As I watch my family strike out on foot across the fields into driving rain and gathering darkness, my wife holding each child’s hand, our new year plans in ruins, while I do what I can to make our dead car safe before abandoning it a mile short of home, full of luggage on a country lane, it occurs to me not for the first time that if we are going to save the planet we will have to find another way. Because electric cars are not the answer.
Yes, it’s the Jaguar again. My doomed bloody £65,000 iPace that has done nothing but fail at everything it was supposed to do for more than two years now, completely dead this time, its lifeless corpse blocking the single-track road.\
I can’t even roll it to a safer spot because it can’t be put in neutral.
Can anyone think of a potentially less reliable car than an electric Jaguar?
How about a hydrogreen powered Jaguar?
While electric cars may burn, hydrogreen cars will blow spectacularly!
School is in and it has never been so entertaining. Not sure how long these students will need though, I suspect many are at kindergarten level.
With electrics by Lucas ( aka Prince of Darkness) perhaps?
Cyclist
You must have owned a Brit motorcycle at one time…
No, but I had friends back in the ’60’s who had British sports cars (MG, etc.). My favourite lines regarding Lucas are “inventor of the short circuit” or “inventor of the intermittent windshield wiper”. Company motto: “Lucas – be home before dark”.
“With electrics by Lucas ( aka Prince of Darkness) perhaps?”
We always called them the Lucas, the Maker of Darkness, but yeah…
(plus it’s a Jag…;)
Yes, take an internal combustion-drive car that breaks down a lot, remove the engine (which was only 50% of the trouble anyway), add an unreliable electric engine…can’t see any issue at all, don’t be such a buzzkill.
Looks good on him, though, but perhaps he’s right. The best way to ensure e-vehicles die the deaths they deserve is to give one, “free”, to “influencers”. The only stipulation is, that’s the only vehicle they use.
electric motor, sorry its my inner pedant
He proved his eco-piety.
Now he is eco-agnostic.
Wait until his country’s power grid starts failing on a regular basis.
He’ll be an eco-atheist soon enough.
“It’s all a huge fraud.”
Yup. Too bad about your sense of smell.
Note his piety extends only so far, he will willingly sell it the next eco-sucker. Brits love the idea of owning a jag even if they are proven crap-I wonder if the electrical components were made by Lucas?
The story is not really complete, we need to know what a less than two year old Jaguar still under warranty is worth-my guess GBP5,000 if he is lucky.
https://www.guideautoweb.com/en/makes/jaguar/i-pace/2022/ voted world car of the year-snigger.
Ah, yes. Lucas, Prince of Darkness. Get about half full of beer, jump on the back of the old Triumph in the wee hours, a little hot-rodding on the way home, miss a shift, wrap the tach, POOF!, there goes the headlight. If yer lucky, you’ve still got an intact dim filament. If not, yer relying on yer buddies’ headlights or, better yet, riding home in the dark.
That’s why the British drink warm beer. Lucas electrics!
That’s why the U.K. abolished the death penalty – Lucas electric chairs!
Amen. The first bike I ever rode was a little 250cc BSA that died everytime Percy Saltzman even predicted rain. And a friend had a 441 Victor that kept it company.
The Japs finally put the British motorcycle industry to a deserving death. They (Brits) had some classics ( Ariel Square Four, Norton Commando) that are now highly sought after.
A guy I used to ride with would to go to India every year and buy a new Royal Enfield Bullet for about $1k. When the Brits quit making the Bullet the Indian Army took over production. It continues to this day. He rode the Khyber Pass (you wouldn’t do it today) with it on more than one occasion. When he was ready to come home he would sell the bike at very little loss.
methinks people are caught up with Lucas memes rather than reality. Ive owned a Series 3 XJ6 for 10 years , never had an electrics issue.
As the author says, “you’re better off walking”.
That’s the idea.
British automotive brands were always notorious for bad wiring and electrical systems. Now just imagine them trying to make a full-out electric car, even if Jag actually is Indian now. I’ll never be in the market for an e-car, but the last brand I would choose is one associated with flaky taillights in the not so distant past.
That’s a beautiful Christmas story that the family will look back on fondly for many years.
Jaguar snob
Had his nose in the air.
Now its his thumb
Call the wambulance.
Well, stupid is as stupid does. The guy must have a buck or two to be able to afford a useless vehicle. Maybe he will wake up and buy one with an engine. Nah, that would mean rational thought.
Education costs money, he’s certainly paid, sounds like he may even have learned something valuable.
This puts a new perspective on a classy looking 2002 Jag coupe on Auto Trader. I was thinking it would be a little temperamental for a daily driver, but comparatively speaking, what the heck. Plus, it was only $15K, you could buy a used Toyota for a backup.
The problem with exotics is maintenance.
Saw an article regarding a used Porsche Cayman and it concluded if you couldn’t afford a new one, you couldn’t afford a used one.
A truth without exception when it comes to women
depends on your personal competencies
they are just cars at the end of the day, its not black magic
Ha Ha Ha.
Truth bites him in his upper class ass.
ZERO FKS given for any dim wiited climatard that buys into the utter bullshit of EV’s.
Sucks to be as idiotic as you sonny…
Ah yes, cue up the usual tired, played Lucas jokes. News flash, Lucas hasn’t existed as a separate entity in years and JLR products all use Bosch or Denso electrical bits same as everyone else, and have since Henry owned them. They’re like any other small manufacturer now.
