Random EV thoughts.....

Deleted User wrote: »

Never underestimate the rate of change that can happen under the right conditions

Like the decimation of western civilisation in under a year :P.

Yeah, I agree, but look at our charging infrastructure. Tesla have largely ignored provision of new superchargers over the last several years. Ionity are finished their roll out & eCars are glacial.
There's no real impetus or appetite here. Heck, now that the greens are in office you'd think they'd be screaming to push EVs & the charging network, but it's obvious they don't want EVs either, or roads. It's bicycles & public transport only.

We've had 2 BEVs & a PHEV now, 120,000km over the last 2 years, plenty of new BEVs now coming on stream, but still, tiny numbers.

It'll remain niche here for some time.

MJohnston wrote: »

Indeed — there's no reason to expect that EVs would be any differently affected by last year's contraction than the rest of the car market. Here's a better way of looking at the same data:

Why did you put that picture of a bike up?

ELM327

Kramer wrote: »

Like the decimation of western civilisation in under a year :P.

Yeah, I agree, but look at our charging infrastructure. Tesla have largely ignored provision of new superchargers over the last several years. Ionity are finished their roll out & eCars are glacial.
There's no real impetus or appetite here. Heck, now that the greens are in office you'd think they'd be screaming to push EVs & the charging network, but it's obvious they don't want EVs either, or roads. It's bicycles & public transport only.

We've had 2 BEVs & a PHEV now, 120,000km over the last 2 years, plenty of new BEVs now coming on stream, but still, tiny numbers.

It'll remain niche here for some time.

The greens are so out of touch with reality its ridiculous. There's actually an appetite for EVs out there, but it's being lost because they are pushing nonsense options like cycling (or driving a diesel van and pushing a bike the last few yards) or public transport, or planting flowers

Markcheese

There's huge public apprehension, they hear the media crap about failing batteries ,and don't work in cold weather, tiny range , blah blah blah ,
The car sales guys are doing the old its nearly there , I reckon you'll be electric by your next car ,or hybrid or something ...
Thing is there's a shortage of batteries ..world wide , so until that changes prices are gonna be relatively high... When that changes there'll be a stuttering start and then there'll be huge and rapid change ...

.most people don't give a sh1t about petrol or diesel , co2 and particulates , it's down to money , and many people ( especially older will happily spend25/ 30 grand to save a few quid on fuel . .

KCross

Kramer wrote: »

Yeah, I agree, but look at our charging infrastructure. Tesla have largely ignored provision of new superchargers over the last several years. Ionity are finished their roll out & eCars are glacial.
There's no real impetus or appetite here. Heck, now that the greens are in office you'd think they'd be screaming to push EVs & the charging network, but it's obvious they don't want EVs either, or roads. It's bicycles & public transport only.

We've had 2 BEVs & a PHEV now, 120,000km over the last 2 years, plenty of new BEVs now coming on stream, but still, tiny numbers.

It'll remain niche here for some time.

Markcheese wrote: »

There's huge public apprehension, they hear the media crap about failing batteries ,and don't work in cold weather, tiny range , blah blah blah ,
The car sales guys are doing the old its nearly there , I reckon you'll be electric by your next car ,or hybrid or something ...
Thing is there's a shortage of batteries ..world wide , so until that changes prices are gonna be relatively high... When that changes there'll be a stuttering start and then there'll be huge and rapid change ...

.most people don't give a sh1t about petrol or diesel , co2 and particulates , it's down to money , and many people ( especially older will happily spend25/ 30 grand to save a few quid on fuel . .

The only thing that is really pushing the shift to EV's is EU emissions regulations. Nothing else really.

The OEM's will do the bare minimum to meet the regulations and control the EV vs ICE sales ratios by selling the higher margin EV's first.

It will remain that way for years to come but the ratio will gradually shift towards EV's as the regulations get tighter in 2025 and again in 2030.

The likes of Ford are going to enter the EV market now because they have nothing and are paying fines so once they get enough product of their own they will control the ratios there in the same was as all the others. And we will see alot more PHEV's as well.

There will be no massive lurch over to EV's.... EU regulations will drive it all.... 2025 and 2030 are the key years.

Kramer wrote: »

"Despite 500,000+ unemployed & tens of thousands of businesses facing extinction, huge taxpayer funding & subsidies still go to the uber rich, to buy new €100,000 luxury electric German sports cars, from manufacturers like Porsche."

Someone should suggest that to Joe on Liveline - he'd milk a good few days out of that .

