There is one question that I have been regularly asked over the past three years and that is, is it time to change over to an electric car just yet? Like all major investment decisions in any household, getting the best available information and then proceed with caution, is the best advice.

In this article I hope to look at where electric cars are in terms of their capacity, range and suitability for rural car owners and we will also examine some of the costs and potential savings.

And for farming families, any discussion on the option of electric car use must also include the discussion on the investment in solar panels. The reason for the solar panel discussion is that farming families can avail of the TAMS III Solar Capital Investment Scheme which is now open for applications.

The Solar Capital Investment Scheme is funded by your carbon tax payments and is designed to encourage the purchase of solar investments thereby reducing dependence on fossil energy. The solar scheme is ring fenced with its own investment ceiling of €90,000 and will be grant aided at the enhanced rate of 60%.

Eligible farmers can benefit from a 60% TAMS grant and accelerated capital allowances in the first year. This grant is available to all qualifying farmers, regardless of age or farm structure, including partnerships and company farming models. Non-farming households don’t have the same opportunities to avail of this level of grant aid or accelerated capital allowances.

Necessary

The TAMS II grant covers all necessary equipment for a solar PV installation, from panels to isolator switches and even batteries. The Department of Agriculture publishes reference costs on its website to help calculate the installation expenses.

This is the key part of the decision on whether to move to an electric car or not. My belief is that every farming household who can afford it, should be looking at the solar panel and electric car option, the cost benefits can be enormous.

Options

Let’s look at the car options first. There are three categories of electric cars when measured on their battery capacity or size, which then converts to driving range. These are small (up to around 50-55kWh capacity), medium (60-80kWh) and large (bigger than 90kWh).

Modern electric cars have improved significantly when it comes to driving range on a fully charged battery. Smaller battery cars will typically have a realistic range of between 300 and 350km. Medium size battery cars will give you a range of between 400 and 450km, while larger battery models can go between 450 and 500km.

In giving these general range outlines, so much depends on how you drive, where you drive, and they will be lower in the winter months when heated rear windows and higher temperature air conditioning systems are being used. And SUV type cars will have more wind resistance and lower range possibility.

And lastly, these are NOT towing machines. Towing cattle trailers is for tractors and diesel powered 4x4s.

Now let’s look at the costs. I’ve looked at ownership costs over three years of two car models, the popular Volkswagen ID.3 and probably the most original electric car, Nissan’s Leaf. I’ve looked at the re-sale prices of eight 2021 registration models, averaged and compared them to establish the depreciation cost when compared with the price of a new version of each car.

Depreciation

This is the real depreciation cost and varies significantly between both models (see tables). Deprecation or replacement cost is still the biggest part of car ownership costs, irrespective of whether the car is a battery electric model, as the ones chosen or a petrol or diesel engine car. I’ve then calculated the running costs using the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI) electric cost figures based on a standard use level of 20,000km driving per year. These figures are based on a house without solar panels but using the most cost-effective over-night charging system.

They show an ownership cost of either €0.22 per kilometre for the Nissan Leaf or €0.31 per kilometre for the Volkswagen ID.3. These differences are almost solely related to the high depreciation costs for the ID.3.

When we compare that to a diesel engine car and the most recent of which we featured was the Opel Astra Tourer, we see an ownership cost of €0.36 per kilometre. The ownership costs are now more clearly in favour of the battery electric car option and the cost of purchase is now more equal than in the past. With a combination of solar panels and good management of the charging process, coupled with a slight change in driving style, there is a potential to lower your motoring costs by up to 30%, compared with a diesel or petrol engine car.

Benefits

Now add in the benefits of home charging using grant-aided solar panels and the costs drop even further when up to 75% of the charging is done by solar panels.

Adding the solar panel as a source of power solely to charge the car will not impact significantly on running costs, which are mainly dictated by depreciation costs.

It will add independence of supply, and it has the potential to lower the charging costs by 75% in some situations.

A solar panel installation cost for a farming household can vary depending on the size of the installation. There are a large number of installers out there who are approved for grant aid, so it is difficult to establish an overall cost.

Make sure that you are dealing with an approved supplier. Costs can vary from about €12,000 for a 6 kWp installation to €31,000 for a 24 kWp installation.

For an installation costing €25,000 there is a VAT refund of €3,000 (even if you are not VAT registered) followed by a grant of 60% reducing the net cost to €9,000. If the farmer operates as a sole trader their tax benefits from capital allowances is 50%, reducing the cost to the farm family to €4,500.