Electric Vehicles Need Charge, Not Charges in Budget

Press Release

Electric Vehicles Need Charge, Not Charges in Budget

With the budget due, Electric Vehicle owners are in the dark about any future charges. Currently owners can avail of an SEAI grant of up to €5,000 and a VRT rebate of up to €5,000 when buying a new car and most charging points are free to use. Dublin leads the way in Electrical Car ownership as can be seen from the graph below, but all counties now have electric vehicles. By far the most popular electric Model is the Nissan Leaf with 1335 units. There are 16 of the highly desired Tesla Model S registered on Irish roads with 13 in Dublin, 1 each in Kildare, Louth and Cork.

Table 1 – Electric vehicles ownership by County

The Diesel emissions scandal has seen governments across Europe taking action to phase out Diesel cars, with Holland and Norway possibly banning all new internal combustion engine cars by 2025.

However if electrical vehicle ownership is to increase, there must be no additional charges in the upcoming budget. Further we all need to take note of the current electrical community and how they are overcoming existing problems. There are currently 1200 electric charge points, of which 80 are fast charge according to ESB-E cars. Although there are only 1626 Pure Electric vehicles, there is demand for charging points in key areas. As is happening more often, owners are finding themselves unable to charge their electric car due to “hogging”. This is where an owner leaves their car parked in the electric point (on charge) and heads off shopping or to work as is the case in some public car parks.

In the USA, around 10,000 new Electric vehicles are sold every month and the public charging stations are starting to see backlogs. As EV ownership rises, a method of communication between owners is essential to free up charge points.

A new Irish Startup called Car and Us.com has just launched and is facilitating EV owners to communicate directly with each other. Simply by entering their registration once into the site, owners can enter a world of car to car communication simply by registration. An owner can send a message to another driver asking when they will be finished charging and all that is required is the other driver’s registration. The site is open for all motorists to message each other about all things motoring. If EV ownership rises as a direct result of the budget then in order to free up those charging points, we will all have to follow the lead of the current EV owner.

Editor Notes:

CarAndUs.com is a free car management tool designed to save time and money making managing a car easier. It sends reminders when the NCT and motor tax are due. Further it works as a social media hub for drivers, allowing owners post and share car related content, form groups and follow other cars. Owners can also communicate with other drivers via registration, contributing to the development of the connected car for the future. In association with Cartell.ie, a user can access technical information specific to their car. Users can also store service history and have it sent to them, preserving the value of the vehicle. The site can also act as a peer-to-peer platform for selling a vehicle and it automatically transfers the service documents and technical data to the new owner.

In association with Advance Pitstop, BMW and MINI Ireland, Car And Us developed instant service and tyre quoting specific to each car. When the NCT is due, Car And Us can offer a free NCT pre-inspection with Advance Pitstop.

One of the co-founders of Car And Us, Jeff Aherne, established Ireland’s first car history check company, Cartell.ie, in 2006, while its other founders are heavily involved in the UK insurance

sector. Car And Us is supported by Enterprise Ireland and the company currently has access to data for four countries where this product will be rolled out, beginning with Ireland, the UK, Portugal and Malta.  The company, via its partners, has access to information from another eight countries, making this a growing global solution.

For further information please contact Jeff Aherne on 087 2467678 or Jeff at Carandus.com  or check out www.carandus.com.