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How long before the LAB lead is in single figures? – politicalbetting.com

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  • algarkirkalgarkirk Posts: 12,497
    Dialup said:

    It seems to me that the people who would always vote Tory anyway think Sunak is good.

    But is there anyone who has swapped from Labour back to Tory because of him? Anyone?

    Not me. Sunak OK, but the party tainted and needs time in opposition to work out what it means to be Conservative, and let us into the secret.

    What, at this moment, is best for the country is Tories being in opposition and a fresh government looking at the post-Brexit, post- Trump, post-European peace world. The rest follows from this.

    The only way I would reverse ferret back to the Tories will be if Labour is worse than them in egregious ways. Abbott and co are trying to achieve this, but not yet succeeded.

    The polls suggest that I am boringly typical of a few million voters.

  • TazTaz Posts: 14,385
    geoffw said:

    Would a Kılıçdaroğlu victory ease Sweden's path into NATO?

    Will Erdogan accept defeat ?
  • Nigel_ForemainNigel_Foremain Posts: 14,310
    kinabalu said:

    algarkirk said:

    darkage said:

    It was only a few days ago that labour officials were 'reacting with glee' to their (rather pathetic) personal attacks on Sunak; I think Sunak is looking a lot slicker and more professional and is so undoing a lot of the harm that arose through Boris Johnson's divisive political style and personal attacks.

    I'm a Sunak fan. And he is significantly better as an operator than either of his predecessors. His problem remains delivery. In that he created 5 priorities, insisted they are everyone's priorities when that obviously isn't true, and then screwed up delivery of them.

    HY said he would do well in the debates - does being taken apart because you promised stuff you haven't delivered work for late polling surges?
    I think there is a 20% chance that Sunak will be PM after the next election. The big issue is that the swing voters are accepting of Sunak but not of the Tory party. So it depends which prevails. This partly depends on labour of course. The several million Tory votes he needs can be put off by a leader (Jezza perhaps) and also by the party (the twenty or so MPs who can lose it for Labour by being the people they are).

    Sunak can't deliver the party. They are just tainted. SKS intends to deliver leader+ party to the disaffected Tory voters. If he does I think he will be next PM.

    Scotland (barring a Tory miracle) makes little difference to next PM. There has to be one. The SNP will not enable a Tory PM. By default it will enable a Labour one.
    Up from 10%, heading to 30%.....
    I haven't voted Tory in the last two GEs. I like Sunak and will vote Tory at the next one because I am fearful of a Labour Majority even though I quite like Starmer. Whether I am representative of other Tory "returners" I am not sure.
    How was your brief stay at the Right Side Of History motel?

    It was nice having you. Perhaps see you again one day.
    As a centrist yourself you should be pleased that centrists such as myself are helping to return the Conservative Party to sanity in the same way I was pleased for Labour when they elected Starmer.

    Joking aside, @kinabalu , did you consider yourself to be on the right side of history when a load of antisemites and communists held sway in the Labour Party, or did you just hold your nose and still tribally vote for them anyway?
  • Luckyguy1983Luckyguy1983 Posts: 28,432

    I saw a good article on Covid origins this morning and it was actually in the Spectator (it had been recommended on my Google feed). It was one where they ignored the “Lab Leak!” stuff and actually homed in on the real concerns.

    Which are China’s ongoing secrecy about their failure to act on live-animal markets (which were highlighted years ago as by far the biggest risk for zoonotic spillovers of viruses in general and coronaviruses in particular), and the way that the international community tiptoes around that.

    China have been desperately trying to “prove” that covid came from outside of China and just happened to super-spread out from the Huanan Seafood market, brought in by a foreigner who happened to come to a fish market where there were no live animals for sale, nope, we’ve stopped that, it doesn’t happen any more, honest.

    Which is why they deleted the samples taken from the market and hid any evidence about it.
    Coronaviruses in bats are mutating and evolving faster than ever due to them being pushed out of their historic habitats and mingling more.

    People who live in the backwoods area near them get thousands of spillovers per year, with as many as 12% of them found with SARS-like antibodies between 2017-2019 due to previous spillovers that never got past them and superspread out.

    And ferrying in animals who live near them and happen to provide the perfect intermediary route to allow these viruses the opportunity to mutate into a state where they can readily spillover into humans and selling them in busy live-animal markets, exposing tens of thousands of people for prolonged period to allow multiple spillovers in super-spreading conditions provide the dry tinder to allow one of those tens of thousands of sparks to catch fire into a new pandemic.

    Why do they tiptoe around it? Is it fear of China’s authoritarian rulers and their reaction? Is it concern over criticizing a cultural practice? China know they need to stop these live-animal markets. We WILL have another pandemic. SARS-CoV-3. SARS-CoV-4. God knows when, but we’re getting more spillovers every year and faster mutation in the bat sources, so unless this gets stopped, it won’t be a very long time.

    That’s the real story. That’s the true fear. Hats off to the Speccie for actually bringing it out.

    No it isn't. Please don't embarrass yourself and insult everyone else's intelligence by pretending it is.
  • geoffwgeoffw Posts: 8,717

    Interesting food inflation figures

    Food price inflation, March 2023:

    Hungary 44.8%
    Slovakia 28.2%
    Lithuania 27.6%
    Latvia 24.1%
    Poland 24.0%
    Czech Republic 23.5%
    Romania 21.6%
    Germany 21.2%
    Bulgaria 21.0%
    Sweden 19.7%
    Portugal 19.6%
    EU (overall) 19.2% ⬅️
    UK 19.1%⬅️
    Netherlands 17.8%
    Spain 16.5%
    France 15.9%
    Italy 13.2%

    Source: TradingEconomics
    6:41 AM · Apr 24, 2023

    What the bloody hell is going on in Hungary?
    Goulash gouging....
    so less gorging

  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 53,817

    Interesting food inflation figures

    Food price inflation, March 2023:

    Hungary 44.8%
    Slovakia 28.2%
    Lithuania 27.6%
    Latvia 24.1%
    Poland 24.0%
    Czech Republic 23.5%
    Romania 21.6%
    Germany 21.2%
    Bulgaria 21.0%
    Sweden 19.7%
    Portugal 19.6%
    EU (overall) 19.2% ⬅️
    UK 19.1%⬅️
    Netherlands 17.8%
    Spain 16.5%
    France 15.9%
    Italy 13.2%

    Source: TradingEconomics
    6:41 AM · Apr 24, 2023

    It is obvious that our high food prices are being caused by Brexit. You only have to look at the EU average and our figure to see what an incredible price we are pay... as you were.
  • viewcodeviewcode Posts: 22,075
    kinabalu said:

    Perhaps that's what is going to solve our biggest challenges as we look to find our place in this rapidly changing world. Grinning.

    • Edmund: ...I’m not sure...mindless optimism is going to contribute much to the proceedings.
    • George: Well, that’s a shame, sir, because I was planning on playing the mindless optimism card very strongly.
    • Edmund: I beg your pardon?
    • George: Yes, I’ve already planned my closing address based on that very thing. Oh, go on, let him off, your honour, please! It’s a lovely day. Pretty clouds, trees, birds, etc. I rest my case.
    https://blackadderquotes.com/blackadder-series-4-episode-2-corporal-punishment-full-script
  • SlackbladderSlackbladder Posts: 9,773

    rcs1000 said:

    Nigelb said:

    Some interesting numbers here.

    VW Group's Canadian Cell Plant Will Have An Annual Output Of 90 GWh
    https://insideevs.com/news/663774/vw-group-canadian-cell-plant-annual-output-90-gwh/
    Volkswagen Group has released more details about its planned battery cell gigafactory in Canada, which will be the company's largest to date in the world and the country's largest manufacturing plant.

    Set to be located in St. Thomas, Ontario and operated by the automaker's PowerCo SE battery subsidiary, the battery plant will have an annual production capacity of up to 90 GWh in the final expansion phase.

    For comparison's sake, VW Group's battery gigafactory near Valencia, Spain, will have an annual output of 60 GWh when fully ramped, while the facility in Salzgitter, Germany will produce 40 GWh worth of battery cells each year.

    The German automaker plans to invest up to $5.3 billion (4.8 billion euros) until 2030 in the Canadian facility that has the potential to create up to 3,000 highly skilled jobs at the factory and tens of thousands more indirect jobs in the region. The company will receive a lot more money from the Canadian federal government, though.

    According to The Detroit News, Canada agreed to subsidies that may top $9.7 billion (13 billion Canadian dollars) over a decade, matching what VW would have got via the Inflation Reduction Act if it had located the plant in the US. The government will provide annual production subsidies as well as a grant toward the factory's capital cost...


    Production planned from 2027.
    90GWh is around 1.2m cars with 75kWh - so a decade's production of perhaps 10m, allowing for ramp up of production.
    So a battery subsidy of around $1,000 per car, which isn't ridiculous in order to get serious production up and running.

    I have a strange feeling that this whole everyone is going to have an electric car idea is not going to happen. We should be seeing electric chargers being installed everywhere on a mass scale now and it is simply not happening.

    The depreciation in value of electric vehicles is accelerating all the time

    Perhaps synthetic fuels are the future

    Massively lower fuel and maintenance costs.
    More internal space.
    Better performance.

    When the price of electric cars falls below that of ICE vehicles, then there will be very few purchasers of petrol vehicles.
    If NerysHughes is right about depreciation, then second-hand electric cars should already be comparable with ICE cars. Perhaps it is not just price.
    It'll more come down to the access to charging.

    EV will work brilliantly for the middle classes with access to chargers on driveways.

    Those which rely on on road parking, or no parking, or those with flats will have a much harder time.
  • FF43FF43 Posts: 17,208

    darkage said:

    It was only a few days ago that labour officials were 'reacting with glee' to their (rather pathetic) personal attacks on Sunak; I think Sunak is looking a lot slicker and more professional and is so undoing a lot of the harm that arose through Boris Johnson's divisive political style and personal attacks.

    I'm a Sunak fan. And he is significantly better as an operator than either of his predecessors. His problem remains delivery. In that he created 5 priorities, insisted they are everyone's priorities when that obviously isn't true, and then screwed up delivery of them.

    HY said he would do well in the debates - does being taken apart because you promised stuff you haven't delivered work for late polling surges?
    I actually agree with @HYUFD as I think Starmer will struggle against him
    I'm with @Luckyguy1983 on this. Sunak wasn't able to persuade his party to ignore the Siren Call of Truss last summer, which is one reason they're in the mess they are now (OK, I admit that LG probably doesn't agree with that bit).

    Sunak's background is finance, where the numbers do the persuasion for him. Nothing wrong with thinking in numbers, it's what I instinctively do. But when it comes to persuading lay neutrals of a case, Starmer is more effective because law means he has done it more for longer.
    The difference is Sunak is optimistic and positive. whereas Starmer is all negative and doom and gloom and wholly uninspiring
    Sunak and Starmer are broadly level in public perceptions. Actually Sunak is a bit behind Starmer but has improved a bit in recent weeks. If I were to sum up, people aren't enthused by either. A big improvement from Johnson and Truss however. In general Labour are ahead by a big margin.
  • TheWhiteRabbitTheWhiteRabbit Posts: 12,454
    edited April 2023

    Andy_JS said:

    Starmer has just said on Sky Abbotts comments were anti semitic

    The journalist came back that that admittance means she cannot stand for labour

    Starmer struggling with response

    Should one mistake end her parliamentary career? Seems a bit harsh.
    One mistake??????????
    Depends how bad the mistake is.

    Abbott's mistake over the weekend was an absolute doozy, and her excuse pretty feeble.
    The "it was just the first draft" only made matters worse.....

    The reality is that it is exactly how a particular subset of politicians (and some of the public) see the world, the black / white Corbyn view that there are oppressors, who can't suffer things like racism, and oppressed who get a pass for bad things like being racist, anti-Semitic, etc...and because Jews / Israel are stereotyped as successful, they aren't part of the oppressed class and then you get the Corbyn-esque blind spot to the fact they suffer discrimination.
    The "first draft" excuse to me sounded like basically an admission that the letter, as published, contained her authentic views.

    It is like having too much to drink, and waking up in the morning trying to write off having spoken your mind as "but I was drunk". It just means "I meant what I said, I'd just rather not have said it."
  • Nigel_ForemainNigel_Foremain Posts: 14,310
    edited April 2023

    Interesting food inflation figures

    Food price inflation, March 2023:

    Hungary 44.8%
    Slovakia 28.2%
    Lithuania 27.6%
    Latvia 24.1%
    Poland 24.0%
    Czech Republic 23.5%
    Romania 21.6%
    Germany 21.2%
    Bulgaria 21.0%
    Sweden 19.7%
    Portugal 19.6%
    EU (overall) 19.2% ⬅️
    UK 19.1%⬅️
    Netherlands 17.8%
    Spain 16.5%
    France 15.9%
    Italy 13.2%

    Source: TradingEconomics
    6:41 AM · Apr 24, 2023

    What the bloody hell is going on in Hungary?
    Their food prices are making them hungary
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 71,070
    Dura_Ace said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Nigelb said:

    Some interesting numbers here.

    VW Group's Canadian Cell Plant Will Have An Annual Output Of 90 GWh
    https://insideevs.com/news/663774/vw-group-canadian-cell-plant-annual-output-90-gwh/
    Volkswagen Group has released more details about its planned battery cell gigafactory in Canada, which will be the company's largest to date in the world and the country's largest manufacturing plant.

    Set to be located in St. Thomas, Ontario and operated by the automaker's PowerCo SE battery subsidiary, the battery plant will have an annual production capacity of up to 90 GWh in the final expansion phase.

    For comparison's sake, VW Group's battery gigafactory near Valencia, Spain, will have an annual output of 60 GWh when fully ramped, while the facility in Salzgitter, Germany will produce 40 GWh worth of battery cells each year.

    The German automaker plans to invest up to $5.3 billion (4.8 billion euros) until 2030 in the Canadian facility that has the potential to create up to 3,000 highly skilled jobs at the factory and tens of thousands more indirect jobs in the region. The company will receive a lot more money from the Canadian federal government, though.

    According to The Detroit News, Canada agreed to subsidies that may top $9.7 billion (13 billion Canadian dollars) over a decade, matching what VW would have got via the Inflation Reduction Act if it had located the plant in the US. The government will provide annual production subsidies as well as a grant toward the factory's capital cost...


    Production planned from 2027.
    90GWh is around 1.2m cars with 75kWh - so a decade's production of perhaps 10m, allowing for ramp up of production.
    So a battery subsidy of around $1,000 per car, which isn't ridiculous in order to get serious production up and running.

    I have a strange feeling that this whole everyone is going to have an electric car idea is not going to happen. We should be seeing electric chargers being installed everywhere on a mass scale now and it is simply not happening.

    The depreciation in value of electric vehicles is accelerating all the time

    Perhaps synthetic fuels are the future

    Massively lower fuel and maintenance costs.
    More internal space.
    Better performance.

