A blog about gadgets and green stuff http://www.jaffacake.net/ en-us Wed, 11 Jan 2012 20:28:00 +0100 Wed, 11 Jan 2012 20:28:00 +0100 http://www.jaffacake.net/trackback?open&id=volvo-car-uk-emissions-equality http://www.jaffacake.net/dx/volvo-car-uk-emissions-equality Green Ben Rose http://www.jaffacake.net/dx/volvo-car-uk-emissions-equality?opendocument&comments http://www.jaffacake.net/dx/volvo-car-uk-emissions-equality launched its Emissions Equality campaign. Aimed at "providing all motorists with a broader range of emissions information when they buy their next car" the new think tank would "help combat the UK’s rising problem of poor air quality."

As an active campaigner to reduce pollution and improve air quality I naturally took an interest and was impressed by its alleged proposals, although at the same time perhaps rather sceptical that it was just a thinly veiled marketing campaign with the aim of convincing the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, to exempt its vehicles from the London Congestion Charge.

Sadly, as an ecologist, Volvo Car UK truly let me down. As soon as they managed to turn Boris around, and its particulate emitting diesel cars were exempted from the charge, the campaign seemed to completely lose focus. Worst of all, the Emissions Equality app that they had launched lay abandoned in the middle of the iTunes store without an update.

In March 2011, I called them out on this situation in my post entitled Emissions Inequality. I explained about the campaign, its apparent lack of focus and the fact that the app was completely useless to new buyers as it contained only very old data - despite daily updates being available from the VCA that take into account all new car models that are launched.

I received a fairly prompt response from both Jay Negley at Redspy (who developed the app whilst running the Clean Green Cars website promoted within it) and Duncan Forrester from Volvo Car UK who informed me that an update would hopefully be available soon. In March 2011, the month I wrote my inequality post, the app was indeed updated.

Fast forward to January 2012 and there have been dozens, probably hundreds of unique car models released since then. Car buyers may be keen to compare the emissions of these new vehicles with others that are on sale, in order to help reduce some 50,000 premature deaths a year that are caused by air pollution. (Source: Volvo Car UK).

So what will the Emissions Equality Think Tank offer them in 2012?

1) The application has not been updated since I last queried it in March 2011 - almost one year ago.

2) The Emissions Equality Facebook page hasn't received an update since July 2010.

3) Volvo Car UK hasn't released any information on the topic since October 2010, when they were celebrating their victory in changing the London Congestion Charge rules.

So, is Emissions Equality a campaign to help improve air quality and reduce all types of pollution from vehicles in the UK? Or is it just a long forgotten Volvo marketing campaign? You decide. ]]> http://www.jaffacake.net/dxcomments/volvo-car-uk-emissions-equality http://www.jaffacake.net/dx/volvo-car-uk-emissions-equality?opendocument&comments Thu, 8 Dec 2011 14:53:55 +0100 http://www.jaffacake.net/trackback?open&id=the-changing-face-of-electricity http://www.jaffacake.net/dx/the-changing-face-of-electricity Domestic Appliances Ben Rose http://www.jaffacake.net/dx/the-changing-face-of-electricity?opendocument&comments http://www.jaffacake.net/dx/the-changing-face-of-electricity
There’s a massive CO2 footprint for electricity production. Generating just 1kWh of electricity in the UK releases around 525g of CO2 and other emissions into the atmosphere from our coal and natural gas fired power stations.

Naturally, this made me cast a critical eye over the recent boom in electric vehicles (EVs) and I previously examined the hidden emissions that come from driving an EV like the Nissan LEAF after the seemingly constant claims that these vehicles are “Zero Emission”. In fact, just last week, Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn was making big claims around the CO2 that hasn’t been emitted as a result of people driving the LEAF.

Everybody is jumping on the EV bandwagon now, with many manufacturers having a pure EV or plug-in hybrid on sale or coming to market. Last week I was invited to the Volvo HQ in Gothenburg to see the new V60 plug-in hybrid vehicle. Naturally, I sat there doing sums about how much CO2 would be generated in charging its 11.2kWh battery pack and then put the question to Volvo about how exactly this was going to help the environment. I wasn’t ready for the answer.

It seems that Volvo has done a nice little deal with Swedish electricity provider Vattenfall which will give buyers the option of taking the car along with three years of renewable energy supply. Generated from hydro-electric or wind, this supply has a carbon footprint of approximately zero meaning that, on a full charge, the V60 plug-in hybrid will go up to 32 miles with no CO2 emissions from the tailpipe or the power station. Rather different from simply pretending there aren’t any emissions from the use of electricity.

Perhaps things have changed at Nissan in almost two years since I first looked into EVs? I asked Nissan UK if it was prepared to discuss why it continually fails to acknowledge the carbon footprint of electricity production whilst promoting EVs. I submitted the following questions to its press office:

1) How does plugging something in and leaving it turned on overnight help save the environment?

2) Doesn't this go against the messages we've been receiving from ecologists for years?"

3) Why aren't other products, like tumble dryers and fridge/freezers being marketed as "zero emission" if a car, that uses considerably more power, can be.

4) What is Nissan doing to help reduce the environmental impact of electricity production?

Nissan responded by saying that “Unfortunately, we are not in a position to comment on your questions.”

