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kezoParticipant
@Jojoe it is worth remembering your electricity supplier is likely to take a cut and maybe worth contacting a MCS accredited company directly for a quote. The rule of the thumb is the further south you live the higher price the system will be. Price also varies by brand and whether you have chosen or quoted for panels with the highest conversion rate.
@Kezo Cheers the MCS bit is useful, I checked my local area but they all seemed to be for commercial installations. I’ll have to do a bit more research.Brydo,
I did read most of the cost was the installation and you could add extra panels for not too much more. I’d be happy paying a little more to go with a very well known company, plus I can always try and get a deal from them.
Cheers
Jojoe
wmcforumWhich Mobility Car
@JojoeI have thought of getting hive radiator thermostats as I have a couple of rooms that are colder than others. I spoke to a man from British Gas and he said for them to work it needs to be the other way around, ie a couple of hot rooms for them to be effective. I have to be honest he left me scratching my head.
I think the British Gas man is thinking along the lines of saving money. You’d save money by making an unused room cooler. I’m not an expert, but I can’t see why they wouldn’t make your rooms warmer. You’d probably get a different answer if you asked a different BG engineer.
BrydoParticipant
JoJoe this one is for you.SWARCO Smart Charging, a UK provider of electric vehicle (EV) charging infrastructure, has signed a significant new partnership agreement with Cornwall Council to supply, install, maintain and operate EV charging points throughout the county over the next four years.
These will be a mix of 7kW AC, 22kW AC and 50kW DC chargers. The agreement includes the delivery of European Regional Development Funded charge points in 2022-23, as part of the Drive EV2 project.
With petrol and diesel vehicles accounting for almost 15% of emissions, Cornwall Council is supporting the development of a network of EV chargers as part of its commitment to decarbonise transport and become carbon neutral by 2030. Residents and visitors will be able to utilise readily available charging facilities, ensuring electric vehicles are a viable alternative.
The partnership’s primary objective will be the development of Cornwall’s strategic network of EV charge points. Both organisations are committed to ensuring that residents within the county, and visitors, will be able to confidently find, and use a charger, to support their travel needs.
As part of this combined commitment, SWARCO Smart Charging has committed to long-term investment in the region for funding rapid and ultra-rapid charging hubs, to complement the Council’s electrification efforts.
“This collaboration brings together a motivation to make EV charging a reality for the people of Cornwall,” said Justin Meyer, Managing Director at SWARCO Smart charging.
“With the growing demand for sustainability, and the fast rise in popularity of EVs across the country, SWARCO’s ambition to bring quick charging to Cornwall is a duty that will assure ease of access, solutions, and reliability.
“We are committed to moving towards a future that helps Cornwall Council support the transition for the UK to become a low-carbon economy.”
The Drive EV2 project has received £3,625,00 from the England European Regional Development Fund, which helps local areas stimulate their economic development by investing in projects which will support innovation, businesses, create jobs and local community regenerations.
SWARCO Smart Charging provides EV charging infrastructure along with the systems and services to support them, and has more than 8,000 charging points installed across the UK. SWARCO Smart Charging is part of SWARCO – an international group providing the complete range of products, systems, services and solutions for road safety and intelligent traffic management to support the mobility needs of society and lower-transport-related emissions.
Its certainly needed, but I can see charging in Cornwall being very problematic for EV owners for many years to come.
The area I mention, the very south west tip has a 5 or 6 major towns, I can imagine the population increases 10 fold between July and September. You’ll have people on holiday parks charging their cars with an extension cable and a 3 pin plug coming from the window of a static caravan.
Why don’t you save your money and fit if you don’t have normal TRV’s and switch the one down to frost protection in the rooms you don’t use. liquid filled TRV’s react to to temperature fluctuations faster.
Standard TRV’s are fine, but you forget to turn them down. With the Hive ones you can set them on a timer so you know they won’t be left on. The Hive heating in general has saved us money on gas as you are more likely to turn the heating off/down if you can do it from the app on your phone, for example if heating comes on at weekend and you’re still in bed, you grab the phone and turn it off.
Our cheap fixed tariff finishes at the end of June. British Gas offered us a fixed deal till July 2023, it takes into account the supposed £500/600 rise in the price cap for October. I’m not going to bother with it as it would mean paying a lot more for July, August and September, than I would pay if I was on the standard tariff.
Already planning the efficiency savings for the winter. A clothes airer in the conservatory and Hive thermostat controlled radiator valves so we only heat the rooms when we use them. You can set them up on the app to come off and on when you need them, on an individual room basis, it means we can heat the bedroom half hour before we go to bed and half hour before we get up.
roxParticipant
Audi have taken the Q2 off the shelves globally. Audi’s spokesperson confirmed that the German carmaker is not looking forward to a second-generation model of the Q2. In addition to that, Audi have also pulled the plug on the A1 supermini which was on sale in international markets. Going forward, Audi will place their focus on bigger products that return higher profits.The A1 and Q2 will be retired after the current-generation models when the A3 will effectively become the entry point into Audi’s global lineup.
So I guess that will mean there still will be a q3 but if it comes back onto the scheme i dread to think what the ap will be considering the ap’s of the q2’s which is the only audi currently on the scheme.
The move to EV’s is to blame for them removing smaller cars. I’m sure I read manufacturers had to meet figures for emissions across the brand, many of them did this by making small cars with low emissions. Now they make EV’s they don’t need to invest in smaller ICE cars.
Ian
Jojoe did you write to them again offering to pay the extra £2000 when it went up lol??????Let me ?. That would be no ?
