Yes sense seems to have left a lot of these designs behind. Take your industrial zone charger, sounds off the beaten track? How would a woman on her own feel about sitting in a car for 30 mins at night?
Indeed. Husband was a systems analyst / designer. He is aghast at the awfulness of the systems design.
We blame the early success of Minitel. 
Did you guys see that on Thursday this week Mr Macron announced that electric vehicle subsidies for consumers will no longer be paid if the EV is not manufactured in Europe?
So bye bye Dacia Spring, currently the 10th most sold vehicle in France. This ranking being 10th most sold out of electric and non-electric vehicles ie all types. And generally top sold EV, or close.
Tesla Berlin factory makes the Y I think, but not the 3.
However they try to dress it up, it looks like the lobbying of the European/French car manufacturers has worked. Just in time to stop the new Leapmotor adding to the Spring’s take in the market.
From 2024 apparently.
Dacia’s are made out of old renault parts so maybe as a favorite brand it gets to stay? Nissan and Renault have been in bed together for years so is it actual assembly in the EU bearing in mind where most parts are made?
Dacia Spring is a rebadged China manufactured vehicle that was originally made for the Indian market, then renamed for China, then badged for Dacia, all made in China throughout.
Yes but with old renault bits. ok maybe not the spring.
Not even. Seriously.
Gut feeling the termination by Renault/Dacia of other manufacturing with the Chinese manufacturer of the Spring last year, and the announcement last year of a new build for nextgen Spring around 2025/2026, makes sense now and has allowed this to happen… sounds like Renault was clear to switch manufacturing to somewhere like Slovakia.
I think Morocco does some of the manufacturing for EV’s that might be affected too, this is going to be interesting. Perhaps the Maghreb countries will miraculously be considered part of Europe.
The “bonus ecologique” will not depend on the origin of the vehicle. That would be contrary to WTO rules. The government will develop some kind of rule that depends on the type of energy used to manufacture the vehicle and batteries. I think that will be very complicated, but that’s what they said.
By the way, Macron is receiveing Elon Musk today. Probably discussing investments in France (Tesla and/or SpaceX).
They put two charging bornes in my old village several years ago now. Only once seen a car charging there and the same one another time and it was an out of dept reg, but apart from that, never used at all and I walked past it twice a day every day with the dog!
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Anyone watching the news on TF2? They have an item about transforming old Renaults, 2CVs etc to electric for 14k€. Think the range was about 80km.
All that tells me Krister is that however they dress it up, French manufacturers may still benefit.
Auto-moto and other press wouldn’t all be reporting it together incorrectly and they’re all saying EV’s not manufactured in Europe will be excluded from subsidy/bonus. I doubt anything would be technically violating WTO or whatever but the motoring press has clearly understood the intent.
The press was reporting it incorrectly, first. Then came a correction. Below is a screenshot from Le Figaro, 08/05/2023 (paywall)
Of course the intent is to benefit French & EU manufacturing.
Now there is an incentive to build a new factory robot driven,close your inefficent plants loose your workforce , just what the manufactures want!
Another nail in the battery powered coffin.
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Not at all, Britain may miss the proverbial boat but more for the Chinese or possibly Europe. More like another nail in the coffin for British industry and hopefully the conservatives.
The future of wind power lies FAR offshore.
I hope this can be made to work economically.
Good interview. The Tories are too busy fighting one another to work on the key issues.
Before anyone has a go, yes I know combustion powered vehicles go on fire all the time as well, but it’s impressive the way the escaping gases turn into flame throwers and how difficult the fires are to put out with the EV’s, I see the fire services are trying out a complete cover that goes over the vehicle and starves the fire of oxygen to try and put them out.
As Blaster Bates used to say “the last ones always a goodun”
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