    When the price of electric cars falls below that of ICE vehicles, then there will be very few purchasers of petrol vehicles.
    If NerysHughes is right about depreciation, then second-hand electric cars should already be comparable with ICE cars. Perhaps it is not just price.
    Three out of the ten slowest depreciating cars in the UK are BEV - Taycan, ID.Buzz and MG4 EV (that last one fucking amazes me)

    None out of the ten fastest depreciating cars in are BEV.
    Until the massive battery factories planned and under construction start to come online, that's unlikely to change. Demand exceeds supply, even at current high prices.

    Once volume really ramps up, we'll probably start to see cheaper models built for the mass market, which don't really exist as a category in the west yet. The MG is Chinese, and there's much cheaper kit available on their market.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 54,585
    Andy_JS said:

    Starmer has just said on Sky Abbotts comments were anti semitic

    The journalist came back that that admittance means she cannot stand for labour

    Starmer struggling with response

    Should one mistake end her parliamentary career? Seems a bit harsh.
    If it were the first time she’d come out with something blatantly racist, then perhaps so. This isn’t the first time though, she has been making similar comments for years.

    She thinks that racism is only ever a problem when white people attack black people, and that any other racism is perfectly fine.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 28,368

    I love how the Starmer haters think an eminent KC and former DPP is scared of debates, particularly against someone who lost to Liz Truss in the debates.

    Comedy gold.

    I would just comment I for one do not hate Starmer, but many would question just how eminent he is as a KC and former DPP, who had a far from stellar reputation in that role

    Of course he is not scared of debates, just Sunak will be a genuine adversary in them
    When debates were "grown up" Sunak was generally trounced by Starmer, until Sunak discovered the Johnsonian taunt. Starmer does struggle to deal with sometimes untruthful slurs from Sunak. When he had to justifiably call out Sunak at last week's PMQs by defending his own record as DPP it meant he had already lost.

    And, Sunak is much better at Beanoesque name calling.
  • FF43FF43 Posts: 17,208

    Interesting food inflation figures

    Food price inflation, March 2023:

    Hungary 44.8%
    Slovakia 28.2%
    Lithuania 27.6%
    Latvia 24.1%
    Poland 24.0%
    Czech Republic 23.5%
    Romania 21.6%
    Germany 21.2%
    Bulgaria 21.0%
    Sweden 19.7%
    Portugal 19.6%
    EU (overall) 19.2% ⬅️
    UK 19.1%⬅️
    Netherlands 17.8%
    Spain 16.5%
    France 15.9%
    Italy 13.2%

    Source: TradingEconomics
    6:41 AM · Apr 24, 2023

    What the bloody hell is going on in Hungary?
    Looks like the closer you are to Ukraine the higher the food inflation rate.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 71,070
    Interesting.
    China walks back ambassador’s remarks on sovereignty of post-Soviet states, as EU foreign ministers debate "recalibrating" the bloc's attitude towards Beijing
    https://twitter.com/HenryJFoy/status/1650460326574317568
  • TheWhiteRabbitTheWhiteRabbit Posts: 12,454
    edited April 2023
    FF43 said:

    Interesting food inflation figures

    Food price inflation, March 2023:

    Hungary 44.8%
    Slovakia 28.2%
    Lithuania 27.6%
    Latvia 24.1%
    Poland 24.0%
    Czech Republic 23.5%
    Romania 21.6%
    Germany 21.2%
    Bulgaria 21.0%
    Sweden 19.7%
    Portugal 19.6%
    EU (overall) 19.2% ⬅️
    UK 19.1%⬅️
    Netherlands 17.8%
    Spain 16.5%
    France 15.9%
    Italy 13.2%

    Source: TradingEconomics
    6:41 AM · Apr 24, 2023

    What the bloody hell is going on in Hungary?
    Looks like the closer you are to Ukraine the higher the food inflation rate.
    Well Hungary is pretty straightforward:
    1. Insufficient/ineffective local production; plus
    2. A devaluation in the forint.

    The latter has reversed now but clearly the consequences are still being felt.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 81,997
    FF43 said:

    Interesting food inflation figures

    Food price inflation, March 2023:

    Hungary 44.8%
    Slovakia 28.2%
    Lithuania 27.6%
    Latvia 24.1%
    Poland 24.0%
    Czech Republic 23.5%
    Romania 21.6%
    Germany 21.2%
    Bulgaria 21.0%
    Sweden 19.7%
    Portugal 19.6%
    EU (overall) 19.2% ⬅️
    UK 19.1%⬅️
    Netherlands 17.8%
    Spain 16.5%
    France 15.9%
    Italy 13.2%

    Source: TradingEconomics
    6:41 AM · Apr 24, 2023

    What the bloody hell is going on in Hungary?
    Looks like the closer you are to Ukraine the higher the food inflation rate.
    Apparently its kinda of the opposite,

    The European Commission has rejected bans introduced by Poland and Hungary on Ukrainian grain imports.

    The two countries said the measures were necessary to protect their farming sectors from cheap imports.

    The ban applies to grains, dairy products, sugar, fruit, vegetables and meats and will be in force until the end of June.

    Most Ukrainian grain is exported via the Black Sea, but Russia's invasion last year disrupted export routes and resulted in large quantities of the grain ending up in central Europe.

    https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-65292698
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 17,405

    rcs1000 said:

    Nigelb said:

    Some interesting numbers here.

    VW Group's Canadian Cell Plant Will Have An Annual Output Of 90 GWh
    https://insideevs.com/news/663774/vw-group-canadian-cell-plant-annual-output-90-gwh/
    Volkswagen Group has released more details about its planned battery cell gigafactory in Canada, which will be the company's largest to date in the world and the country's largest manufacturing plant.

    Set to be located in St. Thomas, Ontario and operated by the automaker's PowerCo SE battery subsidiary, the battery plant will have an annual production capacity of up to 90 GWh in the final expansion phase.

    For comparison's sake, VW Group's battery gigafactory near Valencia, Spain, will have an annual output of 60 GWh when fully ramped, while the facility in Salzgitter, Germany will produce 40 GWh worth of battery cells each year.

    The German automaker plans to invest up to $5.3 billion (4.8 billion euros) until 2030 in the Canadian facility that has the potential to create up to 3,000 highly skilled jobs at the factory and tens of thousands more indirect jobs in the region. The company will receive a lot more money from the Canadian federal government, though.

    According to The Detroit News, Canada agreed to subsidies that may top $9.7 billion (13 billion Canadian dollars) over a decade, matching what VW would have got via the Inflation Reduction Act if it had located the plant in the US. The government will provide annual production subsidies as well as a grant toward the factory's capital cost...


    Production planned from 2027.
    90GWh is around 1.2m cars with 75kWh - so a decade's production of perhaps 10m, allowing for ramp up of production.
    So a battery subsidy of around $1,000 per car, which isn't ridiculous in order to get serious production up and running.

    I have a strange feeling that this whole everyone is going to have an electric car idea is not going to happen. We should be seeing electric chargers being installed everywhere on a mass scale now and it is simply not happening.

    The depreciation in value of electric vehicles is accelerating all the time

    Perhaps synthetic fuels are the future

    Massively lower fuel and maintenance costs.
    More internal space.
    Better performance.

    When the price of electric cars falls below that of ICE vehicles, then there will be very few purchasers of petrol vehicles.
    If NerysHughes is right about depreciation, then second-hand electric cars should already be comparable with ICE cars. Perhaps it is not just price.
    It'll more come down to the access to charging.

    EV will work brilliantly for the middle classes with access to chargers on driveways.

    Those which rely on on road parking, or no parking, or those with flats will have a much harder time.
    One of my neighbours has exactly this issue. He has a Tesla from work, but lives in a flat. He now drives to a charging location and watched netflix for an hour before work. Hates it, and wants to go back to a petrol/diesel.
  • SelebianSelebian Posts: 8,727

    Nigelb said:

    Nigelb said:

    Some interesting numbers here.

    VW Group's Canadian Cell Plant Will Have An Annual Output Of 90 GWh
    https://insideevs.com/news/663774/vw-group-canadian-cell-plant-annual-output-90-gwh/
    Volkswagen Group has released more details about its planned battery cell gigafactory in Canada, which will be the company's largest to date in the world and the country's largest manufacturing plant.

    Set to be located in St. Thomas, Ontario and operated by the automaker's PowerCo SE battery subsidiary, the battery plant will have an annual production capacity of up to 90 GWh in the final expansion phase.

    For comparison's sake, VW Group's battery gigafactory near Valencia, Spain, will have an annual output of 60 GWh when fully ramped, while the facility in Salzgitter, Germany will produce 40 GWh worth of battery cells each year.

    The German automaker plans to invest up to $5.3 billion (4.8 billion euros) until 2030 in the Canadian facility that has the potential to create up to 3,000 highly skilled jobs at the factory and tens of thousands more indirect jobs in the region. The company will receive a lot more money from the Canadian federal government, though.

    According to The Detroit News, Canada agreed to subsidies that may top $9.7 billion (13 billion Canadian dollars) over a decade, matching what VW would have got via the Inflation Reduction Act if it had located the plant in the US. The government will provide annual production subsidies as well as a grant toward the factory's capital cost...


    Production planned from 2027.
    90GWh is around 1.2m cars with 75kWh - so a decade's production of perhaps 10m, allowing for ramp up of production.
    So a battery subsidy of around $1,000 per car, which isn't ridiculous in order to get serious production up and running.

    I have a strange feeling that this whole everyone is going to have an electric car idea is not going to happen. We should be seeing electric chargers being installed everywhere on a mass scale now and it is simply not happening.

    The depreciation in value of electric vehicles is accelerating all the time

    Perhaps synthetic fuels are the future

    I am pretty certain that you're wrong.
    Let's see which of us is correct in five years' time.
    I agree Im likely to be, I am just astonished at the lack of urgency to upgrade the electricity network and install EV chargers, I work for an electrical contractor and EV chargers are not being included on electric upgrades to Local Authority Buildings etc.We have installed a total of 9 EV chargers in the past 5 years.

    When LED lights came out that was all we did, change flourescents for LEDs, nobody seems interested in EV chargers.
    On that specific example, installing LED lamps led to calculable, direct savings for councils/other installers over x years, so easy enough to get someone to sign it off.

    Installing chargers has limited direct calculable benefit* to the installer, at least for councils. You do see them in supermarket car parks now, where the direct benefit is that if you don't have them and your competitor does then your EV driver without home charging** will likely go there.

    They will pop up where there is demand. Most services have quite a few now, because if they don't then they'll lose those customers (and that's not sensitive to availability of home charging). But it probably needs proper central government support with funding.

    * obvious benefits in terms of air quality in area, even if you are only enabling PHEV drivers to drive electric around town, but hard to put that on the balance sheet in a way that affects council budgets (many years from now and the NHS picks up much of that direct cost anyway)
    ** probably a minority for now anyway - if you have home charging you're less fussed about local charging infrastructure and I'd expect - outside of London at least, EV ownership may well skew to those with home chargers.
  • MoonRabbitMoonRabbit Posts: 13,504
    WillG said:

    darkage said:

    It was only a few days ago that labour officials were 'reacting with glee' to their (rather pathetic) personal attacks on Sunak; I think Sunak is looking a lot slicker and more professional and is so undoing a lot of the harm that arose through Boris Johnson's divisive political style and personal attacks.

    I'm a Sunak fan. And he is significantly better as an operator than either of his predecessors. His problem remains delivery. In that he created 5 priorities, insisted they are everyone's priorities when that obviously isn't true, and then screwed up delivery of them.

    HY said he would do well in the debates - does being taken apart because you promised stuff you haven't delivered work for late polling surges?
    I actually agree with @HYUFD as I think Starmer will struggle against him
    I'm with @Luckyguy1983 on this. Sunak wasn't able to persuade his party to ignore the Siren Call of Truss last summer, which is one reason they're in the mess they are now (OK, I admit that LG probably doesn't agree with that bit).

    Sunak's background is finance, where the numbers do the persuasion for him. Nothing wrong with thinking in numbers, it's what I instinctively do. But when it comes to persuading lay neutrals of a case, Starmer is more effective because law means he has done it more for longer.
    The difference is Sunak is optimistic and positive. whereas Starmer is all negative and doom and gloom and wholly uninspiring
    And that's the million dollar question.

    By next autumn, life for Mr, Mrs, Mx, Dr etc Average will either be noticeably better or it won't.

    If it is, then game on, sure. The recent improvement in Conservative standing started when Sunak had a run of policy wins- Windsor, nurses' pay, new boats plan.

    If not, and some of the wins are already unraveling, then Sunak's sunny optimism is just going to annoy people.
    The wins aren't unravelling at all. Windsor was such a comprehensive win, all the PBers telling us the negative elements would come out in time have quickly moved on. On top of this, he added the major success of CPTPP accession.

    In terms of dangers, the boats policy was good, but he needs to follow it up with further immigration policy reforms to make sure the actual impact goes through. If I were him, I would replace Braverman with May to have someone who has actually delivered in this area. Then he needs to avoid stupid help the rich policies like inheritance tax reductions.
    “all the PBers telling us the negative elements would come out in time have quickly moved on”

    Wrong again Will. I’m not moving on, the negative elements of Windsor will become clearer over time. Firstly, what was the point of striking a deal that didn’t restore Stormont? The deal should have been the leverage to solve that problem, unless you think the lack of democratic assembly is no problem at all and isn’t playing into the hands of SF with each passing minute? Secondly the problem elements with Windsor was always what will happen over time now we have handed EU the power to move NI further away from mainland Brexit and closer to the Republics EU membership, or EU unilaterally junk Windsor if not getting their way on doing that. Quite a lot was conceded for no very little gain is how history will know this deal.

    “the boats policy was good, but he needs to follow it up with further immigration policy reforms to make sure the actual impact goes through.”
    What do you actually mean by further immigration policy to make sure impact of the boats promise goes through? What are you opaquely referring to?
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 28,368

    Andy_JS said:

    Starmer has just said on Sky Abbotts comments were anti semitic

    The journalist came back that that admittance means she cannot stand for labour

    Starmer struggling with response

    Should one mistake end her parliamentary career? Seems a bit harsh.
    No bigger a mistake on anti-semitism than Starmer sitting in Corbyn's Shadow Cabinet for three years....
    Is this post timed to go off at 12.30 everyday, irrespective of where in the world you are? Can you teach me how its done?
  • SelebianSelebian Posts: 8,727

    rcs1000 said:

    Nigelb said:

    Some interesting numbers here.

    VW Group's Canadian Cell Plant Will Have An Annual Output Of 90 GWh
    https://insideevs.com/news/663774/vw-group-canadian-cell-plant-annual-output-90-gwh/
    Volkswagen Group has released more details about its planned battery cell gigafactory in Canada, which will be the company's largest to date in the world and the country's largest manufacturing plant.

    Set to be located in St. Thomas, Ontario and operated by the automaker's PowerCo SE battery subsidiary, the battery plant will have an annual production capacity of up to 90 GWh in the final expansion phase.

    For comparison's sake, VW Group's battery gigafactory near Valencia, Spain, will have an annual output of 60 GWh when fully ramped, while the facility in Salzgitter, Germany will produce 40 GWh worth of battery cells each year.

