So, you’ve made your mind up – you’re going to buy an electric car. Well done, it’s a good choice. Now you just have to choose the right one.
This used to be a lot easier. A decade ago you really just chose from a Nissan Leaf, a BMW i3 or a Tesla Model S – and that was about it. Now electric cars come in every shape and size, and at price points from just under €30,000 (and getting lower all the time) to well over €200,000, depending on your needs and tastes. So how do you go about choosing the right one for you?
“EV buyers have more and more choice than ever before today and there’s now a huge range of sizes and body types to choose from, from hatches, estates, fastbacks, MPVs and SUVs,” says Emma Toner, marketing director at Opel Ireland. “Style and looks also play a role: a number of EV models look brilliantly futuristic, whilst some look exactly like their internal combustion equivalents. Style choice will simply come down to personal preference.
“Thereafter, of course range and battery size will play an important part in the decision-making process. Customers will appreciate that, typically, just like an ICE [internal combustion engine] vehicle, the bigger the power train and the bigger the body type, the more expensive the model. However, in most instances, given the average daily commute to work journey in Ireland is 16.8km, many buyers will never use the full capacity of their battery in a single day and, as such, with a home charger, many may have no need of purchasing a bigger, more expensive battery option.”
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That’s a critical point – most of us actually don’t use our cars very much and to meet the average Irish daily driving requirement of 16.8km, you could just spend €9,995 on a Citroen Ami, which has a range of 80km and a top speed of 50km/h. As long as you don’t need to go on a motorway, that will technically do you, and you don’t even need a home charging point – the Ami charges with a built-in cable that plugs into any three-pin outlet.
[ Thinking of switching to an electric vehicle? Here’s what you need to considerOpens in new window ]
Of course, cars don’t really work that way for most of us. A car is an expensive purchase and so it will inevitably be expected to do more than just that average 16.8km per day. It has to be more versatile than the bare minimum – and this is where a lot of EV advice goes wrong, when electric car advocates assume an average driver means everyone. It doesn’t, and people need their cars to be useful at more than the bare minimum rate.
The good news is that this is becoming easier. Even the current most affordable family-sized electric car, the BYD Dolphin, can easily get from, say, Dublin to Belfast on much less than a single charge. Larger, more expensive models – such as Volkswagen’s ID.7 saloon – can easily make the return journey without needing to stop and top up. Ranges and all-round capability have improved beyond all recognition.
But still, you need to choose – and this is where the homework comes in.
Jana Solovjova, marketing manager for Peugeot Ireland said that the important thing when deciding on the right EV for you is to just ask yourself a series of questions: “What your mileage is, and how do you use your car, how long your commute is. Try to work out how many times a week you’d need to charge.
“Then make sure you can charge at home or work, or figure out if you’ll be reliant on public charging — a home charger is a must! The cost of having a home charger installed is also worth considering, and Peugeot currently offers a free home charger with each EV purchased. Work out if you regularly need to carry heavy loads in the car, or tow. And then think of the warranty — Peugeot electric vehicles benefit from an extended warranty on the traction battery: eight years or 160,000km whichever comes first, with a minimum capacity of 70 per cent.”
First and foremost, you need to sit down and work out not only your annual mileage but also how and where you drive to rack up that mileage. Is most, or even all, of your driving in and around town with only very occasional forays on to motorways? Then you simply don’t need a big-battery car, as most of the time you’ll just be lugging around the bulk and weight of a battery pack that is surplus to requirements. If you’re someone who only drives into town and back, does the school run, goes to the shops and occasionally drives to the next town over, there’s little need for you to have a big saloon or SUV with a 70kWh+ battery.
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Instead, look at smaller, more compact models, which still have a useful one-charge range for those occasional longer journeys. The likes of Opel’s Corsa Electric, or the new Renault 5, or the MG 4, can all be bought at relatively low cost and all have a range of in and around (or just over, in the case of the MG) 400km, which is plenty. That’s enough for a low-mileage driver to get through a week on probably just two top-ups of the battery and still be able to – with a little bit of planning and patience – tackle those occasional longer journeys.
