Stanley Melrose

Here's a story with a moral - don't get a VW BEV! I collected my VW ID.3 First Edition on launch day, 18th September 2020. I had to sign a waiver that I wouldn't pursue any action against VW if the software didn't meet specification (whatever that might have been) before the dealer would release the car to me. Needless too say, from time to time, it didn't but for the last year the car has behaved acceptably. As the 3 year date from delivery neared I arranged for the MoT. The tester wanted to fail the car because the tyres are well worn but not illegally so and I was able to collect the pass certificate and drive away. I contacted the dealer that supplied the car and asked it it's true that VW are fitting replacement tyres free of charge for certain early build ID.3s. Bring it in and we'll let you know. Wow, my car (which is on a 4 year personal lease) was due for a free set of replacement tyres. Yippee, please fit them I said. Ah, came the response, we don't have the approved tyres in stock. When will you have them because it's urgent as the tyres almost failed the MoT. They've been on back order for several months and we don't know when they will be available but we can supply equivalent quality tyres for £243 each fitted. I reacted as you might expect and declined their offer suggesting that either the dealer or VW might pay for the alternative tyres. No chance was the reply. We have over 50 ID.3s on the forecourt that have failed PDI and are awaiting parts or software upgrades before they can be released to customers. You must be losing money, I commented. Yes, we've laid off a number of people because of the drain on our working capital. I drove home and decide to contact VW Finance, as they are the registered owners of the car. I have exchanged several emails with them, the contents of which I will not bother to post but the status now is that they have opened a case and tell me they have 8 weeks to investigate my complaint. I'm posting this sorry tale here in the hope that anyone reading it will never consider purchasing a VW product. I will be posting similar messages elsewhere for the same purpose. Caveat emptor!! Stan

Interesting snippet <https://www.oldsaltblog.com/2023/07/maersks-first-green-methanol-fueled-boxship-sails-on-maiden-voyage/>

I've just watched this and found it very interesting. The move to vertical integration of manufacturing and in-house software development may well give Ford an edge in the US Market but it's hard to see how that will extend to Ford's other markets. I'll happily have any doubts removed as Farley's plans are implemented. It's also clear that he sees Chinese products as Ford's competition in the years ahead. In the meantime, I think I'm justified in suggesting that it's the manufacturers who will dictate when EVs will oust ICEs, rather than politicians (and newspapers).

Just read this <https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/jul/04/toyota-claims-battery-breakthrough-electric-cars> Could be the breakthrough that the industry needs . . .

I sent this to my MP (he knows I'll never vote for him): When I graduated (in 1965!) my first job was at Ford Motor Company and in 1968 I became the Ford of Europe Product Planner responsible for all Ford of Europe's car engine future plans, including this <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Pinto_engine>. In 1970, I was head-hunted by British Leyland and was a member of Lord Stokes' head office team. All these years later I am still very interested in the car industry and follow developments with much interest. Of one thing I am certain and it is that government policies will be irrelevant in the switch to BEVs - the manufacturers will very rapidly close the factories that produce petrol and diesel cars once demand falls to a level that makes them unproftable. Equally, they will be desperate to sell BEVs to get those factories up to profitable production levels. The problem the manufacturers with legacy assets face is that they may end up with both production facilities unprofitable unless they can move very, very quickly - and certainly much quicker than governments. In the meantime, China is establishing new BEV manufacturing companies (with state support) that do NOT have legacy assets so they will be going flat out to get to profitable production levels. Inevitably, that will mean pushing their products to the west as well as domestically. I found this article very supportive of my opinion <https://www.politico.eu/article/china-us-europe-electric-cars-miles-apart-the-us-and-europe-diverge-on-car-threat/> and hope that you will take the underlying message on board. Chinese designed and built cars are coming big-time! There is an extremely small window of opportunity for the UK to keep abreast of these developments but time is of the essence. If the opportunity is missed, we'll be driving Chinese imports, whatever the import duty impact. So far I have had a holding reply: Thank you for raising this and for letting me know your thoughts. I am grateful to you for getting in touch and will look into this for you. I have written to the Department for Business and Trade to ask what the government's strategy on this is. I will let you know when we have a response. If I get a reply that is of general interest, I will post it here

Here's the real news: <https://www.politico.eu/article/china-us-europe-electric-cars-miles-apart-the-us-and-europe-diverge-on-car-threat/> It seems my next BEV will probably be made in China!