    The German automaker plans to invest up to $5.3 billion (4.8 billion euros) until 2030 in the Canadian facility that has the potential to create up to 3,000 highly skilled jobs at the factory and tens of thousands more indirect jobs in the region. The company will receive a lot more money from the Canadian federal government, though.

    According to The Detroit News, Canada agreed to subsidies that may top $9.7 billion (13 billion Canadian dollars) over a decade, matching what VW would have got via the Inflation Reduction Act if it had located the plant in the US. The government will provide annual production subsidies as well as a grant toward the factory's capital cost...


    Production planned from 2027.
    90GWh is around 1.2m cars with 75kWh - so a decade's production of perhaps 10m, allowing for ramp up of production.
    So a battery subsidy of around $1,000 per car, which isn't ridiculous in order to get serious production up and running.

    I have a strange feeling that this whole everyone is going to have an electric car idea is not going to happen. We should be seeing electric chargers being installed everywhere on a mass scale now and it is simply not happening.

    The depreciation in value of electric vehicles is accelerating all the time

    Perhaps synthetic fuels are the future

    Massively lower fuel and maintenance costs.
    More internal space.
    Better performance.

    When the price of electric cars falls below that of ICE vehicles, then there will be very few purchasers of petrol vehicles.
    If NerysHughes is right about depreciation, then second-hand electric cars should already be comparable with ICE cars. Perhaps it is not just price.
    It'll more come down to the access to charging.

    EV will work brilliantly for the middle classes with access to chargers on driveways.

    Those which rely on on road parking, or no parking, or those with flats will have a much harder time.
    One of my neighbours has exactly this issue. He has a Tesla from work, but lives in a flat. He now drives to a charging location and watched netflix for an hour before work. Hates it, and wants to go back to a petrol/diesel.
    The employer provides company Tesla but provides no charging infrastructure? Ok, it may be city centre and not have their own car park, but he parks somewhere. You'd think the employer would find and pay for a local charger and urge parking there.
  • FF43FF43 Posts: 17,208

    FF43 said:

    Interesting food inflation figures

    Food price inflation, March 2023:

    Hungary 44.8%
    Slovakia 28.2%
    Lithuania 27.6%
    Latvia 24.1%
    Poland 24.0%
    Czech Republic 23.5%
    Romania 21.6%
    Germany 21.2%
    Bulgaria 21.0%
    Sweden 19.7%
    Portugal 19.6%
    EU (overall) 19.2% ⬅️
    UK 19.1%⬅️
    Netherlands 17.8%
    Spain 16.5%
    France 15.9%
    Italy 13.2%

    Source: TradingEconomics
    6:41 AM · Apr 24, 2023

    What the bloody hell is going on in Hungary?
    Looks like the closer you are to Ukraine the higher the food inflation rate.
    Apparently its kinda of the opposite,

    The European Commission has rejected bans introduced by Poland and Hungary on Ukrainian grain imports.

    The two countries said the measures were necessary to protect their farming sectors from cheap imports.

    The ban applies to grains, dairy products, sugar, fruit, vegetables and meats and will be in force until the end of June.

    Most Ukrainian grain is exported via the Black Sea, but Russia's invasion last year disrupted export routes and resulted in large quantities of the grain ending up in central Europe.

    https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-65292698
    Those bans are maybe causing shortages and inflation?
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 54,585

    rcs1000 said:

    Nigelb said:

    Some interesting numbers here.

    VW Group's Canadian Cell Plant Will Have An Annual Output Of 90 GWh
    https://insideevs.com/news/663774/vw-group-canadian-cell-plant-annual-output-90-gwh/
    Volkswagen Group has released more details about its planned battery cell gigafactory in Canada, which will be the company's largest to date in the world and the country's largest manufacturing plant.

    Set to be located in St. Thomas, Ontario and operated by the automaker's PowerCo SE battery subsidiary, the battery plant will have an annual production capacity of up to 90 GWh in the final expansion phase.

    For comparison's sake, VW Group's battery gigafactory near Valencia, Spain, will have an annual output of 60 GWh when fully ramped, while the facility in Salzgitter, Germany will produce 40 GWh worth of battery cells each year.

    The German automaker plans to invest up to $5.3 billion (4.8 billion euros) until 2030 in the Canadian facility that has the potential to create up to 3,000 highly skilled jobs at the factory and tens of thousands more indirect jobs in the region. The company will receive a lot more money from the Canadian federal government, though.

    According to The Detroit News, Canada agreed to subsidies that may top $9.7 billion (13 billion Canadian dollars) over a decade, matching what VW would have got via the Inflation Reduction Act if it had located the plant in the US. The government will provide annual production subsidies as well as a grant toward the factory's capital cost...


    Production planned from 2027.
    90GWh is around 1.2m cars with 75kWh - so a decade's production of perhaps 10m, allowing for ramp up of production.
    So a battery subsidy of around $1,000 per car, which isn't ridiculous in order to get serious production up and running.

    I have a strange feeling that this whole everyone is going to have an electric car idea is not going to happen. We should be seeing electric chargers being installed everywhere on a mass scale now and it is simply not happening.

    The depreciation in value of electric vehicles is accelerating all the time

    Perhaps synthetic fuels are the future

    Massively lower fuel and maintenance costs.
    More internal space.
    Better performance.

    When the price of electric cars falls below that of ICE vehicles, then there will be very few purchasers of petrol vehicles.
    If NerysHughes is right about depreciation, then second-hand electric cars should already be comparable with ICE cars. Perhaps it is not just price.
    It'll more come down to the access to charging.

    EV will work brilliantly for the middle classes with access to chargers on driveways.

    Those which rely on on road parking, or no parking, or those with flats will have a much harder time.
    Those reliant on public chargers will also pay considerably more for their electrons, than people who can plug in at home overnight on domestic off-peak tarrifs.
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 35,990
    The reluctance of public bodies to invest in electric vehicle charging infrastructure might well be attributed to the "bionic duckweed" phenomenon noted by Roger Ford (linked upthread)

    Why install chargers if the future is instead hydrogen (or something else) ?
  • TheWhiteRabbitTheWhiteRabbit Posts: 12,454
    edited April 2023
    UK public charging points were up 30% last year to 36,000. Looks likely to be similar this year, up to 47,000. I believe this isn't quite enough to meet the government's ambition, but it surely is enough to avoid a white elephant.

    This was split between all different speeds pretty evenly. I definitely think this is a bigger issue, as is reliability of charging points (particularly fast ones). The top end is very, very, impressive, with charging times less than the time it pops in to grab a coffee or go to the loo. But that experience isn't universal.
  • Nigel_ForemainNigel_Foremain Posts: 14,310
    Sandpit said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Starmer has just said on Sky Abbotts comments were anti semitic

    The journalist came back that that admittance means she cannot stand for labour

    Starmer struggling with response

    Should one mistake end her parliamentary career? Seems a bit harsh.
    If it were the first time she’d come out with something blatantly racist, then perhaps so. This isn’t the first time though, she has been making similar comments for years.

    She thinks that racism is only ever a problem when white people attack black people, and that any other racism is perfectly fine.
    I suspect that what she was trying to say is that black people/ people of colour deal with racism every day, when other minorities do not. The lack of sensitivity to Jewish people who have the history of the holocaust was very dumb though, and for her to even "go there" given the recent problems in Labour with respect to antisemitism is astonishing in political terms. I imagine Starmer is delighted.
  • felixfelix Posts: 15,164
    Andy_JS said:

    Starmer has just said on Sky Abbotts comments were anti semitic

    The journalist came back that that admittance means she cannot stand for labour

    Starmer struggling with response

    Should one mistake end her parliamentary career? Seems a bit harsh.
    She has said much the same for .any years now.
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 53,817

    FF43 said:

    Interesting food inflation figures

    Food price inflation, March 2023:

    Hungary 44.8%
    Slovakia 28.2%
    Lithuania 27.6%
    Latvia 24.1%
    Poland 24.0%
    Czech Republic 23.5%
    Romania 21.6%
    Germany 21.2%
    Bulgaria 21.0%
    Sweden 19.7%
    Portugal 19.6%
    EU (overall) 19.2% ⬅️
    UK 19.1%⬅️
    Netherlands 17.8%
    Spain 16.5%
    France 15.9%
    Italy 13.2%

    Source: TradingEconomics
    6:41 AM · Apr 24, 2023

    What the bloody hell is going on in Hungary?
    Looks like the closer you are to Ukraine the higher the food inflation rate.
    Well Hungary is pretty straightforward:
    1. Insufficient/ineffective local production; plus
    2. A devaluation in the forint.

    The latter has reversed now but clearly the consequences are still being felt.
    I assumed the forint was responsible but its depreciation in the first 6 months of the last year was from 0.26E to 0.23E and, as you said, it has largely recovered. Don't think currency depreciation is driving this.
  • Big_G_NorthWalesBig_G_NorthWales Posts: 63,034
    edited April 2023
    John Rentoul

    Just 3½ years ago, Keir Starmer campaigned to make Diane Abbott home sec
  • kamskikamski Posts: 5,190
    Nigelb said:

    Interesting.
    China walks back ambassador’s remarks on sovereignty of post-Soviet states, as EU foreign ministers debate "recalibrating" the bloc's attitude towards Beijing
    https://twitter.com/HenryJFoy/status/1650460326574317568

    Probably the ambassador is an idiot. Always seemed an unlikely way to signal such a change in Chinese foreign policy.
  • TheWhiteRabbitTheWhiteRabbit Posts: 12,454
    DavidL said:

    FF43 said:

    Interesting food inflation figures

    Food price inflation, March 2023:

    Hungary 44.8%
    Slovakia 28.2%
    Lithuania 27.6%
    Latvia 24.1%
    Poland 24.0%
    Czech Republic 23.5%
    Romania 21.6%
    Germany 21.2%
    Bulgaria 21.0%
    Sweden 19.7%
    Portugal 19.6%
    EU (overall) 19.2% ⬅️
    UK 19.1%⬅️
    Netherlands 17.8%
    Spain 16.5%
    France 15.9%
    Italy 13.2%

    Source: TradingEconomics
    6:41 AM · Apr 24, 2023

    What the bloody hell is going on in Hungary?
    Looks like the closer you are to Ukraine the higher the food inflation rate.
    Well Hungary is pretty straightforward:
    1. Insufficient/ineffective local production; plus
    2. A devaluation in the forint.

    The latter has reversed now but clearly the consequences are still being felt.
    I assumed the forint was responsible but its depreciation in the first 6 months of the last year was from 0.26E to 0.23E and, as you said, it has largely recovered. Don't think currency depreciation is driving this.
    I was basically just aping:


    https://apnews.com/article/hungary-food-prices-inflation-cost-of-living-77aba09dcff4bc76a204b2ce776ab30c
  • felixfelix Posts: 15,164

    Interesting food inflation figures

    Food price inflation, March 2023:

    Hungary 44.8%
    Slovakia 28.2%
    Lithuania 27.6%
    Latvia 24.1%
    Poland 24.0%
    Czech Republic 23.5%
    Romania 21.6%
    Germany 21.2%
    Bulgaria 21.0%
    Sweden 19.7%
    Portugal 19.6%
    EU (overall) 19.2% ⬅️
    UK 19.1%⬅️
    Netherlands 17.8%
    Spain 16.5%
    France 15.9%
    Italy 13.2%

    Source: TradingEconomics
    6:41 AM · Apr 24, 2023

    I blame Brexit.
  • Nigel_ForemainNigel_Foremain Posts: 14,310

    John Rentoul

    Just 3½ years ago, Keir Starmer campaigned to make Diane Abbott home sec

    Even though I am not a Labour supporter I have to say that is a vacuous argument. The nature of our party system opens everyone up to similar accusations. eg: Just 3½ years ago, Rishi Sunak (et al) campaigned to make a fat lying incompetent our PM.
  • Luckyguy1983Luckyguy1983 Posts: 28,432
    edited April 2023

    WillG said:

    darkage said:

    It was only a few days ago that labour officials were 'reacting with glee' to their (rather pathetic) personal attacks on Sunak; I think Sunak is looking a lot slicker and more professional and is so undoing a lot of the harm that arose through Boris Johnson's divisive political style and personal attacks.

    I'm a Sunak fan. And he is significantly better as an operator than either of his predecessors. His problem remains delivery. In that he created 5 priorities, insisted they are everyone's priorities when that obviously isn't true, and then screwed up delivery of them.

    HY said he would do well in the debates - does being taken apart because you promised stuff you haven't delivered work for late polling surges?
    I actually agree with @HYUFD as I think Starmer will struggle against him
    I'm with @Luckyguy1983 on this. Sunak wasn't able to persuade his party to ignore the Siren Call of Truss last summer, which is one reason they're in the mess they are now (OK, I admit that LG probably doesn't agree with that bit).

    Sunak's background is finance, where the numbers do the persuasion for him. Nothing wrong with thinking in numbers, it's what I instinctively do. But when it comes to persuading lay neutrals of a case, Starmer is more effective because law means he has done it more for longer.
    The difference is Sunak is optimistic and positive. whereas Starmer is all negative and doom and gloom and wholly uninspiring
    And that's the million dollar question.

    By next autumn, life for Mr, Mrs, Mx, Dr etc Average will either be noticeably better or it won't.

    If it is, then game on, sure. The recent improvement in Conservative standing started when Sunak had a run of policy wins- Windsor, nurses' pay, new boats plan.

    If not, and some of the wins are already unraveling, then Sunak's sunny optimism is just going to annoy people.
    The wins aren't unravelling at all. Windsor was such a comprehensive win, all the PBers telling us the negative elements would come out in time have quickly moved on. On top of this, he added the major success of CPTPP accession.

    In terms of dangers, the boats policy was good, but he needs to follow it up with further immigration policy reforms to make sure the actual impact goes through. If I were him, I would replace Braverman with May to have someone who has actually delivered in this area. Then he needs to avoid stupid help the rich policies like inheritance tax reductions.
    “all the PBers telling us the negative elements would come out in time have quickly moved on”

    Wrong again Will. I’m not moving on, the negative elements of Windsor will become clearer over time. Firstly, what was the point of striking a deal that didn’t restore Stormont? The deal should have been the leverage to solve that problem, unless you think the lack of democratic assembly is no problem at all and isn’t playing into the hands of SF with each passing minute? Secondly the problem elements with Windsor was always what will happen over time now we have handed EU the power to move NI further away from mainland Brexit and closer to the Republics EU membership, or EU unilaterally junk Windsor if not getting their way on doing that. Quite a lot was conceded for no very little gain is how history will know this deal.

