Episode 90: Big Smarts, little Hondas and getting EV charging out of the gutter

Hello and welcome to your weekly recharge of all the latest electric car news from the team at electrifying.com.

This week, we'll be talking about little Hondas, big smarts, record-breaking FEVs, and getting home charging out of the gutter.

And 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 Mike.

And I'm Tom.

Here we are. We're back.

We haven't been back for ages, have we? We haven't been on for ages, so yeah, it's nice to be back doing the work.

No, well, my single solitary fan asked to me in the comments last week on YouTube, so thank you, Andy Smith, 9913.

And your wish has come true. I have returned.

Tom is back. We're both back.

How long this will last? I don't know.

But generally speaking, we get to do it when everybody else is like they physically can't get near a microphone or a computer.

So we should make the most of it, shouldn't we?

Yeah. What have you been up to?

Not a lot. Mostly driving a desk, but I have done quite a few miles in the long-term Cooper-Born that we do have,

which depressingly I got an email from Cooper Press Office this week saying it's going back soon, so I'm now counting the days.

But I was doing some work up at Silverstone at the race circuit up there and going back with some forwards, and it's brilliant.

It's such a great, easy to live with long distances.

In fact, it's quite hard writing the long-term update because it just does everything okay, really well, rather than you sort of read through.

There's no light and shade on my own beings.

It's almost really like an advertorial because it's really good.

But it's cost me a fortune this last week because getting to Silverstone and back on a full charge, I'm about 30 miles short.

So what I was doing, I was finishing at Silverstone at about six o'clock, driving back charging on the A34.

There's a McDonald's and an InstaVolt there. There's a big shell hub there.

I know the one.

I don't want to use them.

I think what I can usually do is plug the car in, walk in, place my order, get my burger, be back at the car or eat in.

And it's usually added at 30 miles.

This time I timed it badly.

There was like a school football team arrived and they're all ordering like, you know, one McFlurry ahead of me.

So there was this enormous board of, you know, we're preparing this meal and I put my order in and obviously I'd put the car on to charge.

I must have been there 20 minutes waiting for this thing.

By the way, my order to come in and when I got back to the car, of course, it was like 45 quid.

So it was really annoying.

Anyway, I mean, it's a nice problem to have, isn't it?

Because the amount of times that you and I have charged stuff up, back it's certainly in the early days.

When we'd be sitting there thinking, it's charging at nine kilowatts.

You're on your fourth coffee, yeah.

And it says one hour 30 to 80% you thinking, so it's very much a first world problem.

But it's a nice problem to have, isn't it?

Anyway, what have you been up to?

Well, talking of long term as my Vauxhall Grandland, there's been quite a lot to write about, but it's not really the car's fault because I had two punches.

But then I went to see my boys at university and Leeds and parked the car overnight and came out in the morning to a note on the windscreen,

which is never a good thing, you'd think.

And somebody had scraped the bumper on it, but they'd left me a note.

Now, I think this is because it was a rental car and they were going to have to claim anyway.

So it was no skin off their nose to add mine to their claim.

So it was enterprise rent a car and I rang them up and they said, yeah, yeah, we'll come and come and get the car.

We'll leave you a car of equivalent value and we'll make it as easy as possible for you.

But I thought, no, I better go through the insurance of the fleet insurance for Vauxhall.

So I did and they said, no, no, we're going to do it with our people.

So they left me with a petrol Citroen C3 and then it was repaired and it's been repaired very well.

I must say, but I had to wait an extra week because once they painted the bumper,

they have to get all the ADAS systems, all the radar and all the cameras and everything else that is built into the bumper reset by Vauxhall dealer.

And there was a bit of a backlog for these things.

So I had to wait for a while while that was done, which was a little bit irritating and a sign of the times.

And I know there's been some discussion on here about all those sort of computer systems.

And it's actually doing you any benefit, but it's astonishing to get a scrape on your bumper repaired.

You have to wait for a dealer to reset all the systems, but it's fine.

It's back and it's looking very shiny.

Other things, I had a go in the Tesla Model Y performance.

Oh, that light.

Well, it's depressingly good, really.

There's a video coming out of Nicola driving it.

There are a couple of things that I annoyed me.

One of which she kindly says is because of my age, which is that it's got a much bigger screen in the middle,

but the type on it's really small.

So you have to kind of, especially if you wear glasses, you're like, what's that say?

Oh, yes.

Glove box open.

No, no, no.

Don't open the doors.

No.

So that's that's a little bit annoying.

It is, of course, ridiculously fast and fast.

You could ever need it to be.

