Electric Cars - a ridiculous product

Zenith63 said:
It more-so illustrates the state of the public charging network in Ireland at the moment.

I drove around the UK years ago in an EV with pathetic range (100km) and did no planning, just drove until I needed to charge and pulled in at the next motorway services, each of which had plenty of chargers so I could just plug in and grab a coffee.

The government screwed the pooch on the charger network rollout here and it is now slowing EV adoption. Once it catches up though this will be a non-issue with modern EVs having enough range to do 350-400km between stops.
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You still waste time charging
 
roker said:
You still waste time charging
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That's obvious yes, in those older EVs a decade ago it was not a trivial amount of time! Today my first world problem is that charging finishes more quickly than I can eat lunch so I have to go out and move the car to avoid an overstay fee. But the point I was responding to was that you needed to plan your journeys around charging, which is not the case where the charging network is properly developed.
 
I've had an EV for three years now (since mid March 2021) and I thought I'd chime in with my thoughts.

I drive quite a bit, over 110,000km on the clock.
I commute to Dublin several times per week which is a 160 - 180km round trip, mostly on the motorway, depending on which route I take.

I have a charger installed on my driveway and I rarely use public chargers. The last time I had to, I was doing a 600km round trip in January, in the rain. I charged twice for about 25 minutes or so. For the first, I used Applegreen's fast charger: no app, just tapped my debit card. I had a cup of coffee and then headed on. I would have been stopping for a coffee and a pee anyway so no time lost and no queue for the charger. On my way home, I charged at an ESB fast charger and got a sandwich. Again, no lost time and no queue.

My wife has an ICE but we use my car for long journeys because it's more spacious and economical and the range just isn't a problem in Ireland.

The performance is fantastic. I particularly enjoy taking off at the lights and being half way down the road while ICE vehicles are still getting out of first gear. The adaptive cruise control makes motorway driving very easy.
 
I get EV's take a bit of planning and education

Most don't understand the difference between KW and KWH or AC and DC charging
As with most of the EV owners 18 months 30,000 km's complete

90% home charging with an EV rate.
Some public
Some free charging

Car is saving me a fortune on fuel cost
Loaded with safety eg blind spot warning
Loaded with features adaptive cruise is brilliant
The acceleration is amazing and my Niro is nothing special
Gets me Dublin to Cork in Winter no problem at speed limits.

cost me 25k to change from a 171 ICE to a 222 BEV so not too bad.

I have driven both ICE and BEV and educated myself on both. so totally disagree with the title of the thread.

Don't get all the anti EV from people who have never owned or claim they never will own one.
If that's your view fine drive ICE, but the hate on EV is incredible.

Personally I drive EV for some of the positives mentioned, but mostly for running cost savings.

All cars are a black hole on depreciation, and as my first new car ever I know I am in for a kicking

I agree they are v expensive but so is everything nowadays, ICE cars have been driven up massively in price and running as the motorist is a huge cash cow for revenue.

My 2 cents.
 
It’s a complete strawman argument to insist that someone needs to have owned an EV to have a legitimate view on them.

I would never own one because they’re ridiculous. Simple things like a long distance trip require planning and wasted time.
 
Gordon Gekko said:
It’s a complete strawman argument to insist that someone needs to have owned an EV to have a legitimate view on them.

I would never own one because they’re ridiculous. Simple things like a long distance trip require planning and wasted time.
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My problem with them is that they are generally very ugly. I walked past a Kia EV9 the other day and it's comically ugly.
It looks like the design brief was to come up with something that was even more vulgar and ugly that a Land Rover and by some miracle they succeeded.
The Mercedes range make my eyes want to vomit. The EQE being the worst of them. The interior trim is like something from a mid 1990's Fiat.
Audi seem to be the only manufacturer who hasn't gone out of their way to make their EV range ugly.

What's that all about?
 
Gordon Gekko said:
It’s a complete strawman argument to insist that someone needs to have owned an EV to have a legitimate view on them.

I would never own one because they’re ridiculous. Simple things like a long distance trip require planning and wasted time.
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Excellent well argued response. :)
 
Purple said:
What's that all about?
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Some manufacturers seemed to try to out-Tesla Tesla or make something from an '80s sci-fi movie. Tesla's primary goal for cosmetic decisions like removing physical buttons was costs reductions, not enhancing the experience. Manufacturers are now learning that's not what the public want and buttons are coming back and styling is getting a little less-out there.
 
Purple said:
My problem with them is that they are generally very ugly. I walked past a Kia EV9 the other day and it's comically ugly.
It looks like the design brief was to come up with something that was even more vulgar and ugly that a Land Rover and by some miracle they succeeded.
The Mercedes range make my eyes want to vomit. The EQE being the worst of them. The interior trim is like something from a mid 1990's Fiat.
Audi seem to be the only manufacturer who hasn't gone out of their way to make their EV range ugly.

What's that all about?
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The Mercedes range doesn't look great at all.
I like the look of my own ID.4.
The Audi e-tron GT is one of the best looking cars on the road.
Taste is subjective.
 
Leo said:
Some manufacturers seemed to try to out-Tesla Tesla or make something from an '80s sci-fi movie. Tesla's primary goal for cosmetic decisions like removing physical buttons was costs reductions, not enhancing the experience. Manufacturers are now learning that's not what the public want and buttons are coming back and styling is getting a little less-out there.
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Very true Leo

One thing I really like about my Niro is the real door handles and buttons inside for lots of functions .

The infotainment is very distracting mind, worse on your tesla example.
 
Leo said:
You're entitled to your opinion, partially based on fallacies as it is. Perhaps print that line out and revisit it in a few years.
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Fallacies like EVs being less convenient and requiring a lot more planning?

That’s the nub of the issue, the ability to do something simple like go to a wedding/meeting/match or visit family in a rural part of Ireland with fretting about range anxiety or whether there’s an available charging point en route or at the venue.

People have referred to EVs being okay ‘80% of the time’ in this thread like it’s a good thing. 80% vs 100% is pretty bad, particularly for something that typically commands a price premium and whichnis throwing up all sorts of commercial issues with garages now.
 
Who are you quoting when you type '80% of the time'? Which people?

In my house we have a VW ID.4 and a similar sized Audi ICE. We prefer to use the ID.4 for longer journeys. The plusses (performance, economy, better sat-nav, better cruise control) outweight the negatives.
 
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