Is buying a diesel car now silly?

The poster above has been reading too much from EV evangelists methinks.

No way will 3 hours charging at your aunts house get you 150km. It will get you about 30 km.

Remember you cant ask everyone you visit to install a specialist EV charger for the days you visit them.

I wish people would live in the real world when talking about EVs.

I mentally had decided we’d struggle on with our current car (13 year old Zafira MPV)until 2023 and there would be viable EV options. But it looks like the time has come early. The car now needs a second major injection of funds within six months of the last and I think I’m throwing money out the window now.

For philosophical reasons I’d love for an EV to work. But I just can’t see how

We do c. 20k km per year. 800km round trips every 4/5 weeks and 200km round trips every 2 weeks make up a lot of it. Add in at least one round Ireland holiday a year (usually 2) and (hopefully) a return to a ferry trip and we might do a bit more. All of this is with our current 645 litre boot space regularly utilised.

There’s no options there anywhere near our ideal budget of 20/25k :(

100% serious here. Golf GTI or Octavia RS 245BHP 2.0 TSI petrol.

they don’t cost as much to run, tax or insure as you’d think.

I have got nothing against the electric car fanboys, but these diesel lovers!

Don’t get me started on people who buy Hyundai’s, they’re the worst of all.

65 mpg, lol I think you are swallowing too much of the manufacture's marketing nonsense involving claimed figures. A big heavy car like the Mondeo with a 3 cylinder turbo charged 1.0 litre engine is never going to return 65mpg in the real world. The diesel version would still easily trump it for fuel economy on long journeys despite all the trendy diesels haters coming out of the woodwork on boards.ie

While there will be a steady move the hybrid or electric. Diesel has a good few years to run yet.

Had a 1.0 tsi Ateca.

Talking 35mpg at motorway speeds.

45mpg max.

42 or 43mpg generally.

Was perfect for us with lots of short trips, written off unfortunately.

Had a 2.0 TDI Kuga.

Very very similar.

40mpg at motorway speeds.

50mpg max

45mpg generally

Compared to our 2 cars today.

1.6 tdi CRV and 2.0 tdi Leon.

Both do over 50mpg all the time.

That 2.0 ford diesel was poor for economy especially with the shape of the Kuga.

Those 1.0 petrols are for short trips and probably cars below Ateca size.

We are talking about visiting relatives.

In the real world -

How many people that you visit have a 7.2Kw home charger that you can charge one when you call in?

You will most likely be charging at 2kw max when you call to someone elses house and bum a charge off them.

And we are back to this again :)

EVs are great, but from experience, only as second cars.

They are fantastic if you dont need to go long distances.

But most people do have to travel beyond the return range of their EV often. Its no use trying top tell everyone that they wont. And thats what puts hassle and time onto a trip with an EV. Again, they are perfect when you are within the return range.

In your case, while there might be charging point near your house (My aunts is the same, you are not really going to be charging at them as you will be charging at home. Why on earth would you drive to a charger when you have one you can use overnight?

Now if you go visit a friend or an aunt (There are chargers 4.5km in the town near where she lives) 130km away in a car that will do 150km on a full charge, you have to use a fast charger on the way somewhere.

From experience, a lot are broken when you need them,, but more often than not there is at least one, sometimes more people charging or waiting to charge at fast charger when you arrive. So there is a wait involved. You can go on to the next fast charger, but usually same problem. Eventually you will have to wait at one to charge.

Instead you could try and charge at your aunts house with the granny charger (or maybe its just me, but some people seem to think everyones houses that they visit has a 7.5kwh charger in it just for visitors) at 2kwh.

So to get home you will need to put a minimum of 110km in the car (if you are happy a squeaky bum the last few kms).

And thats assuming you dont need to take her out for a drive somewhere or maybe drop down to the shops for her while you are there, because she has no car.

That will take about 11 hours at your aunts house.

You could drive into a town near your aunts house (4km away from my aunts house) and put it on a charger (if you can find one not occupied). So assuming you do find one.

If you leave it there for 3 or 4 hours you'll probably have enough to get you home.

But now you are thumbing from the chargers back to your aunts house. And when you are going back to your car you are thumbing back too :). You could walk for an hour and a half each way i suppose.

The only option on that trip is a fast charger. And as i've said, they add more time than they need to to what should be less than 1.5 hour drive.

The MG5 EV Long Range (LR) From €29,645 (including grants) is an extremely spacious vehicle and has an incredible electric range of 403KM*. The MG5 EV LR has a 61.1 kWh battery and features fast charging capability with the ability to reach an 80% battery charge in just 40 minutes via a 100kW CCS rapid charge point.

It does look quite similar to a whole load of other (petrol and diesel) cars, all right. Misery? Hardly, unless you're used to a Ferrari.

I think its a general trend of continuous price creep of established brands, where the basic spec is pretty bland and costly. Then you have yesteryear tech like in Dacia priced at what latest models should cost.

That might be true, but only if the infrastructure will allow for as easy use as regular cars, which unless the range doubles or some kind of new never seen before tech emerges in the aformentioned 5 yrs, might be hard to achieve.

Also I find it hard to envisage that cities will switch all the public, construction, commercial fleets to pure electric.

I'll take "things that never happened" for 500