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| VW ID.4 - top seller. |
There are around 30,000 battery electric or plug-in hybrid cars now on Ireland's roads, writes Brian Byrne. The ratio is roughly half and half. While 15,000 pure EVs is far short of the Government target of almost a million by 2030, a target most unlikely to be achieved, the take-up is growing.
With 3,952 battery-electric cars registered in the year to date, the momentum is clear and the track is inexorably upwards. As a brand, Volkswagen is way ahead with approaching a third of sales in BEVs this year, thanks to its ID.4 in first place and ID.3 in second place, totalling 1,312 units. Nissan, who started the whole thing off, is in second brand place with 479 units giving them more than 12pc of the market. Kia, Tesla and Hyundai make up the top five, with almost 30pc of the market between them. The other electric mainstreamers then are Peugeot, Renault, Audi, Mini, MG and Opel. Beyond that are mainly premium brands which are still building presence, in small numbers at big prices.
But the message is clear. Even if the Government target is missed by a mile, there are going to be a lot of electric car drivers out there in eight years' time. Most of the anxieties are gone. The latest cars come with ranges of at least 300+kms, and home charging becomes a habit just as it is for our mobile phones at night. You always start the day with a full 'tank', something that's not the case with your traditional internal combustion engine car. While charging at home is the best and cheapest way, there are also 1,200 public charge points and counting, as well as a growing number of 'destination' charge points in hotels, shopping centres, places of work, and public transport stations. And the network of high-speed charging points is growing by the week.
The biggest hurdle to going the full electric motoring route is cost of the car. Even with incentives they are more expensive than petrol or diesel counterparts ... and the incentives are being reduced from 1 July, which was inevitable. But the cost of batteries is reducing every year, and there are increasing emissions tax increases on internal combustion cars. So prices are converging. Additionally, it's 70pc less expensive to run an electric car than an ICE-powered one, so the extra cost is recouped over a number of years. Buyers of EVs intend to keep them for longer than they would a traditional one, so the savings over the life of the car will be even more significant.
There are naysayers who point out that electric cars are not 'green' because making the electricity for them results in polluting emissions. True, to a diminishing point ... up to 40pc of Ireland's electricity is now being produced from renewable sources, a figure that, by Government policy, will continue to be improved.
You might be tempted to wait until everything in the electric car area gets better. But there's a point in the development of every technology where improvement slows, and there's little point in locking yourself into old tech for another three or four years.
That point might be now.
