ESB eCars

Dubwat

Where is 'there'? I've a vague memory of reading about a petrol station in or near Waterford that had an 'interesting' attitude towards EV's but I can't remember the details.

I'm planning my first long drive outside Dublin soon. To Dungarvan as it happens and I'm a bit nervous about the whole thing. Dungarvan only has 1 rapid 50kWh charger (& 1 or 2 22kWh's) for the entire town so I can't rely 100% on it.

TIA.

AndyBoBandy

It’s this glorious site…

Applegreen Waterford - ESB

Old Cork Road, Waterford City, Co. Waterford, Ireland

https://www.plugshare.com/location/69277

eagerv

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118378666#Comment_118378666

Last week for the first time in 15 months using Ionity I had problems at Kill North (West). All were not starting, so be sure to get a free fill up if you have to call them.

Alternatively if returning from Waterford a more scenic slightly longer route is via Gorey (Ionity and ECars), handy if going to south side of Dublin.

AndyBoBandy

YeH I’ve stopped in Gorey before but it’ll be straight up the M9 for us……. Might even consider Knocktopher as an alternate.

Gorey is acts nice site…. Would love is Tesla put 2/4 SuC’s there, though Kilcullen/M9 would be my priority for more SuC’s

Dubwat

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118378680#Comment_118378680

LOL, I was hoping you wouldn't write that. After the M7/M9 split heading towards Waterford & Dungarvan, there's almost no rapid chargers outside of Carlow and Kilkenny.

Black_Knight

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118378668#Comment_118378668

Dungarvan is pretty reliable. Gets a bit of traffic through the units, but I've never not been able to charge here (I'm there right now). Passed by a M3 plugging in today on the quays. St Augustines car park is hard to access the parking spaces. They're tight, and not much room to manoeuver into them if you need it.

From my stats, you're very likely to come across a free fast or slow charger in dungarvan. Oddly mid week seems busiest for the slow unit. Saturday morning seems to have a regular slow charging on the fast charger. This would limit your top speed of you DC charged at the same time.

https://ecars-stats.com/ (just search for dungarvan)

Dubwat

@ Black_Knight : Thanks! Good intel. I just checked the eCars app and the triple charger in St Augustines car park is not working! Not a good omen. Outside of Dungarvan, it's Youghal or Waterford.

I'd rather not use the slow chargers if possible. I used to visit Dungarvan regularly pre-pandemic in an ICE and, amongst other things, I liked to drive along the small coast roads and find unofficial beaches etc. I wouldn't fancy plugging into a slow charger for 6 hours or whatever on a 3-day holiday.

Thanks. I'll look at your stats website. (Edit) Kudos to your stats website - it's recording the St Augustines site down since noon today!

Busman Paddy Lasty

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118378666#Comment_118378666

Sure tip on into Bolton St if it's not too late. Have fun with the angled parking bays designed for drive in - reverse out :-)

Black_Knight

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118379001#Comment_118379001

Dungarvan fast charger is back online

mfceiling

You wonder who comes up with the locations for the chargers.

I'm currently in town and thought I'd spin down and check out the new 50kw chargers on Sir John Rogerson's Quay.

All spaces are currently taken. A diesel Q3, a diesel Tucson and a diesel Tiguan. That's 4 fast charging spots gone.

The brain in my head would tell me that 500 metres further down the quay is very quiet and not really used by traffic. Surely 4 spaces on their own down there, and painted bright green to make ICE drivers aware that it's for EV parking only would make sense?

IMG_20220101_193327.jpg

IMG_20220101_193257.jpg

IMG_20220101_193315.jpg

kanuseeme

Also I see one of the chargers has a 22kW ac port, its possible that the other has the same? So good chance 2 cars can charge there for half the day, if they can find a parking space. LMFAO.

mfceiling

To be fair to the ICE drivers, there's no signs, no ground markings or nothing to state that it's EV use only.

Just like somebody drove past and fired 2 chargers out the side door of a van and thought "fcuk it that's grand".

Black_Knight

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118402655#Comment_118402655

The ecars motto.

JandS

Blanchardstown 150kw up and running, however two issues:

both times i've used it there are some EV numpties using the EV spaces just to park their cars and go shopping

last night - the 150kw was offline because someone pushed the big red button. I pulled it back out and everything was fine again.

DrPhilG

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118431667#Comment_118431667

Didn't the Blanchardstown centre stop enforcing parking at that charger because of complaints from ICE abusers?

They need to be bombarded by calls and emails until they reverse that.

liamog

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118431744#Comment_118431744

There wasn't really an ICE'ing problem at Blanch, it was mostly EV drivers either using the charging spots as parking spaces or overstaying after finishing a charge. There was one pretty regular who would remote end the charge at 44 mins but take another 10/15 mins to get back to the car.

zg3409

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118433214#Comment_118433214

Yes, one EV driver was ringing tow truck/clampers for another abandoned EV. This was quite regular until they stopped allowing this. The claim was they stopped due to complaints from those clamped/towed, but it may be that this service runs at a loss with costs being supported by car park company. They may have been fed up paying any overheads for this service. This is totally separate from.esb ecars, but I suspect they were involved in complaints and decisions to stop it.

