The Night Mail

[Tony_S]

5 minutes ago, Dave Hunt said:

Just off to Rugby motorway services to meet up with No. 2 son and collect our granddaughter from him as he is on his way oop north and she is coming to stay with us. I know we shouldn’t have favourites when it comes to grandchildren but she is mine so I’m really looking forward to seeing her.

 

Dave 

Brings back memories of meeting my brother at motorway services or car parks somewhere to hand over/collect our Mum for visits. 

[monkeysarefun]

2 hours ago, Hroth said:

@polybear 200 miles range is when I start getting twitchy in my Yeti.  An electric car with that as its as new, full charge maximum range is beyond belief.

 

And talking of electric cars, I was behind a Tesla yesterday. Gawd! That's a car with an ugly backside!

 

 

Lack of range is often given as a reason why they have trouble gaining traction (nyuk nyuk) in Australia.

 

But, with solar power, charging infrastructure is a whole lot easier to deploy in remote areas (or the suburbs come to that)  then traditional refueling facilities, let alone keeping them supplied with fuel.

 

Edited August 12, 2023 by monkeysarefun

[Happy Hippo]

I too am another electric car sceptic.

 

I did see an article the other day where it was claimed that if you could buy a new VW Golf, and could run it for 77000 miles before the pollution factor swung in favour of a BEV.

 

Mind you German car manufacturers have found to have been a bit iffy with their claims in the past

 

I'll get another second hand petrol vehicle when we replace the SEAT later on this year. It will probably see me to the end of my driving days.

[Hroth]

1 hour ago, SM42 said:

What an elecrric car needs is a nice little diesel engine running a generator to power the motor. 

 

Why it has never been thought of remains a mystery.

 

Andy

 

They tried that on Top Gear once 🤪

 

Edited August 12, 2023 by Hroth
link

[DaveF]

My current car which I've had for almost 5 years is a Toyota Yaris hybrid.  It has a small "self charging" battery, at this time of year I get about 63mpg.  I've ordered a new one to have later this year which should be slightly better overall.  Ihope it will last a long time, perhaps until I decide to give up driving.

 

I don't mind the idea of an electric car but so far there are very few public charging points in the more remote places I sometimes visit to take photos.

 

David

[DenysW]

22 minutes ago, Happy Hippo said:

I too am another electric car sceptic.

I reached the same conclusion as HH when we had an electric charging point installed, for a modest £1k. This was just being pro-active in case offspring went hybrid or electric in their vehicle choice, and not to be in a panic on choice on changing vehicles.

 

The only domestic charging  available without re-running the cables from the street to the house is 7 kW, which means 10-15 hours of overnight charging for any electric-only vehicle. Plug in 2 electric cars? charge both at 3.5 kW.

 

Yet more of the UK's infrastructure not within 7 years of an electric-only future, and with Government (all colours) assuming costs with be swallowed-up 'by others', in the contractual phrase.

[Tony_S]

43 minutes ago, Happy Hippo said:

will probably see me to the end of my driving days.

I find saying “this will see us out” on any big purchase is a good way of winding Aditi up.  She now responds, for cars at least, with “you can do what you want, I plan to get a little 2 seater sports car”. 

[polybear]

3 hours ago, Northmoor said:

For two years I ran a Peugeot 406 Diesel, very handy as I did about 24000 miles p.a.  On at least 6 occasions I filled up having done over 840 miles.  Fortunately my normal driving is a fraction of that now.  Since I have no practical means of charging a car outside my house - and most of my neighbours are the same - I fully expect to be driving internal combustion (or hybrid at most) cars for the rest of my life.  Since our current cars are 21 and 14 years old, I'm not exactly a target customer for a new one anyway.

 

Bear predicts a mad rush to buy new Petrol/Diesel Cars in 2029, just before the ban; that assumes any manufacturers are still making such things, of course.....

 

[Dave Hunt]

I’ve never seen the point of hybrid cars as the motive power ultimately comes from the hydrocarbon fuel they carry. A friend has a 2 litre hybrid and gets fewer mpg than I do with a 2 litre diesel.

 

Dave

[MR Chuffer]

2 minutes ago, Dave Hunt said:

hybrid cars

I've got a 13 year old Prius hybrid, I still get 60+mpg on long drives in the summer or stop/start motoring in large cities and high 40s just pottering around in the winter. And notwithstanding the much cheaper price of petrol to diesel and the lower pollution impact, I'm quids in.

[monkeysarefun]

1 hour ago, Tony_S said:

I find saying “this will see us out” on any big purchase is a good way of winding Aditi up. 

Its when you start thinking that about milk that you have to start to worry.

[monkeysarefun]

1 hour ago, DaveF said:

My current car

I got it even if nobody else did!

[Dave Hunt]

9 minutes ago, MR Chuffer said:

I've got a 13 year old Prius hybrid, I still get 60+mpg on long drives in the summer or stop/start motoring in large cities and high 40s just pottering around in the winter. And notwithstanding the much cheaper price of petrol to diesel and the lower pollution impact, I'm quids in.

 

Butif you are using a gallon of hydrocarbon fuel every 60 miles how is less polluting? I get 64 mpg on a long run out of my 2 litre diesel.

 

Dave

[Dave Hunt]

7 minutes ago, monkeysarefun said:

Its when you start thinking that about milk that you have to start to worry.

 

A mate of mine said when he passed his 70th birthday, “I don’t buy green bananas any more.”

 

Dave

[SteveyDee68]

1 hour ago, DaveF said:

My current car which I've had for almost 5 years is a Toyota Yaris hybrid.