But one thing I couldn't quite believe is if you look at the leasing costs on those,

the performance was 965, I think, a month.

And on the same terms, the all-wheel drive long range was like 565.

So you think, why would you pay 400 quid more for the performance?

You must really need that extra second off the 0-60 time or to just be king of the heap.

What was also interesting about it is I pulled up to a Tesla supercharging station

and everyone's kind of all the other Tesla drivers are looking at you like.

Not only is it a model of my performance, but it's the new one.

So they looked a bit put out.

I turned up in this thing.

So I suppose, like all these things, everyone knows that they're pecking order.

But yeah, it's, it's very good.

And I got used to it and I got used to the charging and I just left it in chill mode,

which was perfectly adequate in terms of performance and thought, yeah,

this is quite a nice way to get out.

But my advice is save you 400 quid a month and just have the all-wheel drive,

which does most of the things just as well.

It's not exactly a slow car either, is it?

No, no, exactly.

The other end of the scale, the other vehicle I drove was a Citroen EC3 van,

which is a really curious car.

Well, van because it's a Citroen EC3, but they've taken the back seats out.

Yeah.

And then to make it a van from a legal point of view,

they've put some vinyl over the back windows and removed the rear window winders.

Now, what I mean, they've removed them.

They've just literally, yeah, it's got old fashioned keep fit windows

where you have to actually wind them rather than pressing a button.

And they've just taken the winders off.

And then they've put a bulkhead in so, you know,

between the front and back seats and so you don't get buffed on the head

by a parcel when you brake heavily.

But that makes it a van.

And then you have 0% benefit kind and all sorts of other incentives

from a tax point of view.

And they can take off to an half thousand pounds for the plug-in van grant.

But it's more expensive than the one that's got seats in the back

because obviously they have to pay for the conversion.

So it's just, I can see why they've done it.

Yeah.

And it's got a 300 kilogram payload.

So if there's you and a passenger and you're both, you know, kind of my size,

then you're using, you're not going to be able to carry more than

some helium balloons in the back without it going over the payload.

It's bizarre.

It was a very strange thing, but it gives me plenty to write about.

OK, well, shall we look at some news?

It's been a busy week, actually.

It has, hasn't it?

It's been a motor show.

Yeah.

It's the Tokyo Motor Show,

and it's called the Japanese Mobility Show,

but forever known as the Tokyo Motor Show.

And obviously Japan is, let's say, behind the curve with electric,

but they've got other things on their mind, haven't they?

So whereas, you know, European motor shows tend to be,

virtually everything is electric and even the Japanese, they're still,

you know, there's a rotary plug-in hybrid.

There was all kinds of weird stuff.

The car that caught my mind was the Honda Super 1.

Again, they call it a prototype, so it's kind of a concept car.

And if you went to the Goodwood Festival of Speed,

you would have seen like a camouflaged one going up the hill.

And it's basically the production version of that.

Now, it's based on Honda's K car,

which is a kind of a specific set of rules for a very small car in Japan.

But it's been kind of modified for the rest of the world market,

so it's got a wider track.

It's a little bit more, it's a little bit bigger,

but it's still tiny, it's still smaller than a Fiat 500.

And it's going to be a kind of a loose replacement for the Honda E.

And the UK is the only market that's going to get it,

well, the UK market is going to get it first out of Japan.

I guess that's a right-hand drive decision,

because Japan's a right-hand drive market.

It looks really funky.

It looks kind of sort of big wheel arches,

but also weird at the same time.

It looks like it's on 12-inch wheels,

but I don't know that's because we're used to seeing EVs with enormous wheels.

22s.

22s, exactly.

So it's on kind of small wheels,

which will help the efficiency, of course.

I think all we know is that it's going to be less than the Honda E,

which isn't difficult, is it?

Because that was a 37 grand car at the end.

But it looks funky.

I mean, I'd like to think it would do okay,

but I think those kind of cars traditionally haven't done brilliantly.

Were you at Nissan when you bought the Cube over?

Yeah.

So I joined Nissan at the end of the Cube.

Right.

And so we had something.

And in fact, they said,

I got to lease some cars from them as an employee.

And my wife said,

I want a Cube.

It's great.

We had a Cube and we couldn't wait to get rid of it.

Because although it was very handy,

it was fine to drive all that sort of thing.

It became a landmark.

So people in our village would say,

turn left at the car that looks like a fridge.

And then turn.

And she became known as the funny car lady.

And she just couldn't bear it anymore.

So in the first instance, it was great.

She couldn't wait to get into something normal afterwards.

But it was good.

But that's the trouble that it didn't sell.

So everyone says it gets very excited about these things.

