Talk Morgan Forums Community The Malvern Arms EV's......and House Insurance

Kind of got mixed views on the Youtube monetising thing.

I follow a Jersey Lad in a Youtube channel called KombiLife. It documents his travels and travails, travelling the world in a VW Kombi. He started, I would guess, 8 or 10 years ago and over the years the video have got much more professional and at some stage he did learn the advantage of having a pretty girl in a Bikini as the thumbnail. It does not strike me as too bad to have to "pay" for the 30 minutes of the video by watching a few adverts. But apparently Youtube have altered the way that they reward content creators (has any one noticed the increase in those annoying "short videos") and he is now struggling to fund the lifestyle which produces the videos.

Conversely, "product review" videos can be annoying, whilst most will state that the "product has been provided free, but the views are my own", the reality is that give bad reviews and the free stuff will stop coming and the videos cannot be made.

The bottom line to the Porsche thing, is if that letter from Porsche is genuine, and they have identified a risk, then the insurance companies will respond. That's not rocket science. I remember when a girl high on drugs demolished our garden wall (in her car), I had a supply of bricks, and rebuilt it over the next weekend. Obviously every Tom Dick and Harry who walked past wanted the story, so it took longer than it should. I made the mistake of notifying the house insurance company, telling them I was not claiming. For the next five years they loaded the premium.

There's a Fire Department guy in the USA (on You Tube) who does training courses, including EV fires, and he has some spectacular videos, including one where a garage door blows off with such force that it nearly kills one of the crew. It seems that gassing is more dangerous initially, because when it blows it blows really hard. A Jeep Wrangler hardtop went so high, (he has a word for the time elapsed) that it took a while to crash down. That may have been a hybrid. Having batteries which vent into the passenger cell is a major concern. These concerns are always interpreted as anti EV, where in truth, its about evolving concerns as this technology ages.

There is a lot of Tosh on YT - as there is all over the internet. There is also some excellent content that is well made and very informative. Harry's Garage and Harry's Farm being two good examples. Some of the car channels are very good but it pays to be very selective - as with all media.

For me YT vids have opened access to improve my understanding of many things, just as did my first home computer, back in the mid 90`s using a dial up connection, and coincidentally at that time I was contemplating the purchase of a Morgan to restore, also right around that time the MSCC had created their forum, I must have been amongst the first to join in search of education as to the possible realities of Morgan ownership, asking the question Which Morgan, having typed a resume of my m/cycling and sports car fettling up to that point in time..to which many very kind folk took time to reply to from places as far away as Canada, Australia, Germany, NZ and the US of A, and what an education they provided to the extent that GoMoG (Lorne) from Canada, actually lined me up with a rather special Morgan available for in sale in the UK and which I bought (2002) and still own today...(-:

No YT back then but I see YT in much the same way in terms of an evolution in terms of providing additional functionality to platforms for people to ask questions and find answers from numerous folk willing to take the time to pass on information in the hope of helping out...?

For sure access to the www has advanced beyond dial up, and the format for forums has likewise advanced where not only chat but pics and vids are available on any subject, what`s more to want..?

Yeah well such are the vagaries of human nature that personality clashes seem inevitable, natural cleekish behaviour creating tribes within tribes, exacerbated by misunderstanding poor grammar and total lack of punctuation skills.... (-: Yeh well it is what it is and not everybody is as perfect as am I... and as a result many a forum ended up in self destruct mode which should be no real surprise...?

In the Porsche related link I posted the core subject matter was that Porsche had issued an official statement on issues relative to a seemingly critical issue affecting one model in their range of electrically propelled vehicles and a chap who received the official communication shared it`s contents while displaying the document as proof, hopefully negating concerns that it could all be a figment of his imagination...? He went on to suggest that as the result of Porsche`s written warning, that his insurance company would no longer provide cover for his Porsche, not only that but as he charged his car at home, his house insurance was also deemed void, due to a change in circumstances affecting the insured risk... Though as he did not name his insurance company or provide any documentary evidence, it would seem wise to take that content with a pinch of salt..? Well that was my take on the content of the vid, and which seemed to be of potential interest to others on this forum who might own or be contemplating the purchase of an EV..? No more than that.

