the astronomical costs of them is surely the main factor for most people. I’m lucky enough to have a hybrid, which saves massively on fuel, but looking at making the switch to a full ev was just too much, especially if you want to have your own charging point
It’s a no from me. I’ll wait. My next purchase will probably be a hybrid.
RebelGrin on
I’m terrified of the day petrol cars are no longer sold.
Anchorbouy12 on
Pure scam. No surprise.
anewdawn2020 on
Here’s another random issue- I did make the move to full electric, got solar panels and a charger at the same time. Went to move electricity supplier from SSE to Energia due to their EV rate. €6 difference per charge so approx €300 a year for me. Nope, issue with my smart meter not having a good enough signal as the 3 network they work off is weak in the area (2g too might I add). Rang ESB, no budging, won’t replace meter, can’t add booster, can’t change network sim card in the meter, literally said “you just have to hope theres a better signal in the future”. Now in the grand scheme, €300 is a small price and my fuel costs have obviously shot down but another additional cost that I didn’t expect. How they expect EV to take off in this country with something as basic as your home meter not working correctly is beyond me
RobbieTheReprobate on
Drive an older model nissan leaf.
So much smaller battery than newer cars.
Probably 24kw usable now.
Drove 200km today.
One fast charge and I’m limited to the available chargers because of chademo.
No issue getting a charge.
The circle k chargers while pricey are a great addition.
ESB fast charger today.
Quick top up to get me home
Costs me 9c a KW at home to charge at night.
Can get about 170km driving around at 30/50/60 urban speed limit driving.
Partners car is petrol.
Absolutely will replace with another EV when it is due to go.
Can’t wait to get my hands on these cheap 2nd hand EVs.
Most of the complaints I hear about what an EV can’t do all come from people who don’t drive them.
Low_discrepancy on
I bought an EV. It’s the perfect car for Ireland.
Really small country you can drive from one end to the other with just one stop for a charge.
Vast majority of people also live in houses too in Ireland so the complaint about charging infrastructure is really overblown.
marquess_rostrevor on
It’s easy for me with home charging, everyone without that I don’t get how they do it.
jhanley on
The state subsidise them initially to get people buying them but now the state needs its cash and are effectively putting back the taxes they lost.
FridaysMan on
Got a Nissan Leaf, and had no real issues at all, can easily plug in to charge and easily possible to do 50k a year without any hooplah. EVs are fine.
I’d be happy to get an eVan and put solar on the roof as my work vehicle
GrahamR12345 on
No homes with driveways, no EVs…
cavemeister on
I’d be curious if more people would buy Teslas if Musk was out of the picture. I do like the cars but would not buy one with him as CEO. He’s just too toxic.
jimicus on
It might help slightly if the cost of new vehicles wasn’t put together by a team of crack-smoking chimpanzees.
Now, I can understand finance being a difficult animal. In the UK, most motor manufacturers set up their own finance arm and run finance through that – which means they can offer very good deals. The size of the market makes it a lot harder to do that this side of the Irish Sea.
But the list prices – when you consider there’s a market about 100km away that’s getting exactly the same damn cars – frequently at a higher trim level – and is paying a helluva lot less – are a piss take.
If I didn’t know any better, I’d say Nigel Farage was heavily subsidised by Joe Duffy.
Imbecile_Jr on
_VRT has joined the chat_
qwerty_1965 on
EVs will only take off when high speed charging is routinely available in supermarket carparks, work carparks, municipal carparks. This needs to be funded by the state because no one is going to do it off their own bat.
And I don’t mean a bank of three at the back, dozens of them.
Archamasse on
People who rent or don’t have their own parking spaces generally can’t install chargers, so at some point we’ll come close to maxing out the population who can make this work easily with the current infrastructure.
Saying that, my sister has a driveway/charger/hybrid set up and I’m very jealous, because it’s class. (And imho an underrated feature of electric cars is how quiet and comfortable they are to actually travel in.)
stevewithcats on
I wanted to by one but I can’t afford one as they are too expensive.
And I earn more than the average wage but I’d need to be earning 50% more to afford one that’s isn’t a Citroen ami.
W0rldMach1ne on
Lol, nowhere to charge them, what do they expect us to do???
Safe-Scarcity2835 on
I think the fact that most EV’s are 9 billion horsepower SUV’s doesn’t help. EV’s should really be for small city cars.
Also, thinking that EV’s will some day be 100% of the market is naive. They have a niche, and so do hybrids and ICE.
