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Run it down the wall and across the pavement with a cable protector over it? Some councils take a dubious view but to be honest if you trip over a bright yellow cable cover but survive the rest of our appalling pavements the blame has to be on you.
I wouldn't run it at 7ft, someone will be tempted to swing on it and you can't easily attach it to the telegraph pole.
https://www.stockport.gov.uk/parking-for-other-vehicles/home-charging
My council (Stockport) says no trailing cables across pavements. I suspect their stance on this will have to change, don't know what the answer is though
Norfolk has quite a good approach to cables across pavements I think: https://www.norfolk.gov.uk/business/licences-and-permits/ev-cable-permission
Calderdale council not so progressive unfortunately. That being said, they don't enforce any other traffic or road rules seemingly, so I reckon if I follow rule 1, it'll be reet. Maybe.
“Thrashed the living daylights out of it” … over a 140 mile round trip. And how exactly does one “thrash the living daylights” out of a 600BHP+ car over that distance without losing their licence? It’s nonsense.
Not really, i can take two identical cars, same time of day, same journey, broadly similar average speed/journey time and pretty much half my economy by driving like a tosser and *without* breaking any laws.
In fact, i actually did it for some real world driving emissions testing work a few years ago. We only had a 420bhp EV though, and a 450bhp PHEV, and a 350 bhp PHEV, and a 250bhp diesel, and a 300 bhp petrol MHEV.
Holy crap, it's Jason Bourne!
mert
Not really, i can take two identical cars, same time of day, same journey, broadly similar average speed/journey time and pretty much half my economy by driving like a tosser and *without* breaking any laws.
In fact, i actually did it for some real world driving emissions testing work a few years ago. We only had a 420bhp EV though, and a 450bhp PHEV, and a 350 bhp PHEV, and a 250bhp diesel, and a 300 bhp petrol MHEV.
Yes, I don't doubt you can make "a car" lose efficiency by driving it badly. I presume you were doing things like continuing to accelerate up to traffic lights and braking at the last second.
But if you read the post I replied to, what it actually said was that Harry "thrashed the living daylights out of it" (in other words "used maximum performance of") the car.
What I disputed is that you could use anything like the maximum performance of this particular (600 BHP AWD) performance car over any decent proportion of this particular 140 mile round trip from Oxfordshire into and out of London. There is too much traffic and too many speed cameras. You would go to jail or kill somebody.
but to be honest if you trip over a bright yellow cable cover
Written as a perfectly able and well sighted person I presume.
Them bright yelloww cable covers are a pain in the arse for the front wheels of wheel chairs(and kids buggy's, Zimmer frames, partially sighted - sack barrows , wheel barrows etc etc) - we use them on location alot -locations with zero partial sighted/wheelchair users and they are still a pain in the arse.
Taping the cable to the pavement would actually be a better move.
For folk who are looking for help setting up their Ohme with Intelligent Octopus
https://ohme-ev.com/support/how-do-i-set-up-intelligent-octopus/
Not really, i can take two identical cars, same time of day, same journey, broadly similar average speed/journey time and pretty much half my economy by driving like a tosser and *without* breaking any laws.
Interested in your findings, as (not at all rigorously) when I've booted my low power EVs around without exceeding the limits the economy has barely changed, unlike with ICEs.
Interested in your findings, as (not at all rigorously) when I’ve booted my low power EVs around without exceeding the limits the economy has barely changed, unlike with ICEs.
Economy seems like a random number generator in my car, one day I get 2.3mkwh, the next on the same journey with largely similar traffic conditions, driven in the same manner ,with similar outside temp, I get 3.5.
Interested in your findings, as (not at all rigorously) when I’ve booted my low power EVs around without exceeding the limits the economy has barely changed, unlike with ICEs.
Pootling in my (500bhp) Tesla, I’d get 280wh/mile.
Not pootling, it would be 450-500wh/mile.
Don’t know yet what the Poledancer (300bhp) does when not pootling as it’s only four days old, but its rear wheel drive, so when it need new tyres…
Shiny…
Zappi chargers are now compatible with Octopus Intelligent Go.
Had notification on Monday and I switched tariff this morning in about 5 mins.
Been on 'normal' Go for a couple of years but this will give us longer off peak prices, and a reduction from 9p off peak to 7.5p
Yes, I don’t doubt you can make “a car” lose efficiency by driving it badly. I presume you were doing things like continuing to accelerate up to traffic lights and braking at the last second.
Yes, lots of WOT and hard braking, Lots of changes of speed, lane hopping etc. Driving like a tosser.
But if you read the post I replied to, what it actually said was that Harry “thrashed the living daylights out of it” (in other words “used maximum performance of”) the car.