Like the mechanic in that story said, it’s a software problem. Being well stuck in this industry, can assure you that in this day and age of electronic info-gadgetry-this and interface module that in every bloody car, there isn’t a manufacturer out there that doesn’t suffer the same problems. The electric car braggarts who claim automotive mechanics are going away because electrics are reliable are deluding themselves- nowadays it’s rarely a mechanical failure, usually an electronic one. If the engine or transmission in a car does fail now it’s almost always related to the electronic controls. So making even more electronic controls to run these things is not going to make them MORE reliable. And the heavier the car, the more suspension work it’s going to need so shops will be well and truly busy for years on these things.
– And not just cars; Kate could likely comment on this. Older tractors are flying off the used-ag-equipment lots; when that shiny new green tractor gets a cheerio stuck in its throat, it’s a $+++.00 (+ HST) service call, and the dweeb with the laptop has never worked on machinery and can’t find what’s wrong so he replaces the computer for $++++.00 (+ HST) and it doesn’t fix the problem but the new computer’s been used now so he can’t take it back, but he’ll order-in a new one and be back next week for another $++++.00 (+ HST) crack at it. Farmers are royally sick of it, and are scouring the used lots for older tractors that maybe don’t have computerised GPS steering, but do the job and the farmers can maintain them themselves.
Watch Laura Farms on yootoob – talk about all-singing, all-dancing ag equipment! All I hear is the same question I asked myself when I shopped a new Honda snowblower with the battery electric start and the electric scoop-aiming-joystick thumb button: “I wonder how long that will last, and what it’ll cost to fix – IF the parts are still available when it breaks…”
100% this. And the answers to your questions about the Honda snowblower, usually a brand famously associated with reliability and massive enough to have a robust parts supply chain, is not very long, many, many dollars, and you’re going to be waiting a while…
I didn’t buy it – I sorta’ figgered that one out myself, under the heading of “fix your troubles BEFORE they happen…”
And one thing that amused me – I was getting an estimate, and I asked them to include the Honda cab and the big headlight. “What? – Honda doesn’t have a cab or an optional headlight available for their snowblowers.” They acted quite confused when I told them that yes Honda does, I’d seen them on the Honda website that morning – until one of them thought to ask, “Oh, wait – were you on ‘Honda-dot-COM’ or ‘Honda-dot-CA’?”
Yes folks, you read it here first – Honda offers snowblower accessories in the ‘States that they don’t offer up here in Canada, which – being even further north – one might imagine we’d want and/or need. Which was another reason their shiny new snowblower stayed in the showroom and I left.
Yeah, I’m loathe to discuss where I work or have worked, but Honda powersports factors prominently into my history and I can confirm all of that. And more, let me tell you…
Y. Knott, I fixed all of my snowblower problems by doing this one simple thing. We spend the Winter in Florida ;o)
Heh – I’m just waiting for that good global warming to kick-in and snow to be ‘a thing of the past’…
“News flash, Lucas hasn’t existed as a separate entity in years…”
News flash back at ya. This didn’t exactly happen last week. Or last month, or even decade. Matter of fact, it was around 3/4’s through the last century.
Look, I’m just having a little trip down memory lane, living vicariously through the buddy that actually owned the Trumpet. Yes, he shared my Sportster headlight home more than once. So did the other buddy w/ the thumping 500 BSA single.
If that offends you, tough. I’m just trying to find something to smile about during this contemporary shit show. There’s few enough reasons as it is.
Who’s offended? You want to live in the ’70s, go ahead. Most people do, for some reason. Like there was a reliable vehicle produced back then, anywhere.
I do find it more disturbing in this thread that people seem more jealous of the fact the guy bought a luxury vehicle than the idiot bought unproven tech from a tiny manufacturer, sort of proving my belief that Cdns are really a petty bunch. A friend of mine bought a shop, worked his ass off, bought himself a Corvette. The vitriol levelled at him behind his back was unbelievable.
Why the 70’s? ‘Cause compared to this current shitshow, it was paradise. Better music, too.
As to no reliable vehicles from the time period, I owned a ’76 Monte Carlo, 350, automatic, sold it w/ 160,000 miles in the early ’90’s when the timing chain finally went south. Gas, tires, oil, air filters, spark plugs, distributor caps, coupla u-joints, wheel alignments (all maintenance stuff) was all I ever put into it. Not a single electrical or mechanical failure in the 120,000 miles that I owned it. I’d love to have that car back now.
As far as what vehicles people buy, I could care less. Assholes will be assholes, no matter what they drive. The fact that the virtue seekers get burned is gravy.
“Like there was a reliable vehicle produced back then, anywhere.”
Clearly you never owned an American vehicle with an inline (or slant) 6 cylinder engine.
‘Simplicity improves reliability’ has always been my belief.
owned an American vehicle with an inline (or slant) 6 cylinder engine
Dodge Dart slant 6 early 70s. Low maintenance. No problems. Always started in -40. High performance. Simply constructed; no frills.
Had a ’67 Dodge Dart. Ya couldn’t kill it. Finally traded for an ’82 Honda.
Slant 6 was the best. IMHO
One person dies in blaze and two are rushed to hospital after e-bike sparks fire as it was charging overnight
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11618599/Warning-one-dead-two-hospital-following-blaze-sparked-charging-e-bike.html