Car (or bike) Chat!

[Pigmy Pony]

My neighbour has a top of the range Polestar. It's a company car, but is a very nice car to have the use of.

If I had the dosh I would buy one anyday over a Tesla. It is a Volvo after all.

Sadly however they are made in China.

Boycotting Chinese goods almost impossible these days Barry. I'm betting that just about any car not made in the US will have some Chinese-made parts in them.

[Pigmy Pony]

Do you not have any friends/family up there you can call on, and do a short term car swap? All you would need is a quick chat with insurers and bung 'em a few quid.

[struth]

Boycotting Chinese goods almost impossible these days Barry. I'm betting that just about any car not made in the US will have some Chinese-made parts in them.

im betting most usa cars are riddled with chinese parts....

[Zoidburg]

Hello Ben the bike/pads only have 2500 miles on and have loads of wear left, but I think it would be the cheapest option to try. I can do the pads myself but I think I'll leave bleeding the system to someone that knows what they're doing, thank you Jim

A local bike mechanic should be able to bleed them for you for not much.

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[Pieoftheday]

A local bike mechanic should be able to bleed them for you for not much.

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Yeah got a great mechanic nearby, Jumbo motorcycle breakers in wakefield

[dave2010]

Do you not have any friends/family up there you can call on, and do a short term car swap? All you would need is a quick chat with insurers and bung 'em a few quid.

We could probably borrow a Hyundai i10, or if we could get the work done on our Peugeot 207 in time do that, but it is a real pain. Re renting a car - yep I've looked into that. Renting something similar would cost £1000+ not including the electric charging! Probably would make more sense to do fly drive if we could arrange in time.

I'm pushing on Tesla now - but I'm only 20% hopeful so far. Sure - this time I got to speak with someone who said he'd get it sorted - sounded "nice", but then those guys sitting in offices often do - they're not the ones actually going out [or not] to do the work. Backup plan B - using Zoe - definitely not preferred - but feasible. Customer service in the UK is often pretty bad generally - and there was Covid as an excuse for a while - but Tesla is off the scale for abysmality IMO.

Such a shame, as there are some very good things [speed, acceleration, power, charging network] about the cars, some not so good things [rear camera often cuts out, cruise control frequently failis, poor wiper control], but if the service is so dreadful who in their right minds would want to buy one?

[dave2010]

I know there are some sceptics about EVs round here - and indeed many places - but they may indeed really be the way to go, as the oil runs out. Diesel and petrol are certainly more polluting at the point of use, and clearly there are health issues in cities with poor air circulation.

However many will also be concerned about costs - and will perhaps worry more about those than health and other societal issues.

I started to check out how much our proposed trip to the far south of these islands will cost, and somewhat to my surprise, it could be more than if we used a petrol car.

Because of our recent adoption of an air source heat pump for domestic heating - which may eventually turn out to be a good thing - we have changed electricity tariff, so now our cheapest electricity is dynamically priced on a daily basis,
and currently is about 19p per kWh. In a Tesla Model 3 each kWh gives around 3.5 to 4 miles of travel. In a Renault Zoe each kWh may give 4 miles or more - though that depends on how hard the cars are driven.

Assume our round trip is going to be about 1400 miles. So in TM3 that would require perhaps 1400/3.5 kWh = 400 kWh. We could get the first 200 miles at 20p per kWh by charging up at home, so the rest of the journey - 1200 miles - would require 343kWh of charge.
Some of the public charges are high - well over 60p per kWh. So the total cost could be £57*0.2 + 343*0.6 = £218 or even more as some of the chargers charge more than 60p per unit, and some also charge ridiculously high penalty charges for overstaying.

A petrol car doing the same 1400 miles might do 40 mpg, so need 35 gallons, and a more efficient car doing 50 mpg could need 28 gallons. Based on the current prices of petrol round here - which may not be representative over the whole of the UK - an efficient 50 mpg car could cost about £188, while a less efficient 40 mpg car could cost £228. So for this round trip journey some petrol cars could work out cheaper.

If we were even to attempt the round trip with Zoe [we might end up doing that, but I'd rather not ...], then probably the first 150 miles could be done at 20p per kWh, while the remaining 1250 miles would be at the "along the route" rates.

The first 150 miles would require 37.5 kWh, while the remainder would require 312.5 kWh, so the total cost in that case would be estimated at £37.5*0.2 + 312.5*0.6 = £195.

An added complication is that the Zoe can use some of the Tesla charging stations, but not all of them, and the cost per unit for non Tesla cars tends to be higher. OTOH using the Tesla charging stations has definite advantages in terms of accessibility and speed of service.

These factors might drive some to consider plug-in hybrids more seriously, as then drivers would at least have a choice of fuel. Currently most drivers are committed to one of three "fuels", petrol, diesel or electricity, and if the big businesses which supply these up the price, then they have a captive market.

For us considering these factors, it is still better to use EVs, as most of the time we do local journeys, or currently journeys within Scotland, and most journeys are done using electricity from the home charger, some of which will have been generated by PV panels.

Others, who either care less about the environment, or simply can't afford an EV may well decide to stick with fossil fuels. A large, even gas guzzling car [say 35mpg] could probably be bought second hand for £10-£15k - maybe less, and there are still occasionally cheap runabouts available for under £2k. The price differential could buy a lot of "fuel".

If the governments are serious [you must be joking ...] about trying to get people to switch to different energy sources, then much more effort needs to be put into supporting low income households which perhaps still need to have the use of a car, and the current market pricing strategies do seem to be counter productive.

[Cotlake]

I own a Tesla Model Y. I recently went on holiday to S. Devon and Cornwall. I found Tesla Chargers were the cheapest and the price per kWh seems to vary during the day and possibly depending on location. At Camborne in Cornwall I was paying 56.5p and on another occasion the price was down to 43.5p per kWh. It was also 43.5p at M5 Exeter Services. In contrast, I had to charge a few times at the new Osprey charger at Buckfastliegh, Devon where I was ripped off at 95p per kWh.

Generally I expect to pay a similar travel cost to running an ICE when repeatably charging away from home. At home I’m on intelligent Octopus. Night charging at just 7.5p per kWh.

[struth]

My Kona has always been charged at home as it's got good range and I don't go that far these days.
It's not worth me getting Octopus cheap charging as I don't use it enough

[Macca]

I know there are some sceptics about EVs round here - and indeed many places - but they may indeed really be the way to go, as the oil runs out. Diesel and petrol are certainly more polluting at the point of use, and clearly there are health issues in cities with poor air circulation.
.

There's no issue with oil running out. Air pollution is another matter and worth it just for that.

Really hydrogen fuel cell is a much better idea than batteries, it overcomes all the problems with EV and would be cheaper vehicles once mass-market. Infrastructure is no argument against as that needs putting in for electric anyway.

But you need a lot of power to make the fuel and that means nuclear which isn't popular so where do you go? Back to only rich people driving and everyone else on bikes, scooters and buses, which I suspect is where they want them to be.