gangzoom

Insurance compaines will try to minimise their cost first and look after their customers second. In a non fault claim its up to the third party insurer to resolve the claim to YOUR satisfaction and cover the costs. In my case Admiral was third party insurer. They started sending all kinds of rubbish when it dawned on them the potential total cost of the claim, at one point they even say they were going to close the case, not pay for any loan car and if I didnt accept their low ball offer I would have to contact the onbsman. This was when I was deciding if i was going for a new car order, and just after they formally accepted liabilty. In the end Admiral had to do what they were legally bound to do, pay for me to get back in a like for like car, cover my motoring costs fot 4 months whilst the new car was delivered, and I've just received a cheque for £1550 for the extra VED associated with the new car which my old car was exempt from. So don't get intimated by the letters, know your rights and remeber you didnt ask for any of this. Hope you get a good outcome.

Easiest way is to call RCI (Nissan finance) and tell them the reg/vin. The V5 should also say 'Flex' if it's a battery rental car. The other car to look at is the Zoe, should be similar/cheaper than the Leaf, but its a smaller car. Also sold with same battery rental scheme - RCI again is the people to call to check. If you need a number to call give me a PM, I think I got their direct line saved somewhere in my emails.

One other to add is avoid pre 2013 produced cars, as Nissan introduced a load of changes in 2013 including changes to battery chemistry and introduction of a more efficient heating system for the cars. Also avoid the base spec Visa cars, as these sometimes didnt even have a port for rapid charging. Also be careful of any cheap looking 2013+ cars. Nissan introduced a battery rental plan in 2013 to help reduce the cost of the car,but it means you have to keep on paying £70/month to Nissan to 'rent' the battery. If you don't pay they can in theory disable the battery remotely - though clearly there must be ways to stop that but as far as I know no one has tried it :). So your looking at buying used you need to make sure the price been quoted includes full ownership of the battery.

Running costs of the Leaf was/is pocket change!! Even if you dont use E7 electricity your looking at 4-4.5p per mile in fuel. Thats equivalent of a car doing 125mpg in real life assuming fule costs £1.2/L. There is also no real servicing, brakes lasts ages due to motor regen doing most of the work, no oil/coolant to change, no spark plugs/exhausts to worry about either. Roadtax £0. The battery and motor are sealed units, Leaf battery degredation is worse than Tesla/BMW due to lack of active temperature control but even so after 100k degradation shouldn't be more than 15-20%. Range is the main weakness of the 24kWh cars. I would comfortably cover 80 miles in the summer but come winter 65 miles was my 'safe' limit - you really dont want to run out of charge on a cold windy Jan night and be stuck on the side of the road. Lowest charge status I got down to was 6 miles left. This means a trip out to somewhere 30 miles away was my comfortable max range in winter. Add on some degradation and your looking at 55-60 miles range in winter. Still if your doing fixed commute and usage per day fits the range limits in winter itll likely be the cheapest car you ever buy. Used prices are currently static and not really falling, as I think people are realising how cheap to own these things are. For insurance you need to ring around, not many companies do good EV rates, AxA, directline, LV are worth a go.

I have no idea about Note finance deals, but used Leaf prices are holding pretty firm at the moment and there aren't any good new deals going. If you can wait for end of Q1 2018, end of the financial year is when Nissan push the deals, so around March 2018.

Trust me there is more than enough nice lakes/scenery/wine to keep anyone entertained aside from the roads, this was the view out of one of our hotel rooms....Just be warned Switzerland is not cheap, you can forget about things like all inclusive deals on food/drink deals most holiday resorts offer - its the total opposite end of the spectrum. I have a feeling they keep the prices high on purpose to keep the majority of tourists away, but if you want amazing roads your struggle to beat it. There is also hardly any traffic - Stelveo aside. Infact forget south of France, looking at those pictures I rather go back to Interlaken/Switzerland this summer . Just 'another' amazing Alpine pass.

Stay overnight near the tunnel crossing and get an early train across. You can smash through north/central France (dull striaght roads) in one day pretty easy. We exited the tunnel before 8am and got to Interlaken in Switzerland by afternoon!! I wouldnt base your self in one place for than one night, the roads around Switzerland are amazing, and your want to travel around. There are plenty of nice hotels enroute. Don't try to cover more than 100 miles a day through the Alps, as its much better to take your time enjoy the scenery/roads with stops rather than just cover distance. If your enjoy driving than there is really no excuse not to experience roads around the alps at least once, so much more enjoyable than a long haul flight to yet another beach/resort....and given how easy it is to get there once you been your want to go back year on year! Now that our daughter can tolerate longer drives (just did Leicester to Edinburgh round trip) we're planning to do the Alps around SouthFrance this coming summer, and than Norway year after. Cannot wait :).

Glad your alright. I had never been in a bad crash before mine earlier in the year, the intial shock takes a bit time to wear off, and even now I keep an eye out for cars that seem to be approaching junctions a bit quickly. I found it took me a couple of days to get my head clear, hope it gets sorted quickly.

A P100D accelerates at roughly 1.1g to 60mph, unless you experience it for your self you simply cannot understand the ridiculous amount of power on offer. If you do the maths thia roadster will be doing 1.4g to 60, and 1.1g all the way to 100. Those are mind boggling numbers. Am also not sure how tolerable that is for most normal people, i felt sick after doing 3 full bore launches in a P85D, and that thing maxs out at just about 1g in acceleration. Sadly the price is also far beyond what most people can afford, but a whole load of current P100D S/X UK owners seem to have preordered one, which means hopefully a flood of P100D S cars appearing on the used market in 2020/21. We had preordered a Model 3 for my wife, but if we can get a used P100D S for sensible money in 2020/21 that would be the more attractive option. Eitherway I've just started another Tesla savings fund, got 3 years to fill up the piggy bank :).

