Electric Vehicles: What have you spotted?

[myglaren]

The usual crop of Leafs but yesterday in Seaton Delaval, a nasty yellow Juke with "No Gears" emblazoned across the side.

[NewcastleFalcon]

Blue Tesla Model S at the paper shop,

How it works

and as ever plenty of Leafs.....where are the rest? Pretty much nowhere, yet...

REgards Neil

[RichardW]

Passed a 19 plate Tesla S P100D on the M74 yesterday. £75k+....some people have too much money!!

[NewcastleFalcon]

One of the others spotted today ie not a Tesla or a Leaf.

Must be well-heeled in Alnwick

screenshot

Regards Neil

[NewcastleFalcon]

Blue Tesla model S Marks and Spencer Gosforth. Not quite as remarkable as the resident Ring necked parakeets of Gosforth. Parrots living wild in Newcastle...maybe there is a bit of climate change underway

Regards Neil

[myglaren]

Seen those parakeets but more impressive are all the wild Macaws around Kirby Misperton, escaped from Flamingoland.

[white exec]

Renault Twizzy about to leave Lidl car park here (Algarrobo Costa) lunchtime today.
French plates, so almost certainly got here on/in the back of a large camper.
Husband and wife in it (in single file) had it for 3 years, they said, and well pleased.

[electronmirror]

Yet another Tesla spotted a week ago in the car park of California Country Park.

[NewcastleFalcon]

Could well be a first for the thread. KIA e-Niro up to 282 electric miles it says on the tin!

nf own work

REgards Neil

[bobins]

Saw a Hyundai Kona on Saturday and today I saw one of them Tesla's towing a piddly little trailer not much bigger than a shopping trolley behind it. The Tesla just didn't look right with the trailer following

[myglaren]

[NewcastleFalcon]

That was the 1000th reply on the thread Steve nearly 25000 views in the last 2 years or so.

More variety of electric vehicles are available with more coming up, but on the evidence of walking the dog around the out of town car showroom/lot retail park at Carlisle just off the M6, that Kia e-niro was the only electric vehicle obviously on display. All around a sea of new and used ICE from all of the major car company names.

They (our traditional automakers) have huge amounts of stock to shift before there is a major rebalance of what's available for sale between electric and ICE. Until that happens inevitably the vast majority of the UK vehicle fleet will continue to be fuelled by petrol/diesel.

In time the thread may need to be retitled "ICE cars what have you spotted?" but not for a while yet!

Regards Neil

[Zelandeth]

Had a lovely chat with the owner of a Model-X yesterday in the Morrison's carpark. We wound up chatting for a good half hour, and spending half of that crawling over each other's cars. They were as taken with my Invacar as I was their Tesla I think.

Big thing that struck me: that they're a thorough petrol head (also owns an air cooled 911, a VW based beach buggy, Series IIA Land Rover and a Rover P6 3500), the Tesla caught their eye. I love the fact that car people like them.

His views on it? Or rather on whether they'd be looking to sell it any time soon? "You'd have to prise the keys out of my cold dead fingers."

His wife is currently trying to wrangle an allowance through her work towards a Model-S as she's currently allocated a mid range Audi, which she hates, and as such it tends to do about 50 miles between vehicle changes.

It just seems to be a massively competent vehicle, and the SUV shape works well for it as the cabin feels vast, especially with the massive amount of glass around you.. Comfy too in a way many modern cars just aren't. Apparently the kids find watching rain run up from the windscreen and right back along the roof fascinating.

Apparently Ludicrous Mode however does not get old. This couple apparently have been Tesla owners since pretty much day one when the S arrived, and despite some horror stories they've never had any real issues. One or two infotainment system bugs in the early days, and the first Model S had a couple of bits of trim which refused to stay put inside. As the guy said though - for an early example of a completely new model on a completely new production line, it's a stellar effort and he would very happily and go buy exactly the same car again with the same niggles tomorrow in a heartbeat.

I can't think of any way to make it happen, but I'd pay good money to have a shot of a Model 3 when they properly arrive here.

I know if I was looking to add a modern vehicle to actually use day to day to my fleet that it's definitely not the top of my list just now...and I've never even seen one in person yet, much less sat in one. Only other marques I'd really seriously consider would probably be Kia and Volvo...though I am starting to look at Peugeot again...some of their recent models look the business at least...

[NewcastleFalcon]

Had a lovely chat with the owner of a Model-X yesterday in the Morrison's carpark. We wound up chatting for a good half hour, and spending half of that crawling over each other's cars. They were as taken with my Invacar as I was their Tesla I think.

Excellent Zel, that's exactly the type of interaction I was hoping for when I started off this at face value simple thread. Lots of people are more than willing to have a chat about their cars if you show an interest. You get a lot of people fixated on the "range" of an EV, yet there are an increasing a crop of LEAF owners out here in the Northumberland sticks who make it work, and some are on their third repeat "purchase".

You might find my lastest spot the KIA E-Niro interesting, it got the seal of approval by Whatcar? who awarded it overall "Car of the Year" 2019, (not just winner in the electric category). More than that the FCF's own Mandrake gave it the thumbs up on the "Electric Cars Whats Available Thread" here

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=57477&start=30#p609404

Regards Neil

[Mandrake]

The technology in the Model X is pretty neat but wow, is that thing mahoooosive!! I haven't sat in one but I've charged beside one on a number of occasions and seen them at shows and it absolutely dwarfs my tiny Ion and Xantia for that matter.

If you really need all that space for example too many kids and dogs then fine, but I have to wonder whether a lot of "soccer moms" to use an American phrase would drive them simply because they think they need a massive SUV for the school run when really they don't. It seems way over the top for "normal" families who could get by in a regular 5 seater 2 litre ICE, and I can't see myself ever wanting one, especially with one child and no dogs.

The Model 3 on the other hand is a somewhat more modest, British sized car that I would certainly consider owning if I could ever afford it. But there are other EV's now like the Kia e-Niro that while not nearly as sexy or high performance are just as practical if not more practical family cars. (And likely to be more reliable and a lot cheaper to fix if they break!)

Still no Model 3's in the UK for another few months yet, it will be interesting to see how well they sell - despite the relatively small number of Model S and X's in the UK I seem to see an awful lot of them around. The Model 3 once introduced should completely dwarf the number of Model S and X on the road.