The biggest stumbling block for EV uptake

cros13

I think fastned's numbers are the best indicator. They publish their numbers quarterly and are the closest model to what I think a long term financially viable network would look like. At the moment... In a market with way more EVs on the road, they are years away from covering operating expenses.

Lantus

Longer range cars are 2 to 3 years away where 90% + of users won't need any remote charging station to meet daily journey needs or more.

Every one will be run from home with a few motorway points for very long journeys. Service stations for fuel is something we do with ice cars because storing tankers of fuel at home isn't safe.

Investing in a comprehensive network is wasted effort and time when the cars will bypass this in a few years.

cros13

BoatMad wrote:

I know that many fcp installs required significant esb prep work including in many cases upgrades to the local MV infrastructure

And most of that work was likely wasted on putting 100kW into a shopping center car park when what's needed going forward is a dedicated site and MV substation. Barring the motorway service areas and office infrastructure.... medium/long term the whole network is a dead loss.

liamog

Fortunately the RCN Study gave us a costed how to guide.

http://rapidchargenetwork.com/public/wax_resources/RCN How To Strategy Document FINAL digital.jpg.pdf

Costings are included, including sites where the DNO had to upgrade the local supply, and numbers on where people want chargers to be sited.

How much of Fastneds numbers are down to the rapid expansion, there business model can't be too bad considering they're extending into new countries.

cros13

liamog wrote:

Fortunately the RCN Study gave us a costed how to guide.

The RCN numbers are as unrepresentative as ESBs. RCN made the same mistakes with poor locations way up to 10 minutes off major routes in car parks, underspecified grid connections, using the lowest bidders even though their rapids didn't work (as I remember RCNs main supplier of rapids was DBT and CCS didn't work at all on the entire network for over a year because DBT had never tested it against real cars and there are continuing maintenance issues) and deploying only one rapid per location.

FastNed has: a minimum of two rapids per site, sites in dedicated roofed areas a few hundred meters of major routes at worst with with free wifi & toilets available, all grid connections & wiring prefitted on site for a minimum of eight 50kW rapids but easily scalable beyond that because of colocation with the HV and MV grid, a backup 22kW AC at every site, charger layout accommodating vehicles with trailers and different charge port locations, reasonable per kWh fee structure.

liamog wrote:

How much of Fastneds numbers are down to the rapid expansion, there business model can't be too bad considering they're extending into new countries.

The only reason they can expand is patient investors pumping in money. Revenue for most of their existence has been a drop in the bucket compared with operating expenses and capital spending. For Q1 2017 revenue was €87,883 and increase of 160% on the previous year. That was from 3520 unique customers and set against (extrapolating from the 2016 numbers https://cdn.fastnedcharging.com/uploads/documents/fastned-jaarverslag-2016.pdf ) operating expenses of circa €1.5-2 million per quarter. And again that excludes capital expenditures and some other costs. So yeah... Only this year have they started to meet even 10% of OpEx.

samih

CruelCoin wrote: »

That big battery bank got manufactured with appalling environmental impacts somewhere the other side of the world, and the power it actually uses primarily comes from oil and peat powered stations.

My vehicle's battery pack was manufactured and assembled next door to the assembly plant the car itself was assembled. Unlike the contents of your fuel tank mine can be mined at EOL to create new more efficient battery cells (due to technology moving on) using the elements there. I suspect the contents of your fuel tank will need to replenished every so often using fuel extracted refined and distributed with appalling environmental impacts somewhere in the other side of the world and in the end cannot be used to create something useful.

So my fuel tank wins.

oppenheimer1

samih wrote: »

My vehicle's battery pack was manufactured and assembled next door to the assembly plant the car itself was assembled. Unlike the contents of your fuel tank mine can be mined at EOL to create new more efficient battery cells (due to technology moving on) using the elements there. I suspect the contents of your fuel tank will need to replenished every so often using fuel extracted refined and distributed with appalling environmental impacts somewhere in the other side of the world and in the end cannot be used to create something useful.

So my fuel tank wins.

Your electricity isn't magicked out of nothing either (awaits bs about windmills).

Of course EV batteries need blood soaked Cobalt as well...

