Thinking of moving to EV

I'll concede that you didn't rely daily on public charging, though you did rely on it frequently and to such an extent that it became a big issue for you, especially when we saw an uptake of EVs and fast chargers (and slow chargers) became blocked by those who took advantage of free local electricity and taxi drivers.

I'm 8 years in EVs now and also had the 24kWh Leafs, so I know the limitations all too well, but I knew it before I bought one and made sure it would fit my lifestyle and needs. It wasn't often I wanted to make that spontaneous trip across the country, so it worked for me. I wasn't surprised or upset when public charging was hit and miss. You were one of the people who convinced me that a full BEV made most sense. I had been considering a PHEV Outlander at the time.

When the Leaf no longer met my needs, 5 years later, I upgraded to a bigger battery. We are into our 5th EV, as a 2 EV household (2 x 24kWh Leafs. A Model 3 RWD and now we own a 40kWh Leaf and Model Y AWD. I'd like to add an i3 to the fleet this, or next year.

I wasn't disagreeing with you by the way. I understand your POV. Just because mine is different, doesn't make yours wrong. But, I do think you frame EVs quite negatively as a result of your experiences and it seems disingenuous when you say you are not against EVs and say you are only trying to give a balanced perspective. That's how it comes across.

In any case, I am glad you are enjoying motorcycles and small petrol engine cars. Not everyone needs to drive the same thing. As much as I like bikes, I think it's too dangerous to ride one and the weather isn't fun a lot of the time either.

It depends where you need to charge, public charging infrastructure is nowhere near where it needs to be. I experienced that frustration only last weekend. I only public charge about once a month on average so I'm willing to put up with the inconvenience for all the positives Ev ownership brings.

I'll be collecting a boat in West Kerry in a couple of weeks with the Ev, I'd say it's going to be interesting. Really hope I don't need to charge on the way back with the boat.

I get what you’re saying, and I agree that home charging can be a huge convenience, no argument there. But let’s not exaggerate the time and hassle involved in refuelling an ICE vehicle either.

Many rural villages have seen the Post office gone, the shop, the pub and the petrol pump, rural dwellers are used to decline because the Government want us all to live in the big town and city. Literally every rural village and town in Ireland is in decline and we won't have to worry about closing petrol stations because many are already gone with the life and soul of many of these communities. There's still a big difference if your car has 350-400 kms real range vs 800 to 1200 kms depending on tank size, many rural drivers who have seen the local petrol pump disappear fill up on their way to work or supermarket.

Most people don’t hop in the car specifically to go to a petrol station. They usually fill up while already out, on their commute, school runs, or errands. It’s rarely a standalone task. A quick stop at a forecourt adds five minutes, maybe less, and doesn’t require planning or rethinking a journey and I rarely have to stand in a queue for more than 1 or 2 mins, in busy petrol stations you can expect to wait longer. There are many pre pay pumps now too.

That’s different from needing to schedule charging stops on longer trips, or adjusting travel plans because a charger is busy, broken, or slower than expected, the charger is slower or the battery is cold, That’s the reality many EV owners still deal with.

I’ve done both, and I’m not here to tear down EVs, I owned and drove them for almost a decade. But a balanced view means being honest about the compromises too. Not everyone will experience the same issues, but pretending they’re all solved or insignificant or don't even exist doesn’t help people who are genuinely trying to figure out whether an EV suits their life and buying an EV just to see if it suits them can have very significant loss of money if EV doesn't work out for them.

Exactly, they just plan their refueling to suit their needs same as EV drivers. They know they can't get petrol after 8pm, so they plan accordingly. EV drivers know they can't drive 600km without stopping.

My point is no one pops up in ice car threads talking about having to constantly stop and top up, you have to constantly monitor that gauge, you have to constantly keep money aside for it. But you can't have a single EV thread without it.

Some people fill the car every week, plus a few times for long trip. 60 x 5 mins stops adds up over a year.

That's five hours standing out in the freezing wind holding a nossle, getting diesel all over your hands.

It's not that these are things that you need to consider. But they are blown out of proportion. I've driven all over the country. Cork, Kerry, Dublin, Limerick, Donegal. And over the last 5 years I've prob needed a fast charge 5 times. Each time I pulled into a charger that had 8 fast chargers, usually more than half of them free. Plugged in, popped to the toilet, grabbed coffee and a pack of sweets and hit the road again.

Yeah I can see why people would be turned off and I live in the sticks and avoid commuter roads and times, I don't go motorways either really. But I understand biking is more dangerous than car , there's still vastly more on the continent.

