gangzoom

If Chevrolet haven't put up the price yet they will. Everything imported from the states are going up in price by 10-20%. The Tesla we ordered in August has gone up in price by £20k and there is another 5% increase coming next week!! If you can afford it spend the money in the bank now because prices of virtually everything is going up .

340is comes in at below £40k list after options, but your be mad to pay anything close to list. That Kia will need to be below £30k wit all options ticked to sell more than half a dozen.

Ofcourse it does but I have a long history of wasting money on cars, and that isn't changing because I now buy EVs.....The X isn't the car I really want though, the X is about carrying the family around and been safe, the EV I'm really waiting for is the 'P' version of the Model 3, 500bhp+ of instant electric motor power in a car that weighs 1 ton less than the X, its going to be some machine. I reckon it'll be 2019 before we see the first Model 3 land on UK shores, and I'll be at the front of the line .

Don't worry McLaren is doing fine...Very odd UK registration figures though. http://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/new-cars/mclaren-doubles-car-sales-2016

^ All depends on how much disposal income you have to play with. A few yeara ago we wouldn't have dreamed of buying a brand new car and nor could we afford it. But we work hard, and have both done well in our jobs and progressing up the ladder quickly. Yes by buying used cars we will have more £ in the bank, but what's the point of working hard and saving money if your not going to spend it. We thought about cancelling the up and coming new car purchase, and instead throw the money into the mortgage, but actually we are both really looking forwards to the Tesla arriving and £250/month off the mortgage isn't really going to put as big smile on our faces as a car with gull wing doors . I know some people on here don't get EVs, I'm very much still a car nut and wasting money on cars is in my blood!! But you wouldn't catch me spending more than £30 on a pair of jeans, I may like spending on cars but that doesn't mean I like to waste it on other stuff like clothes .

http://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/industry/uk-car-sales-figures-skewed-retailer-self-registrations-says-insider Some of the current finance/deals are crazy, apparently the mad Golf R deals are back. Something like £250/month without much down payment.

If you really want to risk it buy £10K worth of shares in your favourite stock market gamble. Tesla shares back in 2013 was $30, now over $200, that's a 600% return in 3 years driven mainly by launch of the Model 3 back in 2013/14. They got some big targets coming up this year, mainly release of the Model 3 with around 500K of preorders. If they can hit their target and get production cars into customer hands by the end of 2017 I reckon your double your money again or maybe even more but it they don't the share price will crash. If you want big gains and have the balls play the game go for it with your favourite up and coming tech company, I'm far too chicken to play I wouldn't bet a $1 either way. VW are currently trading at 140 compared to a high of 250 just before the emissions saga, with Trump about to dismantle the EPA you would think they could make a decent comeback, but at the same time Trump is pretty keen to support 'US' car manufactures so all European car brands could be in for a hard time over the next few years in the US market....

Your need way more than 30k for a flat in London. 30k might not even cover the additional stamp duty rate let alone the deposit for a mortgage. Pay your own mortgage off, or else save up a larger sum (much larger).

Big cities just aren't for everyone. I grew up in one of the biggest cities in Asia, lived in London for a bit as a kid with my parents, can honestly say I cannot think of a worse place to live (any big city not just London). Expensive, crowded, polluted, smelling some strangers breath on a packed tube at rush hour,I just dont get why my parents love it so much, we haven't been down to London now for over a year and cannot think of a single reason to go there apart for Heathrow airport . We are actually now finding Leicester too crowded and moving out to the end of a village. Now with a baby girl to look after for the same price as a 2bed+box room end terrace in Enfield we can get a 6bed house with a 1/2 acre landscaped garden. So instead of been trapped in doors we are going to build her an adventure play ground for her to run around in. We will take our kid to London for the museums and history, with the village train station on the East Midlands main line its only 70 minutes into St Pancras, and same out. So day trips there will mean we can still access the cultural bits without having to live there.

Really gald we don't live in London, cannot see how any normal people can afford a house there. Parents run down end terrace in zone 3 is worth stilly figures now. I keep on telling them to cash in and go enjoy their retirement but London is the only place he wants to live in the Uk.

