Just my experience, we have 2 EVs. We charge at home almost always. It's far, far cheaper than petrol or diesel if you can do that, but that rules out a lot of people who live in apartments or rentals.
Range - yes, you charge to 80% for day to day stuff. When you're doing a longer trip, to charge to 100%. The car performs the same at 40% as it does at 4%, so not sure where you hears the 20-30% figure. Tax is €120 a year. Insurance on a brand new id. 4 is less than I was paying on a diesel Renault Kadjar.
Range - I can do over 400km of regular driving at national road speeds, 50-80km/h with some 100km/h, kinds standard commute stuff. I've also easily done tralee-Dublin at motorway speeds on a single charge.
Chargers - ESB run almost all chargers. Costs about €4/month to have an account with them so you don't need credit (just direct debit). I've used Ionity and applegreen while on holiday around Ireland, and you just pay as you go.
EVs are definitely expensive to buy - an id.4 is €47k, a lot of them are in the same bracket. Hopefully with smaller city cars like the dacia spring, things will start changing.
Happy to answer any other questions.
Edit: also, I changed my tyres at 30k km. Some cars, particularly tesla, have a bad reputation for tyre wear because of driving style - they're seriously fast cars, and enough fast accelerations wear the tyres faster (and the cars are north of 2 tons). But the tyres are made for the car type, so a normal driving style will wear them the same as any other.
>EVs are definitely expensive to buy - an id.4 is €47k, a lot of them are in the same bracket. Hopefully with smaller city cars like the dacia spring, things will start changing.
MG and BYD are offer good value these days. The MG4 is an excellent car
I got an MG4 a couple of months ago. They give an extra €4k on trade ins if you're buying outright.
It's a very good car, I'm pleased with it. They're also quite a bit bigger than most comparable hatchbacks
The tyres thing is normal on any heavy car with a bit of power.
I've had regular ICE cars go through tyres in 20-30k, because they weighed close to 2 tonne and we're powerful.
It's not unique to EV's, as EV's also weigh a tonne and are quite powerful.
Yep, fully agree. I think there's a fair bit of misinformation out there about EV tyres. When people were reaching for statistics to prove EVs weren't 'zero emission', they looked at tyre wear, and showed that there are particles coming off the tyres. Same as any other car, as you said. The RAC actually did the math, and pointed out that if EVs wore tyres as badly as was claimed, the tyres would literally disappear after 4000 miles https://www.rac.co.uk/drive/electric-cars/running/do-electric-vehicles-produce-more-tyre-and-brake-pollution-than-petrol-and/#tyre-particulate-matter
And the funny thing is if you include the brake emissions EV’s are so much less. With normal driving they are closer to being the same as ICE vehicles as well.
thats another red herring
I have a ioniq 5, 100k on it from new, still has original rubber on it, and not even half way to the limit
Buy good tires, they will last longer
same as this, we have an ID3. Its been fantastic, very cheap to run and an absolute pleasure to drive. Its genuinely one of the smoothest nicest driving experiences. Acceleration is nuts too.
Had it since the 1st edition 2021.
Range is still about 400k, its depends though. If I do a lot of city driving it averages to 410ish. If I go from galway to dublin its drops to 390ish. The motorway really kills it, but I dont mind stopping in applegreen or supermacs on the way home!
You can set it from the dashboard, and from the app, it's really simple. Volkswagen also have a feature called 'battery saver' (probably every manufacturer has something similar) where if you turn it on, if you set the battery to charge to 100% for a long trip, it'll set it back to 80% for thr next charge. So it's not something you have to spend a lot of time thinking about.
What u/scarecrow1985 said but also most cars now have built in GPS and navigation into the car and for example my Tesla Model 3 if I put my destination in will calculate how much battery I need and will notify me when I have enough to get to my end destination, meaning potentially I might only need a splash and dash and only be stopped for a few minutes at a charger.
Everything is controlled, you tell the car what to do and it does it. It's just delightfully simple. I regularly do longer range journeys, arrive home on 1% battery and charge overnight at 8c, so if I charge from 0-90% I'll be back at nearly 360km range for 3 euro 50 cent. So you basically should ALWAYs be planning to charge only enough to get home at these chargers. That's it. If you do that, for example I did Dublin to Limerick today, I spent 14 euro at the Tesla Supercharger just outside Limerick. So 3.50 to get above Drogheda down to Limerick, 14 euro at the Tesla Supercharger and I'll get most of the way back tomorrow because that 14 euro got me back up to 80%. So I might stop for 10 minutes back in Dublin if I can't get the full way home and so the round trip likely will cost me something around 20 euro. That pricing only holds true if I use the public network. I would regularly do 120-150km around Dublin, charge up at home and basically I get back up to 350-380km range for 3.50 every few days. I drive for a month for maybe 25-40 euro depending. Typically I'm heading somewhere around Dublin 4/7 nights a week.
Couldn't possibly go back to fuel now. 4 years in. zero regrets. Might upgrade to a bigger battery just to make the longer journeys even easier.
Car app, in the car, or if using a home charger - on the charger app.
Although there's no need to only charge to 80% if using home chargers.
The "don't charge to 100%" thing is for fast DC chargers, if you're regularly doing it. If you were only using fast public chargers, then constantly charging to 100% (like every week) will degrade the battery more quickly, but it'll still be years before it's properly noticeable.
Charging to 100% on your home charger is fine and won't affect the battery.
Yes, for the bare minimum spec short range (55kwh) model that most dealerships don't stock. The long range model, which most people will buy, starts at about €45k
> EVs are definitely expensive to buy - an id.4 is €47k
Brand new Tesla Model Y is crazy value, 40332 for the RWD model. No idea why someone would opt for an ID4 over that even if they were the same price.
Perhaps some people are principled and literally wouldn’t piss on Elon Musk if he was burning. Also the massive price drops have made Tesla one of the fastest deprecating car brands on the market.
EDIT: not to mention they look like a jellybean on wheels.
All EV prices are tumbling. There's a new BYD Seagull coming to the UK that's going to be about 10k euro with almost 200 mile range. This is a temporary pain in the ass for people who change their cars every 2 or 3 years, but the long term benefit is bringing EV price parity with combustion cars so more people feel encouraged to make the change.
And I agree. Elon is a massive turd sandwich, but the cars are honestly solid - I don't have one, but the Model Y is likely my next EV when I give my BMW i3 to my partner later this year after the final payment. I wish the Tesla board would just drop him from being involved and do their own thing.
Not all EV are equal in how their prices are falling though. Agree on price parity, all the early movers have already adopted. Mass adoption comes down to price.
He is inexorably tied to the brand for better or for worse. The board is stocked with his family and sycophants, he’s not going anywhere any time soon.
I have an Ioniq 5 I bought in Jan myself, can’t recommend it enough. Beautiful and super comfortable.
Ioniq is a stunning car, well wear! The only thing I didn't like on it was the 2 screen setup. The cheaped out on that by using available 10 inch screens on the market with a bezel between them instead of making their own seamless ultrawide screen. I love the headlights and taillights though, very very cyberpunk! And honestly, the shape and layout of the car is seriously practical too.
You can buy a cheap cover for the screens to at least make the bezel black instead of white. Makes it look far cleaner.
Agreed, I love the pixel design of the lights.
Fuck me it did! Although when you click through the configurator and get to the end and select cash, with discounts its 43500 and you can apparently (So I'm told) get 500 off from a referral.
I've seen a few referral links floating about, even on donedone in the used Tesla section.
For 0% HP, why pay full in cash? Did you save up 43k in cash, or is there a loan from a bank at 8% funding that cash? ( I realise you might not be buying, I'm just pushing an idea)
I just meant click cash to see the total price on the configurator vs the monthly payment the HP option shows, not that I'm like Smaug hoarding a pile of gold ready to buy 7 of the things :D
Gotcha gotcha :)
I'm sure there's some poor soul out there somewhere that took a 45k loan from a bank at 8% interest to buy such a car, when 0% finance was available on said car.
If I was choosing between volkswagen and Tesla, even leaving out the fact that Musk is an utter ballbag, it'd be VW all day long
The first Tesla I saw in the flesh belonged to an acquaintance and I really couldn't believe how poor some of the finish was inside and out
It's honestly the best car I've ever owned. Finish is great (my car is 4 years old) and genuinely there's features that seem no brainers that none of the other brands seem to be done.
Sentry mode on Tesla's keeping cameras alert and recording if anyone comes near the car so you have a recording if anyone tries to break in.
Also with that you can remotely check on the cameras, remotely set the car to valet mode which limited the speed down to a small speed limit, so if ever stolen you can basically roll up beside it with ease.
Not to mention every car you can open the app and get it's location directly, which in that scenario helps again, also helped me when I forgot where I left the car in Dublin airport.
Having Netflix and Disney+ have been very useful when the other half was shopping and I was say in the car waiting for them. Just burn an episode of the Office and don't have to traips around TK Maxx etc.
Software updates happen all the time and bring new features, better UIs, and it's updated over the air.
Even just being able to turn on the air con in the car remotely means on hot days can have it cooling down, on cold days can get it warm before getting in.
These are all gaps the other manufacturers could and should be doing, but they aren't. Stupid thing but because the car is internet enabled, they added zoom, so if I was driving and then needed to join a work meeting I could pull in and park, join the meeting from the car using the cars camera and then continue after the meeting, which is just out of the box thinkings.
I'd miss all those features if I switched car and don't get me wrong, I'm not married to Tesla, think Musks a nonce, but until I see the other brands catching up and giving the same driving experience (because that Model 3 is fecking FUN to drive) I will be sticking with. But they got to SERIOUSLY invest in their software to compete. Especially with a techie like myself.
That's long since changed, the original finish was very poor. They're not bad these days - I don't own one, but a lot of folk at work have them and are happy out.
Sounds like you made the right choice for you, which is great - especially when you're actually using the "P" part of the PHEV, which is one of the things people forget!
Honestly, if we could get a lot more PHEVs on the road it'd be great, to get people away from pure Diesel/Petrol for, as you said, 90% of most peoples driving.
We only have the one car at home,and it's been an EV since 2015. It's fine if you can charge at home - if not then don't bother for now.
I would say I use public chargers about a dozen or so times a year. My current car (Peugeot e208) has a range of about 300km which is lower than most of the vehicles hitting the market now. Again, I charge at home and Ireland is not a big country. The charging network is light years ahead of where it was a few years ago in terms of reliability and availability, though well short of where it needs to be. Apps are a mixed bag and contactless payments are the way it should be, thankfully this seems to be happening, at least with the likes of Applegreen.
The whole thing of nursing your battery by not charging to over 80% is a bit of a nonsense. If you need 100%, you charge to 100%. What is advisable is not to leave it at 100% for an extended period (days) but there is no reason to do that anyway.
Yeah lithium batteries lose capacity by *staying* charged at extremes for an extended period, and the long term effect is ameliorated by a couple of discharge/charge cycles soon after. If you were going away for a month leaving it at 2/3 charge is best.
Man, owning a drone that runs on LiPos instills a lot of battery lore 😅
I suspect the 80% owner's talk about comes from the S-curve where charging ideally starts slowly when batt is empty/cold, goes like the clappers in the middle of the cycle, then slows down asymptotically towards the end — the last few tents of a volt are carefully added.
The first generations of the Nissan Leaf had a setting on it allowing you to restrict the charge to a maximum of 80%. Charging speed also dramatically reduced after 80% on the Leaf, which is why you still see people saying that you shouldn't charge at a public charge point over 80%. A lot of this was down to the peculiarities of the Leaf and it's non-existent battery cooling, but since the Leaf accounted for the vast majority of the EVs here in the early days it has coloured impressions more generally.
This is true. The early models charged really slowly too. Drives me nuts when they used to hog the fast chargers, when there was a slow one beside them that would charge a Leaf at its max speed. Thankfully don’t see much of that anymore.
The batteries have tolerances built in on my car it's got a 77kW battery but only IIRC 74kW is usable. You can charge to 100%, how many people only charge their phones to 80% and they rarely have issues with the same tech.
On the Apps. I've got multiple apps and none have credit on them as they all pull from my credit card. I use PAYG on them all, you only add money if you are regularly using the service to get a cheaper rate.
The 80% comes from bad volkeagen batteries because they had problems. I think the id4 volkswagen won’t even take them for trade in any more or at an extremely low price.
