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'Free tolls' for electric vehicles?

[Deleted User]

What treachery is this?!

January 1: Electric car owners will not have to pay tolls

April 15: Toll charges to be halved for electric cars

So, from early summer, it'll be 50% off at peak times and 75% reduction off peak. Doesn't apply to Port Tunnel during peak hours.

Can't make sense of these two paragraphs - seem to be contradictory:

The second one is a bit ambiguous but presumably it's the basis of the opening sentence which says EV owners can save 'up to €1,000'.

The amounts involved are pretty small (to the exchequer, I mean) due to the small number of EVs on the road - and likely to be on the road for at least two or three years.

Why water it down and make it more complicated? 'Free tolls' was a great headline. 'Discounted tolls by different percentages depending on the time of the day' is just not as catchy. Feels like it was negotiated by a committee.

This is about sending a signal. Why bother diluting the message?

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Shefwedfan

ELM327 wrote: »

"Cheap" isn't enough of a push/pull in this one, we need "Free".

They can't do free....a electric car is still a car.....

The plan for the transport minister should be to try and get as many people off the roads and into public transport.

I think Shane Ross is a f**king idiot but I have to agree on this.

If he released as free then it would be capped at 500 euro. At reduced you are still capped at 500....it is the same discount and it is for the people that have to use the tolls each day....not the random punter that will start to use the toll roads because it is free.....

If free you will just drive up the usage of the M50, the one road which doesn't need any more cars on it....as Unkel says below he doesn't use M50 but if it was free he would use it.....sorry Unkel but really this is not what the discount should be for.

The discount is to try and remove diesel cars off the road and put electric ones on it instead, a swap....car for car.....not put more cars onto it because people are getting off public transport as they now have free fuel and free tolls......

It makes sense to me, but maybe only me

ELM327

Shefwedfan wrote: »

They can't do free....a electric car is still a car.....

The plan for the transport minister should be to try and get as many people off the roads and into public transport.

I think Shane Ross is a f**king idiot but I have to agree on this.

If he released as free then it would be capped at 500 euro. At reduced you are still capped at 500....it is the same discount and it is for the people that have to use the tolls each day....not the random punter that will start to use the toll roads because it is free.....

If free you will just drive up the usage of the M50, the one road which doesn't need any more cars on it....as Unkel says below he doesn't use M50 but if it was free he would use it.....sorry Unkel but really this is not what the discount should be for.

The discount is to try and remove diesel cars off the road and put electric ones on it instead, a swap....car for car.....not put more cars onto it because people are getting off public transport as they now have free fuel and free tolls......

It makes sense to me, but maybe only me

There's no public transport from rural meath to south dublin and back.
Nor from rural meath to the naas road and back.
Those are two journeys I make regularly. Public transport works fine for Arthur who needs to take a taxi from daddys house in south dublin to his friend in the posh part of tallaght. It doesn't work for the rest of Ireland. And it doesn't work well for those of dublin not going through An Lár in Dublin either.
Public transport is not the answer.

Free or discounted, they could still have put a limit on it. EG it's only free if you have the approved tag, just being an EV isnt enough.

Re Unkle (and the others like him)... the original design of the m50 was as an orbital route. You could argue that Unkles journey should ahve been on the m50 and not the backroads. The M50 is no longer fit for purpose/

Shefwedfan

Maybe to explain better, let get 3 examples

A. Joe has to commute to work in car as no bus route, uses M50 twice daily. Has old diesel car but looking to swap. Distance is 80km return. Spends €1000 per year on toll. Circa 1000 on fuel.
B. Pat also commutes, has optional bus/train but takes car. Doesn't use toll road due to cost
C. Helen takes the bus to work each day, doesn't like it but cost of fuel/tolls is too much

Toll incentive is only in place for A. Joe buys electric car and his TCO is helped by reducing his tolls by 500 euro along with the reduction in fuel costs.

B & C could potentially start to use toll roads if "free". So more cars on the road, that would be a disaster.

Shefwedfan

ELM327 wrote: »

There's no public transport from rural meath to south dublin and back.
Nor from rural meath to the naas road and back.
Those are two journeys I make regularly. Public transport works fine for Arthur who needs to take a taxi from daddys house in south dublin to his friend in the posh part of tallaght. It doesn't work for the rest of Ireland. And it doesn't work well for those of dublin not going through An Lár in Dublin either.
Public transport is not the answer.

