Would you have an electric car if you had the money for a new car and were in the market for one?

[Horse]

Wonder if one caught fire at Luton Airport?

A diesel car apparently. Which is no great surprise seeing as petrol cars are 60x more likely to catch fire then EVs, supposedly.

Supposedly a LR Evoque

20231012_093108.jpg (110.01 KiB) Viewed 537 times

[Mussels]

Wonder if one caught fire at Luton Airport?

A diesel car apparently. Which is no great surprise seeing as petrol cars are 60x more likely to catch fire then EVs, supposedly.

Petrol might not be a surprise but diesel is.
People are far too quick to blame/exonerate EVs, this is an unusual event and the impact of EVs needs to be checked. If EVs make fires spread faster then it could make many car parks unsafe.

[Count Steer]

Wonder if one caught fire at Luton Airport?

A diesel car apparently. Which is no great surprise seeing as petrol cars are 60x more likely to catch fire then EVs, supposedly.

Supposedly a LR Evoque

20231012_093108.jpg

The owner had probably done the £500 deal with KungFooBob.

[Mussels]

It's been many years since I've been up close to oil fires but this doesn't look right.

[Yorick]

It's been many years since I've been up close to oil fires but this doesn't look right.

No proof what caused it, so no point in getting upset.

[Mussels]

No proof what caused it, so no point in getting upset.

The fire brigade chief has been quoted as saying it was a diesel fire, my upset is them making uninformed statements.

[Yorick]

No proof what caused it, so no point in getting upset.

The fire brigade chief has been quoted as saying it was a diesel fire, my upset is them making uninformed statements.

The report I saw said it was a diesel car fire.

[G.P]

Wasn't there some scaremongering about some of the ferry companies considering banning EVs for this very reason?

[cheb]

Wasn't there some scaremongering about some of the ferry companies considering banning EVs for this very reason?

This one: https://www.energystoragejournal.com/bl ... erry-line/

[wheelnut]

Petrol might not be a surprise but diesel is.
People are far too quick to blame/exonerate EVs, this is an unusual event and the impact of EVs needs to be checked. If EVs make fires spread faster then it could make many car parks unsafe.

There's also the weight to take in to account. A lot of multi-story car parks were built in the 70s and 80s when cars were quite often well under 1000kg. Modern electric cars are 2 tonne and more.

[Count Steer]

No proof what caused it, so no point in getting upset.

The fire brigade chief has been quoted as saying it was a diesel fire, my upset is them making uninformed statements.

Well, the diesel probably did catch fire at some point!

I'm surprised the Fire Brigade Chief is making statements like that if he's not referencing the report of the forensic fire people (who may well still be investigating).

Didn't a whole shipload of battery cars go up in smoke recently? Was it Boeing that had a few issues too. Oh, and try posting something with Li-ion batteries in.

When we were doing even the early stuff with smart meters we had to get them from the factory in Slovenia to the UK on land/water as you couldn't air freight them because of the batteries and that was a good few years ago.

An acquaintance was a partner in a business that designed and made battery packs on wheels for car showrooms etc (something about displaying cars with lights on and power to displays etc rather than running them on internal batteries). The company doesn’t/ exist any more but I don't know if that's to do with the BMW dealership that was razed to the ground when one of their units got 'a bit frisky'. Oops.

[Horse]

Yet most people are content to walk around with a Lion battery in their pocket.

[There must be a 'pleased to see me?' gag in that somehow]

[Count Steer]

Yet most people are content to walk around with a Lion battery in their pocket.

[There must be a 'pleased to see me?' gag in that somehow]

In their pocket? Most people seem to walk around (and under buses) staring at them.

(Chucking them at the floor, dodgy replacement batteries, overnight fast charging and malware seem to be the main problems with phone battery flaming sepukku but even then, it's not a common thing).

[Yorick]

It's been many years since I've been up close to oil fires but this doesn't look right.

No proof what caused it, so no point in getting upset.

They know which car started it so can find the owner.
Think of the insurance claim.
Maybe 1,000 cars at £10k = 10 million. Oooh. And the cost of the car park.
He'll probably lose his no claims and have a heavy loading next year

[cheb]

As I've probably said before, think how little you pay for your insurance compared to what the insurers might have to pay out.