Meanwhile, Volvo is looking into providing a renewable energy option in all locations they plan to sell plug-in vehicles. ]]> http://www.jaffacake.net/dxcomments/the-changing-face-of-electricity http://www.jaffacake.net/dx/the-changing-face-of-electricity?opendocument&comments Wed, 2 Nov 2011 10:15:00 +0100
Regular readers of this site will likely have read some of the previous articles f ... ]]> http://www.jaffacake.net/trackback?open&id=zero-emissions-or-just-hot-air http://www.jaffacake.net/dx/zero-emissions-or-just-hot-air Green Ben Rose http://www.jaffacake.net/dx/zero-emissions-or-just-hot-air?opendocument&comments http://www.jaffacake.net/dx/zero-emissions-or-just-hot-air
Regular readers of this site will likely have read some of the previous articles featured on this site around the Nissan LEAF and electric cars in general. So imagine my surprise when British Gas contacted me to let me know they run Nissan LEAF models as pool cars from there offices in Windsor and Staines.

Not only that, but they claim that these cars are truly zero emissions as they are each powered by some dedicated solar panels - recharging the vehicles using just the power of the sun.

Needless to say I was keen to take a look so I packed my camera, a Surrey Police Inspector and the MilesPerLitre.com team and we headed over there for a special report.

Are these Nissan LEAF pool cars truly zero emissions from usage? Or is British Gas trying to sell us a load of hot air? Take a look at the full article over on the MilesPerLitre.com site. ]]> http://www.jaffacake.net/dxcomments/zero-emissions-or-just-hot-air http://www.jaffacake.net/dx/zero-emissions-or-just-hot-air?opendocument&comments Wed, 5 Oct 2011 11:55:39 +0100 http://www.jaffacake.net/trackback?open&id=fuel-duty http://www.jaffacake.net/dx/fuel-duty Green Ben Rose http://www.jaffacake.net/dx/fuel-duty?opendocument&comments http://www.jaffacake.net/dx/fuel-duty BBC even claim that  “the fall in sales has deprived the Treasury of nearly £1bn in fuel duty between January and June this year”.

Sure there is no denying that, in the first six months of 2011, retailers have sold 1.7bn less litres of petrol compared with 3 years ago. But what else has happened over that same period?

In 2008, the  AA reported that “Fuel price falls to 21- month low”. If we look at the middle of that six month period in 2008, the AA fuel price report March 2008, we’ll see that the UK average prices were 106.8 and 114.3 pence per litre respectively for petrol and diesel. Of this they claim tax of 62% (66.2p) for petrol and 58.94% (67.4p) for diesel.

Fast forward to March 2011 and we now have a UK average of 132.9p for Petrol and 139.0p for Diesel. With tax of 61% and 59.08% that equates to 81.1p per litre tax on petrol and 81.9p per litre tax on diesel. So, in the 3 year period being reported on, the tax on a litre of petrol has actually gone up 14.9 pence or 22.5%.

So they’re selling 15% less fuel, but the Government is actually taking home 7.5% more tax - helped in part by the increase in VAT. Not exactly that £1bn reduction in fuel duty you may have perceived, is it?

In reality, the last 5 years has seen the introduction of Euro 5 and other emissions legislation which has resulted in significantly more economical diesel cars. We now have family sized cars from the likes of Volvo that will do around 1000 miles on a single tank of diesel. With more than half of cars now being sold on PCP schemes, that result in a new car every 3-5 years, in this 3 year period a large proportion new cars buyers will have switched from an older Euro 4 car to a Euro 5 compliant diesel with economy improvements of up to 50%.

This would have resulted in significantly reduced diesel sales but the migration of petrol drivers to DERV has pretty much matched the economy improvements in this area, with a 0.5% drop in diesel sales since 2008. The overall loser is petrol. No surprise as supply and demand is clearly displayed in the pump price which has risen much less than diesel in recent times.

But don’t be fooled into thinking that the Government didn’t see this one coming and, with diesel taxes up 21% in the same period, they’re clearly raking it in. ]]> http://www.jaffacake.net/dxcomments/fuel-duty http://www.jaffacake.net/dx/fuel-duty?opendocument&comments Fri, 23 Sep 2011 12:16:19 +0100
I have been a customer of HSBC since 1991, when I was 16 years of age.

Since then I have been able to manage my account a number of ways. I could use my Debit card at an ATM to check my balance, transfer funds or even print off recent transactions.

I could use telephone banking to check my balance at my convenience from any telephone, 24 hours a day. I could even speak to a friendly human being, until you moved the call centre to India and things started to go downhill.

That's OK, I still had the friendly people in my local Addlestone branch. I could drop in there and talk to them with any queries and pay-in cheques as required. But then you turned it into a lobby style branch, pretty much removing all the people unless I pressed a buzzer to get one out of the back office. They were quite helpful for showing me how to use the machine, which couldn't handle my enquiry, or directing me to the internal courtesy phone that would connect me free of charge to your call centre...in India.

Thankfully Internet Banking was available which has allowed me, for many years, to access my accounts on-line. I can check balances, transfer money, make payments etc. as required. I just need to sign-in with my user ID, date of birth and random characters from my password. It works well and has done for years.

Presumably people started going into my local branch less and less, as you closed it - along with my nearest cash machine. Quite ironic that a company with the strapline "the world's local bank" would go ahead and no longer be local thousands of customers. To pay-in cheques, which lets face it will be in Birthday cards from Grandparents for years to come, I now have to drive many miles to find a branch that's open on a Saturday morning as I can't get to the nearest branch during its limited opening hours. Thankfully most people transfer money electronically these days so I've put up with this minor inconvenience for quite a while. The irony that a relative's gift to my son is actually a trip to the bank with his mum to pay in the cheque. She can no longer walk to the branch with her buggy. Instead, she has to load the children and buggy in the car, drive to an open branch, pay to park and then line up to pay in the cheque.

