Clothing isnt a being on trend thing, just more do people find that they are cooler riding an ebike than analogue bike?

Full fat ebike ridden in high power modes?  Yes, wear warmer clothes

Sl/low power ebike, or full fat ridden in eco? No wear your usual gear.

I’d like to buy a 2 year old car now and know that it’s still going to have a resale value in 10 years time

I’ve done what you’re thinking about doing, bought a 2 year old ev with the intention of keeping it long term, 8 to 10 years, who knows how it will pan out, but my gut feel is that it will be OK.

And how are insurance companies going to view vehicles that have had a battery transplant from a scrapped car?

I shouldn’t think they care as long as it passes an mot, and has no undeclared modifications from the manufacturers standard

I don’t think it’ll be 30-40k to replace/repair a battery out of warranty, I expect there will be a 3rd party industry replacing cells, and/or using second hand entire batteries from crashed cars, much like major components from ice cars are harvested from crashed cars and used to keep cars on the road for much less than buying a new engine/gearbox etc from a main dealer.

Just doing a quick Google suggests an entire new battery for my car would be about 10k now, a lot of money but not 30-40k

I think a brand new engine for my previous ice car would have been soemthing like 25k from a main dealer, but nobody’s going to pay that if they need a new engine out of warranty, they’ll just find an engine from a scrapped car for 5 to 10k. I think It’s a similar cost for the dct gearbox from a dealer.

Is there generally a time limit on these spaces?

It depends on the charger. Most  tesla charger that I have used (only ones in motorway services so far) charge a idle fee of something like a pound per minute, if your car is connected to the charger but not actually charging. I think you get 5 minutes grace after charging stops to move the car before the idle charges start to acrue. I think the idle charges only apply if the supercharger station is 50% or more occupied.

At some other chargers there is no charge for staying in the space even if your car has stopped charging.

Essentially it varies from place to place.

Yes, one pedal is good in traffic, but I don’t like it anywhere else.

The auto mode is decent though, where it uses the radar plus sat nav info to vary the regen upon lift of the accelerator according to conditions, so it will vary from coasting with no regen at all, to full regen depending on what’s going on around it/the road ahead.

At the end of the day though, it doesn’t seem to make any difference to efficiency which regen mode you use, it’s just different preferences for how the car drives*

*assuming that pressing the brake pedal also uses regen ahead of friction brakes

Nice, look like the newer tesla chargers allow contactless cards then, that’s a good improvement. The tesla app works fine, but it would be easier with just a payment card.

i also decided that this was a good opportunity to try out the public Tesla superchargers……..Drove up, plugged in, flashed my bank card and walked off

can you use bank cards to start a charge at a tesla charger now? when I last used one (in august) you had to use the tesla app to start the charging process, they didnt take contactless cards. It worked fine as long as you had a cell signal to get an internet connection for the app.

Has something changed?

edit : according to tesla you still need to use the tesla app to start a charge in a non tesla car – so either the tesla website is out of date, or those werent tesla chargers you were using

AFAIK no charger supports this.

Yeah I meant indirectly via apis not directly over the charging cable.

As far as I can see, without the Renault connectivity, we would only have been able to tell the Ohme (or the car) to charge for a certain period overnight. But maybe we could have asked Ohme to deliver a certain amount of juice, not sure.

Yes – if the car doesnt support talking to the charger ( as our car – merc eqc – doesnt support), then you just tell the charger to add x% by y time – as opposed to telling the charger to charge the car to x% by y time,. The charger only knows how many kwh the cars theoretical battery capacity is (by looking in a database of car models) not what its current state of charge actually is. So in reality you set a default routine on the charger to add 100% by 8am, and it tries to do that. Usually though the car is not fully empty when you plug it in, so it stops charging at some point before the charger has delivered 100%.

Yep, as above, try building the flat spot area up with a few layers of tape, it might be fine

If it was a ban on private sellers why have they only emailed business sellers about meeting their criteria?

Have any private sellers had the email?

They haven’t only emailed business sellers, I’m a private seller only, I had the email, presumably because I have previously sold an ebike part (a bosch display)

It’s not just any business sellers that can sell ebikes , it’s business sellers that meet the qualification criteria specified in the email.

So presumably a lot of the cheapo none compliant ebike sellers do not meet that criteria.