CruelCoin

BoatMad wrote: »

Stuff and nonsense and largely " fake news "

Lithium isn't mined , it's extracted via brine " washing " Li battery factories are some of the most modern around , like LG or the giga factory

At times at night Ireland has a surplus of green energy and it's one of the goals of the CER to use home EV charging to soak up wasted green energy , like wind l where currently at night Ireland has to cull wind generation at present

stop regurgitating nonsense from biased sectors with vested interests

cros13 wrote: »

Would you like to explain where you got any of that from?

The first part as a priority please, the second is easily dismissed as eirgrid fuel mix data is public, peat was less than 10% of grid power all of last year (and now gets lumped into the "other" segment with hydro etc in the live data. Oil was 0.5%.

The Irish grid is way cleaner than the US grids and even the most pessimistic well to wheel analyses have EVs roundly beating the average combustion vehicle in emmisions in every US market. The UCS reports include emmisions for every material including processing and mining down to the fuel sources for the mining equipment.....

I'd also point out that the primary materials used in lithium ion automotive batteries have some of the cleanest mining processes of any metals and minerals used in modern manufacturing and that most manufacturers source their raw materials from the cleaner sources in the developed world for sound economic reasons, usually to save on transport costs.

The most lazy and basic google throws up heaps of it:

https://www.bv.com/insights/expert-perspectives/environmental-impacts-battery-production-and-efforts-mitigate-them

"the overall production impacts of electric vehicles are more significant than conventional vehicles"

"Graphite mining often generates toxic fugitive dust and requires corrosive chemicals like hydrochloric acid to process it into a usable form. Currently, graphite is mainly sourced from China, while synthetic graphite is produced in the United States as a byproduct of oil refining."

"Graphite mining and processing in China has caused the air and water resources around the mines and processing plants to be polluted to levels that have damaged crops and raised health concerns for local populations."

Jaysus lads, sounds very clean to me altogether.

LG and Tesla have assured us everything will be great, which is nice, but big companies tend not to give a ****.
I recall Apple saying the same thing, yet your iphones are still made by tiny hands to this day.

oppenheimer1

cros13 wrote: »

And most of that work was likely wasted on putting 100kW into a shopping center car park when what's needed going forward is a dedicated site and MV substation. Barring the motorway service areas and office infrastructure.... medium/long term the whole network is a dead loss.

Yet people here are pushing for an expanded charging network funded by the government?

ELM327

oppenheimer1 wrote: »

Your electricity isn't magicked out of nothing either (awaits bs about windmills).

Of course EV batteries need blood soaked Cobalt as well...

Of course your diesel is made of sunshine and hemp!

samih

oppenheimer1 wrote: »

Your electricity isn't magicked out of nothing either (awaits bs about windmills).

Of course EV batteries need blood soaked Cobalt as well...

Yeah, luckily no drop of blood has ever been shed in oil wars.

As for the energy generation: Bigger fraction of EV fuel is created domestic than yours.

pwurple

oppenheimer1 wrote: »

Your electricity isn't magicked out of nothing either (awaits bs about windmills).

Of course EV batteries need blood soaked Cobalt as well...

Would ye put away your willies please and stop this ridiculous pissing contest.

Yes, EV's are more environmentally damaging pre-production.

But they theoretically last longer (less moving parts, no engine wear etc), and so the damage drops off steeply as soon as they get on the road. Combustion engines keep on damaging for their lifespan.

Eco-friendliness of fuel source is at the owners discretion in an EV. Mine is 90% wind turbine for example.

No such choice in a diesel. Unless you coast downhill 100% of the time.

liamog

cros13 wrote: »

The RCN numbers are as unrepresentative as ESBs. RCN made the same mistakes with poor locations way up to 10 minutes off major routes in car parks, underspecified grid connections, using the lowest bidders even though their rapids didn't work (as I remember RCNs main supplier of rapids was DBT and CCS didn't work at all on the entire network for over a year because DBT had never tested it against real cars and there are continuing maintenance issues) and deploying only one rapid per location.