Free or discounted, they could still have put a limit on it. EG it's only free if you have the approved tag, just being an EV isnt enough.

Re Unkle (and the others like him)... the original design of the m50 was as an orbital route. You could argue that Unkles journey should ahve been on the m50 and not the backroads. The M50 is no longer fit for purpose/

What do you classify as rural Meath out of interest?

Not trying to be smart but you are not the target for this incentive, you are a small minority and the government need large scale transition to electric cars.

The people living in Dublin and the surrounds areas(Blanchardstown, Finglas, Swords etc etc)

The M50 is fit for purpose.........if you could get some of the cars off it

ELM327

Shefwedfan wrote: »

Maybe to explain better, let get 3 examples

A. Joe has to commute to work in car as no bus route, uses M50 twice daily. Has old diesel car but looking to swap. Distance is 80km return. Spends €1000 per year on toll. Circa 1000 on fuel.
B. Pat also commutes, has optional bus/train but takes car. Doesn't use toll road due to cost
C. Helen takes the bus to work each day, doesn't like it but cost of fuel/tolls is too much

Toll incentive is only in place for A. Joe buys electric car and his TCO is helped by reducing his tolls by 500 euro along with the reduction in fuel costs.

B & C could potentially start to use toll roads if "free". So more cars on the road, that would be a disaster.

The question which is yet to be answered (I suppose - no is the answer) is is a 50% discount going to be enough for A to tip the balance. If free fuel hasn't worked, why would 50% off tolls work?

It may push B and C, but I would suggest that the number of people who have viable public transport options do not take them for other factors. People are willing to pay not to take public transport as it's overpriced, unreliable, and doesn't go where they are going.
A man over the age of 30 who has to take public transport is a failure. I don't normally agree with Thatcher but she wasn't wrong.

Shefwedfan

ELM327 wrote: »

There's no public transport from rural meath to south dublin and back.
Nor from rural meath to the naas road and back.
Those are two journeys I make regularly. Public transport works fine for Arthur who needs to take a taxi from daddys house in south dublin to his friend in the posh part of tallaght. It doesn't work for the rest of Ireland. And it doesn't work well for those of dublin not going through An Lár in Dublin either.
Public transport is not the answer.

Free or discounted, they could still have put a limit on it. EG it's only free if you have the approved tag, just being an EV isnt enough.

Re Unkle (and the others like him)... the original design of the m50 was as an orbital route. You could argue that Unkles journey should ahve been on the m50 and not the backroads. The M50 is no longer fit for purpose/

P.S. A taxi is not public transport. It is just another car

Also when did Tallaght get a posh part? news to me:p

ELM327

Shefwedfan wrote: »

What do you classify as rural Meath out of interest?

Not trying to be smart but you are not the target for this incentive, you are a small minority and the government need large scale transition to electric cars.

The people living in Dublin and the surrounds areas(Blanchardstown, Finglas, Swords etc etc)

The M50 is fit for purpose.........if you could get some of the cars off it

Rural meath is an area where there is no bus stop. Navan Town is well served by an unreliable NX service. Which takes 2-3 times as long as a car to get to dublin.

If I'm not the target for this incentive (daily toll road user) then who is?
My neighbour who has a fossil car, is he not a target if he does the same trip?

I know you're not trying to be smart. Anyone proposing an orbital toll road discount as an incentive for those living and working within the orbital toll has no risk of that.

ELM327

Shefwedfan wrote: »

P.S. A taxi is not public transport. It is just another car

Also when did Tallaght get a posh part? news to me:p

A taxi is public transport.
The key is in the name (PSV).

Tallaght doesn't have a posh part. But I have to associate with a lot of D4/D6 heads in my line of work (reek of doddy's money etc) and they come up with this tripe to justify visiting the world outside of dublin 6 west

Shefwedfan

ELM327 wrote: »

The question which is yet to be answered (I suppose - no is the answer) is is a 50% discount going to be enough for A to tip the balance. If free fuel hasn't worked, why would 50% off tolls work?