There were 3 of them, they could all phone up and defend their purchase and still not fill the slot.

smellyoldboot

They're still too expensive. It's called "Paddy Spec" for a reason: Paddy is ultimately a mean hoor.

liamog wrote: »

There were 3 of them, they could all phone up and defend their purchase and still not fill the slot.

That's not how his program works though. No one defends, everyone attacks, goaded on by the host. Indignation, disgust, rabble rabble..........they'll kill us all Joe, them electric cars are dangerous Joe, they're too quiet Joe & catch fire Joe.

You'd be on a hiding to nothing calling up to defend, your taxpayer funded, Porsche.

smellyoldboot wrote: »

They're still too expensive. It's called "Paddy Spec" for a reason: Paddy is ultimately a mean hoor.

Paddy isn't mean, he just gets shafted. He pays far more but gets far less.
As Mando says, it's the way

Markcheese

The main gripe iat the moment is that most evs aren't available without all the bells and whistles ,
( Basic zoe might be one of the exceptions ) ,
But largely the car makers need to make a profit ..
They make more on the bells and whistles , and a lot of the people who take the plunge for an ev anyway want a bit of luxury / convenience ..
I know my mam will want keyless entry and front and rear parking sensors again next time ..
It's like mini suv style cars are in fashion at the moment , most of them are just a lifted hatchback .. but you pay a couple of grand extra for those couple of inches - cos they're in vogue so people expect to pay it ..

McGiver

ELM327 wrote: »

The greens are so out of touch with reality its ridiculous. There's actually an appetite for EVs out there, but it's being lost because they are pushing nonsense options like cycling (or driving a diesel van and pushing a bike the last few yards) or public transport, or planting flowers

All these things are sensible IF they pushed EVs AS WELL. Take EVs out of the equation and it's bollox.

Also they should be all going electric buses, but are not - all toxic diesel buses all over Ireland. Ireland is so behind in this, it's embarrassing. Whole Europe is full of electric buses, FFS Solaris, a Polish company, manufactures them and delivers them to Denmark, Netherlands, Germany etc. Another Polish company supplies huge fast chargers for electric bus depots.

The Irish EV charging infrastructure is getting to a similar position, it's an embarrasment...

McGiver wrote: »

All these things are sensible IF they pushed EVs AS WELL. Take EVs out of the equation and it's bollox.

Also they should be all going electric buses, but are not - all toxic diesel buses all over Ireland. Ireland is so behind in this, it's embarrassing. Whole Europe is full of electric buses, FFS Solaris, a Polish company, manufactures them and delivers them to Denmark, Netherlands, Germany etc. Another Polish company supplies huge fast chargers for electric bus depots.

The Irish EV charging infrastructure is getting to a similar position, it's an embarrasment...

Taking this one thing at a time, and I'm very much not a fan of how the Greens have handled this government (they seem largely led by economic conservatives who don't understand that environmental change cannot work without economic change), but I disagree with what you're saying a bit.

On the EV push — the small-g green position on EVs is that they don't really solve all of the problems that ICE cars have created. They can eventually move the point of generation of energy to a cleaner source, but they do nothing to solve the host of social problems that traffic congestion has caused. And there's also some micro-particulate pollution that EVs don't really solve.

However, I also think it's unfair to say that Ireland isn't pushing EVs. Firstly, we as a country have basically non-existent influence on manufacturers, and widespread adoption just isn't going to happen until manufacturers start having more than just 1 or 2 token EVs in their range (and we're already seeing the trends shifting rapidly on this). Secondly, the 2030 new ICE ban target is fairly ambitious, and it alone is all the "pushing" that needs to be done.

Lastly, EU's fuel economy guidelines will effectively ban new ICE sales from 2030 anyway, and potentially earlier in 2025 if rumoured changes come to pass. Again, most car manufacturers won't care about Irish guidelines, but they will absolutely react to EU changes, and even rumours of an effective new ICE ban from 2025 will have had most of them scrambling to electrify (or at least hybridise) their ranges by that point.

On the bus thing, sure we're behind, but you can blame that on chronic underfunding of sustainable transport by successive FF/FG/FFG governments. They're all about cars, and their budgets from the last couple of decades show it. Dublin Bus will at least have a large "self-charging" hybrid fleet by 2022, and that should continue to grow.

I'm not going to defend charging infrastructure, but I also don't think it's quite as bad as this forum makes it out to be!

Laviski

MJohnston wrote: »

I'm not going to defend charging infrastructure, but I also don't think it's quite as bad as this forum makes it out to be!