Further to the above in a bit to seek an alternative view, I posted the second vid, and ultimately of value to me on the core subject matter, was that TM, by way of Tim, provided yet another scenario whereby it seems his chosen insurance company is happy to cover both his EV and home knowing his EV is charged in his garage at home.... Great..!

On the other hand I suspect much may depend on the passage of time and the way insurance companies react to EV risk assessments which would seem to be constantly evolving...?

I view YT as I do Wiki treat it with a good pinch of salt and humour and you wont go wrong.

YT has introduced me to some wonderful music and knowledge, Alice and Hannah are you friends.

As recommended by Alistair this browser certainly cuts down on unwanted advertising and tracking.

Yes but his headlines are still gross clickbait. He is monetising excessive griping, which the platforms happily disseminate at speed. Posting stuff that angers readers generates more traffic and therefore more revenue.
And he makes no attempt at balance (the second video above is better).

Here’s what has happened in the Porsche world:

- many owners got a letter WRS0 which says they will be putting on some monitoring software and will let us know in the future if any battery anomaly is detected. That letter basically means nothing. Lots of battery systems have monitoring - I expect Tesla has had it since the beginning - but the German approach to privacy requires a lengthy letter to tell owners they will do so, and to allow them to opt out if for some peculiar reason they want to do so

- a few owners got a letter ARB6/7 which says that as no data on their battery is available, a precaution is required (charge to 80% and don’t park adjacent to house) until they push out some monitoring software. This is irritating for those concerned but smells strongly of lawyers rather than practical experience. No cases of actual problems have been reported as far as I know. And the letter is saying “we don’t have enough data (yet)” and NOT “your battery will catch fire” as reported by some YouTubers.

So all a bit ho-hum really, and not worthy of the coverage it is getting.

There is a further problem in the modern car world: things that are fixed by a software update end up being classified (especially in the US) as a “recall”. This drives headlines like “Tesla recalls 1.3 million vehicles” when in reality all that’s happened is they have pushed out a software update, like the security updates you get on an iPhone. (Porsche seem to actually recall vehicles to the workshops because they can’t get over-the-air updates to work reliably, but that’s another story…)

Look out for the next episode, “SHOCKING evidence that Morgans FALL APART in use and MAY KILL YOU if crashed!!!”.

In addition to the Rage Bait aspects, it's also worth remembering just how much money and resources is being pumped into the Anti-EV misinformation campaign by the fossil fuel companies.

https://www.desmog.com/2024/03/22/afpm-api-disinformation-epa-ev-car-emissions-rule/

and it's being going on for years

https://unearthed.greenpeace.org/2016/04/04/who-holds-back-the-electric-car/

A lot of the misinformation is so well embedded we see the core assumptions percolating through in any number of car channels

Fortunately there are lots of fact-checking resources available, eg

https://www.carbonbrief.org/factcheck-21-misleading-myths-about-electric-vehicles/

so it's always worth checking one's assumptions.

I

I care not a jot for the personalities involved in the world of YT or indeed how much they might earn by stretching a point to maximise their income generation.

For me, in this instance it was the point that Porsche had taken steps to protect themselves to some degree lest anything unfortunate might arise, while exposing their customers to possible refusal of insurance for not only their customers car, but also their home... Which of course may be down to the way the customer reacts to the letter from Porsche.

Whether or not the insurance industry might lock on to this situation, I have no idea, though it does seem that EV`s even prior to this latest event may be costly to insure relative to their ICE alternatives, which seems worth noting for anyone likely to contemplate purchase of an EV.

Perhaps also worthy of note in terms of the costs in running an EV, I picked this up on an msn.com news feed :-

Electric car owners have been warned they will see parking permit charges more than double while fees for high-emission vehicles are set to decrease, following a controversial decision by Dover District Council.


Finally, and not quite quoting the English bard.... To Click or not to click, that is the question....?

George better to have too much information than die of ignorance or poverty, from a very early age I believe we learn the art of filtering and avoiding negative people, it is a primary survival instinct.
There is a lot to be learnt from Youboob suitably equipped as I know you have discovered.

So keep on entertaining us all on here pse.