Journalists love context-free numbers - things that sound large and scary, but without any helpful information to allow you to judge their significance. Here's a good example from a BBC article about Electric Vehicle subsidies: There are around 1.3 million electric cars on Britain's roads but currently only around 82,000 public charging points. Bloody hell! That's rubbish! Bring down the…
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Back when nuclear power stations were first proposed, we were promised "energy which is too cheap to meter". That is, the cost of electricity would be so low, invoicing for its use would be prohibitively expensive. Well, that didn't exactly turn out that way! But as our electronics have become more efficient, the cost of processing payments begins to outweigh the cost of providing electricity. …
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Even when I had a petrol car, I boycotted Shell - refusing to use their petrol stations. I thought that would continue once I got an electric car - no dino-juice for me! My car has more than enough range for me, but on a recent journey I decided it would be prudent to do a splash-and-dash - shove a few kWh in the battery just in case. I fired up Zap Map and was pleasantly surprised to see that…
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I'm now on my third EV. You can read my thoughts on the BMW i3 and the Renault Zoe. This review is primarily focussed on the tech included with the car. Bluetooth Connects quickly, and no glitches with streaming audio. Call quality was clear, but didn't show caller's photo - which is a shame. Doesn't show album artwork - so no AVRCP 1.6 support. I couldn't get it to do a 30-second-skip…
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I've been driving EVs for a few years now - and people often ask me about running costs. I can't tell you what your insurance, maintenance, or leasing costs will be - but I can show you how much it costs to drive. Here's a fairly recent trip in my Renault Zoe: That's a mixture of motorways in the cold, and gentle country paths in the summer. Hopefully typical of a mixed driving style. It…
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Last year I reverse engineered Renault's Electric Car API. One of the curious omissions was mileage - it just doesn't appear there. However! All is not lost. If you log in to your Renault Account - https://www.renault.co.uk/my-account/my-car.html - you'll get details back about your car including its make, model, date of next service, and mileage! Why isn't this in the regular API? Who knows. …
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Last year I published details of the BMW i3's API. I've now swapped my i3 for a Renault Zoe - so I thought I'd perform the same exercise. edent's Car@edent_car🔋 100%🚗 76 miles🔌 Plugged in⚡ Not charging⚠ Secured and Locked#RenaultZOE❤️ 1💬 0🔁 020:18 - Sat 15 October 2016 All these API calls can be found by using the Renault ZE Services website. I am indebted to this German blog post for kicking o…
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