This wasn't really very practical, so we opened an account for our son at the local Nationwide. We became familiar with that branch as it is now our closest cash machine, since you closed ours. They provide us with a service so they get our custom. That's how it works. HSBC may be the world's local bank, but ours is a small branch of Nationwide. They also got our Mortgage business when we moved house because not only were their flexible mortgage deals great value, they were also...you know...open.
... ]]> http://www.jaffacake.net/trackback?open&id=dear-hsbc http://www.jaffacake.net/dx/dear-hsbc I Hate Ben Rose http://www.jaffacake.net/dx/dear-hsbc?opendocument&comments http://www.jaffacake.net/dx/dear-hsbc
I have been a customer of HSBC since 1991, when I was 16 years of age.

Since then I have been able to manage my account a number of ways. I could use my Debit card at an ATM to check my balance, transfer funds or even print off recent transactions.

I could use telephone banking to check my balance at my convenience from any telephone, 24 hours a day. I could even speak to a friendly human being, until you moved the call centre to India and things started to go downhill.

That's OK, I still had the friendly people in my local Addlestone branch. I could drop in there and talk to them with any queries and pay-in cheques as required. But then you turned it into a lobby style branch, pretty much removing all the people unless I pressed a buzzer to get one out of the back office. They were quite helpful for showing me how to use the machine, which couldn't handle my enquiry, or directing me to the internal courtesy phone that would connect me free of charge to your call centre...in India.

Thankfully Internet Banking was available which has allowed me, for many years, to access my accounts on-line. I can check balances, transfer money, make payments etc. as required. I just need to sign-in with my user ID, date of birth and random characters from my password. It works well and has done for years.

Presumably people started going into my local branch less and less, as you closed it - along with my nearest cash machine. Quite ironic that a company with the strapline "the world's local bank" would go ahead and no longer be local thousands of customers. To pay-in cheques, which lets face it will be in Birthday cards from Grandparents for years to come, I now have to drive many miles to find a branch that's open on a Saturday morning as I can't get to the nearest branch during its limited opening hours. Thankfully most people transfer money electronically these days so I've put up with this minor inconvenience for quite a while. The irony that a relative's gift to my son is actually a trip to the bank with his mum to pay in the cheque. She can no longer walk to the branch with her buggy. Instead, she has to load the children and buggy in the car, drive to an open branch, pay to park and then line up to pay in the cheque.

This wasn't really very practical, so we opened an account for our son at the local Nationwide. We became familiar with that branch as it is now our closest cash machine, since you closed ours. They provide us with a service so they get our custom. That's how it works. HSBC may be the world's local bank, but ours is a small branch of Nationwide. They also got our Mortgage business when we moved house because not only were their flexible mortgage deals great value, they were also...you know...open.

Now you introduce the HSBC Secure Key for internet banking. This will, as you put it "make your Personal Internet Banking sessions even more secure by giving you a new security code each time you log on". I'm quite sure it will make internet banking more secure, because not even I can access it. I'm at work, that place you are when you realise you've forgotten to pay a bill or need to check your balance before you buy something on-line. The Secure Key is locked up in my home, where I keep things that I don't want to lose.

This isn't really the any time, any place, any where Martini style convenience that I expect from internet banking. Sure, I could carry the Secure Key with me, but it's MASSIVE. Electronics only gets smaller, you can now buy 50" televisions that are only 1cm thick, but HSBC have somehow managed to produce a Secure Key device that is as big as the calculator the kids had at school in the 1980s.

I understand token based 2-factor authentication, I've worked in IT security for over a decade. I've carried many such devices over the years, any sensible office won't let you access you email without one. But I've also been involved in the purchasing process for these devices and they simply don't have to be this big. My current business token is tiny in comparison and sits on my keyring without being intrusive at all. Some token based authentication will even run as an app on a phone, removing the need to carry any special device at all. It's called convenience.

Where do you expect I keep this secure key? It won't fit in my wallet and clearly isn't a keyfob. If I keep it at home, I can't access my accounts from the office. If I keep it in my desk drawer, I can't pay bills at home. If I keep it in my work bag, it's no use when I'm visiting a friend or relative's house and may get lost - meaning I can't access my account at all. I don't doubt that internet security is key for HSBC but you've somehow missed the whole point of why people use Internet Banking. It's supposed to be convenient and easy access. It no longer is.

Following my issue this morning, I spoke to your call centre - after going through the multitude of press 1 for this, 2 for that, phone options that drove me to the internet in the first place - and they have granted a "one time" extension to the period I am allowed to log-in without the HSBC Secure Key. The lady on the phone seemed more than familiar with my category of complaint and how to handle it. She even offered me this email address in order to make a complaint.

Clearly nobody likes it. You only have to search Twitter or Google for "HSBC Secure Key" to find hundreds of other customers who have taken issue with it. Seems you have a bit of a PR nightmare on your hands as everybody who gets one of these devices seems to be complaining about it. You can add me to the list..

You hold all my money and are there to provide a service. It feels like you no longer are and your focus remains on closing branches, call centres and otherwise finding ways to cut costs - like buying the lowest cost security device. Now all I need to find out is whether Nationwide require a clunky device to access their Internet Banking service. If not, despite being a customer of yours for 20 years, I'm off.

