IDD15

I see the Telegraph is reporting this morning that the taxpayer is going to have to pay for cleaning up Shell's oil rigs in the North Sea. They only made how many £££Billion last year???

What to do if you forgot to put your BlackFly on charge overnight! 😁 BlackFly Parachute Test idd

For any DF aficionados out there here is another EVTOL currently in development... Lilium in transition idd

From Volocopter web site: "VoloCity air taxis feature multiple redundant systems, making this aircraft virtually fail-safe. The rotors, electric motors, batteries, avionics, and display all have at least two replacements. This actually exceeds the technical requirements and should give you the peace of mind to sit back, relax, and enjoy the view." I've been following electric aviation developments for quite a while and was aware that redundancy was being built into the Volocopter systems. As @Cuban8 rightly said the market has also got to want these systems as well so if you can provide a step change in safety, and in one of their videos Volocopter are claiming it as safe as an airliner(!), that is a big selling point. So it wasn't too "shabby a statement" to make, but yes it could have been worded better. You do realise that when you're commuting to the fusion power plant you'll do it by transporter/teleporter, aviation will be just soooo last century! 😉 idd

Quite agree re the challenges in getting certification but if the operating costs of say the volocopter are significantly lower than your average small heli then that may be enough to swing the argument. As you are very probably aware small helicopters are ferociously expensive to run and maintain with so many parts needing replacement or complex servicing after quite low hours in comparison with fixed wing. I have only ever been lucky enough to experience a couple of short hops in a Jet Ranger, but even in a turbine powered helicopter I was quite taken aback by the noise and vibration in the cockpit. I see only 18 moving parts in the Volocopter and probably three maybe even four times the redundancy over a single rotor helicopter. I think I would feel safer in the Volocopter than in a piston powered R22. It is going to be really interesting to see how this all pans out… idd

You could try soaking them in neat Dettol, though I've also read that oven cleaners and even brake fluid can work. I think Deluxe Materials also have a paint stripper in their range. Cheers Idd

You can already buy one of these for personal use: Pivotal BlackFly Lots of development going on in China and the UAE as well with commercial flights planned for this year. idd

So February has been quite a busy month for new car announcements for the UK and elsewhere. Significantly these are for more affordable (a relative term obviously!) practical day to day EVs as opposed to great hulking SUVs with a price tag north of £40k. Dacia are finally bringing the Spring to the UK. Its been available on the continent for about 3 years now where its racked up around 140,000 units sold. Price is supposedly going to be around the £18 - 20K mark with the order book opening in the next couple of months. Dacia Spring - Late Brake Show Next is the new Citroen e C3 which is I think around £22K with order book opening early summer: Citroen - e C3 - What Car Finally my favourite, and Johnny Smiths too, the new Renault 5 with pricing again in the lower £20Ks but probably more than the e C3: Renault 5 - Late Brake Show Happy memories of rolling round the lanes to the pub in my late teens using my mates mums brand new 5! Given that four years ago when Honda launched the Honda e (and already discontinued) into this segment of smaller/city cars with a price tag north of £35K I think this is quite a significant change in the market. Parity with ICE pricing is not there yet but given a new Toyota Aygo is around £17-18K its getting closer. Will it be enough to stem the tide of cheap Chinese cars the EU is getting its knickers in a twist over I don't know? But interestingly the European car makers federation has decided NOT to oppose the 2035 ban on sales of new ICE cars. Given a lot of those manufacturers are now in partnership with Chinese automakers and the Chinese are building car plants and battery plants in Europe well "Go figure" as they say! Elektrek - Automakers say they won’t try to push back EU’s 2035 ICE ban I think there's been a few announcements of new EV SUVs but we've been there done that... Oh yes there maybe an estate version of the MG4 coming to replace the MG5, watch this space. Pip pip idd

You should be able to get a battery health check from the dealer, which is no more complicated than plugging in a terminal into the cars obd2 diagnostic port. This should show the voltage state of each individual cell in the battery. In addition it should be possible to get a read out of the number of charges and type of charge carried out. Certainly this was the case with my Nissan Leaf, indeed Leaf Spy is a well known piece of software that is freely available and does this. I’m not sure where this “if you charge to 100% you’ll degrade the battery” comes from because all EV batteries are managed by the battery management system such that you can never charge to 100%, or discharge it to zero. There’s always a buffer top and bottom! Strangely VW cars always advise to regularly charge to 80% and only go to 100% if needed for a longer trip, but I suspect this stems from an abundance of caution. Nissan Leafs most certainly do not have any such warnings. Am just in the process of helping my son buy a s/h EV and we’ll be wanting to see a full report from the car before we part with any cash. HTH idd

Meanwhile back in the real (not Mr Bean) world: There are now just over 1 MILLION EVs registered in the UK with 20935 BEVs sold in Jan 24. A 21% increase in sales for the same period in 2023. You can crunch the full stats here. Significantly the used car market for BEVS also grew dramatically in 2023 rising 90.9% 118,973 units. Again you can crunch the used stats on the SMMT website. Charging infrastructure and rollout continues to improve with the installation rate of new devices running at about 1400 per month, a good detailed summary can be found here. In terms of oil and gas subsidies it is estimated the industry received over a TRILLION dollars in 2022!!! At the last OPEC meeting they were demanding another $45 Billion dollars to transition to "greener" methods of production. OK then... The first sodium battery EV is also now on sale, but not in the UK. And to top it all to the best of my knowledge the lights are still on, and the electricity sub station has not blown up at the end of my road. Nor have I been turned away by our security man from the multi storey car park, and the Born has not turned into a portable BBQ. Oh yes and after one years wonderful quiet, responsive and smooth driving am loving my Born more and more. Now if I could only get it to wash itself... Pip pip idd PS Still got over 7mm on the tyres as well...

Thx for that, really appreciate being labelled as a “corrupt” civil servant. Honestly, anything mentioning RID in this forum just seems to get downright unpleasant. Merry xmas idd

New pylon design. National Grid New Pylon Design idd

Hmmm I rather suspect that Ron was quoted by Octopus was how it is planned to work, so there could be changes ahead. To be fair they do say that some of these rates are experimental or in beta test. idd

Convention is 12pm noon, 12am midnight. idd

They're talking to either the car or the charger, and they know how much has gone into the car either from the car or charger. Any extra and that will get charged at the "normal rate" at that time. I've just switched to IO myself this past fortnight and so far so good. It just feels a bit odd effectively putting Octopus in charge! Its a bit like saying to your chauffeur "have the car ready for me at 8am tomorrow"! 😃😃😃 Cheers idd