Sunday 7 August 2011

Well hello there!

Hi, welcome to the first post on my very first blog. Let's get the disclaimers out of the way first - I have no idea what I'm doing with Blogger so you might find I make a few mistakes and delete stuff randomly, put weird, nonsensical posts up and make stupid mistakes with the formatting. For any of that I apologise in advance. I intend for the blog to evolve as I get used to it. I realise it's very "Blogger generic" at the moment but as time goes on and I get used to it all it should change shape and become more interesting to look at. It might even be interesting to read.


So what the hell is it all about and why the silly name? Well, partly because I like silly names but mainly because on Tuesday I will be getting the keys to a Peugeot iOn electric car (yes, just like the one they drove on Top Gear the other day) for a month for what you might call a long term test drive. I will be trying to use it as much as possible as my normal car to see how it copes and if I can cope with it. I'm really quite excited about it. By the way, if you want to know where "Electric Boogaloo" comes from then I'll point you in the direction of your preferred search engine. The internet is an amazing thing, you can learn so much from it. Some of it is even true.

You may be asking who the hell I am and why I'm getting one of these cars. Well, I volunteered. Simple as that. I'm not a petrol head, I'm not an environmental nut and I don't have any kind of axe to grind for or against either the car or oil industries. I'm just a normal bloke from the north east of England who thought it might be fun. At the moment I drive a Fiat Stilo - possibly the dullest car imaginable - but in a way coming from a car like that should hopefully mean that I can give a realistic view of what the iOn is like. I'm not a motoring journalist so I don't drive top of the range BMW's and the like. In fact I've never driven a powerful or fast car so all I can compare it to are normal, everyday cars like the huge majority of the people who will read this blog would drive. When I first found out I'd been selected to do this I decided to do a bit of reading up on the subject of electric cars and found that Robert Llewellyn of Red Dwarf fame is a bit of an EV (electric vehicle) guru. I would strongly recommend you read his blog and watch his Fully Charged videos. They're informative, funny and (I think) balanced.

I guess that over the month I might not always have much to write about the car so you may find I post about other stuff that interests me too - stuff in the news, films, TV, books, politics, science and things that have caught my eye on Twitter/Facebook/other people's blogs. We'll see how it goes.

Well, that's it for now. I'll see you on Tuesday. If I get home! (Just kidding)

2 comments:

  1. Hi,

    Good luck with the trial... it will be interesting to see how it copes with the dreaded A1 and any detours you might need to make.

    I take issue with the stilo comment, its not dull - infact its exciting - what will go wrong next.

    From top gear they made a good point. The ion is more expensive and a worse car. Form my limited test drive of the leaf, i would say they were right.

    Good luck with the test and let us know how you get on!.

    Cheers

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  2. Ah, you see mine hasn't broken as often as yours!

    Couldn't agree more about the price. I was really surprised that it was more expensive than the Leaf.

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