We’re getting in touch to let you know that we’re updating our policy for selling e-bikes and their batteries, chargers, conversion kits, and baby toys on ebay.co.uk. To ensure that these products adhere to UK safety standards when sold on our marketplace, from 31 October 2024 only eligible business sellers will be able to list them for sale in the UK. The impacted products are as follows:

<ul style=”margin: 0px; padding: 0px; list-style-type: none;” role=”list”> <li class=”pr16″ style=”margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 16px; list-style-type: none;” role=”listitem”> • E-bikes: This includes e-bikes and their batteries, chargers, and conversion kits. These products can only be sold by business sellers. Please note that used e-bike batteries will no longer be able to be sold on ebay.co.uk <li class=”pr16″ style=”margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 16px; list-style-type: none;” role=”listitem”> • Baby toys: Items for the use of children under 36 months can only be sold by business sellers registered in the UK

<h2 class=”” style=”margin: 0px; line-height: 21px; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif, ‘Market Sans’; font-size: 16px; color: #191919;” align=”left”>In addition to the criteria above, you’ll need:</h2>

<ul style=”margin: 0px; padding: 0px; list-style-type: none;” role=”list”> <li class=”pr16″ style=”margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 4px; list-style-type: none;” role=”listitem”> • An established history of active selling for at least 90 days, with 100 or more transactions and £1,000 or more in sales in the last 12 months <li class=”pr16″ style=”margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 4px; list-style-type: none;” role=”listitem”> • A track record of delivering positive buying experiences, including an account that’s Above Standard or Top Rated <li class=”pr16″ style=”margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 4px; list-style-type: none;” role=”listitem”> • To be compliant with all applicable laws, regulations, and eBay policies <li class=”pr16″ style=”margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 4px; list-style-type: none;” role=”listitem”> • To have registered for eBay managed payments and verified your identity <li class=”pr16″ style=”margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 4px; list-style-type: none;” role=”listitem”> • To provide great customer service, like delivering items on time

If you’re not registered as a business seller, you can learn how to get started on our help page. Any existing listings of these products from sellers that don’t fulfil the new criteria will be temporarily hidden, starting on 31 October 2024, until the eligibility requirements are met. Don’t worry, you won’t lose your selling history, and your listings will be available again as soon as the eligibility requirements have been met. These restrictions are part of our commitment to maintaining a safe marketplace for buyers and sellers. We appreciate that changes like this can feel frustrating, but we’re here to help. You can also find a copy of this email under Messages in your eBay account. If you have any other questions or concerns, just get in touch. Thanks for being part of the eBay community.

A least your delivery people press your video doorbell. Round here they deliberately don’t press the doorbell because then there would be evidence that they didn’t hang around to see if anyone was in. Ours just give the gentlest of knocks on the door before legging it back to the car,leaving the package on the doorstep.

If i wanted to ride my ebike in two different spots one day, an hour apart say, is there a 12v fag lighter inverter i can plug into my normal car battery while i drive between them, just to top it up a bit?

Yep, you just need a pure sine wave inverter of suitable power for your charger. It may not be able to plug into the fag lighter socket though, you may have to wire it direct to the battery/wiring loom as it may pull more current than a fag lighter was designed to deliver.

I would refuse to pay to bring things up to current regs as well

I’d end up pretty much rebuilding my house if I attempted to bring it up to what current regs would dictate.

Some buyers seem to have really unrealistic expectations …… Not sure if that’s naivety from the buyers, or solicitors not operating in the real world.

If you want current standards buy a new house/or a house that was built after the date of the most recent standards change at least.

related to the boiler servicing question….

Do unvented cylinders need regular servicing?

we had a new boiler and unvented cylinder fitted last year, plumber didnt say anything about needing to get either of them serviced regularly, but the internet (mainly the sales arms of various unvented cylinder manufacturers and the “associations” that they group themselves under) seems to think its a good idea … any views from the stw experts? or is servicing an unvented cylinder the same as servicing a boiler – not really necessary, put the money saved into a future repairs pot.

From reading what they look at during a service its seems to be :-

– the temperature controls work ok – well this ones easy to confirm myself
– the various pressure relief valves work ok- yep fair enough, dont think I can easily check this myself
– assess generalcondition of cylinder – think I could manage this

– some places say that the expansion tank might need re-pressurising – and its this that makes me think it might be a worthwhile exercise – but maybe not yearly – maybe it could be done every few years?

We had a tiguan for a few months after our ford kuga was stolen.

I hated that tiguan with a passion, which is why we got rid after 5 months, I couldnt stand driving it any longer, it was not very refined (we had the diesel engined one), the handling was awful, the interior was bland/drab. The driver assist functions like lane assist were badly implemented and so intrusive. on the plus side nothing went wrong with it, it kind of did the job, but the ford kuga was so much nicer.

What happens when you go downhill? What does it feel like?

