All Activity

Norway doesn't appear to agree with that assessment. A typical EV may not suit YOU, but they could suit a lot of other folk. Average daily mileage in the UK is still only 20 miles. 20 Miles!! Motorway warriors need not apply, although plenty do have BEV and manage just fine. The Guy Martin thing was a clear expose on the lack of charging infrastructure and how that impacts long trips. Not BEV ability to do long journeys in reasonable time periods. Plenty of real-world evidence that a BEV can do long trips (1000km) in sensible times (9 hours), including charging. The caveat being that there is adequate charging infrastructure. If you like spreadsheets, have look here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1V6ucyFGKWuSQzvI8lMzvvWJHrBS82echMVJH37kwgjE/edit?gid=15442336#gid=15442336 The reference is an ICE that did the trip in 8:35, the next best was a Mirai at 8:40, using hydrogen. Kind of impressed he was able to refuel it tbh. After that, lots of BEVs starting at 8:55 without using battery swapping. Technology & chemistry moves on at pace as well. Although it seems like nothing more than a gimmick to appease the "I can refuel my car in 2 minutes and absolutely refuse to acknowledge that I often stop for a pee when refuelling" brigade, BYD have introduced 1MW charging that can add 249 miles in 5 minutes. I spent that long trying to persuade 17l into the tank of the Westy this morning. The chance of building thousands of 1MW chargers is minimal though, and the strain on batteries can't be good. Looped house supplies have been a problem long before EV came along. Electric showers can be 10.5kW, an electric oven & hob, similar. Maximum load on a single phase EVSE is 7.2kW - the difference is that a car will be charging for hours, not a few minutes. It's also highly likely that a car will be charging at cheap rate, so I'm not convinced about the arguments against installing EVSE to looped premises myself, particularly if you add some intelligence to the EVSE so it can throttle back if other demands require it. To address the 'rare earth metals' issue, lots of manufacturers are now adopting LFP chemistry rather than NMC. LFP has some issues, though most can be dealt with easily enough. And, all the above against a backdrop of increasingly complex, expensive and unreliable ICE, mainly due to emissions regulations. Again, BEV isn't a perfect one size fits all solution. Neither is hydrogen, even if we dismiss the fact it can't be produced in volume at the moment. Fuel cells and hydrogen storage tanks have finite lifespans the same as batteries & ICE do. None of the complaints about any of the ICE alternatives mean we shouldn't try to make best use of them.....but we won't, because we are stupid, venal and selfish.

Can all those planning to join us at any part of the route, let me know via whatsapp (or a PM on here with your mobile no.) and I'll create a Whatsapp group for the day to aid finding each other etc

Living on a 1980s housing estate 2.3.4. bedrooms mostly with drives for 1 or 2 cars does not help with off street charging either , all the semi detached houses and some detached in the estate are being refused permission to connect 7Kw chargers as the houses are wired in a system referred to as loop through . a cable from the road goes to house a and is then looped inside the houses to house b . The connection is deemed unsuitable for two chargers so a new cable has to be run from the road to house b before either can be allowed a charger . Speaking to the survey engineer he also mentioned that when gas boilers are banned that a lot of streets will have to be completely rewired with larger underground cables and feeds to individual houses upgraded to cope with heat pumps , chargers and more electric cookers and showers. He also mentioned that they are getting more requests for three phase to cope with bigger heat pumps and a couple for larger chargers

Was there with the wife last weekend (Sunday) to (mostly) have a look at his Car collection - there was also a field laid on for classic and Performance cars owned by the general public visitors - which was very good too.... There were quite a few 7 type cars there also - mostly Caterhams, but did notice a couple of Westfields. One caught my eye - an orange one reg ending YUX with a 'Xflow Inside' sticker. Anyone off here? Great event, spoilt by taking 2 hrs to get out of one field - 3 hrs before the event finished......will not be going again unfortunately! Mart.

Is that a pocket torch in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?

There are those who say replacing Guildford with that might be an improvement. /not me, of course //although Coventry might work ///or Luton

@Marcus Barlow - Show and Events Co-ordinator can you please pass a spare one to me(Next Tue?) and I'll pass it to @LoneWolf when he's next in the UK? He's a regular visitor.