The key areas are junctions, speed and over taking, speed is a big factor. I've had 2 people pull out in front of me since I started riding in Feb 2024 but I had slowed down to well below the speed limit and had I been going the full speed limit it would have been a different story.

We really need to bring back being able to ride mopeds and 125 cc motorcycles/scooters on a car license. This IBT thing is not really a big benefit having gone through it.

A big factor for me was already having several years road experience.

One year on from trading '19 Mercedes 220d and went for a BYD seal performance. Have the home charger (Zappi) and I must say I'm extremely happy with the decision. Doing aprox 20000k per annum, no issues so far and due its first service in a couple of weeks time. Anyone want any advice or whatever, feel free to ask.

You mentioned a 545 Km day with one charging stop, but let’s be clear that was spread across multiple trips and included an overnight stay. It’s not a single, uninterrupted journey. You even had to charge at 1 AM after getting home late from a 160 Km round trip just to have enough for the next day. That already shows how much active planning is involved.

Then you had to stop again at City north just to avoid hitting turtle mode. And later, you relied on a slow charger at the venue one that was only delivering 0.5 kW which fortunately worked out only because you were staying overnight nearby. You say it was no big deal, but there were multiple layers of coordination required just to make the day go smoothly. It worked, sure, but only because you planned carefully and adjusted everything around the car’s limitations.

This highlights the reality EVs can absolutely do long trips, but doing so still takes more thought and effort compared to ICE cars. That is not "outdated FUD" ,it’s simply what a lot of people experience, even with decent range EVs. You adapted well, and fair play for making it work for your needs, but that does not mean others should dismiss the compromises or pretend they no longer exist.

The idea that a €12,500 EV covers all needs with no trade offs just because it technically manages the journey ignores the details like having to monitor range, plan your days around charging windows, and hope public infrastructure is working when you need it. That’s a valid use case for some, but others need to know exactly what they’re getting into. That is the kind of honesty that helps people make the right decision, rather than just selling the upside.

"You mentioned a 545 Km day with one charging stop, but let’s be clear that was spread across multiple trips and included an overnight stay."

No, you've mis-read my post either accidentally or deliberately. That 545km trip happened last month and it was all done in one day, leaving where we live near the north coast with a full battery, heading to see family in Co. Wicklow, one charging stop and then back north to stay with friends in Dungannon. Total distance in that one day, 545km. No extra overnight stay, no multiple trips or additional charging - and just to be clear, when we arrived in Dungannon, we still had enough range to get all the way home had we chosen to.

The last long trip we took was a week ago. It didn't involve having to get out of bed the night before to go and charge the car - we arrived back home at 1.00am from seeing family, stopped the car, got out, plugged it in and went to bed. It was an extra 10 seconds outside, nothing more. The next day, we stopped for 12 minutes (I timed it) where I knew there'd be chargers on our 330km trip, just to make sure we'd be ok and not hit turtle mode shortly before getting to our destination - as it turned out, we still had more than 10% by the time we arrived, but I was playing it safe. I then chose to use the slow charger at the venue instead of one of the multiple CCS points that were right there, because I'm a lazy individual who couldn't be arsed leaving the party to go back out and unplug from an 80% charge I knew I wouldn't need (if I was both lazy and also inconsiderate, I might well have plugged into the CCS charger and left it blocked for 5 or 6 hours, but I'm not so I didn't). Even after the app later showed me the charge rate on the Type 2 had dropped to .5kW, I didn't care because I knew the car would already have loads of range to get to where we were staying by the time we'd be leaving, and the car would be fully charged again by morning because we would need to sleep at some stage, like ... It wasn't a compromise or an inconvenience - in fact, it probably saved me a couple of euro by not delivering more kWh than I actually needed.

The rest of what you're saying about planning carefully and adjusting comes across as hyping up the few moments of thought it took as though I was preparing some sort of complex military operation. That's just b0llocks. You talk about having to monitor range as though you've never had to look at a fuel gauge and - don't panic! don't panic! - decide you need a top up. My 12 minutes at Ionity was less than the time I've regularly spent filling the diesel tank at the Castlebellingham services (I've timed that too, dozens of times). So nothing out of the ordinary, no multiple layers of coordination.

I've been lurking on this forum for years as I fancied the idea of an EV for a long time and wanted to learn about any benefits and pitfalls. When it comes to describing the experience of living with an EV, the vast majority of your focus is about the worst-case scenarios and the sky falling in, not the humdrum daily reality that if you get the car that suits your needs, everything usually goes just fine. I'm glad I made my buying decision based on other people's input and advice.

