ESB eCars

So lads, it's all very confusing now with the increase in public charging prices. Spending about €550 per month on diesel atm with trips from Clonmel to Naas three times per week. Am I OK to change to an MG4 or a Kona, both are on order, if I charge at home and at work and avoid public chargers? I don't want to end up paying ca. €550 per month on electricity rather than diesel as it won't make any sense to change then and on top of that I'll have to keep making payments on a new vehicle. My 152 diesel is well paid for by now.

Banged those figures into the cost calculator I have and I'm fairly certain you're looking at about €1,500 per year assuming 10% public charging, which should be realistic given a Kona can oneshot that trip from 100%

€550 per month is €6,600 per year, so yeah around €5k savings

Enjoy the free holiday 😉

Or factor in those €5,000 savings over the next 1-2-3 years into the cost of going for a bigger/longer range EV

Thank you all. I'm getting a Zappit charger installed at home and I've got free charging at work. Following your advice I'll continue down the electric route. I feel this public charging cost hike is media sensationalism as I had never reckoned on using them much, if at all. No doubt this will be the latest gotcha that I'll have to bat off by those who keep arguing against changing.

Re my electric tariff, I only bought the house in June this year so have no accurate picture of my domestic energy use. I'm not into tied to any supplier as I pay a higher rate ATM as I wait for the new car and then intend to change to a contract with whomever offers me the best deal on night time rate.

Am I doing this right? Any suggestions with what supplier I should go with? I live alone and don't use a huge amount heating etc.

Do you need a separate night meter to get the night rate? May be a stupid question but I only came back to Ireland last year.

Yes. If you dont get the day night meter, you wont get the best day night rates

If home electricity got to the point of being as expensive as diesel - to power an EV..

Then this would represent an electricity cost that would require Govt action for wider nothing to do with EV reasons. Not that I would rely on this of course - relying on Govt to do the right thing is a recipe for tears and disappointment.

The one risk factor is that the workplace could decide to start charging a fee if at business rates they thought free EV charging was too expensive.

Google suggests that the round trip Clonmel to Naas is 290 kms.

I think a Kona 64 kwh would do pretty much that entire trip on one charge.

I say pretty much because in summer it will smash it. In Winter 300 kms range is doable but circumstances/how you drive could force that to be 270/280 kms.

So you should *never* need to public charge on that trip with both home and workplace charging at both ends.

As a wider point it's worth noting that even if you had been planning public charging.

At 270 kms range in winter and 300 kms to travel you'd actually only need enough public charging and thus exposure to cost of it for the difference between 270 and 300 kms*.

Finally I'd note the point that being in a brand new car with warranty - even an ICE - has a value

*no sensible person would drive down to zero all the time so would be a slightly bigger gap. But trying to keep the point simple

And market rates are why costs will not reduce from where they are now when electricity rates reduce. They may well rise again, and may well fall back to where they are now, but rates of 25-35c will not be seen again.

I knew that would happen in fairness. Some of the parking in that carpark is disgraceful so to park an ICE vehicle in a charging spot is nothing new to these clowns.

Its likely that the spots are badly marked, the AC should have its own separate bay. Probably Anna's usual nonsense of 3 spaces for 4 chargers

This might have been discussed to death already but, the layout and length of the cables at some of the esb sites isn't great.

Was at one with 150kw unit on outside, with two spaces in front of the 50kw unit. (To right of 150kw unit).

I pulled in in a m3, there was a chap in an id4 on the 150kw unit but parked in the middle parking slot.

Think it was because the charge point on his car was on drivers side. Mine being on passenger side meant if I went into the third slot at the 50kw, then the lead from that unit wouldn't stretch enough to fit.

Thankfully all sorted itself out

Gotta save a few euros on copper 😬