Ours came down by around £150, my partner wrote to Motability as this was the second time it happened, they refunded the difference without any hassle. The following quarter in the middle of lockdown it went up £2000.
We’d love to go EV, we have a drive for home charging, but as I’ve said before, we are regular visitors to Cornwall, proper south of the county near St Ives. I keep looking at the charging infrastructure there, and it’s just appalling, a few 7kw chargers at supermarkets but only 3 fast (50kw) chargers for the whole area of Hayle, St Ives, Penzance, St Just & Lands End. And according to Zap Map, two of those are not very reliable.
On the plus side, I did see what looked like work on an installation of a whole row of chargers at Taunton Deane services on the M5.
If you have a garden; social services may put a driveway in for you. Our first house (30 years ago) was a council house with a garden, the council dropped the kerb and installed a hard standing for my partner. Not suitable for everyone, but maybe worth speaking with social services if you have a garden or patch of land.
Lack of gears is a positive to those who use hand controls. It’s one of the many benefits of EV’s. How many discussions have there been on here regarding higher AP’s for automatics? If all EV’s are automatic they’ll be no more price difference for those who need them.
I’ll just go back to buying £200 bangers every time something breaks lol.
I had a very nice 4 wheel drive Audi which was stolen in a burglary. I swore never to have another nice car on the driveway again, I bought a cheap VW for £1500 and drove it for years, all I replaced was tyres, brakes and a catalytic converter. I’m happy to do this, but my partner is the one who gets the Motability car, she’s a wheelchair user and I’m very uneasy about her driving a cheap car, she can’t get out if she breaks down in anywhere other than a car park.
We had good and bad service from Europcar. Replacement auto estate delivered in a few hours, but we are just a few miles from their showroom.
However, I’ll give you a tip, when they deliver the car, make sure the fuel needle is absolutely full. They will charge you if it’s not completely full when they collect. On two occasions now they’ve overcharged us for fuel when they collected. Once on a car hired for me by the local Audi dealership and once by Motability. They take £1 on your card at the beginning of the hire and automatically bill it for whatever they deem it needs to be filled.
The last time the needle was in between the last line and full when delivered, I pointed this out to the person who dropped the car off and he made a note of it. We did 45 miles in a diesel and put £10 in it, it had more fuel when collected that when it was dropped off. 3 days later they took £24 off the debit card. It took a phone call and an email to get them to check the paperwork when it was dropped off, they eventually refunded. Exactly the same happened with the car rented for me by the Audi dealer a few years ago.
The general level of AP has nothing to do with it, you’re not arguing for a reduction in AP, you’re arguing for someone else to pay for it despite you being able to pay for it.
£2k for the AP isn’t outlandish, either. We can certainly talk about £6k+ APs being horrible, but we paid £1.8k for our current car and that was a steal. The very same car, before it was removed from the scheme, went to more than double that at £3999.
The APs are high, yes. But again, here’s the thing: it doesn’t matter to your argument. Your argument is that regardless of the price, someone else should pay for it because you don’t want to use your own money. Not that you can’t afford it.
If it doesn’t make economic sense (to you), and get away with a cheaper car, then everything is fine, is it not? I genuinely have trouble following that line of thought. For us, even at £5250 AP (£3250 AP + options) the car makes economic sense. It’s still considerably cheaper over the three years than a personal lease, not even including insurance, tyres etc.
No, I’m saying AP’s are too high and people are leaving the scheme because of this, and it’s only going to get worse with EV’s. I no longer work due to ill health and need to rely on my savings as income until I can claim my pension in around 10 years, so paying £2k AP every 3 years is just not practical for us. Incidentally, it’s my partner who gets PIP, but I usually pay the AP and do most of the driving as she doesn’t like driving.
To be fair, i don’t see why “not wanting to use your own money” would be reason enough for a charitable grant.
My point is, AP’s are becoming too high, not necessarily saying we should be given grants, but we are at the point where spending £2k on an advance payment does not make economical sense. Motability are hiding behind “You can always apply for a grant” as a defence to keeping AP’s high. Those of us not entitled to a grant are being forced off the scheme. It’s very likely our current car will be the last on the scheme, probably a 2 year old used car for us. But hey ho, Motability are giving away £50 million!
I’m not saying this is a bad thing, not at all. But, there are Motability customers struggling with AP’s. Motability’s standard response is to apply for a grant, but not everyone is entitled to a grant. Some people have savings which exclude them from financial help, but they may not wish to use their savings on AP’s.
Did you see the test they did on Fifth Gear Recharged? They took it around a track and nearly rolled it over.
fwippersParticipant
Many of the cars on the scheme were above the £32k limit, so hopefully we will not see prices rising. If the government is going to put money into better charging infrastructure then that is to be welcomed, just don’t have a huge amount of faith in Boris and Co at the moment!Agree regarding investment in charging, if charging infrastructure improves, we could opt for a cheaper car with smaller battery. I posted a couple of days ago about a journey to Cornwall and how there are the same amount of chargers at Frankley Services today as there were 4 years ago. That’s putting us off getting an EV.
Wonder how quick Motability will adjust the AP’s. They’re probably furiously working on it as we speak.
I think a lot of people rely on the GCB for their advance payment, even though it comes after your new car is collected. We usually think £1000-£1500 on AP and anticipate getting some back in the form of GCB. I think it should stay at the ends of the lease, that said; it doesn’t stop Motability giving a one off bonus to help people with the cost of fuelling they’re cars.