It may push B and C, but I would suggest that the number of people who have viable public transport options do not take them for other factors. People are willing to pay not to take public transport as it's overpriced, unreliable, and doesn't go where they are going.
A man over the age of 30 who has to take public transport is a failure. I don't normally agree with Thatcher but she wasn't wrong.

The free fuel is a joke to be honest. Nobody in their right mind would swap to an electric car based on that joke of a system.

The current "free" charging system is actually holding back the adoption of electric cars for the majority of people. Why would you buy a car and then sit at a public system with cars abondoned at it....not working....or someone who lives 2 mins up the road filling up car because it is "free"....

Should have been dumped years ago.....

ELM327

Shefwedfan wrote: »

The free fuel is a joke to be honest. Nobody in their right mind would swap to an electric car based on that joke of a system.

The current "free" charging system is actually holding back the adoption of electric cars for the majority of people. Why would you buy a car and then sit at a public system with cars abondoned at it....not working....or someone who lives 2 mins up the road filling up car because it is "free"....

Should have been dumped years ago.....

Sorry, to clarify, I mean the "nearly free" 6c/kWh not the public network

Shefwedfan

ELM327 wrote: »

Rural meath is an area where there is no bus stop. Navan Town is well served by an unreliable NX service. Which takes 2-3 times as long as a car to get to dublin.

If I'm not the target for this incentive (daily toll road user) then who is?
My neighbour who has a fossil car, is he not a target if he does the same trip?

I know you're not trying to be smart. Anyone proposing an orbital toll road discount as an incentive for those living and working within the orbital toll has no risk of that.

How many people in Dublin have a diesel car? I used to live in D15 and nearly every single car on my road was a diesel something. Some petrol smaller cars but mostly this was older people....

These drivers all lived and worked in the Greater Dublin area. So commute was less than 100km round trip. Majority did not seem to have any issue with buying new/newish cars on a regular basis.

A large proportion based on traffic coming out of area used the M50. So lets take it that D15 has 100,000 cars on the road at the moment. Average based on Ireland will be circa 80,000 of those will be diesel.

If the government got 50% of those cars to swap over that is 40,000 electric cars on the road. Now replicate that across the other areas in Dublin......

That is the target for this inventive in my opinion. I could be wrong but that would make sense to me.

portsky

I agree it will not be enough to entice people to move to EVs unless there are more punitive measures put in place for ICEs. It's definitely a step in the right direction.
Already though, its looking like many other government measures - announce a timeframe for implementation and then be late.

unkel

ELM327 wrote: »

the original design of the m50 was as an orbital route. You could argue that Unkles journey should ahve been on the m50 and not the backroads.

Exactly. That is why all the other orbital routes around all the other capitals in Europe are toll free. Even in Paris, where almost every other motorway is heavily tolled. That "the bridge" was ever tolled is a disgrace and a national embarrassment. Billions have been wasted there in lost time (before the automatic tolling). Far more than the toll money ever brought in.

ELM327

unkel wrote: »

Exactly. That is why all the other orbital routes around all the other capitals in Europe are toll free. Even in Paris, where almost every other motorway is heavily tolled. That "the bridge" was ever tolled is a disgrace and a national embarrassment. Billions have been wasted there in lost time (before the automatic tolling). Far more than the toll money ever brought in.

+1

I firmly believe that in time the m50 will become like the north & south circular roads , a marker in time of where dublin once ended. But we will need a new orbital route, 10-15km outside the M50.
And it should not be tolled, neither should the M50, we should be encouraging private and commercial users to use the orbital route!

creedp

Shefwedfan wrote: »

How many people in Dublin have a diesel car? I used to live in D15 and nearly every single car on my road was a diesel something. Some petrol smaller cars but mostly this was older people....

These drivers all lived and worked in the Greater Dublin area. So commute was less than 100km round trip. Majority did not seem to have any issue with buying new/newish cars on a regular basis.

A large proportion based on traffic coming out of area used the M50. So lets take it that D15 has 100,000 cars on the road at the moment. Average based on Ireland will be circa 80,000 of those will be diesel.

If the government got 50% of those cars to swap over that is 40,000 electric cars on the road. Now replicate that across the other areas in Dublin......

