EV Vs ICE Issues: Range

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I'm absolutely amazed at all you guys who rarely if ever do long journeys. Fair enough - to each their own. Perhaps it's a Dublin thing? In my own case, coming from the West of Ireland as a callow youth four decades ago, long distance trips were the main reason for my initial car purchase and remain important still. But if you're a born and bred Dub, I suppose it could be different.
 
Took my own advice :D

Baby boomer said:
I'm absolutely amazed at all you guys who rarely if ever do long journeys. Fair enough - to each their own. Perhaps it's a Dublin thing?
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More than 40% of the population live in and around Dublin, to exceed 300km from home for all those means hitting the extremes of the north east or south west.

What annual mileage are you doing? From your earlier post it sounds like you may well be doing a lot more than the 16k average:

Baby boomer said:
Good question. I do a regular round trip of almost exactly 300km about once a fortnight. The odd time, I do that 2 or 3 times a week. I do a long trip of about 400km (one way) to visit family about every 6 weeks. Pre-pandemic, there used to be weekend breaks.....
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I rarely do more than 400Km in a day but there's no way I'd buy a car that couldn't do that. I'm not sufficiently well organised to own an EV as I'd definitely run out of charge regularly.
I love the idea of having one. I love where the technology is going, but it's not sufficiently evolved for me to buy one and range and price are the major factors.
 
Leo said:
Took my own advice :D



More than 40% of the population live in and around Dublin, to exceed 300km from home for all those means hitting the extremes of the north east or south west.
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I was thinking of round trip distance rather than one way. It was suggested in this thread that 200km range was adequate for most purposes. That's barely Portlaoise and forget the North East or South West without one, or maybe even two, recharging stops.

Leo said:
What annual mileage are you doing? From your earlier post it sounds like you may well be doing a lot more than the 16k average:
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Back when I was working full time, I was doing about 40k km per year. Now, perhaps 25k. Less of course during the lockdown.
 
Purple said:
I love the idea of having one. I love where the technology is going, but it's not sufficiently evolved for me to buy one and range and price are the major factors.
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Exactly! That's precisely where I am too. And I am very wary of EV evangelists who pooh-pooh the range and price issues. They are very real problems and they do matter.
 
Purple said:
I rarely do more than 400Km in a day but there's no way I'd buy a car that couldn't do that. I'm not sufficiently well organised to own an EV as I'd definitely run out of charge regularly.
I love the idea of having one. I love where the technology is going, but it's not sufficiently evolved for me to buy one and range and price are the major factors.
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if you rarely do more than 400km in a day why would you regularly run out of charge?
 
Baby boomer said:
Exactly! That's precisely where I am too. And I am very wary of EV evangelists who pooh-pooh the range and price issues. They are very real problems and they do matter.
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id be more wary of someone who hasnt owned one pooh-poohing the ownership experience given almost all EV drivers will have come from an ICE car but the vast majority of those who make posts like yours havent owned an EV ;)
 
BTW is there anything to be said for fitting solar PV panels to the roof of EVs? Genuine question. Even 2 or 3 kw would be helpful on a sunny day.
 
Blackrock1 said:
id be more wary of someone who hasnt owned one pooh-poohing the ownership experience given almost all EV drivers will have come from an ICE car but the vast majority of those who make posts like yours havent owned an EV ;)
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I prefer to learn from the mistakes of others rather than repeat those mistakes myself. Makes sense, eh?

And I take the accounts of ownership experience at face value. Invariably, real world range is reported to be less than claimed by the manufacturer, and is not adequate for my needs (which I accept may not be typical but thats reality for me.)

And for this cut down functionality, I am expected to pay a 50% price premium. Thanks but no thanks! Come back to me with a 500km range and price parity with ICE and I can assure you I'm enthusiastically onboard.
 
Range wouldn't be a big concern for me. Most of my journeys are short. The odd long journey would be along main roads anyway and I'm sure I'd find somewhere to charge up. In fact, I think range anxiety is more to do with the infrastructure at this stage than the cars themselves. I think petrol stations will install chargers in time..where they will charge much higher rates to "fill up" and so be it.

The biggie for me though is price. I buy older saloons for about 15k or thereabouts, where you get a lot of bang for your buck. I keep them for about 5 years so have never bought a car that costs more than 3k annually in depreciation (which is how I calculate the cost of buying a car). With that, I get plenty space for lugging all sorts of things. Most of the EVs that might fall into my price range are way too small. Anything larger is too expensive. Even the reduced running costs of an EV wouldn't nearly offset the increase in cost of a more expensive car, especially for the relatively low mileage I do. Given the fact I do buy older cars, the high cost of replacing EV batteries is another thing that would put me off buying an older EV.