Thats's a question above my paygrade but anyone involved in the Kit Car Show planning should point you the direction! Look up previous posts about it and see if someone pops up

Removed from my car and sat in the garage. Includes LED main bulbs (not legal) and normal halogen bulbs. Usual age related marks, missing the bottom nuts. £40.00 plus postage.

Who should I bribe to have the pocket torch 😁

Just going back to my last point about the size of the solar farm required - I needed to see how big 14000 acres is... if my maths is correct (excuse mix of measurements) it's about 7.5km x 7.5km... which if you need to see graphically is roughly the box around Guildford here..... That's for ONE 288MW turbine that (dodgy maths again) could power something around 200,000 to 250,000 houses. 3-5 Guildford sized towns.

Happy birthday julie

The grid is the least of our worries... There are 10 streets within a 5 minute walk of the family home in nort London. There is an average of 100 dwellings pr street (50 each side) , the vast majority without driveways and a significant proportion with more than one vehicle. I beieve the "cuurent" (sorry...) plan to "help" with vehicle charging is to have a charge point in every lamp post. In each of these streets there is an average of 10 - 12 lamp posts. So where exactly do we charge the battery powered vehicles that need to plug in? There must be hundreds of thousands of streets like this in the UK, equating to millions of vehilces that will never have a dedicated charge point. I guess the argument will go that we don't have dedicated parking spaces at the local shopping centre either. I get it and maybe this point is irrelevant but I think most of us like having our cars full of jiuce at home rather than a cab ride away. I don't leave my car at the petrol station once I've filled it up. If we all did that there'd be no room to fill up... OK that might qualify as a bit of reducto ad absurdum... I also tend to think of Guy Martins programme "Fastest Electric Car". Made a few years ago now, but... he grabbed the latest (at the time) electric vehilce and drove from Grimsby to JoG and back to see how much it cost and how long it took. I can't remember the costs because I was struck the time it took. 26 hours. I regularly drive FAR in excess of the best EV range for work and as we know, motorway driving kills range in an EV. To turn what is an acceptable eight hour "travel day" in to two, or maybe even three days is not practical. I have to take stuff with me so taking the train is out. I could ship the stuff ahead of time but when going to a breakdown (much of my work is breakdowns of critical business infrastructure) that is not practical either. I have to arrive at the door, with the gear in the vehicle within the SLA. In an electric vehicle I'd be in for one or two nights in hotel(s) before arriving at site. Business costs, and therefore all other costs including inflation etc will suffer in this scenario. EV's are a non-sustainable solution for an awful lot of perfectly sensible and legitimate reasons. That's not to say climate change isn't legitimate of course, and like most people I reflect on how I personally migth be impacted because that's one of the few things I know about. BUT journey times measured in days not hours, even on our small island, is an obvious problem and for countries and continents that rely heavily on road transport because of the efficiency and convenmience door-to-door transport brings, EV transport that relies on external power from a charging point is a non starter...

My New Spax dampers. Ordered on Tuesday, arrived today(Friday). Superb service from @damperman and his team Thankyou

Nicely done!

Great idea, can you put it in the 3D print area of Downloads here- https://forum.wscc.co.uk/forum/files/category/48-3d-printer-drawing-files/

Have you tried the bec owners group on facebook? there are alot of boys over in lreland runner those engines you may have a much better chance of finding one if you put a wanted on facebook groups

Morning all, For those who recieved the pocket torch at the National Kit Car Show at Malvern a few weeks back, this STL 3D print file may be of interest. It's a small clip to mount the torch on a panel. I'll be mounting mine under my dash for easy access when needed. Feel free to print your own if you wish. There's 2 countersunk 3mm holes, 91mm apart for mounting it at either end. Enjoy! WSCC Torch Mount.STL

The price on that Westfield part…..good grief.

Have you contacted some of the specialist Honda dealers? http://www.johnoldfield.co.uk/ https://www.davidsilverspares.co.uk/ https://www.jtsmotorcycles.co.uk/honda-spares

Are there any motorbike breaker yards you can check?

Cheers Chris!

Hope you’ve had a great day Julie. luv from Ian&Ali xx

Day 3. Wensleydale to Pateley bridge. Amazing roads you have. Stopped off at a pub which was like the the league of gentlemen and in the back of beyond.

Day 3 Ribblehead valley viaduct