RTE article on EVs, WTF?

Water John

Must have thought he was paying homage to Jeremy Clarkson.

KCross

unkel wrote: »

46 posts and 1300 views and nobody has posted that the article doesn't mention the €4k scrappage deal on the Ioniq?

That's the one thing that makes the car a very attractive proposition. Without it, I wouldn't have bought it. And it's unlikely I'd have bought a new EV this year or maybe even in the next 3 years...

We were more concerned about what he put in than what he left out.

Anyway, the scrappage isn't Ioniq or even EV specific.

Alu

My opinion is that’s it’s a bullsh1t article which exposes the author's ignorance of not just the car but also the reality of charging & driving EVs and the future of automotive technology in general.

It reads like a article which was phoned in at the last minute - barely given any time because he perceived that the interested readers would be a tiny proportion of the small group who read RTE motor reviews. Perfect example.. “Nissan Leaf was the only all-electric car on the market” indicates that he didn’t get as far as opening his favourite search engine..

To be honest I find it no different to the attitude of the vast majority salesmen (I don’t recall any women) I’ve met in the dealerships I’ve visited to see or test drive an electric car (more than one make).

Saying that, I think that we should bite our tongues and try to counter the bullsh1t without insults. An adversarial approach might work - if you’re happy to be viewed in the same light as cyclists, and craft beer drinkers, etc. – worthy (maybe) but ultimately ridiculed due to the attitudes of a few

Alu

cros13 wrote: »

Personally this week I'm more offended by the hatchet job done on the i3 the grand tour, because that have evidence of mal-intent.

Yeah, typical Clarkson nonsense - depleting the battery and not charging before a long journey. Then 'forgetting' that the i3 supports fast DC charge (not that familiar with the i3 but pretty sure it comes with CCS(?)).

Looking at the CCS map for that part of England, they must've went out of their way to find broken AC charge points..

NIMAN

Maybe there is a conspiracy going on?

They killed the EV in the 70s, and maybe they are trying to do it again 40 years later?

When the Leaf first appeared on the scene, there seemed to be a new feeling around the future of EVs, you know like when the Gov said they'd hope to have 200,000 on the roads by 2020!

But the last couple of years has been poor for the EV market, and general consensus among the motoring public. People just haven't seemed to buy into them.

Donal is either someone who is very bad at their job and should be sacked or is genuinely trying to sabotage electric car sales and ensure the Irish motoring public continue to choose outdated internal combustion vehicles, or someone who really wants cars to continue to have engines and can't embrace new technology.

Truth be told he probably got the a test leaf and couldn't figure out if the car was on or not when he pressed the start button and said right away this technology is Shi*e !

cros13

Alu wrote: »

Looking at the CCS map for that part of England, they must've went out of their way to find broken AC charge points..

The ecotricity DBT they were charging from has CCS. The i3 they used didn't have DC rapid... which is strange because all 94Ah RHD i3s come with DC prep as standard.

zilog_jones

TBH I've never gone out of my way to look at articles on the RTÉ website and didn't know they had any motoring journalists - so hopefully this hot mess of a review has gone largely unnoticed.

boardzz

cros13 wrote: »

The ecotricity DBT they were charging from has CCS. The i3 they used didn't have DC rapid... which is strange because all 94Ah RHD i3s come with DC prep as standard.

They had the old i3 from what I saw. Think it was 2014/2015 registration.

Alu

cros13 wrote: »

The ecotricity DBT they were charging from has CCS. The i3 they used didn't have DC rapid... which is strange because all 94Ah RHD i3s come with DC prep as standard.

boardzz wrote: »

They had the old i3 from what I saw. Think it was 2014/2015 registration.

According to http://www.greencarreports.com/news/1092308_top-gears-james-may-to-buy-2014-bmw-i3-rex-electric-car its a 2014 i3. I'm surprised that it doesn't have rapid charging as standard - was that just for the rex model?

I suppose mentioning the option of rapid charging for compatible EVs slipped his mind :rolleyes:

cros13

boardzz wrote: »

They had the old i3 from what I saw. Think it was 2014/2015 registration.

Quite possibly. May had a 2015 60Ah (he got one a month or two after me) which he has now upgraded to a 94Ah.

