SEAI Fuel Cost Comparison posters at petrol stations

Ok then, the fine print states 90/10 home/public for ev charge. Why does the fine print not include average fuel price or based on consumption average of X l per 100km. Way too many variables IMO to be captured in one poster with essentially 3 numbers to compare.

"A lot of people here..." Planks, own eye, etc come to mind. I think it's reasonably clear what Elm is saying. You are the one that's failing to comprehend his point.

Also, has it occurred to you that if your premise is true that many people's reading comprehension is poor on an internet bulletin board where they come to read (which I don't believe, but let's run with your premise) then it's going to be an awful lot worse for people passing by a sign at a filling station while engaged in their regular fill. Many, many people will assume the station owner is advertising goods for sale there. Very few will read the small print. It's misleading at best and disingenuous. Surely the fact that so many EV owners are against it, should indicate it's a bad (implementation of an) idea.

I would have no problem with the poster if instead of "Electric*" in the main font, they had put "Home Charging".

Has anyone gone through the legislation and studied the "common methodology" that the SEAI has to use when doing its price comparisons. Have they the option of including a price comparison for 100% public charging. If they do have the option and are choosing not to include it on posters, that is a farcical lack of transparency but also not surprising. The ESB gets to do what it wants and has its own agenda as does the SEAI. Optics are everything, Given the government's stated aim to have x number of EVs on the road, we can't have posters showing that public charging at ESB charging points results in little or no savings compared to fossil fuels.

As can be seen by the recent referendum result, the population may not be as stupid as our "authorities" think they are, and spin and manipulation to achieve a desired result can be counterproductive.

It doesn't matter what the percentage is. If this was done in a transparent manner, they'd have an extra line on the posters showing the public charging costs. This might also have the effect of putting pressure on the ESB to reduce its public charging rates.

So yes, this looks like spin to achieve a desired outcome i.e. more EVs on the road while attempting to hide the cost of public charging. I worked in the public service for years in technical and management roles and have seen this type of thing on numerous occasions from the inside. Nothing illegal, just "interpretation" and a creative approach to statistics. If it suits to publish a unit price for something, do that. If it suits to publish costs based on usage patterns (as in this case) then do that instead.

However as I haven't read the EU common methodology I don't know how prescriptive and rigid it is, it may be the case that the SEAI's hands are tied on this. Nothing to stop the ESB voluntarily putting up posters beside its charging points showing how much it costs to drive 100 km vs other fuels. I won't hold my breath while I await that.

The Electric Ireland domestic night rate is about 15 cent per kWh and some plans are cheaper. The public fast charge rate is set at 59-65 cent per kWh. So unless motorway petrol stations are charging over 4 times the price per litre as cheaper stations (would work out at over 7 euros per litre) then the comparison above is bogus.

Eh, look at the poster again, it specially says C segment reference car, now compare the font size to that used for the 90/10 assumption. Even if someone doesn't know what a C segment car is (do you know) there is a transparency there.

Also, if you take every C segment car on sale, the difference in their WLTP ratings for each fuel type will not be huge. Whereas the difference between domestic electricity night rates and public charging rates is huge - as I said above, equivalent to a motorway petrol station charging over 7 euros per litre for petrol.

More cost increase inducing nonsense from the Irish civil service which i shall be ranting over at the next incumbent party canvassers when they come to my door looking for a vote.

Learning something new about EV driving can you drop the condescension please. FYI, while I may not own an EV, I've purchased and driven them on behalf of employers and was also involved in the rollout of public charging points years ago.

I'm pro EV albeit disappointed that they haven't come down more in price and progressed more in range.

Change the posters so that there are entries for diesel, petrol, 100% home charging and 100% public charging. Then let consumers make up their own minds. Alternatively or in addition, ESB needs to substantially decrease its rates for public charging.

These posters are spin. Whether it is a "policy decision" or a choice by the SEAI doesn't really matter, the posters are attempting to encourage a particular outcome using a particular methodology while hiding inconvenient information from the consumer under the guise of indicative pricing. EV zealots see this and think it is great as it validates their choices. Concerns about consumer protection and lack of transparency get dismissed.

That 'should' has nothing to do with the implementation of the directive. It's to do with the methodology. Specifically the ease and possible methods of displaying price differentials. It's also in the preamble to the directive, not the directive itself, of which Article 7 applies to these signs.

So what you're saying is that the general public (or a subset thereof) don't know that you can charge an EV at home?

In my experience that's pretty much the only thing everyone I've spoken to about EVs does know. It's the public charging infrastructure that they don't know about. So I'm with @liamog in saying that this information should be available on the posters too.

Edit: Actually if they just added the price per kw for each of the blend components, that's the job done imo. So 90% (.15c/kw) : 10% (.65c/kw) would do it.

Yes Day/Night rates are popular with EV owners but ICE drivers, the main target for these adverts, are more likely to be on 24hr rates

Some people might have very high energy usage during the day, say for example if the whole family work from home. Switching to a night rate would give them cheaper car charging but might cost them more overall. Also fairly sure that for renters a change of meter to day/night requires the landlords consent?

They are outliers now, where EV motoring is all early adopters who are more likely to have access to home charging than the rest of the public.

If mass market EV adoption were to occur, the average mix of home:public charging will change drastically, 90:10 will not be reflective of it at all then.

Seeing as this campaign is targeted at non-EV drivers and the mass market, it should provide information about the cost of charging that will pertain to them, rather than pertaining to those already owning EVs.

This is not a bad time to start people thinking about BEVs. Many people (me included) would have been waiting to see ranges routinely hit the 400+ km mark and we're there now with lots of choice in the market. I think one of the problems with public charging is that the market isn't big enough yet for prices to drop enough that the cost of the infrastructure is spread over more consumers. Bit of a chicken and egg situation, but the availability of home charging makes this a moot point for the moment.

Interestingly, two thirds as many new BEVs were registered in 2023 (22.5k) as were on the road in January 2023 (34k). 19% of total car sales. This year to the end of Feb, new BEVs were slightly up on last year (1.4%). We're still a long way from the government's target of 175k on the road by 2025.

Looks that way alright Seth.

Lot of new contributors in the form courtesy of this thread and most just wringing their hands and very few actually asking to be informed better about EVs.

We are way past the early adopter phase for electric vehicles in Ireland. Would have been nice to have been a part of it as I gather it was virtually at no cost.

In order to drive further EV sales they really need to address concerns around battery degradation and depreciation of EVs two of the main issues that will prevent a frugal person owning an EV in the near future.

Battery degradation has been proven to be an non-issue. The last diesel car I owned was sold for 1,000, the one before that for 1200. The wife's last one went for €300 and her petrol before that went for €100 so depreciation is a problem in more than just EVs