FastNed has: a minimum of two rapids per site, sites in dedicated roofed areas a few hundred meters of major routes at worst with with free wifi & toilets available, all grid connections & wiring prefitted on site for a minimum of eight 50kW rapids but easily scalable beyond that because of colocation with the HV and MV grid, a backup 22kW AC at every site, charger layout accommodating vehicles with trailers and different charge port locations, reasonable per kWh fee structure.



The only reason they can expand is patient investors pumping in money. Revenue for most of their existence has been a drop in the bucket compared with operating expenses and capital spending. For Q1 2017 revenue was €87,883 and increase of 160% on the previous year. That was from 3520 unique customers and set against (extrapolating from the 2016 numbers https://cdn.fastnedcharging.com/uploads/documents/fastned-jaarverslag-2016.pdf ) operating expenses of circa €1.5-2 million per quarter. And again that excludes capital expenditures and some other costs. So yeah... Only this year have they started to meet even 10% of OpEx.

I'm very impressed with the Fastned setup. They're managing to do all that with customers double the number of total Irish EV numbers. Whilst spending money on expanding into interurban and urban sites with 150kW chargers.

It's costing them the same as our current "world class network" ...

oppenheimer1

pwurple wrote: »

Would ye put away your willies please and stop this ridiculous pissing contest.

Yes, EV's are more environmentally damaging pre-production.

But they theoretically last longer (less moving parts, no engine wear etc), and so the damage drops off steeply as soon as they get on the road. Combustion engines keep on damaging for their lifespan.

Eco-friendliness of fuel source is at the owners discretion in an EV. Mine is 90% wind turbine for example.

No such choice in a diesel. Unless you coast downhill 100% of the time.

Biofuels give a renewable option and forecourt diesel is a biofuel blend.

Unless your employers wind turbine is isolated from the grid, there is no way you can say your charging is 90% wind powered. During the month of May this year, winds were particularly calm, with the smart grid dashboard showing almost zero national generation for several days. Did you do no charging during this period?

737max

Biggest stumbling block:
I go in to Showroom to look at a Smart Fortwo ED and get distracted by the shiny Mercs in the background. Spent as much time looking at a remarkably inexpensive CLA and a Russian Mafia Specification G-wagen

BoatMad

cros13 wrote: »

And most of that work was likely wasted on putting 100kW into a shopping center car park when what's needed going forward is a dedicated site and MV substation. Barring the motorway service areas and office infrastructure.... medium/long term the whole network is a dead loss.

Absolutely , but it was and is a research project

cros13

oppenheimer1 wrote: »

Your electricity isn't magicked out of nothing either (awaits bs about windmills).

By "bs" you mean facts? In 2015, 25.3% of Irish electricity was produced by renewables, a disproportionate amount of which was generated during the nightsaver hours when the majority of EV owners are charging (even many without nightrate meters are likely charging during this hours purely because of typical usage patterns). And that's before we get into generation curtailment and the detail of the energy market.

Do you want to offer an actual counter-argument?
Again... you are entitled to your own opinions but not your own facts.

oppenheimer1 wrote: »

Of course EV batteries need blood soaked Cobalt as well...

Would that be blood-soaked Canadian cobalt or blood-soaked Australian cobalt? Those are the primary sources of cobalt for the majority of automotive cell production. Tesla specifically uses only North American cobalt.

CruelCoin wrote: »

The most lazy and basic google throws up heaps of it:

https://www.bv.com/insights/expert-perspectives/environmental-impacts-battery-production-and-efforts-mitigate-them

The widely criticised norwegian study that's based on came from a research institute funded almost entirely by the oil industry. Specific issues included basic math errors, extrapolating automotive battery emissions from consumer electronics battery manufacturing (despite vastly different scale, differing chemistries and production primarily based in developed countries), comparing worst case EV at the time (which were pre-2010 pre-Nissan Leaf vehicles) to best case lab test NEDC data provided by car manufacturers, failing to account for all of the energy and materials inputs for refining combustion fuels and failing to accurately account for losses in distribution and dispensing of liquid fuels.

Here's a better (though not perfect) study:

http://www.ucsusa.org/clean-vehicles/electric-vehicles/life-cycle-ev-emissions

Note that in the years since the 2015 UCS study, grid emissions have declined further as have EV production emissions.