Yes, we want them.

But once everyone who thinks it's funky has bought one,

no one else does.

And if you think, I know we're looking forward, not back.

But if you think that all those kind of cars that came out

in the sort of late 90s, early 2000s,

like the Daihatsu move and the Grand move

and even things like Hyundai Atos

were incredible value for money.

If you actually wrote down what they offered for the,

you know, they often came with tons of stuff.

But I think that market is quite conservative with a small C

in terms of how they want cars to look, aren't they?

And they did stand out.

So whether that, I don't know,

I think Insta probably falls into that category as well,

doesn't it?

Yeah, it does.

It's kind of slightly odd.

In other news, good news,

if you can't charge at home,

but are able to park adjacent to your house

because the government are promising

and have a legislation underway

to relax planning regulations,

which means that you will be able to put a gully

outside from the end of your property

to the road across the pavement

under new, it's got permitted development.

So it's the same sort of set of rules

that allows you to put a shed

or sauna or a hot tub or whatever,

in your garden, permitted development allows you

to build certain things of a certain size

without having to go through all the rigmarole

of planning permission.

So the government want to make it,

so putting a gully in will fall under that.

I mean, I spoke to a few people

and I tried to find out as well,

but I don't know how that worked

because you don't own the pavement, do you?

Whereas if you want to build something in your garden,

that's okay.

Well, if it's anything like trying to get a dropped curb,

which, yeah, I've tried to do in there,

it's quite expensive, isn't it?

So if you've got the council to come along

and have to wait a year

and then some blokes turn up

and chew up the pavement for you,

I think it is pricey.

Maybe the installation companies

will maybe there's somebody who,

if you choose a charge point,

maybe it'll be an optional extra,

you can tick on there

of how much pavement you want to dig up.

I don't know,

but permitted development doesn't require

any form of planning permission.

You can go and put a shed up in your garden

this afternoon, can't you?

As long as it's a metre away

and all flammable, all this kind of bits and pieces.

But that sort of implies

that you could just go out the pavement

with an angle grinder

and it's permitted development.

I can just go and sink a cable down in there.

So I don't know how that works.

It seems to have gone from one extreme to the other

where it would be

an enormous amount of paperwork

to the Wild West

where you can just start...

I don't know.

I mean, but it is good news,

but I mean, you've lived in town as well

as I have.

I mean, when I lived in New York,

when I lived in Twickenham

and didn't have any off-street parking,

I mean, I parked outside my house

probably three times in a year

that there'd be a space there

and it was just good fortune, isn't it?

So I don't know quite how that would...

It's not going to be the fix for everybody, is it?

You'll get lots of people putting their bins

in the space, won't they,

to reserve it like happens.

You see that in town, don't you, people like that?

Or if you're moving house,

you have to put cones and a wardrobe

and all sorts of things.

There's going to be a lot of people buying cones, aren't there?

But they're going to start to look official.

And there we go.

Anything else caught your eye this week, Tom?

Yeah, so the smart hashtag five.

We've got prices.

I think it looks pretty good value.

It's $39,800.

And that car, I really like the look of it.

I saw one driving up the M1

with somebody in a high-vis jacket,

so I'm going to be delivering it somewhere.

I thought it looked great.

It's kind of a murk, but a bit less murky.

But it seems to have all the same bits.

I think it'll be a really nice car that one.

But of course, it's very big for a smart,

so you probably don't like it.

I've got one coming in tomorrow.

Monday.

I've got one coming in on Monday.

And I'm quite excited about it

because I put that story up with the V-images

and I thought, you know, I quite like this.

And I quite like the new electric smarts.

I've got no kind of worry about them

not being like the old cars.

What was really interesting is I think if you're

a bit of a car geek and you're on the motorway

and you see just in the distance some taillights

and you think, I don't recognize those.

What's that?

And you know it's going to be something new and interesting.

The smart's got new and interesting taillights

and the headlights as well.

But it's like, ooh, something new.

Well, yeah.

But I mean, smart aren't doing great, are they, in the UK?

My dad bought a hashtag three, which he loves.

He really loves it.

He really likes it.

But he says, I haven't seen, I've seen one other

and he thinks that's the dealer demonstrator in his area.

In his area.

He doesn't live in the middle of nowhere.

I don't think I've seen one.

No, no.

When did you last see the hashtag three?

I don't think I've ever seen one on the road, actually,

except for the ones we've had on test.

For a one, for that matter.

One of the ones you see, there are a couple

of ones in my village, including strangely.

One was having some smart repairs done on it

in the street when I was walking the dog.

And I thought, I hope he doesn't get dog hair on the repairs.