I think it depends where you are located, galway city for me tis grand overall although salthill is lacking infra. I have yet to install a home charger and been using public chargers since using the fee paying ones and few non paying ones. With lockdown and the restrictions, i'm not in any hurry. Personally i would hope they just deploy more of those new stations where one can DC charge and the other can do AC.

If you live in more commuter towns its obvious that if you have a EV you need to have home charger as you be lucky if there is even a AC unit there which imo is pointless. If you are going to have one unit in a location, it should be a DC unit.

MJohnston wrote: »

On the EV push — the small-g green position on EVs is that they don't really solve all of the problems that ICE cars have created. They can eventually move the point of generation of energy to a cleaner source, but they do nothing to solve the host of social problems that traffic congestion has caused. And there's also some micro-particulate pollution that EVs don't really solve.

Most of the Irish greens keep pushing the same study that found an EV releases 5.8kg/km of tyre dust. Given an average tyre weighs around 10kg a year and that an average driver covers 17,000km, that means you're tyres would of completely disappeared every 6 months. The study was flawed and doesn't pass a basic sanity test. The tyre's I use have an expected life of 65,000km, and that's to wear down to the tread marker, not to totally fall off my alloys.

KCross

MJohnston wrote: »

Secondly, the 2030 new ICE ban target is fairly ambitious, and it alone is all the "pushing" that needs to be done.

In reality there isnt any ban yet. Just alot of talk and click bait articles about it.

The 2025 and 2030 regulations are driving the shift away from ICE to hybrid and (PH)EV though.

MJohnston wrote: »

Lastly, EU's fuel economy guidelines will effectively ban new ICE sales from 2030 anyway, and potentially earlier in 2025 if rumoured changes come to pass.

What changes are proposed? I'd have my doubts about any changes because it took years and years of negotiation to agree to the 2020/2025/2030 limits and they are in law already. Car manufacturers are a massive lobby group in the EU (Germany and France mainly) and they will not "allow" any further tightening of those regulations in such a short period of time.

e.g. If a complete ICE ban occured in 2025 it would effectively put them all out of business as it would take them much longer than that to pivot their business all the way over to EV's. It might be what you want to see but it simply wont happen... Merkel and Macron are not going to allow those massive businesses to fail in their countries.

MJohnston wrote: »

... from 2025 will have had most of them scrambling to electrify (or at least hybridise) their ranges by that point.

Most manufacturers will have no issues meeting the 2025 regulations with their current plans.

2030 is going to be harder alright and you will need alot more PHEV's and BEV's to meet those regulations so I can see both of those being progressed side by side.

KCross wrote: »

In reality there isnt any ban yet. Just alot of talk and click bait articles about it.

Ah yes, the ICE ban of 2030, the one that would allow a brand new Toyota Prius from 2005 to be sold. The proposed ban is on non-electrified vehicles, even a mild hybrid is enough to sell a car. I wouldn't call it ambitious in any way shape or form.

kanuseeme

liamog wrote: »

Most of the Irish greens keep pushing the same study that found an EV releases 5.8kg/km of tyre dust. Given an average tyre weighs around 10kg a year and that an average driver covers 17,000km, that means you're tyres would of completely disappeared every 6 months. The study was flawed and doesn't pass a basic sanity test. The tyre's I use have an expected life of 65,000km, and that's to wear down to the tread marker, not to totally fall off my alloys.

Tyre dust dunes 20 meters high on either side of the road.

:D:D:D

liamog wrote: »

Most of the Irish greens keep pushing the same study that found an EV releases 5.8kg/km of tyre dust. Given an average tyre weighs around 10kg a year and that an average driver covers 17,000km, that means you're tyres would of completely disappeared every 6 months. The study was flawed and doesn't pass a basic sanity test. The tyre's I use have an expected life of 65,000km, and that's to wear down to the tread marker, not to totally fall off my alloys.

I've never even heard of that study, but micro-particulate pollution is a relatively small part of the broader social impact of cars imo. The problem is their presence on the roads, not the form of locomotion they use.

ELM327

kanuseeme wrote: »

Tyre dust dunes 20 meters high on either side of the road. :D:D:D

I think Eamon must have watched one F1 race with high tire deg and saw the bits of tire marbles on the side of the track :pac:

KCross wrote: »

In reality there isnt any ban yet. Just alot of talk and click bait articles about it.

The 2025 and 2030 regulations are driving the shift away from ICE to hybrid and (PH)EV though.