CruelCoin wrote: »

LG and Tesla have assured us everything will be great, which is nice, but big companies tend not to give a ****.

They don't have to give a damn. As I said there are sound economic reasons to produce batteries locally and source local raw materials.

Bottom line:

1. There are on average slightly increased production emissions (10-20%) for the average EV vs the average ICE (again... there are exceptions like the i3). That's partially attributable to low production volumes and not uncorrectable.
2. That's offset by lower emissions in operation on the Irish grid fuel mix in under a year for a motorist doing 20,000km/annum.
3. Charging at night (which the majority of EV owners do) offsets emissions quicker due to the fuel mix averaging more renewable power at night.
4. EV batteries are made from materials quite common in the earths crust, for the most part relatively easy and clean to extract.
5. Unlike combustion existing EVs green the second the grid gets greener, no need to wait 20 years for the fleet to switch out like with euro 6.

KCross

@oppenheimer, I think you just like a good argument!

Even in the last few days you've recommended an EV to someone on here so clearly you don't actually think they are devil incarnate as your last few posts on this thread would otherwise suggest.

We all get the following:
- There is pollution when manufacturing an EV (as there is for ICE as well but hard to quantify which is worse).
- There are fossil fuels being used in electricity generation (although more and more of it is and will be renewable)

So what exactly are you looking to prove or win here with comments like "blood soaked cobalt" and quoting student studies on PM as fact. As pointed out a lot more blood has been soaked for oil. Its impossible for any of us to change all these things immediately so you take the least worst option and lobby your govt to clean up our grid.


Which do you believe is more environmentally friendly right now, from cradle to grave? EV or ICE?

Which one will be more environmentally friendly in the long term (assuming the grid gets cleaner)? If that's EV you should get behind it more, imo. By all means call out the deficiencies but your rhetoric is just argumentative at best and on the basis of it being incessant could be deemed trolling.

You have portrayed yourself a few times as the gatekeeper to us over-selling EV's but personally I think its a false portrayal as you undersell them.

I'd just like to understand your general opinion on EV vs ICE before I spend more time replying to you. Questioning things is good but if you have a bias against EV I'd rather not waste my time.

FYI... you never responded to my rebuttal on that study you quoted...
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=104470911&postcount=129

BoatMad

oppenheimer1 wrote: »

Biofuels give a renewable option and forecourt diesel is a biofuel blend.

Unless your employers wind turbine is isolated from the grid, there is no way you can say your charging is 90% wind powered. During the month of May this year, winds were particularly calm, with the smart grid dashboard showing almost zero national generation for several days. Did you do no charging during this period?

The debate is , in reality over, with BEV being the direction of choice for virtually every mainstream auto company

Internal combustion will be like steam in 50 years , the preverse of a few odd lads in tank tops and musueums with the odd " demonstration " day to make dads nostaligic while their bored kids play on the 3D full immersion play station

samih

oppenheimer1 wrote: »

Biofuels give a renewable option and forecourt diesel is a biofuel blend.

Unless your employers wind turbine is isolated from the grid, there is no way you can say your charging is 90% wind powered. During the month of May this year, winds were particularly calm, with the smart grid dashboard showing almost zero national generation for several days. Did you do no charging during this period?

True, there is some percent of biofuel in the diesel. It's a pity that many engine manufacturers explicitly ban usage of high blend biodiesel.

As for the sporadic availability renewables: This is where better interconnects between national networks will be a great help. It's almost guaranteed to be sunny or windy somewhere in Europe when the demand is at highest.

The other great step forward will be grid level storage. In ideal world it would be great to have a grid with 95 percent battery backed renewables and then quick peaker fully automated natural gas plants that kick in when there is not enough capacity from the renewable sources. Combine this with vehicle to grid and we have a winner.

And all this without turning a single drop of oil to harmful particles and gases. Ahh, bliss ;-)

BoatMad

oppenheimer1 wrote: »

Your electricity isn't magicked out of nothing either (awaits bs about windmills).

Of course EV batteries need blood soaked Cobalt as well...

