Hello, and welcome to your weekly buy to the donut bacon cheeseburger,
brought to you by the team at electrifying.com.
This week, we'll be talking about Tesla's plan for UK energy,
the poll star that went on and on and on and on.
And the concept that sort of tells us how the new Vauxhall course is going to look.
We'll also be answering your electric car questions
and dipping into the post bag to find out your views on last week's episode.
Welcome to the Kilowatt Half Hour. I'm Tom.
And I am Vicki.
And before we go any further, I think we deserve a special mention for David Johnson,
who messaged us from the US and he wrote, hey, guys, love the show.
And it's nice to sit here about things that don't have to do with our president.
Fair enough.
It's state fair time here in the US and crazy food is a hallmark of these events.
So how about welcome to your weekly bite of the donut bacon cheeseburger,
which is where your, I have to say, highly calorific introduction
that you came from.
So he's even sent a picture, which now I've actually heard of doughnut burgers.
I can't remember where from, but I think they are a thing in the UK somewhere as well.
It sounds a bit much to me.
But yeah, you can have a cronut burger.
You know, the cronut is a crassle.
They look great.
I'm all for that.
But I think I think the kind of, you know, the bacon cheeseburger
doughnut things a bit.
I mean, it makes it.
Yeah, it's a bit much.
But yeah, fair enough, fair enough.
I do hope that you are enjoying the state fair time over there anyway, David.
So yeah, thank you.
I think my son would quite like that.
But when I'm king, I'm going to ban
dessert things in savoury.
So like pineapple on pizza out, raisins and curries out.
Anything sweet.
No, no, no, it shouldn't be allowed.
So yeah, see, I think in my in my not so benign dictatorship,
all I'm going to do is ensure that any anybody who doesn't walk
on a travelator at the airport, who hasn't got a reasonable disability
or excuse for not walking on the travelator is given serious capital
capital punishment, I think probably equally if they don't put their
trays back in security at the airport.
I'm mostly concerned about airport etiquette, whereas clearly you're worried
about sweet and savoury.
So yeah, that's my thing.
I think that's all perfectly reasonable.
I think between us, we'd actually be we'd have a really excellent country
between us.
Fine, we've got all our priorities sorted.
So what have you been up to other than in your dictatorship?
Other than getting really angry at people in the airport.
I've been actually, I haven't been on holiday yet, and I've been mostly
UK bound and I have been.
Yeah, I've been sort of just mostly steering the old electrifying desk,
just doing lots of stuff back under the website.
I have, however, had an updated Genesis GT electrified, which has been
really, really nice, really nice.
So you can check out electrifying.com because I will get the updated
review of that live.
It's like Genesis version of the S class, and it's very, very lovely.
I have to say, I'm very much enjoying the Bang and Olufsen audio.
I'll be honest, that's one of the highlights for me.
It's absolutely stunning, stunning sound system.
So you can look back through the old episodes when we were discussing
which are the best songs to test the stereos.
Yes, I need to do that.
Actually, I do need to.
I used to quite like a bit of this will probably divide opinions.
I quite like a bit of Kate Bush and Wuthering Heights for that.
Oh, yeah, that's a good one.
It's a good it's a good song that for testing a sound system.
Yeah, I think I think everyone finally agreed that money for nothing
is the really good. Yeah, that's a good one.
Yeah, definitely. Yeah, you need the base, don't you?
That's the thing that's good.
Right. What are we on to?
We're on to news stories.
What have you been up to, Tom?
I haven't actually asked you.
It's very rude of me.
I went away for a week just to the UK.
I went to Suffolk and I discovered a lesser spotted free electric charge point.
No, really?
They still exist.
I know. Well, I drove there and this was in the Grandland
and that has got a 300 mile, a genuine 300 mile range in this sort of weather.
And it's only 80 miles away.
But while I was there, I thought, well, I'll just top up.
So I've got enough to go around and and so plugged in and it's like, OK,
go on to the app, went on to the app and it said charging.
And I thought, I haven't entered any payment details.
Maybe it won't let me unplug until I've entered them.
And then went and had some lunch and did some shopping and all that sort of thing.
Came back to the car and unplugged it and thought, oh, free charge.
So I was like, wow, I wonder if that was a mistake or something.
So went back a couple of days later and some more lunch.
No, it went got to 100 percent charge on the public car for 22 kilowatt
charger and then drove in here and thought, well, that journey cost me almost nothing.
That's amazing. Yeah.
Yeah, they are still out there, aren't they?
But they're few and far between now.
So I think you got lucky there.
But that's really good.
That's also the other really weird thing.
And I've never had this before driving along country lane.
And I hear this horrible drumming.
I'm like, it's another puncher.
I can't believe it.
You know, you don't have a puncher for 10 years or something, two within a month.
And I'm like, oh, it's a pulled over, had a look.
Nothing.
It's a bit weird.
So carried on.
Yeah, it's sort of getting a bit worse, getting it worse.