The 94Ah is a touch quicker as well. About 0.1 seconds off the 0-100.
DC Rapid was a ~€750 option for 2013 - 2015 and was bundled from 2016 on (I believe as soons as the 94Ah hit the road).

DrPhilG

cros13 wrote: »

I got a very polite response from Donal to my email and I had also popped a link to this thread in the original email.

Just to follow up on this.

Am I right in thinking that after Donal went back and edited the original article to correct errors, but only some of them?

Why would he not acknowledge them all? Mainly the charging one which IMO is the most damaging.

KCross

DrPhilG wrote: »

Just to follow up on this.

Am I right in thinking that after Donal went back and edited the original article to correct errors, but only some of them?

Why would he not acknowledge them all? Mainly the charging one which IMO is the most damaging.

Yea, he still has this...

Another thing to remember about electric cars is the €16.99 a month (approx) you will have to pay (when charges are introduced) for access to charging points and the fact that a fast charge will cost you about €9 a time.

He added the word "approx" and "when charges are introduced". Its still factually incorrect though as no one knows what the CER are going to decide. He should have just declared that the potential for charges was looming but not put actual figures out as fact.

KCross

FYI: I got a bland acknowledgement from RTE to my complaint. They said they will reply within 20 working days!

slave1

KCross wrote: »

Another thing to remember about electric cars is the €16.99 a month (approx) you will have to pay (when charges are introduced) for access to charging points and the fact that a fast charge will cost you about €9 a time.

And this is why I am factoring zero use of public charging into our Leaf purchase, those rates are loopy, our Leaf will have to standalone on it's journeys with no use of public chargers

Even if people have to pay for usage the majority of their charging will be done at home at night, and the longer the range electrics have will make public charging even rarer. Sure, 17 PM was a ridiculous for light users but maybe not for heavy users that might then pay less per Kwh or whatever.

unkel

KCross wrote: »

FYI: I got a bland acknowledgement from RTE to my complaint. They said they will reply within 20 working days!

I had RTE as a customer in the late 90s and don't get me going on the work ethic of back office staff there :mad:

DrPhilG

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Even if people have to pay for usage the majority of their charging will be done at home at night,

Got any actual fact to back that up?

Have you got any to the contrary ?

liamog

As EV penetration increases and the range gets better, there's going to be more people who rely on the public charging infrastructure.

With our Ioniq we need to charge twice a week. It's at the point where people who live on the edge of Dublin and don't do extended trips can manage with the public fast chargers.

We do 170km a week on the commute and then various bits of other driving to hit around 350.

I'd be ok with Fastned style payments, not everybody is going to be able to charge at home, especially for the city dwellers where a 200/250 car is well suited.

Harry Palmr

KCross wrote: »

FYI: I got a bland acknowledgement from RTE to my complaint. They said they will reply within 20 working days!

So that's by start of March then

Soarer

DrPhilG wrote: »

Got any actual fact to back that up?

Are you just waiting for Mad Lad to post something so you can have a snipe?

It's an internet forum, and someone posted something. Maybe it's a fact, maybe it's his opinion. So what? I don't see you picking up on what other posters post.

cros13

Yup FastNed is kinda the gold standard.

Reliable ABB rapids
Minimum two rapids per site
Grid connection suitable for eight 50kW rapids per site
A roof over your head while you're hooking up
Designed like a petrol station so no issues with positioning or trailers
Free WiFi

And of course per kWh fees with options for frequent and infrequent users:

KCross

That looks like a good system. At least you have options to choose from.

Do they ban/discourage PHEV's?

DrPhilG

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Have you got any to the contrary ?

No.

But I haven't spent years stating the contrary as fact.

Over and over and over again...

DrPhilG

Soarer wrote: »

Are you just waiting for Mad Lad to post something so you can have a snipe?

It's an internet forum, and someone posted something. Maybe it's a fact, maybe it's his opinion. So what? I don't see you picking up on what other posters post.

Other posters don't constantly post the same thing over and over again as fact even after being asked to back it up with anything resembling evidence and repeatedly failing to do so.