Dookwithanegg on
ESB’s charging strategy is that people should primarily charge at home at off-peak times, with the public sharing network being kept at a supplementary capacity only.
Government’s housing strategy does not necessarily accommodate off-street parking that would allow home charging. Some developments do, but that is by coincidence more than a deliberate design choice geared towards home EV charging.
itsfeckingfreezin on
First off the cost of them is prohibitive. We are keeping our family car a petrol one because we are priced out of owing an electric one.
Secondly, charging the car is an issue if you don’t have a garden or renting.
paddyotool_v3 on
The depreciation is insane, average of 60% loss over 3 years on the original purchase price. If your on a PCP plan you’re really getting screwed at the end of your term.
Miserable_History238 on
Prof Brian Caulfield said “We’re going to miss our targets anyway, but we’ll miss them by even further” – Ireland is performing very poorly on recycling too. Big fines incoming.
Fireglod on
Proud EV owner here.
* I just spent a few days in the Netherlands and EV chargers are EVERYWHERE! Outside houses, shops, shopping centers, businesses. It’s AMAZING.
* Every houses’ roof as well is covered in solar panels.
Ireland really need to take the finger out and offer more incentives. I couldn’t find working or fast chargers on a return trip to Cork and it took me 7+ hours to get back up recently.
gk4p6q on
There should be no VRT or VAT on EVs.
We would be the fastest adopting country instantly.
If the government were serious about climate change.
ArtImmediate1315 on
The people of the Congo will be delighted
MeccIt on
“EVs are most probably the most impactful part of the Climate Action Plan when it comes to transport.”
*Active travel and public transport have left the chat*
I stopped reading here as it’s another FUD article about EVs, and missing the point on climate action. Most people who don’t have an EV still have an ICE mindset, moaning about high costs and depreciation as if their VW Passat was some sort of long term investment. Private cars are expensive to a greater or lesser extent, EVs don’t change that much. If the depreciation is ‘too high’ then second hand prices will be lower.
Anyone with an EV knows how they are and have figured out charging, the basic point being that electricity is *everywhere* and can be availed of to a greater or lesser convenience.
On_Your_Bike_Lad on
I drove EV from 2015 – 2024, I won’t buy another in a hurry or any other modern car that is heavily focused on screens and software. I’m now driving a petrol manual car with as little tech as I could find but just enough tech that makes sense, this minimalist interior I can’t stand.
First EV was a 24 Kwh Nissan Leaf, range was absolute shite but I knew that, I was a die hard pioneer at the time, 3 years when PCP was up the car had no value in it at all so I basically handed it back.
2nd EV was a PHEV a 33 Kwh BMW i3 Rex, the Rex being a small petrol engine that tuned a generator that kept the battery topped up if it ran low, it was very unique in that it still is the only PHEV with so much pure EV range and the only PHEV that has no mechanical connectivity to the wheels.
This BMW solved a few things, it could go anywhere at any time and wasn’t restricted, if I pulled up to a charger and it was in use I could fill up with petrol and be on my way in seconds, it had a small petrol tank.
Another advantage is that when the battery was cold this would greatly increase charging times at fast chargers so I could just fire up the generator and off I go again.
The reason I got rid of that was the awkward suicide doors, it was fine when the kids had to be lifted in and out but when they got older it got a right pain as I’d have to get out to let them in and out.
I got rid of that car after the PCP and again, no value in it, 0 so I got the Volkswagen ID3 82 Kwh 73 Kwh usable.
The VW had a lot more EV range but had some issues, first was the charging again, too slow, you had to be plugged in at 20% or less to get more than 60 Kw off the charger which isn’t always possible to get to a charger at that low a charge, just once I saw 130 Kw because I plugged in at 7%. Cold batter charging adds a lot to the time as it does with many EV and even those with battery preconditioning it can take too long to warm up at chargers.
The VW had software issues which VW promised to fix but never did, they promised OTA updates, never happened, then I found out that the older ID cars are stuck on old software because of hardware advances they existing cars hardware is obsolete after a few years………
I had issues with one of the ultra expensive matrix headlights fogging up, after the 4 th replacement it was never fixed, I was told it was a rare issue but out of warranty it would cost around 2 K + labour to install another.
So this was my 3rd PCP, foolish as it had been I ended up wanting rid of the id3 because of too many frustrating software issues where I’d loose all infotainment and instrument cluster so I’d have no speedometer, no radio, no apple car play, no heat, no AC all I could do was drive, I even had no indicators when this software glitch would happen.
