It’s The Latte Latte Delta Tea Break 2018

[Gerard C]

Originally Posted by grantp

As the words "cap" has come up, as it were, I assume those of us of a certain age will remember the strips of caps that children used to be able to buy for toy guns back in the day.

Errr, you mean the red ones to have a bang from your pistol I guess?
What I remember is that we were very much looking forward to what our parents could bring back from Harrod's. Hence the word exotic!

[Gerard C]

For the few of you driving in France, be warned the fuel names are going to change. No more SP 95 or SP 98, Gazole or Gazole Plus either I imagine.
What a good way to keep people focused on non serious discussion when you're in troubles with your government… Old but good trick. Next week, we must adjust our watches to "heure d'hiver", and the circus will go on!

[John Elwin]

Originally Posted by Gerard C

For the few of you driving in France, be warned the fuel names are going to change. No more SP 95 or SP 98, Gazole or Gazole Plus either I imagine.
What a good way to keep people focused on non serious discussion when you're in troubles with your government… Old but good trick. Next week, we must adjust our watches to "heure d'hiver", and the circus will go on!

Just to add to that, fuel prices are creeping up again. Diesel is now more than 1.50 euros/litre at some of my local supermarkets.

[Gerard C]

Yop and gazole is almost always more expensive than fuel. Its hard not to see any politic influence in all this.
We have Mondial de l'Auto at the mo, a huge bonus when buying an electric car, a massive tax on gazole which leads our journalists to proudly announce that electric power is cheaper than diesel for a daily use. There you go!

[Peter Mallett]

Originally Posted by Gerard C

For the few of you driving in France, be warned the fuel names are going to change. No more SP 95 or SP 98, Gazole or Gazole Plus either I imagine.
What a good way to keep people focused on non serious discussion when you're in troubles with your government… Old but good trick. Next week, we must adjust our watches to "heure d'hiver", and the circus will go on!

What will it be called then?

[GORDON STREETER]

Originally Posted by Gerard C

For the few of you driving in France, be warned the fuel names are going to change. No more SP 95 or SP 98, Gazole or Gazole Plus either I imagine.
!

Same in Spain, I'm just thinking of all the "balls ups" that are going to happen with the wrong fuels being put in !
Nothing like altering things to confuse the public

[grantp]

Originally Posted by Gerard C

Yop and gazole is almost always more expensive than fuel. Its hard not to see any politic influence in all this.
We have Mondial de l'Auto at the mo, a huge bonus when buying an electric car, a massive tax on gazole which leads our journalists to proudly announce that electric power is cheaper than diesel for a daily use. There you go!

Quite so. And the Green influence still fails to see that the energy generation requirements to manufacture and power electric vehicles is very much reliant on traditional fuels at some point in the process. (I note that France, in recent decades, could realistically claim that its Nuclear generation facilities greatly reduce the likely use of "dirty" electricity in domestic manufacturing but would not be able to claim the same for any imported products or components.)

However it seems that some people are now keen to ensure that subsidies for wealthy people to buy expensive and frequently unnecessarily high performance cars (compared to the ability to use that performance on the roads versus the distance that can be travelled on a charge) are maintained.

The UK Government, according to the Guardian newspaper and its quotes from the so called "Friends of the Earth", is distressed to hear reports that the Government will likely be cutting subsidies for the purchase of electric vehicles.


https://www.theguardian.com/environm...hammond-budget

Presumably they feel that the market is by now well enough established to survive by itself and that competition amongst the manufacturers, now that diesel is being killed off, will prevent prices increasing to levels that would stop any growth.

I would imagine that the historic Tesla business model, which reportedly loses a significant amount of money per car despite generous subsidies in the USA, would be under some pressure if the subsidies are removed - especially if you take away their free use of the supercharger stations that came with the more expensive models.

Meanwhile in the UK someone has come up with a plan build a new tunnel under the Thames to the East of London to speed up travel times (allegedly) between Kent and Essex. That, of course, was what the last major development was supposed to do when they built the replacement bridge which, presumably, is not yet paid for since the tolls are still being charged.

Of course the traffic that the new development would support will no longer exist after Brexit (allegedly) and in any case by the time we have been forced into all electric travel (somewhere around 2030 which is likely long before the tunnel could be completed) with full autonomy required for all "motorway" travel the problems that the tunnel is supposed to relieve would no longer exist.

Still, there is nothing new about that sort of non-solution as an excuse to "invest" to boost the numbers for Gross Domestic Product economics. And governments do love to "invest". It's a traditional form of Vanity Project for politicians that can offer multiple opportunities for self publicity using the same "investment".

[VIVA GT]

Originally Posted by GORDON STREETER

Same in Spain, I'm just thinking of all the "balls ups" that are going to happen with the wrong fuels being put in !
Nothing like altering things to confuse the public

Gordon, I hope you've got your hatches battened down at the moment? I heard on the radio this morning that there's some windy weather heading your way.

[delta]

I hear Donington museum is closing

[Mike Bell]

Originally Posted by delta

I hear Donington museum is closing

Story here.... https://www.leicestermercury.co.uk/n...museum-2094188

[Gerard C]

Originally Posted by Peter Mallett

What will it be called then?

I'm sorry if you dont like the answer, but its picked up from official website.
Each type will be given a letter and a number for the rate of biocarburant used.
Fuel: E in a roundel, SP 95 E10 becomes E10, Superethanol containing 85% of ethanol becomes E85.
Diesel: B in a square, when 7% of biodiesel is used becomes B7.
Soon will arrive XTL for diesel engines, a synthetic carburant.
To make things care, if possible:
Fuel engines: SP95/SP98= E5; SP95/E10= E10; Superethanol= E85.
Diesel engines: Diesel with 7% biodiesel = B7; diesel with 10%= B10 plus XTL.
Yes, I know, c'est la merde!. sorry for the crude name but couldn't find another appropriate one at the moment!