What I disputed is that you could use anything like the maximum performance of this particular (600 BHP AWD) performance car over any decent proportion of this particular 140 mile round trip from Oxfordshire into and out of London. There is too much traffic and too many speed cameras. You would go to jail or kill somebody.
The rated figures for range/consumption won't come within a million miles of the rated power output of the car. So you don't actually have to actually "thrash the living daylights" out of something to massively miss the rated consumption. Ably demonstrated by thousands of drivers on a daily basis.
As an aside, every moderately quick electric vehicle i've driven, and most of the ICE/PHEVs as well, physically won't allow you to try and put their rated power through the wheels until they are doing (almost) illegal speeds. They'll put a lot more than you need (enough to spin the wheels) but they won't be chucking 600bhp down until they are already borderline illegal.
TLDR I doubt bensales knows what thrashing the living daylights out of a 600bhp car on the public highway looks like, "driving like a tosser" is probably what he means.
Matthewlhome - any idea if they’re allowing more than one car on intelligent octopus yet? I have a Zappi charger but already on IO as it talks to the Tesla. But our other car isn’t registered on IO - doesn’t make a lot of difference as we just charge in the cheap hours but IO is better as you get potentially more cheap hours and cleverer charge management eg our other car can’t be set to max charge % but IO can do this for us.
My car is not compatible so the device registered and controlled is the charger only. I guess if you did IO through the charger and removed the link to the car it wouldn't know what car was connected?
I had issues with my previous charger calling on the car API and then causing the 12v battery to go flat at night, so am hoping that by controlling the charger this wont be an issue.
EDIT - thinking about this, i had to register the car so that IO knows the battery capacity, but it should still work
I’ve emailed Octopus as not sure - doesn’t really matter that much as both cars still charge on the low rate but would be nice for both to work via the App.
Somewhere I've seen info about third party API use being withdrawn by a manufacturer (Ford I think) and the suggestion that others may follow.
TLDR I doubt bensales knows what thrashing the living daylights out of a 600bhp car on the public highway looks like, “driving like a tosser” is probably what he means.
bensales isn’t foolish enough to suggest anything of the sort whilst posting in a public forum using his own name.
bensales has watched enough Harry’s Garage videos and read enough EVO over the years to have a pretty good idea how Harry drives a review car.
Not shocked at withdrawing API for car apps when a 3rd party can effectively brick your car.
It took me months to work out why my battery kept going flat - including multiple painful visits to dealers. In the end it was because my home charger app would continually ping the car to find the state of charge to determine if it needed more charging. It would effectively keep the car 'awake' too long and then it wouldn't function in the morning.
I cannot recommend Rolec home chargers - between that app and the fact that the unit failed multiple times and was replaced with a Zappi by my installer
Nearly time for a New 2nd hand EV, had a zoe for 2.5 years looking at something bigger and longer range about £16000 budget. At present kia niro 64kw or the mg5 61kw, pros and cons of either much appreciated
I found a carbon footprint comparison on a volvo document that was interesting and surprising.
The surprising bit is how marginal the difference is between ICE and electric globally but also interesting how much better they can be in heavily renewable countries.
Also worth noting that graph is for 200Mm estimated lifetime which is pretty conservative. I would say 300Mm would be more realistic and the difference at that point would be much greater.
I would say 300Mm would be more realistic
Why - it would be considerably more than the current milage cars are scrapped at in the uk.
Volvo plot - ‘marginal’ but still a difference.
Saw an article in Wired on some EVs for 2024.
Some interesting designs among them.
https://www.wired.co.uk/article/best-evs-2024
The UK has half the average emissions of the Eu28/kWh, so in the UK, it's much closer to the Wind example.
Why are there so many more resources in an EV (exclusing the battery as above) than in a normal car. I'd have thought that engine, transmission, etc would more than offset motor, controller and HV cabling...I guess thy know best.
I've just read this - amazing that manufacturers are openly considering selling new EV's at a loss to avoid putative fines for not selling enough of them...
https://www.autoexpress.co.uk/opinion/361923/2024-will-be-year-cheap-electric-car
Has anyone had a look at, sat in or driven the new EX30 yet? No where local has one. <br /><br />
It’s either that or the MG4 I think. Not needed until June, but I don’t know how long they might take.
I haven't, but they are building a Volvo dealership next to the Mercedes dealer where I walk to get parts for my old gas guzzler so when they open it I might pop in 🙂
I just read the link about the mandate, I had no idea there was a sliding scale - that's really interesting, but I think it will depress the re-sale prices of the cars I already own...
The EX30 is at the top of my list to replace my current Tesla later this year. Got to wait until the end of February to test drive one, but it looks great value to me, and less Musky than another Model 3.
