Andrew Dwyer

Yes widely publicised that 1 year free charging would be made available for BYD customers but in reality, so far anyway, those who bought a BYD in 2022/2023 get 5 months and those who bought in 2024 get 2 months free charging. People buying a BYD from 1st Jan to 31st July 2024 have only till the end of this month for their allotted free charging sessions so presumably if it is to be extended an announcement should be made this month.

Nothing last month but a whopping 185 baht ( or 487 baht ) so far in September ! Depends which way you look at it: I got a 487.52 baht discount at a free BYD charger but i could have waited till i got home and charged via TOU costing me around 185 baht. Some guy from Surat Thani racking up a 8,758 baht discount last month. Reminds me when i started to pay the monthly bill for my TOU at PEA head office. They had a free charger but it was almost always in use by a white MG EP, one day a car pulled up and a guy in work uniform jumped out, got in the EP and drove off, don’t know what the guys uniform was but it wasn’t PEA !!

Yes, probably dropped down from 111 kw at 59% and then up to 79 kw to charge between 64 and 83 % if following Pib’s charts ( I have the RWD ) only my figures are slightly down in power ( more loss ). Would be interesting to create a graph for oneself but difficult on a shared charger.

I started charging at 17.49 ( 53.5 kw ) around 35% battery and an initial time guesstimate of an hour and 3 minutes.a few minutes later I snapped this photo. shortly after the Atto 3 left and I got this: I watched the time for a while but it never dropped down quickly as I thought it would and when it finished at 100% it had taken 53 minutes. So, 10 minutes less than the original estimate but not as much as i expected when the charging speed doubled. It is all good but am curious why it only charged minimally faster. At some point it dropped down to 79 kw but am not sure when and after this i just let it do its thing. Next time I might monitor it more closely to get the curve but if the other charger cable is occupied it won’t be an accurate test.

Ah okay thanks. When i arrived the other DC was occupied so I got 55 kWh which went up to 111 kWh when she left but the time didn’t drop suddenly to half as i expected, in fact it took almost the estimated time in total. ( dropping to 79 kWh when i hit 75%.) I did let it go to 100% and a Dolphin pulled in just at that time so worked out well.

I had actually figured that I wouldn’t bother chasing the free charges but a sense of curiosity ( and Yorkshire upbringing ) meant I had to take a look. My local BYD showroom doesn’t even have a charger and the nearest, with 2 DC and 2 AC, is 18 km away, i did stop there once but had a queue so left it. There’s a Bangchak pump over the highway but according to the app the chargers are often out of service ? EDIT: seems like the chargers at this pump are only available off peak hours ?? This was a BYD showroom at 5.45 pm, so closed, but a beautiful evening so spent a while trying to coax 2 cats from under a shed while Mrs D and the 2 lead weights took selfies ! The night watchman looked on amused as to how the people who buy these Chinese EV’s can be so easily amused ! I was torn between stopping at this one so early into the journey or risking waiting for another of the 5 free options on offer for my route but the others were at pumps and more likely to attract visitors i thought ? I did get my foot down a little after this, seemed more enjoyable when you aren’t paying ?? While I am now hooked i doubt i will go out of my way looking for the free options despite it drawing you in with how much money you have saved. 61 kWh @ 485 baht would have been 185 baht on my TOU/wall charger.

Thanks @Pib, i knew i could rely on you to come up with the goods !

Have just done my first free charge, 61kwh courtesy of BYD Chainat. Wasn't going to bother but stopped off on the way back from the mil’s and had a little look at the app, 5 locations ( red spot ) available on my route and to my surprise a DC charger available 5km down the road, well …. it would be rude not to !. Got some help from a lovely lady in an Atto 3 as found it a little confusing, anyway got filled up but am now not sure about this “ redeem code “ button. What does it mean ?

Yes, we must have stood out as easy targets, totally green to be honest. This was a one off and on later visits to Copa with friends they would often stop the car in the early hours for a chat/laugh but was never approached blatantly like the first time back in 1994.

