Potholes are a menace for low profile tyres. I drive a VW Scirocco (a classic boy racer car, obviously with a remapped ECU) and have lost several wheels around SE England which according to people who should know resembles Ukraine in the condition of country roads. The reason is thought to be that road repair, and funding social care etc, are out of the same budget, but you aren’t allowed to say that.
I dumped my Tesla shares some years ago in the belief that
Nothing has changed since in my view, although Tesla shares did have a big rise after I dumped them 
But I rarely buy shares unless I believe in the product and the company, so the decision was right. Musk is a really weird guy, with enough “issues” for Psychology 101. If he didn’t have money, mostly people would just write him of as a weirdo. His banal diatribes on twatter show even more what a fool he is when it comes to anything other than his immediate projects.
Mooney_Driver wrote:
However, now their honeymoon as the quasi monopolist is over and there are many competitors, most of them massively cheaper and less intrusive. I guess Tesla has to get used to be one of many rather than the only one.
This is completely wrong. Tesla was a luxury product (with some questionable quality issues, especially the X), but the Model 3 and Y is as much car as you can hope to get for your money. In fact very much like VW used to be 40-50 years ago. Not super high quality, but cut to the bone functionality relying on digital solutions. Many other manufacturers are copying their cost effective solutions (all or most of the systems are controlled digitally instead of buttons and wires everywhere).
I don’t like this solution, but for a family of 5, the Y is hard to beat by anything else. Lots of space for the kids and luggage. Lots of power and driving joy for dad, and perfectly in line with moms requirements for whatever moms requirements are
If most car for your money is the requirements for an EV, then Model 3 and Y is unbeatable. That’s the reality. For all those who don’t like the Tesla solution (many hates it), there are other alternatives, but none that will give you more for the money.
Cobalt wrote:
I completely agree with you that the nonsensical fragmentation of payment systems and the refusal to accept chip-and pin or contactless payment at every charger are a massive obstacle.
Every new venture seems to include, as a core feature, capturing as much possible data on every customer and doing everything via an account and usually a phone app too. It seems new ventures are pathologically averse to allowing a quasi-anonymous cash or credit card transaction. I don’t know how one funds one’s ‘account’ with an EV charger provider, but if it’s direct bank account access then it’s possible that the aim is to squeeze the credit card companies out.
Whether this is just a mentality, or whether the business plans are not viable without that capture (and subsequent exploitation / sale) of customer data, I cannot say.
I wonder whether anyone has recently sat in a meeting anywhere in the world and suggested that instead of dreaming up new ways to capture customer data and exploit it whilst remaining just inside the lines of data protection laws, they concentrate on providing a good product at a good price and see if that leads to business growth. Somehow I doubt it.
Probably a similar thinking to the TOTAL fuel card in France.
It means TOTAL are avoiding the ~ 1.5% to 2% card processing commission but then they are running their own operation for that, which is obviously not zero-cost, especially in France where people are very expensive.
So there are probably other reasons, like trying to squeeze customers into buying electricity from specific suppliers. It works, until people get fed up with it, or until there is some regulatory action.
@Peter yes it is true today’s electricity supply market place is a con man’s paradise. We gave up trying for the cheapest. Not only is the pricing structure complex you feel you are being conned.
These days we stick with the established companies like EDF and Total Energy but at least their pricing is much more transparent and signing up and changing suppliers is much easier even though is possibly costs a little more.
@Mooney_Driver it is not so simple as signing up with a couple of companies and having their apps. It might work in places you are familiar with but these charges are not always in nicely lit service stations with Shell, Total, BP signs. Many chargers are in back streets, often badly lit finding them is a drama and they have no indication of who the supplier is. Bornelib, Carmap, Freshmile. The only ones that seem to be branded are Tesla and whilst they are not branded Lidl chargers are of course in their car parks.
loco wrote:
I found this chart funny, because it reminds me of the joke about which car goes over any bumps at any speed.
What does PHEV, NEDC and WLTP mean?
It’s plug in hybrid cars and two emissions testing standards. Their results are what you see as consumption in car ads. They’re also used to assess how green a carmaker is.
PHEV, what a ridiculous acronym Anyway, it’s just a function of how many people bother to plug it in during the night. In continental Europe/UK it’s also a function of access to overnight electricity at home and the price of electricity. Thus zero people will, according to Peter
It’s nothing wrong with the car, emission vise, it’s the driver. People don’t care about some illusive PC CO2 emission. They care about practicalities and cost.