Right. Well, I'll try and get to some sort of civilisation on a main road
because this was a country lane.
And see if it if I can pull in there.
So I got onto a main road, accelerated away, stopped.
Nothing of the rest of the journey.
So parked up when did some things came back.
Tires fine, drove home, fine, got to the same bit of road.
And I think the road had recently been, you know, surface dressed
where they just throw the the the chippings.
And it's gone like, you know, on desert roads, you get those corrugations
where something causes them to go like, it was that.
It was, but also what we saw on the way back was other people stopped
looking at their tyres, thinking they had a bunch of never had it before
in, you know, well, 40 years of driving or something.
So it's no way.
That's amazing. I mean, I know I did it actually funnily enough.
Well, it was it was a little while ago now, but I think I was in an electric
XC 40 and I was on the M 25.
And you know, the section of concrete, which is always really noisy
on the M 25, but the noise was so it was so intense.
I was like, there has to be something wrong with the tyre.
This can't possibly be right.
And I remember pulling over into the next services
and at Cobham or whatever it was, I think, and just checking
because I was like, something's got to be wrong.
But it was, yeah, because I remember just that section on the M 25.
Every time you get a drive over, I know how noisy this is.
The car's fine, but it just makes such an awful noise.
But yeah, fair enough, that must be just a really kind of unusual road surface
that you hit there, but at least you didn't have another puncture.
That's the good thing, right?
So that is the good thing.
Yeah, I know I do sort of miss space savers in EVs.
I do I do, you know, there's so few and far between EVs
that actually have a space saver tyre or indeed a full spare tyre.
It's you can have a mode of five.
Would you have just for the spare wheel?
No, I wouldn't. No, I'm sorry.
But I am impressed at the spare wheel.
I was trying to think as I was saying that, I was like, don't know,
the plug in hybrid Land Rover's, they still have spare tyres,
don't they? I think they've managed to package that.
I think that's one of the one of the features that they've managed to to keep.
So that's something. But yeah, I do I do miss a spare tyre, I have to say.
Anyway, what else is going on, apart from not having
not having flat tyres, thankfully?
What's going on in the news then, Tom?
Well, Elon's going to fight octopus.
Of course, my headline of the week is that film.
I don't. It does sound like some weird fetish film,
doesn't it? It does.
Now, there's been an application to Ofgem, which is the company.
Well, the organisation, which looks after all the energy companies in the UK,
the overseers of it, to apply for a licence to become an electricity
supplier from Tesla.
So in about eight months, we can expect them to have some sort of energy company.
Now, there are no other details about it, but you can kind of imagine how it is.
They have an operation in Texas, where if you're a Tesla car owner,
you have a power wall, you can get very cheap electricity overnight.
And then you can feed it back into the grid in the sort of VTG style.
So we can kind of imagine they're going to do the same thing here,
because they will have been a bit bruised, weren't they, by that whole
BMI and Octopus deal where Octopus was 199 a month or something?
Or is it 299? 299, isn't it?
They'll give you a a dolphin and a charger and free electricity, basically.
So but you have to have it plugged in all the times they can do the vehicle
to grid stuff and balance the grid.
So they're gone. Oh, I don't like the look of that.
I mean, I think this is kind of good news, isn't it?
Because it's going to just fall special competition among the industry.
So I would have said that it's it's a good thing personally.
I was quite interested to see in the news story
that there's estimated 10,000 Powerwalls in the UK,
which I thought was quite good news.
That was a bit more than I would have I would have guessed that, actually.
So that's cool.
But yeah, I'd like a Powerwall.
I think it's good news, but it'll be interesting to see how quickly it
happens and how that pans out and all that kind of thing.
So, yeah.
Yes, what else is happening in the news?
So we have got our poll star poll star have done a they've done
a range test on the poll star three and they have managed to do
five hundred and eighty one miles to a single charge.
Now, I think that's pretty impressive.
But the problem is that I think that these sort of stories,
if you actually look at the details, clearly, it's impressive.
So I'm very, you know, I'm all four poll star doing this kind of thing.
But the overall average was five point one three miles per kilowatt hour,
which for a car that has what is it?
One hundred and eleven kilowatt hour, the poll star three.
It's a big car, powerful car.
So that's not terrible, but it's also, you know, it's not going to impress
anybody that's got high end Ioniq, is it?
You know, the old it's it's it still feels to me like good,
but not exceptional efficiency, even for a big car.
So I was a little bit kind of, yes, it's an impressive range,
but I want to see headlines about efficiency rather than just sheer.
I managed to do this range by doing, you know, averaging 25 miles
an hour from an enormous battery.
So, yeah, sorry, poll star.
I mean, I get it.
It's a nice headline, very well done.
And equally next time, can we can we can we hear
about the miles per kilowatt hour rather than just the range, please?
Pretty please.
So did you ever did you ever do one of those economy runs in the old days?
I have done an economy run before, yeah, in both a diesel car
and I've done it in EVs and this kind of thing.
