JBChiangRai

One of the first things I did with my MG4 is remove all of those tacky badges. I'm a bit old school, if the manufacturer of my T-shirt (or car) wants to advertise their brand, then they can pay me, otherwise it's coming off and I ain't wearing it! Actually, I don't buy any brand name clothes for that reason. Here's a photo of my debadged MG4 and me with my daughter wearing an unbranded T-Shirt at a birthday party last week.

My feeling is that whether Fast Charging damages the battery depends on many factors, battery chemistry, efficiency of cooling, ambient temperature, battery temperature at initiation of fast charging, frequency of fast charging etc. Some cars will precondition the battery if the navigation is used to take you to a DC charger, either cooling the battery if it's hot or warming it if it's cold. LFP chemistry is a far better chemistry for hot climates like Thailand, it has more than double the charge cycles is less likely to a thermal runaway event and whilst it performs poorly in cold climates, it excels in warm climates. Fast Charging produces more heat, so the battery cooling system becomes important, it's why Chevy & Nissan are the worst performers for battery longevity, I don't know of any other manufacturer with their problems. I had a car with NMC battery technology, I kept it for 2 years and sold it recently because the MG4 I bought to keep the miles of my more expensive NMC car turned out to be a lot more fun and consequently I was using it most of the time. Other factors in disposing of my NMC car were that I have an MG Cyberster on order for next year, the NMC technology worried me, it needed new tyres (100k), it's first service (30k), insurance was up for renewal (120k) and warranty was expiring and the manufacturer has a reputation for ruinous repair costs. I was fortunate that I sold it whilst new models have a 12-18 month waiting list and I got about 90% back of what I paid. If the MG Cyberster is not LFP technology then I will have to think hard about whether I want it as it may well be my last car. I am tempted with the Seal 3.8s and the MG4 X Power if it comes to Thailand and has LFP batteries. The Seal will be LFP because that is what their blade technology is. Incidentally, BYD never originally stood for Build Your Dreams, the founder registered it as a name because 3 letters was easy to register, when they decided to get into EV's they tried to come up with words to match the acronym, it hasn't gone down well with customers and they are removing that slogan in most markets. There is one car I won't ever buy and that is a Tesla. They have given the biggest FU to all of their previous customers by massive discounting. Every time they discount outside Thailand IMHO it brings the day nearer to them doing it here. I have "Zero" trust in Tesla. They have practically no corporate governance and everything is done on the whim of one man, it bodes ill for the future.

I have an MG4, the idea of it being a British Brand with British design doesn't fly with me. They have a design centre in London, probably staffed with Chinese in supervisory positions and if HQ in China doesn't like the design then it's back to the drawing board, literally. Volvo will be no different, and that's a good thing. I wouldn't buy either brand if they weren't Chinese.

I apologise, I did not see the "not".

They are both Chinese cars so spec for spec they should be priced similarly.

I think it's way past it's prime and largely both unusable and irrelevant now. It went downhill when they employed people in Thailand, suddenly places started appearing nailed at the top of the list rather than based on actual reviews. They bought an activity booking company and suddenly their clients got boosted.

A Tesla owner in the Uk complains... 'My Tesla cost a mortgage down payment - the tech doesn't work and now it's on clearance' (msn.com)

here you go

Lithium iron phosphate battery - Wikipedia LiFePo4 batteries do not contain cobalt - period.

Our EV's don't have any cobalt in their batteries. The charging network is currently superb for the EV's in Thailand.

No I didn't say what you did, you said you can do your 90 day report at any office, my friend couldn't he had to drive to the next province where his hookey extension was issued.

Incorrect, my friend in Chiang Rai was refused, he was told he had to go to the Nan office and do it or use his "fixer" agent who used Nan office. It's probably more accurate to say it depends on the whim of the IO. Said friend died in a motorbike accident and I had to deal with all the paperwork, including taking his death certificate to immigration. I said to the lady (commonly referred to as "The Dragon Lady" here), that he had a hookey visa, she said we know who all those people are.

I think it's very difficult for any non-Chinese company to make any inroads into the Thai EV market, with the exception of Tesla. The extra costs involved in manufacturing and sales/import taxes probably makes them uncompetitive.

My breakers are perfectly normal, nothing eclectic about them at all.

Far more sensible to switch to an EV I haven't bought any fuel in the last 2.5 years.

The Performance version sounds like a great car. I just read this in my morning routine Review: is the new BYD Seal better than the Tesla Model 3? (msn.com) Basically, it is better!

