Interesting comments.
The other thing you could have mentioned is protectionism, if i recall correctly Chinese car manufacturers are facing EV car import tariffs. I can't tell if this is genuine, in that the Chinese are trying to dump EVs into Europe, or if the European EV makers are just poor and bloated companies ripe for restructuring.
EVs are certainly going to produce a shake up or down in the car industry. Will the German car industry be hollowed out like the British one was? I mean those German cars are really expensive, uninspiring, and overladen with technology in my opinion.
I'm not sure - but I am extremely against the CCP and its tactics... be it human rights, freedom of information or enterprise. We all play a factor in 'supporting' it with our love of cheap, usually plastic tat, certainly. But in my view, I wouldn't care if they had twice the innovation of a Tesla at half the price, they cross so many lines in how they treat their people, their neighbouring countries and their whole political ideology. Now I know, we all get into heated debates but you can very much separate out all things EU / US / UK from our companies which are often at odds with our governments. There simply is no company that exists without ties to the CCP in China - and it's extremely sad because it's an amazing country / part of the world with so much talent and culture under that oppression. This is why I'm so against supporting it more than we 'have to'.
I don't blame the western nations and other nations from putting up protection barriers economically to stop this. They quite literally will flood the market with an abundance of cheap tat cars, only unlike the £19.99 made in china kettle you can get from Argos that lasts.. a year and a half maybe, then can be recycled when it becomes e-waste, cars just sit around taking up a lot of space on streets and driveways and it's not so clear how recyclable they are. We can't even get chargers with our new £1,000 phones made by western and other free nations companies because we're told it's too irresponsible to the planet! But there is no regard for the planet with the CCP. They have no regard for life, wellbeing, the planet, competitive spirit etc. They will gut all of our car industries and the problem is, given the chance, the average consumer
will do it.
Look at the risks of TikTok, and people don't care because it satiates them in the moment. It's like a can of Coca-Cola, except, whether or not its form of 'obesity' can be seen or felt is much less obvious than the obese people you see and judge mentally everyday and don't want to become. People are ignorant sometimes and vote poorly with their wallet and attention.
Look at the amount of cars China has copied over the years from EU car makers, even our beloved Panda, the 'Great Wall Peri' which they actually had the audacity to say Fiat were spying on them to produce the 2003 Panda... they don't even have the decency to come clean, or make up a believable excuse. That's how seriously they take us. Why should we allow them to enter our market and destroy it. It's not like they have any quality products or innovation. They just sell at a lower price, afforded by the fact they have no environmental or worker safety and quite literally champion slave labour to make it all balance financially.
When a company wants my money, it's greedy. But that's fine. I'll give them my money if they give me enough of what I want, in a way that I can afford, that won't kill me or others. When a company is willing to go broke, put out of business my other choices as a consumer and is controlled / owned by the CCP ... and it wants my attention and money and to be in my life... that's worse. Far, far worse. immeasurably worse. MG is the perfect case in point, go test drive on of their knock-off BMW X series / Mazda / Mercedes grilled monstrosities. Whilst on the surface it's cheap, looks.. familiar, and is kitted out with all sorts a test drive in one and you'll hear.. feel and be unable to deny what utter trash they are producing. It's actually quite sad metal is being taken from the ground to be wasted on those things. And the roads are flooded with them... Owned by a state sponsored (CCP) controlling interest, the same one behind the knock off Panda, and knock off Evoque that already had rust bubbles under the paint at a car show where they displayed it. And yet, our companies - especially Land Rover - doing everything they can to compete in their market... sickening.
Rant over! lol
If it were just about EV disruption, well, people with more money than me are voting on that one. Of course people will buy anything to try them and EVs have their advantages. They are certainly sold with some big claims about how good they are for us all. Yet to see any credible evidence that they are outside of big city air quality issues. We read biased car media coverage paid for by eco activist groups that act like it's a good thing, that they're here to stay etc... but then, nobody I know (very few people mind you) who bought one (mostly as company cars at a huge discount or free to them) seem to want another one after the initial year with them. That'll be the real test. For less than my beat up, old , bad condition overpriced Lexus CT .. I could have gotten an under two year old Corsa Elite, with electric powertrain, every bell and whistle, less mileage and I think.. massage seats if it's new enough.. For around £12k I'm sure I seen one. If my DS3 and Avensis were anything to go by, a relatively low price used is usually for a reason - because less people want them and it can be hard to ignore when you own them. EVs seem to be going that way.
Is this not largely customisable though?
The older version you can have it so it shows the last sign it saw which would tick off speed sign assist.
But you can then set the tolerance be it 1mph, 3mph or 5mph or I think even 10 and also if it beeps.
The devil will be in the detail obviously as to whether it defaults everything each time you turn the key but it may be that it being a courtesy car no one has spent 2 minutes making it not annoying.
I have mine on because it's entirely not annoying if set up correctly but it's also only right about 85-90% of the time as well although the beeps have never been on and will never be on worst it does if you're over the posted limit as it sees it is display the sign in red.
However with me tactically buying a November 2016 car...my car predates these systems becoming mandatory in April 2017 (and flat rate road tax thank ****) so I may have more options.
In the Avensis you could turn it off. I'm not sure about the Yaris, I think it can be but then you can't have adaptive cruise functional as it depends on it. Maybe there's a way to disable the warnings but keep it on for that, but it didn't seem so in my short time with it.
We have a lecturer currently who traded in an older A3 for a modern, automatic one. She says it's slow and horrible to drive compared to the old one and all the safety tech which she can't disable makes it a living hell to live with - the stuff that comes back on. At least Mercedes did stuff like put the start/stop deactivated right beside / attached to the start button to make it handy.
Smart move on the 16/17 thing. My DS3 was just in the £0 tax bracket as a 66 plate. Avensis ... not so lucky. From the 'Diesel is public enemy number one' phase of the governments regulations.
I'd wonder if the EVs will ever be hit with something similar down the line but I can't see many of them racking up the 300k miles that a lot of old dirty diesel have. Except for Toyota's.... with its limited, slow charge and low range but no doubt will last longer as a result.
The safety kit is annoying. But it's annoying me so much increasingly when I walk the quay at lunch, cross the road or am stuck in traffic (more so lately with roadworks in this city) and
people are gazing down at their phone. Multi-lane inner city roads. Filled with traffic lights and crossings. Veering. Slowing down..speeding up. You overtake and they nearly swerve into you, phone in hand.
if it stops this crap, then perhaps it's worth the headache. The police ought to crack down on that more than speeding traps nowadays, they could probably fund all sorts if they turned their attention to that problem. It's the only potentially redeeming part of the mandatory safety tech if it can stop people (with their ignorance) from killing people or damaging property.
On a final note... you know my friends who've had the BMWs and Audi's since the days of my Panda? They asked me over the last year what I think about having an automatic. Told them it's great and handy in traffic. Both said to me on separate occasions "Yeah, you can text properly with it". To them, and probably many others, this is why they wanted an automatic. It just enables / makes it easier to take stupid risks. They referred to it like it wasn't even doing anything illegal or reckless or harmful :-/. This is reality today. Perhaps the legislators are attempting to crack down on it?
I think I’d better go to sleep I’ve had enough reality for one day