So it's it's really hard to drive a car super efficiently like that.
This was, yeah.
So this guy was a sort of professional, here we go,
professional efficiency drivers, Sam Clarke, Kevin Booker and Richard Parker.
So fair play to those guys.
They took turns at the wheel in three hour stints over a 23 hour run
in the poll star.
So it is exhausting driving a car like that, actually.
So, yeah, fair enough that there used to be a kind of annual competition
for petrol cars and diesel to see who could do the biggest thing.
I can't remember the name of it now, but it was basically the window
would be the car that got the best figure over its official fuel consumption
figure and it was rather ruined when somebody we both know who worked
as a PR turned up with a Corvette, which of course nobody cared
about the economy figures.
They hadn't like fiddled, but like most manufacturers do.
They were just like, yes, it's 17 MPG and then drove it around
in sixth at 20 miles an hour, being very, very careful
and got this like 100 percent improvement and beat all these people
in one point for diesel and after that economy run kind of died of death.
Because no one was interested anymore.
It wasn't really in the spirit, they thought.
Yeah, I know it was.
We had a sort of years and years ago now, a chap who some of our listeners
may know of and you certainly do time journalist called Mike Duff on when
I was on auto car, we came up with the idea of doing I think it was
a gallon of fuel and we had a variety of vehicles and including we had
a Prius and we had various others and we had it was basically a race to
see who could go furthest around Bruntingthorpe track on a gallon of
fuel in all of these different cars.
So you had everybody, some people were just trying to obviously sitting
behind other vehicles and there was all different kind of, I think it
was Matt Pryor that won in the end.
I can't remember what he was driving.
Anyway, you'll have to forgive me for the lack of detail on that
because I literally came to mind as you were chatting about it.
But I remember it being good fun.
Those sort of economy things are they are interesting.
But yeah, doing it in a Corvette was a stroke of genius for sure.
Well, the other thing in the news talking of fast cars is the Vauxhall
concept, which we have teaser pictures of on the on the website.
If it's before the 20th of August, if it's after the 20th of August,
you'll be able to see the full thing and the video.
So we can't say much about it because this will go up before the 20th
of August, except that it looks nice in those teaser pictures.
And we have seen it, haven't we?
Yes, we have.
And it is worth it's worth waiting around, I would say.
So yeah, wait, wait and see.
So when we I think it's sort of later in August, isn't it?
That you're going to see the full details of it.
And it's it's I don't know.
I don't think this is breaking any embargoes, but I would say
that it's I'd say I'm more interested in this than in the 208
GTI, and maybe we should just leave.
Yes, yes.
So they do something to look forward to.
It's got horse power and it goes. Exactly.
Yeah. Yeah.
And it insults a future car, which is the I'm going to stop now
because I know I'm going to say something I'm not allowed to say.
There'll be a SWAT team from Vauxhall coming through.
Yeah, precisely.
They're listening, they're listening to everything I'm saying.
OK, talking of fast hatchbacks.
I have some bargains for you.
Excellent.
This is good news. Would you rather.
So it's the first appearance in the leasing prices of the Alpine A290.
Three hundred and five pounds a month, which is about 50 quid,
50 quid more than a basic, well, a normal Renault five,
a kind of mid range Renault five.
So would you?
Yes.
Oh, would you would you save
thirty two quid a month and have a born Cooper born V1?
Hmm.
That is tough, isn't it?
Because the born it is a it's a lot better in the rear passenger seats.
And I mean, you know, oh, I mean, I'm honest, I have.
I have. Yeah, I've driven the A290 and I've driven the born
and they're both fantastic cars, really good.
I mean, if I'm, yeah, if I'm being honest about, like, you know,
boring life practicalities, I would go for the born
because I can get more stuff in it.
So it would probably just suit me a bit better.
But if I sort of, you know, don't worry about that.
Forget about the fact that I've got, you know, a kid and dogs
and all of that nonsense.
I'd have the Alpine. Yeah, why not?
Why not? Yeah, let's go for the Alpine.
I mean, it's such a cool thing.
It's just looks brilliant.
And I really like the born.
But I mean, the Alpine is a whole other level of sort of,
you know, I've, you know, succeeded in life, really,
if you've got that on your driveway, I think.
So yeah, it's cool. It's a great thing.
What would you have?
I really like the born.
I haven't driven the Alpine yet, but I just like the born.
So I think I'll probably have that and take the change
and buy a curry every month.
But I did see I did see the Alpine.
There was one that was coming towards me the other day.
And those lights are really funky.
So the front lights, those kind of crosses where they're
like ready car style up high.
I really like that.
No, I have, yeah, I really like the A290.
I think I think you'd enjoy it.
They're quite different prospects really,
the born and the Alpine.
But yeah, isn't it just, well, isn't it just so good
that we've got this kind of these options coming through now
at such good prices as well?
It's really good, really good.
But yeah, make mine an Alpine.
Go on and I'll just forget about the family.
They can stay at home. It's fine.
