Electric Car

Electric cars have many great benefits and are definitely the best option for most people. Ideally everyone who can go electric should but in the interest of balance I will also talk about some of the reasons why electric isn't suitable for everyone (yet).

The advantages:

• Its better for the environment

• Its cheaper to run, tax and service (example from here in Ireland)

• Better air quality for everyone

• Its the future (more and more car companies are committed to going full electric)

• No more trips to the petrol station (we didn't really consider this before switching but it is handy)

Above I said that electric cars are the best options for most people but here are some reasons why they might not be for everyone.

• If you can't have a home charger (e.g. people in apartments, people with no driveway etc).

  • • This is not 100% a blocker to going electric but it will mean you will need to rely on the rapidly growing public network.

    • If this is you perhaps consider a plug-in hybrid. That way you can benefit from electric whilst having increased flexibility.

    • Avoid "self charging hybrids" if the only fuel you put in is petrol - then its a petrol car. These may be more efficient but they are still petrol cars.

• If you regularly drive really long distances.

  • • Range anxiety for most people is massively over indexed, people that typically only have small commutes can really get hung up on what happens if you suddenly want to drive across the country. Its typically not a big issues and you can make long trips with just a little planning. Its definitely not a good reason to go fully electric. Similarly for those going electric most of the cost is in the battery. Don't buy a huge battery if you don't really need it. Try and consider the driving you actually do.

    • Like above plug-in hybrids are a great alternative if you regularly travel long distances (e.g. your job is on the road).

• If you need to tow.

  • • The latest electric vehicles do allow you to tow so this is becoming less and less of a concern.

• If you can't afford it.

  • • Electric vehicles can be more expensive to purchase initially and this may be a blocker for some. That said the second hand market is growing and will continue to grow. A second hand Nissan Leaf or Renault Zoe can be very reasonable. There is very little to break in an electric car so reliability should be good for years to come.

The MG ZS EV has been described as the ALDI of electric vehicles owing to the fact that you get a lot for the money you pay out.

Our priorities for getting a car were:

• • Price

  • It would be suitable for a family when we have one

  • When we could actually get one

  • Looks

We knew that we didn't need massive range and we knew that we could live without towing. We considered a few cars, the Hyundai Kona (too expensive) , the Peugeot 2008 (ugly nose), the Kia eNiro (ugly weird headlight eye things) & the VW Id4 (too expensive). This is a great site for comparing electric vehicles and I highly recommend it.

Ultimately we kept coming back to the MG because you simply get so much for your money. Many features that were standard on the exclusive model of the MG were added extras on other cars and would rachet up the price. To get a panoramic sunroof, adaptive cruise control, MG Pilot, heated seats etc without having to really dip deeper into our bank account was a huge plus. An alternative would likely have ended up being €15-20k more and with all the works we have recently done on the house that just wasn't a good option.

Although I think many of the cars listed above are "better" none of them were ever sufficiently better to warrant us spending more. It was really tempting to get sucked into getting a car which had every bell and whistle but the MG ZS EV ultimately served all our needs. We also avoided falling into the trap of paying through the nose for range we would rarely ever use.

We have the MG ZS EV a few months now and although Covid restrictions have stopped us taking any long trips we are very happy with it so far. "Eevee" is as much part of the family now as anyone else, sure there are places where you can see MG (now owned by a Chinese manufacturer) had to cut back to keep the cost down, but ultimately we would highly recommend you get a test drive.

Installing a car charger at home makes its faster and more convenient to charge (but it should be said our car came with a cable that can plug into any standard outlet, that we used for the first few weeks). Nishta plugs the car in every few days after work and its fully charger by morning.

The cost of our car charger installation was included with the purchase of the car. All we had to pay was €600 which we could later claim back from the SEAI through their grant program. The installation was coordinated by the energy company Energia and was fast and easy to organise.

I should mention that when our house was rewired I did instruct the electrician to prepare for both our solar system and a car charger in the garage so the actual installation was simple and only took 1-2 hours. This made life very simple for our installers. I'd recommend you talk to your installer in advance and they will advise if you need to get any additional electrical work done prior to installation