But that was because it was a lease car that's going back.

So it must be at least a couple of years old now that hashtag.

At least a year old, yeah.

So somebody's actually getting another car.

So yes, they haven't been,

the roads aren't awash with them, are they?

No, which is a shame.

I think they're really good.

I'm really looking forward to a week with a five.

Anything else?

Talking of Chinese cars, there's two newcomers,

I suppose, two new brands who come out with plug-in hybrids,

which we're always a bit about plug-in hybrids.

But these are interesting because the Cherry Tigo 9,

which is a DAF name, of course,

has a 91 mile electric only range.

Now think about my old leaf.

That's more than my i3 has.

Yes, exactly.

And it's a seven-seater.

So that's good.

And it's good value as well.

But then there's the BYD Ato II FEV,

which they haven't given many details of,

but it's going to be the smallest plug-in hybrid.

So it's like on the jazz-sized,

and everybody else just does hybrids for that.

This is a plug-in hybrid.

And since plug-in hybrid sales are going through the roof

at the moment,

I presume it's something we should get reasonably excited about

for once.

OK.

We'll try.

And speaking about being excited,

only we need some barnards.

Finally, we have Barnard here for Barnard's Bargains.

Yes, we do.

What a treat.

Well, I'm going to go Chinese again

because we can open a discussion about this.

But I was looking on the thing,

and there was suddenly a lot of a mode at E5.

And I don't know where they will come from.

Are they ex-rentals or something?

But there's one, for example.

It's on a 25-plate.

It's six months old.

6,300 miles.

22,999.

Now, if you think that the new price of that car,

because it's a noble spec,

is 34,565.

That's a big chunk off, isn't it,

for 6,000 miles in six months?

Now...

It is.

That's going to be...

If you're getting on the lease,

if you're getting on the PCP,

I presume you don't care about the depreciation.

No.

If you're looking at buying one

and you've lost that amount of money in the first place,

it's like, ooh, ow.

Now, I do have a theory

on why these cars are depreciating so much.

These Chinese cars...

Go on.

It's the shape of the number plate surrounds.

There are two of them,

E5 and an E5,

on, again, on my dog walk.

And it was the same on the funky cat

that, obviously, there are some holes in the boot lid

where the Chinese number plates go.

They've got, like, screw holes.

And they have to cover them over,

so they put these plastic number plate covers

or mountings on.

And they look terrible.

There's got to be a better way than that,

because I'm not going to buy one

until they've sorted that out.

I think MG's had it for a bit,

but now they've fixed it somehow.

But, yeah, do you know what I mean?

It's like, you know in Germany,

you always have number plates around.

Oh, look terrible.

So next time you look at a motor E5

and see the number plates around,

see if it annoys you too,

or is it just me being stupid?

It's the opposite to Tesla, isn't it?

And so much as their plate carrier

isn't tall enough, is it?

So the number plates tend to be cropped.

And I checked on the regulations.

You're supposed to have something like 20 millimeters

of white above the top of that.

This is so anoraki.

20 minutes above the light of the lettering

on the number plate.

But so many Tesla, you see,

the frame is almost touching the tops

of the characters on the plate.

And it looks terrible,

because there's a great big thick,

you know, you think this is probably something

there's a decision made by an importer, isn't it?

Just think, do you know what they'll do?

They'll be fine.

Just, you know,

it's an extra three euros to get the right size plate.

Well, that's not bothered with that.

It's only a 50 euro, 50,000 pound car.

So that's not,

but that would bug me.

So much.

An odd looking plate like that.

But then we're anorex,

so we're probably too far down the rabbit hole tree.

I was relaying to my neighbor

who has a Kia from Ken Brown Motors.

And I said, I'm not sure I could buy a car

from Ken Brown Motors,

just because it sounds like a bit Arthur Daly, doesn't it?

It's like John Shuffleworth character, doesn't it?

Yeah, yeah.

But didn't you buy a BMW motorbike

from Park Lane just because you wanted

Park Lane on the number plates?

I didn't buy it just because of that.

No.

I bought it.

It was the i3 that had the part.

I know, I think the bike did as well, didn't it?

It was only because I'd bought a,

I was going to buy it and I mentioned

that I just mentioned at the press office

that I was thinking about buying one of these.

And yeah, I kind of,

I don't think I got,

I didn't get the GS, the BMW,

the motorbike at a better price,

but I got it quicker

than I may have done if I'd been.

So apologies if you were waiting

for a GS in 2006.

I did jump the queue.

But yeah, I did.

But yeah, Park Lane on the number plates.

Park Lane on the number plate.

