electric bill with ecars

It's gone up by 10% of my previous fuel bill which is now zero.

To put that in laymans terms, for every 100 of petrol I used to buy, I replaced that with a tenner on the electric bill

I did the sums, and I saved a fortune on petrol versus my ESB bill. It works out about an 80% saving.

My 110km round trip commute needs 20kWh of energy per night, and it costs mr about 2 euro in electricity, about 10 or 11 euro a week. Petrol before was 80 euro a week...

If you drive a lot, a night rate meter makes sense for cheaper night rates. Some people have solar electric panels to power house and charge the car, but I opted not to do this, and charging at home is really cheap anyway.

By Ecars I assume you mean an electric vehicle and not ESB Ecars which provides public charging

If so, then yes your electricity bill will go up. Makes sense since that's where you'll be charging your car from

How much it goes up by depends on how much you drive and how efficient the car is, same as any ICE car

The advantage of electric is that the higher bills are more than offset by the fuel savings. And you can charge at the night rate which makes it very cheap

For example, when I got my Leaf, the electricity bill went up by about €200 per year. But I didn't have to spend over €1000 on petrol for my old car 😁

I don't think anyone is getting a rate that low on a smart meter. I'm keeping my day/night meter as long as I can

Since getting our EV we've done 41,600km, and the average consumption in that time has been 146Wh/km, which gives a total consumption of 6,072 kWh.

Lets add 15% for charging losses and miscellaneous usage that the car doesn't count (AC on while not driving etc...) and we hit a figure of about 7,000kWh

If I did 100% of my charging at home, it would have cost me roughly €560 (my night rate is in or around €0.08/kWh). In reality though I've charged in public on eCars AC22's when they were free, Tesla destination chargers (which are free), Tesla Superchargers (for free as I still have referral km's), and eCars DC chargers the odd time.. so in reality, I've probably charged about 6,000kWh at home, costing me roughly €480. My total spend to date with eCars is €77.49 for 711kWh, giving a grand total of around €557 spent on charging (home & away).

Now I also have a diesel BMW, and its consumption figures are around 7L/100km, so had I done those 41,600km in the BMW, I'd have used about 2,912 litres of diesel, and going by todays diesel prices of around €1.47/L, that would have cost me €4,280.

So a saving of roughly €3,723* in 18 months of driving, and that's just fuel costs.

*in 41,000km, I'd have changed the oil & filter in the BMW at least 3 times, so there's about an additional ~€250 saved, so lets call it €4,000 saved in the EV compared to the old ICE.

Tax on EV: €120

Tax on ICE: €710

You can get a very basic charger from QUBEV for something like €250 off Amazon. I think @Gumbo got one installed last year as a destination charger

Electrician can run the wire from the meter box, so in that case installation would probably be just a few hundred

So it's possible to get a charger for a little over the grant amount

Apparently they can't force you to change to a smart meter, so says an unreliable poster on Facebook anyway... Unreliable being the key word there but when they pop by to install, try saying "no" and see what happens

I'm fact there are rumors (again - not very reliable sources) stating that they don't have the technology yet to change you from a day/night meter to a smart one

Partly true, there was an issue a while back where they couldn't do night rates on smart meters but that's been corrected now

When YOU have to pay the full economic cost of using the www and cease being the product... as above..

What subsidies are on electricity?

The PSO levy, which its the main subsidy for RE only, is coming down in Oct due to market prices going up so a bit more clarity in the arm chair driven discussion is needed

I don’t think you’ve really thought that statement out at all.

what are the electricity subsidies you speak of?

Hold on a second... your statement was “... pay for the full economic costs of electricity for charging EVs,”

the link you provided has nothing to do with charging EVs. That’s about renewables which covers your cup of coffee, your dinner, your shower, your EV.

Fossil fuels are subsidised too ( and taxed too of course). What about when those tax breaks stop

the fact remains that ICE ownership will continue to be more expensive to run than EV no matter what way you slice and dice the numbers over the long term. Any increases to EV ownership will be higher in ICE land.

the government still needs its tax intake but it won’t suddenly result in EVs costing more than ICE because of electricity costs.

That 3rd plan has always being there for commercial customers in 1/4 hour billing.

if you look at the whole sale pricing , the price goes crazy between those hours. It’s sold at a loss during those hours. They really want to deter people. And hence provide an option to people by offering lower prices outside these times

smart meters will save money. As people can now see what their Energy usage is. And can look at ways of reducing it.

say you pay 2c extra per night unit. You charge 100kwh every week. That’s €104, the sign up bonus is €210, so you are up €106

You are also getting billed monthly with no estimates, so it’s easier to manage.

The premium to be paid on the smart plans is way more than 2c extra per unit. Its more like 4-6c depending on the plan you pick and then the peak rate between 5-7pm is worse again.

Signup bonuses are much of a muchness.... you get those across various non-smart plans too. You have to look at the overall cost for the year, not look at the bonus on its own. The smart plans are not good value for money and wont save you money right now unless you have a very specific set of circumstances... the vast majority on this forum would be down money if they switch to a smart plan.

I have to agree, although in my case I've no choice as there's no gas line on the street

I think when it comes time to redo the kitchen I'll switch to a couple of portable induction jobs rather than the built-in electric one

Bull!!! you can do that with a ct clamp and an owl meter. You think people will constantly check their smart meter all the time! As with any gadget it will be used at the start and then never. Note its completely disingenuous or even fraudulent to say that smart meters save money - the rates at present are higher than day/night. So the meter does not save money - its only the person by using less electricity. However if you use the same electricity on a smart meter vs a day/night rate you will still pay more on the smart meter - this was not meant to be the way and is a straight bait and switch. Disgraceful behaviour by government and electricity providers.