[Looking to buy a] Hybrid / Electric

I would imagine Moneypoint accounts for a good deal of the coal emissions but the thousands of homes that still burn coal probably amount to a significant amount too.

Indeed those apposed to nuclear don't actually know that every time they get sun burned they're actually getting radiation burned or they're breathing in radioactive elements from coal emissions !

Sure radioactive waste disposal is a problem from current reactor design because they don't burn all the fuel. With Molten Salt or LI.F.T.R it burns 99% of the fuel so you have 1% of the waste of current reactors. Unfortunately a fully operational molten salt reactor is years away because research is grossly underfunded and the nuclear industry don;t want to invest in this technology.

And if I'm correct the waste from current storage can actually be used as fuel for the molten salt reactors and the byproducts are much less dangerous for a lot less time.

I'm a great fan of renewable energy but you can't have wind turbines and solar panels everywhere. Though solar panels on every rooftop in Ireland could make a significant difference it's a shame the Government have absolutely no green energy plans, they'll continue to charge us tax on our bills to pay large wind energy companies but give us nothing for micro generation installations or feed in tariff.

Dexter1979

I had a chat with a fellow Zoe owner here in Holland and he has 3kW of solar panels on his roof. He sells it back to the grid for the Dane amount as he would pay for usage. So his electricity bill including charging the car (at a 11kW home charger I might add!!) came to €-3. This is the way to do solar...

reboot

Dexter1979 wrote: »

I had a chat with a fellow Zoe owner here in Holland and he has 3kW of solar panels on his roof. He sells it back to the grid for the Dane amount as he would pay for usage. So his electricity bill including charging the car (at a 11kW home charger I might add!!) came to €-3. This is the way to do solar...

Think I might wait for Perovskite.

cros13

Dexter1979 wrote: »

I had a chat with a fellow Zoe owner here in Holland and he has 3kW of solar panels on his roof. He sells it back to the grid for the Dane amount as he would pay for usage. So his electricity bill including charging the car (at a 11kW home charger I might add!!) came to €-3. This is the way to do solar...

And in Ireland you have to pay income tax on the €0 they pay you for up to 11kW of power. And if you export more than you import or import less than an average of 2kWh per day you get fined €9.45 per billing period for being a "low-usage" customer.

reboot

cros13 wrote: »

And in Ireland you have to pay income tax on the €0 they pay you for up to 11kW of power. And if you export more than you import or import less than an average of 2kWh per day you get fined €9.45 per billing period for being a "low-usage" customer.

Burn coal or oil and Vat is 5%, Buy a Solar Panel, you pay 20% Vat

GreyDad

reboot wrote: »

Burn coal or oil and Vat is 5%, Buy a Solar Panel, you pay 20% Vat

That's bonkers

cros13

reboot wrote: »

Burn coal or oil and Vat is 5%, Buy a Solar Panel, you pay 20% Vat

You mean 23% VAT instead of 13.5%. Still terrible

The best one for me was the minute the Nissan Leaf launched they pulled the registration tax exemption for EVs in favor of a credit after only two sales.
And I saw the price of the Model S I had a deposit on increase €15k overnight, followed by a call from Tesla telling me another €15k was being added for Right Hand Drive units.
I'm going to be bitter about that for the rest of the decade.

reboot

reboot wrote: »

Burn coal or oil and Vat is 5%, Buy a Solar Panel, you pay 20% Vat

23%

Yep see if you tax coal higher you'll have all the people who burn solid fuel up in arms.

IMO they should completely ban solid fuel burning in this day and age there is no need for it !

Such an emphasis on car emissions and solid fuel is the dirtiest of all emissions in Ireland and thousands of homes in Ireland continue to burn it because their deluded into thinking it's "cheaper"

The Council in my local estate installed insulation and installed oil heating for every council house and hardly any of them use the oil and coal smoke bellows out of the chimneys all day and half the night, this is ridiculous.

