Oh, also saw this today…
https://www.cnbc.com/2026/01/02/tesla-tsla-q4-2025-vehicle-deliveries.html
Deliveries for Q4 2025 were about 16% lower than the fourth quarter of 2024, when Musk’s EV company reported 495,570. Q4 2025 numbers for production were down 5.5% from a year ago, when Tesla produced 459,445 vehicles.
For the full year, Tesla’s deliveries fell 8.6% to 1.64 million from 1.79 million in 2024.
I wonder who what caused this?
I think you can guess, of course more choice from the east has helped.
Reporter Phil Lebeau 
Boy, is that ever a misnomer 
Glad to see Tesla reaping the rewards of a Nazi saluting CEO though.
Yes and no, ours was just over three years old, so just out of warranty, but the damage was our problem. No cover for bloody rodent damage. Our battery was replaced (and the service from our local MB garage excellent) though I will root out the invoice tomorrow to make sure I’m comparing apples with apples.
My friend’s Mini is also a 2017 car and I think the battery is only months out of an eight year warranty, but Mini don’t give a damn.
No, it’s in Dublin. The biggest BMW/Mini dealership. The had the Irish distribution rights for BMW since the fifties/sixties (the rust bucket years before the 2002) and then BMW bought them out (for a lot of money) in 2000 and set up a wholly owned Irish subsidiary. They are historically an arrogant bunch, as one would expect from BMW dealers. In fact , on reflection, any German car dealer in Ireland, including VAG.
I remember looking at a new Golf GTI back in 1980, a mere £6K at the time, and casually asking the salesman if they had any finance deals going (inflation was running at around 17% - significantly above interest rates, new cars were virtually self funding) and he replied that VW buyers (ie the Beetle generation) generally didn’t need finance. Talk about making prospective customer feel small 
My bank was delighted to shovel money at me.
A few years ago in a moment of weakness I thought I might buy a Porsche Spyder (a stupid idea, but. well, you can’t take it with you). So I popped down to the local (probably all Ireland, North and South) Porsche dealer.
I was only in town for a few days so hadn’t bothered renting a car and was using my daughter’s (she’d decamped to Oz) little red 2002 Polo 1.4 automatic (a lovely little car we’d had as runabout for her from new). So I pitched up at the Porsche dealership and happily parked outside the showroom in our pet Polo. Well, I was treated with utter contempt
They didn’t know what they were up against though. I could wallpaper the sitting room with the subsequent letters of apology. Though they did me a favour, I could have wasted a lot of money that day, if they’d been smart enough to take it from me
I really hate to see these main dealers taking the piss. They treat customers like idiots.
Shame you didn’t get the old battery pack, you would have got a lot for that as it may only be one or two cells possibly damaged and there are plenty of buyers out there.
Main stealers as we call them
Why it’s so expensive to charge at public chargers in the UK, apart from the obvious, we are managed by donkeys.
I was curious how that compares to France, and found this table:
I think 74p = 85 centimes, at current rates.
I then asked ChatGPT to put that data in a table that’s easier to read… I haven’t checked that it’s not made any mistakes though (hope this formatting works as I’m on my phone)
| **Fournisseur / Réseau** | **Type de borne** | **Puissance max.** | **Prix indicatif (€ / kWh)** | |
| ----------------------------- | ----------------- | ------------------ | ------------------------------------------------------------------- | ----------------- |
| **Izivia** | AC | 22 kW | 0,30 – 0,50 € | |
| | DC | 350 kW | 0,79 € | |
| **TotalEnergies** | AC | 22 kW | 0,35 € | |
| | DC | 350 kW | 0,69 € | |
| **Freshmile** | AC | 22 kW | 0,25 – 0,40 € | |
| | DC | 350 kW | 0,65 € | |
| **ShellRecharge** | AC | 22 kW | 0,30 – 0,45 € | |
| | DC | 350 kW | 0,72 € | |
| **Allego** | AC | 22 kW | 0,35 – 0,50 € | |
| | DC | 350 kW | 0,60 – 0,70 € | |
| **IONITY** | DC | 350 kW | 0,59 € | |
| **Tesla Supercharger** | DC | 350 kW | 0,75 € | |
| **Tesla Destination Charger** | AC | 22 kW | ~0,35 – 0,40 € *(souvent gratuit dans certains hôtels/restaurants)* | ([INSTADRIVE][1]) |
I’m not really sure who you’re blaming for this.