This ex30?
https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-review/volvo/ex30
Where they actively recommend you don't buy that car?
That one reviewer does. But he then goes on to say it's actually a pretty good car he just hates the infotainment. And that can be quite a personal thing. Other reviewers liked the car.
The reviews are extremely positive, with the only sticking point being that everything is done through the screen, but at least it sounds like it is very well executed.
Unfortunately, everything is going that way.
I can live with infotainment being all but imposible to use on th emove but if I want to demist the screen, turn on the foglights, adjust the headlamp height... I like a knob or switch I can find by feel in the dark. Being an older gentleman anything on the touch screen means finding reading glasses before I can start. I agree with the autocar reviewer, it's not a personal thing, it's an active safety thing and shame on Volvo.
There'll be voice commands. People dismiss them because of early frustrations, but they do work pretty well if you learn the commands. There are usually too many to learn them all but remembering the 'warmer/colder/foglight on' etc is well worth doing.
I thought the one in the Hyundai was terrible because it claimed to be able to interpret what you said, and was hopeless. However once I found out what it was expecting to hear, it was spot on. I could jump in and drive off and give it my destination on the move.
Nah, sod that. Last thing I need or want is an argument with my car whilst driving because it doesn't understand my accent. It's another distraction I don't need, especially at night (my infotainment screen gets turned off at night unless I need the sat nav).
Ed has it, it's a poor system and is nothing more than penny pinching, IIRC mert said as much and they're looking to go back to proper switches.
Am I alone in thinking that you could do all that in about 20 seconds whilst parked? And thus be able to concentrate fully on driving?
Sorry to labour the point but when I got back into a Genesis G70 after driving the Volvo, I adjusted the mirrors, temperature, heated seats, heated steering wheel and auto wiper sensitivity all by feel on the way out of a car park. Had I tried adjusting those on the move in the EX30, I’d have driven it into a wall.
Having said that, none of those things need menu digging in my car - which is from the Volvo group as well. Having lights in the touchscreen seems particularly odd. But looking closer, heated seats, aircon and stereo volume all seem to be on a control bar at the bottom? So possibly just a poor reviewer then.
Now do that if you live on the Border of France, Spain and the Basque country. 😉 I'm surprised you don't have the same problem if you correctly pronounce Welsh place names.
Try asking your car to take you to Ledeuix, Boeil-Bezing, Royan or even Leroy Merlin or Leclerc.
There’ll be voice commands. People dismiss them because of early frustrations, but they do work pretty well if you learn the commands
Unless you speak queens English they are still terrible.
Alexa and ok Google are just me spoiling for a rumble with a north east Scottish accent - and they are both far more learned than any car mfg headunit
Nowt wrong with buttons. Everything in Touch screens or voice commands is just a distraction from driving.
Nowt wrong with buttons.
Well, according to Volvo one reason that EX30 is their cheapest car is because it has no buttons at all. As has been discussed on this thread before it makes the car cheaper.
Had I tried adjusting those on the move in the EX30, I’d have driven it into a wall.
Don't do it on the move then. You probably should't be so impatient you can't spend a minute setting it up anyway. I make myself do that stuff before driving off because it's much safer even with buttons.
If you don't like it, don't buy the car, but it's done that way for a reason.
Re Welsh place names, yes back in the day it was impossible but the Hyundai got them all fine and the few occasions I've done it in the Leaf it seems alright too. But generally I use postcodes. The Hyundai, being an online search, could give you directions to businesses e.g. 'take me to Halfords' but only if you asked in a certain way. Something like 'search for Halfords', but I forget what it was.
I'm happy with a balance tbh. That article was properly labouring the point as well, complaining that driver aids and OPD settings and music sources were on the touchscreen. Surely that's where they'd be on all modern cars? One thing I did like on the i3 was having a row of assignable buttons. Seems to me that replicating that in the UI would make sense.
Well, according to Volvo one reason that EX30 is their cheapest car is because it has no buttons at all.
That's a lot like the chef telling you you do like the food you don't like though.
Just because it's cheap doesn't mean it's good or we would all be driving dacias.
Things can be good and cheap but they are not automatically good because they are cheap.
Right, but they wanted to make it at a price point so it needed to save some money - either a shorter range, or less equippment, or no buttons etc. You can either get a lot of car for the price without buttons, or you can get slightly less car from someone else but with buttons.
We have a choice, choice is good. I would still be tempted if I were in the market as it would be a compromise I'd be happy to make.
How does it stack up against other £33k cars? I think the extremely quick version is probably the fastest car you can get at the price by quite some margin, if that's your thing.