Electric, Hybrid and Alternative fuelled vehicles - News and Discussion

[Guest]

15 minutes ago, Ian J. said:

Subscriptions for features on a car (any car, not just electric) sounds awfully close to 'renting' a car rather than owning it. I'd prefer to have ownership and not be paying ongoing subscriptions

 

That's the thing. You supposedly own it yet there are artificial barriers in place to stop you using that thing you own unless you give the manufacturer money.

[boxbrownie]

2 hours ago, 30801 said:

 

It's really not. Traffic updates are a service. It's data someone needs to collect on a continual basis. It has an ongoing cost.

I get traffic updates all the time, I have never updated my system……are we really talking about map updates?

[boxbrownie]

21 minutes ago, Ian J. said:

Subscriptions for features on a car (any car, not just electric) sounds awfully close to 'renting' a car rather than owning it. I'd prefer to have ownership and not be paying ongoing subscriptions (as I do with media like music and films). It's an 'old-fashioned' view in modern times, but I stick by it, especially in these high inflation times when people suddenly have to cancel subscriptions so they can afford to heat their homes and put food on the table.

You can, when you buy your new car just specify the option, you have it for life.

[Guest]

Just now, boxbrownie said:

pay the extra or buy it as a secondhand owner.

 

I bet when when you buy that Merc a couple of owners in that $1200 PA doesn't reduce with time.

It's why I'm not a fan of battery leases.

[BR traction instructor]

I wouldn’t give a Satnav houseroom…never used one and have no intention of starting. The maps facility on our mobile phones is perfectly adequate…why pay twice?

 

BeRTIe

[boxbrownie]

1 minute ago, 30801 said:

 

I bet when when you buy that Merc a couple of owners in that $1200 PA doesn't reduce with time.

It's why I'm not a fan of battery leases.

No it most likely won’t, but then as a secondhand owner you should have been more careful with your choice on the market if you don’t want to pay after 😁

 

But what it does do is give the subsequent owners the choice, that’s got to be an advantage over not being able to upgrade it at all, like virtually every dealer will say if you wander in and say “I want heated seats please” sure Sir, that’ll be £3500 foe the seats and fitting, oh and by the way it’s a modification and the warranty is no longer valid.

 

 

[boxbrownie]

Just now, BR traction instructor said:

I wouldn’t give a Satnav houseroom…never used one and have no intention of starting. The maps facility on our mobile phones is perfectly adequate…why pay twice?

 

BeRTIe

Your choice, I don’t want to buy a mobile phone big enough to read the maps on it, thank you, or risk being arrested by needing to touch it to change something while driving, with a Sat Nav you can, anyway I don’t think this conversation was actually about whether sat Nav are a personal choice or not.

[Guest]

26 minutes ago, boxbrownie said:

But what it does do is give the subsequent owners the choice, that’s got to be an advantage over not being able to upgrade it at all, like virtually every dealer will say if you wander in and say “I want heated seats please” sure Sir, that’ll be £3500 foe the seats and fitting, oh and by the way it’s a modification and the warranty is no longer valid.

 

Look at it like this. You see posts here with people not liking computers in cars, which I think is a bit silly. But here you have computers in cars containing layers of encryption and authentication that's just there to control your access to the thing you bought. Now if you 'own' a bunch of features you paid for and you need some work doing  you may need some mechanism to restore your options in the new hardware. You're tied to the dealer network.

It's why farmers in the US (& probably elsewhere) are running cracked Ukrainian firmware in their John Deere (other repressive tractor manufacturers are available) machinery so they can actually fix them. When you're up against the clock/weather to get things done and you have to wait a week for the official John Deere man to come with his offial laptop and bless things.

[Guest]

41 minutes ago, BR traction instructor said:

I wouldn’t give a Satnav houseroom…never used one and have no intention of starting. The maps facility on our mobile phones is perfectly adequate…why pay twice?

 

The satnav on the Leaf was utter garbage and the map updates for it were £170...

