EV Which one ???

Budget?

If you’re only doing 200Km a week, I’d go with an e-Golf in Executive spec or an Ioniq 28/38.

Stay away from the leaf. It uses a Japanese charging standard. You need to stick to cars which use CCS

Can ya not buy a converter that goes from chademo to CCS for €800?
limited to 250A (75kw max speed) I think.

We have an MG4. 64 kWh battery model from 2024. It’s comfortable, simple to drive and the finish is very good, if not quite German standard. Some wind noise on the drivers side is the biggest issue.

Home charger installed which I think is a must.

Range varies depending on outside temperature when charging and driving styles of course

I have driven from mid Kildare to Galway and back without recharging. Just been to Clonakilty this week and got there with 27% battery remaining- 261km distance. Drove a bit faster coming home and had 20% remaining on return.
On the road charging is expensive so I only do it on trips such as these.

So you’re doing 9,600 kms per annum- so that’s approx 12-14 full tanks a year- so maybe 1100-1300 euro on diesel per annum.

A home charger installed will cost you between 900 and 1200 (after grant payment) .

With home charging, you’ll save approx 67% of your annual fuel costs. You would be hoping that you’ll also save a bit on annual servicing assuming you buy an EV with no work required- ie tyres, brakes, suspension all good for another few years.

And maybe tax might be cheaper depending on current cost vs 120 for an EV.

So certainly some potential savings to be made after you account for the charger costs in year 1.

If you’re thinking “long term” as you’ve mentioned, then you need to assess if your annual milage will increase- change of job? More travel outside of your county? Ie what might change over coming years?

A low range car will likely annoy you long term -I’d try and stretch it to a longer range car if possible - consider ID3 or my preference over the ID3- Cupra Born- and obviously test drive all of these which will help the process of elimination- for example I test drove a Citroen eC4 a few years ago and couldn’t wait to get out of it 😀- I sat in one of the earlier ID3’s and again, that was enough for me. If you’re gonna be keeping it long term, you’re gonna have to love it.

A standard charger will likely only give you about 40kms per hour of charge- so you’ll need to be parked up at that charger for a number of hours- just FYI.

As Ghost says, it looks like a Leaf will meet all the needs you've laid out. One thing I noticed is that you used to drive a hybrid Niro - I have the full EV equivalent, and I'm very happy with it. No issues with the 12v battery so long as you don't switch off the car and then sit in it for ages without having opened the driver's door - if you do that, the car doesn't shut down completely but it stops keeping the 12v topped up from the main battery. On the motorway, mine easily does 400km from spring through to autumn, down to around 350-360km in winter once temperatures are below 7-8 degrees. Kia provide a full 7-year warranty on the whole car, not just the traction battery, so you could look at whether e.g. a 4 year old model which has already done the bulk of its depreciating is within budget, safe in the knowledge that you've still got 3 years of warranty left, which is all that some manufacturers offer from new.

I suggest buying a used kia niro ev as new as possible within your budget to benefit from 7 years warranty they offer on the car. If budget is limited, you really don't want to pay from pocket if an EV is broken and not under warranty. EVs has lower probability of having issues but when they have issues, they are costly to address.

What you really want from a car is a manufacturer that wants to see EVs become a success. A pure-EV company if you will. Imagine buying a car only to hear news the following day that the manufacturer is scaling back or completely stopping their EV production lines

I missed the bit about looking at the home charger in summer.

Had assumed you were looking at charging at the place you volunteer because of "can't charge at home".