    “the boats policy was good, but he needs to follow it up with further immigration policy reforms to make sure the actual impact goes through.”
    What do you actually mean by further immigration policy to make sure impact of the boats promise goes through? What are you opaquely referring to?
    We owe the DUP a big debt of gratitude for standing up to bullying from everyone, the NI Secretary, Sunak, Biden, and even the Clintons, to hold on to their red lines. It is a spectacularly poor negotiated outcome for NI, when we genuinely did 'hold the cards' - at least a good portion of them. Sunak is weak. His weakness endangers our country.
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 21,298
    felix said:

    Interesting food inflation figures

    Food price inflation, March 2023:

    Hungary 44.8%
    Slovakia 28.2%
    Lithuania 27.6%
    Latvia 24.1%
    Poland 24.0%
    Czech Republic 23.5%
    Romania 21.6%
    Germany 21.2%
    Bulgaria 21.0%
    Sweden 19.7%
    Portugal 19.6%
    EU (overall) 19.2% ⬅️
    UK 19.1%⬅️
    Netherlands 17.8%
    Spain 16.5%
    France 15.9%
    Italy 13.2%

    Source: TradingEconomics
    6:41 AM · Apr 24, 2023

    I blame Brexit.
    Why is that list weighted heavily towards Eastern Europe? I suspect the original poster, a known troll, was trying to imply something.
  • felix said:

    Interesting food inflation figures

    Food price inflation, March 2023:

    Hungary 44.8%
    Slovakia 28.2%
    Lithuania 27.6%
    Latvia 24.1%
    Poland 24.0%
    Czech Republic 23.5%
    Romania 21.6%
    Germany 21.2%
    Bulgaria 21.0%
    Sweden 19.7%
    Portugal 19.6%
    EU (overall) 19.2% ⬅️
    UK 19.1%⬅️
    Netherlands 17.8%
    Spain 16.5%
    France 15.9%
    Italy 13.2%

    Source: TradingEconomics
    6:41 AM · Apr 24, 2023

    I blame Brexit.
    I would just say it is rare if ever BBC, Sky or other media outlets show this comparison which provides a true picture of just how food price inflation is ravaging Europe
  • TheWhiteRabbitTheWhiteRabbit Posts: 12,454

    Sandpit said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Starmer has just said on Sky Abbotts comments were anti semitic

    The journalist came back that that admittance means she cannot stand for labour

    Starmer struggling with response

    Should one mistake end her parliamentary career? Seems a bit harsh.
    If it were the first time she’d come out with something blatantly racist, then perhaps so. This isn’t the first time though, she has been making similar comments for years.

    She thinks that racism is only ever a problem when white people attack black people, and that any other racism is perfectly fine.
    I suspect that what she was trying to say is that black people/ people of colour deal with racism every day, when other minorities do not. The lack of sensitivity to Jewish people who have the history of the holocaust was very dumb though, and for her to even "go there" given the recent problems in Labour with respect to antisemitism is astonishing in political terms. I imagine Starmer is delighted.
    That's probably what she meant, but I know some Jewish people that experience racism every day. It just depends on how you dress.
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 60,439
    On topic, I think:

    (a) politically, we are essentially two nations
    (b) the Left is now very motivated to evict the Tories
    (c) there has been a very modest drift from Tory-Labour, that may or may not drift back, and;
    (d) the Tory vote is currently depressed by DKs and WNVs

    What I currently expect to happen is a 2017GE in reverse: Labour vote will hold firm at 40-42%, and the Tories will creep up to 37-38% in GE2024, but still lose. So, yes, I think a sub <10% lead is a very high chance.

    However, the final few weeks of the campaign will be vital. That's where Keir could lose it and slip back to 36-37% of the vote if he's not careful, and the Tories overtake, because Sunak is impressing. That might just keep him in office. I agree it's only a 20% shot, but it is a 20% shot.

    [Footer: I'm still not sure Starmer is really sealing the deal in the key English marginals. Yes, I know the redwall/bluewall polling, but he's effectively cosplaying the 1990s New Labour Project without really giving an impression of sincerity around it, and I expect that to be detected.]
  • StuartinromfordStuartinromford Posts: 17,219

    John Rentoul

    Just 3½ years ago, Keir Starmer campaigned to make Diane Abbott home sec

    Just 9 months ago Rishi Sunak installed Suella Braverman as Home Secretary.

    If we are playing PB Top Trumps, I win!
    Braverman being Home Secretary is not a win.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 81,997
    edited April 2023
    FF43 said:

    FF43 said:

    Interesting food inflation figures

    Food price inflation, March 2023:

    Hungary 44.8%
    Slovakia 28.2%
    Lithuania 27.6%
    Latvia 24.1%
    Poland 24.0%
    Czech Republic 23.5%
    Romania 21.6%
    Germany 21.2%
    Bulgaria 21.0%
    Sweden 19.7%
    Portugal 19.6%
    EU (overall) 19.2% ⬅️
    UK 19.1%⬅️
    Netherlands 17.8%
    Spain 16.5%
    France 15.9%
    Italy 13.2%

    Source: TradingEconomics
    6:41 AM · Apr 24, 2023

    What the bloody hell is going on in Hungary?
    Looks like the closer you are to Ukraine the higher the food inflation rate.
    Apparently its kinda of the opposite,

    The European Commission has rejected bans introduced by Poland and Hungary on Ukrainian grain imports.

    The two countries said the measures were necessary to protect their farming sectors from cheap imports.

    The ban applies to grains, dairy products, sugar, fruit, vegetables and meats and will be in force until the end of June.

    Most Ukrainian grain is exported via the Black Sea, but Russia's invasion last year disrupted export routes and resulted in large quantities of the grain ending up in central Europe.

    https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-65292698
    Those bans are maybe causing shortages and inflation?
    I think that's the takeaway (I might be doing 2+2=5), in banning imports in attempt to stop flood of cheap goods undercutting homegrown production, they have caused a shortage.
  • John Rentoul

    Just 3½ years ago, Keir Starmer campaigned to make Diane Abbott home sec

    Just over 3 and a half years ago Boris Johnson made the disgraced national security risk Priti Patel Home Secretary.

    Just over 6 months ago Sunak made the disgraced national security risk Suella Braverman Home Secretary.
  • FF43FF43 Posts: 17,208
    Andy_JS said:

    Starmer has just said on Sky Abbotts comments were anti semitic

    The journalist came back that that admittance means she cannot stand for labour

    Starmer struggling with response

    Should one mistake end her parliamentary career? Seems a bit harsh.
    I think it's better for Diane Abbott no longer to be MP. I mean that as a kindness to her.
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 21,298

    John Rentoul

    Just 3½ years ago, Keir Starmer campaigned to make Diane Abbott home sec

    Even though I am not a Labour supporter I have to say that is a vacuous argument. The nature of our party system opens everyone up to similar accusations. eg: Just 3½ years ago, Rishi Sunak (et al) campaigned to make a fat lying incompetent our PM.
    And then served under him as his effective number two.

    Pun intended.
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 52,564

    Andy_JS said:

    Starmer has just said on Sky Abbotts comments were anti semitic

    The journalist came back that that admittance means she cannot stand for labour

    Starmer struggling with response

    Should one mistake end her parliamentary career? Seems a bit harsh.
    No bigger a mistake on anti-semitism than Starmer sitting in Corbyn's Shadow Cabinet for three years....
    Is this post timed to go off at 12.30 everyday, irrespective of where in the world you are? Can you teach me how its done?
    I feel your pain of a palpable hit.

    Every time.
  • That Anthony Seldon book being serialised in The Times shows why Boris Johnson is so unfit to be PM.
  • NerysHughesNerysHughes Posts: 3,375
    Selebian said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Nigelb said:

    Some interesting numbers here.

    VW Group's Canadian Cell Plant Will Have An Annual Output Of 90 GWh
    https://insideevs.com/news/663774/vw-group-canadian-cell-plant-annual-output-90-gwh/
    Volkswagen Group has released more details about its planned battery cell gigafactory in Canada, which will be the company's largest to date in the world and the country's largest manufacturing plant.

    Set to be located in St. Thomas, Ontario and operated by the automaker's PowerCo SE battery subsidiary, the battery plant will have an annual production capacity of up to 90 GWh in the final expansion phase.

    For comparison's sake, VW Group's battery gigafactory near Valencia, Spain, will have an annual output of 60 GWh when fully ramped, while the facility in Salzgitter, Germany will produce 40 GWh worth of battery cells each year.

    The German automaker plans to invest up to $5.3 billion (4.8 billion euros) until 2030 in the Canadian facility that has the potential to create up to 3,000 highly skilled jobs at the factory and tens of thousands more indirect jobs in the region. The company will receive a lot more money from the Canadian federal government, though.

    According to The Detroit News, Canada agreed to subsidies that may top $9.7 billion (13 billion Canadian dollars) over a decade, matching what VW would have got via the Inflation Reduction Act if it had located the plant in the US. The government will provide annual production subsidies as well as a grant toward the factory's capital cost...


    Production planned from 2027.
    90GWh is around 1.2m cars with 75kWh - so a decade's production of perhaps 10m, allowing for ramp up of production.
    So a battery subsidy of around $1,000 per car, which isn't ridiculous in order to get serious production up and running.

    I have a strange feeling that this whole everyone is going to have an electric car idea is not going to happen. We should be seeing electric chargers being installed everywhere on a mass scale now and it is simply not happening.

    The depreciation in value of electric vehicles is accelerating all the time

    Perhaps synthetic fuels are the future

    Massively lower fuel and maintenance costs.
    More internal space.
    Better performance.

    When the price of electric cars falls below that of ICE vehicles, then there will be very few purchasers of petrol vehicles.
    If NerysHughes is right about depreciation, then second-hand electric cars should already be comparable with ICE cars. Perhaps it is not just price.
    It'll more come down to the access to charging.

    EV will work brilliantly for the middle classes with access to chargers on driveways.

    Those which rely on on road parking, or no parking, or those with flats will have a much harder time.
    One of my neighbours has exactly this issue. He has a Tesla from work, but lives in a flat. He now drives to a charging location and watched netflix for an hour before work. Hates it, and wants to go back to a petrol/diesel.
    The employer provides company Tesla but provides no charging infrastructure? Ok, it may be city centre and not have their own car park, but he parks somewhere. You'd think the employer would find and pay for a local charger and urge parking there.
    Thats exactly my point, there is very limited investment by either public or private bodies in charging points and without home charging having an electric car is a massive pain.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 57,153
    edited April 2023

    rcs1000 said:

    Nigelb said:

    Some interesting numbers here.

    VW Group's Canadian Cell Plant Will Have An Annual Output Of 90 GWh
    https://insideevs.com/news/663774/vw-group-canadian-cell-plant-annual-output-90-gwh/
    Volkswagen Group has released more details about its planned battery cell gigafactory in Canada, which will be the company's largest to date in the world and the country's largest manufacturing plant.

    Set to be located in St. Thomas, Ontario and operated by the automaker's PowerCo SE battery subsidiary, the battery plant will have an annual production capacity of up to 90 GWh in the final expansion phase.

    For comparison's sake, VW Group's battery gigafactory near Valencia, Spain, will have an annual output of 60 GWh when fully ramped, while the facility in Salzgitter, Germany will produce 40 GWh worth of battery cells each year.

    The German automaker plans to invest up to $5.3 billion (4.8 billion euros) until 2030 in the Canadian facility that has the potential to create up to 3,000 highly skilled jobs at the factory and tens of thousands more indirect jobs in the region. The company will receive a lot more money from the Canadian federal government, though.

    According to The Detroit News, Canada agreed to subsidies that may top $9.7 billion (13 billion Canadian dollars) over a decade, matching what VW would have got via the Inflation Reduction Act if it had located the plant in the US. The government will provide annual production subsidies as well as a grant toward the factory's capital cost...


    Production planned from 2027.
    90GWh is around 1.2m cars with 75kWh - so a decade's production of perhaps 10m, allowing for ramp up of production.
    So a battery subsidy of around $1,000 per car, which isn't ridiculous in order to get serious production up and running.

    I have a strange feeling that this whole everyone is going to have an electric car idea is not going to happen. We should be seeing electric chargers being installed everywhere on a mass scale now and it is simply not happening.

    The depreciation in value of electric vehicles is accelerating all the time

    Perhaps synthetic fuels are the future

    Massively lower fuel and maintenance costs.
    More internal space.
    Better performance.

    When the price of electric cars falls below that of ICE vehicles, then there will be very few purchasers of petrol vehicles.
    Massively lower fuel costs?
    Well, let's run the numbers shall we?

    Average usable battery capacity of an electric car is about 75KWh, and UK domestic energy prices are around 33p/KWh. Which means it'll cost you (from empty) approximately £25 to full up your car (at home) with electricity. For average range, we should probably go with about 250 miles, although I have a friend who regularly gets more than 300 miles from his standard battery Tesla Model 3. In general, most electric cars will do 3-4 miles per KWh on the road.

    So, your electricity cost per mile is about 8-10p, assuming you can charge at home.

    A modern, efficient petrol car will probably do 40 miles to the gallon across a range of driving scenarios. A litre of petrol in the UK is about £1.50, and there are 4.5 liters per gallon. So you're paying £6.75/gallon, and going about 40 miles with it (if it's a new modern car). Or about 17p per mile.

    Now, if you don't charge at home, the numbers will be very different. But let us not forget that there are 20 million houses in the UK, of which around two thirds have off street parking or a garage (https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/national-travel-survey-2019). So that's a lot of people (around half of all households, and way more than half of all car owning households) that have access to home charging.
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 33,431

    UK public charging points were up 30% last year to 36,000. Looks likely to be similar this year, up to 47,000. I believe this isn't quite enough to meet the government's ambition, but it surely is enough to avoid a white elephant.

    This was split between all different speeds pretty evenly. I definitely think this is a bigger issue, as is reliability of charging points (particularly fast ones). The top end is very, very, impressive, with charging times less than the time it pops in to grab a coffee or go to the loo. But that experience isn't universal.

    About 10 miles from here there’s a purpose-built charging station with quite a few points, plus a coffee shop/cafe, newsagent and one or two other places to while away half an hour or so.
  • Nigel_ForemainNigel_Foremain Posts: 14,310

    rcs1000 said:

    Nigelb said:

    Some interesting numbers here.

    VW Group's Canadian Cell Plant Will Have An Annual Output Of 90 GWh
    https://insideevs.com/news/663774/vw-group-canadian-cell-plant-annual-output-90-gwh/
    Volkswagen Group has released more details about its planned battery cell gigafactory in Canada, which will be the company's largest to date in the world and the country's largest manufacturing plant.

    Set to be located in St. Thomas, Ontario and operated by the automaker's PowerCo SE battery subsidiary, the battery plant will have an annual production capacity of up to 90 GWh in the final expansion phase.

    For comparison's sake, VW Group's battery gigafactory near Valencia, Spain, will have an annual output of 60 GWh when fully ramped, while the facility in Salzgitter, Germany will produce 40 GWh worth of battery cells each year.

    The German automaker plans to invest up to $5.3 billion (4.8 billion euros) until 2030 in the Canadian facility that has the potential to create up to 3,000 highly skilled jobs at the factory and tens of thousands more indirect jobs in the region. The company will receive a lot more money from the Canadian federal government, though.

    According to The Detroit News, Canada agreed to subsidies that may top $9.7 billion (13 billion Canadian dollars) over a decade, matching what VW would have got via the Inflation Reduction Act if it had located the plant in the US. The government will provide annual production subsidies as well as a grant toward the factory's capital cost...


    Production planned from 2027.
    90GWh is around 1.2m cars with 75kWh - so a decade's production of perhaps 10m, allowing for ramp up of production.
    So a battery subsidy of around $1,000 per car, which isn't ridiculous in order to get serious production up and running.

