Last time I went to South Mimms the Tesla Fun Park was a heavin'

There's often a row of Teslas and similar parked up and charging at a service station visible from the M1.

They're at Woodall Services southbound near Sheffield - and they're on Google Street View!

I've seen so many electric car charging points now that I consider them to be commonplace. Even the Tesco that I stop at last thing before arriving at my parents', which is in a little no-horse Essex country town, had 6 of them.

Having said that I share the Princess' misgivings about electro-vehicles. I am already super-cautious even with petrol, I rarely allow my fuel gauge to drop below 7 out of 8 pips.

Fangirl Three wrote:

I've seen so many electric car charging points now that I consider them to be commonplace. Even the Tesco that I stop at last thing before arriving at my parents', which is in a little no-horse Essex country town, had 6 of them.

Having said that I share the Princess' misgivings about electro-vehicles. I am already super-cautious even with petrol, I rarely allow my fuel gauge to drop below 7 out of 8 pips.

I'm the opposite - I often let the fuel gauge get low enough for the orange warning light to come on, sometimes getting down to having just 20-30 miles left in the tank before filling up.

I hate getting petrol, it's one of the worst things about driving for me. It's so time consuming, often cold, queues, grubby petrol pumps, petrol spills, my card is occasionally rejected at a self-serve pump so I have to rejoin the queue again to go to another pump.... Ugh. It was worse when I used to drive a diesel as the pump handle was often slimy, whereas the petrol one is always much cleaner.

I've been a passenger in a fully electric MINI and it was nice and quiet, brisk and felt fine on the motorway for the the handful of junctions we travelled. I'm often wary of new technology but I wouldn't miss the combustion engine at all. With my budget it looks like I'll be waiting a while to acquire an electric car though.

Roads are full of nutters speeding around for xmas today.

I can't decide whether to exercise my car before Christmas or afterwards.

It did have a good long run on Saturday.

I moved it up till the end of the parking zone and sat in it for 5 minutes to recharge the batteries today

I think I'll take mine for a run tomorrow. Up to the first junction on the dual carriageway and back.

Butterfield wrote:

I hate getting petrol, it's one of the worst things about driving for me.

The pay-at-the-petrol-pump rejected my card today as "invalid"; I tried it a few times and it wouldn't allow me get petrol. Luckily my friend was with me so we had to use his card. There was a queue forming behind me and I was frustrated. The day these stinky windswept places are doomed to the past cannot come too soon.

Be careful what you wish for. Don't forget that with the new electro-filling stations, you've got to hang round them for 45 minutes rather than 5.

I successfully took my car for a run. It was raining hard and everyone was in a bad temper.

I'm waiting till after the big day before I take for a spin.

In other news I made a pre-dawn raid on the local supermarket, and I now have the last of my xmas shopping in.

(fruit, some nice broccoli for the little birdies and a bottle of Wood's Naval Rum for me ma.)

Fangirl Three wrote:

Be careful what you wish for. Don't forget that with the new electro-filling stations, you've got to hang round them for 45 minutes rather than 5.

I like to think as new technology comes in the length of charging will fall over time - I think it already has to a certain degree. Plus most of my charging would be at home, so just plug it in and leave it overnight.

The range of miles electric cars can do on one full charge is fast approaching the miles one can do on a full tank of petrol, so things are advancing.

My regular long distance journey this evening was one of the quickest I've done - despite the forecasted doom on all the roads due to it being the last working day before Christmas plus all the strikes putting extra cars on the road.

Queues and chaos were what we were promised all week, but the towns I drive through were quite empty with a lot of the traffic lights on green, and the motorways were fairly quiet.

This is the video I was ramblin' on about



Fiat 500 List price

cheapest petrol:£14,675
Cheapest Electric £29,435

max range 186-199 miles, which is apparently is as a optimistic as their MPG figures.

Nawh, not for me matey.

If we wait, we'll soon have fusion-powered cars.

SiberianPrincess’sMidriff wrote:

This is the video I was ramblin' on about

"I'm going to do a separate video on charge cables."

SiberianPrincess’sMidriff wrote:

This is the video I was ramblin' on about



Fiat 500 List price

cheapest petrol:£14,675
Cheapest Electric £29,435

max range 186-199 miles, which is apparently is as a optimistic as their MPG figures.

Nawh, not for me matey.

The prices are ridiculous - but they'll surely come down in time. I've seen other, perhaps bigger cars with bigger batteries able to do more like 300+ miles range. They're probably even more expensive though.

I've taken my little car for it's post xmas exercise. Up the bypass and back again!

Didn't get any fuel, maybe I should have.