How long until we see €2 a litre and will it push more to EV's faster?

My electric contract is up soon. Noticed while shopping around that the cheapest 24hr rate prices have increased from 20c per kWh to 29c since the start of the war. Most companies are hovering over the mid 30s.

Still some cheaper offers for EV rates but in general that's a 45% increase at least just there.

According to Google some of our oil comes from North and West Africa. I was being literal when I said Chinaman would just rock up his boat.

But at some point countries to the supply will cascade Eastwards towards the highest bidders so I can't see how will will avoid shortages.

I wont be reducing my fuel usage, if anything it will increase as summer approaches. I use HVO100 and will continue to use it despite the premium on it over regular diesel.

The last time I remember €1/L was pre-covid so yeah you could argue that it's doubled in the last 5-6 years. Might not be a popular opinion but I disagree with the govts recent discounting of taxes on dino juice for motorists. Sends the message that if you're struggling to pay for your dirty polluting fuels the govt will help you.

I was hoping for that domino to fall when the Ukraine war started back in 2022. There was announcements soon after of 4 massive offshore wind farms which after 4 years are still in the planning/design stage. Not sure wave is feasible at the moment (although, who knows with future tech) and Nuclear is a complete non-runner. Even if the law changed overnight you'd never get planning permission.

Since the price crunch of 2022 we've gone seeking an LNG terminal so that we could be even more reliant on international factors, you literally couldn't write this **** into your darkest comedy

Careful what you wish for!

Fuel excise is in/around the €4bn a year (and rising) and makes up over half the cost of fuel-based running costs for an ICE motorist. By comparison, the only tax an EV motorist pays for "fuel" currently is the VAT on any electricity consumed from the grid.

There is absolutely no way in hell they're going to forego that tax revenue and suddenly make motoring cheap again if everyone switched to EV en masse and fuel sales went through the floor.

If €2/litre is the new baseline cost for ICE motoring, then whatever tax take the government is able to get away with of that headline figure will undoubtedly become the basis for setting out KM-based taxation rates.

I'd rather see them pressured into reducing the tax take now rather than being able to set the baseline for KM-based taxation on higher amounts.

You can level quite a bit at the upper echelons of Irish society however a lack of EV advocacy isn't one of them.

To take an anecdotal microcosm of an example, look at any consultants carpark at a hospital and you'll see a world of high end EV's, plug in hybrids etc.

Theres definitely a market for some common sense and less vested interest driven policies.

But im not a gangster and make a decent living, so zero interest in going into politics.

The days of cheap motoring are behind us regardless of what propels your vehicle.

A significant amount of our existing renewable operators in Ireland, and an even larger amount of the proposed developments, are owned by foreign publicly traded companies and investment funds like Orsted, Energia and SSE. The money will most certainly not stay in Ireland, no more than it does oil or gas, it'll be divested to its shareholders just as any other plc is legally obligated to do.

As for employment, the fuel industry creates plenty of employment - be that the filling stations, the truck drivers transporting the fuel, or the Customs & Excise and Revenue officers that detect and prosecute those trying to launder the fuel. It also generates a huge amount of our tax take in this country (and many others). Jobs and tax revenue that all have to be replaced somehow if the fuel industry disappeared overnight because everyone went electric.

Unfortunately, I can also see the EU fines being paused just as ICE-bans are already being heavily watered down. Easy to say you'll do something that's 3-4 election cycles away. The ICE-bans are being watered down because the European car industry is now getting into the process of planning for 2035 and beyond and setting out the reality to the governments of now.

When the governments of the then now also have to start defending to their population why they're handing over multiple billions of Euro to someone for fines but not getting anything in return, the same watering down will happen there too. Europe is hopelessly behind where it needs to be if anyone has any chance to meet the proposed targets.

Rural Ireland is an excellent example of where they have plenty of space for parking and charging EVs and should absolutely be incentivised to buy them

The days of cheap motoring are here, right now if you drive an EV. It takes on average about 15-18kWh to go 100km in an EV. What's the equivalent for petrol or diesel, 5-6L? It means doing 100km in an EV is less than €3 on a 14c night rate versus over a tenner in an ICE

The vast majority of our electricity is supplied by ESB which is 95% Irish state owned. Meaning most of the profits from you paying your electricity bill stays in Ireland. Conversely Ireland has no natural oil wells so all that money goes abroad

ESB employs approximately 9,200 people across the country and contributed €3.4bn to the economy in 2025 through taxes, payroll, and dividends. Even the foreign electricity suppliers have a presence here and create a significant amount of employment

The extension of the 2035 ICE ban to 2040 was nothing more than a cop-out. The EU complain that China invested a lot of state assets in their EV industry, we should really be looking to do something similar if we're serious about the climate. Those fines are happening, they might get reduced but I guarantee you the low carbon EU countries won't be giving Ireland a pass on these. And nor should they

BS - that absolute cheapest 24 hour rate incl vat in early Feb was 24.4c. That was energia with a 39% off offer. Electric Ireland had lower standard rates and 24% off with their net rate coming in at 24.9c.

Standard rates have not changed, but level of discount for new / retaining customers have. So what was 25c is now 29.27c (smart 24 hour rate EI)

I never understand why some people feel the need to wildly exaggerate as its so easy to be found out. In general the increase from the lowest available rate in mid Feb to the lowest available same rate now is about 20% - NOT 45%. You can even do a Wayback machine check and get the PRECISE figures and not just take my figures. https://web.archive.org/

Electricity pricing is on a Natural Gas pricing model. Natural gas is up about 25% on the 2025 average, and is about the same as it was in Feb 2025 and WAY off the peaks of 2022. There's no shortage of Natural Gas, but there is more demand as industry that can switch fuels will switch to gas from oil, thus bringing more demand and therefore higher prices.

Sadly, the orange buffoon had diarrhea coming from his mouth last night that caused the markets to react badly, so there's currently no end in sight of these higher prices, especially for diesel because almost 30% of refined diesel came from the middle east. Petrol will stay about 25c-30c cheaper as there's a near glut of refined petrol as its entirely refined in Europe