[Yorick]

As I've probably said before, think how little you pay for your insurance compared to what the insurers might have to pay out.

This will be right up there with most expensive claims.

[Noggin]

As I've probably said before, think how little you pay for your insurance compared to what the insurers might have to pay out.

I never understand here why people refuse to pay top up health insurance. 30% of the costs 'can be' a TON of money. I've never actually looked into what the insurance covered for my shoulder - not just the op, but 5 months rehab, physio 2-3 times a week for years, various scans, various other appointments, then the second rehab etc etc. I'd not have the use of my arm if I'd had to pay 30% of all that!! And it cost me 37€ a month (now up to 42€ but that's due to age, not history!!! )


For vehicles, I do try and get the least expensive, but like you said, it's not just how much the vehicle that is insured costs to fix, it's everything else!!!

[cheb]

Roughly how much is the top up health insurance?

I try to avoid any of the optional insurances, based on how infrequently I would have claimed versus the savings of repeated 'Only £8.99 per month sir' blandishments. I've never lost a bunch of keys nor a phone for example. The only exception is when hiring a car, I have all the bells and whistles on that one.

[Noggin]

Roughly how much is the top up health insurance?

I try to avoid any of the optional insurances, based on how infrequently I would have claimed versus the savings of repeated 'Only £8.99 per month sir' blandishments. I've never lost a bunch of keys nor a phone for example. The only exception is when hiring a car, I have all the bells and whistles on that one.

When I first took out the insurance it was approx 37€ a month and stayed at that for a few years. Once I turned 50 it went up a bit and I'm now paying 42€ a month. Given I live somewhere that is very slippery for about 6 months of the year and partake in, for now 2 dangerous sports (hoping to add a couple more in the coming years, but nothing to do with cycles!!) and I have form for falling over my own feet even indoors, I have to assume that I'll need doctors at some point!!

But, it also covers normal doctors and specialists. Because the GPs up here are private (due to it being a ski resort) you have to pay for each appointment @ 25€ a throw. So I pay that and then get it back through the government Carte Vitale system and the mutuelle. When I went to the gyne last week I had to pay 30€ but I'll get that back as with the GP costs (that appointment included a full women's MOT - well, not the squishy bit, luckily - as well as a prescription!). Prescriptions are also covered - some meds are 100% covers by the government part (cancer, HRT, thyroid and probably others) and the rest are 70/30. Although I did get a quote recently for a mutuelle that only covers one GP visit a year

Weirdly in France, you have to pay for contraceptives (so I'm told) but not for HRT!! I suppose it isn't weird given the main religion, but it's weird to me!! LOL

My physio is 25€ a throw and I know the shoulder op went into the 1000's€. Guessing the plate in the leg was around a grand? The five months residential rehab plus the 2.5 months for the leg/shoulder probably adds up to 10's of thousands. All covered.

Maybe most people wouldn't bother with the rehab centres for basic injuries (no idea how often it's offered and for what exactly, but know a friend stayed for a few weeks post cruciate op),but for me, if I had had the shoulder op I did here but in the uk, I would have no use of my right arm - this was the Bristol surgeon who told me that (probably partly due to different attitudes but mostly due to the lack of decent rehab). I was told that the inverse shoulder replacement is only to relieve pain, not to gain movement. But, I can lift my arm to 90 degrees and actually use it reasonably well in most normal situations. Some are more difficult than others, and I've not seen my best physio since April cos he's not been here, so things aren't so good right now.

I do appreciate that I might not 'need' any medical treatment for the next 10 years so might be 'wasting' 43€+ a month for the next ten years. However, given the FUF nature of my balance, previous form etc, I do think that for me (especially as someone that will probably only be able to earn seasonally and even then not loads) it is totally worth it. The shoulder surgeon has already told me I'll need the metalwork replaced within the next ten years, so . . . . . . .


Sorry - probably too much info!! But giving the price of insurance without some of the costs of medical treatment seemed to not really show a balance. Obviously I have friends that maybe see a GP once a year and have never seen the inside of a hospital so they don't see why they should have insurance

[cheb]

That's not too much info. I like reading stuff by ex pats, it gives me a comparison to living costs etc for the UK.