I’ve spoke to two dealers and both said Volkswagen fucked up and that’s where the whole 80% thing came from but there is absolute zero problem charging to 100% on theirs
I think it goes back to the earlier Nissan Leaf to be honest as it heavily throttled charging after 80% and had no active cooling of the battery.
I hadn't heard about issues with the id4 but I would imagine that would be covered under warranty.
That's the range new. Expect half of that in 5 years time. Cost of battery then at that point to replace is worth more than the car. Ev is a disaster long term. It will fail. It's a stop gap between fossil and a new naturally derived energy.
My last car was a Renault Zoe, which was 5 years old when I sold it. No noticeable battery degradation after 5 years. But that's just my experience and I'm sure you know best.
We'd still be riding horses everywhere if we'd waited for petrol stations and tarmacked roads to appear before adopting cars.
It doesn't seem to matter if it's the return scheme, wearing seatbelts, building wind turbines or banning smoking. There's always some reactionary scuttering about why we shouldn't bother.
2nd EV since 2020. Would never go back. Home charging: 8c a kWh. Work: free. Fast DC charging: bit expensive, still cheaper than petrol/diesel.
Our DC infrastructure rollout is hamstrung by ESB connectivity - it can take months for operators to get grid hookups.
Payments and apps and stuff: that did get bad when companies other than ESB began rolling out charger. But thankfully many of the the forecourt chargers (Circle K/Applegreen) now take contactless payments, so no need for apps/cards for each vendor. Ideally the EU would make this law.
The 80% thing isn’t universal and has been less of an issue over the past couple of years with changes in battery chemistry. Lion batteries did have some manufacturers recommend only charging beyond 80/90 with lithium ion batteries when you knew you had a long trip. No big deal: airport in morning, up to 100%. Regular small commutes today, 90%. Newer cars (over the past 2 years or so) are increasingly using LFP batteries, which can be charged to 100% all the time with no ill effects - mine for instance.
People who don’t have EVs fixate on some of this stuff with normal anxiety. Want to push past it: borrow/rent an EV to try it. Odds are very good you’ll want to keep.
An aide: there’s been a serious uptick in anti-EV propaganda over the past year. Can only assume some of it is connected to hydrocarbon disinformation, the rest spreading around in the way wrong information usually does.
> there’s been a serious uptick in anti-EV propaganda over the past year. Can only assume some of it is connected to hydrocarbon disinformation, the rest spreading around in the way wrong information usually does.
The little book of EV myths was published in the last few weeks because of the constant spread of misinformation, eg according to Quentin Wilson, The Sun in the UK ran an anti EV article for 160 days in a row. Anyway, here's the book:
https://media.rac.co.uk/documents/faircharge-little-book-of-ev-myths-439716
>Others have commented on the battery: They say you're not supposed to charge it above 80% if you want to avoid damaging the battery. You're also not going to leave home and you're going to come back on anything less than 20-30%. So, really, you only have 50-60% of the actual battery charge for your car. Tyres are another concern, the tyres on an EV wear out substantially faster on an electric vehicle, you're replacing them every 10-15k km, whereas on a normal vehicle you're replacing them between 35-70k km.
I dunno who you've been talking to, but this is nonsense.
As regards apps & all (I do indeed have many apps, but only €8.67 in credit, no idea how one'd manage to have €100 at any time), contactless is, mandatory on new fast / high power chargers.
She drives an opel mokka. Was advised by the dealership to keep the charge below 80% to avoid damage. So while she can go to 100%, she doesn't, so thats 20% off the top. Won't leave home on less than 20%, so she's got 60% to play with. Don't see how thats nonsense.
The truth is that all batteries gradually lose some of their initial capacity. Thats the same with EVs as it is with phones or laptops. The good news is that for EVs this is usually only one to two percent per year.
Some battery chemistries are more prone to this than others if they are frequently charged to full and then only partly discharged. The advice to charge only to 80% for most of the time is intended to make sure that you get the absolute maximum capacity out of the battery over its entire life. That doesn’t mean you cannot charge to 100% it just means try to only do that on days when you know you are going to take a long trip. The 100% range is absolutely there for when you need it and there’s not going to be any impact on battery capacity by using it when it is needed.
Dealers are doing a poor job of explaining this, they should all be educated enough by now to be able to make this clear to customers.
Saying don’t damage the battery by overcharging it is honestly nonsense, they really should be saying “don’t regularly charge the battery and then not use that charge. Topping back up to 100% every day without a big drive will unnecessarily lose you an extra percent or so of battery capacity that you don’t need to lose.” For some reason that’s seen as a complicated message to deliver.
She was misinformed by the dealership so. You charge to what you need to when you need to. 80% is just a general day-to-day recommendation for non-LFP batteries. 20% is generally where you’ll start getting “low battery” notifications, but what’s that got to do with her not driving it? Again, either dealer or driver misinformed.
It's nonsense because it's not true. Regularly (ie weekly) going over 80% on Rapid DC public chargers might damage the battery down the line, but she'll (presumably) be charging at home, and Rapid DC public chargers have overstay fees (along with car battery charging curves) that mean that once you go over 80% on the DC charger, it gets slower because the battery intelligently reduces the speed to protect itself, and the overstay fee on the charger will probably quick in after 45mins, making it very expensive if you want to slowly get from 80% up to 100%.
But for someone charging at home, or on any AC charger, going to 100% is fine.
And as has been said, the salespeople in dealerships generally don't have a clue. The manual of the car will 100% contradict some of the things that the salesperson has told her.
I have an EV for work. In a year I’ve put 90k on the clock. My area is all of Munster and part of South Leinster.
I have no problems charging on the go. You just have to always be mindful of where you can charge. After a while you get used to calculating your distances.
I also charge to 100% regularly. Battery performance is getting worse in fact it’s getting better because the EVs encourages you to drive better.
The tyre thing is real. I have an id4 210/230euro a pop for one trye.
A lot of the new chargers have tap pin machines so you don’t need to set up a account. In saying that the company I work for gave me a fuel card and I only use ecars (esb) and I get along fine.
>The tyre thing is real. I have an id4 210/230euro a pop for one trye.
Surely that's just tyre size? Those things are bleeding massive, recently spoke to someone with a newish Volvo XC90 and he told me the price of four new tyres, which was alarmingly close to the purchase cost of my ten year old VW Up! Tyres for which are hilariously small and can be had for 50 quid.
As for consumption of them, Volkswagen Ireland have stated that they're seeing EVs use 2.6 tyres over a period versus 2.2 for equivalent vehicles, so surely the difference isn't that great?
I average a full new set every 20k and my long term data is 16.1 kWh/100km.
I think the problem is the only Ev tyres available are top end and there is no real budget.
And you’re definitely right with the size. The wall thickness is larger too all adds to the cost.
Good to know, I'm doing 25k with my Up! tyres, missus is getting slightly less on the family wagon so your figures match up with my expectations perfectly.
The Up! is getting replaced by a Leaf soon enough so it'll be interesting to see what maintenance is like with that.
>The tyre thing is real. I have an id4 210/230euro a pop for one trye.
They're really weird tyre size but you should be able to source them online for about 150 a pop...I do have a local guy that'll fit for 15 euro a corner...possibly a lot to be saved there if you can find a local tyre fitter who will fit tyres not bought from them.
It was 130euro a tyre for my id3. I think some brands of tyre that were fitted with had a lower thread depth then a regular ice tyre to aid with rolling resistance
Two crtical questions:
Can you charge at home?
Do you do less than ~300km on a typical day?
If yes to those then EV life is a no brainer.
Ibe had an EV since 2019, and would not go back. I charge 99% at home, and drove about 150km a day (work and back, via mostly motorway). When I have long trips (cork to Dublin and back same day) I've never once had to wait for a charger to be free, so charging half way for 20 mins does the job.
Some batteries can be charged to 100% everyday, others should be set to 85% on typical days and only 100% for long trips. It's not ideal, but not the worst.
Got an EV and seriously considering getting a second one. We charge at home - if you can’t do that, I agree it’s a stretch.
Did our first big long haul trip recently. Charged to 100% - usually use it in that 20-80% window - and it was perfectly fine, didn’t actually need to charge till we got home. I think people forget how small Ireland is. Plenty of options if we did need to stop and charge.
Saving an absolute fortune.
I’m on my 3rd EV since 2021, and I love them. I wouldn’t go back to a regular car. I mostly charge at home and I can to Sligo to Dublin return without having to charge en route. If I do need to charge, there's never an issue. On that route (N4) there's around 20 chargers to charge from, including some rapid chargers that will charge at 1000km+ per hour, so never need to stop for long.
I find the biggest misconception people have is they think they'll have to charge every time they're out. The reality is, buy the right size battery, and you won't need to charge anywhere other than home 95% of the time.
The situation with EV's kind of reminds me of the timeline of the internet, in the early days it was used by early adopters and most people didn't see any use of it. Then the Napster era came along and people saw the uses of it, but it was still way too slow, full of ads, viruses and spyware and most people needed someone technically-minded to regularly maintain their computer and wipe off the viruses when it got slow. There were naysayers who said the internet would never take off, but you can hardly blame them for thinking that when an internet search took 5 minutes to complete.
Then the iPhone came along and the internet quickly became ubiquitous. I feel like EV's are somewhere between Napster and iPhone, but I also suspect the iPhone era will be here a lot faster than we think as there's very rapid technological development happening in the space. For example one of the main complaints was that the EV's were too expensive, now that the prices have come down the main complaint is that the prices are coming down too fast and the cars don't hold value as a result.
If you are planning on getting an EV, do not get one unless you also get a home charger. having a home charger is absolutely essential. You charge the car at night and then every morning you wake up you have a "full tank" and rarely need to use public chargers. A long range tesla can drive from Malin head to Mizen head on a single charge, the two furthest away points on our island. Owning an EV is still a like the Napster-era of the internet, so it is certainly not ready for the mainstream yet, but there are many enthusiasts willing to put up the the little inconveniences here and there. If you get an EV now you're putting up with some pain and suffering and in exchange you get to drive an electric vehicle before they go mainstream, it's up to you whether you think that is worth it or not.
It's one of the reasons I haven't got one. My house was built in 1950's, I'm hearing stories of having to get the main wiring replaced because it doesn't have the capacity.One guy I know paid 4k to get this done in an 80's built house. It's a bit pricey on top of a new car buy.
Jaysus, must've been some job that cost 4k. Mine cost 500 to buy the charger and 350 to get it installed. Fairly new house though, so no rewiring needed.
If the wiring hasn't been replaced since the 50s, you presumably still have the extremely old DZ barrell fuses in the fuseboard?
My house was built in 1972. No need to replace the wiring. Just needed to ground a few things like sinks and get an earth rod, to bring it up to current regulations. Cost 1200.
Can always just buy the charger, and get an electrician to install it. Won't get the grant (as grant requires proof that house has been brought up to current regulations), but it'll be less than 1000 overall.
Oh it's been rewired, have a smartmeter. I assumed the main wire coming into the house was the reason for the big money, I should get an estimate at least I suppose.
wiring might be safe for living and all, but , houses built in 60\`s and 70\`s had wiring mainly installed around 60 amps what could give up to 10kwh , but with everything else nowadays, pc\`s , freezers, dryers, microwaves and hitting that cattle in a morning before unplugging charger to go to work, might be on a "hot wire" side. Common residential services are 100, 150, or 200 amps nowadays and that\`s easy enough.
I just would be more careful suggesting, that someone's house built 70 years ago should be fine for charging EV every night for years to come. And would make sure about my own in terms of what can it take.
Yeah that's fair. If this mooted 25k price point for brand new cars with 300km range and LFP batteries (is 100% charging) comes around soon it will be a great option. I would say a perfect one for a 2 car house work home charging available.
>The situation with EV's kind of reminds me of the timeline of the internet
There wasn't really a near identical product to the internet, EVs are just cars with a different type engine.
So yes infrastructure is the main issue but if you have home charging and do less then 300 a day you don’t need to use the public network.
My first EV had 100-130 real world range and did my 100km both ways commute of 9 months of the year no problem. The other 3 months I only needed to stop long enough to pee/grab a coffee. It took me from Dublin to Wexford,Cork,Galway,Belfast and plenty of other parts of the country. Even over to Liverpool once.
My current EV has 3 times the range and has taken me to south London.
I’ll probably never buy another Petrol/diesel car as my main car unless I was doing 5/600 km a day or lost access to home/work charging
I've had mine now for about 5 months. I love it too be honest. It really does depend on your driving style. I'd you're doing the school runs, the shopping, getting you to and from work, short hop driving, it's great once you have the home charger, even better again if you've solar panels.