That is the target for this inventive in my opinion. I could be wrong but that would make sense to me.

That's all well and good though but if I can't charge my car away from my house because of the abysmal public charging infrastructure then an EV is of limited value for a lot of people. We need a carrot as well as a stick approach .. need to invest in public charging. In that context I can't reconcile the idea of the ESB replacing perfectly operational chademo charging units with triple head unit when there is a such a deficit in chargers out there which will only get worse. Why not install triple headers in addition to the existing units? Its laughable when you compare the banks of Tesla supercharger in certain sites when there are so few Tesla's on the road. However, this is the right approach invest in the infrastructure first and the demand will happen.

ELM327

creedp wrote: »

That's all well and good though but if I can't charge my car away from my house because of the abysmal public charging infrastructure then an EV is of limited value for a lot of people. We need a carrot as well as a stick approach .. need to invest in public charging. In that context I can't reconcile the idea of the ESB replacing perfectly operational chademo charging units with triple head unit when there is a such a deficit in chargers out there which will only get worse. Why not install triple headers in addition to the existing units? Its laughable when you compare the banks of Tesla supercharger in certain sites when there are so few Tesla's on the road. However, this is the right approach invest in the infrastructure first and the demand will happen.

Ecars and the current network are, in equal measures, an inept joke.
I wouldnt trust them to mind the ice in Alaska, let alone to manage a functional network.

The new triple headers should have been installed to upgrade the chademo only units.... and the chademo only units should have been redeployed in Lucan, Blanch, Naas, etc... double up the busy locations. Hell, there was a queue of 5 cars in navan the other day. We need more chargers, not just newer ones that have CCS too.

[Deleted User]

The Tesla approach is a good marketing strategy. The only reason it failed in my case was that the second hand Tesla prices went north pretty soon after I saw the chargers in Castlebellingham. Must have worked a treat for Tesla as seen by the price/availability ratio of CPO Model S moving squarely to their corner since last year.

ELM327

samih wrote: »

The Tesla approach is a good marketing strategy. The only reason it failed in my case was that the second hand Tesla prices went north pretty soon after I saw the chargers in Castlebellingham. Must have worked a treat for Tesla as seen by the price/availability ratio of CPO Model S moving squarely to their corner since last year.

+1
This time last year I could have had my pick of CPO model S between £32-35k... this year they have risen to over 1.3 times that. They are obviously doing something right!!

unkel

Almost all EVs have gone up in value. I guess the Tesla Model S more than any other! Negative depreciation across the board. An interesting phenomenon, I don't think we've seen anything like it before in automotive history. And sadly, I too will not be getting a Model S anytime soon by the looks of it...

Shefwedfan

Maybe the government should just scrap it....

Might stop the constant moaning

ELM327

Shefwedfan wrote: »

Maybe the government should just scrap it....

Might stop the constant moaning

Sell it.
From the response papers to the CRU, there are multiple parties interested in buying the network.
A direct response + statement of interest was given by multiple energy suppliers in Ireland, when ecars tried to claim the network had no commercial value.

A deaf monkey would do a better job than the current crowd.

Shefwedfan

ELM327 wrote: »

Sell it.
From the response papers to the CRU, there are multiple parties interested in buying the network.
A direct response + statement of interest was given by multiple energy suppliers in Ireland, when ecars tried to claim the network had no commercial value.

A deaf monkey would do a better job than the current crowd.

I was talking about the toll grant.....

Everyone seems to think it is cr*p, bar me, so why not just scrap it and give the money to HSE....better use of money

ELM327

Shefwedfan wrote: »

I was talking about the toll grant.....

Everyone seems to think it is cr*p, bar me, so why not just scrap it and give the money to HSE....better use of money

It benefits me so don't scrap it

:D:D:D:D

But yeah, the funds would be better used for more chargers, for doubling up, for free motor tax, or even the HSE. Not that a million or 2 will make a slight bit of difference there though.:pac:

BoatMad

personally I dont use the tolled motorways much , but I think its a good headline incentive and one that can be time limited

_ned_

Things that made the Outlander PHEV the biggest selling electric in the UK are zero road tax, zero congestion charge and 5% BIK. Incentives do work. Zero is a good number if you want to grab headlines and attract attention. I'd love the smug feeling of zooming through the West Link with nothing to pay!

