All about EV

With electric vehicles (EVs) the ‘in’ thing, here are a few facts to help you impress your friends at dinner parties …

Charging settings:

On the Kia Niro PHEV plug-in hybrid, or the e-Niro and e-Soul (above) full EV, you can set the charging time, current and charge level. But why would you do this? 

Setting the Charging time:  You can benefit from a night charging rate from some electricity suppliers. 

Setting the maximum charge level:  To preserve the life of any battery it is best to keep it between a 30% – 90% charge.  Limiting the maximum charge at 90% will help preserve battery life – this is the same for your smartphone battery.

Charger points:

There are almost 1,100 public EV charge points available across the island of Ireland. 

To locate your nearest charge point, you can download the ‘ecar connect’ app for Apple and Android devices, or visit  https://www.esb.ie/our-businesses/ecars/charge-point-map . 

This also tells you whether a charger point is in use or free!

Types of charger points:

The charger points applicable for current Kia Vehicles are …

• Type 2 – 23kW (Green Icon).  You need to bring a Type 2 to Type 2 charging cable, which is supplied with the vehicle. (This works for all 3 Kia models)
• Other – Yellow icon – These are usually hotel / business chargers open to public on a limited basis.  Most are Type 2 sockets. (This works for all 3 Kia models)
• Combo (CCS) – These are Rapid DC chargers. Mostly 50kW and can typically charge to 80% in about 1 hour. (This works for e-Soul and e-Niro)

Using the network

To use the public charging network you must register with the ESB for charging access cards.

The card is used to allow connection and disconnection to the charging points,

Currently there is no cost to using an ESB charge point, but there may be normal parking fees applied at certain locations by the local authority or car park operator.

The ESB are currently developing a smartphone App for use instead of the charge card. 

Costs of using a home charger

Just multiply the battery capacity by the cost of the electricity:

Example:

• The Niro PHEV has a 8.9kWh battery (kWh = kilowatt Hour)
• The cost per kWh of electricity is €0.17 (sample cost, depending on home supplier)
• So, the cost to charge the Niro PHEV battery from 0% to 100% is  8.9kWh X  €0.17  = €1.51

The range of a Niro PHEV in full electric mode is 55km.  So, 100km of electric-only driving will cost approx. €2.70 (€1.51 X2 / 110km * 100).

That’s a saving of €5.50 per 100km against a petrol vehicle running at 6l/100km … and a saving of approx. €3.37 when compared to a well-known hybrid vehicle with an average fuel consumption of 4.5l/100km.

Assuming the cost of electricity to be €0.17 per kWh, the cost per 100km driving for the e-Niro with a 64 kWh battery and an average range 455km, based on the WLTP average range figures, is:

64 X €0.17 = €10.88 to fully charge = €2.39 per 100km 

Using climate control

On the Kia e-Niro and e-Soul, the cabin temperature can be set to your desired departure temperature when the vehicle is plugged into a charging outlet.

Why?

The climate control uses more power at the beginning of a journey to get the cabin temperature to the desired setting.  Once at the desired setting it uses less energy to maintain the set temperature.  By pre-setting the desired temperature, when charging, you are not using as much of the vehicles battery capacity to reach the desired temperature and so you will preserve more of the battery driving range.

On Kia electric vehicles you can set the charging cable to either stay locked or unlocked once charging is completed. Why would I want to do this?

If you share a charging point (e.g. at your workplace) you can set the vehicle so that, when it is finished charging,  another person can disconnect your vehicle and use the charge point. Or, if charging at a public charger you will want to keep your cable locked, so it is not stolen.

We will continue to update with more EV facts!