6 garages on the way, 4 had the diesel pumps locked. 

On the subject of Diesel and possible shortages going forward, I remember when Ultra Low Sulphur Diesel became compulsory and at that time we did not have the correct refining capability to produce all we needed so we had to import a lot of it from Russia. 

That was a long time ago and might not be the case now, but I do remember also reading that not all Crude Oil is the same and our North Sea oil is of a make up that can produce a lot of Petrol but not so much Diesel.  

12 hours ago, Eric Bloodaxe said:

Then it seemed only a couple of the points were actually "free"

"Every little helps" 🤣

3 hours ago, TomsFocus said:

Will just have to keep hoping I can move to a ground floor property and charge at home I think!

I've seen a few EVs around my neighbourhood being charged via extension leads through windows, letter boxes, trailing across the pavement, you name it!😀

There are certainly more ev's out there now. There's a few around where I live. All got proper wall chargers . Only one without a wall charger and that's a Tesla. Probably just rely on the Tesla fast chargers .

Down my street we have Renault Zoe, Kia e niro, 2 BMW's, e golf and Tesla.