[Gerard C]

And yes again, when trailing a race car with a diesel car or van, I dont know what I should use to keep my engines safe and performant! 98 and 95 are merged into E5.
There are others indications for gaz but I gave up understanding… To be applied from the 12th this month. Adjust you knock sensor and bring some additive! What a mess!

[GORDON STREETER]

Originally Posted by VIVA GT

Gordon, I hope you've got your hatches battened down at the moment? I heard on the radio this morning that there's some windy weather heading your way.

We have had a few floods of late with heavy rain inland running off of the mountains strait down the ramblers and flooding low lying areas and just down the road yesterday some of the roads were flooded.
Saying that we are actually in the UK today
This happened in 2012 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JtXRxq7db3w&t=25s

[VIVA GT]

Originally Posted by delta

I hear Donington museum is closing

That's a shame. It was the first 'long' journey I made to the museum with a mate in my Escort Van after passing my driving test (on March 27 1974!)

Originally Posted by Mike Bell

Story here.... https://www.leicestermercury.co.uk/n...museum-2094188

Thanks for the link Mike, I'll have another look at it from home. My work computer has so little memory (like it's operator) the pages take forever to load due to the extra advertisements.

[Mike Bell]

Originally Posted by Gerard C

And yes again, when trailing a race car with a diesel car or van, I dont know what I should use to keep my engines safe and performant! 98 and 95 are merged into E5.
There are others indications for gaz but I gave up understanding… To be applied from the 12th this month. Adjust you knock sensor and bring some additive! What a mess!

Will be interesting to see how confusing it is on the Imola trip in two weeks! I wonder if the specific diesel truck pumps at service areas will just have one type, and if so, which......

[Gerard C]

You've been wise to avoid AddBlue with your Volvo, Mike. Certainly the worse is to come because we can imagine other countries will follow. It will be impossible to avoid ethanol in our classic engines, what will happen to the internals on the long term? And what about the mpg? We had some Ford CMax in test a while ago and it was terrible. The technocrats answer was: its better to drive with leek juice cose we have a lot of leeks! Can you believe that? Honest!

[Mike Bell]

E5, E10 etc are making the headlines in our Classic Car mags, unsurprisingly!

Appears our elected representatives will be voting in favour of adoption by the 2020 deadline, with no provision for a different fuel for classics.....

I’m wondering what will happen to Shell 99 octane V Power, which is widely used by racers not wanting to use (or being unable to get) high octane race fuel......

[grantp]

The politicians and eco-activists will find a back door way to kill off all ICE vehicles and force electric on everyone - probably far too early for it to be an economically sensible decision even if we do accept the argument for electric powered vehicles.


On which subject ....


I was told today by someone working in an industry that is relatively electricity consumption heavy, that they had a presentation from an electricity focused energy supplier in which it was pointed out that 60% of the charges they currently pay are required for purposes other than the electricity they need - mostly to cater for the infrastructure development for renewables it would seem - and by 2021 that is likely to be 90%.


It makes one think.



Or it should do.

[grantp]

Well, well, I just stumbled upon this.


Someone out there has come to the same conclusions as I did with regard to electric and autonomous vehicles with some numbers to support the argument.


https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-45786690

[Peter Mallett]

Originally Posted by Mike Bell

E5, E10 etc are making the headlines in our Classic Car mags, unsurprisingly!

Appears our elected representatives will be voting in favour of adoption by the 2020 deadline, with no provision for a different fuel for classics.....

I’m wondering what will happen to Shell 99 octane V Power, which is widely used by racers not wanting to use (or being unable to get) high octane race fuel......

So does this mean that only 95 octane/ron will be available in France now?

[Gerard C]

At the moment they absolutely dont talk about octane or cetane level. Just the new names. Nobody knows about the new mpg. As to Shell V Power, its very popular here too and some times used with some additive to reach the 102 level.
If the percentage of ethanol used is high, it will be useless to remove it because - if my memory serves - the octane goes too low for high CR engines.
And the idea of traveling with a lot of home made fuel in not enjoyable.

[Peter Mallett]

Originally Posted by grantp

Well, well, I just stumbled upon this.


Someone out there has come to the same conclusions as I did with regard to electric and autonomous vehicles with some numbers to support the argument.


https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-45786690

This is either a utopian or dystopian view depending on your position. It also ignores the impact of all the unemployed workers since it'snot only money that keeps people happy it's being occupied. Rather a typically ignorant "green" BBC politically correct report IMO.

[Mike Bell]

That seems to be a problem- in the UK the powers that be aren’t even sure what octane levels should be allowed for E5....... If it’s available at the meeting, we’re now using 101 leaded, or 102 unleaded if the former is not allowed to be sold in the country. It’s expensive, but convenient and the best commercially available fuel you can put in a race engine. If it saves a failure, it’s paid for itself many times!

Grant- that article is from the BBC website. Can we take it as gospel? Edit- see Peter’s comment.....

[Gerard C]

Fully agree with you, Mike. Together with the quality the paid prices include transportation to a foreign country. And the quality is really good…

[delta]

Just stopped on way to Dijon for race car fuel abs diesel . Pumps are marked up supreme 98 and the 98ron . Even I can work it out . Diesel and Gazole . Can’t find any croissants . 😂