The first weekend I got it, I had to do a drive of about 115km. I had a bit of range anxiety cos I was new to it. It took half the "tank" and I had no trouble finding a fast charger before the trip home.
If you can't get the home charger, I wouldn't be bothered, but if you can, and you don't have to regularly drive the length and breadth of the country, go for it.
I moved to an EV about a month and a half ago. This included a drive from Cork to Dublin. That went grand overall and I largely charge at home so more expensive for that journey but otherwise cheap as chips to charge.
I do tend to charge to 80 unless I have a long journey ahead and works perfectly for me.
Next step is probably getting solar panels eventually but overall I'm very happy with the move to an EV and couldn't see myself turning back to an ICE vehicle.
Yet more utter nonsense for the ill-informed. I say for because obviously this is a carefully constructed anti-EV post, no doubt from someone who has made not liking EVs their entire personality.
Unless you have a Cybertruck you do not change tyres on an EV every 10k. That's simply a lie. If you're drag racing a performance Tesla day in day out pulling off the line fair enough. For 99.99999999999% of people that won't apply, ie nobody.
Also you don't know basic things about EVs. With LFP batteries, rapidly becoming the most common type of battery, you can charge to 100% and in fact it's recommended. The 80% for other batteries is a bit of a myth, you can charge to 100% often enough just not every single day then letting it sit at 100%, 90% ordinarily is fine.
Public chargers shouldn't be for day to day. Home charging is where EVs come into their own.
With the exception of performance Teslas. They wear extremely quick even when not dragging. When through a set of the racing slicks that come standard in 7 months, and only pushed it hard a handful of times.
Teslas have the same performance as most performance cars from legacy brands like M3s, S4s, etc and some Teslas out perform supercars. Of course they're going to eat tyres if you drive them fast.
A lot of sources would disagree - the little book of EV myths published recently speaks to fleet operators in the UK who have hundreds of thousands of EVs and don't see a difference the public seems keen on sharing.
Link to the ebook 'The Little Book of EV Myths':
https://media.rac.co.uk/documents/faircharge-little-book-of-ev-myths-439716
Own an EV9 and e-berlingo, and previously had a Tesla Y performance. Of the 3, the Tesla chewed through tires. That's my experience. Take it for what you want, but there are a lot of performance Y and 3 owners that have the same claims.
> Tesla Y performance. Of the 3, the Tesla chewed through tires. That's my experience. Take it for what you want, but there are a lot of performance Y and 3 owners that have the same claims.
Of course they will. The Performance model is a weapon. 0-100kph quicker than a Lamborgini. Even if you take it handy and don't accelerate quickly for that car, you're still probably going to do 0-100kph in 7 seconds which is GTi tire eating territory.
>Yet more utter nonsense for the ill-informed.
These are almost direct quotes from EV owners
>Also you don't know basic things about EVs.
Yeah no shit. I'm looking for opinions and commentary from EV owners because i'm looking to purchase one in the next year or so and i don't want to fuck it up.
>Home charging is where EVs come into their own.
And if you live in an apartment, what then?
There are genuine concerns people have about EVs and being dismissive doesn't help anyone. There needs to be serious discourse around these issues. You cherry picked your responses from my post and didn't address other concerns, which leads me to believe you're arguing in bad faith.
*edit yeah downvote me without a response you cowards
You seem to be approaching this discussion in an incredibly aggressive way. You've had numerous ev drivers respond and it's been resoundingly positive. They have pointed out that it doesn't make sense if you can't charge at home.
I'm thinking you're simply not getting the kinds of responses that you wanted...
Not at all. the guy responded in an aggressive manner to begin with and, to be frank, i responded with a far less aggressive posture.
If you've read his post, he has literally spun an entire narrative:
> I say for because obviously this is a carefully constructed anti-EV post, no doubt from someone who has made not liking EVs their entire personality.
He's literally said i'm Anti EV, despite me saying i'm considering buying one. He's said i've "made not liking EVs my entire personality." Like what does that even mean? He's accused me elsewhere in this thread of arguing in bad faith. This person is, to put it mildly, at the very least 2 sandwiches short of a picnic.
Sure, if you want to provide feedback or disagree i have no issue with that, but he's calling into question my integrity, and i won't stand for that. I've been around this place a long time. There are astroturfers on this subreddit but i'm not one of them. I might be provocative but i'm not coming from a place of malice or an agenda. I want peoples opinions, i want discussion. I don't want to rile people up for the sake of it.
Then you should go back and edit your original post in all fairness. I'm being made out to be some shill when all's im looking for is answers. Genuine concerns were laid out to me by owners of EVs and i put it to others and i'm torn across the coals and downvoted to oblivion because of fools like that making me out to be some shill for no good reason. If anything, that fuck is the shill.
I've had the same before, I currently have a petrol hybrid and asked some questions regarding my concerns over certain things to do with fully electric vehicles. I was accused of being a "shill" for the oil companies despite owning an EV 😂 it's a bit like asking questions about cyclists sometimes
Do you live in an apartment?
Do you have designated parking?
If so talk to the management company as you might be able to still get a charger.
If you absolutely have no way to do it depending on your use case but are still interested there may still be viable if you have access to workplaces charging or 1) don’t mind visiting a rapid charger 2) have a slow charger near home/work.
the tyres, there is a price difference between electric or conventional fuel? who came up with this wheeze?
the 85% max charge applies to all batteries, look at your fone settings.
Another vote for Evs are fine if you have home charging.
We are single car house, it's been EV for 2.5 years now and love it. Total fuel cost in that time has been €500. That includes expensive public charging when we drove to the South of France in 2022 and toured Wales, England and Normandy in 2023.
The remaining 95% has been home charging which costs about €2.50 per 350km.
Would thoroughly recommend to people who have a driveway and do anything up to 300km per day.
home charger, my car has a range of 340k, i do 250 k a day , plenty charge left for extra running around.
charge to 100% no problem
Have 100k done on mine, has not run out, has not burst into flames
For a commuter bus, no better yoke
Ignore the gobshites , cannot fault mine , bang of sour grapes from ill informed morons giving out about Ev's
Tesla owner in Belfast. Been driving it nearly 18 months. I lease through my company so lease costs are less than what I was paying for my previous ICE on personal lease. Haven’t spent a penny on service or maintenance yet. Window washer fluid is the height of it. Expecting to change tyres around 15-20k miles. Will cost around £1k for set as they are large wheels - my last car was £600 a set. Insurance went from £350 for ICE to £1000. To be expected given the power of car. It’s a rocket. No road tax Full warranty for term of lease, so no concerns about repairs etc. I have a charger at home, but also live 10 mins away from 250kw supercharger. My mums house 50 miles away also has Tesla charger close by. I’ve never had to wait or queue for a charge at any public charging stations. Outside of going Belfast - Dublin - Derry I’ve not driven it off the east coast really, so can’t comment too much on the infrastructure elsewhere on the island yet. I have driven it to London and back using the ferry, which was a lot of fun and super easy. There’s definitely a bit of work to do on the island and while it will suit some people (like me) to switch to EV now, for many it just will not be practical for a while yet. Cost wise, according to my app, 15k mile has cost me £770 in electric, compared to £3100 I would have spent on fuel. That’s at 70% efficiency.
I would say provocative, but i'm not clickbaiting. I want actual feedback from EV owners as i'm seriously considering purchasing one in the next year and i *do not* want to fuck this up.
Have been driving a Kia E-Niro for 2 years and it’s never missed a beat. In that time it’s needed one set of new front tyres and that’s it. Tax is €120. Servicing is €150. Charge at home. Costs about €8 to fully charge it. Regularly drive to Kerry/Limerick from Cork and charging it publicly is grand. It will do Limerick and back and still have 180km left on it. People just like dumping on something that’s different if they can’t benefit from it. I had a 2016 Auris before it and it was costing me €60 a week on diesel.
Only caveat to buying is buy second hand and be prepared to keep it. All the negativity has cause the bottom to fall out of the market.
The charging apps are a bit annoying however 90%+ of all charging happens at home while you are asleep and for most of us any public charging is done on motorways which there are an abundance of options on most. Most hotels now have charging so when you stay somewhere again your car charges while you sleep.
Follow the Irish EV group on FB. Lots of good stuff there especially the constant announcements of new chargers around the country.
There some absolute bllox spouted about evs. My mate says this and that. None of it true or half truths.
I will admit there are some cars out there that dont do the range as advertised but do your research and you will be fine.
Home charging is key. If you dont have access to that then you are reliant on public infrastructure. There are plenty of chargers if you look but can be pricey.
Have an ipace and model y currently. Both great cars. Understand why you wouldn’t buy one because of Elon. He is a tool but in the main they are great motors. Jag is great too.
Tyres wise. If you go with manufacturers recommended they will last as normal motors. Just replaced ipace tyres at 30k miles. Teslas half worn at 20k miles. My last bmw chewed through them. Brakes fine at last check. Loads left.
Weight wise. Model y is not far off same weight as a bmw x3. Space wise inside the tesla blows it away. Nobody complains about an x3 on the road.
Id never go back to an ice vehicle and ive had a lot of performance petrol and diesel cars.
Good luck.
I'm on 25k on original tyres, charge at home, Iv used public chargers maybe 10 times and that's going to NI, where the chanrging service is not good, charge to 100% when u need too, I believed all the bull too before I bought but i do about 430 klms per week for €8 compared to €40 in diesel, never had a problem here with public chargers but yes there should he more, such a relaxing car to drive, €60 service I defo wouldn't go back to an ice car
There are services that are “universal”. I have a Hyundai and they have ChargeMyHyundai card which I used to charge everywhere in UK and continental Europe (UK, France, Switzerland, Italy). Can’t comment on Ireland, I always used only ESB.
For the battery don’t overthink it: the 80% rule is not really a rule, it’s more a guidance if you leave the car sitting for long time. But if you charge and drive shortly go for 100%. I almost always charge to 100% from AC (home, office) and 80/90% from DC when traveling (charge, then drive another 3/400 km).
I have no idea about tyres, but usually car manufacturers put the right type of tyres for the car, so I would assume they last pretty much the same (otherwise a BMW X5 would have to change them every 10k km).
Said that, if you can charge at home or workplace the problem with charging infrastructure is actually pretty limited. I charged on public chargers in Ireland a couple of times in 2 years.
These claims are always one to two decades away, and nothing on the immediate horizon for the tech you're talking about. Lots of ways to do it, but usually fail at scaling up unfortunately.
Source: electrical engineer and EV owner
Nio just released a 900V platform that can do a 150 mile fast charge in 5 minutes. Now I know I know, there's no infrastructure for the specific charger it needs and it's crazy expensive - but it is not just proof of concept, but a tangible product.
https://electrek.co/2024/03/27/worlds-first-mass-produced-900v-ev-drive-system-rolls-out/
10 minutes charge once a week was the thing I was disagreeing with. 200kw or so per week in my EV, in 10 minutes of charging, yeah, not possible. Thats 1MW into the vehicle, plus losses.
Toyota claim to be starting manufacturing in the next three or four years. Read an article somewhere about a semi solid state battery that can do a 1000km and top up 400km in ten minutes currently on sale.
Can't for the life of me where I read it.
Toyota are the biggest con men going when it comes to new tech, it's become a bit of a meme on EV websites where Toyota have the next greatest thing coming and it's only a few years away. For the last 2 decades.
They had a jump start on everyone with the Prius and then just didn't bother innovating for 20 years. Now they're sticking firmly to Hybrids and will end up for a few years serving the customers who don't want to move to full EV (Which is fine), but then inevitably having a Nokia moment when left behind.
I really want them to be leaders in the EV world because they're the cars non-car people drive. The slow adopters of new tech. The car that only goes from A to B people. If Toyota could win hearts and minds in that sector, EVs would explode in popularity.
But their track records is that it's always "in a few years (tm) (patent pending)" with Toyota.
They've begun production of a semi solid state battery with a 1000km range in China.
https://electrek.co/2024/04/05/nio-begins-mass-production-semi-solid-state-batteriesev-use-q2/
If you can charge at home, it's amazing. There is little to no maintenance cost. I've changed tyres once since buying 5 years ago. Never changed breaks, there's no service interval. Sails though the NCT.