And I think today our new used car section
has gone up on the website.
So there's lots of research that I can do
with our new preferred partner stuff,
which has battery checks that are standard on them.
So I'm gonna be going in there and having a good look
because there are some bargains.
And I'm hopefully gonna be doing a used car bargain
in this spot every week as well
with some special deals for people.
So that'll be fun.
There's some great options out there, isn't there?
I do think.
When you're sort of shopping for a used EV
somewhere like on electrifying.com
where if you know that you can get the battery test done
and you know what the actual usable capacity
of that exact battery is when you're buying it,
it's a whole other level of peace of mind, isn't it?
We've been going on about that for a long time.
So yeah, I think it's fine.
And they're quite high.
Have you looked at any of them?
You look at them and you think,
well, it's gonna be like 90% or something.
It's like, no, it's quite high.
And even the ones for big miles and things are really high.
So it's nice to know that the batteries are lasting.
We had the, well, it's all Tesla stuff, isn't it?
We've had two couple of high mileage Teslas recently.
We had the Model S and the Model 3 in the last year.
And both of them were on sort of 90-ish percent battery.
The Model 3 was on 90% with 180,000 miles on the clock
and the Model S, I think it was a bit less than that,
but that had 260, I think.
But it's amazing.
I saw a thing come up the other day.
Somebody had a Model 3 with 300,000 miles on it
and it was only five years old, I think,
this Model 3, because it had been an airport taxi.
It was amazing.
It's really impressive stuff.
But yeah, I mean, for anybody,
thinking about an EV, it's the same as me.
Whenever I've looked at getting used EVs,
the first thing you want to know
is what the battery capacity is, isn't it?
So having it sort of good transparency like that
makes a big difference.
So yeah, go and check it out.
Shall we do some questions from the listeners?
Yes.
Go on then, let's do that.
You're going to start?
Shall I do the first one?
Yeah, so John, just John, that's all we know.
It says, hi, team.
Thanks very much for your videos and podcasts.
The very first electrifying YouTube video I saw
was in 2020 with Ginny reviewing the used BMW i3.
Fast forward five years
and now we're looking for an i3.
We've always loved the fresh looks and design.
So now we have the opportunity
to own one as a future classic.
Good, good, cool, good, cool.
We spotted a 71 reg in a sweet spec
with most of the options we'd prefer.
The odd thing is that in 3.75 years,
it's only traveled just under 2,300 miles in West London.
Potentially that suggests it might have only been charged up
as little as 12 times in its life.
We've requested the diagnostic report
for the drive battery from the BMW dealer.
I think we better ask for the 12-volt
ancillary battery too.
What do you think we should expect to find or look for?
Another bizarre detail is this car was specced
with 22 kilowatt charging ability.
Well, what batteries don't like
is being completely charged and left
or completely discharged and left.
So in those 2,300 miles,
if it's been left at kind of between 20 and 80%,
I think it will be fine.
There should be no problem.
Yeah, great.
If it hasn't been for whatever reason,
if somebody's plugged it in
and then gone to live in Dubai
for six months of the year or something,
then it could be an issue.
But I think you can look at on i3s,
you can go into the menu
and get a battery diagnostic anyway.
We've got a used BMW i3 buying guide on YouTube,
I think, quite a long one,
which was written by Mike, who's a BMW i3 owner,
so he should know.
And it tells you how to check the battery there,
but getting the diagnostic from the dealer
is a good idea too.
The 12-volt battery, yeah, that is a potential issue,
but they're not expensive in the big scheme of things.
The other thing I would check on an i3 is the tires,
because I know from Mike that there's only one company
you make them, which I think is Bridgestone,
and they are Spenny,
because they're a weird size.
Yeah, they're really odd,
because they're really sort of narrow,
but with quite a chunky sidewall, aren't they?
So yeah, I would agree with all of that.
I think that's pretty spot on.
I would also still be pushing
for the proper diagnostic report,
because although the i3 does have a readout
on the system, it's not as precise
as actually having a proper diagnostic report.
And yeah, similar to what you said,
I wouldn't really worry too much about the 12-volts,
even if you do need a new battery,
it's not the end of the world,
but yeah, it's a great car, the i3.
So if you get a low mileage one like that
that has been properly maintained,
then it could be a really good one.
So yeah, just have to wait for the proper report.
What else have we got?
So we've got at John Humphrey's 9887, he says,
I'm pleased to hear there's an Octavia estate plan
for the future.
However, I'm looking for something a little sooner
that will easily swallow a newfoundland dog,
which is a giant breed of dog.
Any suggestions or recommendations
on something that's already on the market?
So we're looking for electric cars with big boots.
Obviously, Ginny's favorite, the Skoda Enyak,
is gonna be up there, isn't it?
But I am gonna go back to,
again, this is not gonna surprise anybody,
I'm sorry everybody,
I am gonna talk about the ID7 again
because I think an ID7 Tora would be a better option
than an Enyak because it's got a lower load lip
and it's got an even bigger boot.
