Contrary to last year, apparently the take up for Leasing Social 2025 isn’t anywhere near as popular…
Ah well, there’s always the good old fallback of a peat-fuelled traction engine. 
If I’d known about last years j would have done it. The cost this year was much higher.
Not allowed to harvest peat anymore for ecological reasons Chris. Though I think some families have “vested rights” and continue to do so on a small scale. When ever I visited a traditional pub in the middle of nowhere burning the stuff I had days of asthma afterwards. I’ve always been more of a “reversible clim” or equivelent man myself 
London pea soupers did enough damage to my lungs in the fifties and early sixties. Sixty-five years later I remember the coating of black coal slime on everything.
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I sympathise, commuting in London traffic in the 90s did that for me.
As you no doubt realise, it was not a serious suggestion. 
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Of course not. Everyone knows all Irish traction engines run on bovine methane now.
I have occasionally posted my views on EVs which have been somewhat negative but is the worm about to turn?
My topic ‘A New Adventure’ confirms our return to the UK where the government is looking to charge EV users by the mile for travel but counter to that, what hopefully will be our new house, it has 2 attributes that cannot be ignored.
We also need to sell our French car and purchase a UK car. Do we take the plunge and go electric given the following pictures of the house?
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I think those economically minded Yorkshire genes might win out.
You’ll just have to find a use for your left driving foot…
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The sockets are just standard 13A sockets which you can charge your car with, but a dedicated charger would be better. You have 6 panels there which could be around 2Kw max. What use you could make of them depends upon whether you can use self consumption or just sell everything. It may be fixed for you by the builder or you may be able to choose yourself. Living with solar panels and getting the most from them needs some getting used to if you go for self consumption. Many people just forget about them. The people who we bought our house off went for self consumption but didn’t bother selling any surplus. They both worked so the house was empty during the day. They didn’t bother changing their habits so most of the power generated during the day was sent to the grid for free and they gained virtually nothing from having solar panels.
Following on from @hairbear 's comments… If those panels are relatively new then you could be looking at around 3kWc max.
Even if they produce less than that an EV can benefit from having at least some of the 2,3kW ‘granny’ charger load supplied by solar via an outside 13A outlet. You can set a charge timer in most EVs so that you just use the peak solar hours.
However, if you were to fit a Zappi* charger it can be set up to use only surplus solar power i.e. the amount of free power being produced above whatever the house is using. As long as that surplus is above 1,4kW (the minimum charge rate for EVs) it will feed it into the car. I find that during the summer I can gain a lot of charge that way - more than keeping up with any local trips we make.
In case it’s not obvious, such a charger can also deliver up to 7kW single phase charging (or more if you have a three phase supply & a car that can use that).
*Other similar chargers are available.
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The EU has crumbled.
Faced with their own car industry they blinked.
A bit too early I would have thought. Now the car industry will just get more again nearer the time.
Sigh… 
Meanwhile the Chinese will continue to innovate.
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…And we’ll continue to be obliged to pay more for sub-standard vehicles because of the trade barriers to protect those who’ve had decades of support, haven’t innovated, and will still hold their hand out to government and EU for support.
I don’t mibd supporting them on price because we are a high tax high social benefits environment but they have simply failed to innovate and address real consumer needs. .i resent paying high prices for such poor product and that being subsidised to continue.
Where’s @John_Scully to explain why this is right ?
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Never fear, I’m here
I wrote a long response and then remembered “I apologise for such a long letter - I didn’t have time to write a short one.”
The bottom line is the Chinese are trying to kill the EU car industry, that’s the goal, not eco, electric nor any other platitude. They (as we’ve discussed) have benefitted from Chinese Government manufacturing subsidies and then also benefitted from EU purchase subsidies. More fool us.
A degree of protectionism now is prudent, and if that throws a lifeline to the EU car industry to allow them to produce super efficient ICEs which the Chinks (Editor: is that racist?) can’t do, go for it. Do you seriously think Karen, that after flooding the market and destroying the opposition they won’t use their dominance to subsequently rip us all off. Monolply 101 
And Europe is responding. I believe Renault has nicer cars than any small Chinese shitheap . I believe that the BMW Neue Klasse platform is beyond anything the Chinese could develop alone, it takes heritage
I wouldn’t touch a Chinese car with a a bargepole
I agree with you about keeping an active up to the minute car industry in Europe John. Also as car industry is needed for defence and we’re going to need it.
But not just ‘super efficient’ ICE’s are needed. EV’s and ICE’s need thought applying and provision to actual consumer needs like the kei car does, as one example of quite a few.. I’m tired of little pocket rockets that aren’t flexible and have no space and the other option they keep churning out is for saloon car man - eho has actually really declined in numbers but the emerging needs of familiws and other ordinary oeople simply aren’t having anything brought to them ny our lazy cocooned car manufacturers.
And this EU deciaion - far too soon - to soften up on what was 2030 then slipped to 2035 - is just gonna mean the EU manufacturers will sit on tbeir asses not providing what’s already available for real people in other, competitive, markets.
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Designed and made in Europe. And none of the ghastly Chinese bling
The Twingo , Old or new ir’s the very illustration. A nasty little totally inflexible car.
Renault ia huffing and puffing and blowing through their tèeth about they might, with superhuman efforts that should be beyond any .[EU, protected] car manufacturer, possibly consider aiming it at a price point sonewhere near 15,000 euros.
A complete joke
I seen to remember someone on here saying how his neighbour’s mate down the pub knew someone high up at VW, and how they were ditching their plans for EVs. Which kinda goes against what’s being quoted in this article…
https://www.heise.de/en/news/VW-Brand-CEO-No-new-combustion-engine-small-cars-11121551.html
After seeing countless R5s on the road, this isn’t surprising…
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One of the weirdest things about trying to find a replacement for the Karoq right now is how there are very few manual cars being sold into the UK market now. I understand the phasing of diesels*, but the manual gearbox is disappearing too, and it’s mostly DSG/flappy paddles. We’re probably going to stay with Skoda, and while I’d like something exciting, it seems there are many things much duller to drive too.
Since this is an EV thread, I did also seriously look into the possibility, but still don’t feel like the tech is at a point where I want to adopt it. There have been a couple of Whatcar long distance EV reviews where they tried unsuccessfully to get fast-charging rates with cars designed to accept them - cue lots of rude comments in Youtube about not understanding charging curves, but never the less, they didn’t manage to fast charge a car designed for it. The cost of trying to fast charge at motorway services was also a bit of an eye-opener, making services petrol prices look really good value. I have no doubt that allowing time for charging on a journey and using suitable apps to find charging stations en route might solve some of this, but it was also eye-opening to see how things might play out when one was short of time or otherwise unable to take a more planned approach.
*On the phasing of diesels, for those of us living in the country and never driving into a city, the difference in CO2 production between a petrol car doing 40mpg and a diesel doing 60mpg must be quite significant.