DrPhilG

Deposit paid...

Collecting on the 19th!

GreyDad

Jealous

BMJD

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Such an emphasis on car emissions and solid fuel is the dirtiest of all emissions in Ireland and thousands of homes in Ireland continue to burn it because their deluded into thinking it's "cheaper"

I'd argue that agriculture is far more harmful, but that would require the vast majority of the population to examine their diet/lifestyle and piss off the farmers at the same time.
In other words, there are easier targets.

BMJD

BMJD wrote: »

I'd argue that agriculture is far more harmful, but that would require the vast majority of the population to examine their diet/lifestyle and piss off the farmers at the same time.
In other words, there are easier targets.

Agriculture , how ? do you mean through the use of chemicals and **** being spread on the land ? in that sense I agree.

If you're talking about methane from live stock and Man Made Climate Change then I don't believe in this.

Far more harmful are the emissions from coal that directly cause harm to humans and the environment, the over use of chemicals in our food, sprayed on the land and in general. But this is all being ignored and climate change used as a smoke screen to distract us from real problems to the Earth and to human health.

Co2 and methane in the quantities in the atmosphere are harmless to human health, Co2 is now viewed by the public as a pollutant which is wrong.

We pay a Co2 tax and this is also very wrong, while I'm all in favor of reducing emissions from fossil fuel burning people need to understand there are seriously bad emissions from the burning of fossil fuels and Co2 is not one of them.

Ireland being a prime example of deforestation, being one of the most deforested lands in the whole European contaminant with less than 1% of our natural forest left and this is primarily due to over farming, we have enough produce in Ireland to feed many times our population yet we still will not replant forests in Ireland with real trees because it might upset the poor farmers and they'd want millions for it.

Rant over :-)

cros13

Deleted User wrote: »

we have enough produce in Ireland to feed many times our population yet we still will not replant forests in Ireland with real trees because it might upset the poor farmers and they'd want millions for it.

As a *cough* "gentleman" farmer and a forestry owner I'd be happy to plant more.... just give me the carbon credits to resell myself

I plant mainly native Irish trees like oak but the financial incentives only last 20 years when the growing cycle is 100 years... so 20 years of revenue and then nothing but the odd bit of thinning for another 80 years. I've got oak that was planted when I was in primary school that still isn't suitable for anything more than small stick firewood. So the financial incentives mean that people who.... you know.... want to feed their families have to plant faster growing varieties (and they can only plant a certain percentage of those).

DrPhilG

Road trip booked.

Bus to Belfast on Friday morning (next week), flying to Leeds, collect car and drive back to Liverpool, take the overnight ferry back to Belfast and drive home. Leave 5am, back 9am.

what year is the leaf again, spec ? best of luck !

DrPhilG

[Deleted User] wrote: »

what year is the leaf again, spec ? best of luck !

2014 Tekna.

Still waiting for the dealer to confirm a delivery date for the car to them from Nissan UK. Need to know that before I can book my flight.

Pain in the arse...

Yeah I can imagine !

antodeco

Was looking at a 2012 Renault Fluence. 46k kms on it. Is there anything I need to need to be concerned about?

90% of my journeys are M50. Red Cow - Sandyford and back. About 20km each way.

I've not heard anything bad about the Fluence EV nor can I make any comment on battery life.

But you must remember that the Fluence EV can not be fast charged and you really, really got to think if you can live with this.

It was a fatal decision from Renault to omit fast charging from the Fluence because that's essentially what killed it.

If you can get even a MK I Leaf at a similar price then getting the Leaf is a no brainer

Benny_Cake

antodeco wrote: »

Was looking at a 2012 Renault Fluence. 46k kms on it. Is there anything I need to need to be concerned about?

90% of my journeys are M50. Red Cow - Sandyford and back. About 20km each way.

I don't know a huge amount about the Fluence ZE as production was discontinued some time back. Just be aware that it only has a 3.5kw charger - no fast charge ability whatsoever so longer journeys won't be much of an option. Not a problem for your regular commute of course.

