Random EV thoughts.....

if you have a company car you may have a fuel card that fills the car in a couple of minutes at the company expense or you can plug it in at home at your expense. Would you really pay for electric fuel by plugging in the car to your domestic meter if you had petrochemical fuel from your company for free ?

The side effect of allowing plug in hybrids as company cars is that these cars will soon enough filter down to the second hand market and THEN be plugged in by a normal private driver who doesnt have a fuel card for unlimited free petrol.

The problem is, if the company car tax benefits are removed from plugin hybrids its just as possible that the staff member will go for full petrol again if they havent a way of charging it for free - and then the second hand market in a couple of years just has more pure petrol or diesel cars than if the government (/ green parties across europe) were to let plugin hybrids have some sort of benefit in kind advantage.

You could also argue that the grant meant some people bought petrol phevs instead of a diesel, which at least benefited urban air quality, even if they were never plugged in. Grants will always have an element of waste or deadweight built in, eg many people buying EVs would do so in the absence of the current grant so it could be argued that a blanket EV grant payable to all is also is a waste of taxpayer money. For many the grant means they will tick expensive options which they would otherwise do without, one of the main reasons why the 'Paddy spec' was developed to counter the prohibitive vrt charged on ICE optional extras. So yea grant aiding PHEVS may not be the most effective use of scarce resources, but that could be levelled on almost subsidies to a greater or lessor extent.

And phev's regardless of how they're driven. Any chance of clarifying your "almost free charge point ' comment ?

Well not sure what unkel was on about, but you can get the QuBev EV charger for around €275 from Amazon. So if you can get the installation for around €325 then the charger is effectively free after the grant

Not sure if the requirement for a smart charger has come in yet and the QuBev charger won't qualify for that

However you could always get a Zappi installed with the grant, then sell the Zappi almost new for €800, buy a dumb charger and pocket the difference. The you'd have an almost free charger, if you never needed the capabilities of the Zappi

Speculation that the Govt is going to start tapering off the fuel excise duty cuts of 20c on petrol and 15c on diesel over a number of months.

Meanwhile VAT on electricty may be maintained at 9% for 13.5% for a while longer.

Good news for EV drivers if it eventuates.

Nicholl Oils will celebrate its 60 year anniversary by installing at least one rapid charger and one AC fast charging point at its network of branded forecourts.

The first 46 charging points will be installed between April and September, starting at forecourts in Co Antrim and Co Down, and both partners plan to grow the network to at least 100 points across the region.

For the queue?

Any update @innrain ?

Definitely wouldn't be letting that go - at the very least you'd like to understand yourself if you had transgressed in some way.

Tesla octovalve is one big heating and cooling solution. It is used to scavenge heat from the battery, motors and the inverter to heat the cabin. Indeed, they got rid of the battery heating elements as there is no need anymore as they use the motors and other power electronics to generate the heat instead. The same system is also used for battery and inverter cooling and a/c. In that case the excess heat is dumped outside, unless cabin heating is required at the same time in which case it can be captured there.

It's a really well thought out system.

Tesla owner I spoke to said the heating is brutal, the only thing she dislikes about the car.

@the_amazing_raisin - "I will say in general I've found that EVs don't heat up as quickly as ICE"

Then you have no experience of an EV with a decent heat pump? They heat up far quicker than an ICE car as it takes a while for the combustion engine to heat up. My first fully electric car with a heat pump was the €25k econobox Hyundai Ioniq. The heat pump drew an incredible 7kW which meant the car was warm within a minute from freezing. Not even the biggest engined 5l V8 petrol cars I have owned were anywhere near as quick as that.

Must be something wrong with car, I have a Model 3 and heater excellent. Often turn on heating when leaving office in frosty weather and about 3 mins later defrosted enough to see out of windows when arrive at car.

Only slight issue is that you sometimes have to vary the temp to stay comfortable but that is a problem with most ev s I have driven, but the clear screen on the Tesla makes that very simple