Well when you've a massive hole in public finances pissing everyone off with the budget is probably an acceptable result, means everyone shoulders the burden
As regards EVs, I wouldn't expect much from Labour. They'll likely focus on infrastructure rather than purchase incentives
Gotta face facts, both the Irish and the UK governments couldn't give a toss about getting more people into EVs.
They set targets that they won't reach in 50yrs let alone 10yrs. There has been a drift back to buying ICE cars again. The product wasn't sold well enough to the public, too many silly scare stories and not enough Gov help.
All of that... And the world shifted in the middle. Brexit, COVID, lockdown, war, Chinese EV boom.
Meaning the economics of EV production and ownership changed.
There' only one source to pull them from. Both figures were spit out for Jan 2024 cars with 10,000 miles
The price cuts have made my EV on PCP practically worthless, I'm strongly considering going back to an Octavia petrol, they seem to be holding their values fairly well. The only thing in favour of owning an EV in this climate is home charging on a cheap EV rate.
Green Flash is coming
Are they paying me for a new set of plates?
If it's only cosmetic, why change them?
Amazing how the plate design is so carefully regulated and yet at the drop of a hat it can be changed for such a nebulous non essential reason
Lads....just be happy for once 😂
At least it's optional. 😂
at least with pcp you can just hand it back at the end, and with the price cuts a new one will be a lot cheaper. you wont have to drive an asthmatic octavia petrol either 😁
Great to see the Greens finally have a well considered strategy on how to increase EV uptake in this country.
Exactly. For every EV driver who wants their car to stand out, there's another who just wants to go about their business efficiently with a relatively anonymous car that doesn't shout "Musk/Trump fan" or "Tree hugger" or "I'm about to get mugged by depreciation".
Look at how Mercedes are backing off from super slippy futuro-EQ-cars and just adding bigger batteries to cars that look and are named like proper Mercs. I suspect the buyers driving that will not be wanting a badge of shame.
🤣🤣🤣
I'm the same tbh. Any and all fuel savings on my model 3 have been wiped out and then some by the excessive price cuts. Yes you can buy a new one now cheaper. But that doesn't change that existing owners lost money. And may not want another.
As it stands I'm driving my xc90 diesel while the insurance is sorted on my model 3 with the finance company and getting it written off etc. I may just stay driving this. Fuel isnt even that expensive, and this car is only doing 25-30mpg. My model 3 was 850 quid a month on PCP, along with a 10k deposit, and all that is gone now. 10k over 2 years added to the repayments makes it over 1k a month. Plus another 100 or so on electricity. Even at 25mpg, 1100 per month buys a heck of a lot of fuel.
I'm equally torn between buying a heavily depreciated model X or just simply not buying anything.
"…help us visualise our zero emission future…". Here is a better visualization
I'm in the camp of, don't want it on my number plate.
And on the depreciation end, it's the case for any new car. Even more so if you put plenty of Kms on it.
I've run through the numbers for cost to change to an automatic ICE or an EV, of a similar size and spec of my Niro and it's much of a muchness between them,
And it's 4k more than the cost to change 5 years ago(2019), although I have an car that's a year older and much more Kms on it this time around
You'd have to say the prices of new BEVs were over inflated and hiked up by manufacturers. As indeed some of the ICE cars were. Subscriptions for features is ludicrous. Ok there's subsidized outside competition, that's a whole issue on its own. But govt incentives to go BEV just evaporated, as did any disincentive not to buy ICE/Phev. Then there's all the fud.
All this has propped up ICE/Phev market while undermining the BEV market. The BEV market is still a tiny fraction of the ICE market.
We don't do much mileage so for us fuel cost was nice but not the main attraction. A BEV was just better suited to all the short urban driving we do. It was killing the diesel we had, and even the old petrol we have doesn't love it. Never gets up to temp. One or the other was always at the mechanics.
But there comes a point where the numbers don't make any sense. I didn't buy new and if I was replacing it, I'd buy another used BEV. If I was replacing our other car the petrol I'd probably buy another petrol. Because there no reason not to.
I suspect at some point in the future the govt or EU might bring in policies that catch everyone out who has invested ICE/PHEV.
Ill get the green plates when they allow me to drive in bus lanes and park wherever I want because I'm better and more important than an ICE driver
After paying out €11520 for the privilege, the 150bhp car wouldn't be that bad.