I was in Berlin just before last Christmas and a refuse collection truck went by with "Berlin City Refuse Collection" in English printed on it. We went to a pop-up restaurant at the christmas market and were amazed at the amount of English spoken. When we asked why this was, we were told that Germans from different parts of the country found it easier to understand each other in English rather than unravelling the accents from various parts of the country. Make of it what you will but English is surely the linqua franca of Europe nowadays.

Back in my student days when I had a summer holiday job loading timber on Liverpool Docks, I recall that in a particularly insanitary gents, there was grafitti on the wall of one cubicle as follows: "In this marble hall, Use the paper, Not the wall. If alas there is no paper, Behind the seat, there is a scraper."

I've just watched tonight's Channel 4 News. I can't stop smiling at the enthusiastic comment towards the end of the programme when a lady said in all seriousness . . . "The best thing you can do if you want to save the planet is to buy second-hand clothes!" You can probably guess her employment.

OK here you are then. I don’t know how many people spend their Summer holidays in Southern France or Northern Spain, as I do, but there is still a tradition of the travelling circus in that part of the world. There is a small number of family run circuses that move daily from town to town and village to village, throughout the summer, entertaining the holidaymakers with traditional circus acts. Sometimes the stink of the caged animals in hot weather is as bad as the Liverpool F.C.’s Kop on a mild Saturday in August. But back to the story which I read in Sud-Ouest, a local regional French newspaper some years ago. It appears that in a remote village in the Pyrenees some genetic mishap resulted in a family producing generations of dwarfs. Not only were they tiny, they were also phenomenal acrobats. They could do all sorts of tumbling tricks, for example arranging themselves into human pyramids several storeys (i.e. dwarfs) high. They would then lean forwards and collapse the pyramid into a succession of forward rolls ending up in an arrow formation standing to attention on the ground – a bit like Everton’s current line-up. Anyway, one of the circus owners heard rumours of the existence of this village and its family of dwarfs and made plans to visit them one winter to see if the stories were true. To his great delight, they were – and beyond his wildest dreams. If he could only persuade the family to work their tumbling into a routine, his circus would be the main attraction throughout the towns and villages of Southern France and Northern Spain the following summer. After some hard negotiation he signed the family for the following season and they joined the rest of his team in their winter quarters to work on their act. All went supremely well and by the time the next season started he was confident his circus would break records all over the region. He was right! Night after night the big top was packed to capacity and the family of dwarf Basque acrobats stole the show. Many efforts were made to lure the family away to rival circuses but fortunately they remained loyal to their original benefactor. Because of this they all prospered and the whole circus became featured in every form of media. Of course, there were those who were just curious about dwarfs and their life-style. They wanted to know all sorts of intimate details about their lives and habits. Unlike so many others, celebrity status did not affect the Basque acrobats; in fact they revelled in it. They appeared on television; they were feted everywhere – and they all made a lot of money. As the season came to an end, the ultimate reward was in sight – a spectacular show on national television to be broadcast from Paris. The whole circus was to perform on prime time TV and the fee would be enormous. The circus owner was absolutely delighted and the acrobat family ecstatic with their new-found popularity. The invitation included accommodation at a smart hotel on the Champs Elysee – with shopping trips thrown in, as long as the cameras could record their every move. To ensure that the advertising revenue was maximised, the TV company insisted on filming a trailer in the hotel lobby, featuring most of the circus acts but especially the acrobats. No problem, everyone was so happy to oblige as long as the money came in because circus life is tough and there aren’t many big pay-days for performers. The day of filming dawned and the circus performers came down to breakfast to find the cameras already set up in the hotel foyer. The owner of the circus had agreed a programme so that all his acts got some publicity but the highlight was to be the final routine which was to involve the Basque family of dwarf acrobats. The producer made one stipulation: the grand finale was to be the collapsing pyramid of the acrobats with a new twist. The pyramid would collapse towards the revolving door of the hotel and the dwarfs would roll one by one through the spinning door onto the pavement outside. The acrobats were thrilled at this and so confident of their abilities that they didn’t even rehearse the stunt. After the mandatory interviews, the producer gave the signal and the acrobats formed their human pyramid. At this given signal, the door was pushed at just the right speed and the pyramid collapsed towards it. One by one the dwarfs rolled through the door and outside. They all ended up in a heap in the gutter, grinning and chattering. Before they could get to their feet a large camion came along and mowed them all down. Every single one was killed - and this on live television, too. As the announcer said later, the moral of the story is, “Don’t put all your Basques in one exit”.

