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LET’S BE HONEST, the terminology surrounding electric vehicles can be confusing and that most certainly extends to hybrid cars. However, the switch to a hybrid, including financing one, is often more straightforward than people might realise, with both cars and financing having a great deal in common with petrol and diesel choices.
Donal Murphy, Managing Director at Bluestone Motor Finance, knows switching to a hybrid car is a logical next step for many people:
With the average daily commuting distance of 45 KMs, many hybrids will cover this without the need to engage the petrol or diesel engine, saving money on fuel while still providing the range safety net of the engine. At the same time, owners can get comfortable on how to recharge their car.
Let’s get down to business. As a starting point, it’s important to know your HEVs from your PHEVs.
Yes, there are plenty of acronyms, but let’s try and simplify things:
HEV (Hybrid Electric Vehicle) : An overarching term, a hybrid car is one that uses more than one means of propulsion – that means combining a petrol or diesel engine with an electric motor. There are various types of hybrid as noted below.
PHEV (Plug-in hybrid electric vehicle) : A PHEV is exactly what its name suggests: it’s a hybrid car with a battery pack that can be plugged in to charge it up. PHEVs have both a petrol or diesel combustion engine and an electric motor. However, the battery pack that powers a PHEV’s motor is larger than that in a standard hybrid, giving it the advantage that it can run for longer on pure electric power alone.
Rex (Range-extended EV) : Similar to a PHEV, a Rex has a battery and small electric motor, it is different to a PHEV in that a Rex drives on battery power until it has depleted its energy, at this time the small motor kicks in to recharge the battery.
Full Hybrid or “Self-Charging” Hybrid : A 100% fossil fuelled hybrid car. A small battery is charged through regenerative braking that generates some electric power in combination with a combustion engine, but the car’s energy originates from petrol. The electric motor can only power the car itself for short periods at low speeds.
Mild Hybrid : Mild hybrids also have a small electric motor, but unlike full hybrids, it is solely used to assist the petrol engine. The car cannot run on battery alone.
Financing a Hybrid Car
Financing the purchase of a hybrid is the same as financing a conventional car and can be set up quickly and easily at the supplying dealer, subject to credit and affordability checking. The main financing options include;
Hire Purchase (HP)
Under a HP agreement car buyers can be asked to pay an upfront deposit and then make fixed monthly payments for an agreed period. With Bluestone Motor Finance, a deposit may not be necessary and we can offer terms of up to 72 months to help monthly affordability. As the name suggests, the definition of hire purchase is hiring the car until you’ve made the final monthly payment – which then means the car is then owned outright.
Personal Contract Purchase (PCP)
An option that allows people to purchase a car with a deposit and, like HP, repay the finance with fixed monthly payments. Unlike HP, a PCP agreement can have at the end, a balloon payment (also known as the Guaranteed Future Value). The balloon payment can have the effect of reducing monthly payments, since it is not necessary to pay for part of the car until the end of the contract, but the final balloon payment can be large. Always check the terms and conditions and ensure mileage limits meet your needs.
If you need further information or would like to make a Hire Purchase application, the team at Bluestone Motor Finance and our extensive dealer network are here to help. Please visit bluestonemotorfinance.ie for contact details.
Bluestone Motor Finance recently pulled off a major coup at the Asset Finance Connect Summer Awards by winning the Customer Journey Excellence Award. Collaborating with their nationwide dealer network and digital partners, including DoneDeal, Bluestone consistently strives to identify opportunities to simplify the car buying journey and experience.
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It’s all well and good until Stevie starts humping the microwave during the night
@DarkHorse: That’s a silly comment . This is very serious but the article doesn’t tell us how to access , so its a useless article.
@rory conway: I mean not really, as they haven’t been on sale yet. They’re flying to the States later this month, where a care home will be trialing the beta version.
Can he make a good cup of tae though? Or boil an egg? Or put a few sods of turf on the fire?
As long as it’s used to complement human interaction and not replace it, it’s a good idea. Having spent summers at college working as a home help, i am aware that i was the only person many elderly people spoke to during the day. My being there for a chat was at times more important than my ability to light the fire
@Anne Marie Devlin:
Very good point.
May I be the first to welcome our new robot overlords.
Seriously though, cool bit of tech.
Japan, the US and other places are vastly more developed in the technologies required to implement practical autonomous robotic supports.
It’s a good idea but only if Trinity College collaborates with the best abroad.
As matters now stand, one small country does not have the embedded knowledge base, the centre of expertise, the resources and the funding required to make a massive project of this nature anything more than a prototype.
@Fiona deFreyne: Do you just put everything down? Ireland has produced leading technologies in the past beating those with more resources and been at it longer. They could easily develop key components for the future of all robot via software or hardware.
@Kal Ipers: it is a matter of scale, accumulated expertise, level of previous investment in R &D, historically, accumulated IPR, the legacy knowledge and expertise not to have to reinvent any wheels and the large numbers of highly quality researchers required to develop cutting edge technologies in areas off deep machine learning. The scale of investment required for success is truly huge.
We have talent here but it is fair to say that we have had a brain flow to the US and to Cambridge in the UK in relevant disciplines. There are many reasons for this.
Trinity can’t play a valuable role as an adjunct to leading research elsewhere.
Honda has already achieved much techological success in Japan with robots dedicated to health care for the elderly. I don’t know if there can be technology sharing and cooperation arrangements.
Knowing the scale of the problem is a first step. I would not select Ireland a a base for developing new generation rockets for outer space exploration or other areas of resource intensive projects. Robotics and autonomous intelligence devices is one of the mist resource intensive areas that could be selected.
@Fiona deFreyne: None of that has anything to do with your constant putting down everything. Again I reject your view and that is mostly because it is always negative.
@Fiona deFreyne: so you don’t know how to do it huh?
They should really get in touch with the Japanese on this subject. They have been pouring money on this subject for decades and a trip to them could shave years off the project.
Also, the arms are way too short and lack any function. Infact, the whole robot cannot do more than a smartphone. I feel like someone is laughing right now.
Ye it would be if the likes of rich politicians didn’t want to force the elderly out of their home
@WilhelminaMCallaghan: When was that ever suggested or done?
Sounds like a great idea. I thought they’d need to be a lot stronger though. And have a hoist, or arms, to help them in and out in the bathroom? But they’d never get bored listening to people, I suppose, there’s that.
All the wiley aul fellas will be figuring out how to bypass him so they can slip off to the pub and bookies
Can it make a good cup of tae though? Boil an egg or throw a few sods of turf on the fire?
I assume he meant Kryten from Red Dwarf not Croydon from Deep Space Nine lol
Fck that, sophia the robot destroys stevie
If you want to watch a creepy interview with a robot check this out.. http://uk.businessinsider.com/interview-with-sophia-ai-robot-hanson-said-it-would-destroy-humans-2017-11
@Patrick J. O’Rourke: True, it doesn’t have much to say for itself. It wouldn’t pass the Turing test; you can tell it’s a bot. But there’s always the ELIZA effect. Sure the robot carers are meant primarily for people with no one to listen to them all day. I think there’s a huge market for them considering that retired people are living so much longer.
@Patrick J. O’Rourke: scary stuff! I’d say cults will purchase loads of these and put them out there in homes and such like to brainwash everyone!!
Daughter got a Furbie one year for Christmas thing turned seriously nasty and using bad language and had to be re-set… A Furbie!!! Yup dangerous road ahead…
@Lydia McLoughlin: Maybe they’ll persuade a few people that bus fares aren’t tuppence any more. Mind you, the bad language can’t have been that bad if you understood it.
Petril?
have your say