2023 Irish EV Sales

the_amazing_raisin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120449122#Comment_120449122

My experience of car salespeople is they'd usually struggle to figure out the number of wheels on a car, let alone know any details about them

I've encountered some who were fairly decent and some twits, seems to vary around by brand a bit

the_amazing_raisin

I was coming up to a T junction earlier in my ID.4, another one comes the other way and a third one came out of the side road, couldn't have done that better if we'd organised it 🤣

This is on top of the 5 others I saw today, all in the one section of North Dublin

Those poor workers in Zwickau must not be getting any sleep 🤔

EDIT: Also saw a Polestar 2, lovely looking car. I would have wandered over for a closer look but I'm not sure the owner would appreciate me drooling all over the car 😁

brownej

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120451132#Comment_120451132

Wow, 7 years financing on a car. Thats crazy.

cannco253

Donedeal story in Irish Ties today

“Electric vehicle registrations

The share of new EV registrations continues to grow with 9,303 in Ireland, representing an almost 50 per cent increase compared to the same period last year.

EVs and hybrid cars now account for 44.6 per cent of new cars registered in Ireland. This compares to just 18 per cent in 2020 and 6.2 per cent in 2018.

The boost in EV registrations in the past three years is now starting to trickle into the used car market with the first quarter marked by “a big boost in the stock of used EVs listed” with about 1,500 adverts on the platform, almost triple the number of listings compared to any three month period in 2022.”

n.d.os

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120452656#Comment_120452656

ID4 and Polestar owner here. Both great cars. The Polestar gets a lot of looks. I really like the look of the Model Y. I find myself staring at them a lot. It's something I would consider as an ID4 replacement in the future.

I pulled into an Ionity in my Polestar the other day and two other Polestars followed me in. Rare occurrence as this was in the South East.

n.d.os

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120452645#Comment_120452645

I remember telling an Audi salesman that the A1 was being discontinued. He patronised me for about 10 minutes telling me I was wrong. Low and behold...

the_amazing_raisin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120468218#Comment_120468218

I'm not surprised, this is a company which thinks it makes sense to have the odd numbered models as combustion and even numbered ones electric

Something which only Audi fans will bother to know before looking one up

They're also keeping the E-tron in the names of the EVs for the uninitiated 🤦‍♂️

n.d.os

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120468272#Comment_120468272

I am no longer a fan. Poor after sales and their EVs are too expensive for what you get.

liamog

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120468272#Comment_120468272

As naming systems go it does make a lot of sense. Letter to indicate style, number to indicate size, odds/even to split power train. You immediately have an idea what an Audi A2 would be if you've any familiarity with the brand. If your not the kind of person who pays attention to them then you wouldn't care and be shopping for an A2 based on review anyway.

the_amazing_raisin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120468006#Comment_120468006

Should be good news for buyers, although still waiting to see evidence of lower prices for EVs and in general used car prices are up on last year

innrain

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120468006#Comment_120468006

EVs and hybrid cars now account for 44.6 ...

A useless category. Better said petrol cars are at about 50% for the last 5 years while diesel dropped from 50% to 25%, the space being taken by plug-in cars.

n.d.os

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120468457#Comment_120468457

Where is hydrogen on that graph? I thought it was the future of the automobile according to my YouTube sources in the comments.

josip

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120468006#Comment_120468006

If new EV sales continued to increase 50% yoy, then in 5 years time nearly all new cars sold would be EV.

Unlikely to happen and we should expect that 50% to taper off, but the trajectory is good.

As long as the oil companies aren't allowed fool the gullible with "self charging petrol cars".

sh81722

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120468478#Comment_120468478

Next year, they definitely will be on sale in numbers next year and are the future. Just need to figure out the production of green hydrogen, storage for it, tankers for transport, and then build a network of filling stations from scratch and then subsidise the fuel by 80% for the price to be competitive with EVs.

liamog

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120468758#Comment_120468758

Pretty standard s-curve of adoption

josip

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120468809#Comment_120468809

With only c.3% of the car fleet being BEV, then we're only starting to tap into the early adopters?

https://www.bonkers.ie/blog/personal-finance/is-ireland-ready-to-make-the-switch-to-electric-vehicles/

innrain

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120468478#Comment_120468478

There is a new kid on the block. e-fuel - the new horse the oil companies bet on. Hydrogen can be counted in the same category although the main selling point of the synthetic fuels is net zero.

net zero, along with self-charging are just made up, to confuse people, especially UoFB graduates, where the second law of thermodynamics is forbidden

liamog

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120468853#Comment_120468853

I don't think there's value in applying the s-curve to the whole fleet as cars have a 15-20 year lifecycle. It's more useful to think of it in terms of new purchases.

the_amazing_raisin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120468897#Comment_120468897

Couldn't have said it better myself, you'd think any basic economist would see that e-fuels are never going to be cost competitive with anything

PaulRyan97

Just pointing out too that since SIMI doesn't offer a MHEV Petrol/Diesel classification, they instead get registered as Petrol/Hybrid or Diesel/Hybrid.