Regards,

Ben ]]> http://www.jaffacake.net/dxcomments/dear-hsbc http://www.jaffacake.net/dx/dear-hsbc?opendocument&comments Wed, 21 Sep 2011 08:49:55 +0100
The easiest car to compare the Plug-in Prius to is its own hybrid predecessor. They are, after all, the same car - the plug-in variant just has a bigger battery pack that uses Lithium instead of NiMH in the older Prius. It also requires an on-board charger and a few software tweaks.

We know from our measurements that the Prius Plug-in Hybrid uses around 3.3kWh of electricity for a full charge. For technical reasons, related to battery management, it's rumoured that this model actually carries around 5kWh of Li-ion battery cells on board. This, using our ballpark figure of £500 per kWh of battery modules, equates to a wholesale battery pack cost of around £2500. This pack also replaces the smaller NiMh battery pack in the normal hybrid Prius - so we're saving on that cost too. It's probably fair to say that the cost saving of removing the NiMh battery pack probably covers the cost of the new charging unit in the plug-in model, so the only real additional cost in this car is the £2500 Li-ion pack. No surprise then, that Toyota claim the Plug-in Prius will go on sale in the UK for under £26k (after subsidy) - about £2000 more than the current Prius T-Spirit model.

So what extra do you get for your money? Well, you should get lower running costs. If you frequently do short journeys, the 13 miles of plug-in range will put a significant dent in your fuel bill. Compared to the 60mpg you will likely get in the standard Prius, Toyota are claiming a combined fuel consumption of 108.6mpg in this prototype model. As with the Ampera, this is based on a highly unrealistic testing cycle and your results will vary considerably. Counting miles that don't actually come from the gallons is a bit misleading and pointless. I could pull the car with husky dogs and that would also increase my mpg, it's all nonsense.

In real terms, the hybrid Prius will use around a litre of fuel when travelling 13 miles. Instead of burning that litre of fuel, at a current cost of around £1.35, the plug-in hybrid Prius allows you to use electricity instead; at a rather cheaper cost of 35 pence. You then need to charge for a couple of hours, after which you can save another litre of petrol and another pound in cash. Every time you charge, you save a quid. If you can only charge at home, you may only save a quid a day. If you're fortunate enough to be able to charge at work, you may save another quid - or more if you don't pay the electricity at that end either. If the saving really is only a quid, in the pouring rain you really aren't going to go rooting around in the boot looking for your charging cable and plugging in. If you're in your suit for work, you'd likely rather spend the extra quid under a canopy at the petrol pump next time you fill up.

So, over the course of the year, you may manage say 400 charges - a saving of £400. Over the 3-5 years you might own this car, this equates to £1200-2000. How much are you paying for this privilege? About £2000. Like a lot of current plug-in car maths,you may not see a clear benefit.

Why would I want to pay an extra £2k for the privilege of messing around with a charging cable in bad weather if the overall saving was only £2000? That's no benefit and we've not even considered the ever increasing cost of domestic fuel, which is rising faster than petrol prices.

Of course, you may be interested in this car as you are an environmentalist - so let's look at the CO2 footprint.
... ]]> http://www.jaffacake.net/trackback?open&id=prius-plug-in-hybrid-part-six-running-costs-emissions http://www.jaffacake.net/dx/prius-plug-in-hybrid-part-six-running-costs-emissions Ampera Ben Rose http://www.jaffacake.net/dx/prius-plug-in-hybrid-part-six-running-costs-emissions?opendocument&comments http://www.jaffacake.net/dx/prius-plug-in-hybrid-part-six-running-costs-emissions
The easiest car to compare the Plug-in Prius to is its own hybrid predecessor. They are, after all, the same car - the plug-in variant just has a bigger battery pack that uses Lithium instead of NiMH in the older Prius. It also requires an on-board charger and a few software tweaks.

We know from our measurements that the Prius Plug-in Hybrid uses around 3.3kWh of electricity for a full charge. For technical reasons, related to battery management, it's rumoured that this model actually carries around 5kWh of Li-ion battery cells on board. This, using our ballpark figure of £500 per kWh of battery modules, equates to a wholesale battery pack cost of around £2500. This pack also replaces the smaller NiMh battery pack in the normal hybrid Prius - so we're saving on that cost too. It's probably fair to say that the cost saving of removing the NiMh battery pack probably covers the cost of the new charging unit in the plug-in model, so the only real additional cost in this car is the £2500 Li-ion pack. No surprise then, that Toyota claim the Plug-in Prius will go on sale in the UK for under £26k (after subsidy) - about £2000 more than the current Prius T-Spirit model.

So what extra do you get for your money? Well, you should get lower running costs. If you frequently do short journeys, the 13 miles of plug-in range will put a significant dent in your fuel bill. Compared to the 60mpg you will likely get in the standard Prius, Toyota are claiming a combined fuel consumption of 108.6mpg in this prototype model. As with the Ampera, this is based on a highly unrealistic testing cycle and your results will vary considerably. Counting miles that don't actually come from the gallons is a bit misleading and pointless. I could pull the car with husky dogs and that would also increase my mpg, it's all nonsense.

In real terms, the hybrid Prius will use around a litre of fuel when travelling 13 miles. Instead of burning that litre of fuel, at a current cost of around £1.35, the plug-in hybrid Prius allows you to use electricity instead; at a rather cheaper cost of 35 pence. You then need to charge for a couple of hours, after which you can save another litre of petrol and another pound in cash. Every time you charge, you save a quid. If you can only charge at home, you may only save a quid a day. If you're fortunate enough to be able to charge at work, you may save another quid - or more if you don't pay the electricity at that end either. If the saving really is only a quid, in the pouring rain you really aren't going to go rooting around in the boot looking for your charging cable and plugging in. If you're in your suit for work, you'd likely rather spend the extra quid under a canopy at the petrol pump next time you fill up.