I had a second hand Prius+ (7 seater) hybrid which I found a joy to drive, but had to get rid after taking a six month payment holiday during COVID when it turned out the “holiday” wasn’t added on to the end of the payment period, and that only three months of “arrears” could be rolled over into a new contract!

 

Cheapest solution (incredibly) was to trade in the Prius+ (beloved of car owners in the London congestion charge zone and taxi drivers alike) for a brand new Yaris X hybrid!

 

You can read that again - cheapest option was a brand new car!! How mad is that?

 

The new Toyota hybrids are series IV hybrid engines, which means they can run on electric up to 60mph (series III up to 30mph only), or so I was informed… certainly I’ve been able to drive at a steady 60mph on the motorway purely off battery.

 

The Yaris X is a “beefed up” version of the Yaris, like a small SUV. I like the higher driving position and the larger load space over the Yaris (I occasionally have to move a full size piano keyboard and an enormous Roland amp to gigs!) and am especially smug that the LEXUS version of exactly the same body shape (!) is double the cost plus is fitted out with the series III engine!!

 

I’ll need to change my car again before 2030, and suspect my next will also be a hybrid.

 

Steve S

[MR Chuffer]

9 minutes ago, Dave Hunt said:

less polluting?

Generally, diesel is supposed to take you further than petrol and therefore creates less CO2. That's not so in your stated case, we emit the same CO2 but it is diesel particulates that are the killer and, I understand, the driver behind many ULEZ zones, not CO2. And also, what's the price difference nowadays, north of 6% that you are paying extra? Plus zero road tax, I think my case still stands.

[monkeysarefun]

33 minutes ago, Dave Hunt said:

 

Butif you are using a gallon of hydrocarbon fuel every 60 miles how is less polluting? I get 64 mpg on a long run out of my 2 litre diesel.

 

Dave

 

 

 

 

My ute gets 19mpg, but a 6L V8 is pretty quick  so I take less time to get to places so I use less fuel.

 

I reckon.

Edited August 12, 2023 by monkeysarefun

[MrWolf]

1 hour ago, MR Chuffer said:

I've got a 13 year old Prius hybrid, I still get 60+mpg on long drives in the summer or stop/start motoring in large cities and high 40s just pottering around in the winter. And notwithstanding the much cheaper price of petrol to diesel and the lower pollution impact, I'm quids in.

 

What is the cost of servicing though? Or such things as consumables and wearing components? Or the dreaded phrase "Dealer part only"? This has always been the issue I've had when I've run anything made in the last three decades. 

When I hear people talking about the thick end of £1000 to replace a clutch and knowing exactly what is involved, I have to stop myself telling them that they're being mugged. 

[Happy Hippo]

28 minutes ago, monkeysarefun said:

 

 

 

 

My ute gets 19mpg, but a 6L V8 is pretty quick  so I take less time to get to places so I use less fuel.

 

I reckon.

Dave found this with the difference between a Cessna 182  and a Lightning Mk 6.

 

The Lightning's fuel consumption to do the 1000 miles was just a tad more than the 182, but infinitely quicker🤣

[Dave Hunt]

1 hour ago, Happy Hippo said:

Dave found this with the difference between a Cessna 182  and a Lightning Mk 6.

 

The Lightning's fuel consumption to do the 1000 miles was just a tad more than the 182, but infinitely quicker🤣

 

800lb (roughly 100gallons) per minute in full burner at low level. In the F4 it was nearer 1,000lb.

 

Dave

Edited August 12, 2023 by Dave Hunt

[Dave Hunt]

2 hours ago, MR Chuffer said:

And also, what's the price difference nowadays, north of 6% that you are paying extra? Plus zero road tax, I think my case still stands.

 

Diesel is now the same price as petrol in many places. My road tax is £30 pa.

[PhilJ W]

5 hours ago, monkeysarefun said:

 

Lack of range is often given as a reason why they have trouble gaining traction (nyuk nyuk) in Australia.

 

But, with solar power, charging infrastructure is a whole lot easier to deploy in remote areas (or the suburbs come to that)  then traditional refueling facilities, let alone keeping them supplied with fuel.

 

I would have thought that Australia would be an ideal place for electric cars, if they were all equipped with solar panels.

[J. S. Bach]

6 hours ago, SM42 said:

What an electric car needs is a nice little diesel engine running a generator to power the motor.

Why it has never been thought of remains a mystery.

Andy

Like hundreds of thousands of locomotives?

 

 

6 hours ago, Oldddudders said:

Sherry, like a very great number of other people worldwide, lives in a flat in an Edwardian building. How is she ever going to be able to charge an electric car at home? And given the proliferation of public charging points isn't going fast enough, apparently, the no-fossil-fuel idea really isn't a strategy that looks likely to succeed any time soon. And do they suffer vandalism? Hybrids remain the sensible option for most, I feel. Taxi drivers we have spoken to en voyage rave about them. 

I just traded my 2005 Honda Civic hybrid (overall average 34 mpg for its 198,507 miles) for a new Ford Escape that so far is showing me a 32 mpg overall average.

[Dave Hunt]

21 minutes ago, PhilJ W said:

I would have thought that Australia would be an ideal place for electric cars, if they were all equipped with solar panels.

 

There's a company in, IIRC, The Netherlands that is producing solar powered cars.

 

Dave 

[Happy Hippo]

29 minutes ago, Dave Hunt said:

 

There's a company in, IIRC, The Netherlands that is producing solar powered cars.

 

Dave 

It's probably the same company that made it's fortune selling brass magnets.🤣