SEAI Fuel Cost Comparison posters at petrol stations

drunkmonkey

All eyes on Maxol in Kilgarvin, can't wait to see how the Healy-Rae's react to this one.

It's completely misleading price wise, it should show the price comparison if the garage also sells Electricity. Any place not selling electricity shouldn't be included in the mandate.

I've a phev with one of the cheapest 24hr rates on the market and 100km costs €9.72. That same 100km would cost €28.44 charging at Circle K.

The government's focus should be on reducing energy prices not nonsense like this.

ted1

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121908312#Comment_121908312

the funny part is that it’s 55mpg on motorways but far less on school runs etc

Buddy Bubs

My local pub has food and drink prices displayed, should they have the price of making that dinner at home and going to the off licence displayed too?

As I said, I'm full EV no intention of going back but I think this is just bonkers

mackerski

If they are going to require this (and I acknowledge all the comments about how subjective the numbers are), forecourts that have their own electric charging should be required to show an additional data field showing the cost based on their own forecourt electricity price. Practically all petrol station own-branded chargers seem to be a rip off.

Capt'n Midnight

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121908577#Comment_121908577

It's very wrong.

If the station or parent company has EV charging then that's the price that should be displayed.

Might be better to display the km needing to be travelled to break even when investing in an EV.

timmyntc

Could ASAI get involved given that the proposed claims are inaccurate/unclear? (Price of forecourt charging differs hugely to 90:10 at home mix)

drunkmonkey

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121909737#Comment_121909737

That's exactly what I see happening, any station with a poster like that displayed and EV chargers onsite is engaging in false advertising.

prawnsambo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121909826#Comment_121909826

Except it's not advertising is it? No specific product is being advertised. It's informational.

drunkmonkey

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121909843#Comment_121909843

Maybe not advertising standards but it would fall under the consumer protection act. It's deliberately misleading as you can't achieve that milage for that price from the station selling electricity with a poster saying you can.

crl84

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121909737#Comment_121909737

How are they inaccurate?

monseiur

Yet another bright idea from cloud cuckoo land, I would hazard a guess that Eamon Ryan & co. was behind it. He is such a genius - how will we survive at all at all when he and his party are obliterated next election😁 Unfortunately a lot more irreparable damage will be done in the meantime.

crl84

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121909948#Comment_121909948

It's an EU regulation, it's literally in the links in the OP. I guess you were too preoccupied thinking about Big Bad Boogeyman Ryan to read.

ted1

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121909948#Comment_121909948

It’s surprising how much work Eamon seems to do. Especially when the people crediting him with the work also go on about him been asleep.

cannco253

https://www.independent.ie/business/irish/fuel-retailers-furious-over-new-price-comparison-poster/a1136519463.html

“Petrol stations are being given three options for how they display the Fuel Price Comparison. It can be an A3-sized poster displayed near the pumps, an A2-sized poster at the entrance or within the shop, or on a 19in screen which shows the information for a minimum of 20 seconds per minute.

Retailers are angry at the requirement, and met the SEAI last Tuesday to make their displeasure known.

The Convenience Stores and Newsagents Association (CSNA), a representative body, said that apart from the added costs, it was unfair to make retailers tell their customers that a rival product was better value.”

MrMusician18

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121910942#Comment_121910942

The article there outlines the real reason for the objections - it highlights the reality that fuelling an EV in the way that most EV drivers do costs substantially less than fuelling a diesel or petrol car in the way that drivers of those cars normally do.

This location has been chosen because it is the point of economic pain for drivers. Seeing that an EV can be fuelled for typically 64% less than diesel might catch a few eyes after putting €130 in the tank. The obvious fear here for retailers is that this will cost them customers - which is obviously the intended goal.

The problem is though that those customers are going to go anyway as it is currently and will remain the policy to electrify the national fleet.

Yes it's unfair that forecourts will have to host this information, but it's not unheard of for products that government desire the population to stop using carry discouraging messages on their packaging and at point of sale.

The EV has been losing the media war of late and I can see a measure like this backfiring. It will get a certain cohorts backs up aided and abetted by media.

MojoMaker

But look at all the new non-EV drivers this thread has brought over to the EV forum.

timmyntc

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121911487#Comment_121911487

This thread has actually done more to discourage than the (misleading) campaign would have, as it's been pointed out here several times that forecourt EV chargers cost more per 100km than petrol or diesel!

ColemanY2K

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121911909#Comment_121911909

it has also been pointed out very few EV drivers solely use forecourt (public chargers).

Seth Brundle

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121911909#Comment_121911909

Whatever you think but the notice going up in forecourts doesn't seem to match your claim and that is what people will be reading. The obvious intent is to change peoples mindset in relation to EVs - when they continually read that it would cost less to drive the same distance, they will be more likely to consider switching when the time comes.

ELM327

I've been driving EV since 2016, and I hate the nonsense being peddled by this sign. It should only be the cost of fast charging. EVs are a cheaper product, we don't need to lie. Lying in such ways only feeds into the people who are anti EV as they can actually disprove these signs.

Red Silurian

Figures for me aren't really adding up

€3.18/100km. A mix of public (10%) and home charging (90%).

It's previously been quoted by SEAI that a 7kW charger would add 100km in 2 hours (https://www.seai.ie/technologies/electric-vehicles/ev-charging/) so let's work off 14kWh/100km?