Range anxiety is something I suffered when I was a new EV owner since I never noticed EV Charging stations before, now I see the CS everywhere and it no longer worries me. I wouldn't think twice about jumping in my EV and driving to Bangkok, I wouldn't even bother planning Charging stops, there are that many. I would plan a hotel with free overnight AC charging though. I have used a Fast DC Charger once in 2.5 years of owning EV's and that was to test it for 10 minutes or so. I have used lots of free AC Charging stations in places like Central Mall, Coffee Shops, Restaurants and a hotel. The hotel was the only one I needed as it was an overnight stay before leaving Kampheng Phet for home, the other AC chargers I used because I was there for food/coffee/shopping and they were free (so why wouldn't you!).

Mostly not. The people I know who use these agents don’t have 800k in the bank, they have no choice but to use an agent. .

I don’t play golf, don’t like massage and living in Chiang Rai the limo service is unavailable, so the no frills ESE service is all I need.

No, renewing the retirement extension requires 800k in the bank continuously for 3 months before granting and 2 months after. I think that's correct, I've been on the elite ESE for nearly 5 years with 15 years left so I am out of touch.

Lead poisoning must be why so many stoner’s are as dumb as a bag of rocks.

I should have been clearer, the scam is the visa agents in conjunction with corrupt immigration officer issuing retirement extensions when people don't meet the requirements vis-a-vis savings/income. I believe Big Joke called it "window dressing", window dressing won't last forever.

Most grid-tied inverters will ramp up their output until they either reach the rated capacity and stay nailed close to that or Ramp up their output voltage until they hit the maximum voltage allowed and then error and restart. I suspect yours is the latter. This happens on a weak grid connection because there is insufficient local demand on your side of the transformer.

Calculating the 20 year ESE is only 200k more than Retirement extension was exactly my thought process too. It's more than 25 years since the Retirement 800k has had a review, at some point soon I believe the 200k extra will become a saving in real terms. As far as the agent route goes, I think that scam scheme will be ending well before your 20 year ESE expires.

Tunisia is one of the driest countries in Africa, and has just suffered three years of drought. Yet the EU sees the country as key to producing “green hydrogen” for export to Europe. The trouble is, this fuel is obtained by splitting water into oxygen and hydrogen with electricity generated by renewable sources. Tunisia has lots of sun but precious little fresh water. The only way of producing the raw material needed for green hydrogen is sucking up Mediterranean water and desalinating it. But a report last year for the Heinrich Böll Foundation, affiliated to Germany’s green political movement, warns that this would be a dirty, energy-intensive, water-guzzling process – and put the high cost of decarbonising the rich world on to the shoulders of poorer nations. Many sun-drenched countries, especially in the Maghreb, have been sold a future as export hubs for green hydrogen. The pitch is seductive. As 1kg of hydrogen contains about three times as much energy as 1kg of petrol, it is no wonder that hydrogen is being touted as a fuel of the future. Europe’s green deal, which aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 55% by the end of the decade, relies on green hydrogen production in north Africa and Ukraine. Producing green hydrogen in Europe is not impossible. But it is expensive compared with fossil fuels, with even wind-based generation needing larger subsidies. Without big government support packages, it remains an open question whether European consumers would be prepared to foot the very significant price rises needed to go green in this way. Last year, the EU proposed doubling green hydrogen imports by 2030 to 10m tonnes a year. The continent’s heavy industries cannot use electricity, however environmentally friendly, for all their requirements; they need fuels for high-intensity heat. So to make sure that these energy sources are less carbon-intensive, Brussels is pushing industries – such as steel or petrochemical manufacturers – to adopt green hydrogen. The benefits of such a strategy – with the desirable goal of low carbon emissions in Europe – cannot come at the cost of environmental destruction abroad. Raoudha Gafrej, one of Tunisia’s top water experts, warned in the Heinrich Böll Foundation report that the degradation of marine ecosystems from the toxic sludge produced by desalination plants would be irreversible. Hydrogen produced by renewable energy has a role to play in future energy systems. Its “green” version can be converted to ammonia, a key feedstock for fertilisers, with other uses in shipping fuel, power generation and steelmaking. There are also significant energy losses to consider: about a third of the energy used to produce the gas through electrolysis is lost. Transporting hydrogen requires additional energy, equivalent to 10% of the energy of the fuel itself. From the perspective of African nations, as the recent Just Transition report points out, that energy could be used locally to address immediate needs rather than being directed to produce hydrogen for use in Europe. Less than 0.04% of total hydrogen production is “green”. This proportion is bound to grow as governments worldwide wager that it will play a key role in cutting carbon-heavy emissions in industries such as cement manufacturing. With the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere already at 422 parts per million (ppm) – much higher than the 350 ppm generally considered a relatively safe level – there is no scope for worsening the problem. Transitioning to net zero emissions globally should not mean the rich gain at the expense of the poor. source: The Guardian view on hydrogen hype: it’s perhaps not as green as you think (msn.com)