n8sail

Just now, placeholder said:

You got a link for that?

https://www.plugshare.com/

As Khun La said...  PLENTY of <deleted> chargers in Thailand.   here's the App I use to find them and plan trips:

Personally I am not an environmentalist, but I am a cheapskate!   I will never buy another ICE car again after buying my first EV in May last year.  I am fortunate to also have a nice diesel truck that I keep for... well, truck situations.   But The EV is less than half the cost to run so far.  23,500 km so far on it.  Did my first service at 15,000km.    The MG dealership here has a window so I could see what they were doing.

My service consisted of adding washer fluid.   That's it.

Now in 10 years or so when the battery starts to poo the bed, I'm sure I'll be less happy.  But batteries will be MUCH cheaper then.  And recycling them will get better, too.

Also, I challenge any of you diesel truck drivers, or civic, or fiestas to a race...  the cheap little Chinese EV will literally leave you in the dust, for 300+km.   Nothing keeps up with me on the road save big bikes and the odd sports car.   I blew away a red-plate Audi TT coupe the other day on the almost unused highway near here...   he was trying hard, too!   I'm enjoying these golden times where I'm one of the few enjoying this marvel of electrical engineering.   When all the Somchais figure out how cheap and fast these things are, the carnage on the roads will probably double or more.

3 hours ago, phetphet said:

Has anyone received their Thailand Pass acceptance yet?

I helped my boss apply literally at 9:01am Thailand time on Tuesday when it opened.  He is flying from USA at 10pm Eastern Standard Time Thursday night (10am Thailand time)

Just 15 minutes ago got the approval.   He was getting nervous, but it all worked as advertised.

No problems with the website at all.  He is staying at St. Regis hotel in Bangkok first 5 days, I think the staff at St. Regis helped push things some.  They were extremely helpful.  If money is no object, this is the way to go (and fly business class of course).

Now he just has to survive all the hoop-jumping once he arrives here.  I'm putting odds on 10 days in a poo-hole hotel in BKK when he picks up OHMYGOD during his Qatar layover and whatever hospital St. Regis is attached to is full already  5555  ????

On 1/27/2022 at 12:51 PM, rbkk said:

Which way is the wind blowing and the currents flowing?

Wind is Southwest to Southsouth West today and basically the same all this week.   Currents in that area are pretty negligible, as there are no geographical obstructions, and the tide flows straight out the Gulf of Thailand.   Wind does go slightly offshore, or Northerly, at night time.  I have sailed right by the spot where the leak occurred more than a dozen times, at all hours of the day and night.

Hopefully we dodged a bullet.  Haad Mae Rumpheung is my absolute favorite beach inside the Gulf.  Basically the best sunsets in Rayong, and actually some sort-of okay surfing there sometimes.

3 minutes ago, Grusa said:

Which might be cheaper than the tests!

Not sure that will work.

My friends sailed their own boat there just before New Year, arrived after dark and SWAM to shore.  The National Park police STILL found them the next morning and made them show proof of ATK negative test!   Luckily they knew of the requirement and had official tests to show.

2 hours ago, sungod said:

Anyone know how old the 'grandson' is?  If she was 86, its quite possible he was a young man and fully vaccinated. Back from working in Phuket? Pure speculation of course, but worth considering.

 

This omicron seems to ignore vaccination status when infecting people.

As it's not uncommon for young girls especially in rural Thailand only 17-18 years old to end up pregnant, the grandson could conceivably be in his 50s!  ????

RIP Granny.  At least you had a nice long run of it.  Sorry for the family's loss.

The burnt boat is indeed a charter yacht, going on multiple 10s of thousands of baht per day excursions several times weekly, so I highly doubt it's insurance scam.  A mate counted 13 charter boats leaving at 2pm on a TUESDAY a couple weeks before Christmas, so the charter boats at Ocean Marina are hardly on difficult times.  The tour groups are mostly wealthy Bangkokian Thais, with the odd Chinese tour group every once in a while.  You would not know there's a pandemic on seeing the marina's charter traffic.

This particular boat, a twin engine turbo-diesel catamaran motor vessel, was actually quite an annoyance, at least for me.  The exhausts were basically un-muffled dry exhaust (not wet exhaust as most 'yachts' are), and the turbos made excessive noise spooling up and down as the Captain aggressively revved the engines in typical Thai "look at all the noise I can make" style while docking.   The injectors were likely very fouled, or were running extremely rich for 'more performance,' as the boat spewed massive clouds of black smoke while making maneuvers.