In my opinion this is totally the wrong way to go. There should be national laws to allow tow away at all chargers with a central system. All they need is a tow truck and a big cable cutter! There should be a sign at every charger with parking and charging rules and anyone should be allowed call tow truck with access to ecars history on how long there etc. Raising barriers or raising bollards should be used at sites with regular problems such as ionity cashel. It would be easy to link to app, Tesla does this in some countries. This is essential until number of chargers exceeds demand at peak times. It's good business sense for ecars at prime sites where they are digging it up anyway.

wassie

Or.....simply build more charging stations rather than coming up with solutions to handle the lack of such.

McGiver

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118402535#Comment_118402535

This is a fatal error and preposterous move by Ecars - all new 50 kW chargers have 1x Chademo, 1x CCS and AC Type 2 socket in that order. The AC is a huge problem if they do this at all "hubs".

The 50 kW FCP is to the right of the 150 kW HPC at the "hubs" but there are only 3 parking bays. So far all I've seen have this layout....

If someone plugs into the AC socket on the FCP in bay 3 as that's most natural then basically renders the 50 kW Chademo and CCS blocked if at the same time someone also parks in bay 2 to plug into the 150 kW CCS or Chademo. Usual case at bay 2 is rear right charging port car going after the 150 kW CCS.

Galway "hub" today...

Situation 1

Bay 1 - empty

Bay 2 - KIA ev6 reversed charging at HPC CCS

Bay 3 - Electric/phev van charging on the AC

I can't go and charge with my CCS car despite 2 CCS connectors - 1 is blocked by likely long term AC user...

Situation 2

Bay 1 - Leaf charging on 150 kW Chademo - but can take only 50 kW max

Bay 2 - empty

Bay 3 - Electric/phev van charging on the AC

PXL_20220107_182502011.MP~3.jpg

I can go and charge my 50 kW CCS car in bay 2 but that means that HPC is occupied by 2x50 kW capable cars so has min 50 kW (33%) power wasted...

TLDR - the AC connector on the FCPs is BS really if it doesn't have a dedicated parking place.

2 charger "hubs" must have 4 parking bays end of.

dloob

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118436379#Comment_118436379

I wonder will the leaf owner ever notice that they are paying 20% extra for nothing on those chargers.

DrPhilG

A fatal error, but how do eCars keep on making such utterly stupid decisions?

They meet regularly with EV drivers. Is that purely lip service given that they're so earth shatteringly stupid with everything they do?

AndyBoBandy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118437071#Comment_118437071

The EV drivers they meet regularly are part of a certain club though aren’t they?

I watched one of their videos once when the eCars guy came on and they may as well have pulled the guys pants down and serviced him such was the easy ride he was given…..

so according to the EV drivers they regularly meet, all is very well in eCars world. Remember a lot of these guys were EV adopters from the beginning, so would have more of a sense of community amongst themselves, and queuing up for an hour to get on a charger would be an opportunity for ‘like minded people to chat all things EV’s’, whereas in reality that world is long gone, and people simply want to charge, or have no more fears of not being able to charge….

hopefully the recent survey we all participated in might open their eyes a little more to what’s actually happen out there..

Black_Knight

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118437311#Comment_118437311

They once asked ESB what happened to their ecars Twitter account, rather than my question about charge site unit layout. Priority questions

McGiver

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118437071#Comment_118437071

IEOVOA are quite useless in terms lobyying. I'd even say lackeys from what I've seen.

And yes Ecars are incompetent. Common sense missing...amateurs and I guess they don't give a damn like every semi-state or state enterprise. Taxpayer pays so who gives a fúck about results, performance or Return on investment...

liamog

And yes Ecars are incompetent. Common sense missing...amateurs and I guess they don't give a damn like every semi-state or state enterprise. Taxpayer pays so who gives a fúck about results, performance or Return on investment...

eCars current plans show much focus on ROI that the network any person on boards wishes they would build. If we had a taxpayer funded network it might actually serve our needs instead of the network we have, which is clearly a build minimum until enough customers to support a proper scale infrastructure.

ELM327

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118438980#Comment_118438980

I was on the committee of that IEVOA organization a few years ago and am still quite active on the facebook group.

The reason I left the committee quite frankly is exactly what you state. Bumbling incompetence, a group of old men (at that time, it's changed members now) unable to grasp the concept that not everyone wants to stand around for an hour or more at an AC charger on a journey. And an unwillingness to acknowledge, adapt or change.

reboot

Wish ecar had some more green paint left over.They only painted one bay at many bays in N.I.

Only been waiting 9 years though.

mfceiling

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118450533#Comment_118450533

They didn't even bother painting the ground at the 2 new "fast" chargers on Sir John Rogerson's Quay. Nor did they bother putting up any signage.

That's why there were 3 diesel jeeps parked in front of them a couple of weeks ago when I pulled up to them.

Busman Paddy Lasty

Had noticed last year some spaces were repainted but not with any green paint. Just a poxy stencil that looks like "e/cat"

Red Silurian

Question about the ecars €4.60 monthly subscription, is there a limit on how many different cars can use it? Say for example myself and my parents are under one roof at the moment and will soon have 2 EVs and a plugin hybrid. Do we need 3 separate subscriptions or will 1 do the trick?