You have simply excluded yourself from reasonable argument here

oppenheimer1

KCross wrote: »

@oppenheimer, I think you just like a good argument!

Even in the last few days you've recommended an EV to someone on here so clearly you don't actually think they are devil incarnate as your last few posts on this thread would otherwise suggest.

We all get the following:
- There is pollution when manufacturing an EV (as there is for ICE as well but hard to quantify which is worse).
- There are fossil fuels being used in electricity generation (although more and more of it is and will be renewable)

So what exactly are you looking to prove or win here with comments like "blood soaked cobalt" and quoting student studies on PM as fact. As pointed out a lot more blood has been soaked for oil. Its impossible for any of us to change all these things immediately so you take the least worst option and lobby your govt to clean up our grid.


Which do you believe is more environmentally friendly right now, from cradle to grave? EV or ICE?

Which one will be more environmentally friendly in the long term (assuming the grid gets cleaner)? If that's EV you should get behind it more, imo. By all means call out the deficiencies but your rhetoric is just argumentative at best and on the basis of it being incessant could be deemed trolling.

You have portrayed yourself a few times as the gatekeeper to us over-selling EV's but personally I think its a false portrayal as you undersell them.

I'd just like to understand your general opinion on EV vs ICE before I spend more time replying to you. Questioning things is good but if you have a bias against EV I'd rather not waste my time.

FYI... you never responded to my rebuttal on that study you quoted...
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=104470911&postcount=129

No, EV's are not the devils incarnate - far from it. They are a solution, albeit only a partial one to the environmental challenges we all face. I am not in the slightest against EVs, and recommend them where I think they are suitable (as you note). I suppose my "blood soaked cobalt" remark intended to draw a response in the same way that diesel being described as dirty is - hyperbole maybe, but has a nugget of truth too.

The same is true too of the research I linked. In a forum like this the prevailing attitude can sweep over limitations and hand wave real issues away. Non-exhaust PM is a real issue, though will it be any worse from EVs? I can concede that remains to be seen. Mention issues with the grid - smart metering and other untested solutions are thrown out and the problem is simply hand waved away. Taxation - ditto.

I'm no gatekeeper (or troll), but like to see myself as a realist. Last year a friend of the family was convinced by another friend that an EV would be suitable for him. And on the face of it, if you described his mileage he would have got the same answer here: a round trip commute of 60km with the occasional trip up to NI. Yeah the car (leaf 24kWh) works great for the commute, but he has lost confidence in it for the long trips since getting stranded an out of service FCP that wasn't marked on the app. Another time he found himself cancelling his trip to NI because the charger on-route was OoS. He now regrets going electric and will be back to petrol when his PCP ends. Yeah you can blame that on the charger network, but the car and charger network go hand in hand and they are only as good as each other. None of these kind of issues were mentioned by the individual pushing the car so overselling of the EV is a real problem, only the positives like his fuel bill (which was small anyway). Whenever there is an issue its never the technology that has let the user down or has had a shortcoming exposed it is invariably the users fault - the attitude "you should have known better than to drive 100km in the rain with 75% starting out" or "why hadn't you a back-up charger planned for your route".

Whether EVs are greener in Ireland at the moment, with free charging and excise free fuel is hard to quantify since the incentive exists for the owner to use it as much as possible. As for them being a long term greener solution, that too remains to be seen. If EVs require less maintenance and after sales care then manufacturers will almost certainly push for the disposable car (they already do to a certain extent), reducing change cycles, increasing consumption well then no they won't be greener.

With the present fuel mix a 100% private car changeover will see a drop in overall national CO2 emissions of some 5-6%. It will see a reduction in tailpipe emissions to zero true, but the effect on non-tailpipe emissions is not fully understood. Presenting the EV as the solution to emissions issues is incorrect because simply private car transport is not a big enough problem in pollution terms to hit our targets. If we really want to avoid fines then we need to stop thinking about the EV as the easy answer and start looking at households, agriculture and industry but we won't because it will hit economic growth. Using the EV as the solution then we are only setting ourselves up for failure.