I haven't smiled so much in years at the recent contributions to this thread. Move on please those who wish to demonstrate this type of expertise. Getting back on topic, I've just smiled and hope tit's catching.

Many years ago I phoned Markits and caught Mark in expansive mood. We had a very long and friendly chat (he didn't know me from Adam) and I was told several anecdotes about his work with mainstream manufacturers in terms of supplying dossiers of prototype information to assist the accuracy of a couple of their planned new models. What he revealed became fact in due course but, of course, as far as I am aware, he received no public thanks from the manufacturers concerned (red and blue boxes). Possibly he was recompensed as a consultant - I hope so - but we can probably credit Mark with contributing significantly to the improvements in the standard and fidelity of some introductions in recent years. Personally, I think the guy's a one-man marvel, given the size of the Markits catalogue. If he decides one day to hang up the "closed" sign on the Markits door, I just hope that those who've brushed against his rougher side will drop him a PM to thank him for the work he's done over the years to make our hobby more satisfying and our models more accurate. I have no more commendation than to declare myself "a satisfied (if occasionally frustrated) customer". Stan

I can assure that VW's ACC allows me to obey speed limits without any effort on my behalf! It shows a message on the screen on front of me when the limit is about to change and slows down or speeds up the car with no need for me to touch the pedals when the limit changes - including the infuriating 20mph ADVISORY limit near schools at all hours . . .

ACC is a very long way from being totally reliable but it does make driving more interesting! I like it that I don't have to worry about speed limits as my ID.3 respects them for me. I don't like that it treats 20mph ADVISORY speed limits as mandatory and tries to brake as you approach a school no matter what time of the day (or night!) except now it has decided schools are not open on Sundays. There are many other quirks that ensure I MUST stay fully alert and can take control when the software means the car's behaviour can be beyond eccentric towards dangerous - if not to me then to other road users. VW's ACC as it is now has convinced me that, while most of it is a positive development, the idea of self-driving vehicles (VWs anyway) is many years off. I only have to drive my wife's car, that doesn't have ACC, to remind me how much better it is to drive with ACC than without it. Stan

I was at a conference many years ago when one of the American speakers was Cherry Pancake. At Ford's Dagenham Plant in the 1960s, Len Plum admitted he had called his daughter Victoria but best of all, the headmaster of the school my kids went to called one of his sons Nicholas Hoare. Cheers, Stan

I have no idea if this <https://www.aliexpress.com/item/33042113835.html?ug_edm_item_id=33042113835&pdp_npi=2%40dis!USD!US+%24199.98!US+%24139.99!!!!!%40212a790716746774804665473d06f1!12000029834566277!edm&edm_click_module=alg_product_3_7599682180&creative_img_ind=4&tracelog=rowan&rowan_id1=aeug_edm_41194_1_en_US_2023-01-25&rowan_msg_id=d.j.COWS_41194_%2478d512672a4c43daa6bdd5bca056d8b8&ck=in_edm_other&gatewayAdapt=glo2idn> is any good but it looks as if it might be more use than the OP one. HTH, Stan

I remember when I started driving over 60 years ago petrol was around 5 shillings (25p) a gallon (4.45 litres) so ~5.5p/litre. Stan

