Is buying a diesel car now silly?

The above would be my main fear..... The Green Party and the associated ethos generally are not going away and I can very easily see policies being increasingly pushed where diesel cars are targeted through taxation to disincentivise new uptake and future ownership in an ongoing effort to push buyers towards more environmentally friendly options.

So....Isn't there a real possibility that this time next year we could be looking some measure along the lines of a €900-€1200 annual motor tax for a 2 litre diesel??? Perhaps introduced on a smaller scale and ramped up annually.

Isn't it quite possible that anyone spending €20-€30k on a diesel car now could see their resale value decimated over the next 5 years and end up seriously out of pocket?

Now obviously nobody on here has a crystal ball...But are there enough warning signs to make some kind of informed decisions now regardless???

OP, just going to give my experience. I drive approx 30k km per annum. Mix of all driving type but mostly N and R roads. Bought a Lexus hybrid 3 years ago 2nd hand to replace an aging but venerable diesel passat. I've been very impressed with the Lexus, and it's an older model, 2013, so hybrid technology will have improved further. Get 50-52mpg in the summer and 45-47mpg in winter. Petrol is more expensive than diesel and I was getting better economy from the passat. However, I'm driving a car with twice the bhp now. The main boon for me is reliability. The passat was a good car in this regard but I still had niggly problems with the EGR valve and glow plugs. My diesel car previous to that gave a lot of trouble with EGR valve and swirl flaps. And currently my sisters BF is having major DPF trouble with his diesel Peugeot van. I have my Lexus hybrid 3 years and all it has required is basic servicing. The emissions control components that have had to be added to diesels to make them compliant with the regs have rendered them less reliable.

Diesel will continue to have a place in transport, for very high mileage drivers, haulage, commercial vehicle and agriculture. But passenger cars are moving away from diesel and for good reasons. My advice is to evaluate if an electric car would suit your needs and if not buy a good quality petrol hybrid.

My parents have 1 electric car and 1 diesel.

They use the diesel rather than stop off to charge when the range is greater than the electric.

That lesson was learned from the many trips stopping off to charge (i was with them on quite a few of them) and then having to wait for usualy 1, sometimes 2 and even 3 other cars to charge before them.

Obviously we all got tired of that and would rather just use the diesel to do the trips that would require charging in the EV.

Now the EV is great for short trips and just buzzing around the place where your nightly charge is all you need.

But I wouldnt have an EV as an only car. Also they are expensive compared to petrol and diesel to buy in the first place.

Also as everyone thinks all diesels are dirty now is a good time to get a nice diesel that is 2 or 3 years old. People are afraid to buy them. Take advantage of that.

What's the best buy, a 1.0 litre petrol, 1.4 petrol or 1.6 Diesel. Looking at Hyundai i30 and Kia CEED and Kona.

Can't find delete button, this post should be deleted

Go for the diesel.

They are a good car.

Dont pay any attention to all the hip comments about diesels.

They are actually as clean as petrols nowadays. Cleaner even.

Electric is just far too expensive for what you get.

This sounds like they have a pretty old EV. Unless you're regularly travelling from Cork to Donegal, a modern one will have enough range to do just about any journey you'd want to make. I've had an ID3 for about 9 months now and I haven't needed to stop and charge it once, it's way more convenient than the diesel it replaced that needed to stop at a petrol station regularly.

Absolutely not silly. If a diesel made sense to your use case last year, nothing has changed.

If you're doing the milage then a diesel over a petrol makes sense -

But if you're doing big milage then an electric car will work out cheaper -

Petrol and diesels aren't going to just get banned outright - it'll be new sales that'll be affected - at some point you may have to be prepared to run your diesel car till it dies ,then scrap it .. if the price of running it gets way out of line - bit that's probably a few years off yet -

I'm curious - if you're managing to drive without petrol for weeks on end, then why not go full EV? Price?

Plug in hybrids work really well when charged and in stop/start, or city, driving. The do not make any sense for motorway driving, diesels obviously do.

With diesels I would be worried about selling on in a few years as the Irish are very quick at changing their mind based on motor tax rates etc. Diesels in towns never work but with favourable rates since 2008 meant everyone went down that route. If the government continues punish diesels through tax and incentivise hybrids then Irish folk will switch over to hybrids, regardless if they are the correct fit for their driving requirements.

And not everyone is from the back arse of nowhere either. A lot of people do live in cities

My plug in hybrid uses the electric motor for around 25km on the motorway actually

When the electric range runs out it uses the petrol engine and achieves 55mpg

I’m not against diesel but once you start driving hybrids or even petrol its hard to switch back to diesel

Um. Why would they need to make it down and back with fast charging? Like, are they not staying over? Or even staying there for a few hours, giving plenty of time to recharge?

Like, Swords to Enniscorthy is 150km. A 5-y-o battery should be getting you there with range to spare, to recharge, surely? The car is not obsolete, by any stretch. Worst case, replace the battery, and they'll get another five years out of it, minimum.

I dont know what kind of relatives you have :)

No they dont stay down there its only an hour and a half drive down.

But it just shows you that drioving an EV is not straightforward. Looks like you have to have unnexxesary overnight stays and ask people to install chargers and run up their esb bills :)

I can see it now.

Mary, while you are at it will you install a charger for a €1000 or so, so we can stick the car on it and run up your electricity bill every time we call down for an aul chat.

Alternatively Mary, please make up the spare bed for us because we are bringing the EV and wont be able to go home tonight.

Kids at home - We wont be back to feed you because we went out in the EV today and it wont go back so we are staying the night to charge it on Marys electricity.

Theirs is 30kwh car. I think its the mid range one. Not leather seats, but it does have the center console, so i think thats whatever model is the mid range.

I can garauntee you it didnt cost €20k, or €30k or that matter.

I can only imagine the situation would be worse in a 24kwh.

And listen to yourself :)

Advocating paying €40k for an EV that can do 400km.

€40k.

The mark2 40kwh Leaf was around 27k when introduced, I'd say their mk 1.5 30kwh was a bit less than that, maybe 25k. Yes the leaf has a few disadvantages when it comes to charging, still I'd bet it's residual value is quite high

I didn't bring up the 40k price point, it was falsely reported as the new price for a 30kwh Leaf. And TCO for an EV is lower than for a similar price ICE car.

If I was driving for 150km over 90 minutes to visit a rellie, I'd reckon a 3-hour visit would be reasonable, and well worth contributing €2.00 towards the cost of the electricity to my host? 😉

Ok, the poster above is saying 3 hours charging is enough to get 150km, so it does sound like your relatives Leaf is fucked.

Friend of mine bought an ID-3. Went for a drive. Range clock said 300km. Turned on aircon. Range clock changed to 100km.

Considering big saloon cars like Mondeo's have a 1.0L Ecoboost engine capable of 65 mpg why on earth would you but a diesel.

Was driving a Mondeo 2.0 TDCi but swapped it for an Octavia 1.0Tsi earlier this year. Fuel economy is practically identical, possibly by virtue of it warming up so quickly, and motor tax is the same. I expect maintenance to be cheaper (especially at 1/10th of the mileage) and there's plenty room for adults in the back.