So, over the course of the year, you may manage say 400 charges - a saving of £400. Over the 3-5 years you might own this car, this equates to £1200-2000. How much are you paying for this privilege? About £2000. Like a lot of current plug-in car maths,you may not see a clear benefit.

Why would I want to pay an extra £2k for the privilege of messing around with a charging cable in bad weather if the overall saving was only £2000? That's no benefit and we've not even considered the ever increasing cost of domestic fuel, which is rising faster than petrol prices.

Of course, you may be interested in this car as you are an environmentalist - so let's look at the CO2 footprint.

The standard hybrid Prius has an official CO2 rating of 89g/km - this is already the lowest VED band (A) and exempt from car tax. Toyota estimate 49g/km for this plug-in model but, as with most things electric car, this negates the CO2 footprint from the national grid whilst you charge it.

We know from our measurements that 3.3kWh of electricity are used to go 13 miles. Using the NEF CO2 calculator, used for all the comparisons on this site, this emits 1.731kg of CO2 or (1.731/13*1000) 133g/mile or (133/1.6) an equivalent figure of 83g/km. It's a marginal improvement over the standard hybrid but, as it needs to lug around a petrol engine, not quite as efficient as the Nissan LEAF's estimated 81g/km. It is massively less than the highly inefficient 113g/km we estimated for the Vauxhall Ampera on EV mode though. The Ampera also only achieves around 40mpg in petrol mode when the batteries run out, making the Prius approx. 50% cheaper to run on the petrol cycle and giving the Ampera a carbon footprint around 160g/km - almost double.

In real terms, though, these cars have very differing charging capacities and range. On a return journey of up to 100miles, the Leaf will always be the cheapest to run and likely have the lowest CO2 footprint. The only real issue is that it won't go further than that without the hassle of recharging which puts off some higher mileage buyers and pushes them towards plug-in models like the Ampera and Prius plug-in.

You'll clearly see from the graph above that the Ampera can't touch the other two for overall CO2 footprint. The Leaf is lowest of them all but runs out of steam at the 100 mile marker. The Plug-in Prius will achieve 5 times this distance without needing to recharge. From a CO2 perspective, clearly things just don't add up for the Ampera, even for short journeys it emits significantly more than the competition.

Look at journey costs, though, and it's a slightly different picture.

The Leaf still has the lowest cost per mile, making it more appealing for short journeys. For the first 13 miles, the Plug-in Prius takes second place, but quickly gets left behind by the Ampera when its batteries run flat and the petrol engine kicks in. This continues until the 50 mile market when the Ampera runs out of charge and its petrol generator kicks in. Graph based on a best case scenario of 45mpg for the Ampera vs. 60mpg for the Prius.

Never before has the old phrase YMMV (your mileage may vary) been more apt. The value of each vehicle will vary considerably based on the journeys you do. If the car never goes further than around 80 miles, the Leaf is arguably the best car for the job. If you regularly do journeys under 15 miles and  frequent journeys of over 100 miles, the plug-in Prius is your friend. For regular journeys of 50-100 miles with intermittent long journeys under 150 miles, the Ampera may fit. With cost differences reaching around £5 per journey, choosing the right car for the job is key.

The original purchase price of the car also counts for a lot here. With LEAF pricing at £25,990 and Ampera at £28,995 there's a whole £3000 gap between them and another ~£500 in interest charges if you buy the car on finance. At the announced sub £26k price, the Plug-in Prius could save the buyer £3000 over the Ampera - an equivalent saving of around 30,000 miles in fuel - effectively making the Prius cheaper than the Ampera for any journey under 13 miles and also those over 40 miles, for three years of typical ownership. If you do less than 10,000 miles per year, the Prius will always be cheaper over the first 3 years, even if you never drive the Ampera, as you're effectively saving your entire fuel cost in the purchase price.

We're back on costs again and we already said that it appeared no cheaper than the standard hybrid Prius anyway. So why build the plug-in Prius? Why sell it? Who's going to buy it? I'll cover that in the next part. ]]> http://www.jaffacake.net/dxcomments/prius-plug-in-hybrid-part-six-running-costs-emissions http://www.jaffacake.net/dx/prius-plug-in-hybrid-part-six-running-costs-emissions?opendocument&comments Fri, 9 Sep 2011 08:33:12 +0100 http://www.jaffacake.net/trackback?open&id=can-anybody-get-it-right http://www.jaffacake.net/dx/can-anybody-get-it-right I Love Ben Rose http://www.jaffacake.net/dx/can-anybody-get-it-right?opendocument&comments http://www.jaffacake.net/dx/can-anybody-get-it-right
This blog is dedicated to those companies who go that extra mile. They don't just simply do what you expect, which is increasingly rare these days, they do that little bit more and make you want to keep going back again and again.

Ocado

We'll start with Ocado - the home grocery delivery company. Having had bad experiences with the big supermarkets in the past, we tried these guys and never went back. Easy ordering process, "unlimited"  consistently on-time delivery for a fixed price and a no-quibble returns policy.

In the unlikely event something comes that you aren't happy with, you just drop them an email and it's refunded. No driving back to Tesco with a mouldy lettuce to queue up at Customer Services for 20 minutes behind a load of people buying lottery tickets. One quick email, it's refunded back to your card.