The sex for sale aspect of Brazil is rife, as blatant and in your face as in Thailand, “ red light “ districts are common especially in the larger tourist towns with transvestites as common as females. My first time visiting Rio with some colleagues after work we headed to Copacabana and sat at one of the many outside restaurants on the extra wide sidewalk. An American in our group had a small grasp on the language but to be honest no translation was needed. Shortly after sitting down we were surrounded by 7 or 8 working girls each one sat at a different table. To get our attention they would throw small balls of paper at us. When this failed they approached our table one by one and went round each one of us asking if we were interested. After it was apparent we weren’t they disappeared disgruntled and we weren’t bothered again, word spread we were cheap Charlies . While it was quite comical it was also very sad to see the desperation. While no doubt some of our group did pay for female company at a later date we all felt a little intimidated by the in your face aspect of the proposed business transaction in this famous tourist area.

Yes, Porcão ( Big Pig ) is a great chain as is Fogo de Chão ( Ground Fire ). Have yet to have a rodízio outside of Brazil with the quality and variety of meats that are on offer there. Once had a terrible experience in Toluca, Mexico ( Fogon do Brasil or something along those lines ). I loved Rio with its laid back atmosphere and although there are undoubtedly places to avoid I never felt threatened there. Often think that retiring there would have worked out well. Yes, easy to meet Brazilian women, i know of many in my industry who ended up taking a brasileira back to their home country, including my ex brother in law in Denver. A young American friend/colleague, he met a nice young lady in Pouso Alegre and when i returned after a couple of weeks in the U.K. they set me up with a blind date with his gf’s sister ! I guess it worked out for both of us, i ended up married for nearly 20 years and he took his bride back to Denver where they started a family.

I do see the similarities between São Paulo and Mexico City, both at a really fast pace with different areas of rich and poor and everything in between. Occasionally would drive into São Paulo for a weekend with friends and would always get hopelessly lost, such a huge metropolis I had no idea where i was. Whereas driving in Rio was excellent, everyone in holiday mode and being on the coast very easy to navigate, of course the population of Rio is around half that of São Paulo.

I only visited Salvador once on a few hours trip from a cruise , just enough time to see the sights up on the top. But worked in Recife, Aracaju and Fortaleza so got plenty of the northern beaches experience. Ubatuba was our nearest beach, more popular than classy and attracted the tourists from São Paulo. The small town we lived in survived purely from coffee growing and had a unique micro community of rich land owners and poor people who worked for them, a real step back in time. As a world travelling Gringo ( as a Brit not strictly a gringo but i didn’t mind ) presumably loaded !! ( i wasn’t ! ) my wife soon integrated us into the rich land owner clique, i hated it as a simple mechanical engineer on a cushy assignment. But I did like the advantages being friends to the elite ( for a small agricultural town ! ) would bring, a couple’s parents owned an apartment in Ipanema ( bought in the 60’s with sacks of coffee allegedly ) which we visited frequently in groups, sometimes we would be relegated to the hotel next door but it was all good, even the 6 hour drive was worth it. Some other friends had bought an apartment on Copacabana which was an awful apartment but did allow us to enjoy the New Year Fireworks at leisure then crash in the apartment on mattresses ( Thai style ). Loved Rio, despite the extra expense, and got to know the place quite well, had worked in a factory nearby, Santa Cruz, on many occasions and became the guide for visiting colleagues. Young Darren and myself ( late 1994 ) on Sugarloaf, Darren in yellow. On an expansion of the factory ( 1996 ) we were all put in a hotel ( few Brits many Americans ) in the most southerly beach of Rio ( Recreio dos Bandeirantes ) , we attracted a lot of attention from locals/girls/drug dealers and the police but we had a blast. One American quit his job there and then because of a local girl hoping to get hired at the plant ….. he didn’t, but I did hear years later he was hanging in there, 6 months US, 6 months Brazil, from a colleague of his ! Such is the power of a young exotic female !

I should clarify, it was an American company but i was working for the U.K. subsidiary.

The tax rate is high but it is like Thailand ( or it was during my time 1995 - 2016 ) very easy to avoid if not working directly for a Brazilian company. As a Brit non resident i claimed my tax back every year but was working for an American company and never paid the Brazilian government one centavo. The ever increasing work load and a marriage of convenience started to take its toll so in early 2016 i said goodbye to working, to my marriage and to Brazil and sought pastures new.

Bacalhau normally quite expensive but compulsory at Easter time.

I had a lot of colleagues ( and family ) visiting over the years so a visit to the Brazilian barbecue was always on the cards whichever city we were in. We even found a pizza rodízio which was tremendous, especially the dessert pizzas !! In general Brazilian food is European based with a a little South American twist.