I am sorry for the owner's loss, but will not miss the noise and annoyance (and black soot stuck to my own boat's hull) from this charter boat.  Scuttlebutt around the marina says that the owner recently lost another boat to sinking not long before buying this one, so he's on a run of bad luck for sure.

There is in fact firefighting equipment at the marina, this is the largest marina in all of Southeast Asia and is very professionally run;  it is leaps and bounds nicer than most of the marinas where I come from in Northeast of the USA.  However, I don't care what kind of equipment you have, fighting this would have been VERY difficult as it was a massive fire and all neighboring boats fears spreading, which they successfully stopped.  They also saved the hulk from burning to the waterline and sinking right at the dock.

Images from my girlfriend in our condo overlooking marina.

On 12/22/2021 at 9:09 AM, thaibook said:

Thank you.  Would you tell me which car you drive.  How far can you drive with your pack going from 95% to 5% (do you take it down lower?)?  Does it depend on driving conditions, town versus open roads, like a combustion engine?

MG EP, purchased new in May 2021. I drive a lot, 17,000km on the clock already, so lots of experience.

It all depends on speeds.   60-90kph seems to be the sweet spot.   Traffic stop and go does not seem to affect range much as long as you don't hammer it off the line (which in BKK or similar traffic you can never do anyways).

I've never had it below 17% before.  But I have gone 100% to 17% and made it 250km.   Girlfriend was driving and holding 110-120kph on the BKK motorways, so pushing it pretty hard.  The 'Guess-o-meter' range tool showed another 40+km range available.

Stated range on the car is 380km.   I think no chance you'd ever get near that, I think carefully driven with only one person in the car maybe 320-330km.

Interestingly, running Air Conditioning does almost nothing to the range.  The Compressor is very large sized, but can run at slower speeds when it does not need to cool the battery pack, so only draw 500-600 watts on low setting near as I can tell.    Heat is not available in the car, but I think that would use far more power as most testers in the UK that have the same car (Called the MG5 Estate there) say in reviews online.

On 12/24/2021 at 10:51 AM, Geoffggi said:

I would imagine very slippery also, hope they display warnings

Ice would offer extreme grip in comparison to this stuff!

Still have a scar on my hand from slipping on these exact steps when very carefully walking down them during New Years 3 years ago.  The ONE barnacle within many meters just happened to be where my hand came crashing down to 'save' myself.   Nice deep cut, but no stitches needed fortunately.  Luckily I am middle aged and in good shape; this could literally be a death sentence for the average retired expat.

If I remember correctly there are at least a couple signs that are both in English and Thai.  I knew the risk, and tried my luck...   live and learn!  :)

Obviously travel is a royal PITA right now...  but if you have any excuse to leave the country and can bear the risks of returning, this will 'reset' your 90 days reporting.  I've done this at least 2 times, and one of the times I think I was about 2 months late.   Immigration said nothing.  I missed my 90 day report in August, but flew out literally the next day.  When I did my 90 day report 2 weeks ago, the Rayong Immigration officer noticed that I was due to report in August, and I had to explain that I had left the country and returned.   He looked confused for about 2 minutes as he shuffled through my passport.   I got a little nervous, but I found him the most recent entry stamp, and he said, "ah, okay, no problem!"

One time I was 3 or 4 days late.  They didn't do anything at all, just gave me the updated paper.  Another time I was 2 weeks late, had to pay 1600 baht, and sit in an office with an older Thai woman Immigration Officer who just repeated over and over again that I have to do my 90 days report.  Literally...  said nothing else just repeated over and over again in terrible English, lasted 45 minutes.  Also got a nice red stamp in the back of my passport.

I am on 2 years BOI Non-B visas, with 2 year work permits, though that probably doesn't matter.

Went to Rayong immigration today for 90 day report (Couldn't be ar$ed to deal with YET ANOTHER new Thailand Government run website and try the new and improved site)

It was FULL of westerners, and only one was waiting for 90 day report.  Everyone else was doing retirement, extensions etc. from the looks of the paperwork.  Female farangs also, not just fat old dudes with young Thai birds (NTTAWWT)

I haven't seen that many people in the office since even before COVID...  it was pretty dead for a year before that even.  4 years ago the place was a nightmare with Philippine, some Cambodian and a very few Myanmar.  Not sure what happened to all them as it has been an absolute breeze, especially during COVID.

I bought a Ranger XLT brand new five years ago exactly in 2016, 2.2l, but mine's a manual 4x4 model.

