OV9

Sounds like it’ll be a ball!

With that salary you'll get some relief every pay-day.

(Also as someone who works in private industry - WTAF?? A Civil Service Pension with an employer contribution of 28.97% )

Yeah, salary probably justified there. Oh for such a pension (defined benefit, as well, not defined contribution. sad times)

I think I'm the only Tesla owner to have voted!

It's a challenge. I originally didn't want to buy a Tesla because of Elon Musk back in 2022 but I thought I would give it a fair chance. Compared to the Polestar (heavy, flabby), VW i3 (shopping cart like), BMW whatever it was - the Tesla was best in terms of ride and handling, tech (self driving etc), driving position and of course the charging infrastructure. I think even now when there are credible rivals in terms of handling and tech, I would still worry about losing the charging infrastructure.

The buying experience was a bit cheap but the aftersales has been fine (only issue a cracked wheel).

I think I would need to do my homework before I buy one again. And I may well be in a different financial position when the PCP runs out in 18 months. But without seeing better fast charging infrastructure I would probably stick with Tesla or go back to ICE.

And that is painful to say. It's a good product and I'm sure Tesla employees hate him too.

mik wrote: Thu Mar 20, 2025 9:42 am (Also as someone who works in private industry - WTAF?? A Civil Service Pension with an employer contribution of 28.97% )

Further down the figure is set out:
Benefits
Alongside your salary of £290,000, Ministry of Defence contributes £84,013 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme.

Remind me what the cap on pension contributions is before incurring tax? Oh yes, £60k. So in practice private sector employees are capped at £60k per annum contributions. A contribution of £84,013 is generous but stupid because the NAD will be taxed on £24,013 of it at 45%, unless there's some concession I'm not aware of for the civil service scheme, or perhaps DB schemes are different? I've never needed to look at them because they were practically all gone by the time I started work in the 1990s.

Sundayjumper wrote: Wed Mar 19, 2025 10:52 pm It’s unique of course. We have only one NAD.

It's not that unique. I was at school with a guy who had an unfortunate accident that required him to have a NAD removed leaving him with a nickname of Womble.

Jobbo wrote: Thu Mar 20, 2025 10:56 am

mik wrote: Thu Mar 20, 2025 9:42 am (Also as someone who works in private industry - WTAF?? A Civil Service Pension with an employer contribution of 28.97% )

Further down the figure is set out:
Benefits
Alongside your salary of £290,000, Ministry of Defence contributes £84,013 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme.

Remind me what the cap on pension contributions is before incurring tax? Oh yes, £60k. So in practice private sector employees are capped at £60k per annum contributions. A contribution of £84,013 is generous but stupid because the NAD will be taxed on £24,013 of it at 45%, unless there's some concession I'm not aware of for the civil service scheme, or perhaps DB schemes are different? I've never needed to look at them because they were practically all gone by the time I started work in the 1990s.

Its different for DB schemes, the contribution in £s isn't a factor in the calculation. The annual contribution is calculated as 16x the pension accrued in that year, so if you accrued £4,000 per year worth of pension from a age 65 in that year the annual allowance contribution would deemed to be 16x4000=£64,000.

Even using some carry forward allowance from unused previous years though would result in a tax charge quite quickly!

Sundayjumper wrote: Wed Mar 19, 2025 12:47 pm True story - ahead of the Model 3 launch, when they were taking pre-orders, I put down a deposit. Closer to launch they removed silver as a colour option and I removed my deposit. No regrets. Even before the current lunacy they were depreciating pretty hard and I felt I'd dodged a bullet.

Last year I bought a s/h i3 when I absolutely could have bought a s/h Model 3. Also no regrets.

Saw a silver Model S today, first silver Tesla I’ve ever seen I think. Always thought it strange that the colour options were so limited, even if you’d have to pay a lot more for one bit from the standard range.

integrale_evo wrote: Thu Mar 20, 2025 5:41 pm

Saw a silver Model S today, first silver Tesla I’ve ever seen I think.

Silver seems pretty popular on the CiderTrump mind.

Jimmy Choo wrote: Thu Mar 20, 2025 2:11 pm

Sundayjumper wrote: Wed Mar 19, 2025 10:52 pm It’s unique of course. We have only one NAD.

It's not that unique. I was at school with a guy who had an unfortunate accident that required him to have a NAD removed leaving him with a nickname of Womble.

A lad with an undecended testicle was called Singular as he wasn’t Plural.

Dave!

I saw a BRG Model 3 a couple of days ago. I assume it was a wrap, strange choice if it was.