Well, like I said, in reality we are governed by the bar that the EU set, and their's is already more stealthily aggressive with the fuel economy standards than a 2030 new ICE ban in Ireland would be. Effectively, I'm not really sure that Ireland is in control of EV adoption in Ireland.

What changes are proposed? I'd have my doubts about any changes because it took years and years of negotiation to agree to the 2020/2025/2030 limits and they are in law already. Car manufacturers are a massive lobby group in the EU (Germany and France mainly) and they will not "allow" any further tightening of those regulations in such a short period of time.

e.g. If a complete ICE ban occured in 2025 it would effectively put them all out of business as it would take them much longer than that to pivot their business all the way over to EV's. It might be what you want to see but it simply wont happen... Merkel and Macron are not going to allow those massive businesses to fail in their countries.

It's part of the Euro 7 standards that should be presented later this year:
https://www.electrive.com/2020/11/16/vda-worried-about-the-euro-7-emissions-standard/

You may be right about the historical power of the car industry lobby, but I have my doubts that it's still powerful enough to prevent these kinds of changes. And I'd imagine even these rumblings will have those manufacturers rethinking their 5-10 year plans for electric switchover.

Most manufacturers will have no issues meeting the 2025 regulations with their current plans.

2030 is going to be harder alright and you will need alot more PHEV's and BEV's to meet those regulations so I can see both of those being progressed side by side.

From what I've read, even most PHEVs will struggle to meet the 2030 standards, and a lot of them will fail the 2025 ones too.

This all ties to what I'm getting at though — effectively it doesn't really matter much what the Irish government does, because there's not really any practical way for us to be much more aggressive in standards than the EU.

What we're in control of is the 'carrots' of electric adoption — grants and charging infrastructure. The grants we have here are extremely generous. The charging infrastructure is imo at or just below capacity.

I'll also repeat what I've said before — I believe we're in that really awkward phase of EV adoption, because we have quite a load of EV owners concentrated in some specific places, but not enough adoption for their to be an economic case for a much denser charging network.

KCross

MJohnston wrote: »

Well, like I said, in reality we are governed by the bar that the EU set, and their's is already more stealthily aggressive with the fuel economy standards than a 2030 new ICE ban in Ireland would be. Effectively, I'm not really sure that Ireland is in control of EV adoption in Ireland.

You can be absolutely certain of that.
Nothing at all would be done in this area in Ireland if the EU was not pushing the agenda and imposing fines etc.

MJohnston wrote: »

It's part of the Euro 7 standards that should be presented later this year:
https://www.electrive.com/2020/11/16/vda-worried-about-the-euro-7-emissions-standard/

I'd put that in the click bait pile.
Lots of ifs, buts, maybes in there too. I know you said its a rumour so fair enough.

MJohnston wrote: »

You may be right about the historical power of the car industry lobby, but I have my doubts that it's still powerful enough to prevent these kinds of changes.

Its not just the manufacturer lobby groups. The political leaders will also not want to see their local industries die and have massive unemployment. Car manufacturers are a massive employer (millions of employees) in those countries. If there is any hint at all that the industry is under a threat the politicians will shy away when it comes to endorsing/tightening regs that accelerate the current 2025/2030 targets.

MJohnston wrote: »

And I'd imagine even these rumblings will have those manufacturers rethinking their 5-10 year plans for electric switchover.

For sure. All the car manufacturers decision making and R&D spend is directly linked to "how can we meet our EU emissions targets to avoid fines".

Euro 7 is going to be incredibly difficult (probably impossible) to meet for a pure ICE car. PHEV and BEV will be required.

MJohnston wrote: »

From what I've read, even most PHEVs will struggle to meet the 2030 standards, and a lot of them will fail the 2025 ones too.

Current PHEV's yes. But they are steadily increasing the range on those and as battery tech improves I'd say they will manage to meet the regs alright.

e.g. New PHEV's are now approaching the EV range of the first Gen Leaf! The first batch of PHEV's would have struggled to get 20km!

MJohnston wrote: »

This all ties to what I'm getting at though — effectively it doesn't really matter much what the Irish government does, because there's not really any practical way for us to be much more aggressive in standards than the EU.

What we're in control of is the 'carrots' of electric adoption — grants and charging infrastructure. The grants we have here are extremely generous. The charging infrastructure is imo at or just below capacity.

I'll also repeat what I've said before — I believe we're in that really awkward phase of EV adoption, because we have quite a load of EV owners concentrated in some specific places, but not enough adoption for their to be an economic case for a much denser charging network.

