2023 The Best Electric Vehicle Tyres VS UHP Tyres

Our 'British way' is sometimes undertsndable - but only up to a point. For example, properly 'old' houses and flats (including some that are converted from large stately homes or suchlike) are excellent examples of the architecture of their time and good looking when well-maintained. Many of them - 17th Century cottages, art-deco flats, etc obviously have single-glazed windows but the entire property (including the windows) are often covered by 'listed building status' and cannot be materially altered, including adding double glazing.

Some lower classes of listed status might be able to have secondary glazing (not as good as double but better than single alone), but almost none will be able to install any sort of insulation for the reason I gave before. We have a LOT of those sort of buildings, the former in the countryside (mainly villages and small towns like mine), the latter mainly in large, long-established towns and cities.

The big problem is that many terrible 1920s - 1970s homes are thermally very poor (no cavity insulation) but if you install double glazing, they sweat like mad and need to be dehumidified, which requires electricity-hungry equipment similar to A/C units. My parents have one in their 1960s built house that was only needed after they had the windows upgraded in the 1980s. Most of these properties have cavity walls, but no insulation, and it's not cheap to have it installed and there's little to no tax/government incentives to do so, plus it makes the 'sweating problem' worse. As we saw with the Grenfell fire disaster, externally cladding buildings, especially flats, isn't the cheap and easy solution certain 'experts' thought it was.

The daft thing is that most people are far more willing to spend big on a car they don't need (or can afford - because they pay monthly via a loan / PCP / leasing deal) when they could save themselves a fortune over the longer term by helping to improve their home's thermal properties, including the heating and ventilation systems. Local authorities and government let bad new build housing developments go ahead that are in no way future-proofed / easy to maintain or upgrade (it can be done without much extra expense) and mostly VERY poorly built.

My own flat block (built only 20 years ago) had issues where part of the communal areas were not insulated at all (they should've been) and was so buildly built the water was getting in and cuasing a lot of damage. House warranties are not worth the paper they're written on - at least with cars, you have SOME chance in recompense because problems are normally quite obvious and happen more quickly.

With cars, I finding that its often best to stick with a car you know does the job well, even if it's a bit older, as long as it's reliable and not falling to bits. Like with replacing an older heating boiler, you'll likely never recoup the cost of purchasing a new one via its greater efficiency in operation, unless you use a heck of a lot. I agree that EVs should just be a useful option for the urban dweller amongst many - those on the outer edge of a big city may find that an ICE car is far better because they need to use it to drive further and more often, especially people living in flats.

In such areas, public transport is far more sparse than in city centres because the areas covered are much larger. Less people have driveways and thus EVs aren't always a useful option, at least unless and until vandal-proof, reliable charging points are installed on every lamp-post. Out in the sticks, both are a waste of time unless you are very well off and have the space/money at home for a decent EV charger. Most UK workplaces have far less car parking spaces than staff who drive to work, often with no space or a landlord willing / able to install charging points.

The only employers who do tend to be large coprorates who can afford to virtue-signal and have the facilities. Most other (smaller size firms) don't. Even the largest employer in my town - with a very large site and probably over 1000 staff have only about a total of 4-5 EV charging points in their car parks (only for them). The council has one installed next to the town hall (a slow 7.5kWh charger) and there's two at the local supermarket (which has about 300- 500 spaces total). None of the filling stations in and around the town has an EV charger yet. Thus unless you have one at home, then EVs are a non-starter. Politicians either don't get that or don't care.