16 minutes ago, iantt said:

tesla is down the bottom with landrover for reliability i saw someone mention. 

You do a disservice to Tesla, it's actually a full 2 places higher than LandRover LOL

https://www.whatcar.com/news/2020-what-car-reliability-survey-brands/n20069

Also, American surveys show Tesla to be a real issue with reliability too!

https://www.hotcars.com/15-most-unreliable-american-cars-you-can-buy-in-2020/

Like I've said before though, and I'd bet I'm not alone.  I don't want a Tesla.  I don't want a giant touchscreen and having to navigate vast menus to change the wiper speed.  I just want an a regular car with an electric motor.  

1 hour ago, TomsFocus said:

There's a lovely Tesla down my road...I get a great view of it as it keeps passing on the back of a low-loader every few weeks.  Honestly, how much can go wrong with a battery and a motor!?

They must be using Ford engineers to write their software.

1 hour ago, StephenFord said:

Maybe you're right, the way we think about battery cars right now may never actually materialise, but they will accelerate change...

I agree. I suppose many of us (particularly those of us with a few miles on the clock) are just plain nostalgic for a form of propulsion we've been familiar with all our lives. Same with cars themselves. Prior to my generation cars were mostly for the wealthy few and I guess I came of age at a time when car ownership had become more affordable to more people and was also a bit of a "rite of passage" thing to the young.

I don't sense that young people now are anywhere near as interested in cars as we were, and the  number of, say, 17-25 year olds holding driving licences has dropped substantially.

Perhaps the whole idea of "owning" a car will disappear anyway, in favour of subscription schemes such as Volvo have launched recently. 

23 hours ago, Eric Bloodaxe said:

*Edit: Tbh the more I read about hybrids the less clear I am about what will actually qualify. I think the phrase used was capable of running a "significant" distance in zero emissions mode. Toyota claim their self-charging hybrids can run in electric.more up to 50% of the time. Some more clarification will hopefully be forthcoming!

This article is the nearest I've found so far in attempting to clarify what hybrids would be allowed:

https://www.fleetnews.co.uk/news/latest-fleet-news/electric-fleet-news/2020/11/19/zero-emission-capability-crucial-to-hybrid-petrol-and-diesel-ban

 

5 hours ago, Guy Heaton said:

  I just want an a regular car with an electric motor.  

Yes, joking about hydrogen lease rates apart, I reckon if I had to consider an electric car right now, I may well look at the Corsa E and its 208 E Peugeot stablemate. Both these have been described as "like a normal car, but electric" and I've seen lease rates around the £250 mark. Vauxhall's own PCP plan is £275-295 with about £2,200 deposit, depending on trim level. Only around 200 mile range though, which might not be enough for some, certainly enough for my Mrs's needs, though.

Only problem is I've seen lease rates on a 125 or 155 Fiesta for around £100 less, which I suppose sums up the issue with going electric just at present.

I'm nostalgic for the days of cars like the Mondeo ST200, Vectra B GSI, Alfa 156, with sweet V6 engines in ordinary cars.  Even the Volvo 5-pot with its offbeat thrum.  But those days are gone and it doesn't matter how big bore an exhaust you put on, or how much fake engine noise gets piped into the cabin, highly-turboed little engines just don't do it for me.  So abandon them altogether and lets get some clean air, as I no longer really care what's under the bonnet.

 

My daughter is 15, and keen to get her licence at 17.  But she is keen for electric too, she just wants the car to move.

2 hours ago, Eric Bloodaxe said:

. Only around 200 mile range though, which might not be enough for some, certainly enough for my Mrs's needs, though.

There are not that many people who are doing 50K+ miles a year, and with zoom meetings now becoming the norm , there'll be even less. I know the company I worked for said after the first week of zoom calls they'd never go back to managers travelling all across the UK to HQ for an hours meeting again.

The range of EV is going up and the amount of miles driving is coming down.

1 minute ago, Mark-UK said:

I know the company I worked for said after the first week of zoom calls they'd never go back to managers travelling all across the UK to HQ for an hours meeting again.

Lol, I wish they'd invented Zoom in the days when I was having to do that stuff!!😀

 

Most of the regulars will know I have issues dealing with people or going out...(ironic for a car guy, I know).  I've always been told everything has to be done face to face regardless of the consequences for me, and needless to say, never got any improvements and each meeting just made things worse.  Until this year that is, when apparently everything can be done online after all!  

Zoom has been surprisingly helpful, despite my early scepticism!  Probably explains some of my push for change now.  Don't get me wrong, I hate change to start with, even when it's a good change...and I'm sure most people are the same...but we'd all still be sat in caves if no one ever pushed for change. 

 

22 minutes ago, TomsFocus said:

Most of the regulars will know I have issues dealing with people or going out...(ironic for a car guy, I know).  I've always been told everything has to be done face to face regardless of the consequences for me, and needless to say, never got any improvements and each meeting just made things worse.  Until this year that is, when apparently everything can be done online after all!  

