Iwantone

Always remember that these electric vehicles are not by any means zero emmisions. They are zero emmision at the tail pipe, and that's not the same thing!

We'll have to wait and see what the future holds on this question of charging for a top up, I can never recall petrol being given away to attract customers. My vision is that you will put a debit/credit card in the charger and pre-pay for the electricity. Steve

Not my cup of tea for personal use, but if they get the fast chargers up and running, I wouldnt mind running one for my 12 minute comute to work! Surely this is the absolute ideal application for this technology and the fast charger would not be needed. Steve Yes your right, I think the point of the fast charger would be that if your Leaf was used for short journeys like going to work and the shops etc. you could keep on top of the charge where ever you are. They are planning on putting these power point all over the place, so if you went to Tescos for a bit of a shop, you could plug in and be fully charged by the time you have fallen out with the self-service aisle, plus you are using someone else’s power and not yours!! We are going to have to get to trust the battery contents indicator that the cars will inevitably have. If your journey to work is 10 miles each way and your EV has a range of 100 miles, why would you not recharge every 4 days? Its the way we operate with petrol. I fail to believe that there will be no charge (excuse pun) for topping the batteries up at these proposed charging points. To fully charge a car will cost a few quid, a lot of energy is needed. If it was a free top up, then I can see why everyone would be taking advantage of it at every opportunity. Steve

I don't know how good the NSXs were, but based upon their current prices, they must have been, and probably still are, bloody good! Steve

Not my cup of tea for personal use, but if they get the fast chargers up and running, I wouldnt mind running one for my 12 minute comute to work! Surely this is the absolute ideal application for this technology and the fast charger would not be needed. Steve

This is also the reason why you must never let anyone borrow your ladder.

Sounds like the same argument to me, are you going to do it?

The legal argument is, if the railway was not there, then it couldn't have happened. Therefore the railway has some degree of liability. I've come across this argument with people messing around on building sites when they had no business being there.

Making things face the oncoming wind is nothing new. Every village blacksmith knew how to make a wind vane for the church tower.

When times were more "normal" I was regularly getting pre-approved applications for credit cards, all I had to do was sign on the line. This I used to do and always told them I wanted a £5000 limit. In due course, the cards would arrive and I said that one day I would have £100,000 of credit available. I only ever used to use the cards to pay for holidays and that was for the protection if things went wrong. I spend using a debit card. I can report that, one by one, the card issuing companies threatened to withdraw the cards if I did not use them. One by one the cards were withdrawn and now I don't have a single one. I never did get into the £100,000 high roller band! Harping back to my earlier posting in this thread. In a private enterprise company, as soon as something becomes genuinely unsustainable/unaffordable, it has to be removed/withdrawn. What's the alternative? I'll tell you the answer, a phone call to an administrator. That's the reason our final salary pension scheme had to go. For years we paid 8% and the company matched this with 8% and all was well. The it was realised that people were living longer and tending to retire earlier. The scheme had a shortfall and the company increased its contribution to 12%. The stock market ceased to perform as well as it had been doing and the company increase4d its contribution to 16%. Good old ex-chancellor, Mr Gordon Brown, bless him then decided to tax £6 billion a year out of the superanuation pots. This was the final straw. The actuaries told the company that even if they paid 20% the shemes shortfall would continue to grow, so, end of scheme. You see these things much clearer in SMEs. Steve

Just go out and buy a cheap and tacky umbrella. Remove the umbrella and throw it away. Drill and tap a hole in the cheap plastic handle and away you go. Sorted!

Now that's what I call a car engine! You can fix everything on it and no laptop needed. Things to dream about, dynamos, ignition coils, points, carburettors, etc.

Speaking entirely for myself here. I did all that was asked of me. I paid 8% company superannuation into a final salary pension scheme and was easily set to get 40/60ths (2/3) of final salary upon retirement. Then it all went wrong! The company placed the scheme into wind up and now we find ourselves at the tender mercies of the FAS. This is what makes it hard for me and my colleagues to feel sympathy for the public sector. Our council tax bills actually had a 1% surcharge one year to help fund the gap in their pension fund and that went down a treat. Having said that, I can't blame anyone for trying to defend what they have. Steve

I got one about a fortnight back. Every car in the country is going to get a new one and that's a lot of documents! For me, it takes a bit of believing that it's all to do with some nicked blue ones. Steve

My guess is that the front and rear bars will be different in diameter.

You'll not go far wrong with a Pajero. I'm on my 2nd one now and they are a lot of car for little money and they behave themselves. The downsides are that they are virtually all auto gearboxes and they do like diesel. My 2.8 Exceed typically does 23 mpg and I have a very light right foot! The 2.8 has a timing chain so no silly belt to worry about, the 2.5 does have a belt.

In the pic showing the captive bolt dummy assembled with the bush, washers and nut, did you torque the nut up to the final assembly torque? If you did, and the welded bolt survived, the jobs a gud'un. If you didn't, then now is the time to get the torque wrench out...

It's definately wrong! Surely the circumference of the Earth is approx. 24,000 miles. Yep, 2000 miles would only get you to about Dubai from the UK ~Imagine he meant to say Diameter there It's still way wrong, the diameter of the Earth at the equator is just short of 8,000 miles.

It's definately wrong! Surely the circumference of the Earth is approx. 24,000 miles.

A work colleague has one of these and it seems to behave itself. More impressive to me than the auto opening boot is the auto closing boot, it's weird to watch! Steve

Having one of these did no harm to the Italian town of Piza......

Follow the link for a look at the propulsion systems of the future. I knew that there were going to be harsh fines for manufacturing high CO2 producing vehicles, but I did not know they were going to be that high. I'm hoping that the link works okay as it's to a specialised engineering magazine. http://www.theengineer.co.uk/video/rica ... cmpid=TE01 Steve

There is also a new rule around here, now that the use of mobile phones has been allegedly banned whilst at the wheel. It may just be in the local Yorkshire version of the Highway Code though. It says that it's fine, if you come across your mate driving in the opposite direction, to stop your cars in the middle of the road, wind down your windows and have a chat for as long as you feel the need. B****x to anyone else who may be on the road, the right is with you. The unwritten rule has also now been formally incorporated into print. Its the one that states that when 3 lanes of traffic need to be merged into 2, or 2 lanes into 1, maybe at roadworks, do not attempt to merge until your front bumper has actually made contact with the cones. It also offers advice on what reaction to take if you have been merged for some time and people using this new rule try to merge in front of your car! Steve

I've a mate who uses this on his A4 Quatro. IIRC, you need to be doing around 40 mph and then you can turn off the wipers and the water just clears itself with the wind force. I think it was developed for the aviation industry. TBH, I've never seen much use for it on a car. You do actually apply it occasionally directly to the windscreen glass. Steve

stunning I'm still trying to fathom out how its been done......