    I have a strange feeling that this whole everyone is going to have an electric car idea is not going to happen. We should be seeing electric chargers being installed everywhere on a mass scale now and it is simply not happening.

    The depreciation in value of electric vehicles is accelerating all the time

    Perhaps synthetic fuels are the future

    Massively lower fuel and maintenance costs.
    More internal space.
    Better performance.

    When the price of electric cars falls below that of ICE vehicles, then there will be very few purchasers of petrol vehicles.
    If NerysHughes is right about depreciation, then second-hand electric cars should already be comparable with ICE cars. Perhaps it is not just price.
    It'll more come down to the access to charging.

    EV will work brilliantly for the middle classes with access to chargers on driveways.

    Those which rely on on road parking, or no parking, or those with flats will have a much harder time.
    One of my neighbours has exactly this issue. He has a Tesla from work, but lives in a flat. He now drives to a charging location and watched netflix for an hour before work. Hates it, and wants to go back to a petrol/diesel.
    I am surprised at that anecdote. My Tesla takes a max of 30/35 mins to charge on a supercharger and then will do 300+ miles. How many miles is he doing to get to work?
  • John Rentoul

    Just 3½ years ago, Keir Starmer campaigned to make Diane Abbott home sec

    Just over 3 and a half years ago Boris Johnson made the disgraced national security risk Priti Patel Home Secretary.

    Just over 6 months ago Sunak made the disgraced national security risk Suella Braverman Home Secretary.
    Tell that to John Rentoul then
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 81,997
    FF43 said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Starmer has just said on Sky Abbotts comments were anti semitic

    The journalist came back that that admittance means she cannot stand for labour

    Starmer struggling with response

    Should one mistake end her parliamentary career? Seems a bit harsh.
    I think it's better for Diane Abbott no longer to be MP. I mean that as a kindness to her.
    Regardless of this latest "misstep" and her politics, she isn't the person she used to be. If that's just age, if its the rumours around drink issues, the issues with her son, I don't know, but has been found struggling to get basic facts right or generally make a coherent argument on so many occasions over the past few years.
  • Nigel_ForemainNigel_Foremain Posts: 14,310

    That Anthony Seldon book being serialised in The Times shows why Boris Johnson is so unfit to be PM.

    Did we need any further evidence to what was so obvious to many of us?
  • felix said:

    Interesting food inflation figures

    Food price inflation, March 2023:

    Hungary 44.8%
    Slovakia 28.2%
    Lithuania 27.6%
    Latvia 24.1%
    Poland 24.0%
    Czech Republic 23.5%
    Romania 21.6%
    Germany 21.2%
    Bulgaria 21.0%
    Sweden 19.7%
    Portugal 19.6%
    EU (overall) 19.2% ⬅️
    UK 19.1%⬅️
    Netherlands 17.8%
    Spain 16.5%
    France 15.9%
    Italy 13.2%

    Source: TradingEconomics
    6:41 AM · Apr 24, 2023

    I blame Brexit.
    Why is that list weighted heavily towards Eastern Europe? I suspect the original poster, a known troll, was trying to imply something.
    Are you disputing the numbers and if so please publish your link
  • TheWhiteRabbitTheWhiteRabbit Posts: 12,454

    UK public charging points were up 30% last year to 36,000. Looks likely to be similar this year, up to 47,000. I believe this isn't quite enough to meet the government's ambition, but it surely is enough to avoid a white elephant.

    This was split between all different speeds pretty evenly. I definitely think this is a bigger issue, as is reliability of charging points (particularly fast ones). The top end is very, very, impressive, with charging times less than the time it pops in to grab a coffee or go to the loo. But that experience isn't universal.

    About 10 miles from here there’s a purpose-built charging station with quite a few points, plus a coffee shop/cafe, newsagent and one or two other places to while away half an hour or so.
    You still in Essex OKC?
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 54,585

    Sandpit said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Starmer has just said on Sky Abbotts comments were anti semitic

    The journalist came back that that admittance means she cannot stand for labour

    Starmer struggling with response

    Should one mistake end her parliamentary career? Seems a bit harsh.
    If it were the first time she’d come out with something blatantly racist, then perhaps so. This isn’t the first time though, she has been making similar comments for years.

    She thinks that racism is only ever a problem when white people attack black people, and that any other racism is perfectly fine.
    I suspect that what she was trying to say is that black people/ people of colour deal with racism every day, when other minorities do not. The lack of sensitivity to Jewish people who have the history of the holocaust was very dumb though, and for her to even "go there" given the recent problems in Labour with respect to antisemitism is astonishing in political terms. I imagine Starmer is delighted.
    Yes, she thinks that black people, and only black people, ever experience racism, and that only white people can be racist.

    The actuality, of course, being that racism occurs across all races, albeit not equally in different places.

    Worse, and why Starmer has had to deal with her today, is that there was a huge problem in his own party not so long ago, with blactant racism aimed towards Jews, from the far left of the party. Of all the things he wanted to be talking about today, this wasn’t on the list yesterday morning, he’ll be hoping to turn it into a net positive by dealing harshly with the recalcitrant MP. She’ll almost certainly be stood down at the next election, asked to retire gracefully to avoid a disciplinary case.
  • mwadamsmwadams Posts: 3,593

    rcs1000 said:

    Nigelb said:

    Some interesting numbers here.

    VW Group's Canadian Cell Plant Will Have An Annual Output Of 90 GWh
    https://insideevs.com/news/663774/vw-group-canadian-cell-plant-annual-output-90-gwh/
    Volkswagen Group has released more details about its planned battery cell gigafactory in Canada, which will be the company's largest to date in the world and the country's largest manufacturing plant.

    Set to be located in St. Thomas, Ontario and operated by the automaker's PowerCo SE battery subsidiary, the battery plant will have an annual production capacity of up to 90 GWh in the final expansion phase.

    For comparison's sake, VW Group's battery gigafactory near Valencia, Spain, will have an annual output of 60 GWh when fully ramped, while the facility in Salzgitter, Germany will produce 40 GWh worth of battery cells each year.

    The German automaker plans to invest up to $5.3 billion (4.8 billion euros) until 2030 in the Canadian facility that has the potential to create up to 3,000 highly skilled jobs at the factory and tens of thousands more indirect jobs in the region. The company will receive a lot more money from the Canadian federal government, though.

    According to The Detroit News, Canada agreed to subsidies that may top $9.7 billion (13 billion Canadian dollars) over a decade, matching what VW would have got via the Inflation Reduction Act if it had located the plant in the US. The government will provide annual production subsidies as well as a grant toward the factory's capital cost...


    Production planned from 2027.
    90GWh is around 1.2m cars with 75kWh - so a decade's production of perhaps 10m, allowing for ramp up of production.
    So a battery subsidy of around $1,000 per car, which isn't ridiculous in order to get serious production up and running.

    I have a strange feeling that this whole everyone is going to have an electric car idea is not going to happen. We should be seeing electric chargers being installed everywhere on a mass scale now and it is simply not happening.

    The depreciation in value of electric vehicles is accelerating all the time

    Perhaps synthetic fuels are the future

    Massively lower fuel and maintenance costs.
    More internal space.
    Better performance.

    When the price of electric cars falls below that of ICE vehicles, then there will be very few purchasers of petrol vehicles.
    If NerysHughes is right about depreciation, then second-hand electric cars should already be comparable with ICE cars. Perhaps it is not just price.
    It'll more come down to the access to charging.

    EV will work brilliantly for the middle classes with access to chargers on driveways.

    Those which rely on on road parking, or no parking, or those with flats will have a much harder time.
    One of my neighbours has exactly this issue. He has a Tesla from work, but lives in a flat. He now drives to a charging location and watched netflix for an hour before work. Hates it, and wants to go back to a petrol/diesel.
    I am surprised at that anecdote. My Tesla takes a max of 30/35 mins to charge on a supercharger and then will do 300+ miles. How many miles is he doing to get to work?
    And where is he parking at work? If they're giving people Teslas, surely they are providing charging wherever they have parking facilities. Very odd.
  • squareroot2squareroot2 Posts: 6,723

    I love how the Starmer haters think an eminent KC and former DPP is scared of debates, particularly against someone who lost to Liz Truss in the debates.

    Comedy gold.

    I would just comment I for one do not hate Starmer, but many would question just how eminent he is as a KC and former DPP, who had a far from stellar reputation in that role

    Of course he is not scared of debates, just Sunak will be a genuine adversary in them
    When debates were "grown up" Sunak was generally trounced by Starmer, until Sunak discovered the Johnsonian taunt. Starmer does struggle to deal with sometimes untruthful slurs from Sunak. When he had to justifiably call out Sunak at last week's PMQs by defending his own record as DPP it meant he had already lost.

    And, Sunak is much better at Beanoesque name calling.
    Just a smear.
  • mwadamsmwadams Posts: 3,593

    I love how the Starmer haters think an eminent KC and former DPP is scared of debates, particularly against someone who lost to Liz Truss in the debates.

    Comedy gold.

    I would just comment I for one do not hate Starmer, but many would question just how eminent he is as a KC and former DPP, who had a far from stellar reputation in that role

    Of course he is not scared of debates, just Sunak will be a genuine adversary in them
    When debates were "grown up" Sunak was generally trounced by Starmer, until Sunak discovered the Johnsonian taunt. Starmer does struggle to deal with sometimes untruthful slurs from Sunak. When he had to justifiably call out Sunak at last week's PMQs by defending his own record as DPP it meant he had already lost.

    And, Sunak is much better at Beanoesque name calling.
    Just a smear.
    Yes, I'll stand for no traducing of the Beano.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 81,997
    Sandpit said:

    Sandpit said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Starmer has just said on Sky Abbotts comments were anti semitic

    The journalist came back that that admittance means she cannot stand for labour

    Starmer struggling with response

    Should one mistake end her parliamentary career? Seems a bit harsh.
    If it were the first time she’d come out with something blatantly racist, then perhaps so. This isn’t the first time though, she has been making similar comments for years.

    She thinks that racism is only ever a problem when white people attack black people, and that any other racism is perfectly fine.
    I suspect that what she was trying to say is that black people/ people of colour deal with racism every day, when other minorities do not. The lack of sensitivity to Jewish people who have the history of the holocaust was very dumb though, and for her to even "go there" given the recent problems in Labour with respect to antisemitism is astonishing in political terms. I imagine Starmer is delighted.
    Yes, she thinks that black people, and only black people, ever experience racism, and that only white people can be racist.

    The actuality, of course, being that racism occurs across all races, albeit not equally in different places.

    Worse, and why Starmer has had to deal with her today, is that there was a huge problem in his own party not so long ago, with blactant racism aimed towards Jews, from the far left of the party. Of all the things he wanted to be talking about today, this wasn’t on the list yesterday morning, he’ll be hoping to turn it into a net positive by dealing harshly with the recalcitrant MP. She’ll almost certainly be stood down at the next election, asked to retire gracefully to avoid a disciplinary case.
    I am always reminded of the famous Chris Rock bit about this when I see the likes of Diane Abbott expose these views.
  • TheWhiteRabbitTheWhiteRabbit Posts: 12,454

    felix said:

    Interesting food inflation figures

    Food price inflation, March 2023:

    Hungary 44.8%
    Slovakia 28.2%
    Lithuania 27.6%
    Latvia 24.1%
    Poland 24.0%
    Czech Republic 23.5%
    Romania 21.6%
    Germany 21.2%
    Bulgaria 21.0%
    Sweden 19.7%
    Portugal 19.6%
    EU (overall) 19.2% ⬅️
    UK 19.1%⬅️
    Netherlands 17.8%
    Spain 16.5%
    France 15.9%
    Italy 13.2%

    Source: TradingEconomics
    6:41 AM · Apr 24, 2023

    I blame Brexit.
    Why is that list weighted heavily towards Eastern Europe? I suspect the original poster, a known troll, was trying to imply something.
    Are you disputing the numbers and if so please publish your link
    (Just for the record, it's a complete list, save for Luxembourg, Cyprus and Ireland, which all sit underneath Italy - but are included in the average.)
  • Nigel_ForemainNigel_Foremain Posts: 14,310
    mwadams said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Nigelb said:

    Some interesting numbers here.

    VW Group's Canadian Cell Plant Will Have An Annual Output Of 90 GWh
    https://insideevs.com/news/663774/vw-group-canadian-cell-plant-annual-output-90-gwh/
    Volkswagen Group has released more details about its planned battery cell gigafactory in Canada, which will be the company's largest to date in the world and the country's largest manufacturing plant.

    Set to be located in St. Thomas, Ontario and operated by the automaker's PowerCo SE battery subsidiary, the battery plant will have an annual production capacity of up to 90 GWh in the final expansion phase.

    For comparison's sake, VW Group's battery gigafactory near Valencia, Spain, will have an annual output of 60 GWh when fully ramped, while the facility in Salzgitter, Germany will produce 40 GWh worth of battery cells each year.

    The German automaker plans to invest up to $5.3 billion (4.8 billion euros) until 2030 in the Canadian facility that has the potential to create up to 3,000 highly skilled jobs at the factory and tens of thousands more indirect jobs in the region. The company will receive a lot more money from the Canadian federal government, though.

    According to The Detroit News, Canada agreed to subsidies that may top $9.7 billion (13 billion Canadian dollars) over a decade, matching what VW would have got via the Inflation Reduction Act if it had located the plant in the US. The government will provide annual production subsidies as well as a grant toward the factory's capital cost...


    Production planned from 2027.
    90GWh is around 1.2m cars with 75kWh - so a decade's production of perhaps 10m, allowing for ramp up of production.
    So a battery subsidy of around $1,000 per car, which isn't ridiculous in order to get serious production up and running.

    I have a strange feeling that this whole everyone is going to have an electric car idea is not going to happen. We should be seeing electric chargers being installed everywhere on a mass scale now and it is simply not happening.

    The depreciation in value of electric vehicles is accelerating all the time

    Perhaps synthetic fuels are the future

    Massively lower fuel and maintenance costs.
    More internal space.
    Better performance.

    When the price of electric cars falls below that of ICE vehicles, then there will be very few purchasers of petrol vehicles.
    If NerysHughes is right about depreciation, then second-hand electric cars should already be comparable with ICE cars. Perhaps it is not just price.
    It'll more come down to the access to charging.

    EV will work brilliantly for the middle classes with access to chargers on driveways.

    Those which rely on on road parking, or no parking, or those with flats will have a much harder time.
    One of my neighbours has exactly this issue. He has a Tesla from work, but lives in a flat. He now drives to a charging location and watched netflix for an hour before work. Hates it, and wants to go back to a petrol/diesel.
    I am surprised at that anecdote. My Tesla takes a max of 30/35 mins to charge on a supercharger and then will do 300+ miles. How many miles is he doing to get to work?
    And where is he parking at work? If they're giving people Teslas, surely they are providing charging wherever they have parking facilities. Very odd.
    Even if they don't, not many people do more than 300 miles a week, so therefore the poor soul has to go to a supercharger once a week. Hardly a big deal.
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 33,431

    UK public charging points were up 30% last year to 36,000. Looks likely to be similar this year, up to 47,000. I believe this isn't quite enough to meet the government's ambition, but it surely is enough to avoid a white elephant.

