Random EV thoughts.....

Logical but dangerous words to utter to the OH.

:)

If its any consolation, we went full EV as the missus was always away with my car and left her ICE car on the driveway 90% of the time.

The main reason for me going EV was all that plugging in became very tiresome, I'm glad I did. €380 in total for 2024 and 7 months of that was on a 24hr unit rate my only regret was I didn't go on an EV rate as soon as I got the car it's effectively free driving. First service a set of tyres and brakes are due in July this year, already paid for, what's not to like about EV driving 😊

I think I had to plug the missus' Leaf in for the first 6 months until she got free workplace charging, then all of a sudden she learned to plug in the car 😂

Was in Rome a few months ago and walking through a lot of streets I noticed a lot of small cars parked crammed together with little space going to waste. I think this is pretty typical in cities and towns across a lot of European countries. Small cheaper EVS would be a great way of getting about rather than large chunkier Crossovers/SUVs. May not be the same for the Irish Market but it will be interesting to see sales as they happen in Europe as 2025 unfolds.

We've only got around 600km to go at maximum 😉

What's crit air? Jesus not another one I "need" to know…

Kinda half true in my opinion.

Well they simply stopped making them, you can't buy what they don't sell.

Bought a new 201 PHEV (BMW 330e) mainly because the government in it's infinite wisdom made it cheaper here than anywhere else in the eurozone(like seriously when has a relatively high performance BMW EVER been cheaper in Ireland than anywhere else?). In fairness it suited our driving situation at the time and it was plugged in nightly. What it did do , despite covid, was give us a taste of EV driving which led us to a BMW iX and a MINI Cooper SE. Our driving needs had changed significantly in the meantime but a superficial observation of public charging and (in hindsight) hugely optimistic if not downright misleading range figures persuaded us to go down the ev path....One bad charging experience on an Easter weekend later and we decided to hang on to the ageing 2.0L diesel Q5 for any future occasional ( very occasional) trips to the southwest or west as the decision maker had lost all confidence in EVs for such journeys.

So nearly 2 years on the public charging infrastructure has come on leaps and bounds (I'm mainly concerned with the M7) the MINI runabout has been replaced with another PHEV - a retrograde step in my view but not something I could prevent- Diesel Q5 is gone and with the loss of half price tolls and the extortionate price of public charging relative to petrol or diesel ( multiple of 3 is being generous to EVs , it could arguably be 3.5- 4)there's minimal if any savings in a regular to us 420km round trip between the EV and the PHEV . Personally I prefer the EV despite the compromise of having to charge for c.30 mins.

RAV4 phev here cost about €350 for electricity for the year on the Energia rate, and maybe as much again in petrol over c15k kms. Plugging it in is zero hassle. It’s a bloody cheap car to run and a Bev really can bring nothing new to the table.

The Camry pure hybrid by comparison cost about 2500 in petrol in 20k kms (accounts not done yet). It’s not as cheap to run, and is similar to a diesel in running costs. I can see it being replaced with a 530e, but I’d need a second charger and so on.

Thanks. Not one to remember, for me anyway ☺️

I have 300k km on my 2014 outlander phev. Not a nightmare, everything still works, even the headlight washers! Battery is somewhat degraded but that's to be expected, and even if the battery is degraded to 50% after another 300k km it still works as a HEV anyway.

I bought this as a replacement for a diesel XC90, the fact it was a phev was a bonus, I wasn't going to pay more than 8-10k as this is a third car for towing/hauling/other stuff. Phevs are a great option if used right. The problem is, if not used right, it costs 170 to tax for a petrol SUV that will struggle to do 35 mpg (if not plugged in)

I of course plug in regularly and often 😃

On a round trip of 500km over the holidays I got 45mpg. Insane for a large SUV.

The newer ones do, but the earlier pre 2020 ones had something ridiculous like 8kWh usable. Anyway, this is a third car as I mention and as I paid 7k for the outlander, there wasnt really an opportunity to buy an XC90 phev as a replacement. The competition was diesel range rovers or diesel xc90.

I think there is a problem with taxation of phevs. Speaking as a phev owner, the flat battery running as a regular hybrid I'll get between 30 and 35 mpg. The car is taxed based on 44g/km of CO2. Those two are not really compatible. I was doing 35mpg in the diesel XC90 and that car cost 1200 to tax.

Even consider edge cases like the BMW XM or BMW M5, both of these are V8 petrols yet cost less than 200 quid to tax.

This is a real problem, PHEVs are not generally used in EV modes (there are exceptions like myself of course) and the low rate of motor tax is a disincentive to change past phev to a full EV.

The bik is a bit lower on phev in Ireland due to lower emissions but not a patch on the bik exemptions currently enjoyed for a full ev (for the moment). I have a fully bik free cupra born at the moment, we have some tesla model Ys and id4s/id5s rated at value of around 5k at the moment.

There's still an incentive to go ev alright