Assuming we’re talking about a typical ‘proper’ mid motor mtb from one of the main brands (I can’t speak for home made specials, or Halford specials) It feels like a normal mountain bike, but a few kilos heavier, which gives slightly different characteristics when descending, but not hugely different. Emtb can plough through rocks/rough stuff better than a regaulr mtb, but are a bit less responsive to braking and changing direction (because of the extra weight). It freewheels/coasts like a normal mountain bike.

I’m going to guess that you caught these people up because they weren’t as proficient at descending as you are.

I think quite a proportion of emtbers have never actually ridden a regular mtb any significant amount, so may not have the experience and skills an average regular mtber who’s been riding for 20 years might have at descending.

but there was some confusion about charging speed – the dealer told him it was 100kW – surley not?

According to evdb the max DC charge speed is 102kw, a bit slow for a recent car.

At the weekend I went back to a bike that had schwalbe magic mary on the front and big betty on the back. Couldnt discern much difference between the argotal DH super soft on my normal bike and the magic mary soft on this bike , but the difference between the kryptotal rear enduro soft and the big betty soft was significant. The kryptotal rear had loads more grip under braking compared to the big betty ie The big betty would lock up much easier than the kryptotal.

nah no regrets , I’m certainly not going to be riding a regular mtb much in the future – I have an orbea wild fs and a trek fuel exe (with range extender) – The range extender only adds 1kg, so even with that its still 4 kg lighter than my full fat ebike.

My one piece of advice – if you ride with other people on ebikes, then make sure you get something that will allow you to keep up with them, ie no good going for Sl ebike if they’re all on full fats and using turbo all the time.

Id put your chance of rain on any given day at 50% at that time of year – source : I have a place in majorca, but not in pollenca.

Its fine – its your standard majorca family holiday resort – and road biking heaven if you like that sort of thing.

The bike has been good, can’t remember whether I posted this up above, but the motor failed after 400 miles, and when I cleaned the bike to take it back to the shop I found a crack in the frame.

Both these were sorted under warranty (new motor, new frame).

I know that doesn’t sound like a good bike but I believe these were one offs, probably due to buying so early in the production life of the bike and motor, and the replacements have been fine and had some proper tough use. I like how it rides etc.

Can confirm that 160mm forks don’t void the warranty, it states in the manual that 160mm forks are fine.

I seem to have followed davros about the portes du soleil area, I have exactly the same pics of montriond lake and the avoriaz sign from this weekend.

Should i buy a Bosch powered Canyon ebike, currently on sale – for circa half the price of a slightly high spec local shop bought bike ?

Yes, the bosch warranty is global, so can be taken into any bosch dealer not just the one you bought from. I bought a bosch bike from Germany (not canyon), after a few months the motor broke, so I took it to a local bosch ebike dealer, they liaised with bosch and got a new motor sorted under warranty.

Thanks all – might try marking the position somehow to save the faff.

We did a few days with lavatrax a few years ago, was good, not as good as switchbacks in bubion, but still a good time.

From what I can glean from the Ohme site, a load monitoring cable would be a good thing and is necessary for charging at the full 7kW. Why would the quote not include this?

dont think its necesary, but is a nice feature in the scenario where your total load of the house gets close to the limit of the main house fuse, the charger can detect this and reduce its load so that you dont blow your main house fuse.

Ours is set to reduce the output of the charger when the total house load exceeds 80a , the house is on a 100a fuse. as far as I know the house has never got anywhere close to 80a total load, Think it would take both ovens, the induction hob, the electric shower, a acouple of fan heaters plus the car charger running at max power to do so. The most I have seen is ~50amps. I guess if you had a heat pump you might be more at risk of getting close to the house limits?

I dont think its expensive to add the load sensing capability – I wasnt given a choice when we had ours fitted and as such I thought they all came with it.

edit : the ohme chargers do come with the load sensing cable, so your installer shouldnt really be charging extra for it.

How do I install a CT clamp?

Revolut is good if you end up having to exchange money between the various major currencies, their fx rates are very competitive, and the app and card work well. I use it primarly to send/receive euros to euro bank accounts, with the odd cash withdrawal from euro atms. I also have a few euro direct debits set up to take money from the euro account, it’s easier and cheaper than getting a bank account with a traditional bank in Europe.

I’d be wary about keeping a large amount of money in there as they are not yet a fully fledged bank, so the fca deposit protection scheme doesn’t apply yet. However they are in the process of getting their banking licence.

I went ohme home pro too – the ohme chargers seem to have the widest compatibility with the various electric company smart tariffs, so if we ever need to move away from octopus ,in theory it gives the most choice of who else we can use.

I went with the home pro as opposed to the epod because I didnt want to be getting a cable in and out of the boot all the time (like andy4d).

Its been fine – the app is not the most intuitive, but its always worked without fail.

