In May 2023, Gerald Bruton took the bold step of purchasing a new electric car. Why a bold step, you might ask? Well, Gerald has 81 years under his belt and has been driving petrol and diesel cars for more than 60 years, and, is not usually (I hope he doesn’t mind me saying this) fond of change.

I chat to Gerald, otherwise known as my dad, most days, which previously led to me writing about his exploits to save energy last winter. But lately, the conversation has rounded on the pros and cons of electric cars more than once, with Gerald making some very valid points, which have also been mentioned in the media recently.

These range from the fact that electric car sales are down 24% in 2024 compared to 2023; in 2024, 17,459 new electric cars were registered, which represents a 24% decrease from the 22,852 registrations in 2023 (SIMI).

The government's target of almost one million EVs on the road by 2030 is under serious threat; the 2024 Climate Action Plan (CAP24) sets a target 940,000 EVs by 2030, and as of July 2024, there were 135,900 electric and plug in hybrids on the road in Ireland.

Finally, the government shouldn’t have reduced the €5,000 grant to support the purchase of EVs to €3,500, and that this is the prime reason for both of the aforementioned issues. 

https://www.rte.ie/radio/radio1/clips/22423146/ From RTÉ Radio 1's Morning Ireland, Sales of electric vehicles continue to drop.

Gerald agrees in part with these sentiments but also has some other interesting experiences to add to the conversation.

For the past 16 months, Gerald has kept a record in his tracking notebook of every kWh he has put into his car, along with the number of kilometres driven for each charge, making some interesting analysis possible when it is combined with temperature data obtained from Met Eireann.

Range anxiety

One of Gerald’s primary concerns when he purchased his EV was around the range of the car. He purchased an MG4 with a quoted maximum range of 450km.

Gerald was also worried about how, where and for how long he would have to charge his car each time it needed a top-up. All common concerns considered by any would-be EV purchaser.

Let us first discuss the EV range. A colleague of mine, Dr John Hayes, publishes an article each year which offers a comprehensive guide to electric car prices and battery ranges.

This is excellent information for those in the market, but sometimes I wonder if people actually look beyond the maximum range. I know my dad only really became aware of the range drop-off in EVs in low temperatures during his first winter with his EV, where the range reduced to less than 45% of the maximum value (approximately 200km compared to a maximum of 450km). 

This led to some interesting conversations about his purchase and the merits of it. However, over time, Gerald has gotten used to the nuances of temperature related EV range adjustments.

As can be seen from Figure 2 whereby the close clustering of data points around the straight line indicates a relationship, showing how there is a strong link between the average weekly outside temperature and the average km/kWh.

There are of course other contributing factors to the range achieved by an EV, such as driving style and speeds driven, but temperature is the largest predictor of range based on this data. 

Installing the home EV charger

Gerald's second concern related to charging his EV. He had a very interesting interaction with the home charge point installer, who undertook a remote survey of his electrical infrastructure before giving the green light for installation and an associated cost.

This cost however changed when a qualified electrician called to Gerald’s 1970s semi-detached home, to find that the electrical infrastructure needed to be upgraded – at Gerald's cost – to facilitate the installation.

The additional work involved upgrading the meter 'tails’, which in a domestic electrical installation is an important consideration when installing an EV charger, to ensure that the electrical supply to the property can handle the additional load safely.

This potential added cost is not something most people are made aware of when considering the cost of installing a charger, with this work typically relating to older building stock where many of these chargers are being installed.

Availing of cheap electricity

Once the EV charger was installed, Gerald became acutely aware of the cost disparity of charging during the day versus at night. Luckily, Gerald had a smart tariff, which allowed him to take advantage of cheaper night rate electricity.

As the grid is also at its most emissive during peak periods, that is also when the environmental impact is at its worst, as can be seen daily using EirGrid’s Smartgrid Dashboard.

However, on inspection of the available options on the market, Gerald switched suppliers to avail of free electricity on a Saturday between 9am and 5pm (within a fair use of 1200kWh per annum).

As he typically does not commute large distances each week, this has meant that he can effectively charge his car for free. This information is critical to ensuring that the cost of EV operation is less than that of similar petrol or diesel vehicles: at peak rate costs of up to 45c/kWh, the cost per km to run an EV during the colder months is on a par with the cost of running a fossil fuel-based car. 

Figure 3 shows the km/KWh that Gerald achieved over the 16-month period of analysis, illustrating that his EV managed to achieve up to 7.5km/kWh during the warmer months, but that it dropped to less than 3km/KWh during the colder months.

This would equate to about 15c/km driven if charged at peak times, which does not compare favourably with an approximate cost of 18c/km for a petrol car, achieving 10km/litre during colder months.

Gerald also has some other thoughts, which might be useful to others. Namely, that his EV is cheap to run, requires little maintenance and is reliable. He does wish he had knownw more about the intricacies of the range before purchasing, specifically how large use of the heater affects range (!).

He also wishes that the government and salespeople had been more open and informative about some of the issues mentioned in this article.

In saying all this, Gerald, in between making sure that I have a good picture of him for his future memorial card, tells me that he may change his current electric vehicle for a different one in the future. If that is not a good endorsement for making the change to an electric car, I don’t know what is. 

Author: , University College Cork. This article first appeared on RTE's Brainstorm.