KCross

I appreciate your response. A good insight into your mind, without the hyperbole!

oppenheimer1 wrote: »

No, EV's are not the devils incarnate - far from it. They are a solution, albeit only a partial one to the environmental challenges we all face. I am not in the slightest against EVs, and recommend them where I think they are suitable (as you note). I suppose my "blood soaked cobalt" remark intended to draw a response in the same way that diesel being described as dirty is - hyperbole maybe, but has a nugget of truth too.

Yes, they are only a partial solution but an important part. If a large part of the fleet switched to EV tomorrow we would probably still miss our EU emissions targets so I agree with you there but I dont think we should underplay the benefit of the zero exhaust emissions regardless of EU targets. Driving behind a lot of diesel cars you can see and smell whats there and knowing what we know now about dieselgate I think its clear that a large portion of the diesel fleet is much worse than manufacturers figures.

oppenheimer1 wrote: »

The same is true too of the research I linked. In a forum like this the prevailing attitude can sweep over limitations and hand wave real issues away. Non-exhaust PM is a real issue, though will it be any worse from EVs? I can concede that remains to be seen. Mention issues with the grid - smart metering and other untested solutions are thrown out and the problem is simply hand waved away. Taxation - ditto.

Personally I dont see the hand waving you refer to. I think most folks on here are well aware of the limitations of EV's, the charge network, the fossil fuel grid etc. I dont see any denials of that but when you get misinformed statements like the following you have to expect a robust response:

CruelCoin wrote: »

Maybe they've realised that it's not actually cleaner?

That big battery bank got manufactured with appalling environmental impacts somewhere the other side of the world, and the power it actually uses primarily comes from oil and peat powered stations.

Whether the fumes come out of the exhaust or a smoke stack, you're still polluting.

To be fair, I dont think the responses are hand waving. I haven't seen anyone on here claim that EV's are pollution free just that they are much cleaner than ICE. Quantifying the "much" is the issue.

The student generated PM analysis you quoted was poor though. It has serious credibility issues and when you quote it as fact it gives you credibility issues, imo.

oppenheimer1 wrote: »

I'm no gatekeeper (or troll), but like to see myself as a realist. Last year a friend of the family was convinced by another friend that an EV would be suitable for him. And on the face of it, if you described his mileage he would have got the same answer here: a round trip commute of 60km with the occasional trip up to NI. Yeah the car (leaf 24kWh) works great for the commute, but he has lost confidence in it for the long trips since getting stranded an out of service FCP that wasn't marked on the app. Another time he found himself cancelling his trip to NI because the charger on-route was OoS. He now regrets going electric and will be back to petrol when his PCP ends. Yeah you can blame that on the charger network, but the car and charger network go hand in hand and they are only as good as each other. None of these kind of issues were mentioned by the individual pushing the car so overselling of the EV is a real problem, only the positives like his fuel bill (which was small anyway). Whenever there is an issue its never the technology that has let the user down or has had a shortcoming exposed it is invariably the users fault - the attitude "you should have known better than to drive 100km in the rain with 75% starting out" or "why hadn't you a back-up charger planned for your route".

Sure. Everyone won't have a success story to tell. Hopefully when his PCP is up he may take a second look at whats available then and it might do his NI trip without being dependent on the infrastructure which, again, most of us admit is not the world class network eCars would lead us to believe. Each FCP location having only one charger is a big issue and can ruin your day, if its down.

oppenheimer1 wrote: »

Whether EVs are greener in Ireland at the moment, with free charging and excise free fuel is hard to quantify since the incentive exists for the owner to use it as much as possible. As for them being a long term greener solution, that too remains to be seen. If EVs require less maintenance and after sales care then manufacturers will almost certainly push for the disposable car (they already do to a certain extent), reducing change cycles, increasing consumption well then no they won't be greener.

Hmm... you're on the fence a bit there. "Its hard to quantify" but you then predict manufacturers making disposable cars and setting that up as a reason for them not being greener. You dont know that that will happen and they haven't gone in that direction so far and if they deliver less than reliable cars you can be sure the market will react pretty quick to that. Im sure Tesla are doing everything they can to make a reliable car as they simply can't afford Model 3's coming back in their thousands.