An electric car can save you a bundle on running costs – to cover the average annual Irish mileage of 16,352km (according to the Central Statistics Office) can cost as little as €699. That’s assuming you’re driving a Volkswagen ID.4 with the 77kWh battery (currently the bestselling EV in Ireland) and charging at home at a price of 25c per kWh. That price can be reduced if you charge on the 17c night rate, which would bring the annual cost down to €471. That calculation assumes that the ID.4 will achieve 450km per full charge – a realistic figure, based on our on-road experience with that model – but doesn’t factor in the cost of any public charging, which is considerably more expensive.
By contrast, the Volkswagen Tiguan 2.0 TDI 150 has official fuel economy of 5.3-litres per 100km, so will need 866-litres of diesel to cover that 16,352km, which at the current average price of €1.67 (at the time of writing) per litre will cost you €1,446 and a bit of spare change. That’s a saving of almost €1,000 per year to run an EV, and it’s not even as if there’s a huge purchase price difference between the two cars – the ID.4 Pro 77kWh is priced at €41,570 while a 2.0 TDI Tiguan costs at minimum €49,695.
According to Jeremy Warnock, group product supply and distribution manager at Renault Ireland, working out whether an EV is right for you is actually quite like doing the same calculations for any kind of car: “Your budget will probably be the key driver of whether you’re looking at a new EV or a used one. In any case, the main thing is always to think about your driving needs.
“With a modern EV, home charging alone covers most people’s day-to-day driving but if you have a very long commute it’s important to make sure the car you choose can cover this all year round. The country’s fast-charging network has improved massively in the last few years and generally works well on long-distance journeys but you probably don’t want to have to include that in your daily commute. Thankfully, an EV like the Renault Scenic with its 87kWh battery means long commutes are easily achieved, and realistically the 60kWh version offers plenty of range for most people’s needs.”
There is a big choice to make when it comes to batteries too because there is more than one type. The vast majority of electric vehicles use lithium-ion batteries, using nickel-manganese-cobalt (NMC) anode (that’s the negative terminal) and cathode (the positive) to get ions of lithium to flow through the battery. Flow in one direction charges the battery up, flow in the other direction sends an electric current out to a motor, driving the wheels.
What are the pros of a lithium-ion NMC-type battery? Well, the chemistry is well understood (it’s the same basic stuff you’ll find in your laptop or mobile phone) and the designs have matured.
The downsides, though? Lithium-ion batteries are expensive to make (although they are getting cheaper) and use vast amounts of rare metals and minerals which have to be dug out of the ground – in itself an energy-intensive process and one that has rung alarm bells about such matters as human rights and child labour in the mining industry, and political issues such as China’s near-total dominance in lithium processing. Lithium-ion batteries are also heavy, leading to heavier and less efficient cars, and if damaged they can suffer “thermal runaway” – a fire that’s very difficult to extinguish.
Is there something better out there? Yes, there is. Lithium-iron phosphate batteries, or LFP batteries. These are now starting to become more commonplace and they have some significant advantages over lithium-ion packs. For a start, they’re more affordable to build and their chemistry means that you can forego some of the harder-to-mine rare earth metals such as cobalt. They’re also more rugged – BYD, which has pioneered LFP batteries, actually integrates them into the structure of the car for improved crash protection – and less likely to suffer thermal runaway.
The downside is that they generally hold less energy for a given size, making for shorter ranges (although it’s worth pointing out that in real-world conditions, thus far, LFP batteries seem to stack up well against lithium-ion ones), and they’re less easy to recycle.
See what we mean about doing your homework? Ultimately, electric cars are just cars, but powered differently. Just as you once had to make the choice between petrol or diesel, or hybrid, now you have to choose between different batteries, charging speeds, ranges, and prices. The good news is that the choice of EVs is already extensive, and is expanding all the time. So knuckle down, do your homework, get the best advice and you will soon find the right EV for you.