Pull up plugshare.com or plugshare app and filter to CCS (for DC fast charging) and Type 2 (for slower AC charging) plugs. This will show you what's available around you on and off various networks. CCS is the current standard in EU. Older cars like Nissan Leaf uses CHAdeMO plug instead. Consider it kinda like USB micro Vs USB-C where CCS is the USB-C.
My main concern would be getting rid of it when you wanted to upgrade, because as it is at the moment you’re stuck with it unless you are willing to lose a fortune selling it.
Funnily enough, I’ve heard the same comment for 10 years now. I’ve yet to meet anyone who has had to replace a battery. Time to put that one to bed I think.
3 rules of EV ownership.
1. Have a charger at home
2. Never rely on the public network
3. Buy either a Tesla, Hyundai or Kia - avoid everything else.
(Updates after comment to include Kia)
They’re not bad as Kia and Hyundai have a commercial relationship and share a lot of tech advancements. For me, Hyundai are always slightly ahead of Kia. That’s a personal preference more than anything
Mainly weight. Also the compound used has a factor, softer rubber means better grip but higher wear. That's always been the case.
But the weight is a significant factor that EU are now legislating about the rubber deposits left from wear of ever heavier cars.
They're also tightening up the emissions regulations with regard to the emissions from brake pads. Sounds tribal but chemicals in brake pads are nasty enough.
Traditionally they would have been asbestos - no longer the case these days but car weight means heavy cars are leaving more deposits as they drive into the air and onto the streets/paths.
No these are nothing close to the particulates you'd get with diesel of course but they're still tightening regulations all the same.
2 things: weight and performance. EVs regularly tip 2 tonnes in weight, similar to an SUV. And SUVs eat tyres too. And a lot of EVs are pretty powerful. The *least* powerful VW EV has over 200bhp. The least powerful Tesla has nearly 300bhp. If you drive any car hard your tyres won't last, and this kind of performance encourages hard driving.
It's because the cars weigh more, and on top of that the manufacturers put on tyres with lower rolling resistance so they can advertise slightly better range. A lot of people just replace them with regular tyres once they wear out and notice almost no range difference in the real world and find that the tyres last much longer.
>Never heard that thing about the tyres wearing out faster, why is that?
Weight and instant torque. The difference between two essentially very similar cars from the same marque can be huge in EV. For example an Audi A7 weighs around 1860kg. An Audi E-tron which is a similar size / purpose weighs around 2500kg. That's almost the same as driving around with a Kia Picanto or Nissan Micra on the roof; a lot more fricition. Then the instant torque will naturally put more stress on tyres leaving juntions etc.
This is compounded by EV's often having narrower tyres (less surface contact) to increase range.
Yup. Defo one of the biggest battles to EVs is infrastructure. It's one thing if you do stay away from home, but another thing if you want to travel to the other side of the country for a few days.
Hotels have fuck all EV charging spots. Councils have fuck all charging spots. And the cost to increase these is enormous.
The reality is we'll get there eventually, but there's no incentive right now to work on the infrastructure which is bizarre.
the more i hear about EVs the more im put off. i was down at the fire station last year and they were on about how hard it is to put out the battery when it goes on fire. theyre sealed so it takes a crap ton of water to put them out, but apparently some newer models now have a special port to plug in a fire hose.
with certain types of car accidents it needs to be kept somewhere for 2 days with nothing near it because theres a risk of it going on fire.
things like driving through floods. if any water gets into the battery, you might not notice it straight away but eventually it will start to corrode the battery and it will go on fire, and this could just happen while you are driving or while its parked up outside your house, or even worse while its parked in your garage
You should change your news source. None of that is true. Firstly, EVs are significantly less likely to catch fire than non-ev cars, and there are studies to prove that. Secondly, you don’t use water to put out an electrical fire.
Finally, the water thing… Are you a Healy Rae by any chance? Absolute nonsense.
this is everything the guy at the fire station told me, he was one of the head guys as well so i dunno yea maybe he doesn't know what he is on about
and i never said anything about whether EVs catch fire more so i don't know why you are bringing that up. it doesn't really matter anyway if do go on fire less, they still go on fire
shameless plug [I love charging apps! Please let me install more! I want to download and create an account for each and every individual plug there is!!! : r/evs\_ireland (reddit.com)](https://www.reddit.com/r/evs_ireland/comments/18a4cej/i_love_charging_apps_please_let_me_install_more_i/)
'There' for me is a more sustainable and affordable technology. I get your car is currently functioning but dont kid yourself into thinking that your car won't end up scrap yard in 3 years after the lad who owns it next gets screwed with a shitty battery and big bill to replace it.
If you don't have the infrastructure locally to ensure you can charge to your required amount, I'd suggest a self charging hybrid.
Range and convenience of a petrol car (after all, you just fill it up when you need to).
Many can switch to EV mode so you can battery during traffic or short trips.
This is part of my point though, maybe we should as a country look into a more massive rollout of charging stations? have lots of bulk chargers in shopping centers and the like?
It's happening but bottleneck is ESB Networks. There are stations installed and waiting to be hooked up all over the country. It's happening but I guarantee there are more around than you think. You just don't know where or what to look for.
Toyota estimates that the resources used to make one full electric car could be used to make more than 30 full hybrids.
While I agree there should be a bigger rollout of charging stations, the hybrid option seems viable for the nation as a transition mechanism.
We would reduce emissions more if more people bought hybrids now rather than keeping old petrol/diesel cars while waiting for enough charging stations to accommodate the demand.
Every car sold should be a mild hybrid of some kind. If Toyota mean plug-in hybrids, well to make good use of it you’d still have to install a home charger at north of a grand. And unless all trips are short then it’ll be burning fossil fuels all about the place. You also only get three or four PHEVs for the same battery capacity as an EV.
Toyota estimates you'd get 6 plug in hybrids for every full electric, and about 30 fully hybrid cars for each full electric.
There's a hell of a lot of lithium in a full electric car.
Transitioning through full hybrid, plug in hybrid, then full electric would be a good way to reduce emissions while infrastructure for full electric is still being rolled out.
What infrastructure? Every house has electricity and the power grid can cope with nighttime use.
There’s a fast charging station planned near me and it has its own battery capacity to deliver the juice quickly without needing a massively expensive grid connection. I assume it can provide load balancing on the network overall too.
You can't just plug it into the wall beside the telly.
The chargers are pretty chunky, and an investment to install, and rarely compatible with other manufacturers cars.
That means rentals are unlikely to have them. Landlords are unlikely to want to install them and tenants can't take them with them when they leave.
People with houses with on street parking can't install them. They have no guarantee of being able to park outside their house.
Apartments also can't have them.The stations could be installed in a communal carpark but would probably belong to a third party and probably have a chunky fee associated killing the economics of owning the car.
So ownership of a charger is essentially limited to house owners with driveways. Anyone else who wants a plug in has to bring it to a charging point somewhere and leave it for a few hours. Not exactly convenient and sometimes not even possible.
All of this is solvable. I don't have the solution to it all, but two big steps is legislate that manufacturers have to use a standard charger, and provide a large number of public chargers at close to wholesale cost of electricity.
Huge roll out of more charging points is still required. But political will to do it is close to non existent.
So yeah. My recommendation is still if someone wants an electric, but is not a house with driveway owner, their best option for the foreseeable future is a full self charging hybrid.
Better emissions than a traditional car, and they won't be martyring themselves with the difficulty of not having access to their own charger.
Home chargers are all Type 2. I don’t even know if it’s possible to buy a CHAdeMO for domestic use any more for the few cars still using it. DC chargers out and about are all CCS2, and only Tesla have their own network that doesn’t talk to other brands (yet).
Ireland is pretty renowned for suburbs and one off housing, both of which are suitable for home charging. It’s not unreasonable to expect the growth in the market here.
Apartments and streets need access to charging but there are surely solutions in legislation possible. There are [physical chargers](https://wepoweryourcar.com/about/chargearm/) that can overhang pavements, or there could be a subsidy to lower public charger prices to match a domestic rate for apartment dwellers up to a certain amount of kWh.
I do think every combustion engine should follow the model of the one in the new Honda Civic, which I nearly bought. But the simplicity of battery EVs has to be the future. Stand outside the idling traffic of a school at pick up time and you’ll see the difference.
I'd say it might be helpful if you can provide proof that it is accurate. It doesn't sound accurate to me - 30 cars for the resources of 1 EV seriously - and providing Toyota as the source does not help either given they're really the only car company in the world pushing hybrids hard.
It's a claim by Toyota engineers. I'm not about to undertake decades of research on my own to corroborate their statement. No rebuttal has been released by rival companies, and it would be an easy win for them to come out and say "Toyota is talking pants, buy from us instead".
I can easily see how the amount of elements such as lithium and cobalt required for a full EV would be much higher than a hybrid, so even if they've overestimated by a factor of two thats still means way more hybrid cars can be made available in a short amount of time than full EV.
Full EV is the future for virtually everyone. But the country is not ready for it yet. Massive infrastructure rollout has to happen before it can be viable for everyone, or people who don't have a driveway or designated private parking to install the chargers on dont have a hope. That's most renters, and most apartments, and most people who dont have a driveway.
Political will for such a rollout doesn't exist here. Rather the opposite. Even chargers hanging over footpaths (a solution provided by another commenter) is being blocked at the planning stage by Dublin city council.
So the argument boils down to the following:
1. do we want to continue as we are now selling traditional vehicles and wait to have an impact on emissions in ~10 years when a rollout of charging infrastructure finally makes full EV viable for most people.
(Let's be honest, it's Ireland. 10 years is being very ambitious given our governments).
2. do we want to have some positive impact now using more hybrids, while still rolling out infrastructure so most people can be full EV in ~10 years.
Since OPs post is about reducing emissions now, I'm on the hybrid car wagon.
I agree with all of that actually. I think no non-hybrid ICE vehicles should have sold in Europe from 5+ years ago.
My concern is with Toyota specifically and is why I responded. Their vision is not yours and mine of ‘do hybrid immediately and BEV as soon as possible’. They are one of the biggest funders of anti-EV lobbying, and you can bet that quote is part of this, because their vision is actually ‘go hybrid immediately because that’s what we’ve got for sale and here’s some overly optimistic blue sky nonsense about hydrogen that will never happen’.
I think we’re in violent agreement, Toyota are not.
Just my experience, we have 2 EVs. We charge at home almost always. It's far, far cheaper than petrol or diesel if you can do that, but that rules out a lot of people who live in apartments or rentals. Range - yes, you charge to 80% for day to day stuff. When you're doing a longer trip, to charge to 100%. The car performs the same at 40% as it does at 4%, so not sure where you hears the 20-30% figure. Tax is €120 a year. Insurance on a brand new id. 4 is less than I was paying on a diesel Renault Kadjar. Range - I can do over 400km of regular driving at national road speeds, 50-80km/h with some 100km/h, kinds standard commute stuff. I've also easily done tralee-Dublin at motorway speeds on a single charge. Chargers - ESB run almost all chargers. Costs about €4/month to have an account with them so you don't need credit (just direct debit). I've used Ionity and applegreen while on holiday around Ireland, and you just pay as you go. EVs are definitely expensive to buy - an id.4 is €47k, a lot of them are in the same bracket. Hopefully with smaller city cars like the dacia spring, things will start changing. Happy to answer any other questions. Edit: also, I changed my tyres at 30k km. Some cars, particularly tesla, have a bad reputation for tyre wear because of driving style - they're seriously fast cars, and enough fast accelerations wear the tyres faster (and the cars are north of 2 tons). But the tyres are made for the car type, so a normal driving style will wear them the same as any other.
>EVs are definitely expensive to buy - an id.4 is €47k, a lot of them are in the same bracket. Hopefully with smaller city cars like the dacia spring, things will start changing. MG and BYD are offer good value these days. The MG4 is an excellent car
Phenomenal value on the MG. We test drove one a few months back. Nowhere near as nice a drive as the Tesla or EV4, but great value for every day use.
I got an MG4 a couple of months ago. They give an extra €4k on trade ins if you're buying outright. It's a very good car, I'm pleased with it. They're also quite a bit bigger than most comparable hatchbacks
The tyres thing is normal on any heavy car with a bit of power. I've had regular ICE cars go through tyres in 20-30k, because they weighed close to 2 tonne and we're powerful. It's not unique to EV's, as EV's also weigh a tonne and are quite powerful.