    This was split between all different speeds pretty evenly. I definitely think this is a bigger issue, as is reliability of charging points (particularly fast ones). The top end is very, very, impressive, with charging times less than the time it pops in to grab a coffee or go to the loo. But that experience isn't universal.

    About 10 miles from here there’s a purpose-built charging station with quite a few points, plus a coffee shop/cafe, newsagent and one or two other places to while away half an hour or so.
    You still in Essex OKC?
    Yes. If I leave I suspect it will be in an urn, although I’ve left instructions that my ashes are to be disposed of locally.
  • algarkirkalgarkirk Posts: 12,497

    John Rentoul

    Just 3½ years ago, Keir Starmer campaigned to make Diane Abbott home sec

    The basic facts are not in dispute. There are lots of them. Sunak stayed on in a Johnson government when it was clear Boris was not honest over Partygate, and outrageous over Patersongate.

    The issue is voter salience, and the capacity to make issue X start to have such salience.

    My sense is that SKS and Sunak are more or less immune from their connections with being in opposition with Jezza, Abbott and co, and the unicorn twists over Brexit (SKS); and association with Boris and the rich/non-dom stuff (Sunak).

    The 2024 election campaign has started. There are no further immunities. While it will be fascinating, neither SKS nor Sunak are any good at real, fanatical hatred, distortion, mockery, egregious lying, false allegation and so on. It isn't natural to them. It is so obvious they don't believe it or mean it. Neither of them can fake sincerity. They both know the other to be neither a villain nor a clown. They both know that plenty in their own party however are just that. Good.

  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 28,368
    edited April 2023

    Andy_JS said:

    Starmer has just said on Sky Abbotts comments were anti semitic

    The journalist came back that that admittance means she cannot stand for labour

    Starmer struggling with response

    Should one mistake end her parliamentary career? Seems a bit harsh.
    No bigger a mistake on anti-semitism than Starmer sitting in Corbyn's Shadow Cabinet for three years....
    Is this post timed to go off at 12.30 everyday, irrespective of where in the world you are? Can you teach me how its done?
    I feel your pain of a palpable hit.

    Every time.
    No pain here Mark. It doesn't affect me one way or the other if Labour win or lose the next GE. However, the Johnson and post- Johnsonian Conservatives are so dangerously malign I would like to see them able to regenerate in opposition. I would have thought you too would like the vile stain of Johnson removed with no possibility of resurrection after a close Sunak win.

    When I was a little younger I was a Labour Party member pounding the streets like you do for the Johnsonian and post-Johnsonian Conservatives, but after Corbyn, I have no interest. I don't blame Starmer for holding his nose. Chuka Umuna did the right thing. What are his odds for future PM?
  • TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 41,958
    edited April 2023
    When wtf just doesn't do the job. The pro Truss commentary detracts not a whit from the mentalness.



    https://twitter.com/PolitlcsUK/status/1650452381216174081?s=20
  • StuartinromfordStuartinromford Posts: 17,219

    John Rentoul

    Just 3½ years ago, Keir Starmer campaigned to make Diane Abbott home sec

    Just over 3 and a half years ago Boris Johnson made the disgraced national security risk Priti Patel Home Secretary.

    Just over 6 months ago Sunak made the disgraced national security risk Suella Braverman Home Secretary.
    Tell that to John Rentoul then
    Looking at the tweet, plenty of people have made that point (or worse).

    It's perfectly valid for criticise Starmer's choices 2015-20. But only if you are prepared to criticise Sunak for making some worse choices (campaigning for Johnson in Summer 2019 when other Conservative leadership candidates were available) and enacting terrible choices while in power (Braverman etc).
  • El_CapitanoEl_Capitano Posts: 4,239
    rcs1000 said:

    Well, let's run the numbers shall we?

    Average usable battery capacity of an electric car is about 75KWh, and UK domestic energy prices are around 33p/KWh. Which means it'll cost you (from empty) approximately £25 to full up your car (at home) with electricity. For average range, we should probably go with about 250 miles, although I have a friend who regularly gets more than 300 miles from his standard battery Tesla Model 3. In general, most electric cars will do 3-4 miles per KWh on the road.

    So, your electricity cost per mile is about 8-10p, assuming you can charge at home.

    Interesting figures.

    My Tern GSD has capacity of 0.9KWh. So at 33p/KWh, that's 30p for a full recharge. It will comfortably do 60 miles from that - ten school runs - which makes a ha'penny per mile.

    I can charge it at home - just wheel it into the house (we don't have off-road parking anyway). Wouldn't fancy lifting it up a flight of stairs though.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 54,585

    Sandpit said:

    Sandpit said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Starmer has just said on Sky Abbotts comments were anti semitic

    The journalist came back that that admittance means she cannot stand for labour

    Starmer struggling with response

    Should one mistake end her parliamentary career? Seems a bit harsh.
    If it were the first time she’d come out with something blatantly racist, then perhaps so. This isn’t the first time though, she has been making similar comments for years.

    She thinks that racism is only ever a problem when white people attack black people, and that any other racism is perfectly fine.
    I suspect that what she was trying to say is that black people/ people of colour deal with racism every day, when other minorities do not. The lack of sensitivity to Jewish people who have the history of the holocaust was very dumb though, and for her to even "go there" given the recent problems in Labour with respect to antisemitism is astonishing in political terms. I imagine Starmer is delighted.
    Yes, she thinks that black people, and only black people, ever experience racism, and that only white people can be racist.

    The actuality, of course, being that racism occurs across all races, albeit not equally in different places.

    Worse, and why Starmer has had to deal with her today, is that there was a huge problem in his own party not so long ago, with blactant racism aimed towards Jews, from the far left of the party. Of all the things he wanted to be talking about today, this wasn’t on the list yesterday morning, he’ll be hoping to turn it into a net positive by dealing harshly with the recalcitrant MP. She’ll almost certainly be stood down at the next election, asked to retire gracefully to avoid a disciplinary case.
    I am always reminded of the famous Chris Rock bit about this when I see the likes of Diane Abbott expose these views.
    Indeed, and Rock admits that a lot of early versions of that bit were horrifically racist. It took him a long time to find the right words to get his point across.

    It’s also why comedians hate people with their phones out in comedy clubs, in an era of cancel culture.
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 21,298

    felix said:

    Interesting food inflation figures

    Food price inflation, March 2023:

    Hungary 44.8%
    Slovakia 28.2%
    Lithuania 27.6%
    Latvia 24.1%
    Poland 24.0%
    Czech Republic 23.5%
    Romania 21.6%
    Germany 21.2%
    Bulgaria 21.0%
    Sweden 19.7%
    Portugal 19.6%
    EU (overall) 19.2% ⬅️
    UK 19.1%⬅️
    Netherlands 17.8%
    Spain 16.5%
    France 15.9%
    Italy 13.2%

    Source: TradingEconomics
    6:41 AM · Apr 24, 2023

    I blame Brexit.
    Why is that list weighted heavily towards Eastern Europe? I suspect the original poster, a known troll, was trying to imply something.
    Are you disputing the numbers and if so please publish your link
    (Just for the record, it's a complete list, save for Luxembourg, Cyprus and Ireland, which all sit underneath Italy - but are included in the average.)
    What about Belgium etc?

    The initial list omits around 10 EU members, but for some reason includes all those close to Ukraine and more greatly exposed both to food and energy cost pressure.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 57,153

    rcs1000 said:

    Well, let's run the numbers shall we?

    Average usable battery capacity of an electric car is about 75KWh, and UK domestic energy prices are around 33p/KWh. Which means it'll cost you (from empty) approximately £25 to full up your car (at home) with electricity. For average range, we should probably go with about 250 miles, although I have a friend who regularly gets more than 300 miles from his standard battery Tesla Model 3. In general, most electric cars will do 3-4 miles per KWh on the road.

    So, your electricity cost per mile is about 8-10p, assuming you can charge at home.

    Interesting figures.

    My Tern GSD has capacity of 0.9KWh. So at 33p/KWh, that's 30p for a full recharge. It will comfortably do 60 miles from that - ten school runs - which makes a ha'penny per mile.

    I can charge it at home - just wheel it into the house (we don't have off-road parking anyway). Wouldn't fancy lifting it up a flight of stairs though.
    Electric cargo bikes are pretty amazing. But I would point out, there's some human power in there too.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 81,997
    Sandpit said:

    Sandpit said:

    Sandpit said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Starmer has just said on Sky Abbotts comments were anti semitic

    The journalist came back that that admittance means she cannot stand for labour

    Starmer struggling with response

    Should one mistake end her parliamentary career? Seems a bit harsh.
    If it were the first time she’d come out with something blatantly racist, then perhaps so. This isn’t the first time though, she has been making similar comments for years.

    She thinks that racism is only ever a problem when white people attack black people, and that any other racism is perfectly fine.
    I suspect that what she was trying to say is that black people/ people of colour deal with racism every day, when other minorities do not. The lack of sensitivity to Jewish people who have the history of the holocaust was very dumb though, and for her to even "go there" given the recent problems in Labour with respect to antisemitism is astonishing in political terms. I imagine Starmer is delighted.
    Yes, she thinks that black people, and only black people, ever experience racism, and that only white people can be racist.

    The actuality, of course, being that racism occurs across all races, albeit not equally in different places.

    Worse, and why Starmer has had to deal with her today, is that there was a huge problem in his own party not so long ago, with blactant racism aimed towards Jews, from the far left of the party. Of all the things he wanted to be talking about today, this wasn’t on the list yesterday morning, he’ll be hoping to turn it into a net positive by dealing harshly with the recalcitrant MP. She’ll almost certainly be stood down at the next election, asked to retire gracefully to avoid a disciplinary case.
    I am always reminded of the famous Chris Rock bit about this when I see the likes of Diane Abbott expose these views.
    Indeed, and Rock admits that a lot of early versions of that bit were horrifically racist. It took him a long time to find the right words to get his point across.

    It’s also why comedians hate people with their phones out in comedy clubs, in an era of cancel culture.
    Couldn't have been racist, he's black....hat tip Diane Abbott....
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 27,894

    Andy_JS said:

    Starmer has just said on Sky Abbotts comments were anti semitic

    The journalist came back that that admittance means she cannot stand for labour

    Starmer struggling with response

    Should one mistake end her parliamentary career? Seems a bit harsh.
    One mistake??????????
    Depends how bad the mistake is.

    Abbott's mistake over the weekend was an absolute doozy, and her excuse pretty feeble.
    The "it was just the first draft" only made matters worse.....

    The reality is that it is exactly how a particular subset of politicians (and some of the public) see the world, the black / white Corbyn view that there are oppressors, who can't suffer things like racism, and oppressed who get a pass for bad things like being racist, anti-Semitic, etc...and because Jews / Israel are stereotyped as successful, they aren't part of the oppressed class and then you get the Corbyn-esque blind spot to the fact they suffer discrimination.
    The "first draft" excuse to me sounded like basically an admission that the letter, as published, contained her authentic views.

    It is like having too much to drink, and waking up in the morning trying to write off having spoken your mind as "but I was drunk". It just means "I meant what I said, I'd just rather not have said it."
    The first draft may well have contained Abbott's views, but what it lacked was the context that she was countering an article which said White people suffer more racism than Black people, and specifically Jews, Travellers and Irish. Abbott then relied on the semantic point that racism is defined as impacting Blacks rather than Whites, which rather begs the question.

    So even if Abbott's views are wrong or objectionable, it is still possible they were badly articulated in that first draft, or that they might have been seen as part of a wider debate in light of the previous article.
  • Nigel_ForemainNigel_Foremain Posts: 14,310

    When wtf just doesn't do the job. The pro Truss commentary detracts not a whit from the mentalness.



    https://twitter.com/PolitlcsUK/status/1650452381216174081?s=20

    Speaking of policemen, have there been anymore Scottish Nationalist arrests recently? Or is a bit like US shootings; that it is so common place and everyday now that it is no longer newsworthy?
  • felixfelix Posts: 15,164

    John Rentoul

    Just 3½ years ago, Keir Starmer campaigned to make Diane Abbott home sec

    Just over 3 and a half years ago Boris Johnson made the disgraced national security risk Priti Patel Home Secretary.

    Just over 6 months ago Sunak made the disgraced national security risk Suella Braverman Home Secretary.
    So any claim that Labour is offering something better gets drowned by the stench of hypocrisy. Of course Abbott also famously withdrew her son from a London Comprehensive and opted for the fee-paying City of London School instead. do as I say not....
  • algarkirkalgarkirk Posts: 12,497
    edit
  • Nigel_ForemainNigel_Foremain Posts: 14,310

    Andy_JS said:

    Starmer has just said on Sky Abbotts comments were anti semitic

    The journalist came back that that admittance means she cannot stand for labour

    Starmer struggling with response

    Should one mistake end her parliamentary career? Seems a bit harsh.
    One mistake??????????
    Depends how bad the mistake is.

    Abbott's mistake over the weekend was an absolute doozy, and her excuse pretty feeble.
    The "it was just the first draft" only made matters worse.....

    The reality is that it is exactly how a particular subset of politicians (and some of the public) see the world, the black / white Corbyn view that there are oppressors, who can't suffer things like racism, and oppressed who get a pass for bad things like being racist, anti-Semitic, etc...and because Jews / Israel are stereotyped as successful, they aren't part of the oppressed class and then you get the Corbyn-esque blind spot to the fact they suffer discrimination.
    The "first draft" excuse to me sounded like basically an admission that the letter, as published, contained her authentic views.

    It is like having too much to drink, and waking up in the morning trying to write off having spoken your mind as "but I was drunk". It just means "I meant what I said, I'd just rather not have said it."
    The first draft may well have contained Abbott's views, but what it lacked was the context that she was countering an article which said White people suffer more racism than Black people, and specifically Jews, Travellers and Irish. Abbott then relied on the semantic point that racism is defined as impacting Blacks rather than Whites, which rather begs the question.

    So even if Abbott's views are wrong or objectionable, it is still possible they were badly articulated in that first draft, or that they might have been seen as part of a wider debate in light of the previous article.
    Doesn't change the fact that for a political friend of Corbyn to mention Jewish people was political stupidity of a almost unprecedented level.
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 53,817
    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Nigelb said:

    Some interesting numbers here.

    VW Group's Canadian Cell Plant Will Have An Annual Output Of 90 GWh
    https://insideevs.com/news/663774/vw-group-canadian-cell-plant-annual-output-90-gwh/
    Volkswagen Group has released more details about its planned battery cell gigafactory in Canada, which will be the company's largest to date in the world and the country's largest manufacturing plant.

    Set to be located in St. Thomas, Ontario and operated by the automaker's PowerCo SE battery subsidiary, the battery plant will have an annual production capacity of up to 90 GWh in the final expansion phase.

    For comparison's sake, VW Group's battery gigafactory near Valencia, Spain, will have an annual output of 60 GWh when fully ramped, while the facility in Salzgitter, Germany will produce 40 GWh worth of battery cells each year.

