I was rather surprised to find BYD now very much the biggest showroom! There's also a very large MG
I'm seeing these pop up in NI too sadly... one prominent long time Ford dealer split the showroom for them. They keep posting ads on Facebook which keep appearing on my feed... every time I post the vomit emoji in the comments lol Horrid looking cars. I'm sure like MG, horrible to sit in outside of a show room too for more than a few minutes unless you're deaf and most of your nerves can't feel the vibration.. Why our government is letting these brands destroy our car market (and the European / Japanese non human rights encroaching, intellectual rights respecting, innovating car makers) is beyond me. They are
everywhere.
And don't give me (
figure of speech, not being rude to you personally!) the whole "free market" crap. Yeah, it's fair when it's other free markets. Not when it's
them. Not a communist regime with special rules in its own territory on 'our' brands, interfering and tampering with its own huge market and very much putting foreign brands at an artificial disadvantage to support its domestic efforts to steal and copy, why aren't we applying the same when it comes to them? Who aren't actually producing anything better at a better value, they're literally ripping off every other car brand as much as possible, producing trash and because of the efficiencies of slave labour and not needing to do R&D like the fair players, they can undercut in price. That's all the buyers are seeing, a spec list and a price, versus what, a bog standard VW product or Toyota for thousands more? The government should long have intervened. I'm especially sad to know the EU isn't stamping down since it's got more of a car producing market to need to protect...
If I were VAG, Stellantis.. Toyota etc, I'd be getting together to outright forbid franchised dealers of their brands to allow to sign up for one of the CCP brands... probably illegal or anti-competitive, but when that's what you're dealing with with them.. I reckon some special provision like that would be totally fair.
as I walked around, that there were pretty much no really small vehicles on show anywhere. I suppose it's all about battery size and weight? at this time you just can't make a small battery with enough capacity to give useable range?
It is a shame. Walking past some of the new C3s (and to be Panda's), too long, too tall... no more A-segment. It's just not a Panda. And the latest Corsa's too, just not really Corsas. To imagine that
Ford could imaginarily pull out of Europe tomorrow... and allow Stellantis to slap a Fiesta logo on the same thing is just bizarre. But less bizarre than if you suggested it a decade ago.
I think the modern 'proper' EVs now, the batteries are well, well designed into the chassis. Probably for maximum space, structural integrity / safety and handling. Versus a decade ago's likes of 'E-Golf' which was just the engine one without an engine and things stuck various places. So they're just throwing all the R&D now into an EV first mentality and with the 208 / C3 / Panda, slapping an engine in it too as an afterthought which is probably easier compared to all the EV design considerations.
Definitely more weight, more cost, more complexity in manufacturing for... well, maybe cleaner air in London or big city centres, and a bit of convenience plugging it in at home, but other than that not sure it's really helping the planet or doing much useful for anyone. Oh, they're faster - but now we've got more accidents of people flying out of junctions at speeds that were probably only in Ferrari's in the 80s - and the tyre wear / losing control from poor tyres that comes along with it, all in the hands of everyday people!
When I drove the Panda 1.2 Pop after doing oil changes last year and this... one thing I noticed was my mentality to the road
completely changed - I couldn't drive like a maniac, not so easily. I wouldn't dare pull out at any junction or roundabout unless I was twice as sure I had the space to do so without another car coming close. I didn't drive it long enough to need to overtake, but I sure as hell wasn't going to overtake anything less than something that sincerely needed passing like a tractor or lorry or something going like 40 or less in a 60.
It forced me to drive sensibly and within the limits of the car. All these EVs, even the basic little e-Corsa, come with relatively powerful acceleration to misuse as well as a bunch of features that bolster texting-while-driving like lane keeping and anti-collision, I can't see them being any better for our roads and driving than they are for the planet.
but was very surprised and wasn't expecting to see people with collection tins collecting for the IRA
Oh god that's awful. Imagine people nowadays collecting for Hamas.... alright, well, some of the people flooding our city centres in those... protests.. probably would, but thankfully not. That's so sick. Like the Americans that also funded it by believing their little sob stories. I can't believe they were doing that, or that it would be legal.
Yes, I wonder if the collecting tins would have been so full if the locals had been on the ground in Birmingham etc. after the pub bombings.
It is always the innocent public who suffer, those that on both sides just want a quiet life, not the ones at the top.
People listen to the Irish sob stories and suddenly they think they're supporting something they're not. Like many matters, even today, the innocent victims are only used as a pawn by pure evil (against their wills) and the naive people in the world buy into it and end up supporting the evil.
IRA are absolute scum, if ever there was a good justification or reason for the changes to the border they want, they sure as hell lost my support, or respect or willingness to negotiate when they started murdering innocent people, innocent families and children. They still bully, intimidate and control the show over here unfortunately... mostly their own community mind you, but I still feel horrible for them. I often wonder what will happen as they are big advocates for Hamas nowadays, there's even a number of establishments opening here with names of places in those regions 'in support'. Just wait until they welcome their 'friends' here and start to see how their own little terror tricks with 21st century advancements
used against them in their own streets goes for them. They'll be crying for the UK gov to help them out of that I would imagine. People in actual Ireland (ROI) away from the border equally can't stand the sight or mention of them, they actually do just want peace. Terrorism always loses sympathy, even for good causes, every single time. Alienates people who could and would otherwise help.