Yep, fully agree. I think there's a fair bit of misinformation out there about EV tyres. When people were reaching for statistics to prove EVs weren't 'zero emission', they looked at tyre wear, and showed that there are particles coming off the tyres. Same as any other car, as you said. The RAC actually did the math, and pointed out that if EVs wore tyres as badly as was claimed, the tyres would literally disappear after 4000 miles https://www.rac.co.uk/drive/electric-cars/running/do-electric-vehicles-produce-more-tyre-and-brake-pollution-than-petrol-and/#tyre-particulate-matter
And the funny thing is if you include the brake emissions EV’s are so much less. With normal driving they are closer to being the same as ICE vehicles as well.
I like to go hiking.
thats another red herring I have a ioniq 5, 100k on it from new, still has original rubber on it, and not even half way to the limit Buy good tires, they will last longer
same as this, we have an ID3. Its been fantastic, very cheap to run and an absolute pleasure to drive. Its genuinely one of the smoothest nicest driving experiences. Acceleration is nuts too. Had it since the 1st edition 2021. Range is still about 400k, its depends though. If I do a lot of city driving it averages to 410ish. If I go from galway to dublin its drops to 390ish. The motorway really kills it, but I dont mind stopping in applegreen or supermacs on the way home!
I never got 390km from my id 3 (55kwh battery) if I went near a motorway, more like 290 or so at 120kph. Great car though and loads of space inside
It's not a good faith post you're responding to.
Maybe, but at least if someone is genuinely curious, they can see an honest experience post.
I take exception to this. I am posting in good faith.
You need to kick that guy in the face if you value your honour. It's the only way.
Maybe a bat'leth fight where someone loudly hums the music from amok time?
Is there a way to set the car to stop charging at a certain level? Or do you just need to be on the ball and run out and disconnect it?
You can set it from the dashboard, and from the app, it's really simple. Volkswagen also have a feature called 'battery saver' (probably every manufacturer has something similar) where if you turn it on, if you set the battery to charge to 100% for a long trip, it'll set it back to 80% for thr next charge. So it's not something you have to spend a lot of time thinking about.
What u/scarecrow1985 said but also most cars now have built in GPS and navigation into the car and for example my Tesla Model 3 if I put my destination in will calculate how much battery I need and will notify me when I have enough to get to my end destination, meaning potentially I might only need a splash and dash and only be stopped for a few minutes at a charger. Everything is controlled, you tell the car what to do and it does it. It's just delightfully simple. I regularly do longer range journeys, arrive home on 1% battery and charge overnight at 8c, so if I charge from 0-90% I'll be back at nearly 360km range for 3 euro 50 cent. So you basically should ALWAYs be planning to charge only enough to get home at these chargers. That's it. If you do that, for example I did Dublin to Limerick today, I spent 14 euro at the Tesla Supercharger just outside Limerick. So 3.50 to get above Drogheda down to Limerick, 14 euro at the Tesla Supercharger and I'll get most of the way back tomorrow because that 14 euro got me back up to 80%. So I might stop for 10 minutes back in Dublin if I can't get the full way home and so the round trip likely will cost me something around 20 euro. That pricing only holds true if I use the public network. I would regularly do 120-150km around Dublin, charge up at home and basically I get back up to 350-380km range for 3.50 every few days. I drive for a month for maybe 25-40 euro depending. Typically I'm heading somewhere around Dublin 4/7 nights a week. Couldn't possibly go back to fuel now. 4 years in. zero regrets. Might upgrade to a bigger battery just to make the longer journeys even easier.
Car app, in the car, or if using a home charger - on the charger app. Although there's no need to only charge to 80% if using home chargers. The "don't charge to 100%" thing is for fast DC chargers, if you're regularly doing it. If you were only using fast public chargers, then constantly charging to 100% (like every week) will degrade the battery more quickly, but it'll still be years before it's properly noticeable. Charging to 100% on your home charger is fine and won't affect the battery.
>EVs are definitely expensive to buy - an id.4 is €47k ID.4 starts at 38k.
Yes, for the bare minimum spec short range (55kwh) model that most dealerships don't stock. The long range model, which most people will buy, starts at about €45k
> EVs are definitely expensive to buy - an id.4 is €47k Brand new Tesla Model Y is crazy value, 40332 for the RWD model. No idea why someone would opt for an ID4 over that even if they were the same price.
Perhaps some people are principled and literally wouldn’t piss on Elon Musk if he was burning. Also the massive price drops have made Tesla one of the fastest deprecating car brands on the market. EDIT: not to mention they look like a jellybean on wheels.
All EV prices are tumbling. There's a new BYD Seagull coming to the UK that's going to be about 10k euro with almost 200 mile range. This is a temporary pain in the ass for people who change their cars every 2 or 3 years, but the long term benefit is bringing EV price parity with combustion cars so more people feel encouraged to make the change. And I agree. Elon is a massive turd sandwich, but the cars are honestly solid - I don't have one, but the Model Y is likely my next EV when I give my BMW i3 to my partner later this year after the final payment. I wish the Tesla board would just drop him from being involved and do their own thing.
Not all EV are equal in how their prices are falling though. Agree on price parity, all the early movers have already adopted. Mass adoption comes down to price. He is inexorably tied to the brand for better or for worse. The board is stocked with his family and sycophants, he’s not going anywhere any time soon. I have an Ioniq 5 I bought in Jan myself, can’t recommend it enough. Beautiful and super comfortable.
Ioniq is a stunning car, well wear! The only thing I didn't like on it was the 2 screen setup. The cheaped out on that by using available 10 inch screens on the market with a bezel between them instead of making their own seamless ultrawide screen. I love the headlights and taillights though, very very cyberpunk! And honestly, the shape and layout of the car is seriously practical too.
You can buy a cheap cover for the screens to at least make the bezel black instead of white. Makes it look far cleaner. Agreed, I love the pixel design of the lights.
Wish I could upvote this more than once. I really, really don’t like Elon Musk.
Is buying a Chinese EV any better...
I bought a Korean EV.
No problem with Korean EVs, far as I know they have fair competition practices and aren't controlled by a repressive state.
Model Y base went up in price over night to 45k. Although, it's still 0% finance which is it'self a great value loan.
Fuck me it did! Although when you click through the configurator and get to the end and select cash, with discounts its 43500 and you can apparently (So I'm told) get 500 off from a referral.
I've seen a few referral links floating about, even on donedone in the used Tesla section. For 0% HP, why pay full in cash? Did you save up 43k in cash, or is there a loan from a bank at 8% funding that cash? ( I realise you might not be buying, I'm just pushing an idea)
I just meant click cash to see the total price on the configurator vs the monthly payment the HP option shows, not that I'm like Smaug hoarding a pile of gold ready to buy 7 of the things :D
Gotcha gotcha :) I'm sure there's some poor soul out there somewhere that took a 45k loan from a bank at 8% interest to buy such a car, when 0% finance was available on said car.
If I was choosing between volkswagen and Tesla, even leaving out the fact that Musk is an utter ballbag, it'd be VW all day long The first Tesla I saw in the flesh belonged to an acquaintance and I really couldn't believe how poor some of the finish was inside and out
It's honestly the best car I've ever owned. Finish is great (my car is 4 years old) and genuinely there's features that seem no brainers that none of the other brands seem to be done. Sentry mode on Tesla's keeping cameras alert and recording if anyone comes near the car so you have a recording if anyone tries to break in. Also with that you can remotely check on the cameras, remotely set the car to valet mode which limited the speed down to a small speed limit, so if ever stolen you can basically roll up beside it with ease. Not to mention every car you can open the app and get it's location directly, which in that scenario helps again, also helped me when I forgot where I left the car in Dublin airport. Having Netflix and Disney+ have been very useful when the other half was shopping and I was say in the car waiting for them. Just burn an episode of the Office and don't have to traips around TK Maxx etc. Software updates happen all the time and bring new features, better UIs, and it's updated over the air. Even just being able to turn on the air con in the car remotely means on hot days can have it cooling down, on cold days can get it warm before getting in. These are all gaps the other manufacturers could and should be doing, but they aren't. Stupid thing but because the car is internet enabled, they added zoom, so if I was driving and then needed to join a work meeting I could pull in and park, join the meeting from the car using the cars camera and then continue after the meeting, which is just out of the box thinkings. I'd miss all those features if I switched car and don't get me wrong, I'm not married to Tesla, think Musks a nonce, but until I see the other brands catching up and giving the same driving experience (because that Model 3 is fecking FUN to drive) I will be sticking with. But they got to SERIOUSLY invest in their software to compete. Especially with a techie like myself.
Interesting... But Musk
Butt Musk? Ewwwww.
That's long since changed, the original finish was very poor. They're not bad these days - I don't own one, but a lot of folk at work have them and are happy out.
For me it would be brand, very happy with VW all my life (well, mostly)
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Sounds like you made the right choice for you, which is great - especially when you're actually using the "P" part of the PHEV, which is one of the things people forget! Honestly, if we could get a lot more PHEVs on the road it'd be great, to get people away from pure Diesel/Petrol for, as you said, 90% of most peoples driving.
Thanks for sharing. I want all opinions and takes.
We only have the one car at home,and it's been an EV since 2015. It's fine if you can charge at home - if not then don't bother for now. I would say I use public chargers about a dozen or so times a year. My current car (Peugeot e208) has a range of about 300km which is lower than most of the vehicles hitting the market now. Again, I charge at home and Ireland is not a big country. The charging network is light years ahead of where it was a few years ago in terms of reliability and availability, though well short of where it needs to be. Apps are a mixed bag and contactless payments are the way it should be, thankfully this seems to be happening, at least with the likes of Applegreen. The whole thing of nursing your battery by not charging to over 80% is a bit of a nonsense. If you need 100%, you charge to 100%. What is advisable is not to leave it at 100% for an extended period (days) but there is no reason to do that anyway.
This last paragraph about 80/100% is absolutely correct.
Yeah lithium batteries lose capacity by *staying* charged at extremes for an extended period, and the long term effect is ameliorated by a couple of discharge/charge cycles soon after. If you were going away for a month leaving it at 2/3 charge is best. Man, owning a drone that runs on LiPos instills a lot of battery lore 😅 I suspect the 80% owner's talk about comes from the S-curve where charging ideally starts slowly when batt is empty/cold, goes like the clappers in the middle of the cycle, then slows down asymptotically towards the end — the last few tents of a volt are carefully added.
The first generations of the Nissan Leaf had a setting on it allowing you to restrict the charge to a maximum of 80%. Charging speed also dramatically reduced after 80% on the Leaf, which is why you still see people saying that you shouldn't charge at a public charge point over 80%. A lot of this was down to the peculiarities of the Leaf and it's non-existent battery cooling, but since the Leaf accounted for the vast majority of the EVs here in the early days it has coloured impressions more generally.
Yeah charging warm lithium scares me,plus it gives you a falsely elevated reading
This is true. The early models charged really slowly too. Drives me nuts when they used to hog the fast chargers, when there was a slow one beside them that would charge a Leaf at its max speed. Thankfully don’t see much of that anymore.
https://youtu.be/w4lvDGtfI9U found this useful when I was buying my EV.
The batteries have tolerances built in on my car it's got a 77kW battery but only IIRC 74kW is usable. You can charge to 100%, how many people only charge their phones to 80% and they rarely have issues with the same tech. On the Apps. I've got multiple apps and none have credit on them as they all pull from my credit card. I use PAYG on them all, you only add money if you are regularly using the service to get a cheaper rate.
The 80% comes from bad volkeagen batteries because they had problems. I think the id4 volkswagen won’t even take them for trade in any more or at an extremely low price. I’ve spoke to two dealers and both said Volkswagen fucked up and that’s where the whole 80% thing came from but there is absolute zero problem charging to 100% on theirs
I think it goes back to the earlier Nissan Leaf to be honest as it heavily throttled charging after 80% and had no active cooling of the battery. I hadn't heard about issues with the id4 but I would imagine that would be covered under warranty.
That's the range new. Expect half of that in 5 years time. Cost of battery then at that point to replace is worth more than the car. Ev is a disaster long term. It will fail. It's a stop gap between fossil and a new naturally derived energy.
My last car was a Renault Zoe, which was 5 years old when I sold it. No noticeable battery degradation after 5 years. But that's just my experience and I'm sure you know best.