Zoom has been surprisingly helpful, despite my early scepticism!  Probably explains some of my push for change now.  Don't get me wrong, I hate change to start with, even when it's a good change...and I'm sure most people are the same...but we'd all still be sat in caves if no one ever pushed for change. 

 

Can't beat a man cave though. 

I do think that although covid has been horrible some good things have come out of it.  It has brought both the best and the worst out of people and it has forced us to figure out new ways of working.  I work in IT, I look after backup and recovery for a major building society.  My physical servers are 3 hours drive away, I very rarely need to actually touch them.  I just don't need to be physically in the office 5 days a week.   Good for me, good for the environment.  I know I am lucky in this but I have done my time and paid my dues.

Am I the only one that likes going to the office?

The camaraderie, face-to-face-meetings, learning by example, the office gossip, making new mates, after hours pub crawls, a different lunch every day, someone's birthday drinks every month, random s*x with work colleagues, the office Christmas parties.

I did 40 years of that and loved every minute.

I would hate to be starting my career now and being confined to home working. To me that would be like being under house arrest.

I need actual/physical human interaction not some Zoom video chat once in a while. 

I'm not talking about permanent WFH, just not dragging to the office every day.

That said, although I do need the contact with the people I care about, I don't really need random human contact.

12 minutes ago, Carl123 said:

random s*x with work colleagues

If only!

You havent seen the lads I work with.

I keep hearing about going to work and being able to chat with your friends, when I was made redundant I was told I could come in and visit my friends if I wish.

My reply was, they are colleagues.

Colleagues  and friends are not the same thing, there are VERY few people I worked with I would wish to spend my free time with.

1 hour ago, Guy Heaton said:

You havent seen the lads I work with

You have random s*x with the lads??

10 minutes ago, Mark-UK said:

My reply was, they are colleagues.

Colleagues  and friends are not the same thing, there are VERY few people I worked with I would wish to spend my free time with.

 

I find that quite sad to hear

I made friends with a lot of my colleagues (not all of them) and we always socialised after work and sometimes at weekends etc. I also met and dated more girlfriends from work than from anywhere else. If I was going to work somewhere for 5 days out of every 7 every week there is no way I'm not going to make some new drinking buddies or fall for a pretty girl or two twelve.

Mind you, I've always worked in big offices (around 300+ people) so plenty of choices as to who became friends and who to date.

I guess it may be more difficult in smaller companies.

51 minutes ago, Carl123 said:

I find that quite sad to hear

I made friends with a lot of my colleagues (not all of them) and we always socialised after work and sometimes at weekends etc. I also met and dated more girlfriends from work than from anywhere else. If I was going to work somewhere for 5 days out of every 7 every week there is no way I'm not going to make some new drinking buddies or fall for a pretty girl or two twelve.

Mind you, I've always worked in big offices (around 300+ people) so plenty of choices as to who became friends and who to date.

I guess it may be more difficult in smaller companies.

Likewise. Two of my closest friends now are guys I've known since we first worked together over 40 years ago. And certainly had a lot of girlfriends that way, even married one  - though that didn't work out well! All still good with No 2 (who I didn't meet through work) after 30+ years, though😃.

To be fair I did marry someone I met at work.  And before that I have had the odd fling with a workmate.

I've never been that bothered about socialising with workmates outside of work.  My free time is for my family, friends and hobbies.  Going out with workmates outside of work where all you will do is talk about work was never for me.

But each to their own.

To drag the chat back to the subject 😂 here's a good argument for electric.  I've just had to go for a pointless hour's drive to try and clear my GPF.  I dunno if it's worked or wether I'l end up going to the dealers with it.

9 minutes ago, Guy Heaton said:

To drag the chat back to the subject 😂 here's a good argument for electric.  I've just had to go for a pointless hour's drive to try and clear my GPF.  I dunno if it's worked or wether I'l end up going to the dealers with it.

I don't think that counts as essential travel!  

Don't hear of many issues on the 1.5 though...is it the first time you've had a GPF warning?

8 minutes ago, TomsFocus said:

I don't think that counts as essential travel!  

 

You may have to take your battery car out for a spin to check if your regenerative braking charging is working though LOL I'm sure in 20 years time, this forum will be littered with 'battery' faults we haven't even thought of yet!

1 minute ago, StephenFord said:

You may have to take your battery car out for a spin to check if your regenerative braking charging is working though LOL I'm sure in 20 years time, this forum will be littered with 'battery' faults we haven't even thought of yet!

At least it'll be a break from all the stop start threads!  

12 minutes ago, TomsFocus said:

I don't think that counts as essential travel!  

Don't hear of many issues on the 1.5 though...is it the first time you've had a GPF warning?

Yep, had it this morning.  I was half expecting it as I've only done short school journeys since March.