[boxbrownie]

15 minutes ago, 30801 said:

 

Look at it like this. You see posts here with people not liking computers in cars, which I think is a bit silly. But here you have computers in cars containing layers of encryption and authentication that's just there to control your access to the thing you bought. Now if you 'own' a bunch of features you paid for and you need some work doing  you may need some mechanism to restore your options in the new hardware. You're tied to the dealer network.

It's why farmers in the US (& probably elsewhere) are running cracked Ukrainian firmware in their John Deere (other repressive tractor manufacturers are available) machinery so they can actually fix them. When you're up against the clock/weather to get things done and you have to wait a week for the official John Deere man to come with his offial laptop and bless things.

Which is why we use New Holland on the farm 😄

 

And BTW they come out the same day, or next time we want to spend £100K + we’ll go elsewhere!

 

Edited November 26, 2022 by boxbrownie

[Vistisen]

I test drove a NIO ET7 a couple of days ago. I think the biggest impression it made on me was the top-quality build. I got back into my one year old Volvo V60 which felt cheap and nasty by comparison.  The interior design is gorgeous. I drove it about 20 miles on the open road and though a couple of villages, with a quick blast along the motorway. Whisper quiet at 85 mph, even though it waas running on Winter tyres that make more road noise than normal tyres.

The Tesla Model S feels like a Tupperware container in comparison. Even though it costs about 25% more than the fully equipped ET7.  Problem is that it is out of my tax bracket. But the ET5 isn’t. That arrives next summer!

[BR traction instructor]

1 hour ago, boxbrownie said:

Your choice, I don’t want to buy a mobile phone big enough to read the maps on it, thank you, or risk being arrested by needing to touch it to change something while driving, with a Sat Nav you can, anyway I don’t think this conversation was actually about whether sat Nav are a personal choice or not.

 

…a very casual assumption…needing to consult a map whilst on the move. What happened to actually knowing where you were going and having the capacity to find your destination unassisted?

 

BeRTIe

Edited November 26, 2022 by BR traction instructor

[APOLLO]

Twenty odd years ago I drove from Bangkok to Chiang Mai (400 miles or so) navigated by a Bartholomews "Road map of Thailand" bought in WH Smiths Wigan !! No real problems, keep heading north with the sun to your right in the morning and to the left in the afternoon !!!!!!!!

 

Nice roads over there back then once out of manic Bangkok, quite enjoyable.

 

Brit15

[Hobby]

1 hour ago, BR traction instructor said:

 

…a very casual assumption…needing to consult a map whilst on the move. What happened to actually knowing where you were going and having the capacity to find your destination unassisted?

 

Perhaps we should go back to horses as well and get rid of these new fangled cars... No harm in using new technology which is especially useful if you are no good at map reading - some people are, you know.

[Ian J.]

For a long time I had TomTom Navigation on a Windows Mobile device, without the traffic subscription. For any journey where I didn't know the route it was very useful, and saved having to research maps and try and remember the route.

 

I have TomTom Go on my Android Phone now, with a yearly subscription to the service, which includes Traffic notifications. I don't like to be without it these days, as those have often saved me getting stuck in bad traffic situations. Not always, but often. The subscription is currently (for me) £12.99 per year. That's not bad, considering. Even if it doubled I'd still pay for it. However, I could live without it if absolutely necessary.

Edited November 26, 2022 by Ian J.

[DaveF]

 

I have a Yaris Hybrid which came with a Sat Nav.  I have never managed to follow a route it suggests in Northumberland, it doesn't seem to like unclassified roads and there are a lot of those round here.

 

I have known it to get confused in the first few minutes after start up, several times it has shown me driving in the sea.  Yesterday I apparently drove for several miles through fields. - partly at a National Trust property and later on a new piece of road.

 

I could do without the sat nav but I'd keep the hybrid bit of the car.

