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The short term leasing/rental/ subscription company information. Onto

I lease my Nissan Leaf and quite like it for the following reasons: EV’s are rapidly evolving. It is only in the last year that 100k charging has become commonplace so the Leaf is “out of date” in that respect. Fixed known monthly payment. I’m not using a very large lump of my capital. If financial circumstances change I can hand the keys back and walk away. Residual values are not so much of an “issue”. Very important to shop around though AND the deposit is NOT a deposit, you might not have value in the vehicle at the end. Just like buying a car though timing is critical to get a good deal. There is a lease company that does fully expensed leases for periods as short as a month which may be useful if you want to try before buy. Leasing is probably not for everyone but so far it has worked for me and has allowed me to drive an EV. Cannot stress enough though to shop around… idd

Absolutely nothing you will notice. It is not in anyone’s financial interest for the lights to go out and not be selling consumers electricity, and secondly it would be political suicide. Ah how I miss the power cuts of my early yoof playing card games around a candle… Idd

Details of the auto pop up street charger can be found here: Urban Electric Successful trial in Oxford apparently and now being deployed in Dundee, with additional trials in Stafford and Plymouth. idd

Another interesting idea to overcome the problems with on street parking and charging. Pavement chargers idd

Crikey there’s some reet ugly mugs in that line up! Elegance is out, brutalism is clearly in… idd

As someone who has done quite long road trips in both 30 and 40 KWh Leafs the smaller Enyaq is perfectly capable. Customers will want smaller battery models when they get their second EV. As by then they will have realised they’ve shelled out thousands on an unnecessarily large battery first time round. The key enabler as always is charging infrastructure. idd

Before we go through the usual arguments again(!) about hydrogen powered cars might be worth watching this video of James May and his new Mirai. Key point about number of hydrogen fuel stations there are in the UK and just how many are actually open…Nice car though and they’ve made real progress on costs. New Mirai idd

Conventional battery powered commercial aircraft project is also progressing: Vancouver Air idd

Hydrogen fuel cell powered plane: Zeroavia Must be working ok as they’re now developing power plants for 19 seat aircraft. idd

A couple of web sites you may find useful for your research are: EV Database UK Useful for comparing specs and people rate the real world ranges on the site as being pretty accurate. Also: Zap Map Has some useful guides on charging, tariffs etc. Also Zap Map is useful to see what chargers are in your area and any place else you want to go. Zap Map is your friend!

This weeks bizarre EV news story is: Smellies for ICE drivers

We’ve been using the all electric Park & Ride buses here in York and am very impressed. The ride is still very “double decker “ but without the engine noise, smell and vibration. Built here in Yorkshire too apparently… Go buses…! idd

Waitrose has a number of lorry turntables installed at stores were access and egress of an HGV to the yard would be difficult. Most will be in use at least 2 or 3 times a day. Wallingford Turntable Dare say other large retailers use them as well. idd

Strange, you should be able to plug the battery straight into the appropriate socket without any need for a cable. I find you do need to be a bit careful with these tiny plugs and sockets to get them orientated the right way round so that they slot in smoothly, and occasionally they can be a bit tight. HTH idd

The MCPX actually relates to the plug/socket size, so you’d use the middle socket on your charger. I’m not sure this is an official designation but something eflite started when they started popularising single cell indoor RC models many moons ago. Originally the models used the smaller MCP plug socket combo, but for models that needed a bit more oomph they had to move to the larger MCPX to carry the current. It is generally accepted that the Max safe charging current for a lipo is equal to its capacity, so 650mAh in this case. Charging at higher rates can be done with some special cells but generally this degrades them very quickly. So you could charge at 500mAh with your charger. The 50C rating is supposedly the maximum current the cell can deliver, so theoretically this cell will deliver 32.5 Amps! Perhaps, but not for very long! So to a large extent these claimed C ratings should be taken with a pinch of salt. Please follow the usual advice and do not leave cells unattended whilst charging, and any sign of the cell swelling or getting hot (it will get warm) then stop the charge. HTH Idd

New Gridserve/Electric Highway charging hub at Moto Rugby services is now open, yeah! Moto Rugby Exeter next... idd

A more succinct answer can be found here from the people who should know: National Grid The key to renewables is storage, and a considerable amount of grid scale storage is in place with more going on line all the time. You can even do it yourself and kick a hole in your bills: EVM Man idd

UK Energy Sources - EV Meltdown? This video is a little dry in its presentation but does address many of the concerns of the last post. As is so often missed by so many there have been huge reductions in energy consumption driven by more efficient appliances, street lighting etc. The next few years are going to be challenging, but not impossible. idd

Sadly I have previous version Pod Point charger and don’t have that functionality. Looks useful but fortunately billing in our household is not that complicated! Another useful feature to have is a timer in the charger to start and stop the charge as not all EV’s have an inbuilt timer. idd

They will fit a new feed to your 7kw charger from your distribution board. You can then have a meter wired into that feed and can then record consumption. Alternatively some car chargers can now provide this information, usually via an app on your phone. A Smart meter will allow you access to more tariffs such as Octopus Go where you can get cheap overnight electricity for 4hrs. Think it is 5p KWh on Go at the moment. HTH idd

Absolutely bonkers, but great fun! Thx for posting. idd

So a bit like these then: Salzburg trolley buses Salzburg is the only place I’ve ever travelled on a trolley bus and it was a few years ago. Whilst I was quite impressed it did seem to me that you swapped diesel pollution for visual pollution with catenary(?) and associated support cables running everywhere, particularly at junctions! It was quite something to see the collectors (or are they pantographs?)running along the wires with the buses swinging between lanes beneath them. Strangely I don’t feel I notice the overhead wires for our Manchester trams, probably a bit of regional personal bias! Do like the idea of these battery trolley buses though. My apologies if I have used incorrect terms above, but I’m not very well up on tram/trolley bus technical terms. Idd

But at least someone is having a go. Working through all the “gnarly bits” that don’t show up in spreadsheets and computer models. It’s also a damn site easier to sell concepts and ideas when people can see (and ride) what they’re buying or funding into, rather than killing them with PowerPoint presentations. As the saying goes “sometimes you have to speculate to accumulate”... idd

Try Howes Models, they have a good selection of kits and rtr boats. The Aeronaut kits seem well regarded and the Hobby Engine Southampton rtr tug has been around years and has had good reviews. SLEC do a number of boat kits from the old Keil Kraft and Veron ranges, but much improved with CNC cutting etc. HTH idd