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| 21. Author: jake89 Date: Mon 24th Mar 2025. 14:47 All cars cause pollution whether it`s in making them, their engines or the fuel used to power those engines. Even if you use solar or wind power to charge your electric car there has been a lot of pollution generated. The solution to pollution isn`t greener cars, it`s FEWER cars. I am a hypocrite as I`ve got two cars on the drive like most people do nowadays but it wasn`t that long ago that two cars were a bit of a luxury. We only had one car growing up in the 90s and that was the same for most of my friends. Some people still had NO car. Reply |
| 22. Author: parsfan Date: Thu 27th Mar 2025. 22:51 A wee tip for anyone with an electric car, well anyone in the UK. As you probably know, road tax is going up from free to £165 (maybe £195, I`ve seen both) from April. You`re allowed to pay early at the prevailing rate, so if you`re due next month you can do that now for free instead of £165 (or whatever). It`s not just for those due next month though, but the later into the year you are the less of a saving it is and it becomes more like just postponing it for a couple of months. Bear in mind this will also reset your renewal date. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The universe is ruled by chance and indifference  Reply |
| 23. Author: LochgellyAlbert Date: Fri 28th Mar 2025. 12:46 Road tax also going up on luxury cars (over 40K) think it`s something like £600 for the new rate, Nissan recently dropped some car prices to £39,995 to miss the target! There`s a way to dodge it this year, was explained to me by a car salesman, didn`t register with as it doesn`t affect me. Reply |
| 24. Author: Thaipar Date: Mon 31st Mar 2025. 13:09 Got 2 electric cars from BYD cost of both was equivalent to 40k gbp. Use both cars daily and electric bill for charging at home is roughly the same each month, around 35gbp for the 2cars. Finish finance on 1 car next year and by then hopefully the new 5 minute charge will be available here. Network for ev charging is also great most petrol stations have them now, stop for a pee break and a coffee 30 minutes and on your way again. Charging at a petrol station is of course more costly but no more than 8.00gbp for a full charge. Reply |
| 25. Author: RhinoPars Date: Thu 24th Apr 2025. 22:51 In November 2019 I bought a second hand 2016 model BMWi3 Rex electric car that had only done 23,500km. It is white with black trim, bonnet and roof (so very much a black and white car) with a free Pars badge sticker bottom corner of front windscreen (fitting for a Pars fan). Mine is the first i3 model with smallest battery. While the more recent models had double the battery capacity and range they were almost double the price. Depending on how much you are going uphill mine can still do 100-140km on a charge. For the most part this was enough for me and so I got the cheaper older model. I got it for bombing around locally where I am rarely doing that distance. Nice to be able to go 50km to a trail run and back with the saving in petrol paying for race entry and some coffee/breakfast. Our electricity here was so unreliable (power cuts almost daily and voltage often out of range) that I invested in a large off grid solar system. I charge my i3 in my garage at home (for free) from this and it is a few years since I paid to charge it at a public charger. Mine is a REX model which means it has a built in range extender petrol generator and 9 litre petrol tank. If you run short of electricity you can turn on the generator which tops up the battery so you don’t have the problem of range anxiety. While there are increasing numbers of chargers they are less common here in South Africa than say in Europe or UK. I rarely use my range extender and about every month or two it tells me that as I haven’t used it for a while, for maintenance purposes I need to use it for 10 mins. If we have long periods of cloudy weather then I need to conserve power and will wait for better weather to charge. At such times I may briefly use the range extender. Services are only needed once a year but there is usually little to do - with an oil change one year and a brake fluid change the next. The drive train is entirely electric and with so few parts compared to an electric or diesel engine servicing costs (even at BMW prices) are reasonable. Mine has very aggressive regenerative recharging when you go downhill and/or take your foot off the accelerator. When you do the latter the car brakes (putting on brake lights even if you haven’t touched the brake pedal). In town you can for the most part drive it with one pedal. Coming up to a stop street or traffic light you can get pretty good at determining when to take your foot off the accelerator so you slow down and stop where you want without needing the brake. I live in a small town (Hilton) at around 1,200m and going down the hill into the nearby city (Pietermaritzburg) which is about 650m I can start from home with a full battery and get to Pmb with a full battery even going 100km/hr on the motorway. It uses a bit of electricity going back up the hill - especially if you have put foot climbing up the hill. One thing that is fantastic about an electric car is its acceleration. From a standing start you can take off at speed and get to the speed limit quickly and be some distance ahead of petrol or diesel cars that seem like snails from a standing start. The incredible acceleration makes it it safer for overtaking. I have never had a fancy car before in my life (in my youth air conditioning meant winding down a window manually). This car has so many useful and clever features (I have never had before) including automatic parallel parking. rain sensing windscreen wipers and automatic lights that come on when it gets too dark or dim (when cloudy) . Buying an older but low mileage model second-hand makes it affordable especially when my running costs are so low (free electricity from my solar system and perhaps 9l of petrol for the whole year and low maintenance costs) which over time help offset much of the higher up front cost of an electric car. The i3 has a quirky design and unlike many electric cars today that use a normal body and just fit an electric drive train, the i3 was designed as an electric car from scratch. It has a carbon fibre chassis and thus doesn’t need or have a support strut between back and front doors. It seats 4 comfortably and back seats fold flat to take lots of stuff or dogs. It seems to have held its value pretty well despite me having it for five years. I have never been a car nut, but I love this car. Maybe it is time to sell it and get one of the last and more recent i3 REX’s (no longer made) that has double the battery capacity of my current model. I think having the range extender generator and tiny petrol tank is so valuable even if I hardly use it. It would be pain on a longer trip having to stop again and again to charge so if doing an occassional longer trip I just take some Jerry cans and a funnel and fill up every 100kms or so. I think electric cars would be much more popular and practical if they all had range extender generators built in. The i3 is a city car and not suitable for off/ road bundu-bashing or bad roads that require more clearance. We don’t use it for long trips and going to the bush or beach and we use a Subaru Forester. This is 4WD, has reasonable clearance and better tyres for off road or sand. To some extent if you have an electric car it is ideal if you have an alternative petrol one as well. The thing I really don’t like about the i3 is the tyres. These are unusual sizes and quite thin (to maximise range). The front and back tyres are different widths. They are low profile and you have to be careful to avoid potholes. I have had side walls buggered by potholes - once one tyre and on another occasion the same pothole took out two. There is no spare (for weight) but a pump with tyre weld liquid. That lets you drive to a garage with a normal puncture but is no use if side wall has been cut. You can’t tow the car so have to get a tow truck to take the car in. Most tyre shops don’t keep these odd thinner tyres and have to order them so I have one of each as spares in my garage. Aside from the tyres and not having a spare wheel I love this car and electric cars are so much nicer to drive than petrol ones. Post Edited (Thu 24 Apr 23:05) Reply |
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