I'm disappointed you can't bring yourself to say that EV's are greener. I can't see, under any reasonable analysis that I've read/done how an ICE can beat an EV on that score. ICE is simply not sustainable by the nature of the fuel (well-->wheel and the fact its finite) and the hoodwinking the manufacturers did on the emissions. EV's will only get greener, not dirtier.

At least our grid has publicly available figures in a regulated market where emissions controls can be better monitored, upgraded, tested etc. Every ICE out there can do what it likes and its clear now that they dont match the spec sheets (which you put a lot of faith in!)

oppenheimer1 wrote: »

With the present fuel mix a 100% private car changeover will see a drop in overall national CO2 emissions of some 5-6%. It will see a reduction in tailpipe emissions to zero true, but the effect on non-tailpipe emissions is not fully understood. Presenting the EV as the solution to emissions issues is incorrect because simply private car transport is not a big enough problem in pollution terms to hit our targets. If we really want to avoid fines then we need to stop thinking about the EV as the easy answer and start looking at households, agriculture and industry but we won't because it will hit economic growth. Using the EV as the solution then we are only setting ourselves up for failure.

I agree with the sentiment of all of that (not sure about the 5-6% figure though). EV's are only part of the solution but we should continue to encourage them.

From the government consultations I've read they are not focussing just on EV's. They are looking at all the areas you mention but bear in mind this is an EV forum so of course we will focus on that whatever overall % it gives.



I will consider the whole EV revolution completed when you come on here saying you have bought one!

Orebro

Interesting to see Fully Charged channel taking apart that paper quoted by oppenheimer, just yesterday: link

I wouldn't be too happy about this if I was in Edinburgh University.

ELM327

Yes I've just finished watching the episode aswell.
My first thought: This thread!

Orebro

Whats really disappointing is that you, oppenheimer, even after that long opinion post above, don't seem to have it in you to be humble enough to admit that the paper you quoted has been discredited and the University caught up in it wanted to be disassociated. You will continue to be argumentative on it and I'm not sure why, but it makes it very difficult to take you seriously. You complain about being bullied or rounded on but that is one glaring example of why you think that.

A lot of people don't care though, they will believe what they read especially if they have any negative opinion about electrics to start with.

Lets face it, most people are not going to change to EV until 300 Km range and faster charging and when there are equal amount of vehicles to choose like ICE. And that in my opinion of course, won't be for at the very least another 10-15 years, unless there is some dramatic change in policy in the mean time but that won't happen because there are simply not enough electric cars to choose , and for those with no home charging far too few public points.

All future DC points need to be 100+ Kw.

BoatMad

No, EV's are not the devils incarnate - far from it. They are a solution, albeit only a partial one to the environmental challenges we all face

Agreed, but especially in Irelands context , where the majority of pollution is agricultural and not easily reduced, Transport is a major player in such a reduction and the solution is on the horizon, We have to start somewhere

The car industry has largely decided that BEVs are the solution

The same is true too of the research I linked. In a forum like this the prevailing attitude can sweep over limitations and hand wave real issues away. Non-exhaust PM is a real issue, though will it be any worse from EVs? I can concede that remains to be seen. Mention issues with the grid - smart metering and other untested solutions are thrown out and the problem is simply hand waved away. Taxation - ditto.

Nothing is being hand waved away

Your Research - comphrensivoely debunked
non exhaust PM - yes its an issue , but its a feature of road ( and rail transport ) and not easily solved , in the context of this debate therefore is a red herring

Grid, ESB reports no significant issue in the medium term , all grids will need to be configured to support greater EV density , but again ESB sees no fundamental issue ( see pilot project report )

Smart metering may or may not play a part and your speculation on both taxation policy and differential electricity pricing is pure speculation . The Dept of finance has an internal study on hydrocarbon taxes and it has evaluated strategies on how that would be replaced .
However there is no evident that they may easily seek to transfer such duties onto electricity ( and their are EU rules here that would render this difficult )

future speculation ( by you and others , & me) is just that , speculation . good debate , but not in any way to be mistaken for a discussion about policy etc

