Exactly right. It's actually not that difficult.
And if VAT exemption was added into the mix in the initial phase you'd see EV deliveries skyrocketing. The supply exists if there's a demand. The demand here is not as high as people think. It's about 4 times higher in Norway and the EVs are delivered. It's not that there's some massive demand here... Yes the supply is constrained and delivery times long but the demand is feeble compared to more develeped EV markets.
Part of the problem, I suspect, is RHD and being de facto an extension of the UK market whilst being a EU market.
If we had people queuing 3 times more due to conducive policies the supply would adjust and deliver.
@McGiver - "Not going to happen"
I'd say it will. We'll have 7 years, that's a long time. Let's see how it works for the countries that are banning ICE in the next few years. Of course you got to nudge it a bit. Keep increasing purchase taxes of ICE cars. In Norway almost everybody now buys BEV vehicles only. ICE are too expensive to buy, tax and own, if you buy one now it is financial suicide because of huge depreciation they will have. Everybody knows it over there.
The game is over.
Never heard of a heated driveway, not to mention a video about it. Crazy amount of snow. Video has chapters, btw.
I've heard them mentioned. I feel like it's the most American thing ever, using two gas boilers to heat the outdoors
Still, with that level of snow you can see why it'd be useful, imagine having to shovel all that away every couple of days for winter 😬
It's videos like that that really make me appreciate our mild climate
I had some fun in the snow 2 weeks ago in Lithuania, in a little Hyundai Bayon which was a brilliant little car… and handled everything spectacularly!! (I arrived and it was -14) Even for an auto!!! And even after I beached her on the snow trying to get a washing machine as close to the front door as possible!!!
Genuinely curious if someone can enlighten me. I often see hybrids at my local chargers, the charging infrastructure in my area is literally 2-3 chargers in a Lidl, Tesco and SuperValu. Nothing in the village or local parks. This is a very densely populated residential area. Do PHEV owners not have chargers at home or have some sort of charging plan/discount?
I presume they're locals as I see one or two of the same cars charging, I hope nobody is coming off the motorway to top up a PHEV for a longer trip. Considering public charging is very expensive, why not use petrol/hybrid to get home and charge there? PHEV owners seem to like driving everywhere in EV mode so surely charging at home every night makes sense. It must be free for them?
First off, PHEV topups during a longer journey doesn't really matter for me. In my experience, my VW GTE only starts to benefit from a sit down meals worth of time at a motorway stop (the longer the journey, the less they matter). They charge too slowly.
Last February, Dublin to Dingle with two people and luggage was 5.5 l/100km with a full charge to begin with and what turned out to be a worthless short charge at the Obama plaza. I'd never plan a long trip around midway charges, as that misses the point of a PHEV for me (which is biased towards 4-50km commutes).
Secondly, it reads like you're basing PHEV owners on the sample size of 2ish which isn't a great number to assume from. I'd can only add my own experience that I wouldn't mind public charging near my place of work. In this weather, I'm getting 30 of my 45km commute on EV, so a top up where I can before my return journey is welcome. I've not done the maths on price per km on petrol vs public charging.
I had a C350e before that and I'd need to charge that wherever I possibly could due to the smaller battery. If I wanted to, I'd need 3hrs at a public charger to get me most of the way home on that. With the VW, I've better ev range so charging at work matters less.
I was watching a charging video of the BMW IX1, they have a menu option to start battery heating manually. I really wish more cars came with this for the power users.
Most EV you stick it in sports mode and drive fast, much more fun than pressing a button.
True, but you don't always get the chance for a long motorway run before charging, you have to work with that you've got
Do most not have battery cooling to undo all your hard work?
THe battery will discharge and charge most efficiently at the same temperature, sport mode will allow the car to get to the ideal temperature for most cars for sporty driving which is usually the same as the ideal charging temperature.
If your talking a charger that high enough power to be worth preheating for (something over 150kw) most are mid journey no? If not plan your charging better....assume you are starting from a good state of charge on any trip and if its a return charge on the inbound if the charger is close to the turnaround point.
Well you don't always get to pick and choose the ideal location for a charging stop
For example last week I did Dublin to Belfast and back again the next day. Arrived with slightly more than 50% so I had a few options:
Wing it, and arrive home with maybe 4% if I'm lucky
Try to find an AC charger overnight in central Belfast, a city well known for having cars left on chargers for days at a time
Go for Ionity on the way back, probably ideal to get max charging speeds, but only two chargers so there's a risk of waiting
Roll the dice on an Ecars charger being working and available (and buy a lottery ticket if there was because it would have been my lucky day)
Top up at Maxol Kinnegar, slower because cold battery and high SoC but 6 chargers makes for low risk of a long queue
In the end I went for the last option, wasn't ideal conditions but I was only plugged in for 10-15 mins (would have been shorter but an emergency bathroom break was needed). There was no queues at all and I had one of the 150kW all to myself, although I was only pulling around 60kW so wouldn't have mattered if another car plugged in
Or buy a Tesla 😂
Yeah but how would a preheating button have changed the situation, if you have time to preheat with a button, you have time to to preheat by driving it harder, takes just as much time. If you have a battery temp reading on your car you can test that for yourself.
THats a terrible things to say to anyone 😁
Unfortunately I use my car on Irish roads that have speed limits, a button would be a much easier solution.
My point was more that you might not be able to do 15-30 mins of hard driving, particularly across central Belfast
I could try it but I imagine the PSNI might have a few things to say 🤣
So being able to just manually preheat the battery would be handy sometimes
Apparently the engineering challenge of adding a button is seen as insurmountable by some.
Sure the preheating wouldn't make any difference then, you'd be hitting Castlebellingham at too high a SoC to get full power 😝
I mean it does involve a lot of fancy touchscreen graphics these days. You'd probably need some fancy animation of the battery heating up as well otherwise people wouldn't on now what's going on
Or you could just automate the battery pre heating when a charge is required to complete the selected journey.
Wonder why no one has thought of that 🤔
I mean there's no reason you can't have it both ways. The automation is good but sometimes it helps to just have a button you can press to precondition the battery
I'd like a button to turn off pre heating so I can enjoy my lunch without having to run out and move the car as the charge is normally complete while I'm still waiting for my food 😁
Run down the battery prematurely on the off-chance that the driver isn’t hoping to charge at an eCars single point of failure site?
Off chance? Have only used an Ecars DC charger once in my 4 years of EV ownership.
YMMV. I’ve only used a Tesla SuC once in my 3 years of Tesla ownership, had to rely on eCars the rest of the time.
Any thoughts on the Zeeker 001, might start seeing them in Europe this year. I think it looks really well and some online reviews look positive. I'd imagine it will be in the 50-60k bracket here but who knows. I can't see the 009 selling here as the front hit every single branch of the ugly tree on the way down but it does look like a niceplace to travel.
https://insideevs.com/news/620991/geely-zeekr-enter-european-market-in-2023-with-001-ev/
The company site - best used in chrome and trasnlated
https://www.zeekrlife.com/zeekr001
Not as ugly as the kia soul IMO.
Yeah now we can see that Volvo (owned by Geely, also owner of Polestar) really has become a proper Chinese company 🙄
Shameless clone of the Porsche Taycan Sport Turismo. So yes, looking good.
Yes, definitely a turismo bang off it, was my first thought also. Battery is huge, nearly double what many offer which is an interesting take. I must have a better look and see what it tips the scales at.
Asians are really starting to shake things up for the establishment.
Saw a white Toyota BZ4X or however it goes. Don't think it was the best colour for it with the contrasting black plastic. That aside I got a bit of an Ioniq 5 vibe from it in the flesh.