Does these help? Stan Oerliken Bogie.pdf

While out today in my ID.3 I suddenly received a message on the display in front of me along the lines of "SoS emergency take the car to your dealer immediately". As the car seemed to be behaving normally, I carried on towards home. At some point the ACC put up a message telling me to stay in the centre of my lane. That resulted in the SoS message disappearing but leaving a tiny SoS icon at the bottom of the screen. Arriving home I looked for "SoS" in the Owner's Handbook - nothing! I went online and found a number of entries indicating that this message sent out over a year ago had required replacement of something that sounded very important for which a number of owners waited several months! I had just decided to phone the dealer from which I leased my ID.3 when I found an email had just arrived advising me that under the warranty I would be getting a replacement 12V battery (the one that looks after the various features - not the main drive batteries) and a software upgrade. This would necessitate taking the car in for a whole day. I've booked it for 28th July so we shall see what change this makes. The dealer told me that there would be significant improvement to the cold weather range of the drive batteries which is a major concern of mine. I also told the guy I spoke to that the aircon in the ID.3 sucks. Prior to the ID.3 I had 3 SAABs and their aircon - both in hot weather and cold - was superb. In today's 38+ degrees, the VW was unable to cope and the interior was very uncomfortable in this heat. Caveat emptor! Stan

An Everton fan was on an overseas outing and decided to get a tattoo while a tad affected by a couple of drinks. He asked for a piece of paper to write down what he wanted inscribed. I don't know what he actually wrote but he ended up with "EVER ONION" tattoed across his chest.

In my days at Rank Xerox a Deeming Sword appeared as a trophy to be awarded to someone who met whatever criteria had been established. I never knew who received it but I certainly didn't. In terms of data, I remember when salesmen employed by Rank Xerox in Belgium were required to submit time sheets showing how they spent every minute of their working days. These duly arrived at International HQ and we found to our amazement that not one of them ever had a pee, let alone anything more time-consuming, during the whole of the working week.

A couple of ID.3 items that might be of interest: In the summer I see the range with 100% charge goes up to an indicated ~260 miles. Last winter a full charge looked like ~160 miles although I never tested it anywhere near that limit - who wants to find out what the actual range might be in the Pennines late at night on a cross-country journey? On Friday, I set out to collect the weekly shop from the local supermarket. "Software update available" flashed up as soon as I set off followed by "Install at the end of your journey". This disabled most of the useful features of the car that after 22 months I have started to take for granted but thankfully I'm still sufficiently compus mentis to be able to drive without relying on ACC etc. I collected the shopping and returned home. I deliberately parked outside the garage and selected the various options to update the software. I didn't use the car on Saturday so this morning as I set out all was well until I was informed the software upgrade had failed and should be attempted once again. Needless to say the various useful functions were again disabled I stopped at my destination and set the upgrade in train. I returned to the car after 45 minutes to find that the upgrade was still in progress and "This might take some time" - 50% complete was indicated. As we were expecting 8 people for a BBQ to belatedly celebrate Canada Day (my wife is Canadienne), she needed return home to make preparations. I called a taxi to get her home which eventually arrived and off she went. We had walked to a location which would be easier for the taxi to find her so I walked 100 yards back to the car, got in and found that the upgrade was completed so set off home. I parked outside the house as I was going to collect one of our guests a bit later, my phone rang and it was my wife asking how it was going. I said I'm outside the house. So, why does it take an hour to install 50% of the upgrade and 10 minutes for the other 50%? Have VW hired a collection of Microsoft software engineers? I confess I like driving the ID.3 but I won't be replacing it with another VW BEV, nor anything using their platform (e.g. Ford). You have been warned! Stan

I've just put in my claim for the last quarter. As an early adopter, we get the very high FIT rate of 60.23p/kWh and 4.25p export. That will result in a payment of £750.52 next week from our 16 panel system and take our total FIT payments to 175%+ of our (high) capital outlay back in 2011. I have an 87 year old neighbour who not only has a large SPV system with battery back-up but a ground source heat pump and has just told me that he's going to install a wind turbine from TESUP <https://www.tesup.co.uk/wind-turbines>. I admit these look interesting and relatively inexpensive so I'll be watching this with interest. Stan

In the 1970s we had something similar at the US-owned multinational company for which I worked in its London HQ. We called it the buzz-word generator. It was spectacularly success in meetings with the head of the IT department who could be virtually guaranteed eventually to repeat one of the combinations during our meetings, even though the 3 random words (one from each column) made no logical sense.

When many years ago I worked for Rank Xerox, the same story was popular but with different players: The first kid wanted a set of golf clubs so daddy bought him St Andrews and several others of similar quality, The second wanted a yacht so was bought Brittania (the then Royal Yacht) The third wanted a cowboy outfit so he got Xerox Corporation.