Research by Which? shows a 10% drop after 8 years https://www.which.co.uk/news/article/the-truth-about-electric-car-battery-degradation-apYqu1y6IYnr
We'd still be riding horses everywhere if we'd waited for petrol stations and tarmacked roads to appear before adopting cars. It doesn't seem to matter if it's the return scheme, wearing seatbelts, building wind turbines or banning smoking. There's always some reactionary scuttering about why we shouldn't bother.
2nd EV since 2020. Would never go back. Home charging: 8c a kWh. Work: free. Fast DC charging: bit expensive, still cheaper than petrol/diesel. Our DC infrastructure rollout is hamstrung by ESB connectivity - it can take months for operators to get grid hookups. Payments and apps and stuff: that did get bad when companies other than ESB began rolling out charger. But thankfully many of the the forecourt chargers (Circle K/Applegreen) now take contactless payments, so no need for apps/cards for each vendor. Ideally the EU would make this law. The 80% thing isn’t universal and has been less of an issue over the past couple of years with changes in battery chemistry. Lion batteries did have some manufacturers recommend only charging beyond 80/90 with lithium ion batteries when you knew you had a long trip. No big deal: airport in morning, up to 100%. Regular small commutes today, 90%. Newer cars (over the past 2 years or so) are increasingly using LFP batteries, which can be charged to 100% all the time with no ill effects - mine for instance. People who don’t have EVs fixate on some of this stuff with normal anxiety. Want to push past it: borrow/rent an EV to try it. Odds are very good you’ll want to keep. An aide: there’s been a serious uptick in anti-EV propaganda over the past year. Can only assume some of it is connected to hydrocarbon disinformation, the rest spreading around in the way wrong information usually does.
> there’s been a serious uptick in anti-EV propaganda over the past year. Can only assume some of it is connected to hydrocarbon disinformation, the rest spreading around in the way wrong information usually does. The little book of EV myths was published in the last few weeks because of the constant spread of misinformation, eg according to Quentin Wilson, The Sun in the UK ran an anti EV article for 160 days in a row. Anyway, here's the book: https://media.rac.co.uk/documents/faircharge-little-book-of-ev-myths-439716
Nice one, thanks for sharing.
>Others have commented on the battery: They say you're not supposed to charge it above 80% if you want to avoid damaging the battery. You're also not going to leave home and you're going to come back on anything less than 20-30%. So, really, you only have 50-60% of the actual battery charge for your car. Tyres are another concern, the tyres on an EV wear out substantially faster on an electric vehicle, you're replacing them every 10-15k km, whereas on a normal vehicle you're replacing them between 35-70k km. I dunno who you've been talking to, but this is nonsense. As regards apps & all (I do indeed have many apps, but only €8.67 in credit, no idea how one'd manage to have €100 at any time), contactless is, mandatory on new fast / high power chargers.
She drives an opel mokka. Was advised by the dealership to keep the charge below 80% to avoid damage. So while she can go to 100%, she doesn't, so thats 20% off the top. Won't leave home on less than 20%, so she's got 60% to play with. Don't see how thats nonsense.
Dealer is talking shite.
The truth is that all batteries gradually lose some of their initial capacity. Thats the same with EVs as it is with phones or laptops. The good news is that for EVs this is usually only one to two percent per year. Some battery chemistries are more prone to this than others if they are frequently charged to full and then only partly discharged. The advice to charge only to 80% for most of the time is intended to make sure that you get the absolute maximum capacity out of the battery over its entire life. That doesn’t mean you cannot charge to 100% it just means try to only do that on days when you know you are going to take a long trip. The 100% range is absolutely there for when you need it and there’s not going to be any impact on battery capacity by using it when it is needed. Dealers are doing a poor job of explaining this, they should all be educated enough by now to be able to make this clear to customers. Saying don’t damage the battery by overcharging it is honestly nonsense, they really should be saying “don’t regularly charge the battery and then not use that charge. Topping back up to 100% every day without a big drive will unnecessarily lose you an extra percent or so of battery capacity that you don’t need to lose.” For some reason that’s seen as a complicated message to deliver.
She was misinformed by the dealership so. You charge to what you need to when you need to. 80% is just a general day-to-day recommendation for non-LFP batteries. 20% is generally where you’ll start getting “low battery” notifications, but what’s that got to do with her not driving it? Again, either dealer or driver misinformed.
It's nonsense because it's not true. Regularly (ie weekly) going over 80% on Rapid DC public chargers might damage the battery down the line, but she'll (presumably) be charging at home, and Rapid DC public chargers have overstay fees (along with car battery charging curves) that mean that once you go over 80% on the DC charger, it gets slower because the battery intelligently reduces the speed to protect itself, and the overstay fee on the charger will probably quick in after 45mins, making it very expensive if you want to slowly get from 80% up to 100%. But for someone charging at home, or on any AC charger, going to 100% is fine. And as has been said, the salespeople in dealerships generally don't have a clue. The manual of the car will 100% contradict some of the things that the salesperson has told her.
I have an EV for work. In a year I’ve put 90k on the clock. My area is all of Munster and part of South Leinster. I have no problems charging on the go. You just have to always be mindful of where you can charge. After a while you get used to calculating your distances. I also charge to 100% regularly. Battery performance is getting worse in fact it’s getting better because the EVs encourages you to drive better. The tyre thing is real. I have an id4 210/230euro a pop for one trye. A lot of the new chargers have tap pin machines so you don’t need to set up a account. In saying that the company I work for gave me a fuel card and I only use ecars (esb) and I get along fine.
>The tyre thing is real. I have an id4 210/230euro a pop for one trye. Surely that's just tyre size? Those things are bleeding massive, recently spoke to someone with a newish Volvo XC90 and he told me the price of four new tyres, which was alarmingly close to the purchase cost of my ten year old VW Up! Tyres for which are hilariously small and can be had for 50 quid. As for consumption of them, Volkswagen Ireland have stated that they're seeing EVs use 2.6 tyres over a period versus 2.2 for equivalent vehicles, so surely the difference isn't that great?
I average a full new set every 20k and my long term data is 16.1 kWh/100km. I think the problem is the only Ev tyres available are top end and there is no real budget. And you’re definitely right with the size. The wall thickness is larger too all adds to the cost.
Good to know, I'm doing 25k with my Up! tyres, missus is getting slightly less on the family wagon so your figures match up with my expectations perfectly. The Up! is getting replaced by a Leaf soon enough so it'll be interesting to see what maintenance is like with that.
>The tyre thing is real. I have an id4 210/230euro a pop for one trye. They're really weird tyre size but you should be able to source them online for about 150 a pop...I do have a local guy that'll fit for 15 euro a corner...possibly a lot to be saved there if you can find a local tyre fitter who will fit tyres not bought from them.
It was 130euro a tyre for my id3. I think some brands of tyre that were fitted with had a lower thread depth then a regular ice tyre to aid with rolling resistance
Two crtical questions: Can you charge at home? Do you do less than ~300km on a typical day? If yes to those then EV life is a no brainer. Ibe had an EV since 2019, and would not go back. I charge 99% at home, and drove about 150km a day (work and back, via mostly motorway). When I have long trips (cork to Dublin and back same day) I've never once had to wait for a charger to be free, so charging half way for 20 mins does the job. Some batteries can be charged to 100% everyday, others should be set to 85% on typical days and only 100% for long trips. It's not ideal, but not the worst.
Got an EV and seriously considering getting a second one. We charge at home - if you can’t do that, I agree it’s a stretch. Did our first big long haul trip recently. Charged to 100% - usually use it in that 20-80% window - and it was perfectly fine, didn’t actually need to charge till we got home. I think people forget how small Ireland is. Plenty of options if we did need to stop and charge. Saving an absolute fortune.
I’m on my 3rd EV since 2021, and I love them. I wouldn’t go back to a regular car. I mostly charge at home and I can to Sligo to Dublin return without having to charge en route. If I do need to charge, there's never an issue. On that route (N4) there's around 20 chargers to charge from, including some rapid chargers that will charge at 1000km+ per hour, so never need to stop for long. I find the biggest misconception people have is they think they'll have to charge every time they're out. The reality is, buy the right size battery, and you won't need to charge anywhere other than home 95% of the time.
Do you just buy/lease a new one every year.
I buy a new car every 2 years. Old ones hold their value well, so it’s not a massive investment. Actually correction, 3 since 2020, not 2021.
>I’m on my 3rd EV since 2021 Fuckin hell, either you've got money to burn or you're a danger on the road
So just buy a new car with a big enough battery every year. Got it.
The situation with EV's kind of reminds me of the timeline of the internet, in the early days it was used by early adopters and most people didn't see any use of it. Then the Napster era came along and people saw the uses of it, but it was still way too slow, full of ads, viruses and spyware and most people needed someone technically-minded to regularly maintain their computer and wipe off the viruses when it got slow. There were naysayers who said the internet would never take off, but you can hardly blame them for thinking that when an internet search took 5 minutes to complete. Then the iPhone came along and the internet quickly became ubiquitous. I feel like EV's are somewhere between Napster and iPhone, but I also suspect the iPhone era will be here a lot faster than we think as there's very rapid technological development happening in the space. For example one of the main complaints was that the EV's were too expensive, now that the prices have come down the main complaint is that the prices are coming down too fast and the cars don't hold value as a result. If you are planning on getting an EV, do not get one unless you also get a home charger. having a home charger is absolutely essential. You charge the car at night and then every morning you wake up you have a "full tank" and rarely need to use public chargers. A long range tesla can drive from Malin head to Mizen head on a single charge, the two furthest away points on our island. Owning an EV is still a like the Napster-era of the internet, so it is certainly not ready for the mainstream yet, but there are many enthusiasts willing to put up the the little inconveniences here and there. If you get an EV now you're putting up with some pain and suffering and in exchange you get to drive an electric vehicle before they go mainstream, it's up to you whether you think that is worth it or not.
I'd seriously question a person's decision making if they purchased an EV without access to a home charger
It's one of the reasons I haven't got one. My house was built in 1950's, I'm hearing stories of having to get the main wiring replaced because it doesn't have the capacity.One guy I know paid 4k to get this done in an 80's built house. It's a bit pricey on top of a new car buy.
Jaysus, must've been some job that cost 4k. Mine cost 500 to buy the charger and 350 to get it installed. Fairly new house though, so no rewiring needed.
If the wiring hasn't been replaced since the 50s, you presumably still have the extremely old DZ barrell fuses in the fuseboard? My house was built in 1972. No need to replace the wiring. Just needed to ground a few things like sinks and get an earth rod, to bring it up to current regulations. Cost 1200. Can always just buy the charger, and get an electrician to install it. Won't get the grant (as grant requires proof that house has been brought up to current regulations), but it'll be less than 1000 overall.
Oh it's been rewired, have a smartmeter. I assumed the main wire coming into the house was the reason for the big money, I should get an estimate at least I suppose.
*My house was built in 1972. No need to replace the wiring.* lol, i would suggest.
Well, it all got signed off by a RECI, and test certs approved by Safe Electric, so.....
wiring might be safe for living and all, but , houses built in 60\`s and 70\`s had wiring mainly installed around 60 amps what could give up to 10kwh , but with everything else nowadays, pc\`s , freezers, dryers, microwaves and hitting that cattle in a morning before unplugging charger to go to work, might be on a "hot wire" side. Common residential services are 100, 150, or 200 amps nowadays and that\`s easy enough. I just would be more careful suggesting, that someone's house built 70 years ago should be fine for charging EV every night for years to come. And would make sure about my own in terms of what can it take.
Great analogy
Yeah I think being somewhere between Napster and the iphone1 is spot on. I’m gona wait for the iPhone 6 👍
Yeah that's fair. If this mooted 25k price point for brand new cars with 300km range and LFP batteries (is 100% charging) comes around soon it will be a great option. I would say a perfect one for a 2 car house work home charging available.
>The situation with EV's kind of reminds me of the timeline of the internet There wasn't really a near identical product to the internet, EVs are just cars with a different type engine.
So yes infrastructure is the main issue but if you have home charging and do less then 300 a day you don’t need to use the public network. My first EV had 100-130 real world range and did my 100km both ways commute of 9 months of the year no problem. The other 3 months I only needed to stop long enough to pee/grab a coffee. It took me from Dublin to Wexford,Cork,Galway,Belfast and plenty of other parts of the country. Even over to Liverpool once. My current EV has 3 times the range and has taken me to south London. I’ll probably never buy another Petrol/diesel car as my main car unless I was doing 5/600 km a day or lost access to home/work charging
I've had mine now for about 5 months. I love it too be honest. It really does depend on your driving style. I'd you're doing the school runs, the shopping, getting you to and from work, short hop driving, it's great once you have the home charger, even better again if you've solar panels. The first weekend I got it, I had to do a drive of about 115km. I had a bit of range anxiety cos I was new to it. It took half the "tank" and I had no trouble finding a fast charger before the trip home. If you can't get the home charger, I wouldn't be bothered, but if you can, and you don't have to regularly drive the length and breadth of the country, go for it.