In fact, my i3 has Park Lane on the number plate as well

for the same reason.

But yeah, so yes, the Ponzi number plate.

But I don't, you know.

No, I'd do the same.

Absolutely.

Okay.

So I've got another Chinese car bargain.

Okay.

So in the leasing,

at the moment,

I just looked through the leasing things like,

oh, that's not bad.

You know, that's all right there.

But there's one deal at the moment which just goes,

hang on a minute.

Is that right to check?

Which is MGS5 EV,

which is, you know, it's a nice car, isn't it?

We all like that.

Yeah.

So 24 month deal,

8,000 miles a year,

2,000 pound down,

227.99 a month.

That's good, isn't it?

I mean, that's,

I thought like the Renault 5 was cheap at 209,

but to go up to an MGS5 EV,

that's a lot of fun.

And that's a new car.

That's not a car that kind of,

that's three years old,

four years old.

They're trying to, you know,

prop up volume with that.

So, you know,

that came out last year, didn't it?

All this early this year,

I can't remember.

But it's, yeah,

it's a proper full size family SUV, isn't it?

That is good.

And while we're on the subject of MG,

and IM MG specifically,

we had a fun day at Chobham,

the test track,

long cross the old test track,

we went back there a month or so ago

and produced a series of shorts

on the MG IM,

the IM MG IM 6,

and the MG IM 5.

And you can find those on the YouTube channel

and it just shows you

how all the various different systems

on the cars work.

So like rainy night mode

and crab modes,

all these kind of like words,

all these things that just words

when we saw it was living,

but this shows you what they actually do

and everything.

And it is a fascinating car.

It's absolutely packed with tech.

So if you want to learn a bit more

about the MG IM 5 and MG IM 6,

head over to our YouTube channel

and you can find them.

And you can see us being very excited

about being back at our old filming.

Yes.

Yeah, absolutely.

Absolutely.

Right.

What else have we got coming up, Tom?

Do we answer some questions?

I think we should answer some questions, yeah.

Otherwise we're just going to run out of time, aren't we?

We are really, yeah.

Shall I do the...

Do you want to start?

Laura Bonato?

Bonetto?

Bonetto, I think, probably.

Bonetto.

So my local council

held an EV event in summer.

Lots of static cars and stalls,

but crucially around a dozen EVs to test drive.

There were different brands present

Tesla, Kia, Volvo, Mini, BYD,

X-Peng and Porsche.

I drove four EVs on the day

and thoroughly enjoyed it.

More councils should consider

hosting such events.

Please welcome me

to the world of electrifying

EVs.

Welcome, Laura.

As I finally took the plunge

and bought a used

Genesis GV60 Premium.

Absolutely loving it.

Thank you for all your excellent videos.

More of Nicola and Batch, please.

Made me properly laugh out loud.

Oh, that's nice, isn't it?

That's probably a great used

by a Genesis GV60, isn't it?

It is, yeah.

It's a bit punchy new price-wise,

but it's got loads of kit on it.

And it's one of those cars

that slightly flies under the radar, isn't it?

We don't often mention it,

but yeah, I reckon that's probably a cracking buy.

So yeah, welcome, Laura.

Thank you very much.

This is all good.

Tom Samson from e-mail,

podcastelectrifying.com says,

I've been listening to the podcast

for a few weeks now.

I decided to take the plunge

and switch to an EV.

I'm waiting on the delivery

of a Renault Scenic Techno 87kWh

switching from a Coupre 4Mentor VZ2.

I'm sure there'll be lots of learning

to do when it comes to an EV.

I was originally looking

at a 52kWh Renault 5 Techno,

but went for the Scenic

because it was £20 cheaper at £325 a month

with maintenance at the time.

I agreed the deal.

Three years, 7k a year,

and a three-month initial down payment.

So hopefully I've got myself a good deal.

I say that sounds like a cracking deal, doesn't it?

Yeah, with maintenance as well.

That normally adds 40 quid a month

to the guy doing the sums myself

and thinking,

well, how many tyres do I get through?

How much is a service?

It just takes all the hassle out of it, doesn't it?

It does, yeah.

I think you've got a very good deal there.

Tom Sampson, I hope you enjoy your Scenic.

We've got some buying questions.

Excellent.

First one from Charlie M.

So thank you for your interesting podcast.

We're looking to buy a family SUV,

perhaps secondhand,

budget up to £25,000 to £28,000.

However, I don't own a smartphone

and I don't really want to buy one.

I'm happy wearing my tin foil hat

and my brick phone keeps me away from screens.

Will my primitive phone cause problems

when I try to set up cheap home charging

or use public chargers?