So I would definitely check out the ID7 Tora
if you can stretch to it.
And there are some great used examples,
including of course, OnElectricFind.com,
so you should check that out
because I still really rate the ID7
as a great option for dog owners, particularly the Tora.
What else, the Grandland,
do you mention the Grandland early?
That's not a bad option, is it really?
Especially great lease prices.
It's quite high to jump up into I suppose.
Yeah, newfoundlands aren't great for that,
aren't great for jumping, they're not agile dogs,
I don't think.
But you can get the steps or the ramps, can't you?
So yeah, or a crane, yeah.
Or a crane, yeah.
Yeah, Renault Scenic?
I actually wouldn't recommend it really
because it's got a big boot capacity by literage,
but the problem is it's all in the depth.
So your newfoundland would have to sort of steeple chase
over the boot lip and into the sort of well of space.
So you can get a boot floor for the Scenic
from as a dealer fit, which is great.
So that's a variable boot floor,
but then obviously you've got much less boot space.
So I don't think the Scenic would be the best option.
But...
A bit like a Pima, can you imagine a newfoundland
going into a Pima?
It's disappearing into that enormous tunnel.
Yeah, it's not the similar thing.
Yeah, precisely, you've got that sort of thing.
Or I'm sure I'm forgetting something really obvious here.
So you could look at,
so the Peugeot 5008 has got an enormous boot.
So that's, if you don't mind the Stellantis stuff,
I think the 5,000 notes pretty good actually.
You could check that out again.
Some reasonable used examples around already
or lease prices are quite decent.
And it's a seven-seater, but you can fold all the seats flat.
So you've got that kind of flexibility too.
Again, probably not the lowest load lip.
Yeah, I think, you know,
I'm just trying to think of what would be
sort of a more, maybe a sort of cheaper.
You could look at...
Well, that's the Stellantis van stuff,
van van stuff if you're not too...
That would be great if you don't need the range.
Yeah, so there's a lot of options out there,
but I think that sort of covers the obvious ones.
You could look at Model Y, I have to say,
because they are really good for boot space and stuff.
Maybe not so much for the depth of the boot,
but they've got a nice big boot floor.
So if that would suit you.
Or your newfoundland indeed.
But excellent choice of dog.
I love a newfoundland.
Right, Tom, what's next?
Judith Kitchenman4419 said,
I'd like your opinions on the effect of brakes
on driving full-time in e-pedal mode.
I recently had a 40 tire valve and had it fixed.
I received dire warnings about my rusting brake discs
due to lack of use of the brakes,
due to it using the e-pedal all the time.
I've had to turn it off
so I can use my brakes for a few weeks.
What is everyone's experience or opinion of this?
Thanks.
Now, Mike from our team said
he's had to replace the discs on his i3
because they rusted out
and I had to do it on our leaf as well.
So for people who don't know,
regen braking just uses the motor to slow the car down.
And therefore you're getting all the energy back.
But the downside of that is
that your brake discs don't get used.
And a bit like if you've,
I get it when I've just washed the car
or when it's been sitting for a while
after a really heavy rain
and you get that kind of
as you, the pads first touch the discs for the first time.
So I used to just once in a while
after I'd expensively replaced all the brakes on the leaf,
just used to do a look around me
just a bit of a heavy brake to bring them in.
I know Aldi, there was an engineer telling me
that the regen on the Q6 is so strong
that the brakes are hardly ever used
except in real dire emergencies.
So they have, I mean, this sounds ridiculous,
but they have a sensor that knows
when the surface of the discs is starting to corrode
and just gives them a little,
a little wipe once a week.
That's really mad, isn't it?
I mean, we will get to the stage, no doubt,
where conventional brakes are just gone.
They're no longer needed.
I know there are concept cars already of that
where there's nothing.
But, you know, people get funny about
on cars like the Bourne,
there were all these people on YouTube saying,
oh, it's only got drums at the back.
That's ridiculous.
That's not safe.
Of course it's safe.
And they don't corrode.
That's the other advantage of drums
is they don't corrode, which we'll just do.
So yeah, I would just advise,
if you have an electric car,
just once in a while,
just brake heavily,
making sure no one's gonna drive into the back of you.
Or you're not gonna upset everyone.
Just, yeah, just give it a little nudge.
Yeah, it's this sort of thing, isn't it?
That I spoke to somebody recently
was talking about that again,
their Tesla and they were saying that,
because there's no specific service schedule
for a Tesla.
In fact, they sort of encouraged
that you don't really need to service it at all.
And it's that sort of thing, isn't it?
Because obviously Tesla similarly
will just be using its regen braking
all the time as with most EVs.
So you wonder whether that sort of thing
is the kind of thing that's gonna go unnoticed
if you don't have a regular service schedule
that sort of check up.
You'd hope that an MOT, I suppose,
which obviously any car is still,
that would get picked up there, I guess.
But anyway, it crossed my mind
that that might be an aspect of it.
