Random EV thoughts.....

Do I need to have an account to use the chargers at Barrack Obamas?

It cost me around €93. Yes I will get around 680-700km taking into account the current cold weather

Wow that's actually mad money. Why is public charging so expensive? Is it some sort of special electricity like the way you can get premium fuels?

Long term average for my EV is 17.3/100 which equals €69.03 using a 57c per unit public charger. At home it would cost me €7.26. When anyone asks I always tell them if you can't charge at home don't buy an EV.

Yeah but don't forget. Most of your charging will be at home on night rate electricity , the issue really is not cost but the time to charge and the availability of high power charger over 100 kw.

I would recommend either getting a cheap EV with 40-50 Kwh and taking the ICE for the longer trips and forgetting about charging because it is one major pain in the ass after the novelty wears off. If you don't have ICE at home then I wouldn't recommend EV at this time.

Charging at public chargers gets old fast, believe me, I did it for 10 years and I'm now back in a petrol manual car.

OP, Mad Lad did his public charging when they were free and if they weren't broken, then they were hogged by locals/taxis. Different days back then.

I was very dedicated to the cause back then but this was 2015, you and Josip seem to think I drove EV for a year ! I only ditched EV May 2024 !

The network was **** and still is **** because a lot more people now have EV, the charge times are **** and the range is still well off ICE. These are facts.

THe vast majority of drivers in Ireland could easily cope with an EV, and do their commute and back without charging. Remember that the average commute in this country is something like 30km. Maybe less.

Plus, so many EVs now have big batteries, that they easily do a much larger commute.

Everyone should have home charging if they can accommodate it. I would still advise people not to rely on public charging for your daily use. Long trips yes, daily use, no. Can't install a home charger? Don't buy an ev then.

I have a hybrid and a full ev, and haven't used a public charger since the day they started charging for them in the North. Now it's all done at home and at work. And I think most people would have no need for public charging in their daily lives if they have a charger at home.

Are you joking, if the vast majority of drivers changed to EV today the public charging network would die on it's ass. Most people want the convenience of a petrol or diesel with the same range, it's not about what you think they could do with it's what they want that matters and that is range, charge times especially, depreciation and cost to buy.

The majority of people who are not into EV tech simply don't give a **** to want to spend so much time at public chargers.

That's exactly the point many posters are making. I know you're being your usual unapproachable hostile self, but yes many people don't get out much and, like myself do 99% of their charging at home. My work commute is tiny(luckily) I could actually walk it but because it's oddball hours I prefer to drive. In the 15 months of ownership of an EV I've DC charged it 4 times, one of those times was a practice run to familiarise myself with the procedure, I've never publicly AC charged it. In conclusion I'm the ideal candidate for an EV with the added bonus that all my charging can fit inside the BG 2-5 (5.97c) charging window.

I disagree, I haven't had to queue for a charger for several years now

Part of that is down to having an EV with more range, part of that is down to more hubs being available

I think there's been a big acceleration in the past year in particular with Ecars and Circle K both rolling out hubs at various sites, plus Ionity upgrading their sites

As I've said, the biggest problem is finding the hubs. The in car navigation is a gamble as to whether it's up to date, and you can't be messing around with your phone while driving (although plenty still do)

That's why I keep banging on about having signs on the road pointing out nearby chargers. Not every solution needs to be high tech

Thing about EVs is they change month on month, quarter on quarter, year on year. If I stopped in 2018 or 2022 for example, my experience would be severely outdated and irrelevant.