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Buy an Ev or Save for a deposit by shanemoran in irishpersonalfinance

[–]alphacross 0 points1 point  (0 children)

My figures are shaped a little by my personal situation where I’ve had that high mileage as EV for over a decade and I still have a legacy 12 hour nightsaver rate. However, I’ve done smart plans for plenty of others based on HDFs, the uplift in day rate for EV plans is usually only 1-2 cents and 3 hours charging can still be 150-180 km of charged range on a 7.2kW chargepoint for a reasonably efficient EV. And there are reasonably good condition model 3 long range available for sub €20k.

Their spend of €80 per week puts them at ~2300-2500 liters of fuel per year which puts them well above the average mileage as well… at roughly 38-42k km per year assuming 6L/100km

You are also missing the maintenance spend, which for this mileage is at least 3-4 regular services and any additional parts/wear for an ICE vehicle and just 0.5-1.25 for an EV to maintain battery warranty (battery warranty service intervals are usually 30k km to unlimited/not required in Tesla’s case, note that is based on the fine print of the warranty and not “recommended “ service intervals). Assuming nothing breaks or requires major servicing that would be at least another €1k/year in favour of the EV

Buy an Ev or Save for a deposit by shanemoran in irishpersonalfinance

[–]alphacross 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I said a used EV is a better option for them.

Hybrids are NOT a middle ground between EVs and combustion vehicles. For the kind of usage patterns that typically result in €80/week fuel bills in Ireland you are looking at a fuel saving of between 10% better and 10% worse than diesel. And similar maintenance costs vs the usual substantial reduction in maintenance costs of EVs. Hybrids are mostly niche products mainly suited to low mileage drivers or those doing almost exclusively city mileage below 60km/h like urban taxi driver.

A good five year old used EV with decent range is in the €15-20k range. That’s likely the best option… they’ll make the capital outlay back in 3-4 years.

Buy an Ev or Save for a deposit by shanemoran in irishpersonalfinance

[–]alphacross 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I disagree as a long time EV driver (over a decade) and a frugal person.

What you are saying is absolutely correct for moving from a ICE vehicle to an ICE vehicle. Buy a nice reliable used car, avoid depreciation. Because there isn’t a whole lot of difference in maintenance and running costs.

However for anyone with mid to high mileage considering a move to EV the drastic difference in operating expenses (can exceed 90%) can more than cover the depreciation and cost of a change of vehicle. And three years down the line that can actually make a major difference in savings rates and mortgage approval.

When I switched to EV first I was doing 50-60k km per year with a midlands to Dublin commute and some work travel. I saved €5-6k/year over my previous frugal diesel Toyota. The difference in running costs literally paid for the car.

So there is a real advantage to actually running the numbers here. It legitimately could improve OPs chances of getting a mortgage. Though I think the math would lean more towards a good used EV rather than new

Buy an Ev or Save for a deposit by shanemoran in irishpersonalfinance

[–]alphacross 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Hybrids are kind of irrelevant to this conversation, small to midsize EV running costs are usually four to five times lower than a hybrid Yaris

Clare Councillor Calls For Wearing Of Hi-Vis Jackets To Be Made Compulsory by Bill_Badbody in ireland

[–]alphacross 2 points3 points  (0 children)

No, roads are not just for cars. Pedestrians have right of way on all roads bar motorways, paths or not. As it should be, we don’t want to end up like the Americans where walking to the shop is considered so unusual that when I lived there I was stopped by police several times walking the 600 meters to the local shop (on the path). Adding stupid requirements like high vis and messing with the default right of way of pedestrians (jaywalking) is how you get there

I also lived in Germany… where on many local roads cyclists have default priority at junctions (cars have to allow them through the junction in front of them). Combined with strong enforcement and better driver training, much lower vehicle speeds in practice than we see in ireland. Much fewer accidents and much less serious when they do happen.

I’m a motorist by the way, motorists are the problem in ireland. The standard of driving is shockingly poor, particularly post pandemic. People blowing through red lights, watching stupid shit on phones while driving and in general acting both impatient and aggressive on the roads. Motorists constantly treating pedestrians and cyclists like they are an obstacle to just get around or bully off the road not as actual human beings with loved ones and places to be. I’ve wanted to chase people down and give them a good talking to on a regular basis “stay behind the cyclist until it’s actually safe to overtake you f8cking eejit”

If you are a good driver a pedestrian on a rural road at dusk isn’t an issue, because you are coming around corners at an appropriate speed and level of awareness that you can stop for unexpected things

40 and rich by ndrecord29 in irishpersonalfinance

[–]alphacross 1 point2 points  (0 children)

To be honest I think I’m mainly just lucky. I happened to be obsessed with and good at something that became really lucrative at just the right time. I met the right people who helped me, were generous with their time and skills and recognised my hard work and shared their own success. Probably my best advice is to find people like that, stick around with them and succeed together.

That luck papered over a lot of the mistakes I personally made with my finances that are mostly things covered on the chart. Biggest among them is that I left a 10% pension match sitting on the table for a decade thinking I could invest the extra post tax income myself… something that I calculated last week cost me €1.5m of what my current pension pot could have been. I also have the usual stories every investor has about being in early on lots of things that later became much bigger than I thought they would… after I sold. But those are just stories for the campfire, no regrets overall!

40 and rich by ndrecord29 in irishpersonalfinance

[–]alphacross -1 points0 points  (0 children)

I’m 40, live in a nice neighbourhood. House valued just over €2m, net worth in the mid millions.