But yeah, interesting.
And yeah, definitely something to look out for, I think.
Right, should we do from the comments?
We have got, I'll start with At Peer Walker.
He says, I find adaptive cruise,
I assume it's a, he may not be,
I find adaptive cruise control quite alarming
when driving on a motorway.
And the lane to the right stops or slows down
because of congestion, et cetera.
But my car sees nothing ahead
and plows on undertaking vehicles
to my right at high speed, very worrying.
Otherwise it's wonderful.
Similar on similar, okay.
I've got, we've also got at John Key Hearts.
I've tried adaptive cruise control,
but I'm not a fan.
I like to feel in control.
This is all very much what I was saying recently as well
in terms of being very much a luddite
about not really wanting to,
not really even liking adaptive cruise control.
Never mind this sort of full, you know,
the sort of full, well, I say full semi, what is it called?
Yes.
Autonomous driving.
Yes, thank you.
Yeah, all of that stuff.
So the sort of more where you got like the BMW Y5
with the lane change stuff and this kind of thing.
And yeah.
So all about the adaptive cruise control here.
So it's what have we got at DC various vids 8082.
I've never used adaptive cruise and wouldn't trust it.
If I want someone else's logic to do my thinking,
I get a taxi or catch the bus as to lane,
as to lane keep and lane follow assists.
I hate both with a passion.
Well, there you go.
It's interesting, isn't it?
I sort of feel similar.
I do use adaptive cruise control occasionally in,
in the, you know, especially average speed cameras,
that kind of thing.
But I don't love it.
I do, like I've said before, I just find myself,
I don't know how you feel Tom, I find myself,
I find I'm more tense using adaptive cruise control
or any of the semi-autonomous functions
because I'm waiting for the car to make a mistake
rather than if I just drive the car myself
and I know what's happening.
So, yeah.
Well, I quite like it, but it has to be good.
So there are very good systems
and there are systems which are pretty bad.
And my test of it is that my wife hates it
and hates the idea of it.
Not only would she not use it,
she doesn't want me using it while I'm driving
and she's in the car.
So I quietly slip it off.
And if she notices and says, turn that off,
then I know it's not very good
because it's like doing heavy braking or something
or, you know, a car pulls out into the gap in front of you
and it hasn't noticed for a fraction of a second
and carries on barreling towards it.
But if she doesn't notice,
then I think it's a pretty good system.
So that's my, that's my test.
Yes, exactly.
Well, there you go.
I mean, with the idea, you know,
this legislation now, isn't there?
That they're sort of doing pilots
on more fully autonomous stuff within the next year or so.
It's the government sort of rolling out this pilot thing.
So it'd be interesting to see how that goes.
But yeah, until I can trust adaptive cruise control
and traffic sign recognition,
I had an electric Fiat recently
and it was absolutely convinced
that it was 120 mile an hour speed limit on the motorway
quite some time as well.
So until I sort of see that being more reliable,
it's not just Fiat, it's all every car, every car.
So I had a Volvo EX30 do a sort of almost emergency stop
for absolutely no reason.
Just, you know, it does that thing
where it suddenly misreads the road
and there's a car on the opposite side of the road
and it just slams the brakes on just momentarily.
It's absolutely terrifying
and very exciting for the car following you as well.
So that's always good.
Anyway, and yeah.
Trailers, trailers,
because we were talking about trailers last week
because Nicola had her first experience
of towing a trailer.
And Tradewind 25 says reversing a trailer
sign is used to tow gliders regularly.
Can you imagine towing a glider?
They're about the mix of the M1, aren't they?
Oh God.
The rule I was taught was simply this,
place one hand on the bottom of the steering wheel.
If you want the rear of the trailer to go right,
move your hand to the right and vice versa.
Never turn the wheel too far and drive slowly.
And Tony Watts, I2H says reversing,
put your hand at the bottom of the steering wheel.
If you want to go left, move your hand to left,
nine o'clock and right to move right,
three o'clock.
Now, I'd heard this too
and thought it was that simple,
but the physics don't seem to apply whenever I try.
Or the trouble is that you get the trailer
to go in the right direction,
but then the car ends up in a ditch
or in the parked car next to it,
or, oh God, I'm gonna have to practice.
Yeah, I think so.
I think I found a really, really big car parked on,
really massive with nothing to hit
and then practice away.
You can't, well, I mean, actually,
on the subject of the semi-autonomous stuff,
there are some pretty reasonable trailer reversing systems
these days, I don't know,
which I think are actually quite good.
The last time I used one was years ago,
so I don't know what they're like now.
It was a little bit sketchy then,
but I remember that was a Volkswagen system, I think.
And I remember it being pretty impressive actually,
but yeah, it'd be interesting to try those.
That sort of situation,
I could see it being quite good.
Right, okay.
What do we got on the subject of digital mirrors?
