Increase in Anti-EV Media Articles

I actually do that journey quite regularly. The stop is fermoy or frankfield on the way there and Portlaoise, Mayfield or Kill on the way back. What's more annoying though is that you are arriving with such a low state of charge that you don't have much ability for local driving if necessary.

I probably could do it without stopping but I'd be coming back in the low single digits. It's a journey that's beyond my own non-stop distance though and I'd be anxious of running out of power.

Knowing in advance (advance been the keyword here) that on Friday you are going to Mayo.

You would use the slow charger on Thursday - not wait until Friday.

Bear in mind that we are looking at using the exact same local charging on Thursday that you are using on the Friday.

Except for two things.

1) if there's a problem you've bought yourself an extra 12 to 24 hours to rectify it.

2) your story might get a lot less interesting.

2) is why people who are into EVs will wonder if some "mistakes" weren't in fact mistakes.

Anyway I decided to try an experiment with a Better Route planner.

For his piece Conor Pope was stood next to a Mercedes EQB in a photo.

I used the following.

Car - Mercedes EQB 350 4matic

Journey plan inputted

Depart Stoneybatter with 20 percent battery - travel to Belmullet and return to Stoneybatter.

From the Stoneybatter address suggested by ABRP it recommended going to Sundrive Road Kimmage and charge for 27 mins from 19 to 79 percent.

Then continue to Charlestown Co Mayo for a 38 min charge.

Then on return stop at Carrick on Shannon for 20 mins.

Projected FULL trip charging time is 1 hr 24 mins.....

However this is based on ABRPs default settings including a minimum arrival SoC at charger of 10 percent.

The only change I made was to set departure SoC to 20 percent which I don't think you'd plan for if a trip you knew about in advance.....

The arrival back to Stoneybatter is projected to be 11 percent for example

Also worth noting is that if you do Belmullet to Stoneybatter and back to Belmullet - starting at 90 percent.

Then the projected departure from Stoneybatter on the return SoC is 45 percent. Same Merc as above - I just entered two separate trips.

It took 30 minutes to get to 80% with a projected 20 further minutes to have sufficient charge to get home. Charge rate was down to 55kwh at that point and presumably would have dropped rapidly had I remained charging

I'm still surprised it was so slow, could it have been down to power sharing due to adjacent cars being at low SOC?

I was hammering it the evening before😆 but not on the day of charging. I'm not going to say anymore but 95kwh at 20% on a 250kwh charger is very slow in my book. Will keep an eye on it the next few charges.

Love how the story has changed. We've gone from no way of charging, to a DC 50kw/h charger with a queue. It's like moe telling a story.

Possibly doesn't affect Model S owners on free SC for life?

With a PHEV he'd have to find a charger maybe 8? times as often as with a BEV. Seems like a lose lose for him to have a PHEV to me

Lol.

I've no problem if someone said they just preferred a PHEV. You don't need such a convoluted saga, with more holes than a string bag, that makes a very weak case for PHEV anyway.

Someone might not use the car all year but once a year do driving holiday where they want a long range diesel for example. No different to people who keep a weekend car. I've a mate with about half a dozen cars, some old and most get hardly driven. He just likes having them to play with.

You don't chose a phev to restrict yourself to chargers.

Phev is perfect for people with home charging who don't want to think about where else to charge.

If phev's like the ones byd sell elsewhere I can imagine they'll impact EV sales in Ireland.

They're just the better option for our lower population density.

"...He wouldn't have to find a charger at all..."

Like the studies show. In general, most are using their phevs like ICE only vehicles most of the time.

It would suit our needs perfectly. My wife could do her commute entirely on the nightly recharge and then no need to think about recharging on long trips.

I reckon that would cover most drivers in Ireland, drive it in ev mode 90% of the time.

Some people don't want to have to think about where there are chargers, or if they'll be able to actually access them.

PHEV gives you the freedom to not think about that. Plus if 90% of the driving is in EV mode from nightly home charging then the motor wear is 10% of an ICE vehicle.

I was very open to changing to EV in the coming years, but I think I'll be going PHEV until EV charging is as ubiquitous as Lidl and Aldi carparks around the island.