Same way he spent years picking up rumours and speculation about the next Leaf and other "300km EVs" and repeating them here as fact.

Ps I'm pretty sure he's big and ugly enough to defend himself without you playing the white knight.

Soarer

Soarer wrote: »

Are you just waiting for Mad Lad to post something so you can have a snipe?

It's an internet forum, and someone posted something. Maybe it's a fact, maybe it's his opinion. So what? I don't see you picking up on what other posters post.

Thanks for that, so I'm not being paranoid, someone else notices it too ! yes he has an issue with me that the mods won't moderate, yet if I say boo to someone I'm banned.

It's the constant nit picking from him that I should really try hard to ignore , dare I say it but I feel like he's trolling me sometimes.........

DrPhilG

DrPhilG wrote: »

Other posters don't constantly post the same thing over and over again as fact even after being asked to back it up with anything resembling evidence and repeatedly failing to do so.

Same way he spent years picking up rumours and speculation about the next Leaf and other "300km EVs" and repeating them here as fact.

Ps I'm pretty sure he's big and ugly enough to defend himself without you playing the white knight.

You know, there are other forums you can spend time on trolling people.

DrPhilG

[Deleted User] wrote: »

yet if I say boo to someone I'm banned.

You don't say boo to people though do you. You call them names.

At least you only got banned for a "few hours" though eh?

[Deleted User] wrote: »

the mods won't moderate.

Pity you're not a Mod, would solve all your problems.

How come you didn't get that job eh?

DrPhilG

Anyway, too late for this craic. Off to bed I go.

liamog

cros13 wrote: »

Yup FastNed is kinda the gold standard.

They're the first charging company that seem to be planning for the mass market EV.

Even Tesla's supercharger network is an early adopter play, it would not be sustainable for each manufacturer to have it's own network, but I'm sure everyone here figured that out.

I wonder what it would take for a similar operation to set up here?

cros13

*cough* cool it lads. I will come down on you both if required

DrPhilG wrote: »

Pity you're not a Mod, would solve all your problems.

How come you didn't get that job eh?

Starting with you...

DrPhilG

DrPhilG wrote: »

You don't say boo to people though do you. You call them names.

At least you only got banned for a "few hours" though eh?

Pity you're not a Mod, would solve all your problems.

How come you didn't get that job eh?

Unfortunately I have been guilty of reacting to trolls, because they are psychopaths and are experts at winding others up and making them look like the bad ones and boards mods only react to the people being trolled and do not see things for what they are and target the trolls.......

DrPhilG

liamog wrote: »

I wonder what it would take for a similar operation to set up here?

I suspect they would need much bigger numbers before a major commercialised operation would succeed.

Until there are a lot more EVs on the road I'm not sure that a non subsidised operation would work.

And ironically those numbers probably won't happen until there are a variety of long range options, at which point the charging network likely won't be as important.

I wonder how widespread long range electrics will affect the Dutch business?

cros13

liamog wrote: »

I wonder what it would take for a similar operation to set up here?

A miracle.

You're right, FastNed are planning for an EV heavy future. But between that and now lies a lot of years in the red. Their last reported revenue was €81,000 for the quarter, with capital expenditures of over a million.

But they have a long term plan. Meanwhile eCars is run by people who've never eaten their own dogfood and think their "network" is "complete" and "sufficient" for 20,000 EVs on the road.

FastNed is working off math like this:

unkel

Those charges are reasonable enough. I wouldn't mind getting the occasional 17kWh if there's a 100kW DC charging station every say 30-40km on most national roads / motorways where it is unlikely I'd have to wait. It will only take about 15 minutes and it will give me another 150km or so range.

For a tenner, I'd be happy with that

Even though it is over 700% more expensive than charging at home...

Water John

Well Dr Phil, the EU are saying that by 2019, any new house build or refurbishment must include an EV charge point.
Really, what are they for?

liamog

Def more expensive than home, but the only way we grow the infrastructure is to make it profitable.
I'd love for it to be a non-profit with all the funds invested into new sites and upgrading equipment over time.

Is off street parking going to become the new road frontage?

DrPhilG

Water John wrote: »

Well Dr Phil, the EU are saying that by 2019, any new house build or refurbishment must include an EV charge point.
Really, what are they for?

