Meanwhile, here in Scotland - where the water supply has always been publicly owned - Scottish Water announced it had received permission for an 8.8% annual increase.

Source: https://www.scottishwater.co.uk/About-Us/News-and-Views/2024/02/Water-and-Waste-Water-Charges-2024-and-2025

Advertising, political parties and religions. All of them.

I will quote George Washington to explain the why: “However [political parties] may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.”

Alternatives:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_democracy

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortition (we use this in 1/3 of our government today - juries)

Political parties and religions. All of them.

WTF?

Things this castrofuck clown car of a government cannot pay for: junior doctors, nurses, school lunches for hungry children, council homes, roofs for schools, 40 new hospitals, keeping shite out of the rivers . . .

Things it can pay for: 2 largely broken aircraft carriers (but not enough planes for them) . . and new, home built nuclear weapons.

I, for one, am so proud our glorious MoD can defend our food banks with British made nuclear weapons! /s

I cannot disagree about being wary of Tesla . . I certainly am. Here’s an article about data from 6,300 EV’s from 12 manufactures. Also includes a cool graphing tool . . . https://electrek.co/2019/12/14/8-lessons-about-ev-battery-health-from-6300-electric-cars/ Graphing the data: https://storage.googleapis.com/geotab-sandbox/ev-battery-degradation/index.html

As for my own EV’s . . I was an early adopter with the 24kWh Nissan Leaf - only had about 65 miles of “real world” range. Didn’t keep that long and traded it for a VW eGolf . . . 125 “real world” miles. Had that for several years . . .but traded it early in 2023 for a VW ID4. With 300+ miles, I no longer think about range. None of them had/have more than 30,000 miles . . .and I never noticed any degradation at all. The impact of cold weather is a MUCH more more noticeable issue!!

I’m on my 3rd EV . . and none of them have been a Tesla. I am FAR from a Tesla/Musk fanboy . . .but they do release the exact data you are asking about. Here you go . . 12% degradation after 200,000 miles.

https://electrek.co/2023/04/25/tesla-update-battery-degradation/

Roughly speaking, EV’s lose range at a similar rate that ICE engines lose horsepower.

https://carbuzz.com/news/10-reasons-why-engines-lose-horsepower-over-time

But a 10 year old Tesla is worth much more than a 10 year old BMW . . .

https://ark-invest.com/articles/analyst-research/ev-batteries-value/

Here is a Nissan Leaf used as a taxi . . .100,000 miles with no noticeable battery degradation . . .

https://www.speakev.com/threads/c-c-taxis-100-000-mile-nissan-leaf-full-battery-included.8804/

You replace the battery of an EV just about as often as you replace the engine block in an ICE car. Both do happen . . . but very, very infrequently.

That really should be cries in Englandland . . . I moved from Hertfordshire to Scotland 2 years ago (driving an EV all the way up the A1(M) . . . Chargeplace Scotland really works VERY well . . .