Just to give the OP (if you are still here) another example of an EV journey beyond battery range (Ionic 5, 58kw small battery). I have a journey planned on ABRP for next weekend - 455km round journey; Mayo to Limerick (pick someone up) to Longford (drop said someone off) and then back to Mayo with 9% charge left (it will likely work out as more).

One charge (25mins), which I will do at the Limerick destination. I wont be standing beside the car holding the charger for the refuel time (like ice refueling), instead I leave it go while I pop into the toilets and the shops beside the charger while waiting for the pickup person to finish work.

8 stalls of 200kW chargers at the destination, last time I went there only one being used by a taycan, the one I pulled up to I discovered did not work. The taycan pulled away at that point and I pulled into that one knowing it was working. 12 minutes charging (for that journey and charge target was reached before my pickup was ready to leave) while I sat in the car listening to Kerry compete their annihilation of Armagh. That was the extent of the hassle experienced.

There you are, just rekindling the same sh1te all over again! The OP has outlined their scenario and you continue to ignore it (again, honestly, where is your honesty?) and you set an absolute outlier scenario and point stating 'look everyone, EVs dont work and that is why I had to jump ship. Because they dont function, I was right to jump. It wasn't me.'.

Across both the for and against argumenting groups the one unifier is DO NOT get an EV if you dont have access to home charging. The OP has numerous posts here pointing that out. That is the sole con to EVs (of course there are some niggles like ice can also have)…the rest is adaptability capacity and some, possibly yourself, dont have that…..or, you had a daily round journey that required stopping on the way home to public charge. That is simply a wrong car decision, not the deficiency of EVs. Of course your point is …'thats my point - they dont always suit'! Yes, we all agree. Hence why nobody is stating otherwise, but at least everyone on this thread other than yourself is selfless enough to focus on the OPs stated requirements and not on their own outcome and continually strive to get justification for their own wrong choice (most here dont agree with that because the EV works perfectly for them and that is their honest recommendation).

And I understand part of your change in circumstance. There was a day when the public costs were low and have rose significantly since (happened shortly after I purchased). We were all affected and of course it probably is the greatest deterant to the magic EV ownership figure we have signed up to by 2030.

I have one example of a catastrophic nights driving the EV that involved ringing ahead to hotels near midnight on my route to see if they had chargers free and then signing up to apps for that charger. Not enjoyable. I believe if this had happened to you you would continually post it and state this is the honest truth about EV ownership and keep bringing it up on the thread. But it wouldn't be the singular truth and hence why I have not posted it in detail. It is an outlier experience completely caused by my lack of attention, not the EV….me! I believe your experience exhibits similar but without the acknowledgement of your shortcomings.

Mobile phones; remote working and server access; cloud storage; ecology friendly airfryers that dont cook as fast as older models; OLED TVs that suffer screen burn ….they are all things we just become accustomed to to overcome any associated issue. For most this is just shifting baseline syndrome, for you it appears to be a bitter crusade to justify your decisions that didn't work out for you.

The shortcomings of EV are minor and easily overcome for the majority of owners. Im done now. I will use that ignore function for the first time on Boards and stop annoying you and others with my reactive responses. Happy and safe driving and motorcycling Mad_Lad.

Here's an outlier experience, just for kicks. I was on my way to Frankfurt Airport in a Mercedes Vito, returning from a wedding in June. My Son was driving another car and we needed to top up the tanks to full before reaching the airport which was about another 80-100km away. It was a Sunday and every garage we passed within 200km was rammed with cars.

We pulled into the forecourt and it was chaos. I was in one line. My Son in another. We each had 3 or 4 cars ahead of us and it was just mental. So, we had to wait for people to fill up and return. It was taking ages and payment was in-store only. 20 minutes later, we were topping off the tanks. When we filled up, we went into the garage and there was a long queue with 15+ people ahead and several people complaining in German and English. One guy was dealing with fuel and another on the coffee/bakery counter. Madness!

When I paid and went outside, there was a full blown roaring match between several people. Tensions were very high and people were stressed, many probably had flights to catch…ourselves included. Seemingly, someone had skipped the queue and drove around the outside to reverse into the filling spot in front of me. Of course, it had been occupied when I pulled up behind to fill up and some of the front pumps were idle if the gap was too small for cars to get through. We spent a good 40 minutes there. I've spent long periods getting fuel before, but it's usually done in 10 minutes. 5 if there is a card reader at the pump that works and only if you are not waiting for someone else to go into the garage for their chicken roll (which you normally are).