If something is unexpectedly out of stock, and their stock control is that good this doesn't happen anything like as often as it does with "normal" supermarkets, they send you a message in advance of the delivery to let you know. This way you can choose to reject the substitute whilst the driver is on-site for an easy refund and pop to the shops for the missing item if required.

This is the kind of service a busy family needs. I've recommended Ocado to many friends/family and all those that tried them now use them full-time.

Sonos

Back in 2004, my friend Gareth imported a load of Sonos multi-room music kit. It wasn't on-sale in the UK at that point, but he couldn't wait. After ten minutes playing with the system, I could easily see why. I bought the spare kit he had there and then and pre-ordered some extra units from the first and now largest, UK supplier, Simply Sonos.

For those that are unfamiliar with Sonos, my fellow blogger Volker Weber does an excellent write-up of the latest kit here. He also made his own testament to Sonos customer service back in 2010.

To think of Sonos as a big iPod for your whole home doesn't really capture it. This is a stand-alone music system that integrates with almost every on-line music service you may have heard of. You want to play Spotify in your kitchen? You got it. Napster in your bedroom? It's yours. BBC 6 music whilst you work in the home office? Just press play.

Some other systems attempt to offer this kind of functionality but with Sonos, it just works. As it's not running on a PC and doesn't depend on any server software, you can reboot your PC and the music doesn't stop playing. You can listen to different music in different rooms or the same in each room for a party. Every room can have a different volume level, but all controlled from a single remote. The original Sonos CR100 controller is even "splash-proof" which I took to the extreme in a YouTube video back in 2008. I've used one in my shower for 6 years and it still works today without an issue.

Not only that, they're still updating it, most recently with a patch to support Apple OSX Lion. That's the thing about Sonos, they don't just discontinue the old kit and forget about the owners - they continue to maintain and support it. I bought the kit in 2004 but, when they added Spotify support in 2010, they added that functionality to every player and controller - even the old, long since discontinued, models - for free!

It's no wonder that, quite aptly, Sonos has now "gone platinum" and is now streaming in one million rooms.

Brabantia

I'd struggle to find a friend or family member that doesn't have a Brabantia product in their home somewhere. Whether it's a table warmer, rotary drier for laundry or a rubbish bin - that name just keeps on appearing.

There's only one warning for Brabantia and that is "beware of cheap imitations". You may see unbranded copies of their pedal bins etc. but they are a complete false economy. They may be a bit cheaper but they break easily. Not only that, they use cheap stainless steel that rusts the moment it gets wet.

With a real Brabantia product, you get exactly what you paid for - day in, day out. If you don't, just tell customer services and they replace it. I had a 50 litre touch-bin as a gift back in 2000. Five or six years later, the hinge on the lid broke so it didn't spring open any more. I could still use the bin, but it didn't really have that one-handed convenience I was used to. I dropped their customer services an email and I got a reply, within the hour, asking for my home address. A replacement lid was in the post on the same day and it arrived the next. No hassle, no messing about returning to the shop - which I couldn't, it was a gift - just a straight replacement, no questions asked.

It was the best gift I ever had. The gift of another vendor that meets my demands. My house is now full of Brabantia kit and it's my first choice when buying any kind of houseware. None of this waiting 5 days for a reply to an email nonsense, just proper customer service right there and then. ]]> http://www.jaffacake.net/dxcomments/can-anybody-get-it-right http://www.jaffacake.net/dx/can-anybody-get-it-right?opendocument&comments Tue, 6 Sep 2011 15:30:46 +0100
Commuting in the Prius for two weeks was plenty time to get accustomed to the feel of ownership. I'd never driven a 3rd gen Prius before but had been a passenger in a colleagues car on numerous occasions. As a passenger is felt big and spacious - in fact a bit too spacious. It didn't feel cosy at all, a bit like drinking in an empty pub. Behind the steering wheel, however, things feel a bit different. Whilst you still have plenty of room, in the pilot's seat things begin to feel a bit more normal. It still couldn't be described as cosy, but considerably less detached and rather more comfortable

At this point, it would make sense to draw some comparisons to the Nissan LEAF electric vehicle, which I drove for an extended period on their European Press Launch in Lisbon, Portugal. After all, potential buyers may well be trying to make some kind of comparison between these two well known plug-in vehicles.
... ]]> http://www.jaffacake.net/trackback?open&id=prius-plug-in-hybrid-part-five-how-does-it-drive http://www.jaffacake.net/dx/prius-plug-in-hybrid-part-five-how-does-it-drive Green Ben Rose http://www.jaffacake.net/dx/prius-plug-in-hybrid-part-five-how-does-it-drive?opendocument&comments http://www.jaffacake.net/dx/prius-plug-in-hybrid-part-five-how-does-it-drive
Commuting in the Prius for two weeks was plenty time to get accustomed to the feel of ownership. I'd never driven a 3rd gen Prius before but had been a passenger in a colleagues car on numerous occasions. As a passenger is felt big and spacious - in fact a bit too spacious. It didn't feel cosy at all, a bit like drinking in an empty pub. Behind the steering wheel, however, things feel a bit different. Whilst you still have plenty of room, in the pilot's seat things begin to feel a bit more normal. It still couldn't be described as cosy, but considerably less detached and rather more comfortable

At this point, it would make sense to draw some comparisons to the Nissan LEAF electric vehicle, which I drove for an extended period on their European Press Launch in Lisbon, Portugal. After all, potential buyers may well be trying to make some kind of comparison between these two well known plug-in vehicles.

