Random EV thoughts.....

What is the deal with the lack of chargers in the northwest? There's only one HPC in Carrick and that's literally it

I know it isn't the busiest route, but it's hardly devoid of traffic either. I think there'd be a lot more EV uptake out that direction with just a few more fast chargers

Pretty accurate. On seeing this line "Hybrids seem like a cop-out when, on long journeys, you’re mostly using petrol anyway." you can see it's a real opinion piece and and not a paid for hatchet job.

On winter range: I did Athboy to south Dublin to Athboy recently. A regular trip for us, 150km return all motorway and the Ioniq28 always does it with 5-10% remaining.

We had really bad rain, an hour of stop go traffic on the m50, and as a result had to queue for 20 minutes to charge for 10 minutes in navan - as we would have ran out otherwise.

EVs have their limitations (as do ICEs, the ICE would likely use a litre or two more in the same scenario but you dont have a 30 minutes wait) so there's no denying it.

But: The ioniq28 is a small battery car these days, most new EVs have 50kWh+ and would easily do 150 km in all weathers with range to spare

Glad he is not drinking the cool aid, he could have looked at phev's.

True, I remember the train broke down shortly after leaving Sligo. Because there's only 1 train line up that way, they had to drive the breakdown train up there from Enfield and hold every train back until Dublin before they could clear the line

And the greens say we should get the train everywhere 🤣

I think Weckler is a decent journo and I don't think it was a price written as a hacket job.

Last month, I went looking for an electric car.

My only real requirement was a range of at least 350 ‘real’ kilometres per charge. To my dismay, I found almost nothing available for under €50,000 — a price level I can’t justify nor afford.

No mention of ID.3 Tour 5, Kona, Soul and Niro 64kWh. That's more than "almost nothing" for less that €50k. Rest of it is fair and miles better than the hatchet jobs.

Your EV obviously suits your use case, so good job. If you've only public charged 3 times then I guess you dont do 350km on the motorway in the winter so your use case does not match that posed in the article.

Neither is he. He is looking for the occasion when he may do it. If he plans, it can be done. Not saying it is simple or straight forward, but it can certainly be done.

What I am stating is be realistic in what you expect your car to do for you. If someone is driving from Limerick to Dublin and back everyday, then 100% current EVs are not for you.

But I would suggest that this is a very small minority of people and it is a more realistic expectation that most journeys are less than 100KMs and can be easily done via an EV.

This comes at a much lower running cost than current ICEs.

The subject of the article it is very close to one or two threads that were popular a couple of weeks ago. And while I admit it is technically correct it misses the point. And I'll take it backwards with the price first.

The target audience of a new Ioniq5 it is not the student buying the 10 years old fiesta or punto. It is the family buying the brand new Tucson, the best sold car of the year which has a market share of 5%+. Tucson price range 35k-45k. Ioniq5 price range 38k-65k. Plenty of overlap. On top of that comes the running costs which increase this overlap even more. The top 10 new regs in 2021 has 7 models around the 40k budget. The best VW sold is not the Polo or Golf but the Tiguan which starts at ...40k. Even Yaris has a starting point of 22k but it can go over 60k. The 15k Dacia Sandero referred to in the article sold less units than BMW 5 series (way more expensive) So to answer the question lots. Or better said more people would spend +40k than -20k. Based on figures not on sentiments.

On the range issue It may be boring to say that the average drive on this island is <20km and even the author mentioned that you can rent for the one time a year you drive out of your comfort zone. I drove a Kona from Derry or Castlebar to Dublin without the need to charge but I still stopped somewhere along the route. If a regular ICE doesn't need refueling why service stations like Cashel or B Obama Plaza are always full? The author says it does not blame the ESB/ecars/service stations for the poor network we have. Well I do. But I do blame mostly the govs for inanition and inaction. A good charging network would make even the small batteries to be competitive on the market which would be the pressure for the prices to drop. It would increase de demand for EV while decreasing the demand for ICEs. A reliable network would make charging stops unnoticeable (looking at you ecars). If someone asks here on boards "I want an EV to drive xxx km", the generic answer is "Buy a Tesla" (even though may sound condescending) because in spite of "barely bothered to put any Tesla superchargers into Ireland" Tesla is synonim with reliable infrastructure.

Lastly I blame media for not playing its part in education and opinion forming. I'd like to see an article on the lines

As the owner of a 10 year old Qashqai diesel, yes I would LOVE to buy an EV to do my part in reducing air pollution as I know that Earth is on the slippery slope and my kids or "at best", their kids with have to deal with a ruined planet. My commute is 80kms round trip and therefore well within the range of even a small EV (although squeezing 4 teenagers and two Collies into a Zoe would be fun!). I have a driveway and so a home charger would suit me, all on a cheap night rate tariff. So I'd rarely, if ever need to plan my routes round a public charging network (that by all accounts is abysmal in Ireland buy hey ho, when have we ever gotten the whole "infrastructure" thing right!). Plus the minimal running costs of an EV and the joy of driving past a fossil fuel station with their prices increasing exponentially would be grin inducing.

However.............. Weckler is right in saying that the initial cost is the biggest hurdle to overcome. I've been looking at the MG ZS as I feel it is big enough for my brood but even at the €30k-ish mark, its well outside my price range, about double what I could afford. If the powers that be were serious about the whole "1 million EV's on the road by 2030" thing, they'd introduce scrappage schemes for old cars, cut VRT on EV's etc. But that'll never happen as the current demand for EV's is high anyway (no shortage of buyers) and I'm fairly certain manufacturers would increase their prices if the Government reduced the tax take. So next year when I finally put my Qashqai to rest, I'll be looking at another fossil fuel car, a 4 year old second hand one or a cheap new one like a Dascia. Not my first choices but EV's are too expensive for my needs.

Model 3 with the new ~60kwh battery and under 50k would meet these criteria too.

You'll never make it in journalism by informing people of sensible, fact based aritcles unfortunately 😏

The perception is out there that EVs are more expensive (and was one I had). But whats mad is that even with the more expensive up front cost over 5 or so years people can easily recoup the additional cost.

The difference in operational costs is bonkers when you look at it. But that's not a very sexy sell. And in fact it was only the MG EV range that even tempted me to do the calc in the 1st place. And I realised a mid priced octavia worked out more expensive than the 64kWh eniro or Ioniq 5.

Since I ordered the Ioniq 5, Id say 9 out of 10 of the people I mention it to come back with the "expensive" argument. And over a reasonable period of ownership it just isn't. It's cheap.

Anyway, preaching to the converted here. What's really missing, and will come, is a 2nd hand market