I'm no gatekeeper (or troll), but like to see myself as a realist. Last year a friend of the family was convinced by another friend that an EV would be suitable for him. And on the face of it, if you described his mileage he would have got the same answer here: a round trip commute of 60km with the occasional trip up to NI. Yeah the car (leaf 24kWh) works great for the commute, but he has lost confidence in it for the long trips since getting stranded an out of service FCP that wasn't marked on the app. Another time he found himself cancelling his trip to NI because the charger on-route was OoS. He now regrets going electric and will be back to petrol when his PCP ends. Yeah you can blame that on the charger network, but the car and charger network go hand in hand and they are only as good as each other. None of these kind of issues were mentioned by the individual pushing the car so overselling of the EV is a real problem, only the positives like his fuel bill (which was small anyway). Whenever there is an issue its never the technology that has let the user down or has had a shortcoming exposed it is invariably the users fault - the attitude "you should have known better than to drive 100km in the rain with 75% starting out" or "why hadn't you a back-up charger planned for your route".

There will always be situations where this is the case and individuals that made early adoption decisions have come to realise that it didst suit them

EVs are not oversold, in fact if anything they are undersold , certainly by dealers

as a counter to your piece , i have 70,000km after 18 months on my EV and Ill certainly be buying a new one ( and its used for all long journeys )

Whether EVs are greener in Ireland at the moment, with free charging and excise free fuel is hard to quantify since the incentive exists for the owner to use it as much as possible. As for them being a long term greener solution, that too remains to be seen. If EVs require less maintenance and after sales care then manufacturers will almost certainly push for the disposable car (they already do to a certain extent), reducing change cycles, increasing consumption well then no they won't be greener.

we really need to seperate the issues, in Ireland the issue is pollution from NOX in urban centre's and greenhouse gases emissions from transport in general . The issue is not manufacturing pollution , which is a different debate

its not about moving to a fully green solution instantly, its about solving specific green issues initially

With the present fuel mix a 100% private car changeover will see a drop in overall national CO2 emissions of some 5-6%. It will see a reduction in tailpipe emissions to zero true, but the effect on non-tailpipe emissions is not fully understood. Presenting the EV as the solution to emissions issues is incorrect because simply private car transport is not a big enough problem in pollution terms to hit our targets. If we really want to avoid fines then we need to stop thinking about the EV as the easy answer and start looking at households, agriculture and industry but we won't because it will hit economic growth. Using the EV as the solution then we are only setting ourselves up for failure.

while I dispute your figures, I agree with you , but merely because the transport solution may be a smaller part of a larger solution, doesnt invalidate the current trend to remove ICE from transport

billy few mates

Irelands not ready for these things yet, there's no incentive to persuade people to move to EVs and a lack of infrastructure to support those who do.

I'm looking at buying a new (or newish) car and after a lot of reading I thought now might be the time to try and go at least partly EV.
I looked at the Hybrid Golf GTE and I liked it but I don't think they're worth the money, the way battery technology is going I think they could be obsolete in a couple of years and impossible to sell on.

I also did a lot of research into what grants and supports are available to persuade me to make the move only to find that like most things we do here in this country, they couldn't have made it more half arsed or disjointed if they tried.
You have to speak to the SEAI, the garage and the ESB and even the Revenue to find out what's available, and when I did this I found their information contradictory and confusing. I thought about buying a demo model, the garage told me the ESB would supply a free home charger, the SEAI told me they wouldn't, the ESB didn't know whether or not it would qualify.
The person I spoke to in the SEAI, tried extremely hard to be helpful but ultimately didn't seem to have a clue. She tried to tell me about a VRT 'grant' I was entitled to but couldn't explain what it was and suggested I would have to talk to Revenue, I contacted Revenue and they also hadn't a clue what she was on about and sent me more links to the myriad of 'helpful' websites that supposedly explain everything. I recently received a response to an email query I'd sent to SEAI with some questions three weeks earlier, needless to say they didn't really answer my questions and so after a five or six weeks of going around in circles I've pretty much decided I'm not going to bother this time around.
I'll leave it for another few years and see what happens with technology and infrastructure in the meantime, until then I'll stick with petrol and diesel.

Orebro

All the info is online and it's pretty straight forward - no need to go phoning all these places to find out.