Prior to the All-electric Kia e-Soul lands Irish Car of the Year " target="_blank">Kia e-Soul being awarded the title of Continental Tyres Irish Car of the Year 2020, I had been looking at the new electric options for rural drivers at a time when diesel engines are coming under huge environmental pressure. What options are available as the diesel options continue to dwindle?
Rural drivers have to enter the electric vehicle conversation, because there are less diesel choices available. The challenge is picking the best option to suit your driving needs.
Driving needs of city drivers are significantly different to those of rural drivers. The driving distances for rural drivers are longer, the availability of other options, such as public transport are limited and there are a lack of electric charging points. These on their own are not good reasons to dismiss the electric or hybrid car options.
Years in the making
Since the introduction of the Toyota Prius hybrid car in 1997, I’ve driven almost all options around alternative driving, with the exception of hydrogen cars. It’s been a 22 year evolution that’s been slowly working on our consciousness. Now, it’s accelerating due to the huge improvements in battery power. And there’s more to come.
Today we are faced with a myriad of options to the traditional petrol and diesel engine. We have self-charging hybrids, such as the majority of the Toyota range and an increasing number of other brands, plug-in hybrids (PHEV’s) offered by a wide range of brands and full electric cars that have no traditional engines under the bonnet.
Choice
The choices for the future are based on the electric vehicle (EV) range, price and running cost. The range anxiety is starting to evaporate as cars such as the Kia e-Soul, Kia e-Niro and Hyundai Kona Electric have broken new ground, which was, up until recently, led by the Nissan Leaf.
All four now offer a range of in excess of 400km on a full charge, without having to drive at a snail’s pace, scrimping to save battery energy by driving in the cold and the quiet. I’ve driven all four at some stage in the recent past and felt that familar range anxiety, quickly evaporate.
What rural drivers need is realistic options that don’t tax them out of existence. Every farm needs a car, van or 4x4 that can tow a trailer. For the rest of the driving needs, I’m more convinced than ever that we should go straight to full electric power given the new range possibilities.
Modern electric cars such as the Volkswagen e-Golf will have even greater range than this current model and will be realistic options for the future with longer range features.
PHEVs
PHEVs can be cost effective, giving a local driving range of about 50km on a home charge that’s not expensive. They are all coupled with petrol engines and that’s where I get concerned. It’s too easy to ignore the PHEV features for the convenience of the petrol pump, but they become pricey to drive on petrol alone, compared with the efficiency we have become so used to with diesel engines.
Let’s be straight about it: petrol hybrids or even smaller petrol engines, simply cannot compete with diesel efficiency in terms of economy, except in the smaller cars. No matter how carefully I drive, I fail to match diesel efficiency with a petrol hybrid system in the longer mixed road drives that would be normal for rural drivers.
And towing is the big dilemma. Hybrid cars and SUVs are simply not designed as towing machines. Hitch your trailer behind and the power demands of the trailer load will quickly push you further away from the hybrid drive to a thirsty petrol engine with an automatic gearbox.
Toyota has moved away from diesel in all of its car and lighter SUV ranges.The Toyota RAV4 is now only available with hybrid petrol power and that’s a system that demands a driving culture change to be competitive.
Some car manufacturers are looking at electric powered pick-ups but the towing power demands on Irish farms make these options quite a distance away. Tesla and Chevy in the US both have options on the way, but don’t expect them to be geared towards high-load pulling work.
If rural drivers can get Government support for environmentally clean electric car charging systems using wind or photovoltaic cells, then it will make real sense to go the extra purchase price for the current generation of electric cars. Support for farm-based charging systems will drive the electric car demand, because it will be competitive.
Farmers need towing power and the likes of the Toyota Hilux is just one example of the compromise that is necessary on farms where car driving can be electric and the heavy stuff is left to a diesel powered 4x4.
Every Irish farm or rural household can, I believe, live with at least one electric car. Most farms that I’ve visited have between two and three cars parked in the yard. I expect that if one of them was an all-electric car, it would be the one getting the most use because it would be most cost-effective.
That is, if they could be supplied with one and if the price was more competitive. Market demands across Europe are leading to high demand and low availability.
But still, keep the diesel powered 4x4 or the van in the shed for the days when there’s real work to be done. It’s almost a memory of the era of the conversion from the horse to the tractor on Irish farms. The horse got a reprieve on many farms long after the tractor had come. Could it be the same with the diesel engine for motoring needs?
It is surely time to talk electric car power for Irish rural drivers, but prices have and will come down, as battery manufacturing processes across the world reach new economy scales.