Is there a car manufacturer

that's more sympathetic

in-tune with luddites like me?

One that makes a good car

I can recommend to my partner

without restarting the whole

just get yourself a smartphone conversation.

Thanks.

Interesting question, isn't it?

That's a really good question.

I don't think there's any one manufacturer

that's more sympathetic

to that.

There are simpler electric cars

and when I was reading this

I was trying to work out how much

you would be compromised

by not having a smartphone.

So you wouldn't be able to set up

your home charger

particularly easily, would you?

You could run it from the car

because I think when my

home charger packed up

and the Wi-Fi module packed up

and I had to rely on setting

the timings in the car

to take the charge rather.

So you could do that.

That's not beyond...

is it?

You could manage that

and I was thinking

most public charging

Tesla would just tap your card

so you'd be fine with that.

I think if you could do it

you would end up paying more

that's what I would say

but whether that's the price

worth paying for

not having a smartphone

and being free of screens.

Yeah, it's tricky isn't it?

I mean you could do it.

I mean often

if I'm just getting in a car

because we're testing it

I won't even link my phone to it.

But there are things like

if you go back to something like

a Volkswagen E-Up

that wants a smartphone to connect

if you want sat-nav and things.

Yeah.

So my advice would be

to just get a smartphone.

I'm not going to over

I'm not going to override

Charlie's decision

this decision really

because I think it's

that's what he wants to do

he wants to manage without it

and I think it's like

my friend

who's just bought a BMW i3

she has an iPhone 6

so it might as well not

it's so old doesn't even

count as a smartphone anyway

it literally makes calls

and she can send texts from it.

So that would be interesting

to see how she gets on with that

but I mean she doesn't want

to have the smartphone integration at all

I'm trying to persuade her to at least

set up the connected app

so she can turn the heating on

you can't turn the heating on

can you if you've not got Charlie

Yeah unless you've got a timer

you do it with a timer

so you have to go out to the car

You can do it with a timer as well

Yeah you could do it

I mean there's a lot of

you'll be very familiar

with the ins and outs

of the infotainment system

or whatever you buy

but I can't think of any one manufacturer

that's better than another

other than if you go

I mean the

you know dacha spring and things like that

are a bit more basic

but sometimes they're even cheaper ones

rely on the connection even more don't they

I mean there's a thing about this

Tesla Model Y that I had

because it doesn't have a car play

This is true

you don't connect to it

so I

you can play Bluetooth

so I could do some podcasts

and things via Bluetooth

which felt a bit old fashioned

because I wasn't going to connect up

my Spotify and my other apps

to the

which owners would do

yeah I'd have to disconnect it

when I gave the car back off

for a few days so

so maybe you know a Tesla

which is actually

among the most sophisticated

cars or something else with a Google

operating system like a Renault 5

would work reasonably

well on its own

but that's a good point

because yeah because

Jenny's Renault 5

you know

Google and everything

you would log it

you would log into the car

not necessarily use the car play

but it would still

because it's your same Google

account

all your searches and destinations

would appear on your phone as well

because they'll be synced

if you're signing into the same account

won't they say

so it's kind of cheating though isn't it

because that's like a four-wheeled

smartphone

yeah with screens

so I don't know how that figures

with you Charlie

but it's an interesting

question I

was intrigued when I saw this

because I thought you know

that's the one man who wants to

stick to his guns

and obviously clearly doesn't want to

give in

so getting a smartphone

it's probably got a whole life

he probably goes out and does things

he's wasting hours and hours

and you know we talk about range

anxiety in cars

and how it's great now

because you get cars with

400 miles range

but our smartphones are getting worse

my old Nokia 3310

would last a week without charging

and now I have to charge

my iPhone in the middle of the day

if it's going to make it

through to the evening

so yeah

I once worked for a tech magazine

at the time that the smartphone

and the iPhone was coming out

and we used to get letters

obviously letters rather than emails

back then saying

it's a full there and why are you bothering

to give this the time of day

because you know

people aren't going to charge their phone

every night

don't be ridiculous

phones last

four or five days without any charge

if you think that people are going to

stop and plug in every night

you've got another thing coming

so there you go

history has proved we were absolutely

people are quite happy

multiple times a day now as well

not just sort of having to charge

them up overnight

shall I do Nigel?

do you want to do Nigel?