I agree with all that.

The only difference the Irish government can make is to incentivise whether an EU EV get's sold here versus being sold in Croatia.
We essentially have to compete to obtain the cleaner sale which will help with our own transport emission target.

the_amazing_raisin

McGiver wrote: »

All these things are sensible IF they pushed EVs AS WELL. Take EVs out of the equation and it's bollox.

Also they should be all going electric buses, but are not - all toxic diesel buses all over Ireland. Ireland is so behind in this, it's embarrassing. Whole Europe is full of electric buses, FFS Solaris, a Polish company, manufactures them and delivers them to Denmark, Netherlands, Germany etc. Another Polish company supplies huge fast chargers for electric bus depots.

The Irish EV charging infrastructure is getting to a similar position, it's an embarrasment...

Absolutely agree on this, we do need better public cycling infrstructure, and better (and elctrified) public transportation

But there's still the unfortunate truth that many people are going to need to commute long distances because of house prices or the nature of their jobs.

What Ireland can do for those people is incentivise them to go electric through scrappage schemes and fund public charging infrastructure to remove any form of charger anxiety

slave1

...or the other Paddy way, tax the sh1te out of ICE vehicles and Dino fuel

AndyBoBandy

Just seen on Facebook (yeah, I know), that Hyundai are to swap out 82,000 batteries in their Kona EV's due to fire risk. (some Ioniq's too)

will cost them $900m

https://www.autoblog.com/2021/02/24/hyundai-to-replace-kona-ev-battery-packs-recall/?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmllLw&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAAbInulyTZtvMgCavE4LnU8hO9WKkHF9gjJhtHmL27FKmBf2cp1W1JOHgQk3EJTSkneDuNBg9B2JONHk-HnpZY3hvTkmMK1Gc9QgChk3VddvHBgapycpPBkgbEj0Tdn6pp84IkeFK2h_RVi1gdD90fUu0LFNtLETIXmt1XmPKvw-

ouch!!

[Deleted User]

that article says it is an issue with Cells, not pack which makes things difficult.
maybe the packs could be repurposed safely for re-usage as energy storage being charged more slowly.
I'm probably doing my calculations incorrectly but I think assuming a 50/50 split between small and large batteries it gives 14.5 times the maximum output of Turlough Hill over one hour.

McGiver

cruisey1987 wrote:

What Ireland can do for those people is incentivise them to go electric through scrappage schemes and fund public charging infrastructure to remove any form of charger anxiety

Stick, stick, stick and more stick. Then some carrot.

Stick
1. Motor tax based on mileage AND PM/NOx/CO2 emissions (a product of the two). Zero for EVs as the emmision component is zero.

2. VRT based on PM/CO2/NOx emissions. Zero for EVs.

3. Increase fuel duty. Diesel first and rapidly. Tax diesel to death but give tax breaks for hauliers, delivery services and farmers for a while until tech catches up (to prevent inflation of the whole economy). Zero fuel duty for EVs, obviously.

Carrot m
1. Scrappage
2. Purchase subsidy - zero VAT / VAT return
3. Legislation - cut red tape in the charging infrastructure market, mandate chargers for certain types of settings, tax incentives for charger installation, regulations for community based chargers, regulations for apartment tenants/owners charger installation
4. Fund and/or tender out arterial charging infrastructure roll-out (no DIY!)

the_amazing_raisin

McGiver wrote: »

Stick, stick, stick and more stick. Then some carrot.

Stick
1. Motor tax based on mileage AND PM/NOx/CO2 emissions (a product of the two). Zero for EVs as the emmision component is zero.

2. VRT based on PM/CO2/NOx emissions. Zero for EVs.

3. Increase fuel duty. Diesel first and rapidly. Tax diesel to death but give tax breaks for hauliers, delivery services and farmers for a while until tech catches up (to prevent inflation of the whole economy). Zero fuel duty for EVs, obviously.

Carrot m
1. Scrappage
2. Purchase subsidy - zero VAT / VAT return
3. Legislation - cut red tape in the charging infrastructure market, mandate chargers for certain types of settings, tax incentives for charger installation, regulations for community based chargers, regulations for apartment tenants/owners charger installation
4. Fund and/or tender out arterial charging infrastructure roll-out (no DIY!)

Well you've got my vote if you ever run for government

I would also say that the VAT break on diesel will need to be steadily reduced down to 0 to encourage businesses to go electric. You could match it against availibility of electric trucks and vans