    The German automaker plans to invest up to $5.3 billion (4.8 billion euros) until 2030 in the Canadian facility that has the potential to create up to 3,000 highly skilled jobs at the factory and tens of thousands more indirect jobs in the region. The company will receive a lot more money from the Canadian federal government, though.

    According to The Detroit News, Canada agreed to subsidies that may top $9.7 billion (13 billion Canadian dollars) over a decade, matching what VW would have got via the Inflation Reduction Act if it had located the plant in the US. The government will provide annual production subsidies as well as a grant toward the factory's capital cost...


    Production planned from 2027.
    90GWh is around 1.2m cars with 75kWh - so a decade's production of perhaps 10m, allowing for ramp up of production.
    So a battery subsidy of around $1,000 per car, which isn't ridiculous in order to get serious production up and running.

    I have a strange feeling that this whole everyone is going to have an electric car idea is not going to happen. We should be seeing electric chargers being installed everywhere on a mass scale now and it is simply not happening.

    The depreciation in value of electric vehicles is accelerating all the time

    Perhaps synthetic fuels are the future

    Massively lower fuel and maintenance costs.
    More internal space.
    Better performance.

    When the price of electric cars falls below that of ICE vehicles, then there will be very few purchasers of petrol vehicles.
    Massively lower fuel costs?
    Well, let's run the numbers shall we?

    Average usable battery capacity of an electric car is about 75KWh, and UK domestic energy prices are around 33p/KWh. Which means it'll cost you (from empty) approximately £25 to full up your car (at home) with electricity. For average range, we should probably go with about 250 miles, although I have a friend who regularly gets more than 300 miles from his standard battery Tesla Model 3. In general, most electric cars will do 3-4 miles per KWh on the road.

    So, your electricity cost per mile is about 8-10p, assuming you can charge at home.

    A modern, efficient petrol car will probably do 40 miles to the gallon across a range of driving scenarios. A litre of petrol in the UK is about £1.50, and there are 4.5 liters per gallon. So you're paying £6.75/gallon, and going about 40 miles with it (if it's a new modern car). Or about 17p per mile.

    Now, if you don't charge at home, the numbers will be very different. But let us not forget that there are 20 million houses in the UK, of which around two thirds have off street parking or a garage (https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/national-travel-survey-2019). So that's a lot of people (around half of all households, and way more than half of all car owning households) that have access to home charging.
    The vast bulk of the difference is of course duty and tax. And that will not be sustainable as the balance starts to change. Duty on fuel is a major source of government income and will need replaced.
  • MoonRabbitMoonRabbit Posts: 13,504
    edited April 2023

    WillG said:

    darkage said:

    It was only a few days ago that labour officials were 'reacting with glee' to their (rather pathetic) personal attacks on Sunak; I think Sunak is looking a lot slicker and more professional and is so undoing a lot of the harm that arose through Boris Johnson's divisive political style and personal attacks.

    I'm a Sunak fan. And he is significantly better as an operator than either of his predecessors. His problem remains delivery. In that he created 5 priorities, insisted they are everyone's priorities when that obviously isn't true, and then screwed up delivery of them.

    HY said he would do well in the debates - does being taken apart because you promised stuff you haven't delivered work for late polling surges?
    I actually agree with @HYUFD as I think Starmer will struggle against him
    I'm with @Luckyguy1983 on this. Sunak wasn't able to persuade his party to ignore the Siren Call of Truss last summer, which is one reason they're in the mess they are now (OK, I admit that LG probably doesn't agree with that bit).

    Sunak's background is finance, where the numbers do the persuasion for him. Nothing wrong with thinking in numbers, it's what I instinctively do. But when it comes to persuading lay neutrals of a case, Starmer is more effective because law means he has done it more for longer.
    The difference is Sunak is optimistic and positive. whereas Starmer is all negative and doom and gloom and wholly uninspiring
    And that's the million dollar question.

    By next autumn, life for Mr, Mrs, Mx, Dr etc Average will either be noticeably better or it won't.

    If it is, then game on, sure. The recent improvement in Conservative standing started when Sunak had a run of policy wins- Windsor, nurses' pay, new boats plan.

    If not, and some of the wins are already unraveling, then Sunak's sunny optimism is just going to annoy people.
    The wins aren't unravelling at all. Windsor was such a comprehensive win, all the PBers telling us the negative elements would come out in time have quickly moved on. On top of this, he added the major success of CPTPP accession.

    In terms of dangers, the boats policy was good, but he needs to follow it up with further immigration policy reforms to make sure the actual impact goes through. If I were him, I would replace Braverman with May to have someone who has actually delivered in this area. Then he needs to avoid stupid help the rich policies like inheritance tax reductions.
    “all the PBers telling us the negative elements would come out in time have quickly moved on”

    Wrong again Will. I’m not moving on, the negative elements of Windsor will become clearer over time. Firstly, what was the point of striking a deal that didn’t restore Stormont? The deal should have been the leverage to solve that problem, unless you think the lack of democratic assembly is no problem at all and isn’t playing into the hands of SF with each passing minute? Secondly the problem elements with Windsor was always what will happen over time now we have handed EU the power to move NI further away from mainland Brexit and closer to the Republics EU membership, or EU unilaterally junk Windsor if not getting their way on doing that. Quite a lot was conceded for no very little gain is how history will know this deal.

    “the boats policy was good, but he needs to follow it up with further immigration policy reforms to make sure the actual impact goes through.”
    What do you actually mean by further immigration policy to make sure impact of the boats promise goes through? What are you opaquely referring to?
    We owe the DUP a big debt of gratitude for standing up to bullying from everyone, the NI Secretary, Sunak, Biden, and even the Clintons, to hold on to their red lines. It is a spectacularly poor negotiated outcome for NI, when we genuinely did 'hold the cards' - at least a good portion of them. Sunak is weak. His weakness endangers our country.
    Straight after he shook hands with the EU on the EU offer Boris and Truss rejected as not good remotely good enough for UK, Sunak didn’t fly to NI to get the assembly working again - he had already blown the chance to do that - he flew in to snub the DUP instead tell Northern Ireland people in a coke factory how blessed and fortunate they are to benefit from being in EU single market, the brexiteers (himself) have taken the rest of the UK out of.

    Bizarre in itself. But more bizarre how people try to spin this as a win for Sunak.

    That day in the coke factory was Sunak having a very good day. Apparently.
  • DriverDriver Posts: 4,963
    edited April 2023
    ...
  • algarkirkalgarkirk Posts: 12,497
    edited April 2023

    Andy_JS said:

    Starmer has just said on Sky Abbotts comments were anti semitic

    The journalist came back that that admittance means she cannot stand for labour

    Starmer struggling with response

    Should one mistake end her parliamentary career? Seems a bit harsh.
    One mistake??????????
    Depends how bad the mistake is.

    Abbott's mistake over the weekend was an absolute doozy, and her excuse pretty feeble.
    The "it was just the first draft" only made matters worse.....

    The reality is that it is exactly how a particular subset of politicians (and some of the public) see the world, the black / white Corbyn view that there are oppressors, who can't suffer things like racism, and oppressed who get a pass for bad things like being racist, anti-Semitic, etc...and because Jews / Israel are stereotyped as successful, they aren't part of the oppressed class and then you get the Corbyn-esque blind spot to the fact they suffer discrimination.
    The "first draft" excuse to me sounded like basically an admission that the letter, as published, contained her authentic views.

    It is like having too much to drink, and waking up in the morning trying to write off having spoken your mind as "but I was drunk". It just means "I meant what I said, I'd just rather not have said it."
    The first draft may well have contained Abbott's views, but what it lacked was the context that she was countering an article which said White people suffer more racism than Black people, and specifically Jews, Travellers and Irish. Abbott then relied on the semantic point that racism is defined as impacting Blacks rather than Whites, which rather begs the question.

    So even if Abbott's views are wrong or objectionable, it is still possible they were badly articulated in that first draft, or that they might have been seen as part of a wider debate in light of the previous article.
    Doesn't change the fact that for a political friend of Corbyn to mention Jewish people was political stupidity of a almost unprecedented level.
    The real left hold their beliefs at a quasi fundamentalist religious level; this makes certain sorts of behaviour and dissembling difficult or impossible.

    It is worthwhile, when young, to attend a few proper hard left gatherings, over any subject whatsoever. You soon the hard walls closing in on the intellect

  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 50,258
    edited April 2023

    Nigelb said:

    Some interesting numbers here.

    VW Group's Canadian Cell Plant Will Have An Annual Output Of 90 GWh
    https://insideevs.com/news/663774/vw-group-canadian-cell-plant-annual-output-90-gwh/
    Volkswagen Group has released more details about its planned battery cell gigafactory in Canada, which will be the company's largest to date in the world and the country's largest manufacturing plant.

    Set to be located in St. Thomas, Ontario and operated by the automaker's PowerCo SE battery subsidiary, the battery plant will have an annual production capacity of up to 90 GWh in the final expansion phase.

    For comparison's sake, VW Group's battery gigafactory near Valencia, Spain, will have an annual output of 60 GWh when fully ramped, while the facility in Salzgitter, Germany will produce 40 GWh worth of battery cells each year.

    The German automaker plans to invest up to $5.3 billion (4.8 billion euros) until 2030 in the Canadian facility that has the potential to create up to 3,000 highly skilled jobs at the factory and tens of thousands more indirect jobs in the region. The company will receive a lot more money from the Canadian federal government, though.

    According to The Detroit News, Canada agreed to subsidies that may top $9.7 billion (13 billion Canadian dollars) over a decade, matching what VW would have got via the Inflation Reduction Act if it had located the plant in the US. The government will provide annual production subsidies as well as a grant toward the factory's capital cost...


    Production planned from 2027.
    90GWh is around 1.2m cars with 75kWh - so a decade's production of perhaps 10m, allowing for ramp up of production.
    So a battery subsidy of around $1,000 per car, which isn't ridiculous in order to get serious production up and running.

    I have a strange feeling that this whole everyone is going to have an electric car idea is not going to happen. We should be seeing electric chargers being installed everywhere on a mass scale now and it is simply not happening.

    The depreciation in value of electric vehicles is accelerating all the time

    Perhaps synthetic fuels are the future

    I fear the outcome will be that a lot of people won't be able to afford an electric car, so it won't matter if there aren't many chargers.

    The lack of urgency may be that everyone is expecting better and/or standardised charging technology to come along so making a big investment now might be a waste of time.

    Are commercial vehicles going to be exempt from the electric mandate? I see a big future in diesel Transits.

    The depreciation of electric vehicles is the market expanding - previously there were very few second hand electric vehicles.

    Commercial short range stuff is going electric in a big way.

    EDIT : on depreciation of EVs. There have been times where some EVs sold for more than the current sale price, due to shortages. The market is gradually moving to rational second hand prices.
  • EndillionEndillion Posts: 4,976

    Sandpit said:

    Sandpit said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Starmer has just said on Sky Abbotts comments were anti semitic

    The journalist came back that that admittance means she cannot stand for labour

    Starmer struggling with response

    Should one mistake end her parliamentary career? Seems a bit harsh.
    If it were the first time she’d come out with something blatantly racist, then perhaps so. This isn’t the first time though, she has been making similar comments for years.

    She thinks that racism is only ever a problem when white people attack black people, and that any other racism is perfectly fine.
    I suspect that what she was trying to say is that black people/ people of colour deal with racism every day, when other minorities do not. The lack of sensitivity to Jewish people who have the history of the holocaust was very dumb though, and for her to even "go there" given the recent problems in Labour with respect to antisemitism is astonishing in political terms. I imagine Starmer is delighted.
    Yes, she thinks that black people, and only black people, ever experience racism, and that only white people can be racist.

    The actuality, of course, being that racism occurs across all races, albeit not equally in different places.

    Worse, and why Starmer has had to deal with her today, is that there was a huge problem in his own party not so long ago, with blactant racism aimed towards Jews, from the far left of the party. Of all the things he wanted to be talking about today, this wasn’t on the list yesterday morning, he’ll be hoping to turn it into a net positive by dealing harshly with the recalcitrant MP. She’ll almost certainly be stood down at the next election, asked to retire gracefully to avoid a disciplinary case.
    Racism is not just about prejudice and/or discrimination against an individual or groups; it is also about a power differential. When there is a minority that lacks power of the majority, racism becomes much more powerful.

    Which is why racism by the police, or teachers, or doctors, had more dramatic effects than if I was to go up to my neighbour and say something horribly racist (which I wouldn't). My only power against the victim of the abuse are my words; if I were an authority figure, then I might have much more power.

    I fear the problem with the likes of Corbyn and Abbott is that they see Jews as amongst the 'powerful'. Therefore they think any racism directed towards them in the UK matters less than it does towards other ethnic minorities, who lack such power. In this, they are utterly wrong, and indeed I'd argue that it's racist to view Jews as 'powerful' in the first place, as it feeds into old Antisemitic tropes.

    I'm also concerned that other ethnic minorities, such as Asians, don't get quite the same concern from them.
    Or, in simple terms:

    Abbot doesn't care about discrimination towards any group she's not a member of; and Corbyn doesn't care about discrimination towards any group that doesn't block vote for the Labour party.
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 52,564

    Andy_JS said:

    Starmer has just said on Sky Abbotts comments were anti semitic

    The journalist came back that that admittance means she cannot stand for labour

    Starmer struggling with response

    Should one mistake end her parliamentary career? Seems a bit harsh.
    No bigger a mistake on anti-semitism than Starmer sitting in Corbyn's Shadow Cabinet for three years....
    Is this post timed to go off at 12.30 everyday, irrespective of where in the world you are? Can you teach me how its done?
    I feel your pain of a palpable hit.

    Every time.
    No pain here Mark. It doesn't affect me one way or the other if Labour win or lose the next GE. However, the Johnson and post- Johnsonian Conservatives are so dangerously malign I would like to see them able to regenerate in opposition. I would have thought you too would like the vile stain of Johnson removed with no possibility of resurrection after a close Sunak win.

    When I was a little younger I was a Labour Party member pounding the streets like you do for the Johnsonian and post-Johnsonian Conservatives, but after Corbyn, I have no interest. I don't blame Starmer for holding his nose. Chuka Umuna did the right thing. What are his odds for future PM?
    I was vocal, early last year, that Johnson had to go. I was equally vocal against Truss. Indeed, I left the Party - but Truss had gone before my standing order had been cancelled, so I did the decent thing - stayed on and voted again for Sunak (even though my preferred candidate was - and remains - Penny Mordaunt).

    I shall be happy as a great big happy thing on his holidays if Boris gets banned from the House for long enough for a recall vote - and to see him lose that by-election.

    But in the spirit of a better politics for this country, I find it hard to accept Labour putting forward Starmer as our next PM, when for three years he sat in Corbyn's shadow cabinet as antisemitism was a force in his Party. (I can't say I was impressed by his efforts to overturn the democratic will of the people who voted for Brexit, but that was a wider team effort.)
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 27,894

    Sandpit said:

    Sandpit said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Starmer has just said on Sky Abbotts comments were anti semitic

    The journalist came back that that admittance means she cannot stand for labour

    Starmer struggling with response

    Should one mistake end her parliamentary career? Seems a bit harsh.
    If it were the first time she’d come out with something blatantly racist, then perhaps so. This isn’t the first time though, she has been making similar comments for years.