That would be fantastic, but there's not a snowballs chance that it will happen in Ireland.

It would be kinda ridiculous given that the country has such a low percentage of EVs.

Fingers crossed though.

Water John

If its EU law, it will happen in Ireland. Should we look for a derogation, is that what you are saying?

DrPhilG

Water John wrote: »

If its EU law, it will happen in Ireland. Should we look for a derogation, is that what you are saying?

I'm saying that it won't necessarily happen. But aren't Ireland already facing fines for not meeting EU emissions targets?

Apologies if this isn't the same scenario, I'm not very well informed on it. But doesn't it show that Ireland don't necessarily do all that they are told to?

liamog

I see two issues, how do we deal with town houses (on-street parking) and what exactly is a refurb.

I'd love there to be a "right" to install a kerb mounted charger outside your home.
Would be great to force the hand of management companies.

BoatMad

unkel wrote: »

Those charges are reasonable enough. I wouldn't mind getting the occasional 17kWh if there's a 100kW DC charging station every say 30-40km on most national roads / motorways where it is unlikely I'd have to wait. It will only take about 15 minutes and it will give me another 150km or so range.

For a tenner, I'd be happy with that

Even though it is over 700% more expensive than charging at home...

15 minutes and a tenner for 150Km, jeepers,Id be back to a cheaper diesel in the morning

BoatMad

BoatMad wrote: »

15 minutes and a tenner for 150Km, jeepers,Id be back to a cheaper diesel in the morning

You'd have to use the network a lot to be concerned.

By the time a large amount of people change to EV range will be such that public charging will be rare, unless you can't have a home charge point.

BoatMad

Deleted User wrote: »

You'd have to use the network a lot to be concerned.

By the time a large amount of people change to EV range will be such that public charging will be rare, unless you can't have a home charge point.

I dont think, as Ive said elsewhere that you can look into a crystal ball and make predictions 15 years out etc

You don't think so ? do you think many people will choose shorter range electrics over longer range electrics ? I don't, because one of the greatest issues people in Ireland have is range and lack of choice, and of course to a certain degree, cost. Most people don't what to have to wait at charge points, that's not crystal ball stuff, it's reality so I can't see too many people choosing short range electrics when longer range becomes available. People are already noticing the longer range of the Ioniq.

BoatMad

Deleted User wrote: »

You don't think so ? do you think many people will choose shorter range electrics over longer range electrics ? I don't, because one of the greatest issues people in Ireland have is range and lack of choice, and of course to a certain degree, cost. Most people don't what to have to wait at charge points, that's not crystal ball stuff, it's reality so I can't see too many people choosing short range electrics when longer range becomes available. People are already noticing the longer range of the Ioniq.

I dont think , with circa 2000 EVs on the road and most belonging to aficionados and early adopters and in the face of free public charging , just exactly what the configuration of future EVs will be. There are huge numbers of motorists doing small daily mileage or using a 2nd car as essentially a shopping run around etc . for them range will not be the defining issue.

I think its way too early to predict what the future will bring and who it will be used, in EVs, I suspect there will be cars on the market with a wide variety of ranges at suitable entry levels of pricing . People will always balance " features ", and that includes range , with purchase price and buy what they can afford at the end of the day.

slave1

Water John wrote: »

Well Dr Phil, the EU are saying that by 2019, any new house build or refurbishment must include an EV charge point.
Really, what are they for?

That sounds progressive but I think it would be more practical to not insist on a charge point but to insist on the cabling for future install, an unused charge point is a waste of money but it would not be that expensive to run a cable and have it buried/whatever for future hook up whilst in the middle of a build/refurb

Charge points by default is a great idea as a) If you have one anyway there's an incentive to buy an EV as a second car. b) When you visit your granny you won't need to bring a granny charger.

unkel

BoatMad wrote: »

15 minutes and a tenner for 150Km, jeepers,Id be back to a cheaper diesel in the morning

Your post is disingenuous. Most people like myself will almost always charge at home and then 150km will cost just a tiny bit over €1 a couple of times a week

On the few days a year I do more than 200-250km in one go, I'd be happy to pay €10 for a top up