Unhappy with owning an EV in Ireland

I’ll echo what others said, why are you hobbling yourself by doing that!

You bought a car with 100% usable, use it if you need it.

The only concern about charging to 100% is if you leave it sitting at 100% for days on end. I charged my old Leaf to 100% everyday. It had the save level of degradation as others after 4yrs of it.

Save yourself some grief and charge to 100% as it’s designed for it.

Yes it makes no sense charging only to 80% and then not having sufficient range. Charging to 100% will have minimal impact on battery when you're not letting it sit for long periods fully charged.

Sorry I meant check if I could use their home charge point and pay for it obviously.

I'll look into it more with some hard facts but Kia historically target the mid sized family SUV segment with the Sportage and the EV6 is more targeted at A4, 3 series buyers. The new Sportage is priced at 47k so this puts it in the same ballpark as an ID4. The difference is with the ID4 you get the grant back.

My overriding point is that ICE cars now cost the same price as EVs give or take a few percent and the EV6 sits higher in the range than the Sportage but like I said I'll come back with hard facts on both. If both cars are exactly the same like you say, then it is likely a price adjustment will follow for one or both of these cars.

Have owned a 28KwH Ioniq for 2 years and absolutely love it. I get 200km + range in summer, and a little less in winter and it's perfect for my driving, which is mostly around town with a few out-of-town excursions at weekends, but tending to be <150km round trips.

I charge at home, and all is hunky dory.

I recommend an EV to everyone I speak to, they really are lovely to drive and own.

However, if i did not have a home charger, there is no way in hell I would consider one.

The town I live in (Drogheda - the largest town in Ireland by the way) has one fast charger, and it's constantly hogged by plug-in Hybrids for hours on end, sometimes entire workdays. I have on several occasions needed to use the public chargers on the Applegreen M1 at Lusk. Nowhere near enough capacity. In my experience both spaces are constantly full and there are usually a few other confused looking EV owners parked nearby.

I don't use the public charging network enough to know if it's getting better, but the times I have needed to use it have not been great.

Ok, so lets say a Sportage and ID4 are similar market segment.

A Sportage starts at €37500 and an ID4 €44500.

So ~€7000 of a difference. With home charging I'd say ID4 is financially viable (because I expect electricity prices to fall and petrol / diesel to increase)

But if you are using the public network exclusively to charge then I don't see the point in terms of fuel price and convenience.

even at that it isnt apples with apples, the kia is a 1.6 diesel manual with 136bhp, versus a 177bhp automatic for the id4

I think that many apartment dwellers with their own dedicated spaces should in the future be able to get a charge point installed. It will obviously cost more and require a co-operative management company but it should be possible to run cable to roof or wall mounted chargers like this. It's important that this infrastructure is owned by the residents and that the cable is connected back to their meter so that they can avail of the cheaper charging. Outsourcing it to a common provider for all residents would be a retrograde step if people had their own spaces.

I think we're too litigious a country to facilitate any footpath-crossing cable for on-street parking unfortunately. Whether airborne-cantilever or in a dedicated channel.

Just as so many people are doing also. Its no wonder the infrastructure cant catch up.

I know another person who is really getting sick of a relative calling to their house to charge. Its comical really.

There are some people who should be buying EVS, but so many who have bought them and shouldnt have them too.

Until the charging bays are full at every Circle K in Ireland, nothing will happen. There just isn't enough public charging happening at the moment to justify the spend. It goes back to the point that most people are charging from home, with the exception of a few people who rely on the network and can see it's flaws.

here you go

This is exactly it. And you describe the situation that applies to most, yes most EV owners in a country like the Netherlands. Where most people do not have their own driveway with their own home charge point. AC charge points are literally everywhere. Usually nearly on every residential street. Price of electricity at those charge points is typically only a few cent more than the price of residential electricity too. Just looked it up and there are 120,000 public AC charge points. In a country less than half the size of Ireland (26 counties)