116,000k on the clock now.

Anyways, only thing other than oil changes and a set of tires (and one accident that put her out of commission for 3 months due to waiting on a new steering rack), the only problem I've had is the pipe connecting intercooler to the intake manifold started leaking slightly.   Scared you-know-whatless at the time as I thought it was the turbo going bad.   I do drive her pretty hard.   Local ford small shop fixed it in 20 minutes, 900 baht including the part which he drove to Ford and got himself 3km away.

Still has original brakes, and they have meat on them!   But I tend to downshift, as one does with a manual, that probably helps brake life and something I wouldn't recommend often in an automatic transmission.  Clutch original despite loads of traffic, but you'd have to be a pretty terrible driver to ruin a clutch in 116k km.

Services at Ford dealership are very dear.   5,000+ baht if you do what they recommend every time.  Local oil change shop probably better, but I wanted full records while I had a loan so it could be sold easily if I had to leave Thailand.

I would not own an automatic transmission with diesel personally, but I have other friends with this truck and automatic and they have not had problems. (yet)

17 minutes ago, thaibeachlovers said:

IMO one would have to be barking to drive a pure ev in Thailand at the moment given the lack of infrastructure for charging. Anyway, who wants to be stuck for ages while they charge?

One sentence:

Try it before you knock it.  I'm telling you, I thought they were a terrible idea before as well.  Then I drove one and discovered the infrastructure, and ease of use.

I'm not barking.  Although my girlfriend does refer to me as a 'dog' sometimes, I don't think it's because of my EV views though  ????

And I've been here for 13 years, you couldn't triple my salary to live in poo-hole Bangkok.  I'll stick to Eastern Seaboard with all its engineering expertise, factories and, yes, roads that can for all but 1.5 hours of the evening be zipped around on very easily.

2 minutes ago, Kinnock said:

They should have called it the 'Nice Pussy'.

I expect to see some 'nice pussy' driving around in the top model version once all the Somchais start buying them for their kiks.

Top one comes in pink color, has massaging seats, app for control, literally all the fixings a self-important, pasty white-skinned 25 years old Thai beauty could want!   All for 1.2 million baht...

https://www.autostation.com/car/review-ora-good-cat

1 hour ago, Denim said:

Or a VW Beetle had sex with a Porsche and this was the result.

That's because it was DESIGNED by an ex-Porsche designer, Emanuel Derta.

18 hours ago, GrandPapillon said:

expect some radical policies changes starting next week,

 

after news of the new variant is all over the world this week-end,

https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/safrican-doctor-says-patients-with-omicron-variant-have-very-mild-symptoms-2021-11-28/

Hopefully the news just out of SA really is true.  If so, my goodness are we brainwashed!  Trillions of USD lost globally in stock markets around the world, flights cancelled, countries blocked from travel, all because of a 'new variant' that is, and I quote from the Reuters article:    "Very Mild"

Stop the idiocy.  If there is not a COVID explosion after the Pattaya Concerts and Fireworks festivals, we, the ones who can think even slightly critically, can fairly safely deduce that OUT OF DOORS, as many many scientists around the world for nearly a year have been saying, the chance of spreading this horrible disease is basically NIL.

COVID wouldn't stop me from going to an enclosed go-go bar, I'm young and fully vaccinated.   That doesn't mean they should open them though since most of the codgers that frequent go-gos are at risk.   But outdoor bars should be allowed to open.  Outdoor restaurants should be allowed to serve beer.  Anything less than this is pure government control for sake of control.

The only real solution to our pollution problem is less consumption per capita.

Less population would also work in this regards.

I vote we start the population reduction with Loong Tuu and Anutin and all their friends!   ????????

1 minute ago, thaibeachlovers said:

When I can drive a 7 hour trip with a single 15 minute stop half way I'll be convinced. Whatever, so long as the batteries don't last 30 years, like my current car has, I'm not interested.

I have a Ford Ranger to do that if I need.  I've gone 1150km on one tank before being careful.

Electric cars are fun, cheap to maintain and drive, and reserved for people with time and money, and the mental capability for planning and foresight.  Certainly not most Thai people, though I know many who have these qualities.

Not designed for retired expats with no disposable income.   I know from other posts that you are not poor,  why not buy a 2nd car that doesn't pollute and is much cheaper and more practical for every day driving?

For me it was no-brainer, my work pays me a car allowance and my truck was paid off.  For most others it makes no sense, so I respect your opinion.