Yeah, so at David Vacy 4368,
I don't know if that's how it's pronounced, sorry,
on the subject of glasses,
why is no one come up with prescription-based screens
so that you can set your digital dashboards
to your prescriptions for those of us
that need different focal lengths
for driving and seeing the dials.
Interesting.
Now, initially, I thought this was like that April Fool,
which I think BMW did years and years ago
of prescription windscreen,
so you didn't have to wear your glasses anymore.
But then I read it again.
I'm like, no, no, you're serious.
That you would just focus the dashboard
to be your correct, I think it's quite a clever idea.
So you have the settings for your seat and your radio
and your aircon and everything else
if you could actually set it to do that.
I mean, I don't know,
probably some optometrists out there
or someone who could tell us if that would work or not,
but it does seem like a clever idea, doesn't it?
It does, because I mean, I'm very long-sighted.
I wear glasses and so it's,
so I mean, I can not have my glasses on
and I can see a long way, absolutely fine,
but seeing things close up, like the touchscreen
and this kind of thing could be tricky.
But then I suppose if you've got eyesight,
sort of shortcomings like that,
probably you're gonna be wearing
a contacts or glasses anyway, aren't you?
So maybe then having a focal difference, I don't know.
I think it's about,
so you wouldn't need to have bifocal lenses
because you're looking down the dashboard and that.
Yeah, see, I don't need bifocal lenses.
You know, the heads-up display
is at the same focal length as you're looking at that.
So that's why you don't have to refocus on it
because if you're looking forward
and then you look down at the dashboard,
your eyes have to refocus on the dashboard.
So a head-up display, you don't have to do that.
So that's why it's better.
It's not just that you're not looking down as far,
it's that you're not constantly doing that.
So if you could do the same for the dashboard.
That would make sense, wouldn't it?
Let's patent it now.
Yeah, I'm gonna change your name.
David Vasey, 4368.
I was gonna say, yeah,
I think David Vasey, 4368 might need to patent that.
Good answer.
And yes, any optometrists out there that can comment
and tell us whether that is or isn't possible
or indeed is or isn't a good idea,
you probably know better than us.
So yeah.
So there was some discussion about our news
that the VW Group electric cars
are gonna be range extenders.
And Steven Wensley says,
I'd hoped hybrids would die out
after people experienced the electric mode.
The return of the range extenders
suggests people be pushed into hybrid phase two.
What's the point of a range extender in Britain?
Beverage range is more than enough
to cover the vast majority of this country.
I have never come across a good range extender.
I mean, Mike owns one.
And I don't think he'd buy another one now, would he?
Because it costs twice as much to do everything.
It's twice as much to service
because it's got two engines.
I think he did use it in the early days
when he couldn't charge in places.
He would occasionally have to fire up the petrol motor,
but otherwise it's just lugging around
a petrol engine and the battery.
I did try that Mazda MX-30, which was utter nonsense.
Because it had the fuel consumption of a Range Rover
when it was running in petrol mode.
And the electric efficiency of an old EQC or something.
I mean, it was the worst of all worlds.
And just a scientific curiosity, and that was it.
So maybe they'll be brilliant.
I'm just not seeing it yet.
I don't know.
I'm sort of in agreement with what everybody else has said.
I just feel like electric cars have already proven
that they can really cover the needs of the everyday car.
Can't they?
I'm going to be driving an electric Hyundai
across France in a week or two.
I've got absolutely no qualms about doing that.
I just don't know why, you know, I don't know.
It just it just feels like, as you say,
you've got the worst of both worlds in that instance.
For I mean, I didn't mind the i3 range extender.
I thought the i3 range extender is pretty cool.
But I do know.
Well, yeah, I know from Mark's experience
in various others that sometimes they can be problematic.
So, yeah, I don't know.
We'll find out, won't we?
I suppose I just don't really know.
It seems like an extreme length to go to to effectively
just kind of cancel out range anxiety
that ultimately probably is just a case of educating people
rather than needing to stick a petrol engine in the back of a car.
Anyway, that's such as such as they're trying
not to get weary of the whole thing, really.
But there you go.
Yeah, it's all good.
Right. What else have we got?
You know, talking of charging and the subject of indoor charging
because we were talking about how what's not made car?
That's the what's the the Dutch company?
Charging fast, fast, yes, they're planning
a an indoor charging hub in Aberdeen.
And Patty, the geek says, I've seen some indoor charging spots
popping up in the US, partnered with other car services
such as car washing and detailing.
You drive into the brushes car wash
park at the end where they have the vacuums
and you can plug in while you're vacuuming your vehicle
and then drive away when you're done.
You don't get a ton of energy,
but there's a good 15 minute top up
while you take care of your car.
All this inside the giant warehouse
so you're covered at the same time.
Now, that would be great for me,
but not for a lot of members of the team
who don't know what a car wash is.
Well, naming no names.
I think it's quite a good idea.
All I want to know is whether there are solar panels on the roof.
I'm so I'm so frustrated with there being these,
you know, of us not putting solar panels
on top of car parks and charging stations.
