New PHEV advice

Genius2013

Hi all - looking to change my car very shortly and thinking of buying a PHEV.

I'm not doing much driving (prob 10k km a year) and will have free charging in work. My commute is only about 20km each way. Would you recommend a PHEV or should I stick with ICE?

Also I have a budget of about €35k (including trade in value for my own car), what would people recommend for a car/SUV no more than 3 years old?

Thanks in advance

Buddy Bubs

A PHEV will be a little more expensive than a straight petrol or hybrid like for like, but sounds like you'll have free fuel in work, just know you'll have to plug in every day and charge fully. Just make sure you have this amount of access as you will be using charger quite a lot to keep it from using petrol..

For 35k you're not looking at the most recent PHEV releases giving real world 80kms but the previous generation in the 40 to 50km EV range which should just about do your commute.

2 cars to look at to get started are Skoda Octavia and BMW 330e

2 SUVs Kia Sportage and Hyundai Tucson, see how you feel about the SUV body instead of saloon/hatch/estate

Theres plenty of others too from other brands they're just ones that come to mind and in budget for the years you want.

PHEV becoming very popular recently

NIMAN

Id recommend full electric.

User1998

Just go full electric tbh. You could even buy a brand new car with that budget if you wanted

waxmelts2000

I bought a PHEV Kia Niro as my first step in the EV world however I sold it 10 months later and went full EV , very happy with my decision_ Kia Niro again! Best of luck

thenuisance

I looked at EV's pretty extensively and came to the conclusion that I would prefer an EV to a PHEV. One of my main reasons for choosing any kind of EV was the maintenance burden - too many moving parts in an ICE vehicle and the PHEV still leaves you with that. I also didn't want a big SUV style vehicle. PHEVs tend to be at the larger end - smaller ones have less boot space than pure EVs.

One thing that I did learn was that tyre prices for EVs and PHEVs are shocking - even compared to ICE SUVs. They also wear out more quickly - it's all just a function of vehicle weight.

I agree with your decision to look at nothing older than 3 years. The technology is still moving forward but I think more slowly. I have never bought a new car and will quite happily buy a 10 year old ICE.

For the moment I've decided to stick with a small second hand ICE as most suited to my needs - the main driver on this was the lack of a charging solution for a terraced house with no garden. I would go pure EV if I could solve that issue. Best of luck with your search.

AMKC

@OP. You could have a brand new electric MG for that money. The MG S5 EV only recently came out,

https://www.mg.ie/mgs5-ev/

Very nice inside and outside and lots of equipment and tech as well as a good range.

Pat734

Fully ev and phev are becoming the car of choice now, it will become even more so and I'd strongly advise you to purchase a full ev.

ablelocks

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123859121#Comment_123859121

that looks like a lot of car for the money, even the base spec

AMKC

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123859382#Comment_123859382

Yes It is. A nice red and blue in the colours too.

Genius2013

Thanks all - the reason I was leaning towards PHEV rather than full electric is every 2nd weekend or so I tend to visit family that is a 500km round trip and theres no charging facilities at either home. Wasnt of a mind to have to wait 30-40 minutes for a car charge somewhere on that trip

pjdarcy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123860574#Comment_123860574

Fair enough. I don't drive a PHEV myself but a mate of mine drives a KIA Niro PHEV and loves it.

It'll be worth installing a home charger OP. With the right electricity plan, you can charge your car between 2am and 4 am for about a third of the price of daytime electricity and two hours should be plenty of time to charge a PHEV battery.

Boardnashea

Absolutely, it's time for a BEV. A few hours on a granny cable, or a quick stop somewhere on route will be more than enough to cover your 500k weekend trip.

V low maintenance and all the other benefits.

KCross

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058425649/new-phev-advice

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123860574#Comment_123860574

Also I have a budget of about €35k (including trade in value for my own car)

that is a 500km round trip and theres no charging facilities at either home. Wasnt of a mind to have to wait 30-40 minutes for a car charge somewhere on that trip

Just as a data point for you…. you could nearly buy a new car that could do that 500km trip with nothing more than about 10-15mins charge stop depending on the route… is it a motorway route?

e.g. a shiny new VW ID.3 GTX or Tesla Model 3 are ~€38k and will do that trip.

If you are staying overnight at the family and could get access to a 3-pin socket you could charge that way and not have any stops at all.

If you cant stretch to €38k then look for a demo model or secondhand.

Buddy Bubs

Any 500km trip in Ireland involves motorway i would imagine where fast chargers are plentiful. As above you are really only talking about a very short stop just to get you home.

I have had my EV in westport,castlebar,Limerick,Cork,antrim and I live in Dublin and have never stopped for even 30 mins.

