EspadaIII
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Post by EspadaIII on Jun 28, 2024 14:53:13 GMT
We moved house in December 2019 and had a good clear out. In Lockdown we had a clear out again and took much more stuff to the tip or charity shop. Espadrille had another go a few weeks back and we made three trips to the tip and one to the charity shop. Children leaving home eventually makes mothers see sense...
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WDB
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Post by WDB on Jul 5, 2024 19:11:26 GMT
This afternoon I went to a post-campaign gathering in Oxford, featuring all five of Oxfordshire’s LD MPs and dozens of campaigners. I went in another volunteer’s VW ID.3, the first time I travelled any distance in one. My task was to act as co-driver and feed and interpret the navigation system.
It’s really not a great car. That navigation system is a bag of pants, laggy and indistinct, and with an annoying discontinuity between the location and the instructions. It rides well enough — I wasn’t driving, so can’t comment on steering and handling — but just doesn’t feel well sorted in the way an Ioniq 5 or an iX3 does. Too much hard plastic and too little headroom too. My friends aren’t thrilled with it either, just VW loyalists who trusted that their early misgivings would be smoothed out. It hasn’t really happened that way. It has an overintrusive speed limiter that does more than the iX’s bongs, even when it’s misread the limit. (The iX misread an NSL for a 10 this morning, but just bonged quietly to itself while I ignored it.)
It ought to be fine. It’s a good-looking car with decent space for rear passengers. But it feels like VW phoned it in. It kind of puts me off the other iD models too.
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bpg
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Post by bpg on Jul 5, 2024 19:35:07 GMT
You took a car to Oxford ? We're you greated with torches and pitchforks ?
Ford have put their own Sync4 in the Explorer for driver controls so it will not look and feel like it's ID.4 sibling. I have Sync3 in my Focus, Sync4 is in the facelift Focus and Mach-E. It's been glitch free though I usually have wireless android auto running which does everything I want.
The car handles its updates connecting to my home WiFi as and when.
How old is your friend ID.3 ? VW have made multiple updates to the HMI. We sat in one and had a prod and poke last autumn, didn't feel too bad.
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Rob
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Post by Rob on Jul 5, 2024 20:23:18 GMT
They did tweak the ID3 recently but I think they got it wrong. The Audi based on the same MEB underpinnings looks so much better ergonomically. I can't comment on more because I've not been in either.
I wonder if used ICE car prices will go up now that the tariffs on Chinese produced EVs (including those for non-Chinese companies like BMW and Tesla) and that labour will bring forward the date to stop selling ICE cars to 2030 again. Although I'm not sure if PHEV would be allowed after that date.
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Rob
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Post by Rob on Jul 5, 2024 20:24:37 GMT
The ID3 also now looks better without the illusion of a short bonnet. The black bit is now body coloured.
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WDB
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Post by WDB on Jul 7, 2024 7:01:59 GMT
They did tweak the ID3 recently but I think they got it wrong. The Audi based on the same MEB underpinnings looks so much better ergonomically. I can't comment on more because I've not been in either. For interior design — and most other criteria — I’d take the Enyaq over either. People seem to like the Born too, although I’ve no experience of that. |
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WDB
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Post by WDB on Jul 7, 2024 15:18:40 GMT
Saturday’s drive was 266 miles across the Chilterns, north on the M1 and A1(M), then finally west along a splendidly sunlight A684 into Wensleydale, where the cheese comes from. Cross-country through Aylesbury to Milton Keynes was wet, the Motorways were busy and slow, with seemingly as much 50 as 70, but we met nothing bad enough to delay us further beyond that.
There might have been, though. Passing through Wensley, we found ourselves behind a grey Astra that had emerged unsteadily from the car park of the Three Horseshoes, and it became clear that the driver was in control of neither himself nor the car. He stirred up several clouds of dust from excursions on to the verge, and was fortunate a couple of times not to meet an oncoming vehicle as he wandered across the white line. Boy1, co-driving, was sufficiently alarmed to call the police and report his location and details, but he lost his signal before he could complete his report. The car turned off the main road and, I hope, managed not to hit anything on the way home, but it wasn’t pretty. Certainly the worst piece of evident intoxication I’ve seen on a road in a long time.