Red Silurian

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120468897#Comment_120468897

Top Gear did a piece on Efuels recently. Apparently they work by using carbon that's already in the atmosphere and mixing it with something that doesn't emmit carbon when burned, releasing just the carbon that is already there so as long as the process is powered by clean fuel it's carbon neutral.

The positives were

• Can operate in a standard petrol engine
• Possibility to be carbon neutral - as above

The downsides were

• Not as efficient as petrol
• £10/liter

I wouldn't be interested personally if this is true

the_amazing_raisin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120469877#Comment_120469877

Lot of ifs there which probably won't happen, remember it isn't economically viable to produce green hydrogen, can't see "green" e-fuels working out

Apparently the vehicles have to be able to detect non green e-fuels and refuse to work, gonna be great to see the software hack that bypasses that system

I saw some article projecting the cheapest they could get to was €3.20/l. I think that was in Germany which generally has slightly cheaper fuel prices than here

They're really only going to be useful for performance cars, probably why Porsche and Ferrari were so keen on them

That's fine as far as I'm concerned, don't think all the supercars in the world would cause as much environmental impact as the annual diesel sales in one year

ted1

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120469877#Comment_120469877

The downside is that the production of e fuels use agricultural land and that converting the land from producing crops from supplying the food chain to fuel which increases the price of basic food and more

MightyMunster

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120471134#Comment_120471134

Sounds a bit like the UK plan for clean aviation fuel, just need half their farmland (which already isn't sufficient to feed their population) to supply it.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/feb/28/scientists-uk-aviation-net-zero-ambitions-half-farmland-double-renewable-electricity

the_amazing_raisin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120471134#Comment_120471134

One time a while back I was looking into what it would take to go fully off grid

I worked out that there was 1,200kWh which I couldn't meet by solar so I wondered if I could use a generator powered by biofuel

That would take roughly 600 litres of fuel which I'd have to produce from plant oil

Luckily there's some handy online resources around DIY Biofuel production like below

https://journeytoforever.org/biodiesel_yield.html

So I'd need something like 0.5ha if using rapeseed oil (1190l/ha). That's 1.2 acres in imperialism units

Renting land seems insanely variable, could be anything between €20 and €200 per year 🤷‍♂️

Then I need to invest in some equipment to make the dirt into crops and then crops into oil and then oil into fuel. Because I'm aiming for carbon neutral biofuel, I'll need to invest in some solar panels and batteries to power this equipment. I guess I could use biofuel to do this, but then I need more land. On the plus side I've got some handy space to install ground mounted solar

I'll also need to invest in some carbon offsets to account for the carbon release from tillage, so yet more land to plant some trees

Not sure I'll be able to beat €1.50/l at this rate 😂

Also I'm supposed to pay excise duty on the fuel I produce, so any idea of cheap fuel pretty much flies out the window

Okay, fair enough an actual professional farmer could probably achieve better economies of scale than a jackeen playing at farming 😅

But let's take the case of a regular diesel car. Assuming 5l/100km and annual mileage of 12,000km you'd again need 600 litres (that worked out nicely 😁)

The ~15,000 diesel cars sold so far this year would add 7,500ha of biofuels production land. That's only 0.2% if Ireland's useable agricultural land, but remember that's only for 3 months of one year. After 20 years you'd have used up 16% of Ireland

Oh, and that's not bothering to count in all the commercial vehicles, boats, aircraft and construction vehicles which would also be looking for biofuels and all have much higher consumption, pretty soon our entire island would be given over to producing biofuel crops

So yeah, not really seeing them as a winner

tesla_newbie

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120468201#Comment_120468201

I think the Polestar is effortlessly cool and no doubt more luxurious inside than the Tesla model Y but it was a little pricey for me once Tesla dropped their prices

liamog

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120471134#Comment_120471134

Isn't that bio-fuels. E-fuels use electricity to capture CO2 from the atmosphere and combine with H20 to build the fuel. Their are many issues with e-fuels but they at least "solve" the land use problem of renewable biofuels.

innrain

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120471749#Comment_120471749

What is the surface of solar needed to get you the 1.2 MWh?

The idea of synthetic fuels is not new. Gasification was a process invented around 1840. Before natural gas was introduced some cities distributed this woodgas, centrally produced. More here. A more modern approach is the syngas which again not new. Basically humans want to do in minutes what nature does in millions of years. That costs energy and the instant release of by-producs can harm the environment. It bugs me that they name this synthetic fuels e-fuels as it is clear meant to fool people.

quokula

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120469877#Comment_120469877

There are plans to use it in Formula 1. I could see it being produced in low volumes for sports cars, classics and the like in the future, but it's not going to be viable for the mass market. It will serve its purpose for the fossil fuel companies in the meantime to spread uncertainty and doubt and convince people to delay jumping to electric, now that it's getting harder to keep perpetuating the myth that hydrogen is just around the corner.

n.d.os

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120472097#Comment_120472097

I like the look of the Model Y. Strangely I'm not drawn to any other Tesla models. I think it's the overall scale of the car. It has a lot of road presence. Are they reliable? What are the pros and cons with Tesla?