Yeh Caipiroska ( vodka in the place of cachaça ) was a good option. The problem I found with Caipirinha was the bitterness often overcome with excessive sugar. Not a great lover of gin I was likewise disappointed with a Singapore Sling at Raffles in 1988.

Pão de queijo ( cheesebreads ) are another Brazilian national treasure, highly overrated imo. But a visit to a Rodízio ( meat overdose restaurant ) is worth a visit if only for the experience . The variety of different meats and an extensive salad bar ( with a lot more ) is impressive, picanha being the highlight and my personal favourite Cupim ( the hump seen on certain cattle ) extremely fatty but delicious if tender.

Indeed , feijoada comes in varying degrees of taste and price as does Caipirinha. Cachaça ( or Pinga as known locally ), main ingredient of a Caipirinha, comes in varying degrees of nastiness. My friends would drink shots of it and swear it was as good as a high class whiskey or tequila, only in price !! Fashionable bars ( Cachaçarias ) in the bigger cities stock thousands of different levels of the stuff. I would drink it to be sociable but never really enjoyed it.

Red tape problems are common in Brazil and I had great fun getting my id card ( RNE, Registro Nacional Estrangeiro ) and driving license, both only obtained from the capital of the state ( Belo Horizonte ) some 400 km away. Took me 1 year and several trips to get the RNE , a small piece of paper with my photo stapled on ( protocolo) looking decidedly worse for wear at the end. A permanent visa is available based on marriage or employment and subject to the usual police and medical checks …. and an extended state of patience !! but gives citizenship and everything except a passport and the right to vote, naturalisation is needed for these two items, not really necessary imho. The driving licence, as here, is translated from your home license with a few medical tests and a strange coordination test to check both arms and hands work in sync, many people failing the latter

Brazilian food is indeed highly regarded by the locals but to others not so much. Rice and beans with everything and they have quite an obsession with farofa ( cassava root ground into a powder ) which can only be described as sawdust, of course every country has its favourite ( som tum here, baked beans in the U.K., grits in the US etc ) which others struggle to understand the obsession. Feijoada is a national treasure, based on a traditional stew where the landowner would give his slaves the leftover pig parts to sustain themselves for the week it obviously contained the snout, the ears and the bits that would normally be discarded. But the modern version uses better class of ingredients and although found extensively in the tourist areas Brazilian people have great pride in their “ slave casserole “ and eat it regularly. Portuguese is generally required to exist comfortably in Brazil but closer to the various borders a schoolboy knowledge of Spanish will get you by ( Portunol as known by the locals ). Regional accents are in place and are quite obvious even for an untrained foreigner.

Brazil is a very diverse country and due to its size ( 9/10 the US ) has various different regions. The tourist traps of Iguaçu Falls, Rio and Salvador obviously attract the most attention but Brazilians also flock to the remote Amazon city of Manaus, the southern region, in particular Canela and Gramado, to immerse in the Germanic experience complete with snow ( albeit what we would call a light frost ! ) and the rustic picturesque cities in Minas Gerais ( Ouro Preto, Tiradentes and Diamantina ) famous for gold and diamond mining widely exploited by the Portuguese using the slaves brought in from Africa. The population also very diverse, the descendants of African slaves mostly settled in Rio and Bahia at the end of the Gold Trail ( the route from MG to the ports ). The Europeans settling in the south for the more temperate climate and the Japanese seeking refuge in São Paulo at the start of the 1900’s, interestingly a large number of Brazilians have also settled in Japan presumably encouraged by seeing the Japanese culture. One has only to look at famous Brazilians Pelé and Gisele Bündchen to see the extremities of the population, one can remain inconspicuous in Brazil until you open your mouth or you are wearing socks with your sandals.

Lived in Brazil for 20 years, Sul de Minas Gerais, 300km north of São Paulo and 460km west of Rio. The first 10 years were a blast but the last 10 was just going through the motions, mainly matrimony related. Loved the place, travelled all over, from Fortaleza to Porto Alegre. Made many good good friends and remain in touch. A great experience and don’t regret any of it, except maybe the marriage !!. Worked extensively in Brazil, Argentina and Chile but Brazil is definitely my favourite of the three.

Get ready ! Just landed for BYD Seal - Ireland