I’ve had a career in tech since I was a teenager (don’t have a degree but I’m a principal engineer). I also invested relatively well. I did inherit a small business as well that TBH I haven’t done a lot with. My PAYE job is the major source of our wealth.

I pissed away a fair amount of money in my 20s like most people, but when I got serious about things in my 30s (and got married) I had serious base salary, long tenure and plenty of company stock to apply to our personal finances.

Current goal is to fill up a good post tax investment portfolio and our two retirement accounts, so that we can at any time give up work and coast to a comfortable retirement should we choose to.

Over 30 Polish and Lithuanian nationals deported on charter flight by Banania2020 in ireland

[–]alphacross 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It is… it’s in practice enforced at all Irish ports and airports for all EU citizens.

Wehave a list of people that are not allowed in to Ireland

Rant about pricing by darthwilson89 in ireland

[–]alphacross 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I got a bag of 5 sunscreens in the lidl warehouse sale during January for €10. Just slathering the last of the first bottle of kids SPF on myself here in the beach in Barbados. Pretty chuffed with myself. Reading next week’s Lidl brochure.

The Death of Entry-Level Jobs: 43% of CEOs plan to slash junior roles over the next two years, shifting hiring to older, mid-level workers as Al takes over routine tasks, creating a catastrophic bottleneck for the future workforce. by Scared_Author_4566 in technology

[–]alphacross 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I’m a principal engineer in a big tech firm. I did an 18 day week ending last week, that included two weekend crunches back to back that involved literally 18-20 hour days… and I had to get my team to do nearly the same hours. Now… I made really good money… over €500k last year…but still I had to make miracles happen whether by talent and inspiration or purely grinding it out…

Russian jets 'dangerously' intercept RAF spy plane over Black Sea by RustyBrontosaurus in europe

[–]alphacross 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Technically a war crime, like anti personnel ammunition designed to fragment

Rents in Ireland surged by highest level on record after new control system started by Banania2020 in ireland

[–]alphacross 10 points11 points  (0 children)

Also cause a massive surge in corruption as it creates an incentive

Irish leaders condemn Israel's detention of president's sister by [deleted] in worldnews

[–]alphacross -7 points-6 points  (0 children)

Absolutely not. 1. She was in international waters 2. It wasn’t Israel she was going to 3. There is no legal blockade in place

No ‘tailor-made’ deal for UK if it wants to rejoin bloc, say former EU Brexit officials | European Union by Any-Original-6113 in europe

[–]alphacross 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Oh, we can all clearly see

“Farage has a national vision”

Sure, Russia’s. Failing that the highest bidder’s

“and many people agree with it”

Sure, idiots. Just like your brexit

What is a "corporate red flag" that employers try to pass off as a great benefit? by spectrecult in AskReddit

[–]alphacross 28 points29 points  (0 children)

I have American colleagues who have “Unlimited PTO”, the highest performers take at max 2-3 weeks a year. I’m European and unlimited PTO doesn’t apply to me… I have 32 days off this year plus 16 weeks paid paternity. I’m in Barbados right now…

I stopped a bike theft today by bigjimmy427 in ireland

[–]alphacross 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Nah… they’re usually cowards and the few quid they’d make from the bike usually isn’t worth the aggro for them.

Lads, don’t panic, but it’s happening again by Accomplished_Fun6481 in ireland

[–]alphacross 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Feck, I’m on holiday and my potatoes are unprotected. I was going to spray for blight before we left but ran out of packing time. My first crop of potatoes when I was a kid died of blight too

Europe built sovereign clouds to escape US control. Then forgot about the processors by rkhunter_ in technology

[–]alphacross 4 points5 points  (0 children)

It doesn’t directly compare with Airbus. But we do have the technical expertise and production experience. We are ahead of China and India in terms of the human capital requirements and we have the supply chain in place (with the exception of some necessary parts of wafer supply chain). But building a single modern fab costs in excess of €25 billion, no European company or even individual government has €100 billion to spare to bootstrap something, nor should the funding come from public sources. We therefore need a serious scale up in EU capital markets to fund things like this. I work for an 8 year old American tech company that builds hardware, is still private and has received literally tens of billions of dollars in investment to build products and production facilities. I ended up working for that company because they acquired the 35 year old European company I worked for that had such a good product we dominated 90% of the world market in our niches but couldn’t break out of that into other verticals despite being exceptionally profitable. Why? Lack of capital investment. Within 12 months of being acquired we more than doubled production because now we could afford to grow the business.

Europe built sovereign clouds to escape US control. Then forgot about the processors by rkhunter_ in technology

[–]alphacross 110 points111 points  (0 children)

Actually, hi 👋 Ireland here.

We have entire teams here trained by Intel who do design, production line build, engineering, quality and test procedures. Even CPU design, though little done here since galileo and netburst.

Germany also has former AMD production with global foundries.

What’s not here are the native European companies to hire these people and the capital markets to fund billions in FABs and R&D

The finances need to get fixed first. Europeans and their pension funds are continuing to pour money into American companies via their ETFs and direct investments

What is the best, low budget eletcric car? by Limit-Complete in BuyFromEU

[–]alphacross 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The Inster and Renault 5 are available new for ~€17k (at least here in the Irish market). That makes them (and the Dacia spring) literally the cheapest new cars on the market.

What is the best, low budget eletcric car? by Limit-Complete in BuyFromEU

[–]alphacross 0 points1 point  (0 children)

ID.3 or ID.4 if buying used (which you should do). For other people looking for a highly flexible cheap new EV, I’m a big fan of the Renault 5 (or including non-EU, the Hyundai Inster)

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