Kimbers

Wendy said she's so pleased she didn't vote for them. Her reasons were different from mine as she totally disagrees with their Building on Green Field Sites.....actually totally disagrees with building period TBH. I agree with her but I had different reasons not to vote for them, mainly around I didn't trust them any more than the Tories and being in a higher tax bracket I didn't like their policies on Taxation of what they call "The Rich". Cause I don't feel it! Anyway, should we start bets on how long Starmer will last?

Don't buy an Electric Van. They are hopeless. Something like the Peugeot Expert EV has a "useable" range of 80 miles, absolutely hopeless for someone using a commercial vehicle. Start stop, start stop, kills your range as well so not good for multi drop. Our Amazon guy laughed when I asked where his EV van was "being charged mate, I can only use it for about 1/3 of the day then I have to go into a diesel Van". We tried a Berlingo EV van and they advertised the range as 170 miles. Our test included a full load (which is 200kg down on a diesel due to the weight of the batteries) and Motorway driving, as 90% of vans are used in this way. In winter we got just over 72 miles before the warning came up. And at the M1 Junction near Milton Keynes as well! Anyone who knows that junction knows it's 30 miles either way to the next junction and services. 20 minutes of hunting for a charge point around country lanes killed the van and it was handed back the next day. Terrible experience. And they know it as they have just announced their first Peugeot Expert Hydrogen model coming out next year! Meanwhile in reality land, we have just done 370 miles in our 3 year old Peugeot Partner Diesel, after filling up before we left, loaded with paintings and involving 127 miles there, 3 days of driving on the outskirts of Londinium, delivery of our large centre piece painting which sold at the fair we were at, then 132 miles back (A3 junction was closed). We averaged 57.6 MPG and still have 300 mile range left in the tank.

They are the tip of the Iceberg believe me. I was told they have sites everywhere with all Lotus's stacked. However they aren't alone. KIA at last count had 2800 EV9's at ports unsold, some of those are £70k cars so you do the math! And its the same throughout Europe for all manufacturers. Frankly anyone who ramped production up on EV's deserves what they get because you can't force people into something they don't want. We (People who work outside the "Yes sir, yes sir 3 bags full sir" bubble) could see it before they even started cancelling their ICE cars and swapping the models for EV only. I'm not even sure when I said it first but it was years ago that I pointed out "Don't do it" to both buyers and Manufacturers. And with the largest drop in sales of BEV's since 2017 across Europe and the biggest rise in PHEV's out of all markets, me thinks they have jumped the gun! Now you have the likes of Stellantis, Ford & Toyota saying "If you fine us we will drop all our factories in the UK, all our outlets and quit the UK" there has to come a huge change. And before anyone says they won't back out, we are talking £4.2 billion in fines likely for Stellantis and Ford over £10billion, they can't afford to NOT back away from the market! Seriously who dumps off all their ICE cars before testing the market? (Looks across at Hethel and Elise Exige cancellation).

I think they should stop immediately until 21st October. Then they can start again and I won't be in Cyprus or flying to or from Cyprus. And that really is the level of my "Am I Bovvered?". Because they are all as bad as each other. It's truly pathetic that they hate each other because of their race, religion and history. And I mean both sides as well. I also feel we have no right to complain about either sides atrocities when we started several wars and destroyed whole countries and infrastructures after 9/11 and destabilised the whole area!! Iraq was like a stopper in a bottle and we soon pulled that stopper, and Libya and Afghan etc etc. Lets not forget this started with Hamas killing over a thousand mainly young people. How far did we go when they killed 3500 in the twin towers?

And your's is a PHEV mate. A full charge on a modern EV using a trickle charger (which is what most people would do if they want to save the additional £1500 cost to fit a cheap charger) would take days to even get any useful charge in and that would mean paying full price rather than a cheap tariff at least for half the time.

I'm flying to Cyprus in a week!

All I know is that I will be buying a new/nearly new ICE car before they ban them and keep it till I am gone probably. The figures you quote are a little off from my experience. Charging from home works out about 7pkwh which is about right. On motorways it is in excess of 17pkwh and as much as 24p now as there seems to be no upper limit charge points can blackmail you to pay (You have no charge, boohoo, here's a huge bill or you can't go home). However on average I have seen 9pkwh quoted on petrol equiv charge. This is less than the above, though it depends on where you fill up and your fuel economy. My wifes van, fully loaded, does 63.3mpg in the last 1000 miles which is substantially more than the figures quoted as well. She also gets 53mpg out of her Petrol Sportage (not plug in). AND LETS NOT FORGET!!! The givt haven't started taxing Car charging yet. We all know its coming and I know for a fact it will be at a similar level as Petrol, so around 52p litre. that will make ALL charging very much more expensive.