Nigel Sunderland?

so we currently own a four year old

MG ZS EV exclusive

which we have owned for six months

it's done 7100 miles

and we average 70 miles a week

we now have to do two journeys a month

for approximately a year

with each round trip

a total of 600 miles

so less frequent stops are better for us

the dilemma we have

should we trade in our present car

for a long range model SUV

with around 275 miles etc

SUV height is better

and a quality car would be nicer

our budget is around 18,000 pounds

including the above as a part exchange

or should they keep their existing car

and rent a car every month

for the two long journeys?

again that's a good question

we should point out that their MG ZS

MG Z EV is 45 kilowatt hour

so what's that in real

real-term range? 120 miles?

something like that

probably like that yeah

probably a bit less in weight

I can understand the dilemma

it's not like you can't be bothered to stop

and charge up

because you said you'd rather not

less frequent stops

so there would be a lot of stops wouldn't it

if you're doing those longer distances

I don't know

if it was just for Christmas

I would say

rent a car

that's an entirely sensible thing to do

but renting a car every month

is going to be a pain

unless your next daughter

hurts basically

yeah that's every two weeks

renting a car

going through all that paperwork

that's a misery

don't do it

or what are those

ZIP cars isn't it

that's quite easy

but if you haven't got access to those

then yeah

don't do it

so I think he's got to

trade in hasn't he

I think you're probably

looking at trade

I mean there are some really good cars

around that 18,000 mark

I've found

a new shape

Honda Kona

they're just creeping under that 18,000

that's a big

65kWh battery

you'll really notice the difference

in range there

and it's efficient

it's a good car

it fulfills your height

requirement

and it's tricky when people say

you know

brand or it needs to be a quality car

because in a way you draw the line these days

because you know

you know Hyundai and Kia

I think they have incredibly high quality

cars so it depends on your

perception of what a high quality car is

but you've got an MG

so I'm presuming you want something of similar

stature so I would say that

you know

Hyundai and Kia would

if you want an even bigger battery

an earlier

Volkswagen ID.4

Enyaq which we obviously

legally applies to mention every week

no matter what people want

they're both 77kWh

cars that are under that

price bracket

I think 275 miles real-world range

is a challenge

would you say

well the one that occurred to me for a

used car

is a Tesla

Model 3

I mean it's not high up

you could go Model Y I suppose

but it could easily get a Model 3

for 18,000

and

the charging

setup for them

I was just reminded how nice it is

that you just turn up reverse

plug-in

without having to tap any cards

or anything and it recharges at

200kW

and a few minutes later you've got

another 100 miles of range

and if charging quickly

without hassle is your priority

it's got to be that isn't it

this is very true

yeah I mean it was

me talking about the preconditioning

for the Coupre-Ball and what a great feature

it is of course you know Tesla owners

are sort of smirking into their tea at this point

thinking well okay welcome

welcome to the future

because as soon as you program

the supercharger site into your Tesla

it starts doing the battery stuff doesn't it

which is why it charges quickly and efficiently

and all you've got to do is plug it in

it knows it's you

I mean it's so slick that system isn't it

it would be nice if it was

replicated across other brands

but there we go

you see it in press releases now don't you

it's like oh it's got this

it's compatible with smart charge

or something you think well get on with it

because Tesla have done it for

at least five years isn't it

yeah it is

I'm just looking Tom

yeah unless you're going to go sort of

category S or anything

and the Model Y isn't quite at that level

yeah but it's not far off

you know it's sort of you know there's one here for

$19,000 and $19,700

$60,000 miles

so yeah

a couple more months it will probably

be another registration change and I reckon that will be under the $18,000

yeah plenty of Model 3's

there aren't they

$18,000

absolutely

right I've got time for one more haven't we

Alan College says

I'm looking to replace a Skoda Kodiak diesel

with an EV

an ideal car would allow easy access

as I'm 78 years old

and not particularly flexible

comfort and smoothness of ride

is more important than range

I live on the Isle of Man

so journeys seldom exceed 30 miles

I have a dog who goes in the boot

so an SUV vehicle would be ideal

$25,000

I've been in a Kia EV3

and I've found a good car but at the moment

they'll be outside my budget however

a pre-registered MG S5

EV, second mention for that

has now fallen within what I can afford

now here's the problem

he's on the Isle of Man unfortunately

there isn't an MG dealership here

so none are available to test drive

and I've wondered how having no access to a dealership

for servicing would affect the warranty

thank you for your great work

and humour

Alan, what do you think Tom?

