The Car thread
-
They've got a pretty big market already I suppose. -
Yeah, growing market that’s leaning heavily into EVs. Near 100% public transport now electric, a good 15-20% of the consumer market now electric. Generous government subsidies for new EV purchases. Plus, a good understanding of local needs and tastes. Xpeng are pushing into Europe now - think they launched in Norway last year, but local market deffo a priority. Why get muddled in the hyper competitive euro market when local buyers have desire and money?
-
Read this week about further localisation efforts being put into Forza Horizon 5 in China, and them also adding a number of homemade brands and vehicles to it too, which is pretty cool, imo.
-
That is cool. -
afgavinstan wrote:Read this week about further localisation efforts being put into Forza Horizon 5 in China, and them also adding a number of homemade brands and vehicles to it too, which is pretty cool, imo.
Yup, Forza Horizon 5 has done good numbers here. My local VR place has a full cab setup with steering wheel, pedals and VR headset for it. Will try it next time. Not surprised they’re adding some local cars. -
In less fun news, Alfa Romeo really know how to overprice basic spare parts. £495 for a door latch. Ouch.
-
Xpengable. I've a Chinese battery to charge my motorbike's, and its cells are good, but they've a bad rep for failures on the electronic side. Had to replace my first, and the updated one can still be flaky at times.
Talking of regs, I've probably said before that you can ride a dirtbike with just a number plate and horn, so long as it meets one of two requirements: minimum ground clearance or maximum seat height. Enduro and motocross bikes meet the former, trials the latter.
It's intended for competitors to ride on roads between stages, like rallying, but many use it for easier MOTs. I'm hoping to do it this year, but I would at least fit indicators if I planned to use main roads much. The rule with lights is that they must work if fitted.
I wouldn't fancy riding through a city of such bikes, but I find it quite refreshing how nonauthoritarian it is. Rules from a bygone age of happier motoring.
Unless you were run over, like. Or fell out the boot of your dad's estate. One of ours had a really springy bench where the rear seats were meant to be, so if we went across the moor we had to crouch down to save banging our heads. -
I have the ‘car’s broken, dunno what it’s gonna cost me’ nerves.
Typical Alfa woes; the check engine light came on and the car switched into ‘nae boost’ mode. Either the turbo’s gone (again) or a hose has split. I’m hoping the latter …
‘Luckily’ it was booked in to have a broken door latch replaced on Monday anyway so I just dropped it at the garage early and caught a train home.
Now we play the waiting game … -
I changed the battery in the CRV yesterday. Felt quite pleased with myself, given the extent of my car maintenance prior to that was limited to checking tyre pressures and adding fuel.
-
As we were talking Chinese EVs recently, thought this might be interesting to some. Went car shopping this week as mentioned before - the Xpeng / Xiao Peng P5 was top of our list, but we also wanted to take a look about at our options and there’s some great stuff coming out now. A bunch of pics and brands below as an intro to the market here:
This is the Arcfox Alpha S. Arcfox have a couple of models out and it seemed decent. Onboard electronics made in collab with Huawei. Comfortable, not too big, affordable.
Then got to see the Ora “Good Cat” that Poppo mentioned. Lovely little thing. Seemed to focus on being a small, low cost urban EV. Can see why they have high hopes for this in Europe. Inside has lots of paddles and switches, and reminds me of late-90s Camden in terms of aesthetic.
Here’s a selection of different brands that we saw and didn’t try. There’s deffo a style to them.
The is the Li One - one of the best selling EVs in China. Li have amazing battery tech and range. Internal software not as impressive as Tesla, Nio or Xpeng, but they make up for it elsewhere.
This brand is often chosen by Chinese Uber equivalents. They’re decent and *very* aggressively priced, albeit not the most reliable. You can pick one of these up brand new for less than 15k.
This is the Zeekr 001. Wife and I fucking love this car. It does 0-60 in 3.8 seconds and has a gorgeous interior. Spacious, comfy, amazing finish. Lovely drive, felt like a sports car from the future. Tesla Model X level at half the price. Only downside was that the touchscreen wasn’t as responsive as some others, and overall software felt like the one underdeveloped part. Unfortunately…it’s a little too fat. Test drove it back to our place to test parking and there’s no way us or our neighbours would be able to open our doors. So, had to say no in the end. But, seriously, check this one out if you get the chance.
And here’s Xpeng. Car in the front is the P7, and is also lovely. It’s their sports car, with the P5 positioned as their comfortable family Sedan. Xpeng have the best affordable tech control in China, with top of the line voice control, semi autonomous driving and automatic parking. The parking tech specifically is super cool, tested it in a couple of awkward spots and it parked along streets without a hitch. We tried the P7 and P5. P7 deffo more fun, but back was slightly more cramped and it was, understandably, more expensive. In the end we went practical and picked the P5. Should have it in a couple of months. Happy days. -
Really like the Ora. It’s where city cars should be going and I like that is has style.
-
That’s fascinating Cinty. Must be one of very few car markets that’s totally different from the rest of the world. There’s China, there’s North Korea, maybe Russia? And then I can’t really think of any others.
-
Aye, a lot of those look really nice.Come with g if you want to live... -
Good work, Cint.
Just ten years ago Chinese manufacturers sold most of their premium stuff to Western companies, who'd slap their names on and call it their own. Consumer trust wasn't there, as if Chinese-made tech passing through a Western company assured its quality.
But that's changing rapidly, and in terms of global politics especially it's noteworthy. Cars aren't so much of a threat because they're so big, but Huawei are probably trusted as much as Apple now. -
Okay, speak to me like I'm 12, and maybe allay my fears.
Yellow flashing engine light on the dash, it's been on and off twice since last night. And when I'm in gears 1-3, accelerating through, it's feeling very sluggish and jolting, especially so when I'm on any kind of uphill road. I'm absolutely fine cruising on the motorway or whatever, fine when I'm above 40 tbh.
So what am I probably looking at here? Am I in financial ruin? -
Get it checked asap. Could be catastrophic, could be minor, but not getting it checked early will almost guarantee its worse that it needs to be.
-
Do you check your oils and coolant regularly?
-
Nah, my first thought was maybe an oil change will dramatically help.
-
Reads like its mainly when accelerating/high revs.
My guess from that and the jolting would be a fuel supply problem so lines/filter/pump/injectors gummed up.
A cheap thing to try is to pick up a bottle of Redex from Halfords or a petrol station shop. Make sure you get the right one for petrol or diesel depending on what you drive. -
Just go to a local mechanic and get them to read the error codes for you. Most won’t even charge, if they do it’s just a few quid. They can tell you immediately what it probably is and whether you should be driving it in that state or not.
-
From that description it could be anything. Injectors, coil packs, spark plugs, turbo if there is one … even one cylinder or seal being fucked. Or you could be lucky and it’s just a sensor (maybe the MAF) that’s knackered and sending bad info to the fuelling system. First port of call with an engine error light on a modern-ish car is to just read the error codes and start from there.
-
Put a shot of Redex in and nowt has changed. Difficult to organise a garage visit around work tomorrow but will try. Siiiiiiiiigh, really could not be doing with this just now.
-
Ah well worth a try, it won't do any harm anyway.
The fact it can run alright on the motorway means it probably isn't anything catastrophic. -
Is it dielsel or petrol Gav?I'm falling apart to songs about hips and hearts... -
Wow spellingI'm falling apart to songs about hips and hearts...
-
Petrol, Matty. Still a bit sluggish in lower gears, the Redex seems to have been a help. Still absolutely fine on the motorway, though now the light is on and not going away. Gulp.
Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Categories
- All Discussions2,717
- Games1,880
- Off topic837