I noticed that there was a Fast-Ned just up the road and as I was passing, it looked like a heavenly Oasis compared to what I had just come from. Spare charge points where the average charge time would have been about 10-15 minutes before heading off again.

This was a stark difference from the same period last year where I drove from Ireland to Germany and back in a Model 3 and had a smooth experience using only Tesla chargers, never having to wait for a free spot, stopping for 5-15 minutes at a time.

This attempt to make ICE refuelling sound like a 15 or 20 minute ordeal is just absurd. Most people fill up when they are already passing a station during their daily routine, after work on the way home, or while grabbing coffee or milk. Nobody is timing it with a stopwatch or treating it like a chore. For the majority, it is five minutes or less and they are back on the road.

Let’s not forget, many stations now have prepay at the pump, which skips the whole queuing inside step altogether. Tap the card, pump the fuel, and go. No waiting inside unless you want to.

There is also a massive difference in range. Many ICE vehicles can easily go 800 to 1200 kms on a single tank, and you can refuel in minutes no matter where you are. That level of flexibility and peace of mind simply does not exist with EVs.

Trying to pretend this is somehow worse than plugging into a charger for 20 to 50 minutes, possibly waiting in a queue, juggling apps, dealing with broken units or peak time slowdowns, just doesn’t stack up. Most people don’t need to plan their fuel stops like a logistics operation because they don’t have to. It’s quick, reliable, and everywhere the exact opposite of the EV charging experience for many drivers.

I've had to wait a lot longer at a lot more chargers a lot more times than I care to remember.

I've been in some petrol queues up North but I have to say, that's nothing vs the experience with ev. It's very, very rare I have to wait in a queue for petrol and I usually fill up when passing somewhere, I don't have to do any extra planning and I don't have to hope the battery is warm enough so your charge doesn't have to take longer.

I just read that the BMW are bringing back the Rex…….

"But it's funny to see EV zealots now who, years ago, were sneering about EVs on boards, their main obsession at that time were BMWs, VTEC, V8s and "luxobarges". Now, ICEs, manual transmissions and filling stations are apparently the worst thing ever."

Hahaha, yeah, I remember the flack, no really, sheer abuse I used to get in the motors section before the EV section was created, the EV section was created because the petrol heads didn't want to hear me and that was the time the mods were banning me for talking about EV you wouldn't believe it but it's true. I spend ages convincing boards to create an EV specific sub form in the motors section. lot of people here seem to forget the contribution I have made to promoting EV myself or are simply obvious to that fact. The amount of abuse I got for mentioning electric cars, however, I have being through 10 years and 240,000 kms of EV ownership and my experiences have given me the ability to give both sides of the story, sure there were good things but the negatives I experienced will also be negatives to others, not just about range and charge times but high cost, depreciation and unless trading in for brand new ev then one can have a hard time selling the EV.

If we only allow enthusiastic, hassle free experiences, and dismiss anything else as irrelevant or cynical, then we’re not really giving people honest advice we’re just curating a highlight reel.

Anyway, as I recently discovered, the Rex is returning and that is a major turn around for BMW, no doubt only big expensive SUV will see it for now.

50 Kwh with Rex would be really sweet and 150 Kw + fast charge would be decent.

I can understand that there will be concerns about adding the complexity of an Internal combustion engine to EV however, this is the choice manufacturers need to offer and make the engines compatible with other types of renewable fuel or efuel which can and does greatly reduce emissions.

Well I can agree on that, there is a lot of chargers where families stop to eat and it's my personal belief that this should be banned entirely because the amount of Kids I see eating junk food is really sad to watch, they so called experts b1tch about Alcohol and have for years yet bad food is just as bad or worse in some ways.

The Garage at M9 Kilcullen has Camile and if I stop in there and need food that's what I will order and there's never a queue and I stand and look over at the queues at McDonalds and the seating area full, it is depressing and I know it's good to have choice and all but seriously, there's far too many junk food outlets and they're not that cheap.

When I go off on the Motorbike I absolutely love to stop in to the local Cafe or the pub along the old national routes for proper decent food and more friendly staff and above all, they're local. When we go off in the car now too I rather take the older national routes and see the old towns and villages a lot of people have forgotten and haven't seen in years.

It's sad to see so many pubs and restaurants closed and derelict since the motorways went up, once thriving businesses.