Well I did a quick

check of what dealers there were on the Isle

because I think

there are rules around the warranty

so you can have it

serviced somewhere else and as long as they use MG parts

or whatever

and do it to the full specification then the warranty

would still be valid

but if something did go wrong

and you need to get it done under warranty

you've got no chance of you

going to test drive a car

and if I had to get a flight

to go and test drive a car I think I'd be put off

so I would say don't worry about the MG

in this instance if you can't get one there

so I had a quick look

a quick google of what dealerships there are

on the Isle of Man

and there's a Porsche dealer

which I'm sure is very nice for them

but on a small island like that's essential

but that's probably

out the price range

there's also Nissan Suzuki

Seat dealer and a few others

but I thought the Nissan one might be interesting

because an area

I think would be quite a nice car for that

yes

go and test drive one, warranty is no problem

there is the new

Suzuki E Vitara

which I think we've been a bit

meh about but

it's an SUV

and it's fine

I think the range is a bit

short but if you're doing 30 miles a day

then it's not an issue

and it's got a very long warranty

I couldn't really think of any others, no Seats

now I don't know whether Cooper is an option

but even then

I wonder if that would fall under the same category

but I don't think

a Bourne

would be

SUV enough for

if he wants to carry his dog around

it's kind of a

slightly tall hatchback isn't it

much as I like it

I didn't notice that there was a Skoda dealer

on the island, I couldn't find one

but presumably there is if he's got a Skoda Kodiak diesel

but of course

there are plenty of nice

Skoda SUVs at Elrock

and ENYAK

you've got to say it Tom

I think there's also a Ford dealer

so maybe an Explorer

an Explorer or a Mustang Mach-E

does that count as an SUV

it probably does, I forgot about that car

there you go

as does everybody

there's one that lives locally, it just reminds me

if I didn't see that most days

I would probably have forgotten as well

yeah

shall we finish off with a couple of

silly things

so you were talking about the hipster

the Dacia hipster

yeah I like the hipster, it was good

well yes, this is the point

so D-Warm C says all the designers at Dacia

have been recalled because Mike likes the hipster

so

you as a gauge of cars

normally means it's going to be a failure doesn't it Mike

I have the kiss of death on cars

if I like it then generally

did you hear that?

that's my heated mouse mat going off

which I suspect yours might do as well at some point

I have the kiss of death on cars

if I like them they tend to be

they tend to absolutely bomb

so I bought an early Smart

all these cars that manufacturers

have tanked billions of Euros on

so the fact that I like the hipster

probably does mean it's going to be canned now

there we go

and David Hall 4079

has some lanyard love

he's a love the channel

my wife choose her first EV and motability

so thanks I've just got to ask

how many lanyards Ginny has got

hanging on her door so for those of you

who watch on YouTube you might have noticed

that Ginny has a stash of lanyards

hanging from a hook

and perhaps we need to do a competition

of guessing how many and chill

maybe send one to the winner

to the closest

for the uninitiated

every time you go on a car launch

you get a lanyard

sometimes multiple ones in the same launch

and generally they don't want them back

because they're probably single use plastics

and they don't want to try and get rid of them

so they hope that as a journalist

you'll keep going with them

take them away or wear them on the way home

so one does end up with

quite a large collection of

these lanyards

I don't know that would be a good one

Ginny does

like a minimum of one launch a week

she must be collecting like 50 a year

and there's probably quite a few years

of collection there

don't know

have you do keep them Tom?

I've got four

but I give them to the kid next door

who's really into his car

so he gets very excited when he gets a motor

lanyard or something for his collection

no, mine get dumped at the airport

that I'm leaving from

because I don't want it to be a UK recycling problem

so I always dump it wherever I'm going

I think there's a reason they do

I think in Germany somebody told me that

for tax reasons they have to prove

they've gone to the event

so they have to keep their little plastic cards

because the tax man expects them

really?

so over

getting anything from launches

I used to

squirrel stuff away in drawers

and stuff like that

not anymore

it's a good memento of things isn't it

when you find them at the bottom of a bag

that was a good launch

or using them for filler

if you've got to fill some

grouting or plug holes

if it's got a nice radius on the corner

it's good for the greater

anyway

if you're asked to do this

thank you for putting up with us

to rambling on about

cars and other things

and gutters for the half an hour

yes

if you're watching this on YouTube

please leave a comment

try and make it so it isn't about

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so

if you have been thank you for listening

and if we're ever allowed back we'll see you next time

see you next time

Episode 90: Big Smarts, little Hondas and getting EV charging out of the gutter

About this episode

Citroen C3

Tesla Model

C3 Ec3

Fiat 500

Smart Electric Smarts

BMW i3

5 Renault 5

Genesis GV60

Volkswagen Eup

Renault 5

Hyundai Kona

Volkswagen Id4

Tesla Model 3

Tesla Model 3S

Kia EV3

Audi S5

Suzuki Vitara

e Suzuki E Vitara

Born Bourne

Ford Explorer

Ford Mustang

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