And it seems like such a no brainer to me.
So, yeah, I'm all for it,
but please put some solar panels on the roof.
And then and then I'm there.
Yeah, it has solar panels on the roof.
Well, the the the one they're planning in Aberdeen does.
I was going to say, I might not be at that one
because it's quite a long way for me to go
to for a 15 minute car wash, but it's a sunny in Aberdeen.
Yeah, there you go.
Right, what else we got on the subject of leasing.
OK, so at Brian Evans 8127.
Hi, guys, about finance,
I did a fairly quick comparison between lease deals
and paying cash on the Tesla Model 3.
The lease deals turned out cheaper
for the first six or seven years overall.
It's well worth doing the calculations.
That is a good point, actually.
Yeah, so is that kind of thing
you do have to really get the get the calculator out
and kind of go into find to find a detail, don't you?
We've also got message from at Neil R. Williams 218.
When dealers have pushed PCP arrangements,
they've often said you can pay it off quite quickly.
So taking the finance with a decent discount
and then paying it off as soon as possible could be cheaper.
That's interesting.
See, I would have thought that PCP you're in a fixed contract
and have to pay a certain amount per month.
But there is obviously a clause
you can pay it off earlier.
Yeah, that was when I bought my leaf,
which was obviously many years ago,
there was a finance deal and they did say,
well, you can pay it off
if you want to just to get that bonus
because I think it was a £1,000 cash pack.
You can pay it off straight afterwards.
But I'm like, well, it's 0% but I would have paid off.
They're like, oh yeah, good point.
But I was entirely allowed,
I think after the first payment to just say,
well, there's all your money
and I'll just take the cash back you've given
which would have been annoying for them, I'm sure.
Yes.
Well, there you go.
So I mean, that's a really interesting fact, isn't it?
I didn't know about that.
I haven't crossed my mind that you could do that with PCP.
But I mean, the leasing thing as well, you look at it,
some of the deals that were on,
I think at the moment on a Dacia Spring
and the Leap Motor C10,
which have been quite frankly,
ridiculous some of the lease deals on those,
you know, 150 per month and things.
You just think there's no way
you could negotiate enough discount
and a low enough finance rate
to get that amount of car,
you know, a 30, whatever it is,
£1,000 car for that amount of money.
It's not possible.
So the leasing company has obviously done that deal
and therefore can get it.
So yeah, I think you need to do the sums,
but often leasing is so much cheaper.
Yeah, I know there are some amazing lease deals out there.
I don't know, a friend of mine
got a Vauxhall Grandland for £150 a month on a lease deal,
which I thought was pretty remarkable.
I think it was a pre-reg it turned out,
but yeah, I thought that was pretty impressive really.
So you can't get some amazing deals out there.
Isn't that all good news?
It is. Well, we should probably wrap it up now.
I think that's more than half now.
We've done the obligatory more than a kilowatt hour.
More than a half hour.
More than, yeah, exactly.
Is everybody back from Holland?
Oh, you're all away next week, aren't you?
I'm away for a couple of weeks, yeah.
So I'm out in France.
Yes, exactly.
So it should be good fun.
I'm looking forward to that, yeah.
Been on Duolingo to learn the language
and all that, have you?
All of that, I'm fluent now.
It's all good.
Just shout loudly and wave your arms.
It'll be fine.
Sorry, France.
I apologise to anybody who speaks French.
It's a beautiful language,
and I am a terrible, terrible person.
Who ain't the charger of Rapide?
Let's see if we can play.
Oh my goodness, me.
On that note, I really think
we should probably let people go
just before this gets any worse.
If you have any other handy French phrases,
please let us know in the comments.
Do let me know, yeah, exactly.
Marvelous.
All right.
There you go.
All right, see you next time.
Okay, see you next time.
Bye.
Bye.
About this episode
The hosts dive into Tesla's UK energy supply plans, highlighting their application to become an electricity provider and potential vehicle-to-grid services. They discuss Polestar's impressive 581-mile range test, emphasizing efficiency over raw distance. Vauxhall's upcoming electric concept car teaser sparks excitement, alongside a comparison of affordable sporty EVs like the Alpine A290 and VW Born. Listener questions cover used BMW i3 battery health, electric cars with large boots for big dogs, brake wear from regenerative braking, and opinions on adaptive cruise control. The episode blends news, personal stories, and practical EV advice with a lighthearted tone.
Hello and welcome to your weekly bits and bytes from the world of electric cars brought to you by the team at Electrifying.com
This week we’ll be talking about Tesla’s plans for the UK energy market, the Polestar that went on and on and on, and the concept that sort of tells us how the new Vauxhall Corsa is going to look.
And we’ll also be answering YOUR electric car questions and dipping into the postbag to find out your views on last week’s episode. Welcome to the Kilowatt half hour.
This podcast is also available on the Electrifying.com YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC29JbxEwr7q5bP7ANJMSqAg) where you can leave comments and questions for the team. We can also be reached at [email protected].