The rise of Electric Vehicles in Ireland may have taken a few years to gain momentum, but we’re really starting to see them in numbers recently. And the pace of adoption is increasing all of the time as people start to realise the benefits!

There isn’t really any exact dictionary definition of what an EV is. And if you ask 100 people, you’ll probably get a slightly different answer from each one of them. For some people, an EV is any car that can be driven in full, or in part, by any sort of electric motor. For others, it has to be a fully rechargeable car that has no combustion engine at all.

EVs and Hybrids

So a full Battery Electric Vehicle (BEV) has no combustion engine. It is only driven by the energy stored in its battery, and must be charged up with electricity.

On the other hand, a Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicle (PHEV) has both a combustion engine and an electric motor. It also has a battery and a fuel tank to store energy to drive the car by both means. The size of the battery varies a lot between models of car.

Then you have ‘mild’ or ‘soft’ hybrids that have both an electric motor and a combustion engine. They also have both a battery and a fuel tank. But the difference here is that you can not recharge the car by plugging it in. 100% of your driving ultimately comes from energy produced by using fossil fuels. A very small amount of the energy used by the combustion engine is harnessed to recharge the battery.

There is also one other form which is called a Range Extender that most people will recognise from the BMW i3. This is where a combustion engine acts as a generator to recharge the battery, but the car is driven by the electric motor. Of course, there are a few exceptions, and we’ll get to those in more detail in other pieces.

The Basics

Main components

Although there are far fewer components in a full EV compared to a hybrid or fossil powered car, there are still a few elements. We’ll forget about the detailed stuff like high-voltage wires and inverters for now and focus on the two main ones: the motor and the battery.

The Motor

An EV has an electric motor. In general, EVs have just one motor that drives two of the wheels. Of course, there are many exceptions to this. For example, A Tesla Model 3 has one motor that drives the rear wheels. But if you opt for the Performance version of that car, it comes with two motors, one at the back, and one at the front.

An electric motor has all of its power and torque available all of the time. So you never have to wait for the engine to ‘rev up’ to accelerate. We also measure power slightly differently when it comes to EVs. We can still measure in horsepower and torque. But with electric motors, we tend to give the power in kW. So we might say that a standard Nissan LEAF has a 110kW motor, and has about 150 horse power.

Battery

The energy we use to drive our EVs is stored in the battery, a bit like the fuel tank in an combustion car. In general, we use electricity from the grid to charge the battery. But some people use solar panels on their roof.

Batteries can be a whole range of sizes. When we say size, what do we mean.? We’re not referring to the physical size of the battery, but instead the amount of energy that can be stored in it. For example, an entry-level Volkswagen iD.4 has a usable battery capacity of 52kWh. That means that you can store 52kWh of energy in the battery. And if you’re wondering what a kWh is, just think of your electricity bill and the ‘units’ that you pay for. Yep, that’s just an easy way of saying a kWh!

Recharging an EV

Just like a petrol or diesel car needs fuel to move, so does an electric vehicle. You can charge an EV in many different ways.

Domestic Socket

The slowest in by plugging it into any domestic socket. Although not recommended, many people have used this means to trickle charge their EVs overnight for years. An average EV plugged into a domestic socket will draw just over 2kW which is enough to recoup about 10 to 15 kms range every hour.

AC

A slightly faster way is to plug it into a dedicated unit that you have installed at home. Pretty much every modern EV will take a minimum of 7kW from a charger like this. That’s enough to add about 40km to 50km of range per hour. It is possible to get faster AC chargers, and some cars like the Renault Zoe can take up to 22kW on one of these plugs. But most domestic electricity supply in Ireland is single-phase and your home charger is unlikely to do more than 7kW.

DC

A much faster way to charge is to use a DC charger. You see these labelled as ‘fast chargers’, ‘rapid chargers’, or ‘high-powered chargers’. These units have a much greater ability to charge your car at speed. The vast majority of modern EVs have the ability to charge at 50kW or higher. Some cars such as the Kia EV6 can charge at about 230kW! So Even an old Nissan LEAF will put about 100km range in a quick 20 minute stop. But if you’re lucky enough to have a nice Kia EV6 on a high powered charger you can add a multiple of that.

When it comes to thinking about recharging an EV, you have to think about it in a different way. The important thing is not how long it takes your EV to charge. Instead, what’s really important is how long it take you personally to fill up your car.

Conclusion

That rounds up our introduction to EVs. Hopefully you understand that little bit more now about what an EV is. But this was only just scratching the surface. We have put together a series of pieces explaining the world of EVs, and the many benefits of owning one!

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