Like Purple, I also like the idea of owning an EV, but when it comes to brass tacks I couldn't justify it yet. Perhaps a PHEV like an Outlander might do the trick though as I would definitely keep it charged and it would cover 90%+ of my journeys in EV mode.
 
Purple said:
I rarely do more than 400Km in a day but there's no way I'd buy a car that couldn't do that.
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What EV can't do 400km in a day? ;)


A quick Google suggests the following distances from Dublin:
Belfast 170km
Limerick 200km
Galway / Sligo 210km
Westport 250km
Cork 260km
Waterford 170km

Any of the new VW, Kia, Hyundai or Teslas should easily be able to manage those journeys. I would guess most doing those journeys would stay overnight.
 
PGF2016 said:
What EV can't do 400km in a day? ;)


A quick Google suggests the following distances from Dublin:
Belfast 170km
Limerick 200km
Galway / Sligo 210km
Westport 250km
Cork 260km
Waterford 170km
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I've driven Dublin to Cork dozens of times n the last few years and haven't stayed overnight.

I've often done Dublin to Derry and not stayed overnight.

I've done Dublin Limerick hundreds of times and have never stayed overnight.



The bottom line is that the requirement to refuel my car every day would cause stress.
PGF2016 said:
Any of the new VW, Kia, Hyundai or Teslas should easily be able to manage those journeys. I would guess most doing those journeys would stay overnight.
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They are all expensive. So, it's back to range and cost.
 
I agree with Purple. Anyone with teenage (or even younger) kids knows the stress charging brings, I couldn't cope adding my means of transport into that list!
 
Purple said:
I've driven Dublin to Cork dozens of times n the last few years and haven't stayed overnight.

I've often done Dublin to Derry and not stayed overnight.

I've done Dublin Limerick hundreds of times and have never stayed overnight.



The bottom line is that the requirement to refuel my car every day would cause stress.

They are all expensive. So, it's back to range and cost.
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Plugging your car in every day would cause stress? how do you manage your mobile phone :D
 
Firefly said:
Range wouldn't be a big concern for me. Most of my journeys are short. The odd long journey would be along main roads anyway and I'm sure I'd find somewhere to charge up. In fact, I think range anxiety is more to do with the infrastructure at this stage than the cars themselves. I think petrol stations will install chargers in time..where they will charge much higher rates to "fill up" and so be it.

The biggie for me though is price. I buy older saloons for about 15k or thereabouts, where you get a lot of bang for your buck. I keep them for about 5 years so have never bought a car that costs more than 3k annually in depreciation (which is how I calculate the cost of buying a car). With that, I get plenty space for lugging all sorts of things. Most of the EVs that might fall into my price range are way too small. Anything larger is too expensive. Even the reduced running costs of an EV wouldn't nearly offset the increase in cost of a more expensive car, especially for the relatively low mileage I do. Given the fact I do buy older cars, the high cost of replacing EV batteries is another thing that would put me off buying an older EV.

Like Purple, I also like the idea of owning an EV, but when it comes to brass tacks I couldn't justify it yet. Perhaps a PHEV like an Outlander might do the trick though as I would definitely keep it charged and it would cover 90%+ of my journeys in EV mode.
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to be fair most ev models are relatively new, so older saloons for 15k dont exist yet but they will in 4 or 5 years. Also remember most evs have more space inside (especially purpose built ones) than the equivalent ICE car, i think VW claim that the ID3 is passat sized inside.
 
Blackrock1 said:
to be fair most ev models are relatively new, so older saloons for 15k dont exist yet but they will in 4 or 5 years. Also remember most evs have more space inside (especially purpose built ones) than the equivalent ICE car, i think VW claim that the ID3 is passat sized inside.
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I know you just mentioned the ID3 as an example, but a (very) quick check on VW.ie shows the starting price of 44,285 so I would imagine that by the time I could pick one up for 15k it would be very old and would possibly be getting close to having its battery replaced. I would happily buy an EV if the cost came down though. I would get over the space too I think...herself drives a big SUV so that could be used for the odd trip to the builder's providers once I'd clean it out afterwards ;)
 
Baby boomer said:
I was thinking of round trip distance rather than one way. It was suggested in this thread that 200km range was adequate for most purposes. That's barely Portlaoise and forget the North East or South West without one, or maybe even two, recharging stops.
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The question above was about driving 300km 'in one go', so let's stick with that unless you can point to some evidence of lots of people driving 300km+ and back in a single day in private cars.

I don't think it serves any real purpose to talk about the problems associated with a 200km range when there is no car currently on the market that is so limited. The Zoe is about the cheapest EV here and that has a 395km range.

Baby boomer said:
Back when I was working full time, I was doing about 40k km per year. Now, perhaps 25k. Less of course during the lockdown.
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So you clearly drive a lot more than most, your 25k puts you more than 50% above the average user. Let's not get caught up with a small minority of users, no one has claimed that EVs are suitable for all yet.
 
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