It was originally planned that the Fluence would rely on battery swap stations built by Better Place, unfortunately, they went out of business. That probably explains the lack of fast charger.

If you're aware of the limitations I'd imagine you could snap up a bargain alright!

antodeco

Thanks for that. Didn't realise there was no fast charger! It's currently 6k, which is a lot of car for the price.

I'd prefer a fast charger, but again 90% of my journey will be work and back, and within the range.

How much roughly is charging point install? I have a night meter so will be doing all my charging overnight.

Benny_Cake

Deleted User wrote: »

I've not heard anything bad about the Fluence EV nor can I make any comment on battery life.

But you must remember that the Fluence EV can not be fast charged and you really, really got to think if you can live with this.

It was a fatal decision from Renault to omit fast charging from the Fluence because that's essentially what killed it.

It made a certain level of sense at the time when you take quick battery swapping into account, but the stations were expensive and only deployed in significant numbers in Israel and Denmark. I understand that in Israel you could drive anywhere in the country without ever having to worry about range. The passing of Better Place left the Fluence as something of an orphan.

It might be possible to get a used Nissan Leaf MK1 for not a whole lot more, particularly if you're willing to go to the UK?

cros13

antodeco wrote: »

Thanks for that. Didn't realise there was no fast charger! It's currently 6k, which is a lot of car for the price.

I'd prefer a fast charger, but again 90% of my journey will be work and back, and within the range.

How much roughly is charging point install? I have a night meter so will be doing all my charging overnight.

Does that include the battery? Or are they still making you rent that? I was looking at the fluence as a runabout for my mum (my dad already has a Leaf and I have an i3). I ran the numbers and it needed to be below €6k with battery for them to work out. The minimum battery rental I recall was €50/month which is more than four times the charging cost. Also the term is indefinite which makes them very very difficult to sell on, no option of buying your way out of the contract.

As an EV, the fluence is pretty terrible, heavier than a leaf yet with a lower capacity battery and weaker motor. The controls and handling are horrible as well.

The fluence ZE is typical of the old EVs which were half-arsed conversions of existing vehicles and suffered for it.

There's a reason Nissan has sold almost 200,000 leafs while renault has yet to even make 4,000 fluence ZEs

That's why the Fluence was scrapped, it was a failure from the start.

The battery was also mounted between the back seats and boot, terrible design but was designed for battery swap, omitting fast charging however was a ridiculously stupid decision to make. Hoping that one start company would install battery swap stations. Unbelievable !

Renault also have a nasty habit of sticking under powered engines into ICE cars and I suppose they see electrics as no different.

The Zoe is a very different car, so much better but more power would have been nice.

DrPhilG

What a pain in the arse.....

Dealer in Leeds has been a constant pain. Not returning calls, not confirming delivery date etc. Finally got stroppy this morning and threatened to get my bank to reverse the CC charge for the deposit.

They have said that the car will definitely be with them by Wednesday so I have booked my flight and ferry for Thursday.

I have a backup plan though. There is a dealer in Newcastle with an almost identical car although £180 more expensive. I called them and told them my situation, booked their car for £100 holding fee and if the Leeds dealer lets me down I'll have a ready made backup plan.

They were happy enough to do that and will refund me if I don't buy the car but I told them to keep half of the deposit in the (hopeful) event that I get the car in Leeds. It's basically a £50 insurance policy against me spending £400 on travel only for the car to not be there.

That's clever alright DrPhil, good to have a backup plan !

GreyDad

Good plan, nice they are willing to help out like that.

I have my eye on a couple of Leafs up there, will be interested to hear how you get on.

Good luck!

DrPhilG

Finally...

It has arrived with the dealer!

GreyDad

Nice!

DrPhilG

DrPhilG wrote: »

Finally...

It has arrived with the dealer!

Can't see pics ?

bet you can't wait ?