Currently I am not sure either who is responsible but electricity production in the UK is a ponzi scheme. Our money is used to buy green tech generators as well as power stations. However these services are owned by companies, they get charged high taxes by the government so they pass that on to us consumers (bare in mind it was our money to start with) these companies also make a lot of money for themselves from us the very people who’s money bought the things in the first place. Solar and wind electricity is paid at a pre set commercial rate linked to gas wholesale prices. So we are paying the highest price for electricity whilst expecting everyone to change to heat pumps and EV’s. Someone needs to undo this mess and re set energy prices.
In fact, it was only the cable, which Roland rat had munched through.
Almost certainly begs the question of cable replacement. Obviously that is equivalent to brain surgery for a “technician” (just a word that increases the hourly rate in a garage)
I came across this interesting graphic. Having owned a hybrid for 10 years, I can no longer understand the rationale for buying one.
Source for more info. https://www.pinfa.eu/news/fire-risks-of-hybrid-ev-and-ice-cars/
Disregarding the fires for a moment, the rationale would be that you have a zero emissions vehicle for the legendary short journeys that we’re all supposed to do, while still being able to drive a long distance without trouble if required. Win-win.
Why are there a disproportionate number of fires in hybrids?
I was shocked to see the number of EV charging points vandalised for the copper wire on TF1 report last night and it’s getting worse too. People were finding just the plug in part left in the machine with no cable attached
Define long distance, my trips to France are my longest distance, the rest of the year are all short from a battery perspective. Back in the day of Kona’s and original leafs i would agree but as most EV’s do over 200 miles even in the worst conditions a short recharge stop and a coffee with comfort break is nothing to worry about. A chap I watched this morning with his ICE seat, just over 200k and he has monitored his fuel from the start. A staggering £31,000 in that time! Sobering numbers.
Bound to be a bit of sensational reporting built in but it does happen, steps being taken to reduce it by manufacturers . What would possibly help is stop putting chargers in out of the way places. Also saw a report of one guy burnt to death trying to steal a power lead, oh dear what a shame never mind.
You will have to follow the links in the link I posted. Statistics can prove anything but I did find it interesting. I am guessing that manufacturers are so concerned about runaway lithium fires that they have also sorts of safety features built in whereas the hybrid has the residual lithium risks plus the inflammable petrol risks.
With a rechargeable hybrid you only typically get 50 km range on electric before you switch over to all the polluting and mechanical problems of ICEs. At least with an ICE you can have a petrol can as back up, (a possible contribution to fire hazards). With a hybrid you are humping round a spare engine and a petrol tank. Additionally a hybrid has all the mechanical problems of both systems. Having said that, in 10 years my second hand Prius hybrid gave me no problems.
One other consideration when deciding EV or not is, when buying a new car now, what will its resale value be in years to come? As the world shifts inextricably towards EVs, second hand ICEs will be difficult to shift.
Edit — and petrol pumps more difficult to find.
That’s pretty generous.
3,500 fires in every 100,000 is just over 1 in every 28 cars. Given a lifetime of about say 15 years and that there are about 1.5 million hybrid cars on the road, that’s about 3,500 hybrid car fires every year. That sounds a bit high to me.
Edit: Looking at a few other sources does seem to confirm the high rates of car fires. About 19,000 fires in 2022 with hybrid cars being much more likely to catch fire. So my estimate of 3,500 per year is actually low.