The final climb up the side of the valley to our hamlet hideaway was narrow and twisty, but we met nothing else and it offered enough passing places to have coped if we had. We explored on foot today but my buttocks will still be clenched next time I have to drive that bit.
There have been threats of apocalyptic weather, starting today, but there’s been no sign yet and tomorrow’s forecast now looks quite nice. Still glad I brought the second jumper and wondering why I thought I’d need two pairs of shorts. 😣
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EspadaIII
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Post by EspadaIII on Jul 7, 2024 19:47:13 GMT
In the south Lakes the weather was poor this morning but picked up in the afternoon and the afternoon and evening have been stunning.
Did you charge up on the way? Any charging where you are or nearby?
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WDB
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Post by WDB on Jul 7, 2024 20:02:35 GMT
Very little charging to be had round here, and though I borrowed the granny charger from the i3 (the iX doesn’t come with one) our parking area is too far from the building to use it here. There’s expensive (62p!) 7kW at the Dales museum in Hawes, so one option, since the weather looks filthy midweek, is to take three hours of that while we visit the museum and the creamery. That would leave us close to full, which would comfortably get us back to the Leeds Ionity on Saturday. Not a great concern but had we known when we booked that we’d be bringing an EV…
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Post by Humph on Jul 8, 2024 8:21:11 GMT
… at the Dales museum in Hawes, so one option, since the weather looks filthy midweek, is to take three hours of that while we visit the museum and the creamery… Sounds exciting. Are you sure you’re prepared for the adrenaline rush? 😉 |
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EspadaIII
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Post by EspadaIII on Jul 8, 2024 8:56:22 GMT
It is worth the visit!
The Be.Ev network around Manchester has just dropped its prices from 75ppkwh to 50ppkwh. And the App has changed so it is now a clone of the Fuuse App which is a similar scheme of local authority backed low current chargers around the Lakes. Fuuse has always been about 45ppkwh.
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WDB
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Post by WDB on Jul 8, 2024 15:36:01 GMT
Well, we went to Richmond while Boy1 and Boy2 went off to climb a hill, lest we slow them down. That has 11kW chargers (actually 22kW but I didn’t buy the 22kW onboard charger) at 40p, which pretty much filled the car while we bought provisions and had lunch. Probably sorted for the week now.
Incidentally, the charging station in Richmond is close to one of those quaint old places with — I asked a local — ‘petrol pumps’. I gather people used to go there to buy dangerous flammable liquids to power their vehicles. Hard to imagine anything so primitive, Isn’t it? 😈
We passed Richmond Conservative Club. I waved my yellow LD campaign cap in salute. After all, but for their MP’s broken promise on climate targets, the iX might never have come within budget.
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EspadaIII
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Post by EspadaIII on Jul 8, 2024 18:43:17 GMT
We went to Barnard Castle in 2021. My eyesight was fine thank you, although not the most exciting of places.... I can see why he wanted to leave.
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WDB
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Post by WDB on Jul 8, 2024 20:09:29 GMT
MrsB1, being from the Northeast, is fond of Barnard Castle. The Bowes Museum may be a wet day out later in the week. The alternative is staying indoors and consuming a lot of tea and biscuits. 🌧️
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WDB
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Post by WDB on Jul 12, 2024 16:17:47 GMT
Longish walk in Swaledale (the best walking Dale in my book) today. Getting there meant going up and over Buttertubs Pass, which was pleasantly quiet. I admit I was rather too busy staying out of the scenery to look at much of it, but the first glimpse of Swaledale from up there is pretty wonderful.
Consumption averaged 28 kWh/100km on the way up. The journey average had fallen to below 20 by the time we parked.
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