A battery pack for Andy's EV6 is £12-16,000 depending on which model it is. Whilst i understand your argument, Frankly I wouldn't pay a single penny for any EV that was out of battery warranty. For a start we are startiing to see failures and issues with them and secondly if you buy something that has been "supercharged" its whole life and charged to 100% every time the batteries won't be anywhere near where they should be. You mentioned this brand, KIA, which is one of my specialities and I can tell you that I was told they really don't know how long anything will last on EV's! Because it hasn't been lengevity tested because its new technology. And by the time you buy your car its actually outdated as the technology is advancing so quickly. However they also said its advancing too quickly as nothing has been tested for long enough to get any true long term reliability testing. Now when I look at the issues Peugeot, VW etc are having with their "New technology" issues (mainly around Adblu systems failing in less than 5 years) I have absolutely no confidence and wouldn't pay a penny unless its got a full manufacturers warranty to cover my arse! (he also said their 327 mile range is actually closer to 200 in winter but don't tell anyone).

Yes but you will still lose your shirt because they will be 12-14k in another year. By year 8 they are totally worthless as no warranty on any part or the batteries! You can't say that about ICE cars as they always have an intrinsic value and actually reach a point where they become classics and start appreciating again!

And you sneaked in yet again you sneaky git you! Dunno who you bribe And as one of the original C5 test riders I had my own following over dad at this event! Been asked to write a piece about it.

I worked twice for Lotus in my early years, hence my attendance (Even if Bibs only took one shot of me and absolutely none of my car, git). But there were some specially invited Guests as well like Ollie Winterbottoms daughter Anne and our very own Gert @frb who is related to Fred Bushell.

Happy Birthday bud

Why not give them a tax bill for the gifts? If I got something like a trip abroad, or a car or even the gift of a new (personal) phone, I would have to declare it to HMRC as a benefit of my job, like my company car that I use for business and personal use and get taxed £200 or so a month for. So if they are saying the clothes and Sports tickets etc are need for their jobs then Tax them on it and I, for one, will be happy with that outcome (as long as I see the payment coming in to the treasury for it).

I must admit, I was not surprised when just before the elections the "Free press" of the UK and I include BBC news in that, decided Farage was target number one because he had a job at GB news which paid him nearly £100k a month and quoted his personal fortune (Which was negligible compared to Starmer and Sunak). The more I hear about what's going on at Labour the more I think Farage was actually the only person being remotely honest! He declared he had given up his own profitable business to go back into politics and Reform announced their donations to the party as a miniscule amount compared to the other parties and now we are learning they must have hidden these personal donations to Starmer and others in their figures "Well we declared it"... yeah in the overall amount with no details! Politics needs clearing out. You live on your wages, which is more than we get, and your pensions only, no donations of Office (Don't get me started on this, do you know normal MP's get a pension of £15k a year for just 2 terms in office? I've been paying in my pension for 30 years and its only that when I retire in another 10 years!!!) . "We need smart clothes because we represent the country", yeah well I represent my company and I have to buy my suits you f'kin malingerers! And now it looks more and more like those of us who work hard to earn enough to be able to retire will be the ones being targeted for tax with raids on Pension benefits and capital gains on everything you do. Talk about encouraging the entrepreneurial spirit! Same old labour with the Politics of Jealousy and now with good old Added Tory personal money grabbing and "gift" taking! Frankly I'm just about done with this lot and they only just got in! I do believe we need a shake up and I think Farage looks more and more like that "Kick in the pants" politics needs.

If you don't have a Daily Telegraph account I managed to find this free on MSN. The article is actually unbiased and interesting, he also points out the fact we all know about charging and mileage ranges quoted. An interesting piece is where he talks about cost! https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/other/i-drove-an-electric-car-over-3-000-miles-in-three-months-it-tested-my-sanity/ar-AA1r3KNn?ocid=msedgntp&pc=HCTS&cvid=2f631833edce452f91d3efdfebe8a243&ei=52