I wouldn't worry the current CEO of Ford like trucks, noise and big engines, after all isn't that what all real men want in life . His gone on record as recently as December 16 to say how much he hates EVs, probably as much as some forum member here . Trump will almost certainly dismantle the EPA once his in power so companies wouldn't be penalised for making big trucks with big engines. Once this happens with board will be happy for the CEO to do what ever he wants. Ford will still be focusing in mainly on combustion cars despite what ever EV announcement the board has signed off on. GM however who build the Corvette are the only other traditional manufacturer after Nissan dedicated to EVs for the last decade (and longer). Some nutter in the US has already built an electric version and it's not too shabby, an offical EV version cannot be far off. https://cleantechnica.com/2016/03/02/new-corvette-ev-breaks-speed-record-hearts/

Not unless his already a millionaire. London house prices are already falling, the rest of the country will follow. Even the smallest rise in interest rates could send the whole market into a nose dive, its the cheap mortgages propping up the prices. As for been a land lord, my friends own a flat in London, the police turned up at their front door at 4am because the tenant had turned the flat into a cannabis factory!! Other friends have tenants that defaultes on their rent nearly every other month and now having to look into forced eviction. It's hard because the income for family in the house has dropped due to unemployment and there are kids in the house, but at the same time my friends are losing money every months essentially paying the mortgage on the house with no rental income. There is money to be made but its not easy or risk free.

This article on the BBC website is rather worrying.. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-38370219 The otherside of low interest rates is ofcourse cheaper loans. Afterall its part of the economic plan by the Chancellor to get people spending. Worryingly even we have been suckered in by going for a property much more expensive than previously planned due to stupidity cheap mortgages. Leave your money in the bank and watch it loss value as the £ weakens and inflation goes up, or spend it and than worry about having no savings. Great situation the Chancellor has put people in.

Don't forget the additional rate stamp duty on buy to lets.

Only a few months ago Fords CEO was trash talking EVs and pushing for Trump to allow him to sell more trucks with bigger engines bypassing any EPA regulations. http://insideevs.com/ford-ceo-fields-we-will-fight-epas-2025-emission-mandate-ev-adoption-regs/ Maybe the board at Ford was a bit more forward thinking than their CEO, but in a more bizarre turn of events Elon Musk has now been appointed to Trumps advisor group, along with the CEO of GM (whom have just released the first 200 mile EV costing less than $35k) the only other motor industry representative. Despite their lobbying Ford wasn't invited to the party. http://www.trueactivist.com/donald-trump-appoints-elon-musk-as-strategic-presidential-advisor/ Personally I think its a great move for Ford, Tesla have just delivered one of the first P100D Model Xs to the UK, here are fun figures from a run the owner did on a private track. Conditions were 5 degrees C, very wet and running on stock summer tyres, with 3 people in the car, bear in mind it weighs 2.5tons, is over 2 meters wide, 5 meters long and can seat 7 adults with space for luggage. 0-60 in 3.67 secs and 53 m. 0-80 in 5.78 secs. 0.833 G at 40mph... Splits: 0-10mph - 0.51s - 1.34m 0-20mph - 1.10s - 5.36m 0-30mph - 1.67s - 11.69m 0-40mph - 2.23s - 20.52m 0-50mph - 2.88s - 33.71m 0-60mph - 3.67s - 53.06m 0-70mph - 4.64s - 81.39m 0-80mph - 5.78s - 119.80m Makes the combustion powered Mustang look rather pedestrian, maybe the hybrid version will have more chance of keeping up with an electic, family friendly miniVan with stupid doors, built by a bunch of geeks from silicon valley in a factory Toyota abandoned less than a decade ago .

As others have said if your after big/significant gains the stock market is where you need to be, but clearly your initial investment is at risk. It all depends on your goal, the main way I grow our family savings pot is by making sure we save X% of out monthly pay every months, over the last few months that has been as much as 50%. We've cut out nearly every none essential outgoing (sky/gym/meals out/cinema/presents at xmas time) and this has allowed us to build our savings pot much quicker than relying on interest. Because we've given up things to save the money I just cannot bring myself to expose the savings to any risk of reducing in value regardless of how little that risk might be, in any case the 'fun' bit about to start, spending the money... It'll all be gone soon on new car and house move, after which we'll rebuild the pot

Interest rates on savings are basically worthless at present. We were getting £120/month back from x3 maxed out 1-2-3 accounts and cash back from bills covered the monthly account fee but that has now dropped to £60/month. Use to also get 5-10% returns on premium bonds, but last 6 months zero returns. The volatility in the stock market means if you want to take some risks returns can be good, but its the taking risk bit I cannot live with. £ dropping 15% in value also means price inflation for lots of imported stuff and more expensive holidays. Summary, we are doing exactly what the chancellor wants and spending the savings. Taking advantage of crazy low mortgage rates to move up the housing ladder,and wasting the rest on the new car.