 

David

[Vistisen]

I have never yet had an inbuilt satnav that has been anything like as good as my Tomrtom 6300. Which updates traffic once a minute. It regularly sorts out which of the 6 or 7 routes to work is the quickest. That's the main difference between a map and satnav. 

[BR traction instructor]

3 hours ago, Hobby said:

 

Perhaps we should go back to horses as well and get rid of these new fangled cars... No harm in using new technology which is especially useful if you are no good at map reading - some people are, you know.

 

…local knowledge will always trump technology but I’m pleased that the aides are available to those that need them. An easy example of this was friends visiting me in Norfolk and insisting that their Porsche Satnav would save any consideration of our route to the country pub that we were dining at and be the quickest option. The Satnav wanted to use the Norwich ring road regardless of the fact that we could be at our destination in minutes using unclassified roads/local knowledge. The ring road had 20 min queues just to get onto it (everyone’s Satnav tells them to do the same thing)…the Satnav got switched off and wasn’t used again…I can cite a dozen similar instances…case closed.

 

BeRTIe

Edited November 26, 2022 by BR traction instructor

[black and decker boy]

Tesla use Google Maps for their SatNav which was excellent and preloaded with all Tesla charging stations. Our other car doesn’t have in built Nav but does CarPlay so I’m now very keen on GoogleMaps via Car Play.

 

I can switch devices and keep the functionality and also preload key destinations like our construction projects, hotels etc as I cover most of England on a weekly basis.

 

i swapped to a Merc EQB last week so will interesting to be comparing it to the model 3. The wife prefers the interior of the EQB. It has way too many buttons and switches for my liking. Useable Range is unknown at this point but with a 300mile trip to do Thursday, it won’t be unknown for long.

[boxbrownie]

14 hours ago, Hobby said:

 

Perhaps we should go back to horses as well and get rid of these new fangled cars... No harm in using new technology which is especially useful if you are no good at map reading - some people are, you know.

Some people are absolutely useless at map reading, usually because they cannot visualise or have spacial awareness problems, Mrs BB couldn’t unfold an OS map without ripping it let alone reading one, where as I have always loved maps since being a dot, even before a teenager I was in the ATC leading a unit across Dartmoor, and later navigating in road rallies.

But that doesn’t mean I need to read a paper map before going anywhere, thankfully I am savvy enough to know where we are going without pouring over a map before we leave, but I always have the map view on the sat nav open on the screen because it is useful for seeing the general layout of roads coming up and also extremely good if you suddenly come upon traffic problems you can instantly see if there are roads which can be used to get around jams or accidents, I rarely use it with guidance on but for giving local knowledge of roads never used before it’s excellent.

I find this strange fear of technology very odd, after all as Hobby says we may as well ride horses instead of these technological machines 😉

Edited November 27, 2022 by boxbrownie

[PenrithBeacon]

2 hours ago, boxbrownie said:

Some people are absolutely useless at map reading, usually because they cannot visualise or have spacial awareness problems, Mrs BB couldn’t unfold an OS map without ripping it let alone reading one, where as I have always loved maps since being a dot, even before a teenager I was in the ATC leading a unit across Dartmoor, and later navigating in road rallies.

But that doesn’t mean I need to read a paper map before going anywhere, thankfully I am savvy enough to know where we are going without pouring over a map before we leave, but I always have the map view on the sat nav open on the screen because it is useful for seeing the general layout of roads coming up and also extremely good if you suddenly come upon traffic problems you can instantly see if there are roads which can be used to get around jams or accidents, I rarely use it with guidance on but for giving local knowledge of roads never used before it’s excellent.

I find this strange fear of technology very odd, after all as Hobby says we may as well ride horses instead of these technological machines 😉

Absolutely with 'boxbrownie ' on this. I'm currently using Waze on the phone and although it isn't perfect it's more than good enough. Who needs an expensive infotainment system when you've got a smartphone? All you need is Bluetooth speakers!