:D:D

Shefwedfan

_ned_ wrote: »

Things that made the Outlander PHEV the biggest selling electric in the UK are zero road tax, zero congestion charge and 5% BIK. Incentives do work. Zero is a good number if you want to grab headlines and attract attention. I'd love the smug feeling of zooming through the West Link with nothing to pay! :D:D

The UK has a few more quid than Ireland :P

We still owe billions to other countries around the World....anything that resembles an inventive should be appreciated

_ned_

They might have a few more quid, but bigger debt-to-GDP ratio. 88.1% vs 72.1%.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/269684/national-debt-in-eu-countries-in-relation-to-gross-domestic-product-gdp/

I think there is an economic argument to switch from oil to electricity. We can generate our own electricity from renewables to an increasingly significant degree. If we switched en-masse to EVs, charged at night off a low grid load, we could potentially replace a colossal amount of fossil fuel. KCross' Eirgrid nighttime Eirgrid figures are really interesting and show there is some hope for us.

The budget amounts for toll-free are tiny, especially compared to CO2 fines we face, so I think it would have more impact if it's just free rather than limited in some penny-counting exercise. They can always reverse it when there's too many of us sailing through the West Link on our toll-free magic carpets!

Shefwedfan

_ned_ wrote: »

They might have a few more quid, but bigger debt-to-GDP ratio. 88.1% vs 72.1%.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/269684/national-debt-in-eu-countries-in-relation-to-gross-domestic-product-gdp/

I think there is an economic argument to switch from oil to electricity. We can generate our own electricity from renewables to an increasingly significant degree. If we switched en-masse to EVs, charged at night off a low grid load, we could potentially replace a colossal amount of fossil fuel. KCross' Eirgrid nighttime Eirgrid figures are really interesting and show there is some hope for us.

The budget amounts for toll-free are tiny, especially compared to CO2 fines we face, so I think it would have more impact if it's just free rather than limited in some penny-counting exercise. They can always reverse it when there's too many of us sailing through the West Link on our toll-free magic carpets!

Swapping a few cars over to electric will not mean the CO2 target are met. We would need to massively change how Ireland is run as a country

I seen online that Norway now have ability to generate from waves....I talked to a company in 2006-2008 and they said Ireland actually has a huge potential for wave energy generation but the government doesn't want to know about it...maybe that has changed but I doubt it....

Solar PV grants would be money better spent that free tolls to be honest. People might be more grateful of that, based on the comments on this thread it seems to be a waste of money on the tolls

_ned_

I'd agree. Cheaper access to Solar PV would be great. ElectricIreland offer an install for ~€4000-4500 generating 1500-1600 units, about €250 worth of daytime electricity. 6.25% ROI. Better than the banks at the moment, but not likely to set the world on fire. If the cost were reduced to about €2000, I think there would be a lot of uptake. And the benefits apply anywhere in the country, not just if you commute through toll gates. Panel costs are really dropping. Install costs need to be attacked too. But the big issue with SPV is we'd really need to store the energy to have a significant impact on the grid. A big surplus at noon isn't much use without storage, to defer usage during peak periods. EV's could help there, if you've got one hooked up during the day.

I can see why wind took off so much: cost about €1M/megawatt, >30% load capacity, ROI about 15%, plenty of grants, and scale. If you could buy a share in a turbine, it would only cost about €600 to produce the same 1500 kWh that the ElectricIreland SPV system would. And most of the energy would be available at night when you'd be charging Sparky!:)

bp_me

_ned_ wrote: »

I'd agree. Cheaper access to Solar PV would be great. ElectricIreland offer an install for ~€4000-4500 generating 1500-1600 units, about €250 worth of daytime electricity. 6.25% ROI.

This is only true if you can actually use all of the unit generated (or more accurately would have used them anyway).

Also delivery is highly variable. Right now as we are heading towards the middle of summer you are getting more daylight hours and more peak intensity in the middle of the day. Once you get over the hump that will go the other way and by the time december comes round you will barely make a single unit on a good day. On a good day right now I'm getting about 12-13kW from a 2kW system that probably isn't ideally positioned.

Here's what a good day looks like for me at the moment.