I must had been to 15+ car dealers all of them refused to accept my ID3 EV as trade in or they would offer me really stupid money so someone told me about the half rule here on reddit Ireland and I owe them my gratitude because I returned my car to VW finance under the half rule which means, if half the loan is paid you are entitled to hand the car back without any financial or legal repercussions.
So now I drive a manual petrol car with manual climate control, it has a small screen for radio and navigation only, it has buttons and knobs and not haptic crap or functions controlled by a touch screen.
EV has far too many issues, expense, range, charge times, potentially very long queues at charge points when away from home, absolutely horrendous resale value and dealers who won’t take EV as trade in.
Anyone who buys an EV with no home charging is absolutely mad and will learn a very hard lesson about public charging, it gets very old, fast, I did it long enough because I was a die hard EV fan but I got fed up of it and so did the family and in reality for a couple of years before I sold the Id3 we were just taking the Diesel Outlander to avoid all the hassle.
The other issue I had with the car was that it weighed 2 tonnes, this was very noticable on the road and it made an already dull driving experience a lot duller, EV is amazing at first, then it becomes normal, remember I was driving EV for 10 years, then they become boring and you realise when you drive a petrol manual again how engaging and fun it is to drive a manual petrol car again , EV offers an appliance like experience, it lacks character and engagement.
justformedellin on
Elon Musk’s fault IMO
AUX4 on
Total elephant in the room being missed. China is producing the best EVs by far, and we are placing massive tariffs on them being imported. They are producing them incredibly cheap, which is why the current EVs are depreciating so quickly.
Traditional European manufacturers can not compete with the Chinese manufacturers so are going to continue making ICE cars for the foreseeable.
I_wont_sez_I on
Only the better off can afford an EV.
Snorefezzzz on
Far too expensive, and the purchaser of second hand EV’s face a massive risk. If these shitehawks in government were serious , then they should put up 50% of purchase value . Better again , if data centres want to offset their carbon footprint, then they should pay into a tax-free EV & Solar Pot that funds it . Computer says no. Multinational tax receipts are so important to this country that we can not use them. May as well just bend over.
Pickman89 on
There are two rules in political economics that everybody knows.
If you subsidize something you get more of it and if you tax something you get less of it.
The inflation drove prices up significantly and they reduced subsidies. The only thing that worries me is that people somehow got blindsided by this result. What were they expecting to happen?
DiamondFireYT on
Doesn’t help that the only EVs worth getting are by a company owned by the planets biggest tool 😭
34 Comments
the astronomical costs of them is surely the main factor for most people. I’m lucky enough to have a hybrid, which saves massively on fuel, but looking at making the switch to a full ev was just too much, especially if you want to have your own charging point
Astronomical costs + Astronomical depreciation+ incredibly poor infrastructure.
It’s a no from me. I’ll wait. My next purchase will probably be a hybrid.
I’m terrified of the day petrol cars are no longer sold.
Pure scam. No surprise.
Here’s another random issue- I did make the move to full electric, got solar panels and a charger at the same time. Went to move electricity supplier from SSE to Energia due to their EV rate. €6 difference per charge so approx €300 a year for me. Nope, issue with my smart meter not having a good enough signal as the 3 network they work off is weak in the area (2g too might I add). Rang ESB, no budging, won’t replace meter, can’t add booster, can’t change network sim card in the meter, literally said “you just have to hope theres a better signal in the future”. Now in the grand scheme, €300 is a small price and my fuel costs have obviously shot down but another additional cost that I didn’t expect. How they expect EV to take off in this country with something as basic as your home meter not working correctly is beyond me
Drive an older model nissan leaf.
So much smaller battery than newer cars.
Probably 24kw usable now.
Drove 200km today.
One fast charge and I’m limited to the available chargers because of chademo.
No issue getting a charge.
The circle k chargers while pricey are a great addition.
ESB fast charger today.
Quick top up to get me home
Costs me 9c a KW at home to charge at night.
Can get about 170km driving around at 30/50/60 urban speed limit driving.
Partners car is petrol.
Absolutely will replace with another EV when it is due to go.
Can’t wait to get my hands on these cheap 2nd hand EVs.
Most of the complaints I hear about what an EV can’t do all come from people who don’t drive them.
I bought an EV. It’s the perfect car for Ireland.
Really small country you can drive from one end to the other with just one stop for a charge.
Vast majority of people also live in houses too in Ireland so the complaint about charging infrastructure is really overblown.
It’s easy for me with home charging, everyone without that I don’t get how they do it.