Before even pushing the start button you can feel a clear difference. In the LEAF you're surrounded by high quality trim, solid plastics that look like they aren't going to rattle the first time you hit a bump in the road. Your first impressions would be correct, the LEAF is an extremely comfortable place to be and it's clear that Nissan has made a concerted effort to deliver a quality vehicle to its buyers. The display on the Leaf In Car Entertainment (ICE) module clearly received a lot of thought and the built in "Carwings" technology allows drivers to locate their nearest charging point and monitor their battery using a dedicated iPhone app - all things that the plug-in Prius doesn't appear to offer in this prototype model.

When driving, the LEAF also excels in many areas. It's smooth, relatively silent and handles changes in the road surface excellently. Nissan have made efforts to reduce wind noise and other similar qualities, it worked. The only minor comfort quibble I had with the Nissan was that both heating and air-conditioning appeared to be a bit under-powered.  It's hard to test the latter in Portugal when it's 28 degrees outside but, whereas the Prius vents blew so cold I had to point them away from my hands, the air conditioning in the Leaf appeared to struggle to keep two grown men cool. I wouldn't want to drive it with three or four passengers on a hot day.

One major flaw I found with the LEAF was when changing driving mode from normal to eco. In the Prius, you simply hit a button and carry on - the car continues to drive as it did before and you don't really notice until you pull away from the next junction. In the LEAF, it was a very contrasting story and engaging the eco mode made everything feel rather different. The first thing you notice when hitting the eco button is that the throttle mapping changes slightly. For non-technical readers, that means you might be doing say 40mph and engage eco mode and the next thing you notice you're doing 32mph without moving the accelerator pedal. This saves battery but I found it quite annoying to have to adjust my throttle position to maintain the same speed when switching between modes. Not an issue on the Prius, it just switches mode.

Likewise the brakes change their feel too. In the Prius, you hit the brakes and it feels just like you might expect. Actually, if I'm honest, it feels just like a hybrid and it you're not used to that it can feel a bit odd. The LEAF feels very similar in normal mode but engage eco and it goes into some kind of energy regeneration cycle and the pedal feels alien and completely detached from the driving process. Most unexpected of all, the steering in eco mode even felt different in the LEAF - to the extent that I simply didn't like driving it. I wouldn't go as far as to suggest that these changes were dangerous but it did make me think perhaps that maybe driving mode changes should be restricted to when the vehicle is stationary.

So ignoring the eco modes which, to be honest, are pretty unfavourable to anybody who enjoys driving, where would I rather be? To be honest, that would be the LEAF. All the reviews say it's a great place to be and an excellent drive but, until you drive some of the other competing cars, you don't realise how true it is. Whilst perfectly comfortable and spacious, the Prius isn't somewhere I'd want to be for several hours in a row and I'd rather get out. The LEAF, by contrast, is somewhere I would happily sit for hundreds of miles - especially as a passenger. Even as a driver it's not a particularly engaging drive but nevertheless it's rather comfortable and, outside of eco mode, a fairly responsive drive.

Of course, you may have realised, there's a certain irony here. Whilst the LEAF provides the kind of luxuries you'd except to receive for £30,990, the way I drive it will actually only go for 80 miles before you need to recharge. This means that, however comfortable it may be, I'm going to have to stop every hour or so whether I want to or not. The Prius will easily hit 500 miles when fully fuelled, meaning I could easily drive for 6 or 7 hours without a break - but I truly wouldn't want to sit in it for that long.

I could easily commute in a LEAF on a daily basis and it would meet all my requirements in a very comfortable way. Sadly, it wouldn't meet my weekend mileage requirements at all and, by the time I'd paid for it, wouldn't leave any funds in my budget to buy an additional car that did. The Prius meets my needs, but I don't like it as much as a car.

Of course, the driving experience is very subjective and everybody has different expectations from a vehicle. Clearly this segment doesn't work for me as I find it a bit gutless and lacking in that premium feel - althought the LEAF does a fairly good job. This exact reason is why I rarely share my experiences of driving a car, if we all liked the same thing we'd all be driving the exact same make and model. I personally like to drive a car with a bit more oomph but I recognise that, if I downgraded to a modern "eco" car, I could save a lot of money in fuel. So, in my next write-up, I'll return to avoiding the opinionated stuff and get back to the maths, examining the expected cost of ownership of the Prius Plug-in Hybrid.

Prius Plug-in Hybrid Part Six - Running Costs & Emissions ]]> http://www.jaffacake.net/dxcomments/prius-plug-in-hybrid-part-five-how-does-it-drive http://www.jaffacake.net/dx/prius-plug-in-hybrid-part-five-how-does-it-drive?opendocument&comments Thu, 1 Sep 2011 09:05:56 +0100 http://www.jaffacake.net/trackback?open&id=how-many-electric-car-owners-does-it-take-to-change-a-60W-lightbulb http://www.jaffacake.net/dx/how-many-electric-car-owners-does-it-take-to-change-a-60W-lightbulb Green Ben Rose http://www.jaffacake.net/dx/how-many-electric-car-owners-does-it-take-to-change-a-60W-lightbulb?opendocument&comments http://www.jaffacake.net/dx/how-many-electric-car-owners-does-it-take-to-change-a-60W-lightbulb
I'm all for saving energy, even though these replacement units do give off a rather odd light and most are useless with dimmer switches, but is it not a case of double standards if we aren't allowed to use 60 Watt light bulbs whilst an electric car owner up the road can happily plug in the 2400 Watt charger for his car?

I thought I'd do a bit of maths. How many 60 Watts light bulbs will we need to replace to save enough electricity for just one Nissan LEAF fully electric car?