    She thinks that racism is only ever a problem when white people attack black people, and that any other racism is perfectly fine.
    I suspect that what she was trying to say is that black people/ people of colour deal with racism every day, when other minorities do not. The lack of sensitivity to Jewish people who have the history of the holocaust was very dumb though, and for her to even "go there" given the recent problems in Labour with respect to antisemitism is astonishing in political terms. I imagine Starmer is delighted.
    Yes, she thinks that black people, and only black people, ever experience racism, and that only white people can be racist.

    The actuality, of course, being that racism occurs across all races, albeit not equally in different places.

    Worse, and why Starmer has had to deal with her today, is that there was a huge problem in his own party not so long ago, with blactant racism aimed towards Jews, from the far left of the party. Of all the things he wanted to be talking about today, this wasn’t on the list yesterday morning, he’ll be hoping to turn it into a net positive by dealing harshly with the recalcitrant MP. She’ll almost certainly be stood down at the next election, asked to retire gracefully to avoid a disciplinary case.
    Racism is not just about prejudice and/or discrimination against an individual or groups; it is also about a power differential. When there is a minority that lacks power of the majority, racism becomes much more powerful.

    Which is why racism by the police, or teachers, or doctors, had more dramatic effects than if I was to go up to my neighbour and say something horribly racist (which I wouldn't). My only power against the victim of the abuse are my words; if I were an authority figure, then I might have much more power.

    I fear the problem with the likes of Corbyn and Abbott is that they see Jews as amongst the 'powerful'. Therefore they think any racism directed towards them in the UK matters less than it does towards other ethnic minorities, who lack such power. In this, they are utterly wrong, and indeed I'd argue that it's racist to view Jews as 'powerful' in the first place, as it feeds into old Antisemitic tropes.

    I'm also concerned that other ethnic minorities, such as Asians, don't get quite the same concern from them.
    A point that should be remembered by some of the Jews are Wonderful posters yesterday. Propositions asserting that Group A is anything at all must be suspect. The irony is that in political demographics, we do this all the time. WWC voters love Boris and Brexit, for instance.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 28,368
    felix said:

    John Rentoul

    Just 3½ years ago, Keir Starmer campaigned to make Diane Abbott home sec

    Just over 3 and a half years ago Boris Johnson made the disgraced national security risk Priti Patel Home Secretary.

    Just over 6 months ago Sunak made the disgraced national security risk Suella Braverman Home Secretary.
    So any claim that Labour is offering something better gets drowned by the stench of hypocrisy. Of course Abbott also famously withdrew her son from a London Comprehensive and opted for the fee-paying City of London School instead. do as I say not....
    I wholly disagree with elite forms of education so I did the right thing as far as I was concerned by sending my children to a Comprehensive School. If Diane Abbott allows me to make the choice of private or state schooling for my children whilst she is in Government, I don't have a problem with her making the same choice. In my view she made the wrong choice and there is some justification for calling her hypocritical, but at the end of the day, one does right by one's children. If she insists on VAT on private education, so long as she is prepared to pay the VAT on her child's private education that is fine too.

    This is a wholly different narrative to her ludicrous letter to the Observer.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 50,258

    Andy_JS said:

    Starmer has just said on Sky Abbotts comments were anti semitic

    The journalist came back that that admittance means she cannot stand for labour

    Starmer struggling with response

    Should one mistake end her parliamentary career? Seems a bit harsh.
    One mistake??????????
    Depends how bad the mistake is.

    Abbott's mistake over the weekend was an absolute doozy, and her excuse pretty feeble.
    The "it was just the first draft" only made matters worse.....
    Even worse, it might actually have been true.
    I suggest the Boris Johnson Prize

    To be awarded to the public figure making the most ridiculous excuse for something.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 54,585
    DavidL said:

    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Nigelb said:

    Some interesting numbers here.

    VW Group's Canadian Cell Plant Will Have An Annual Output Of 90 GWh
    https://insideevs.com/news/663774/vw-group-canadian-cell-plant-annual-output-90-gwh/
    Volkswagen Group has released more details about its planned battery cell gigafactory in Canada, which will be the company's largest to date in the world and the country's largest manufacturing plant.

    Set to be located in St. Thomas, Ontario and operated by the automaker's PowerCo SE battery subsidiary, the battery plant will have an annual production capacity of up to 90 GWh in the final expansion phase.

    For comparison's sake, VW Group's battery gigafactory near Valencia, Spain, will have an annual output of 60 GWh when fully ramped, while the facility in Salzgitter, Germany will produce 40 GWh worth of battery cells each year.

    The German automaker plans to invest up to $5.3 billion (4.8 billion euros) until 2030 in the Canadian facility that has the potential to create up to 3,000 highly skilled jobs at the factory and tens of thousands more indirect jobs in the region. The company will receive a lot more money from the Canadian federal government, though.

    According to The Detroit News, Canada agreed to subsidies that may top $9.7 billion (13 billion Canadian dollars) over a decade, matching what VW would have got via the Inflation Reduction Act if it had located the plant in the US. The government will provide annual production subsidies as well as a grant toward the factory's capital cost...


    Production planned from 2027.
    90GWh is around 1.2m cars with 75kWh - so a decade's production of perhaps 10m, allowing for ramp up of production.
    So a battery subsidy of around $1,000 per car, which isn't ridiculous in order to get serious production up and running.

    I have a strange feeling that this whole everyone is going to have an electric car idea is not going to happen. We should be seeing electric chargers being installed everywhere on a mass scale now and it is simply not happening.

    The depreciation in value of electric vehicles is accelerating all the time

    Perhaps synthetic fuels are the future

    Massively lower fuel and maintenance costs.
    More internal space.
    Better performance.

    When the price of electric cars falls below that of ICE vehicles, then there will be very few purchasers of petrol vehicles.
    Massively lower fuel costs?
    Well, let's run the numbers shall we?

    Average usable battery capacity of an electric car is about 75KWh, and UK domestic energy prices are around 33p/KWh. Which means it'll cost you (from empty) approximately £25 to full up your car (at home) with electricity. For average range, we should probably go with about 250 miles, although I have a friend who regularly gets more than 300 miles from his standard battery Tesla Model 3. In general, most electric cars will do 3-4 miles per KWh on the road.

    So, your electricity cost per mile is about 8-10p, assuming you can charge at home.

    A modern, efficient petrol car will probably do 40 miles to the gallon across a range of driving scenarios. A litre of petrol in the UK is about £1.50, and there are 4.5 liters per gallon. So you're paying £6.75/gallon, and going about 40 miles with it (if it's a new modern car). Or about 17p per mile.

    Now, if you don't charge at home, the numbers will be very different. But let us not forget that there are 20 million houses in the UK, of which around two thirds have off street parking or a garage (https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/national-travel-survey-2019). So that's a lot of people (around half of all households, and way more than half of all car owning households) that have access to home charging.
    The vast bulk of the difference is of course duty and tax. And that will not be sustainable as the balance starts to change. Duty on fuel is a major source of government income and will need replaced.
    £26bn in fuel duty this year, plus the 20% VAT on fuel, plus around £10bn in road tax.

    IIRC, VAT is also charged at 20% on public car charging, as opposed to the 5% charged for domestic fuel.
  • squareroot2squareroot2 Posts: 6,723
    edited April 2023
    felix said:

    John Rentoul

    Just 3½ years ago, Keir Starmer campaigned to make Diane Abbott home sec

    Just over 3 and a half years ago Boris Johnson made the disgraced national security risk Priti Patel Home Secretary.

    Just over 6 months ago Sunak made the disgraced national security risk Suella Braverman Home Secretary.
    So any claim that Labour is offering something better gets drowned by the stench of hypocrisy. Of course Abbott also famously withdrew her son from a London Comprehensive and opted for the fee-paying City of London School instead. do as I say not....
    I wouldn't let Diane Abbott walk my dog.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 81,997
    edited April 2023

    Sandpit said:

    Sandpit said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Starmer has just said on Sky Abbotts comments were anti semitic

    The journalist came back that that admittance means she cannot stand for labour

    Starmer struggling with response

    Should one mistake end her parliamentary career? Seems a bit harsh.
    If it were the first time she’d come out with something blatantly racist, then perhaps so. This isn’t the first time though, she has been making similar comments for years.

    She thinks that racism is only ever a problem when white people attack black people, and that any other racism is perfectly fine.
    I suspect that what she was trying to say is that black people/ people of colour deal with racism every day, when other minorities do not. The lack of sensitivity to Jewish people who have the history of the holocaust was very dumb though, and for her to even "go there" given the recent problems in Labour with respect to antisemitism is astonishing in political terms. I imagine Starmer is delighted.
    Yes, she thinks that black people, and only black people, ever experience racism, and that only white people can be racist.

    The actuality, of course, being that racism occurs across all races, albeit not equally in different places.

    Worse, and why Starmer has had to deal with her today, is that there was a huge problem in his own party not so long ago, with blactant racism aimed towards Jews, from the far left of the party. Of all the things he wanted to be talking about today, this wasn’t on the list yesterday morning, he’ll be hoping to turn it into a net positive by dealing harshly with the recalcitrant MP. She’ll almost certainly be stood down at the next election, asked to retire gracefully to avoid a disciplinary case.
    Racism is not just about prejudice and/or discrimination against an individual or groups; it is also about a power differential. When there is a minority that lacks power of the majority, racism becomes much more powerful.

    Which is why racism by the police, or teachers, or doctors, had more dramatic effects than if I was to go up to my neighbour and say something horribly racist (which I wouldn't). My only power against the victim of the abuse are my words; if I were an authority figure, then I might have much more power.

    I fear the problem with the likes of Corbyn and Abbott is that they see Jews as amongst the 'powerful'. Therefore they think any racism directed towards them in the UK matters less than it does towards other ethnic minorities, who lack such power. In this, they are utterly wrong, and indeed I'd argue that it's racist to view Jews as 'powerful' in the first place, as it feeds into old Antisemitic tropes.

    I'm also concerned that other ethnic minorities, such as Asians, don't get quite the same concern from them.
    "Asians" in the US, particularly of Chinese, Japanese, Korean backgrounds, suffer this. Seen as very successful groups, so racism towards them is somehow seen as not really an issue.

    We have also seen this in particular with university application, they are doing too well as school, so in has come policies that target them from gaining too many places.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 71,070

    Andy_JS said:

    Starmer has just said on Sky Abbotts comments were anti semitic

    The journalist came back that that admittance means she cannot stand for labour

    Starmer struggling with response

    Should one mistake end her parliamentary career? Seems a bit harsh.
    No bigger a mistake on anti-semitism than Starmer sitting in Corbyn's Shadow Cabinet for three years....
    "No bigger mistake..."

    That's the old argument about whether it's moral to work for change within an organisation, or protest from the outside.

    There isn't a simple right or wrong answer to that. Judging on outcomes - Corbyn is gone; Abbott is immediately suspended for anti-semitism pending further decision - Starmer appears to have made the right one.

    But no doubt you'll continue to post your slogan.
  • kamskikamski Posts: 5,190
    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Well, let's run the numbers shall we?

    Average usable battery capacity of an electric car is about 75KWh, and UK domestic energy prices are around 33p/KWh. Which means it'll cost you (from empty) approximately £25 to full up your car (at home) with electricity. For average range, we should probably go with about 250 miles, although I have a friend who regularly gets more than 300 miles from his standard battery Tesla Model 3. In general, most electric cars will do 3-4 miles per KWh on the road.

    So, your electricity cost per mile is about 8-10p, assuming you can charge at home.

    Interesting figures.

    My Tern GSD has capacity of 0.9KWh. So at 33p/KWh, that's 30p for a full recharge. It will comfortably do 60 miles from that - ten school runs - which makes a ha'penny per mile.

    I can charge it at home - just wheel it into the house (we don't have off-road parking anyway). Wouldn't fancy lifting it up a flight of stairs though.
    Electric cargo bikes are pretty amazing. But I would point out, there's some human power in there too.
    So a bit of exercise too? Even better!

    I move children around in an e-cargo bike every day, and I have to confess the human power I use is probably not much more than when walking, unless I deliberately turn the assist down to give myself some exercise. The battery comes out so you can charge it anywhere there's a socket.

  • squareroot2squareroot2 Posts: 6,723
    edited April 2023
    Driver said:

    ...

    Test
  • rcs1000 said:

    Nigelb said:

    Some interesting numbers here.

    VW Group's Canadian Cell Plant Will Have An Annual Output Of 90 GWh
    https://insideevs.com/news/663774/vw-group-canadian-cell-plant-annual-output-90-gwh/
    Volkswagen Group has released more details about its planned battery cell gigafactory in Canada, which will be the company's largest to date in the world and the country's largest manufacturing plant.

    Set to be located in St. Thomas, Ontario and operated by the automaker's PowerCo SE battery subsidiary, the battery plant will have an annual production capacity of up to 90 GWh in the final expansion phase.

    For comparison's sake, VW Group's battery gigafactory near Valencia, Spain, will have an annual output of 60 GWh when fully ramped, while the facility in Salzgitter, Germany will produce 40 GWh worth of battery cells each year.

    The German automaker plans to invest up to $5.3 billion (4.8 billion euros) until 2030 in the Canadian facility that has the potential to create up to 3,000 highly skilled jobs at the factory and tens of thousands more indirect jobs in the region. The company will receive a lot more money from the Canadian federal government, though.

    According to The Detroit News, Canada agreed to subsidies that may top $9.7 billion (13 billion Canadian dollars) over a decade, matching what VW would have got via the Inflation Reduction Act if it had located the plant in the US. The government will provide annual production subsidies as well as a grant toward the factory's capital cost...


    Production planned from 2027.
    90GWh is around 1.2m cars with 75kWh - so a decade's production of perhaps 10m, allowing for ramp up of production.
    So a battery subsidy of around $1,000 per car, which isn't ridiculous in order to get serious production up and running.

    I have a strange feeling that this whole everyone is going to have an electric car idea is not going to happen. We should be seeing electric chargers being installed everywhere on a mass scale now and it is simply not happening.

    The depreciation in value of electric vehicles is accelerating all the time

    Perhaps synthetic fuels are the future

    Massively lower fuel and maintenance costs.
    More internal space.
    Better performance.

    When the price of electric cars falls below that of ICE vehicles, then there will be very few purchasers of petrol vehicles.
    If NerysHughes is right about depreciation, then second-hand electric cars should already be comparable with ICE cars. Perhaps it is not just price.
    It'll more come down to the access to charging.

    EV will work brilliantly for the middle classes with access to chargers on driveways.

    Those which rely on on road parking, or no parking, or those with flats will have a much harder time.
    One of my neighbours has exactly this issue. He has a Tesla from work, but lives in a flat. He now drives to a charging location and watched netflix for an hour before work. Hates it, and wants to go back to a petrol/diesel.
    How far away does he work? Doubt he is doing that every day, unless its a 250 mile round trip to the office. And if the company have provided an EV company car they really should have on-site charging. In which case it would charge as he works and never delay him.
This discussion has been closed.