A car
4 Likes
I was referring to the plant, dummy. Whatās the plant in the picture?
1 Like
Cringe.
Plant 
Self driving even if they cannot yet sell it as such.
Unreal
First things first. Let me make it clear that Iām not a motoring enthusiast in any shape or form. I want to get from A to B in the way that makes the most sense factoring in speed, cost etcā¦ The electric car we bought works for us but our circumstances are fairly specific and theyāve worked heavily in our favour. There are certain drawbacks, Iāll get to those. Nothing thatās a dealbreaker for me. Might be for others.
The scenario we had back in December was that we were paying about ā¬600 a month in petrol between Mrs. CLD and myself getting to and from work each week in separate cars. Her commute is about 90KM per day. Mine is about 130KM per day. Adds up pretty quickly. I was driving a 2011 Octavia, she was driving a 2005 Citreon C4. Just before Christmas the C4 blew up[Head Gasket or something, like I said, not a car guy] and we were left with some decisions about how weād get to work. At the time we were kind of forced into sharing a car to work, which actually became a viable option for us. It involved me going to work earlier and leaving earlier but my work didnāt mind so thatās what we did.
The day before the C4 went kaput we had actually been in a Hyundai dealership looking at the Ioniq. The idea of an electric car had been in my head for a few months after I found out there were car chargers in my workplace carpark. My main concern had been the range of the car and if Iād be able to comfortably get to work and back on a single charge. The Ioniq has an advertised range of 260KM. The reality of that is more like 200KM at a conservative pace but itās comfortably over the 130KM I need to get to work and back. So after the C4 went bust I started researching it a bit more seriously.
Hereās how the finances of it worked. You get a ā¬5000 grant from the government for new electric cars.
We scrapped the C4 for ā¬4000. If you are one of the first 2000 people to buy a new Electric Car in Ireland you get a car charger installed for free in your home. Thatās worth about a grand. So just by turning up with a busted C4 we turned it into ā¬10000 of value. The car is worth around ā¬35000 so the cost of the car is about ā¬27000 when you add bells and whistles.
From my point of view I wanted to minimise that ā¬600 a month we were spending on petrol. We continue to travel to work together, I charge in work during the week and we take advantage of the free public charging stations around the country. The most useful of those to us is the one in Naas which is on our path home. We can fast charge to 185KM in about 30 minutes there. Itās beside a Tesco so you just walk in, do some shopping, come back and its done. We kept the Octavia and weāre filling it up about once a month. We charge at home maybe once a week. That costs about ā¬3 a pop. So our ā¬600 monthly fuel bill as it was is down to about ā¬85. The monthly repayment of the new car plus the monthly cost of running both cars is roughly equal to what we were paying in petrol per month from July - November. So you could kind of say we upgraded from a 2005 C4 to the Ioniq for free.
The main drawback is the conflict between speed and range. You can get good range or you can get where you want to at short range quickly. But you canāt get good range at high speed. There isnāt a linear relationship between speed and battery usage. When you go over 110kmph each extra bit of speed you do drains the battery at an exponential rate. You can make long trips, you just have to be a bit conservative with your driving. I had a stag recently in Dingle and made my way up and back in the Ioniq from Kildare. I charged once in Limerick on the way and once in Limerick on the way back. Almost exactly 600KM total trip. On the motorway you can go 110kmph, if you go more than that youāre risking not having enough range to get to your destination. It might cost you a little bit of time but so be it. I made a trip that would have typically cost me ā¬80 in petrol and I did it for free. If it cost me 2 hours more overall for the trip, is my time worth ā¬40 an hour? Iād say yeah. Others may not. I donāt think it cost me that much time wise, maybe 60-90 minutes more than a normal petrol trip.
You also have to be conscious all the time of where you are going and what range you need and where you can charge. Itās a small bit of a learning curve but thereās a good ESB eCars app that tells you where the chargers are and if they are in use. So far weāve had zero issues with chargers. Maybe weāve been lucky. The fact that our daily commutes are taken care of are a big chunk of the driving that we donāt need to worry about.
Right now Iām delighted with the decision we made. At the moment itās working exactly how we intended and the cost of the new car is offset by the massive petrol savings we are making.
25 Likes
Great post. Iāll post up my thoughts driving a phev later.
2 Likes
thats actually a tremendous post
what a great post
I cant believe anybody would drive an ICE these days
I see people going into petrol stations and laugh.
2 Likes
Handy for driving home from the pub, could save rural pubs from extinction
muldoons take about 20 years to catch on
What happens if you ran out of juice on the side of the road? Is there such a thing as an emergency charger or something?
Yeah. You can carry a spare battery in a trailer.
6 Likes
A couple of things.
-
To the best of my knowledge we have 5 Years AA breakdown assistance included in the price of the car.
-
The car comes with a āgranny chargerā which you can use to plug into any normal electric socket. Itāll charge the car, itāll just do it slowly. 14 hours for a full charge for us last night in the in laws. Not a big deal when youāve nowhere to go. More of a pain when youāre in a rush.
Youād think a this stage you should be able to run a car off a microchip or something similar
Brilliant post. I love the way you thought your purchase through and then more importantly explained your rationale so concisely to the board here with facts and figures. The car is handy for you given the amount you were spending on petrol plus youāve a charger at work for it. Iād imagine some lads in the sticks it wouldnāt work for at all, as they sit in the car on the phone to the AA at the side of the road outside Ballymucker, quietly fuming telling them to bring on a charger as the nearest outlet is a half hour away.
7 Likes
Anyone know much is it going to cost me to change the electrical switch on a boot lock?
Excellent post.
Wonderfully informative. 
2 Likes
If you draw a line from Dublin to Galway, the charging network north of that is a bit of a mess. The good news is for me Iām rarely headed in that direction. If I was Iād probably take my Octavia. There are some glaring gaps in the fast charger network. e.g. the road from Dublin to Waterford could probably do with another fast charging point along the motorway for the type of charger I use. In a perfect world, Iād put one in the new AppleGreen in Paulstown[in Kilkenny near the Carlow border].