E-Cars charge point

celtic_oz

I reported a charge point at Drogheda rail station out of service, there is two one of which is down since November.

I've called a few times since .. stock answer is out of parts .. no idea when parts will be bought and point fixed. The last time I asked they said "this is a free service and I need to downgrade my expectations"

Did government help pay for this ?

Is there a escalation method ?

thanks

KCross

The eCars network was primarily paid for by the electricity customers of the country with some EU funding as well.

I don't think much, if any, came from the government.

At the moment eCars are running the network without any help/funding from anyone so I think their response is reasonable in that regard. Its costing them money and its free to you. Not much good to the EV users of the country of course if the network is falling down, but it is what it is.


The short term plan is that eCars are to come back to the CRU with a plan to sell the network.

In addition, as per the last budget, the government are to start spending money on the network. No details yet as to how exactly they will spend the money but there is several million earmarked for it.

To answer your question, there isn't really any escalation you can take that would bear any fruit. Just wait for the government money to be released and hopefully things will dramatically improve.


Have a read of this for some background:
https://www.cru.ie/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/CRU17283-Decision-paper-on-ESBN-Electric-Vehicle-Pilot-Associated-Assets.pdf
http://www.dttas.ie/press-releases/2017/ministers-ross-and-naughten-reaffirm-commitment-electric-vehicle-transition

cros13

It would be helpful to bend the ear of your TD. At least get it into their head that people in their area need the chargepoints.

Orebro

cros13 wrote: »

It would be helpful to bend the ear of your TD. At least get it into their head that people in their area need the chargepoints.

I'll second that. Emailing a few local TDs seemed to sort a FCP that was out for a few weeks near me.

Funnily enough, it was Mr "Drive4Zero" here in Cork, Simon Coveney, was the only one who didn't respond.

celtic_oz

ok, emailed Fianna Fail, Fianna Gael and Sinn Fein.

No response from Fianna Fail or Fianna Gael.

Sinn Fein were unbelievably helpful and its now fixed.

They did share this depressing response from the ESB :

"Finally, please note that these units have been installed around the country to offer peace of mind to EV drivers. However, they were never intended to be the main source of power for EVs.
The main means by which these vehicles should be charged is at home using cheaper night rate electricity or at the owner’s place of work. We expect that as EV numbers grow that this will be the case." - Seán Murphy, Manager, Public Affairs, ESB

NIMAN

I think that's fair enough, most probably do charge at home.

Once the government starts spending money on the network, expect to see charging follow shortly after.

Molzer2

Killarney has just on charge point (2 cars) in the public car parks in town. It’s been out of order for at least a month. I’ve given up reporting it to ESB:mad:

Patser

What exactly does 'out of contact' mean regards public chargers on the App. Is it a fancy way of saying shagged, or just possibly working we're not sure.

Of the 2 chargers in Maynooth, 1 was out of contact for months and not working, then both went out of contact, and now they're back in contact but marked up as faulty - and again from talking with ecars, waiting on parts.

Now as I'm getting ready to head into Dublin i see 2 more I've been using recently have gone 'out of contact'


Edit: can confirm that in this case means dead as a door nail

_dof_

Patser wrote: »

What exactly does 'out of contact' mean regards public chargers on the App. Is it a fancy way of saying shagged, or just possibly working we're not sure.

Edit: can confirm that in this case means dead as a door nail

Not always the case though, I successfully charged at a chargepoint which was marked as out of contact the whole time on the ecars map.