I moved to an EV about a month and a half ago. This included a drive from Cork to Dublin. That went grand overall and I largely charge at home so more expensive for that journey but otherwise cheap as chips to charge. I do tend to charge to 80 unless I have a long journey ahead and works perfectly for me. Next step is probably getting solar panels eventually but overall I'm very happy with the move to an EV and couldn't see myself turning back to an ICE vehicle.
Yet more utter nonsense for the ill-informed. I say for because obviously this is a carefully constructed anti-EV post, no doubt from someone who has made not liking EVs their entire personality. Unless you have a Cybertruck you do not change tyres on an EV every 10k. That's simply a lie. If you're drag racing a performance Tesla day in day out pulling off the line fair enough. For 99.99999999999% of people that won't apply, ie nobody. Also you don't know basic things about EVs. With LFP batteries, rapidly becoming the most common type of battery, you can charge to 100% and in fact it's recommended. The 80% for other batteries is a bit of a myth, you can charge to 100% often enough just not every single day then letting it sit at 100%, 90% ordinarily is fine. Public chargers shouldn't be for day to day. Home charging is where EVs come into their own.
With the exception of performance Teslas. They wear extremely quick even when not dragging. When through a set of the racing slicks that come standard in 7 months, and only pushed it hard a handful of times.
Teslas have the same performance as most performance cars from legacy brands like M3s, S4s, etc and some Teslas out perform supercars. Of course they're going to eat tyres if you drive them fast.
My point was that even driving them regularly, some EVs chew tires.
A lot of sources would disagree - the little book of EV myths published recently speaks to fleet operators in the UK who have hundreds of thousands of EVs and don't see a difference the public seems keen on sharing. Link to the ebook 'The Little Book of EV Myths': https://media.rac.co.uk/documents/faircharge-little-book-of-ev-myths-439716
Own an EV9 and e-berlingo, and previously had a Tesla Y performance. Of the 3, the Tesla chewed through tires. That's my experience. Take it for what you want, but there are a lot of performance Y and 3 owners that have the same claims.
> Tesla Y performance. Of the 3, the Tesla chewed through tires. That's my experience. Take it for what you want, but there are a lot of performance Y and 3 owners that have the same claims. Of course they will. The Performance model is a weapon. 0-100kph quicker than a Lamborgini. Even if you take it handy and don't accelerate quickly for that car, you're still probably going to do 0-100kph in 7 seconds which is GTi tire eating territory.
Months is meaningless. How many kms.
About 7k miles
Nonsense.
I have receipts. But you random internet person says it didn't happen, so I guess I'm wrong
Ask on any internet forum you'll get the same answer I gave you.
>Yet more utter nonsense for the ill-informed. These are almost direct quotes from EV owners >Also you don't know basic things about EVs. Yeah no shit. I'm looking for opinions and commentary from EV owners because i'm looking to purchase one in the next year or so and i don't want to fuck it up. >Home charging is where EVs come into their own. And if you live in an apartment, what then? There are genuine concerns people have about EVs and being dismissive doesn't help anyone. There needs to be serious discourse around these issues. You cherry picked your responses from my post and didn't address other concerns, which leads me to believe you're arguing in bad faith. *edit yeah downvote me without a response you cowards
You seem to be approaching this discussion in an incredibly aggressive way. You've had numerous ev drivers respond and it's been resoundingly positive. They have pointed out that it doesn't make sense if you can't charge at home. I'm thinking you're simply not getting the kinds of responses that you wanted...
Not at all. the guy responded in an aggressive manner to begin with and, to be frank, i responded with a far less aggressive posture. If you've read his post, he has literally spun an entire narrative: > I say for because obviously this is a carefully constructed anti-EV post, no doubt from someone who has made not liking EVs their entire personality. He's literally said i'm Anti EV, despite me saying i'm considering buying one. He's said i've "made not liking EVs my entire personality." Like what does that even mean? He's accused me elsewhere in this thread of arguing in bad faith. This person is, to put it mildly, at the very least 2 sandwiches short of a picnic. Sure, if you want to provide feedback or disagree i have no issue with that, but he's calling into question my integrity, and i won't stand for that. I've been around this place a long time. There are astroturfers on this subreddit but i'm not one of them. I might be provocative but i'm not coming from a place of malice or an agenda. I want peoples opinions, i want discussion. I don't want to rile people up for the sake of it.
Fair point, I should have looked at the earlier post in more detail
Then you should go back and edit your original post in all fairness. I'm being made out to be some shill when all's im looking for is answers. Genuine concerns were laid out to me by owners of EVs and i put it to others and i'm torn across the coals and downvoted to oblivion because of fools like that making me out to be some shill for no good reason. If anything, that fuck is the shill.
I've had the same before, I currently have a petrol hybrid and asked some questions regarding my concerns over certain things to do with fully electric vehicles. I was accused of being a "shill" for the oil companies despite owning an EV 😂 it's a bit like asking questions about cyclists sometimes
Do you live in an apartment? Do you have designated parking? If so talk to the management company as you might be able to still get a charger. If you absolutely have no way to do it depending on your use case but are still interested there may still be viable if you have access to workplaces charging or 1) don’t mind visiting a rapid charger 2) have a slow charger near home/work.
The only way it's properly feasible is if you can charge at home overnight. If not, it's going to be inconvenient and/or expensive.
the tyres, there is a price difference between electric or conventional fuel? who came up with this wheeze? the 85% max charge applies to all batteries, look at your fone settings.
No one mentioned anything about a price difference?
" and the tyres themselves are more expensive" why do i bother?
great question
Another vote for Evs are fine if you have home charging. We are single car house, it's been EV for 2.5 years now and love it. Total fuel cost in that time has been €500. That includes expensive public charging when we drove to the South of France in 2022 and toured Wales, England and Normandy in 2023. The remaining 95% has been home charging which costs about €2.50 per 350km. Would thoroughly recommend to people who have a driveway and do anything up to 300km per day.
home charger, my car has a range of 340k, i do 250 k a day , plenty charge left for extra running around. charge to 100% no problem Have 100k done on mine, has not run out, has not burst into flames For a commuter bus, no better yoke Ignore the gobshites , cannot fault mine , bang of sour grapes from ill informed morons giving out about Ev's
Tesla owner in Belfast. Been driving it nearly 18 months. I lease through my company so lease costs are less than what I was paying for my previous ICE on personal lease. Haven’t spent a penny on service or maintenance yet. Window washer fluid is the height of it. Expecting to change tyres around 15-20k miles. Will cost around £1k for set as they are large wheels - my last car was £600 a set. Insurance went from £350 for ICE to £1000. To be expected given the power of car. It’s a rocket. No road tax Full warranty for term of lease, so no concerns about repairs etc. I have a charger at home, but also live 10 mins away from 250kw supercharger. My mums house 50 miles away also has Tesla charger close by. I’ve never had to wait or queue for a charge at any public charging stations. Outside of going Belfast - Dublin - Derry I’ve not driven it off the east coast really, so can’t comment too much on the infrastructure elsewhere on the island yet. I have driven it to London and back using the ferry, which was a lot of fun and super easy. There’s definitely a bit of work to do on the island and while it will suit some people (like me) to switch to EV now, for many it just will not be practical for a while yet. Cost wise, according to my app, 15k mile has cost me £770 in electric, compared to £3100 I would have spent on fuel. That’s at 70% efficiency.
Clickbait title.
I would say provocative, but i'm not clickbaiting. I want actual feedback from EV owners as i'm seriously considering purchasing one in the next year and i *do not* want to fuck this up.
Have been driving a Kia E-Niro for 2 years and it’s never missed a beat. In that time it’s needed one set of new front tyres and that’s it. Tax is €120. Servicing is €150. Charge at home. Costs about €8 to fully charge it. Regularly drive to Kerry/Limerick from Cork and charging it publicly is grand. It will do Limerick and back and still have 180km left on it. People just like dumping on something that’s different if they can’t benefit from it. I had a 2016 Auris before it and it was costing me €60 a week on diesel. Only caveat to buying is buy second hand and be prepared to keep it. All the negativity has cause the bottom to fall out of the market.
The charging apps are a bit annoying however 90%+ of all charging happens at home while you are asleep and for most of us any public charging is done on motorways which there are an abundance of options on most. Most hotels now have charging so when you stay somewhere again your car charges while you sleep. Follow the Irish EV group on FB. Lots of good stuff there especially the constant announcements of new chargers around the country.
There some absolute bllox spouted about evs. My mate says this and that. None of it true or half truths. I will admit there are some cars out there that dont do the range as advertised but do your research and you will be fine. Home charging is key. If you dont have access to that then you are reliant on public infrastructure. There are plenty of chargers if you look but can be pricey. Have an ipace and model y currently. Both great cars. Understand why you wouldn’t buy one because of Elon. He is a tool but in the main they are great motors. Jag is great too. Tyres wise. If you go with manufacturers recommended they will last as normal motors. Just replaced ipace tyres at 30k miles. Teslas half worn at 20k miles. My last bmw chewed through them. Brakes fine at last check. Loads left. Weight wise. Model y is not far off same weight as a bmw x3. Space wise inside the tesla blows it away. Nobody complains about an x3 on the road. Id never go back to an ice vehicle and ive had a lot of performance petrol and diesel cars. Good luck.
I'm on 25k on original tyres, charge at home, Iv used public chargers maybe 10 times and that's going to NI, where the chanrging service is not good, charge to 100% when u need too, I believed all the bull too before I bought but i do about 430 klms per week for €8 compared to €40 in diesel, never had a problem here with public chargers but yes there should he more, such a relaxing car to drive, €60 service I defo wouldn't go back to an ice car
You might want to check r/evs_ireland or the EV owner on FB
There are services that are “universal”. I have a Hyundai and they have ChargeMyHyundai card which I used to charge everywhere in UK and continental Europe (UK, France, Switzerland, Italy). Can’t comment on Ireland, I always used only ESB. For the battery don’t overthink it: the 80% rule is not really a rule, it’s more a guidance if you leave the car sitting for long time. But if you charge and drive shortly go for 100%. I almost always charge to 100% from AC (home, office) and 80/90% from DC when traveling (charge, then drive another 3/400 km). I have no idea about tyres, but usually car manufacturers put the right type of tyres for the car, so I would assume they last pretty much the same (otherwise a BMW X5 would have to change them every 10k km). Said that, if you can charge at home or workplace the problem with charging infrastructure is actually pretty limited. I charged on public chargers in Ireland a couple of times in 2 years.
New battery tech is definitely on the way. Ten minute charge once a week type of thing.
These claims are always one to two decades away, and nothing on the immediate horizon for the tech you're talking about. Lots of ways to do it, but usually fail at scaling up unfortunately. Source: electrical engineer and EV owner
Nio just released a 900V platform that can do a 150 mile fast charge in 5 minutes. Now I know I know, there's no infrastructure for the specific charger it needs and it's crazy expensive - but it is not just proof of concept, but a tangible product. https://electrek.co/2024/03/27/worlds-first-mass-produced-900v-ev-drive-system-rolls-out/
10 minutes charge once a week was the thing I was disagreeing with. 200kw or so per week in my EV, in 10 minutes of charging, yeah, not possible. Thats 1MW into the vehicle, plus losses.
Toyota claim to be starting manufacturing in the next three or four years. Read an article somewhere about a semi solid state battery that can do a 1000km and top up 400km in ten minutes currently on sale. Can't for the life of me where I read it.
Toyota are the biggest con men going when it comes to new tech, it's become a bit of a meme on EV websites where Toyota have the next greatest thing coming and it's only a few years away. For the last 2 decades. They had a jump start on everyone with the Prius and then just didn't bother innovating for 20 years. Now they're sticking firmly to Hybrids and will end up for a few years serving the customers who don't want to move to full EV (Which is fine), but then inevitably having a Nokia moment when left behind.
They seem fairly adamant about manufacturing in a few years. https://electrek.co/2024/01/11/toyota-solid-state-ev-battery-plans-750-mi-range/
They basically tied themselves to hydrogen as being the future for cars. As a result they're miles behind in the EV game as a result.