Tesla have just annouced details have of the new roadster. 0-100 in 4.4 seconds, 200kWh battery = 650 miles of range. Production date 2020. Same price as a 911 Turbo S. Oh those are the 'base' specs....better get saving They also announced a truck with a 450 mile range at highway speeds, but no one cares about that. https://jalopnik.com/surprise-theres-a-new-tesla-roadster-and-its-unbelieva-1820532533

There's a whole generation of home owners who have know nothing but <3% rates. I cannot complain about low interest rates, we wouldnt find it much harder to justify the house we are in how if interest rates were higher......which is why I got a 20 year term rather than 25 and aiming to overpay 10% a year. So when rates do go up we woudlnt feel the effects as badly.

Please do

^ There was so social research I read a while ago that showed the social media groups tended to attract people with similar view points and drove development/deeping of similar view points rather than encourage debate. Certainly this forum is a good example of this, likewise the EV forums have very different discussions - as am sure you can imagine. But life is boring when everyone agrees - even when its about how great EVs are. Having some banter is like having a good old argument with the otherhalf, keeps things fisty :).

Once again it's not MY chart, its a chart produced by Ofgem. And am not the one who started making multiple posts based on not been able to understand the data showed . But I do agree there is little point debating anything here, much better just to wait and see how things turn out over the next few years.

You should tell Ofgem I actually think its a very good graph as it show both relative and absolute data in one format, but looking at data is my half of my day job.

The most fun I've had on this thread in the last few posts is seeing how hard some people find understanding graphs :).

Look up prices for Bulb and compare it to your current supplier costs. I switched purely for cost reasons alone, roughly 20% cheaper E7 rates than Eon in our area (Leicester). You need to check your rates for your area to see if prices work out. Ive switched 3 electricty suppliers in 12 months, so have no brand loyalty. Bulb so far is cheapest and remains so by a decent margin for us.

Which is why Solar/Wind will take over from existing ways to generate electricity. Nucelar/fossil powerstations require not only intial setup/maintenancecosts, but also constant fuel supply/storage of nuclear waste, all of which have huge associated HR costs. Compared to a renewables which once setup have no on going fuel costs. For maintenance am no engineer but I suspect repairing a wind turbine is alot easier than working on a gas turbine generator. Its simple mathemaics and common sense. It might no actually be good for the people employed to run powerstations but no ultimately itll happen, and is already. I switched my electricity supplier to Bulb this year, no because they are 'green' but because they offer electricty 20% cheaper than the big 5. How much of that is down to Bulb using only renewables I have no idea, but why would you pay more for electricity if you can get it cheaper else where.

The point is the government puts money into almost everything, the fact is offshore wind is now a cheaper way to generate power than nuclear. To be quite honest it seems like a few of you will never accept anything but the status quo regardless of a changing world. I see this as all good banter, watching how the future unfolds is what am most interested in. A future where we as a species can generate electricity using wind/sun in my book is a good thing.

The world of energy generation is about as clear as a muddy pound. Governments around the world promise to pay private companies X amount for guaranteed amount of energy regardless of actual cost of generation. The fossil industry receives far more subsidies than anyone else, though Hinkley C makes everything else looks cheap. http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/fossil-fuel-firms-billion-pound-uk-state-subsidies-oil-gas-firms-leak-climate-change-environment-a7690966.html https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/nov/12/uk-breaks-pledge-to-become-only-g7-country-increase-fossil-fuel-subsidies https://www.ft.com/content/b8e24306-48e5-11e6-8d68-72e9211e86ab

^ I've just driven up from Leicester to Edinburgh via Liverpool for the first time in 18 months, I was amazed by the number of wind farm, this one was just north of the lake district. Ofcourse people object to anything new, just look at crossrail, but ultimately it's cost that will drive things through. It now cheaper to build wind farms to generate electricity than use nuclear, infact half the cost. The UK is actually perfectly positioned to become world leaders in off shore wind, a lot of the experience in the North sea oil rigs can easily be transferred to off shore wind, and anyone who's been to Scotland will now how much wind resource there is. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-41220948 http://www.renewableuk.com/news/348633/New-report-highlights-UKs-massive-offshore-wind-energy-potential-.htm

Ofcourse there is, hence the graph I posted showing how much progress is been made generating power without using fossle fules. There is a long way to go but without even trying and just giving up it seems a bit defeatist. I can see wind/solar contributing at least 50% of UK electic grid supply by the end of next decade. Which surely is better than relying on coal.

Not sure what else there is to say, hitting head against brick wall comes to mind.

It still shows the same thing, fossile fuels role in UK electricty generation is falling, both in terms of absolute and relative amounts, which you can tell from the graph in about 5 seconds...which is the point of graphs presenting lots of number in a easy to understand form, though for some it seems graphs are quite hard to understand;).

Your interpretation of the Ofgem chart is coal is still the biggest source of electricty generation? Maybe everyone else is wrong and your right on the about the role coal http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2017/08/25/uk-coal-power-peters-lowest-135-years/ Am not here to tell people how to read histograms. If you cannot understand what the Ofgem produced graph shows there is little point in debating anything.