Just driven from Manchester to Cornwall. The first stop was at Gloucester Services where there was a set of tesla chargers available to anyone, plus a set of none tesla chargers. The tesla chargers were 4p per kwh cheaper than the none tesla chargers, but it seems that nobody with a none tesla knew that the tesla chargers were open to all. We used the tesla chargers (with a merc) and all was well, had breakfast, by the time we’d finished breakfast  the car was at 85% and we cariied on the journey.

The car was saying the next stop should be Exeter services where there should be 24 chargers. As we approached it said 2 of the 24 should be free. We got there and it was bedlam, not just at the ev chargers, but the entire services were horrendously busy.  We had. A drive down the row of chargers but couldn’t see any free, despite the app saying 2 should have been free, not sure if people were parking inconsiderate lying or whether the utilisation was being incorrectly reported. Anyway we gave up on Exeter services and moored on to the next public tesla superchargers at lifton. These were very quiet, but no cell signal on my phone, so couldn’t start the charge, managed to sort this by enabling a WiFi hot-spot on the wife’s phone which had signal, put 30% in the car and got to Fowey 6 hours after leaving Manchester.

Left the car in the main car park at Fowey charging on a swarco slow(7kw) charger, ready for tomorrow.

A couple of people were having difficulty with the slow chargers, they were trying to use a contact less payment card to start the charge, where they would only take an rfid card or use the app. The instructions on the chargers are none existent so no wonder people struggled. I’d done a bit of go ogling so knew they needed at rfid card or app to start the charge.

I should look at the “Highway-Cold Weather” range and that’s only 140 miles. Ouch!

EVDB highway cold range is very much a worst case scenario , in the coldest of temperatures , in the uk its unlikely to be that cold for very long, butother countries would easily be that cold frequently , so most of the time even in the coldest of winter in the uk you wont get range that low , but it is a possibility.

Our car has a wltp range of 250 miles , evdb states a cold highway range of 165 miles, and a warm highway range of 210 miles. In reality in winter the range drops to about 180-190 miles , in summer its about 210-220 miles.

Unless there’s an easy way to knock 2 degrees off the Capra’s head angle, the Trek will probably suit you better eh.

Maybe get the optional extra headset cups (?) to slack it right out? The motor will probably come in handy too :D

That was my conclusion too. You can’t get the slackset headset cups for the EXe though, they only fit the fuel ex, but  with that 160mm fox 36 (standard bike use 150mm fork) ,the head angle is 64deg . You can use the slackr angle set from 9 point 8, but that lifts the front end by another 10mm.

I reckon a 64deg head angle is OK. I could put a 27.5 inch wheel in the back and that would slack it out even further, but not sure it’s worth it.

The motor was an added bonus/complication.

Go on then, what models are the old and new bike?

2018 Yt capra cf pro 27.5 – totally stock as it came from yt, except for new suitable for alps tyres

2023 trek fuel exe – 160mm fox 36, magura mt7 brakes, conti tyres (suitable casings for alps)

But if not, what kind of trails will you be riding in Morzine?

Probably a bit of everything, possibly more of the bike park stuff than off piste stuff, but who knows. I know I need a bike that can do it all though.

Were off to morzine in a couple of weeks, trying to decide what bike to take.

I was last in the alps about 10 years ago, back then I was riding a 26 inch wheeled ibis mojo HD in les arcs.

This time I have a choice between a 170mm travel 27.5 inch wheeled enduro bike from 2018 with geo to suit, or a 2023 160mm front, 145mm rear, 29 inch wheel  all mountain/trail bike with more modern geo (slacker head angle, longer reach etc)

I’m leaning to taking the more modern trail bike despite it having less travel than the older enduro bike, simply because I’m more familiar with it as its the bike I ride all the time now,  it’s a bit slacker/longer than the older enduro bike and it has 29 inch wheels.

Any words of wisdom on this choice?

Our monthly electric bill (inc standing charge)on intelligent octopus is about a fiver a month cheaper including Charging the car, than our previous monthly electric bill was on shell energy with no car charging.

Due to shifting washing machine and dish washer into the off peak hours plus the whole house getting electric at 7p whenever the car is charging outside the off peak hours.

Now that the per kwh costs have come down across the board, I think my currently monthly costs with the car  are about the same as the monthly costs I would be paying without the car on a standard tarrif.

We’re at about 2.9p per mile in our very inefficient ( for an ev) merc eqc as an average over the last 5000 miles.

It’s rediculously  cheap per mile compared to the diesel vw tiguan that we had before it, but probably not a tenth of the cost. Think the vw worked out around 16p per mile assuming diesel was 1.45 per litre.