Meeting friends

dfk41

It was nice this morning, for one of my oldest ‘coffee friends’ to pop in with his wife Cath, to see me and mine. Patrick, aka Systemic and I first started chatting in 2013 when I bought an HG One and he quickly followed suit. One of the first times we met, I had a Mythos/L1 combo and he stupidly drank something like 10 espressos and had the temerity to complain about having a bit of a buzz!
As Patrick always does, knowing my legendary skills with a spanner, very kindly took the group off the Evo to grease it. He then changed the group seal for one of the new red ‘Repa’ ones, followed by not chastising me for all the gunk in the group head!
In exchange, I made his wife a ‘Boilbrew’ flask of Smith Street White Peak whilst the Evo was out of action followed by a couple of Cortados. I let Patrick make them as then he could not complain if they were not very good! I must say I learnt a lot in preparation compared to the ramshackle old way that I go about things!
A couple of hours soon flew by when they were able to point the car home for a 2 1/1 hour journey.
Cheers matey!

DavecUK

dfk41 Wish I could have been there to meet you both….soon perhaps.

dfk41

DavecUK You know that you are more than weclum at any point in time matey

DavecUK

dfk41 Once the flights madness is over, I intend to try and make it.

tompoland

are you two so far apart? i somehow imagined you were in the same neighbourhood.

DavecUK

tompoland 300 miles

dfk41

tompoland DAve has an electric car. In summer due to air con and winter due to having the heater on it does 12.5 miles to the charge so takes 12 days each way!

Cuprajake

DavecUK telling tompoland a 300 mile trip is a trip to the shops for an Aussie😝

DavecUK

Cuprajake Well you know how we measure distances in space in Light Years. When you have an electric car, 300 miles is something like 10 car hours! A round trip requiring 2 days, with an overnight stay and a 2 hour visit time.

Amberale

I recently had my first road trip in a couple of years (since covid came upon us).
I travelled from the outskirts of “Neighbours” (Melbourne) well North of “Sand Sluts” (aka Home and Away) and a couple of hours North of the White shoe Brigade in Noosa ( TomP ).
I had to drop off a Postie bike (aka Honda CT115) on the Gold Coast and visit a block of land on the Darling Downs to see if it is worth selling yet.(No it has once again been flooded by the Mighty Condamine river).
Then I visited an in-law on Lake Macquarie to break up the trip home.
I was away for 12 nights, slept in 10 different beds, drove 5,500kms and spent about 2.5k aud on fuel.
I love the idea of E-vehicles but I don’t think that they will work in all Aussie environments.
Yep, I’d love one to go the 25kms into town but other trips need other vehicles until we get some better charging and better batteries.

DavecUK

Amberale Electric Vehicles cost twice as much to buy only save 50% vs the cost of petrol (this is if you are home charging). En-route charging is only 25% cheaper than petrol. They are a disposable vehicle with a 10-12 year life, because no one will ever buy a new battery and it takes ages to travel long distances. Servicing costs are no cheaper than a petrol vehicle and even though they all have regen braking you need to change the brake pads as often as a petrol vehile (at the same price), because they put weedier brakes in them. Often (certainly on mine), tyres are double the price and last half as long. In winter range is reduced by 30-40%, as it is if you go much above 50 mph.….It’s a gigantic pi$$ take.

I know because I have owned electric vehicles for the last 8 years….

Amberale

DavecUK

And yet, I like the idea.
I would love an electric tractor for the farm.
We have customers who have bought E-farm runabouts (Kubota about $40k aud)
We have so much sunshine and use the tractor for such short periods(not cultivation) that I think it would work well for us but we will be dead before a sub-$100,000AUD tractor hits the market.

Doram

DavecUK I know because I have owned electric vehicles for the last 8 years….

So why do you have electric cars? Surely there are pros to offset all cons you mentioned?

Mishir

charging electrical car here in italy it’s very expensive, 0,5 cent/euro x kw, i had a jeep hybrid with 11.4 kw batteries, max charging 10 kw totally for 50 km at 70km/h never happen so 5 euro x 50 km its more expensive than the gasoline cars. also a very bad thing is the small tank 35 liters so no more than 350 km on a highway. for me at moment a full electric car its usefull only if you use in the city, traffic and so no, for a long range as i use the car not useful.

DavecUK

Doram So why do you have electric cars? Surely there are pros to offset all cons you mentioned?

Yes, I have always wanted an electric car when I first saw one in 1977 at tech college. A guy bought it in to show the students the future!

Finally electric cars became a reality with the BMW i3. I got one, the first was a lemon, after 2.5 years I traded it for another…which has been reliable. It’s a Range Extender version….one of the last sold in the UK. It drives and handles nicely, has reasonable go and is enjoyable to use. As I have a Rex, I never suffer from range anxiety.

Pompeyexile

We have had a Kia e-niro 64kw now for a year and absolutely love it. The only regular long journeys we do are to my other halfs dad’s in Upper Arncott Oxford (169miles) and ocassionally to a friend who lives in Folkestone (260 miles). For the Oxford journey summer or winter we stop for an extra half hour charge just the once. For Folkestone a bit longer and also once on the way back.

Just got back from Oxford last weekend where we were getting about 4.6pkWh doing a steady 70 on the motorway. Can’t say I’ve notices a 30-40% drop in range in the winter. It says a full charge is 285 miles but of course I know that is not the case but I can honestly say it isn’t too far out.

Before prices rocketed I was finding 50kw chargers for about 28p pkWh so for Oxford and back it was costing me just over £13 and that was giving me more than enough to get home without any range anxiety whatsoever.

At home I have a 7.2kw charger and am on Octopus Go tariff which gives me 5ppkWh between the hours of 12:30 & 4:30am. I always charge at that time and can put on 119 miles for £1.49.

My last car Honda Civic 2.2ltr diesel did on average 56mpg. With diesel at what £1.8999 per litre and roughly 4.45609ltrs per gallon that is £8.466. I could charge at home about 78 miles for 98p.

We lease our car and the monthly payments which include servicing, tyers, breakdown etc cost quite a bit less than if I were to get a loan to buy a reasonably decent second hand car, reasonably decent of course being very subjective. the lease car is brand spanking new and one we could never afford new be it electric, diesel or petrol.

More than happy.

DavecUK

Just got back from Oxford last weekend where we were getting about 4.6pkWh doing a steady 70 on the motorway. Can’t say I’ve notices a 30-40% drop in range in the winter. It says a full charge is 285 miles but of course I know that is not the case but I can honestly say it isn’t too far out.

I am staggered if you can get 4.6 miles per kWW at 70, I can get nowhere near that at that speed (carbon fibre body too). In winter the guessometer may not be accurate, but I get at least a 30% drop in range when it’s cold e.g. below 5C

I’m not on a cheap rate charge tariff as it would have been more expensive for me for leccy during the day and I don’t do enough miles to make it worthwhile.

You must have a good one because you’re well outperforming the EPA testing

https://ev-database.uk/car/1666/Kia-Niro-EV#range