JBChiangRai

You wife will enjoy the shopping in Hoi An old town, especially in the evening with all the lanterns. Aim to get there about 5pm. Well worth a day trip from Da Nang. If you want a special meal, book a table at Morning Glory Signature, ask for a table upstairs on the balcony. There are a couple of markets in Da Nang, they are full of knock-off adidas, nike etc. Not a nice experience, I don't recommend browsing there, watch out for the rats. It is however the best place for her to have a dress made to order.

I spent 2 years as a director of the group that provided security at both Bangkok & Phuket airports. I understand Thailand 4.0 and what it does, even if you got a friend to change your money to avoid the digital footprint, there are still the whole-body scanners concealed in the walls at the airport, for departing passengers they are looking for drugs & money. I travelled to Manila to report on one potential manufacturer about 13 years ago. Thailand 4.0 is about tracking every person, every transaction, phone calls, emails, GPS location, anything you can capture digitally, is captured digitally.

I've stayed at The Sail, Flower Boutique Hotel, Salmalia Boutique Hotel & Spa & finally Nesta. The Sail is an ok 2-3* hotel 200m from the beach, overpriced for what it is. Breakfast is appalling, eat out. Flower Boutique Hotel is 100m from the Sail, I stayed one night to check it out for friends, unbelievably cheap at about 300 baht/night, the best room is the one on the top floor which opens onto the pool. Rooms are OK, staff are a bit anal, they are used to their customers being cheap charlies and treat everyone accordingly. No breakfast here. Salmalia Boutique Hotel is excellent, again breakfast not recommended. Nesta Hotel is right on the Seafront, big Highland (Starbucks type) Coffee shop on the front. Best rooms are garden access rooms where the pool is. However, having stayed in Da Nang a lot, I would go to Hoi An instead, 30 minutes more in the taxi, specifically An Bang (everywhere else is horrible) and stay at Shala Boutique Hotel 2-3* at about 900 THB/night, nice pool, nice rooms, no bar, don't take breakfast there. Or the Watermark Beachside Hotel, about 2,500 THB/night, breakfast is excellent and they serve cocktails in the pool, only about 9 rooms, or The Shoreline Stay opposite, the hotels are practically identical. All these hotels are on a sandy lane 3m wide down to the beach not suitable for cars. Great dining & bar options in An Bang.

Don't try leaving the country with too much cash on you. If you change more than you can leave the country with legally, there will be a marker set for you on the computer at immigration.

My advice is to have made bespoke. I use a lady in Chiang Rai who makes my sofa's, she also does curtains but she outsources those and I go direct to her sub-contractors. Enclosed are 2 photos, the red one is 5 years old and used almost daily, the blue ones are 3 years old and used occasionally. Just keep turning the cushions over when the fabric moves. What I like about her furniture, is it lasts, it's very heavy and about 60,000 THB for a 3 piece sofa set, but you can choose the style and the fabric. These sofa's are my design and I have put 12 of this design in new houses I've build over the last 10 years or so. The older ones still look like new. The frames are VERY heavy, when completely worn out, she will utilise them again. She also refurbishes the 5* hotel in Chiang Rai, if you want her details, PM me.

sorry wrong thread. Note to self, be careful posting after a heavy meal with copious quantities of red wine

Do you know what I like about the 540i? It's because its acceleration is good, not as good as an EV, but for the day, massive torque in any gear. It didn't sound like a V8, on the contrary it just had a muted hum.

Apart from the silly car shape on the roof, it ticks some of my boxes for good architecture, penetration of light & use of space.

However, the best version of that car by a wide margin was the 540i

I would like to see the terms of the battery warranty, I'm sure the devil is in the detail. I think all the Chinese manufacturers could drop the prices 10-20% if they wanted to. I think the main advantage of PHEV is to give ICE drivers the confidence to move to EV later. If I was regularly driving long distances, I would probably buy another PHEV. I had the Mercedes E class PHEV in 2018 and liked it a lot. I think the range is 4 times longer now, I could only get 19km then. The furthest I generally drive is Chiang Mai and I don't need to charge at all. I've been to Kamphaeng Phet and I can just about make that without charging, or one short break for a coffee.

The ABB wall box that BYD supply is actually an excellent product. It can also change the charging current on the fly, which is most unusual, but necessary if you link it up to your solar installation. I hope someone can develop something on a raspberry pie to control it.

You don’t have an 11Kw wallbox. Your wallbox is 7.2Kw single phase or 22Kw 3 phase wired up single or 3 phase. Importantly, your cable supplying the wallbox is rated at 32 amps (per phase).

I have given up charging at BYD, my last charging session should’ve been free and cost me about 320 THB, charging at home is free because I have Solar, however, I do have to pay at my daughters house in Chiang Mai and it really hurts having to pay five times less than an old BMW per kilometer

I had a quote for the Seal Performance today from Asia Direct (Rabbit something or other). 29,000 baht for 67 year old male with no claims. The underwriter is Viriyah.

Yawn! and Zebedee said "Time for bed"

Agreed, they are closing the factories because of weak demand.

I have 28.8KwHrs of LFP batteries, 18Kw of grid-tied inverters and 16.5Kw of Hybrid inverters (currently used as UPS), however, if I was to do it again, I would do away with the batteries and go grid-tied 6-10Kw of inverter. My issue with batteries is they are cycled too often and are very expensive to replace in 5-10years.

Well if it is so rosy, why are they closing 5 factories?

I think it would be useful to split fire stats into PHEV & HEV.

They said they are refunding me sometime in the next 30 days. 10,000 THB from MG Thailand and 5,000 from MG Lanna Chiang Rai. I could live with the battery being NMC but right now I don't have any confidence in the pricing over the next 12 months or so.

I made 2 deposits, one to the dealer in February 2023 before reservation opened, and another in late 2023 when MG Thailand started the "Prestige Reservation".

FWIW, I would classify a PHEV as an EV, but not a Hybrid. Or to put some ridiculous marketing spin on it hoping customers are totally ignorant Not a "Self-Charging Hybrid".

You've lost me. How could it be an expense when my deposits will be refunded?

You're right, I was mixing Honda with Nissan, what I should have said was... A week or so ago Nissan posted their results for the preceding 3 months. Nissan said its operating profit had collapsed 99% to 995m yen (225M THB) in the three months to 30 June, with worldwide sales flatlining at just under 800,000 units. It is Honda however that is closing 5 of factories worldwide due to weak demand.

I just canceled my long-time order for one ("Prestige" with 100k discount). Because.. (a) the battery is not LFP, and (b) I have no confidence it won't be 25% cheaper in a year. I asked for 12 months price protection and they refused, I offered to sign an NDA too.