The state subsidise them initially to get people buying them but now the state needs its cash and are effectively putting back the taxes they lost.
Got a Nissan Leaf, and had no real issues at all, can easily plug in to charge and easily possible to do 50k a year without any hooplah. EVs are fine.
I’d be happy to get an eVan and put solar on the roof as my work vehicle
No homes with driveways, no EVs…
I’d be curious if more people would buy Teslas if Musk was out of the picture. I do like the cars but would not buy one with him as CEO. He’s just too toxic.
It might help slightly if the cost of new vehicles wasn’t put together by a team of crack-smoking chimpanzees.
Now, I can understand finance being a difficult animal. In the UK, most motor manufacturers set up their own finance arm and run finance through that – which means they can offer very good deals. The size of the market makes it a lot harder to do that this side of the Irish Sea.
But the list prices – when you consider there’s a market about 100km away that’s getting exactly the same damn cars – frequently at a higher trim level – and is paying a helluva lot less – are a piss take.
If I didn’t know any better, I’d say Nigel Farage was heavily subsidised by Joe Duffy.
_VRT has joined the chat_
EVs will only take off when high speed charging is routinely available in supermarket carparks, work carparks, municipal carparks. This needs to be funded by the state because no one is going to do it off their own bat.
And I don’t mean a bank of three at the back, dozens of them.
People who rent or don’t have their own parking spaces generally can’t install chargers, so at some point we’ll come close to maxing out the population who can make this work easily with the current infrastructure.
Saying that, my sister has a driveway/charger/hybrid set up and I’m very jealous, because it’s class. (And imho an underrated feature of electric cars is how quiet and comfortable they are to actually travel in.)
I wanted to by one but I can’t afford one as they are too expensive.
And I earn more than the average wage but I’d need to be earning 50% more to afford one that’s isn’t a Citroen ami.
Lol, nowhere to charge them, what do they expect us to do???
I think the fact that most EV’s are 9 billion horsepower SUV’s doesn’t help. EV’s should really be for small city cars.
Also, thinking that EV’s will some day be 100% of the market is naive. They have a niche, and so do hybrids and ICE.
ESB’s charging strategy is that people should primarily charge at home at off-peak times, with the public sharing network being kept at a supplementary capacity only.
Government’s housing strategy does not necessarily accommodate off-street parking that would allow home charging. Some developments do, but that is by coincidence more than a deliberate design choice geared towards home EV charging.
First off the cost of them is prohibitive. We are keeping our family car a petrol one because we are priced out of owing an electric one.
Secondly, charging the car is an issue if you don’t have a garden or renting.
The depreciation is insane, average of 60% loss over 3 years on the original purchase price. If your on a PCP plan you’re really getting screwed at the end of your term.
Prof Brian Caulfield said “We’re going to miss our targets anyway, but we’ll miss them by even further” – Ireland is performing very poorly on recycling too. Big fines incoming.
Proud EV owner here.
* I just spent a few days in the Netherlands and EV chargers are EVERYWHERE! Outside houses, shops, shopping centers, businesses. It’s AMAZING.
* Every houses’ roof as well is covered in solar panels.
Ireland really need to take the finger out and offer more incentives. I couldn’t find working or fast chargers on a return trip to Cork and it took me 7+ hours to get back up recently.
There should be no VRT or VAT on EVs.
We would be the fastest adopting country instantly.
If the government were serious about climate change.
The people of the Congo will be delighted
“EVs are most probably the most impactful part of the Climate Action Plan when it comes to transport.”
*Active travel and public transport have left the chat*
I stopped reading here as it’s another FUD article about EVs, and missing the point on climate action. Most people who don’t have an EV still have an ICE mindset, moaning about high costs and depreciation as if their VW Passat was some sort of long term investment. Private cars are expensive to a greater or lesser extent, EVs don’t change that much. If the depreciation is ‘too high’ then second hand prices will be lower.
Anyone with an EV knows how they are and have figured out charging, the basic point being that electricity is *everywhere* and can be availed of to a greater or lesser convenience.
I drove EV from 2015 – 2024, I won’t buy another in a hurry or any other modern car that is heavily focused on screens and software. I’m now driving a petrol manual car with as little tech as I could find but just enough tech that makes sense, this minimalist interior I can’t stand.
First EV was a 24 Kwh Nissan Leaf, range was absolute shite but I knew that, I was a die hard pioneer at the time, 3 years when PCP was up the car had no value in it at all so I basically handed it back.