[BR traction instructor]

5 hours ago, boxbrownie said:

Some people are absolutely useless at map reading, usually because they cannot visualise or have spacial awareness problems, Mrs BB couldn’t unfold an OS map without ripping it let alone reading one, where as I have always loved maps since being a dot, even before a teenager I was in the ATC leading a unit across Dartmoor, and later navigating in road rallies.

But that doesn’t mean I need to read a paper map before going anywhere, thankfully I am savvy enough to know where we are going without pouring over a map before we leave, but I always have the map view on the sat nav open on the screen because it is useful for seeing the general layout of roads coming up and also extremely good if you suddenly come upon traffic problems you can instantly see if there are roads which can be used to get around jams or accidents, I rarely use it with guidance on but for giving local knowledge of roads never used before it’s excellent.

I find this strange fear of technology very odd, after all as Hobby says we may as well ride horses instead of these technological machines 😉

 

…there is no fear, other than that of over reliance on such things, I have a personal preference to use and therefore retain the skill of map reading and navigation which has served me perfectly well for decades.

 

BeRTIe

[Hobby]

On 26/11/2022 at 22:34, BR traction instructor said:

…local knowledge will always trump technology but I’m pleased that the aides are available to those that need them. An easy example of this was friends visiting me in Norfolk and insisting that their Porsche Satnav would save any consideration of our route to the country pub that we were dining at and be the quickest option. The Satnav wanted to use the Norwich ring road regardless of the fact that we could be at our destination in minutes using unclassified roads/local knowledge. The ring road had 20 min queues just to get onto it (everyone’s Satnav tells them to do the same thing)…the Satnav got switched off and wasn’t used again…I can cite a dozen similar instances…case closed.

 

That could be how they've set up the satnav, I remember in the very early days of satnavs wanting to get to out house the other side of Brugge, off we went, straight through the centre of Brugge! To be fair it did a very good job and we got to the house with no issues, only afterwards did i find i had it set to "shortest route" rather than "quickest"!

 

17 hours ago, BR traction instructor said:

…there is no fear, other than that of over reliance on such things, I have a personal preference to use and therefore retain the skill of map reading and navigation which has served me perfectly well for decades.

 

Even maps are "new" technology, accurate maps haven't been around all that long in the grand scheme of things! I don't mind map reading but if I had a choice I'd choose a decent satnav for ease of use. But as I said my youngest daughter and wife just can't read maps, like BB's other half, so what are they supposed to do?!

[Reorte]

On 27/11/2022 at 09:45, boxbrownie said:

I find this strange fear of technology very odd, after all as Hobby says we may as well ride horses instead of these technological machines 😉

I find the strange obsession with technology even odder, especially when the benefits of it frequently appear to be at most trivial. There are always a few people who'll derive more benefit than that from it, but that's usually the exception rather than the norm. I actually find it insulting when suggested that some piece of technology would make my life "easier" than doing something myself that's no real hassle.

 

Comments about going back to horses just come across as only looking at the world in terms of one extreme or the other. Some technological advancement is great. Some is... not so much.

 

Quote

Even maps are "new" technology, accurate maps haven't been around all that long in the grand scheme of things! I don't mind map reading but if I had a choice I'd choose a decent satnav for ease of use. But as I said my youngest daughter and wife just can't read maps, like BB's other half, so what are they supposed to do?!

There's the problem with dependence. Without spending a little effort gaining that fairly basic skill you become dependent on something that you're not equipped to tell whether it's working properly or not, or do anything about when it isn't.

 

When it comes to in-car navigation I've only ever found satnavs useful for the last half a mile or so. The rest of the time a rough idea where you're going, which main roads, and looking at the signs does the job. I always got to where I needed to go without a satnav, so being without one wouldn't be any meaningful sort of hassle.

Edited November 28, 2022 by Reorte

[boxbrownie]

29 minutes ago, Reorte said:

I find the strange obsession with technology even odder,

How odd……just how do you know how odd I find it? 🤣