A green stripe on a plate is showing how easily some people get wound up.
Point being it's a poor gesture after withdrawing a number of incentives way too early into the adoption curve
I think it’ll be an easy decision for most EV owners, No Thanks.
Why would you bother spending €30 to get a new set of plates made if it's of no benefit to you? Just to show you're driving an EV? Who cares.
If there ANPR to allow you free parking or to use bus lanes, maybe you'd get it done.
I never bought a new ICE.
I do a lot of miles, my first EV was a leaf24 and I did 60k km in just over 12 months in it. 70-80% of that is sitting at 100 or 120 on a motorway. Fuel savings (and other running costs like maintenance etc) were the only reason for me going EV. If they brought out a car powered by whale oil that was 10% the cost of diesel I'd have gone for that. Being totally honest, before the leaf I ran old diesel cars that I bought from auction and run on green diesel and or kerosene. So yeah it was 110% a cost thing.
I went from saving money in a leaf, an Ioniq (*2), a tesla S and X, to then suddenly losing money on the 3. Big time. I lost 21k in repayments and a 10k deposit in 24 months of ownership. In that time my fuel bill was 600 per month cheaper than diesel. So I "saved" 14k in fuel but it still cost me 17k with absolutely zero to show for it.
EVs are no longer for people like me, who like to change cars regularly. Since my EV was crashed into and written off, it has been replaced by a 25mpg diesel XC90. I had the xc90 all along but it was used sparingly only when 7 seats or towing or boot capacity was needed. Now I'm considering simply not replacing the model 3 at all. Doing my annual mileage - around 40k km last year - would only cost me approximately 4k for the year, even adding in another 4k to cover tax and maintenance that's still cheaper than the tesla. And it doesn't bing and bong at me if there's a bit of fog.
I'm betwixt and between doing that, or getting an already heavily depreciated model X 7 seater with a towbar to replace the volvo outright. Stockholm syndrome.
I get your point but all new cars depreciate, including new ICEs, especially if you're doing higher mileage. The last couple of years have been an anomaly with covid and supply issues but that should revert closer to norm from now on.
I fully agree with your view as to why most people were clambering to get into EVs over the last few years...low running costs but also the fear of losing out of those lucrative Govt incentives (who could possibly resist the temptation of squeezing €10k off the tax man).
I also agree with the pita all the bonging that goes along with driving the M3. Every damn time I indicate to overtake I'm treated to a bong and a warning that auto lane change isn't available. I don't want and have not selected auto lane change so leave me the fcuk alone🤣
With the number of people with "non legal" number plates, there will be ones that want it.
I know all new cars depreciate. My point is I bought a new Ioniq, a nearly new leaf (12 months), and two prior teslas less than 4 years old (my S was 2 years and I think the X was 4 years when I bought them), and never lost money on them. The leafs and Ioniqs actually saved money even including the interest on the loan and the fuel costs etc.
Then you come to the M3, which was the only "logical" EV I bought. I didnt want it, I wanted an X but at the time I had my reservation but they said LHD only. So I bought the 3 to have for a year or so, and then trade in against an ex demo model X. Oh boy that didn't work. It's also the only EV I lost money on. If you're losing money against a car that does 25mpg then what does that say. We do so many miles I spend nearly 200 per month on electricity for the cars. (We still have my leaf and her ora, but taking the ora to dublin is more expensive in fuel cost than the volvo because fast charging is so expensive).
I'm all for incentives, I take advantage of all that I can! I pay enough tax so whenever I get some back I'm first in line. Multiple EVs and we have a large solar setup too.
The majority of EVs on the road will be sold in coming years, I'd posit that most customers will just be taking whatever plate the dealer puts on at time of registration and won't actively be involved in the choice.
As measures go its negligible cost, it might go some way to dispelling some of the regularly shared reasons for not buying an EV that include "they all look weird" and "nobody in «insert random rural county» drives an EV". Whilst a lot of people on here have some knowledge of the different models available, the average person on the street probably couldn't tell what's an EV whilst driving around.
For those people who are somehow upset that their car may have a way to spot that their car is electric (for those who can't tell by make/model) they can choose to get non flashed plates. The whole thing is such a nothing burger.
Your last point is the key one..…why bother