Prior to the All-electric Kia e-Soul lands Irish Car of the Year " target="_blank">Kia e-Soul being awarded the title of Continental Tyres Irish Car of the Year 2020, I had been looking at the new electric options for rural drivers at a time when diesel engines are coming under huge environmental pressure. What options are available as the diesel options continue to dwindle?
Rural drivers have to enter the electric vehicle conversation, because there are less diesel choices available. The challenge is picking the best option to suit your driving needs.
Driving needs of city drivers are significantly different to those of rural drivers. The driving distances for rural drivers are longer, the availability of other options, such as public transport are limited and there are a lack of electric charging points. These on their own are not good reasons to dismiss the electric or hybrid car options.
Years in the making
Since the introduction of the Toyota Prius hybrid car in 1997, I’ve driven almost all options around alternative driving, with the exception of hydrogen cars. It’s been a 22 year evolution that’s been slowly working on our consciousness. Now, it’s accelerating due to the huge improvements in battery power. And there’s more to come.
Today we are faced with a myriad of options to the traditional petrol and diesel engine. We have self-charging hybrids, such as the majority of the Toyota range and an increasing number of other brands, plug-in hybrids (PHEV’s) offered by a wide range of brands and full electric cars that have no traditional engines under the bonnet.
Choice
The choices for the future are based on the electric vehicle (EV) range, price and running cost. The range anxiety is starting to evaporate as cars such as the Kia e-Soul, Kia e-Niro and Hyundai Kona Electric have broken new ground, which was, up until recently, led by the Nissan Leaf.
All four now offer a range of in excess of 400km on a full charge, without having to drive at a snail’s pace, scrimping to save battery energy by driving in the cold and the quiet. I’ve driven all four at some stage in the recent past and felt that familar range anxiety, quickly evaporate.
What rural drivers need is realistic options that don’t tax them out of existence. Every farm needs a car, van or 4x4 that can tow a trailer. For the rest of the driving needs, I’m more convinced than ever that we should go straight to full electric power given the new range possibilities.
Modern electric cars such as the Volkswagen e-Golf will have even greater range than this current model and will be realistic options for the future with longer range features.
PHEVs
PHEVs can be cost effective, giving a local driving range of about 50km on a home charge that’s not expensive. They are all coupled with petrol engines and that’s where I get concerned. It’s too easy to ignore the PHEV features for the convenience of the petrol pump, but they become pricey to drive on petrol alone, compared with the efficiency we have become so used to with diesel engines.
Let’s be straight about it: petrol hybrids or even smaller petrol engines, simply cannot compete with diesel efficiency in terms of economy, except in the smaller cars. No matter how carefully I drive, I fail to match diesel efficiency with a petrol hybrid system in the longer mixed road drives that would be normal for rural drivers.
And towing is the big dilemma. Hybrid cars and SUVs are simply not designed as towing machines. Hitch your trailer behind and the power demands of the trailer load will quickly push you further away from the hybrid drive to a thirsty petrol engine with an automatic gearbox.
Toyota has moved away from diesel in all of its car and lighter SUV ranges.The Toyota RAV4 is now only available with hybrid petrol power and that’s a system that demands a driving culture change to be competitive.
Some car manufacturers are looking at electric powered pick-ups but the towing power demands on Irish farms make these options quite a distance away. Tesla and Chevy in the US both have options on the way, but don’t expect them to be geared towards high-load pulling work.
If rural drivers can get Government support for environmentally clean electric car charging systems using wind or photovoltaic cells, then it will make real sense to go the extra purchase price for the current generation of electric cars. Support for farm-based charging systems will drive the electric car demand, because it will be competitive.
Farmers need towing power and the likes of the Toyota Hilux is just one example of the compromise that is necessary on farms where car driving can be electric and the heavy stuff is left to a diesel powered 4x4.
Every Irish farm or rural household can, I believe, live with at least one electric car. Most farms that I’ve visited have between two and three cars parked in the yard. I expect that if one of them was an all-electric car, it would be the one getting the most use because it would be most cost-effective.
That is, if they could be supplied with one and if the price was more competitive. Market demands across Europe are leading to high demand and low availability.
But still, keep the diesel powered 4x4 or the van in the shed for the days when there’s real work to be done. It’s almost a memory of the era of the conversion from the horse to the tractor on Irish farms. The horse got a reprieve on many farms long after the tractor had come. Could it be the same with the diesel engine for motoring needs?
It is surely time to talk electric car power for Irish rural drivers, but prices have and will come down, as battery manufacturing processes across the world reach new economy scales.
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