If 10% of this (1.4kWh) is on a public ecars tarrif of 68c/kWh that would cost about €0.95 on a public charger, and the remaining home charging of 12.6kWh would be done for €2.23 - or a home rate of 17.7c/kWh. Not many home rates below 30c/kWh at the moment as far as I am aware

I'm all for rubbing the cheaper prices in the faces of the petrol heads but can we at least get the figures right?

timmyntc

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121911928#Comment_121911928

Yes but those most likely to have already switched to EVs are those who home charging suits the most, hence why they switched.

The early adopters will have a far higher % of charging done at home than the general public, that's part of why they are early adopters.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121911935#Comment_121911935

I don't think you understood my post, please re-read.

The posters on forecourt as defined are misleading as they do not show like for like price comparisons (forecourt fuel Vs forecourt charging), whereas in this thread the actual figures have been related showing forecourt charging is currently more expensive than fuel.

My claim was visitors to this thread are far less likely to switch than people only seeing the posters, because the misinformation aspect has been debunked here

liamog

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121912034#Comment_121912034

Lots of plan's have night rate charging below 30c/kWh. My own electricity plan is 16.31c/kWh between 11pm and 8am.

They'll be basing figures on some kind of calculated average. Ideally the poster should have a link to what data was used for the figures.

Red Silurian

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121912054#Comment_121912054

Yeah but what % of the public have day/night/smart plans? The vast vast majority are on 24hr plans

prawnsambo

My home night rate on a smart meter averages out to pretty much 17.0c/kw for the 9 hours it lasts for (23:00-08:00). This is with Electric Ireland. Not the cheapest night rate around, but not the most expensive either.

liamog

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121912059#Comment_121912059

It's a policy decision to encourage overnight EV charging to equalise grid demand. Pricing should reflect the recommend practice not the "I can't be bothered to save money" worst case scenario. It would be like the petrol cost only including petrol from expensive motorway service stations.

KildareP

I think this could backfire badly on them on the years ahead. It's a bait-and-switch at the heart of it at all.

Currently, more than 50% of the "cost" of a litre of petrol or diesel destined for road use is tax and excise (https://www.theaa.ie/motoring-advice/fuel-prices/).

That same 50%+ does not (currently) apply to EV motoring. Aside from motor tax, the other half's PHEV which runs almost exclusively in EV mode (charger at home, charger at work) escapes all of the excise duty (and subsequent higher VAT) than my diesel for equivalent distance commute.

That's simply not a sustainable model to maintain going forward - at some point, the loss of revenue from declining fuel sales will have to be made up with an alternative method to catch EV motoring as well.

My guess is it'll be based on a KM/year calculation but it will have to be priced such that it maintains the same income levels as current fuel excise does. That's going to be a huge hit for an EV driver to be suddenly faced with that's between:

• €4.37/100KM for the diesel equivalent at 5L/100KM and 87.47c/L excise
• €6.67/100KM for the petrol equivalent at 7L/100KM and 95.31c/L excise

If the intention is to encourage more to move to EV, then based on the current pricing they're in for an inevitable sharp shock in years to come when motoring excise is realigned to include EV's going forward.

prawnsambo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121912097#Comment_121912097

Very good point. However I was surprised at the amount government take from fuel excise duties in a year. According to this, it was around €2 billion in 2021. Probably lower than usual that year due to Covid, but still a relatively small amount exchequer wise (Almost €100 billion that year).

witnessmenow

I'm not sure signs in a petrol station will have a huge impact as I think people are fairy desensitised to a sign like this. There is a bit too much nuance in the figures to figure the real story behind how this is achieved with a glance at a sign

Personally I feel like the opposite of the hit piece style reviews like the fella from Belfast last week would give a better chance to explain the actual differences and the reality of the savings. Just real world actual cost and usage stats displayed for people to look at

We got an EV around a month ago. We bought a second hand EV after my ICE car kicked the bucket (it had 300k miles on it it, didn't owe me a penny!)

For us the savings on "fuel" are huge, roughly €150 on diesel (~2 tanks of a Astra estate) a month down to €15 a month on electricity. Nice big number, but there are some caveats around this saving.

• We have a drive way so we can charge at home. We literally do not plan to use public charging at all in our regular usage of the EV.
• We have a second car that's an ICE so we can use that on longer journeys if required. Our EV, which is relatively short range, would start to get unsuitable for people who need to make regular 200KM journeys (thats worst case on motorways etc). It works fine for us for 99% of our driving.
• We moved to an EV rate for our electricity, 7c/kW for 3 hours and this covers all our driving. We previously used to have a 24h plan, (we used to change every 12 months and when we changed last year we obviously did it at a bad time cause we were on a 38c/kW plan, the day rate of the new plan is 30c/wW, even the peak is only 39c/kW).
• Without the EV, we could have potentially moved to a cheaper plan, but from what I've calculated, the difference would be about €25 a month at most, but you could add that to our "fuel" bill.
• Installing the charger cost €1350 after the grant, thats basically the first years worth of fuel saving gone on that.

People are definitely going to mention depreciation too, that's much harder to calculate cause it relies on what something will be worth in the future, and I don't have a clue. But I paid €17.5k for a 2 year old car that version of that is 7/ years old goes for €10/11k for at the moment (what it actually goes for), it doesn't look too bad, especially when you factor in €1000+ a year on fuel saving and €100 a year on tax. The car has a battery warranty of 8 years, so at least in this time scale im quoting above, there should not be any battery costs

I would have loved to have seen a break down like the above before we made the switch, Im sure plenty of people have given them here, but because I wasn't looking for an EV I never had a reason to be here!

zg3409

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121912034#Comment_121912034

There is a link to SEAI calculations on their website. I had a look through other day at the numbers. I have not checked your numbers.