2nd EV was a PHEV a 33 Kwh BMW i3 Rex, the Rex being a small petrol engine that tuned a generator that kept the battery topped up if it ran low, it was very unique in that it still is the only PHEV with so much pure EV range and the only PHEV that has no mechanical connectivity to the wheels.
This BMW solved a few things, it could go anywhere at any time and wasn’t restricted, if I pulled up to a charger and it was in use I could fill up with petrol and be on my way in seconds, it had a small petrol tank.
Another advantage is that when the battery was cold this would greatly increase charging times at fast chargers so I could just fire up the generator and off I go again.
The reason I got rid of that was the awkward suicide doors, it was fine when the kids had to be lifted in and out but when they got older it got a right pain as I’d have to get out to let them in and out.
I got rid of that car after the PCP and again, no value in it, 0 so I got the Volkswagen ID3 82 Kwh 73 Kwh usable.
The VW had a lot more EV range but had some issues, first was the charging again, too slow, you had to be plugged in at 20% or less to get more than 60 Kw off the charger which isn’t always possible to get to a charger at that low a charge, just once I saw 130 Kw because I plugged in at 7%. Cold batter charging adds a lot to the time as it does with many EV and even those with battery preconditioning it can take too long to warm up at chargers.
The VW had software issues which VW promised to fix but never did, they promised OTA updates, never happened, then I found out that the older ID cars are stuck on old software because of hardware advances they existing cars hardware is obsolete after a few years………
I had issues with one of the ultra expensive matrix headlights fogging up, after the 4 th replacement it was never fixed, I was told it was a rare issue but out of warranty it would cost around 2 K + labour to install another.
So this was my 3rd PCP, foolish as it had been I ended up wanting rid of the id3 because of too many frustrating software issues where I’d loose all infotainment and instrument cluster so I’d have no speedometer, no radio, no apple car play, no heat, no AC all I could do was drive, I even had no indicators when this software glitch would happen.
I must had been to 15+ car dealers all of them refused to accept my ID3 EV as trade in or they would offer me really stupid money so someone told me about the half rule here on reddit Ireland and I owe them my gratitude because I returned my car to VW finance under the half rule which means, if half the loan is paid you are entitled to hand the car back without any financial or legal repercussions.
So now I drive a manual petrol car with manual climate control, it has a small screen for radio and navigation only, it has buttons and knobs and not haptic crap or functions controlled by a touch screen.
EV has far too many issues, expense, range, charge times, potentially very long queues at charge points when away from home, absolutely horrendous resale value and dealers who won’t take EV as trade in.
Anyone who buys an EV with no home charging is absolutely mad and will learn a very hard lesson about public charging, it gets very old, fast, I did it long enough because I was a die hard EV fan but I got fed up of it and so did the family and in reality for a couple of years before I sold the Id3 we were just taking the Diesel Outlander to avoid all the hassle.
The other issue I had with the car was that it weighed 2 tonnes, this was very noticable on the road and it made an already dull driving experience a lot duller, EV is amazing at first, then it becomes normal, remember I was driving EV for 10 years, then they become boring and you realise when you drive a petrol manual again how engaging and fun it is to drive a manual petrol car again , EV offers an appliance like experience, it lacks character and engagement.
Elon Musk’s fault IMO
Total elephant in the room being missed. China is producing the best EVs by far, and we are placing massive tariffs on them being imported. They are producing them incredibly cheap, which is why the current EVs are depreciating so quickly.
Traditional European manufacturers can not compete with the Chinese manufacturers so are going to continue making ICE cars for the foreseeable.
Only the better off can afford an EV.
Far too expensive, and the purchaser of second hand EV’s face a massive risk. If these shitehawks in government were serious , then they should put up 50% of purchase value . Better again , if data centres want to offset their carbon footprint, then they should pay into a tax-free EV & Solar Pot that funds it . Computer says no. Multinational tax receipts are so important to this country that we can not use them. May as well just bend over.
There are two rules in political economics that everybody knows.
If you subsidize something you get more of it and if you tax something you get less of it.
[https://www.irishtimes.com/business/2023/03/22/government-to-slash-electric-car-subsidy-by-30/](https://www.irishtimes.com/business/2023/03/22/government-to-slash-electric-car-subsidy-by-30/)
The inflation drove prices up significantly and they reduced subsidies. The only thing that worries me is that people somehow got blindsided by this result. What were they expecting to happen?
Doesn’t help that the only EVs worth getting are by a company owned by the planets biggest tool 😭