That said if you dont want one a PHEV for all your day to day stuff is still a good option

MojoMaker

One thing that I did learn was that tyre prices for EVs and PHEVs are shocking - even compared to ICE SUVs. They also wear out more quickly - it's all just a function of vehicle weight

I'm sorry, what???

User1998

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123861202#Comment_123861202

Nonsense really.. I've seen loads of Tesla owners getting 60km+ from a set of tyres. And there's absolutely no need to buy EV specific tyres either.

Just don't expect a near 3 ton SUV to be good on tyres or cheap to replace them, regardless of fuel type

ELM327

I got over 90k km on my first leaf out of a set of tires.

Teslas are fat heavy cars and burn through tires, but so do ICE equivalents of similar segments. They arent ford focuseseses

MojoMaker

Changed mine out at 45k kms, a little early if anything - at 3mm all round.

That's far from burning through tyres, if anything it's quite parsimonious I'm thinking?

Hearing that M3 owners are doing even better than that.

cgorzy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123860604#Comment_123860604

If OP has free charging at work it will take a long time to make the savings to pay for a home charger. Handy to have of course. Also the amount of electricity coming from home charging is unlikely to have much influence when picking the best electricity plan for their overall usage, EV plan may be best for them but if it is it probably is already.

If saving on fuel cost is the goal a big battery EV would bring good fuel savings for this use case if it could be charged at work day of/day before the 500km round trip. Drive 20km home, granny charge, go for the trip, do a quick stop for small amount of charge on way home, wouldn’t take much longer than a petrol stop and that and a few kW at home would be the total fuel cost of the trip. At 10k km a year the potential saving on fuel are small though, should cost under €1K with an efficient ICE, it might be less than the relative depreciation.

josip

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123860574#Comment_123860574

Can you granny charge (plug into a 3 pin socket) at either location? You'll get approx 10km per hour of range back.

10-10-20

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123858579#Comment_123858579

That's pure FUD/waffle! Kona EV owner here - I got 90k from my first set and 88k from my second set. The wear was perfectly even between front and rear too. The tyres are standard sized Nexans, paid ~450 for the set.

thenuisance

Thats definitely good to know - My info relating to this came from EV owners and EV forums. It was like a mantra - you will pay more for tyres. I do wonder on the FUD thing - I suspect that any new technology comes with a bunch of myths (the computer world was definitely the same) i.e. you need special tyres, the old ones won't work because this is new technology. It's a great opportunity to upsell to people who have already shown they are happy to shell out a premium to be up in the forefront of tech. My main source of advice bought an ID3 instead of an ID4 partly based on the tyre price. Tyres matter to him. He does most of his mileage down the country and most of his tyres are replaced because of damage (potholes) rather than wearing out. For me I'm either on the motorway or pottering about town - I've only replaced 2 tyres in the last 10 years or so because of damage. I was looking at the ID3 - tyre prices looked expensive - but then again I just Googled ID3 tyres Dublin - probably finding the tyre dimensions and pricing generic would give a different answer.

The point about even wear is a good one. Weight distribution is much more even in an EV - no big engine at one end. Power to the wheels is probably more even as well.

Buddy Bubs

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123867322#Comment_123867322

Just for balance I wore out 2 full sets of tyres on a cupra born in 40k kms, they were the Bridgestone that came with the car and the free set of replacements. They were terrible.

Didnt drive slowly but wasnt abusing the tyres either.

When it came time to buy my own set I got a different brand and they are still going strong with 60k kms on the car now and seem to be wearing much better. Should be getting 40k kms out of these by the looks of them so far.

NIMAN

I haven't noticed any extra wear on my tyres between my EV and my ICE cars over the years.

10-10-20

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123867322#Comment_123867322

Ok, apologies for the harsh wording in my response. 👍️

MojoMaker

In fairness, most of the FUD is coming from within the industry .

We had a chap on here with a BZ4X who was told on more than one occasion by his local Toyota dealer that his tyres were "recommended for changing"…..on one occasion after just 9k miles. Without challenging at all, he duly conceded, and then moaned on here how he had to buy new tyres every few months and cursing his choice of vehicle, and suddenly the EV was the problem.

Suspect there are quite a few drivers out there like this, and not just pipe & slippers ID4 drivers.

Cyrus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123860574#Comment_123860574

500km every second weekend would be 13,000 km per year, plus your 20 per day commute is another 5k have you under estimated your annual mileage ?

Cyrus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123861299#Comment_123861299

that said i got 37,000km out of a set on an audi etron (fat etron) probably could have gone more they were still legal.

User1998

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123867525#Comment_123867525

Thats pretty decent for a big SUV tho don't you think? I doubt a Q7 would fair much better

Cyrus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123867629#Comment_123867629

i thought so!