For the purposes of the test, we'll assume that each 60 watt bulb is used for an average 3 hours each day. In Summer, electric lighting is hardly used at all. In winter, it will be used a little bit longer. In some rooms, like living rooms, usage may be high but in others such as dining rooms, bedrooms etc. there will be considerably less usage. We'll also assume the LEAF owner will drive 10,000 miles per annum and achieve an average 80 miles from each of their 24 kWh full charges.

At this point, make a guess for how many bulbs you think it might be, then see how close you were below.

Each 24kWh charge uses 24,000 Wh (Watt hours) of electricity. This moves the car an average 80 miles.
24,000 divide by 80 miles gives up a nice round figures of 300 Wh per mile.

Now we can work out that 10,000 miles  times 300 Wh per miles gives us 3,000,000 Wh per year. Yes, 3 million Wh per year, or 3 MWh (MegaWatt hours)

Our 60 Watt bulb is used for 3 hours a day but our replacement CFL bulb will still use 11W each hour too, so we're only saving 49Wh per hour, a total saving of 147Wh per day.

There are 365 days in a normal year, so our light bulb replacement will save us 147 x 365 = 53,655 Wh saved each year.

So now we just need to work out how many bulbs, at 53,655 Wh saving each we need to replace to save 3,000,000 Wh of electricity.

3,000,000/53,655=56 bulbs

So, based on living room, hallway, kitchen, downstairs toilet, 3 bedrooms and a bathroom, that's 8 bulbs per house.

So, if seven households replace every 60W lightbulb in their home, we may save enough electricity to power just one electric car for an average 10,000 miles.

With most households now having two cars that cover more than 10,000 miles between them, I think we'll need to do a little more than replace a few bulbs to reduce energy consumption in the future. ]]> http://www.jaffacake.net/dxcomments/how-many-electric-car-owners-does-it-take-to-change-a-60W-lightbulb http://www.jaffacake.net/dx/how-many-electric-car-owners-does-it-take-to-change-a-60W-lightbulb?opendocument&comments Wed, 31 Aug 2011 12:43:27 +0100 This is an article about Scan Computers International Ltd. 25-28 Enterprise Park, Middlebrook, Horwich, Bolton, BL6 6PE - not to be mistaken w ... ]]> http://www.jaffacake.net/trackback?open&id=scan-computers-3xs-system-review http://www.jaffacake.net/dx/scan-computers-3xs-system-review I Hate Ben Rose http://www.jaffacake.net/dx/scan-computers-3xs-system-review?opendocument&comments http://www.jaffacake.net/dx/scan-computers-3xs-system-review This is an article about Scan Computers International Ltd. 25-28 Enterprise Park, Middlebrook, Horwich, Bolton, BL6 6PE - not to be mistaken with other companies of a similar name.

I've been a customer of Scan for over a decade, I still have invoices dated 2001 which makes them one of my longest lasting suppliers. Naturally, when my seven year old PC expired due to a system board failure, I looked to Scan for a replacement. In fact, the dead PC had originally come from there along with numerous components to upgrade it along the way.

I used to build all my own PC kit. It was rare to find a pre-configured system that contained all the "bleeding edge" components I wanted and there seemed little point in paying somebody else to do something I could do just as well myself. Today, however, things are a little different. I'm a family man these days and you get a lot less personal time when juggling a wife, a baby and maintenance of things around the home. It seemed the best idea to just get somebody to build it for me - and why not my trusted supplier?

Stop!

If you've read this post before, you'll know that I perhaps didn't have the best experience ordering my 3XS system from Scan Computers. For numerous reasons, predominantly parts being on back order, the system didn't ship when I expected it to and ended up delayed quite considerably. As I didn't get the service or communication that I expected, I threw my toys out of the pram and, when that wasn't entirely successful, I turned to social media to bring further attention to my issue. It worked and I ended up in negotiations with one of Scan's directors.

He spent a lot of time with me explaining that it was an unfortunate scenario and that a large majority of their orders go perfectly and they have thousands of happy customers. I invited unhappy customers to post on this blog and share their story. To be honest, I struggled to find many. They have the odd complaint on their Facebook page but they don't hide those and respond to them promptly. On the outside, it looked like perhaps the weight of the "punishment" I had dished out on-line didn't truly match the crime - my blog entry had appeared high up on page one of Google when searching for "Scan 3XS System Review" and I was likely putting off a lot of customers.

So I did some testing. I placed another order with Scan, without telling anybody, delivered to another address. It went perfectly. I persuaded a few friends and colleagues to give Scan another go and they were impressed with the one hour delivery slot they got from couriers DPD. Their orders also went just fine. Of the 5 orders I know that have been placed recently, 4 of them were just fine - only my original 3XS System purchase was an issue.

On top of that, the system itself is superb. I'm running an Intel i7 CPU overclocked to 4.5GHz. 8GB of 1600MHz RAM and an SSD hard drive. This thing is rapid. It's quiet too, easily the quietest machine I have ever owned - despite being the most powerful by a large margin. I've also received some very prompt expert support from the 3XS systems team when I've sent them queries.

Judging by the amount of hits this page was getting, and the thought of people buying inferior systems elsewhere as a result, my conscience just couldn't take it any more.

So, if you're considering a 3XS system, don't let what I may have said previously put you off what could be one of the greatest systems you've ever owned. ]]> http://www.jaffacake.net/dxcomments/scan-computers-3xs-system-review http://www.jaffacake.net/dx/scan-computers-3xs-system-review?opendocument&comments