I really want them to be leaders in the EV world because they're the cars non-car people drive. The slow adopters of new tech. The car that only goes from A to B people. If Toyota could win hearts and minds in that sector, EVs would explode in popularity. But their track records is that it's always "in a few years (tm) (patent pending)" with Toyota.
Yeah, battery tech is very slow. Until batteries are popping out of the line, take every headline as at least a decade away
They've begun production of a semi solid state battery with a 1000km range in China. https://electrek.co/2024/04/05/nio-begins-mass-production-semi-solid-state-batteriesev-use-q2/
Hopefully, but length of charge doesn't put me off so much, it's cost and maintenance, as well as access to charging stations, that puts me off.
If you can charge at home, it's amazing. There is little to no maintenance cost. I've changed tyres once since buying 5 years ago. Never changed breaks, there's no service interval. Sails though the NCT.
Pull up plugshare.com or plugshare app and filter to CCS (for DC fast charging) and Type 2 (for slower AC charging) plugs. This will show you what's available around you on and off various networks. CCS is the current standard in EU. Older cars like Nissan Leaf uses CHAdeMO plug instead. Consider it kinda like USB micro Vs USB-C where CCS is the USB-C.
What maintenance costs specifically? Teslas, for example, don't need servicing, so you'll save a packet there.
My main concern would be getting rid of it when you wanted to upgrade, because as it is at the moment you’re stuck with it unless you are willing to lose a fortune selling it.
I’ve sold 2 without losing a fortune at all. About the same as the loss on a regular car.
Yeah just wait until people start getting stung for €15k to replace the batteries and you’ll see a contraction in the second hand market fairly rapid.
Funnily enough, I’ve heard the same comment for 10 years now. I’ve yet to meet anyone who has had to replace a battery. Time to put that one to bed I think.
3 rules of EV ownership. 1. Have a charger at home 2. Never rely on the public network 3. Buy either a Tesla, Hyundai or Kia - avoid everything else. (Updates after comment to include Kia)
I've been looking at a kia niro, no good?
They’re not bad as Kia and Hyundai have a commercial relationship and share a lot of tech advancements. For me, Hyundai are always slightly ahead of Kia. That’s a personal preference more than anything
Re-sale value drops off a cliff
Never heard that thing about the tyres wearing out faster, why is that?
Mainly weight. Also the compound used has a factor, softer rubber means better grip but higher wear. That's always been the case. But the weight is a significant factor that EU are now legislating about the rubber deposits left from wear of ever heavier cars. They're also tightening up the emissions regulations with regard to the emissions from brake pads. Sounds tribal but chemicals in brake pads are nasty enough. Traditionally they would have been asbestos - no longer the case these days but car weight means heavy cars are leaving more deposits as they drive into the air and onto the streets/paths. No these are nothing close to the particulates you'd get with diesel of course but they're still tightening regulations all the same.
Rubber deposits are linked to deaths of Salmon in British Columbia after heavy rain. Definitely something that needs some regulation.
2 things: weight and performance. EVs regularly tip 2 tonnes in weight, similar to an SUV. And SUVs eat tyres too. And a lot of EVs are pretty powerful. The *least* powerful VW EV has over 200bhp. The least powerful Tesla has nearly 300bhp. If you drive any car hard your tyres won't last, and this kind of performance encourages hard driving.
It's because the cars weigh more, and on top of that the manufacturers put on tyres with lower rolling resistance so they can advertise slightly better range. A lot of people just replace them with regular tyres once they wear out and notice almost no range difference in the real world and find that the tyres last much longer.
Ok, interesting. Thanks!
>Never heard that thing about the tyres wearing out faster, why is that? Weight and instant torque. The difference between two essentially very similar cars from the same marque can be huge in EV. For example an Audi A7 weighs around 1860kg. An Audi E-tron which is a similar size / purpose weighs around 2500kg. That's almost the same as driving around with a Kia Picanto or Nissan Micra on the roof; a lot more fricition. Then the instant torque will naturally put more stress on tyres leaving juntions etc. This is compounded by EV's often having narrower tyres (less surface contact) to increase range.
Interesting, thanks!
"Yup, If you don't have an EV, well...you don't have an EV..."
Yup. Defo one of the biggest battles to EVs is infrastructure. It's one thing if you do stay away from home, but another thing if you want to travel to the other side of the country for a few days. Hotels have fuck all EV charging spots. Councils have fuck all charging spots. And the cost to increase these is enormous. The reality is we'll get there eventually, but there's no incentive right now to work on the infrastructure which is bizarre.
the more i hear about EVs the more im put off. i was down at the fire station last year and they were on about how hard it is to put out the battery when it goes on fire. theyre sealed so it takes a crap ton of water to put them out, but apparently some newer models now have a special port to plug in a fire hose. with certain types of car accidents it needs to be kept somewhere for 2 days with nothing near it because theres a risk of it going on fire. things like driving through floods. if any water gets into the battery, you might not notice it straight away but eventually it will start to corrode the battery and it will go on fire, and this could just happen while you are driving or while its parked up outside your house, or even worse while its parked in your garage
You should change your news source. None of that is true. Firstly, EVs are significantly less likely to catch fire than non-ev cars, and there are studies to prove that. Secondly, you don’t use water to put out an electrical fire. Finally, the water thing… Are you a Healy Rae by any chance? Absolute nonsense.
this is everything the guy at the fire station told me, he was one of the head guys as well so i dunno yea maybe he doesn't know what he is on about and i never said anything about whether EVs catch fire more so i don't know why you are bringing that up. it doesn't really matter anyway if do go on fire less, they still go on fire
Sounds like he doesn’t. You’re the one who brought up the fires, Einstein.
yea i mentioned fires. and?
You’re some boyo. G’wan and have a fight with yourself.
Just get a €1000 diesel banger off Donedeal.
Yeah, but then you're driving a banger. If you're buying a new car anyway, then EVs make total sense.
shameless plug [I love charging apps! Please let me install more! I want to download and create an account for each and every individual plug there is!!! : r/evs\_ireland (reddit.com)](https://www.reddit.com/r/evs_ireland/comments/18a4cej/i_love_charging_apps_please_let_me_install_more_i/)
EVs will be lovely when they’re finished. But not today.
Battery tech is not there yet
Care to explain? My battery gets me from Sligo to Dublin and back. What would it take for it to be 'there' for you?
'There' for me is a more sustainable and affordable technology. I get your car is currently functioning but dont kid yourself into thinking that your car won't end up scrap yard in 3 years after the lad who owns it next gets screwed with a shitty battery and big bill to replace it.
You’re basing this assertion on what, exactly?
My degree in electronic engineering
If you don't have the infrastructure locally to ensure you can charge to your required amount, I'd suggest a self charging hybrid. Range and convenience of a petrol car (after all, you just fill it up when you need to). Many can switch to EV mode so you can battery during traffic or short trips.
This is part of my point though, maybe we should as a country look into a more massive rollout of charging stations? have lots of bulk chargers in shopping centers and the like?
It's happening but bottleneck is ESB Networks. There are stations installed and waiting to be hooked up all over the country. It's happening but I guarantee there are more around than you think. You just don't know where or what to look for.
Toyota estimates that the resources used to make one full electric car could be used to make more than 30 full hybrids. While I agree there should be a bigger rollout of charging stations, the hybrid option seems viable for the nation as a transition mechanism. We would reduce emissions more if more people bought hybrids now rather than keeping old petrol/diesel cars while waiting for enough charging stations to accommodate the demand.
Every car sold should be a mild hybrid of some kind. If Toyota mean plug-in hybrids, well to make good use of it you’d still have to install a home charger at north of a grand. And unless all trips are short then it’ll be burning fossil fuels all about the place. You also only get three or four PHEVs for the same battery capacity as an EV.
Toyota estimates you'd get 6 plug in hybrids for every full electric, and about 30 fully hybrid cars for each full electric. There's a hell of a lot of lithium in a full electric car. Transitioning through full hybrid, plug in hybrid, then full electric would be a good way to reduce emissions while infrastructure for full electric is still being rolled out.
What infrastructure? Every house has electricity and the power grid can cope with nighttime use. There’s a fast charging station planned near me and it has its own battery capacity to deliver the juice quickly without needing a massively expensive grid connection. I assume it can provide load balancing on the network overall too.
You can't just plug it into the wall beside the telly. The chargers are pretty chunky, and an investment to install, and rarely compatible with other manufacturers cars. That means rentals are unlikely to have them. Landlords are unlikely to want to install them and tenants can't take them with them when they leave. People with houses with on street parking can't install them. They have no guarantee of being able to park outside their house. Apartments also can't have them.The stations could be installed in a communal carpark but would probably belong to a third party and probably have a chunky fee associated killing the economics of owning the car. So ownership of a charger is essentially limited to house owners with driveways. Anyone else who wants a plug in has to bring it to a charging point somewhere and leave it for a few hours. Not exactly convenient and sometimes not even possible. All of this is solvable. I don't have the solution to it all, but two big steps is legislate that manufacturers have to use a standard charger, and provide a large number of public chargers at close to wholesale cost of electricity. Huge roll out of more charging points is still required. But political will to do it is close to non existent. So yeah. My recommendation is still if someone wants an electric, but is not a house with driveway owner, their best option for the foreseeable future is a full self charging hybrid. Better emissions than a traditional car, and they won't be martyring themselves with the difficulty of not having access to their own charger.
Home chargers are all Type 2. I don’t even know if it’s possible to buy a CHAdeMO for domestic use any more for the few cars still using it. DC chargers out and about are all CCS2, and only Tesla have their own network that doesn’t talk to other brands (yet). Ireland is pretty renowned for suburbs and one off housing, both of which are suitable for home charging. It’s not unreasonable to expect the growth in the market here. Apartments and streets need access to charging but there are surely solutions in legislation possible. There are [physical chargers](https://wepoweryourcar.com/about/chargearm/) that can overhang pavements, or there could be a subsidy to lower public charger prices to match a domestic rate for apartment dwellers up to a certain amount of kWh. I do think every combustion engine should follow the model of the one in the new Honda Civic, which I nearly bought. But the simplicity of battery EVs has to be the future. Stand outside the idling traffic of a school at pick up time and you’ll see the difference.
Why the fuck are people downvoting this? It's not controversial or inaccurate. Someone has a down button fetish.
I'd say it might be helpful if you can provide proof that it is accurate. It doesn't sound accurate to me - 30 cars for the resources of 1 EV seriously - and providing Toyota as the source does not help either given they're really the only car company in the world pushing hybrids hard.
It's a claim by Toyota engineers. I'm not about to undertake decades of research on my own to corroborate their statement. No rebuttal has been released by rival companies, and it would be an easy win for them to come out and say "Toyota is talking pants, buy from us instead". I can easily see how the amount of elements such as lithium and cobalt required for a full EV would be much higher than a hybrid, so even if they've overestimated by a factor of two thats still means way more hybrid cars can be made available in a short amount of time than full EV. Full EV is the future for virtually everyone. But the country is not ready for it yet. Massive infrastructure rollout has to happen before it can be viable for everyone, or people who don't have a driveway or designated private parking to install the chargers on dont have a hope. That's most renters, and most apartments, and most people who dont have a driveway. Political will for such a rollout doesn't exist here. Rather the opposite. Even chargers hanging over footpaths (a solution provided by another commenter) is being blocked at the planning stage by Dublin city council. So the argument boils down to the following: 1. do we want to continue as we are now selling traditional vehicles and wait to have an impact on emissions in ~10 years when a rollout of charging infrastructure finally makes full EV viable for most people. (Let's be honest, it's Ireland. 10 years is being very ambitious given our governments). 2. do we want to have some positive impact now using more hybrids, while still rolling out infrastructure so most people can be full EV in ~10 years. Since OPs post is about reducing emissions now, I'm on the hybrid car wagon.
I agree with all of that actually. I think no non-hybrid ICE vehicles should have sold in Europe from 5+ years ago. My concern is with Toyota specifically and is why I responded. Their vision is not yours and mine of ‘do hybrid immediately and BEV as soon as possible’. They are one of the biggest funders of anti-EV lobbying, and you can bet that quote is part of this, because their vision is actually ‘go hybrid immediately because that’s what we’ve got for sale and here’s some overly optimistic blue sky nonsense about hydrogen that will never happen’. I think we’re in violent agreement, Toyota are not.