Electric motor + batteries work great together as a form of propulsion don't they

Sadly I think your right but Pandoras box is already opened. Whilst this is not autonomy the technology is now getting close. Whilst I still think no autonomous vehicle will ever be able to deal with a mini roundabout, I also never thought they could get radar waves to bounce underneath a moving car in a reliable manner. Apparently this is what Tesla have already managed to achieve with their latest sensor suite and software. Every major car manufacturer is now chasing after the same goal, Nissan's boss is about to be headline act at CES in a few days no doubt with similar tech up his sleeve. Enjoy driving whilst you can, the tech is developing so quick I'm not at all convinced my daughter will even need to bother with a driving licence to operate a car when she is ready.

People are too lazy to concentrate already, yoy just have to look at the numbers of people glued to their phones whilst driving. You surely cannot really believe the roads would be safer if cars didn't have ABS, EPS, powet steering, etc??? Most people drive to get from A to B not to have fun. I've never had the preemptive braking come on in our Lexus or even the TC system on public roads, but am not stupid enough to assume I have the skills needed to avoid every possible accident. Every single one of us have been distracted whilst driving, if you haven't been than your lying to your self. Most of the time you get away with it but if all the dots are lined up all it takes is one glance away from the road ahead and you could end up changing your life forever or even worse someone elses. Maybe its because I've seen too many people in ITU due to RTAs, and since becoming a dad the thought of anything like a RTA involving my daughter really is unthinkable. Personally I don't understand why legislation isn't already in place to mandate this kind of preemptive safety equipment, the ability to avoid or reduce the impact of a crash will save just as many lives as seat belts and air bags.

I know some of you guys love news on autonomous driving etc Lots of cars have adaptive cruise control with auto/emergency braking these days (my wife's Lexus included). The problem is all these systems can only look so far ahead, and always reacts to what the car directly in front it doing, which isn't always the right thing to do or even quick enough to prevent an accident. Tesla have been playing around with the idea of 'bouncing' radar waves under the car in front to see if they can 'see' ahead. I've been pretty unsure about their claims on this as it all sounds far too much like Sci-Fi, but than came across this video today. If you watch/listen the car warms the driver on an impending crash, started decelerating by it self, about 1-2 second later the car in front triggers the accident. If you look at the other cars near by you can see despite been in the outside lane the Tesla stopped way before the accident point despite initially traveling at a higher speed, the grey hatchback that was initially overtaken nearly plowed into the car taking evasive action. To be clear this isn't autopilot, but instead the emergency braking system in action. https://youtu.be/eWDYa9kpqrc I'm glad our Tesla will have this tech on board as standard, but also annoyed other brands haven't come up with the idea earlier, all Tesla have done is write new software the forward looking radar hardware is standard off-the shelf item, anyone could have done this. Maybe if all cars were fitted with this kind of tech than accidents like one today in Oxfordshire could have been prevented. I know some on here don't like the idea of electronic nanny devices but this kind of tech really is going to change road safety much in the same way as seatbelts and air bags.

Buying something that costs stupid amounts now in 10 years time seem like a great idea. I thought I was doing 'OK' with not changing cars too often but by the time the next is delivered in a few weeks I would have gone through 4 changes in 10 years, so on average a different car every 2.5 years . Need to kick that habit now am a dad and some proper responsibilities in life!!

Whilst doing some tidying up today I came across a car magazine from 2007, the most notable feature was several prominent articles on the rise of diesel power summed up in this advert by Audi and Shell. At the time I had just bought a 350Z, not in a million years could I have thought a decade later diesel is now on the way out and I would be waiting delivery on an electric car made by company that was barely in existence back than!! I'm not even going to pretend I can second guess what I'll be driving in 2027, but I can safely say I reckon the A4 is going to look still pretty much the same, after all in the last decade not that much has changed . So happy holidays all, what were you driving in 2007 and what do you think your be driving a decade from now??

^Fair enough if you tried the latest EVF and still don't like them. I always buy second hand gear, my EM5, lens, even carrier bag is preowned Love to get an EM 1 II or even a telephoto lens for the EM5 but with a 8 months old baby, new car due to arrive (with invoice needing to be paid), about to move house, the last thing I have time or money to spend on is camera gear At least the camera on phones these days are pretty awesome

^Have you used the latest generation of cameras from Sony/Panasonic/Olympus?? I struggle to fault the EVF on my EM 5 II. Getting tempted now by the EM 1 II as the tracking AF system in that thing looks immense, but thanks to to weak £ £2k asking price is just crazy money.