ESB eCars

wassie

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118477135#Comment_118477135

You have an appreciatively tolerant view.

As someone who lives outside of Dublin but commute/visits there regularly, at present I can not rely on access to charging inside the M50 readily and seeing what has transpired at the Quays drives me bonkers.

Someone giving ESB a next to useless site does not justify putting in 2 high speed chargers there when we have a complete lack of decent accessible high speed charging within the inner city of Dublin.

And as for IEVOA - my view is that we shouldnt need to be reliant upon them at all. If the Government wants to transform the national fleet to EV's away from fossil fuels, then surely prioritising a national co-ordinated policy approach to EV charging infrastructure is warranted. And if the market cant/wont deliver, then the Govt should step up to the mark.

signed, KBW

reboot

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118475513#Comment_118475513

Word soon gets round that there's no legislation,and as I've posted below no sign of any after 7 years.Ice folk don't care and sometimes wilfully block bays,because they can. New technology,same old people.

slave1

There is legislation making it illegal for a marked EV charging spot to be incorrectly occupied, mind you I haven’t seen it posted here in a few years

reboot

No sign has ever appeared n S,Down, traffic wardens and police not interested. I have a letter from an MLA stating that nothing will be done until all 11 councils come together to decide on parking regs for EVs. That letter dated

18 th Dec 2015.

It's interesting that I can't make use of any of the CPs in our hospitals,card won't work. Staff Only.

Red Silurian

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118454846#Comment_118454846

You paid €95 for 300kWh so you paid 31.6c/kWh on average so assuming that's mainly on the fast network you'd be paying 26.8c/kWh and would have paid about €80 for your 300kWh and €13.80 for your subscription, so there's a saving there but it's so small you'd want to be using the public chargers that much every month

My calcs are based on 100% fast public charging, if you were slow public charging you'd be saving more

reboot

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118482224#Comment_118482224

The irony also is if they ever get their act together, after May the lights may be on,but nobody home, any legislation won't apply in this area because half the CPs are on private land,and in the past the owners have refused me use of Ecar CPs.

cannco253

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118482194#Comment_118482194

https://youtu.be/GZhqcPvHdt4

skip to 6:17 for John Rogerson's Quay charging

jspuds

Taking a road trip up north over the weekend and planning a charge at Castlebellingham Services (Northbound) any feedback on how busy and reliability of this charger?

rocketspocket

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118494000#Comment_118494000

there is only 1 but if its available, use it.. once in the north you'll be lucky to get an available 50KW charging station giving the low charger counts and high occupancy due to them being FOC - there are 2 on route to belfast, 1 outside Dromore & 1 at Sprucefield but again, they are normally 3 cars deep for the single stations

AndyBoBandy

Any time I've stopped at Casltebellingham the eCars chargers are usually busy!! last time I was there a Kona was using the CCS & an ID.3 using the AC plug, and in the 20-25 minutes or so I was there didn't see either coming back to their car...

Depending on where you are going up there there are some half decent destination charging options, but the ESB ones are free, so usually busy!!

CastleCourt Shopping Centre have 9 destination chargers (3 are Tesla only), and it's a decent city centre location in Belfast.

https://www.plugshare.com/location/169863

Black_Knight

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118494000#Comment_118494000

https://ecars-stats.com/

Should give you some idea of what to expect. Midday for a few hours you've a 30->50% chance of arriving there to a free CCS plug.

jspuds

Thanks all for the help, I might be better charging earlier at Ionity City North to avoid the hassle.

Also hoping to pick up a charge at the Belfast Ikea Gridserve which isn't free so more likely to be available I hope.

zg3409

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118481143#Comment_118481143

I am a realist.

I am driving an EV as a tax dodge.

I am from a 3 car household, low range EV, large diesel for long trips, and a fun petrol car for weekends and odd long trip. Recently I have had major issues using public chargers around Dublin, mainly as I was between houses renting with no home charger, no granny option.

If I was from a single EV household with a large family, I would find the whole process of public charging frustrating with no end in sight. It's a massive downside if you need to public charge even once a month. I repeatedly warn those wanting to buy an EV that the cars are great, public charging is a disaster. We need 3 times as many chargers right now.

Realistically the government are not making this as a priority for whatever reason. On the climate change group there is an EV owner, but I can't forsee the step change required.

I am a 3 car household for a reason, one EV. If the sums work we may become a one large battery EV and a second classic car household when it makes financial sense.

Having visited the UK, they have similar issues to ROI, NI is far worse than ROI, and there is some talk that many older sites may not be needed with long range EVs becoming the norm, particularly in ROI where distances between cities is much smaller than UK.

My " venting " on here may educate individual potential EV owners, mostly preaching to converted, but we do need a lobby organisation to at least shine a light on issues and attend meetings with steak holders. I would do this but my free time is zero. I do give feedback on surveys and report issues with chargers. I particularly try to update plugshare app with real world status of chargers based on my experience, others Facebook postings and ESB updates. I have gone out of my way to contact easygo on feedback and potential new sites. Whole easygo are far from perfect, they are potentially the only real competition to esb for the average EV owner. Far more government supports are needed for this whole network to work.

reboot

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118494110#Comment_118494110

Take a Bus!

AndyBoBandy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118496191#Comment_118496191

Nah, I drive a Tesla and I have 16 fast chargers at Castlebellingham (8 on each side of the road) I can use…..

I made my recent observation of the Kona & ID.3 while plugged into a Supercharger with 7 empty stalls beside me!

so there’ll be no busses for me.

TitianGerm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118496431#Comment_118496431

Only a matter of time before we're all using those SCs.

AndyBoBandy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118496464#Comment_118496464

And then finally you’ll all get to see & use a proper charging network… with actual hubs…..

even with the hassle of using an app, it’ll still be 1,000 times better than eCars….

TitianGerm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118496487#Comment_118496487

I've really only used Ionity most of time bar when plugging into the local 50KW when walking the dogs to use up my credit.

rocketspocket

Very Silly question but does it make more sense to recharge EVs little & often or in 1 big hit (e.g. 10%-80%) on the 22KW chargers?

zg3409

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118498289#Comment_118498289

Most cars will draw the same maximum power depending on car of 3.3 or 7 or 11 or 22 on AC chargers. It will slow down only from 99% when the batteries are slowly charged to balance the batteries.

So in terms of time it makes no difference. Typically when I would charge in public I take enough just to make it to home charger. If the charger is free and you need a charge it makes sense to have one big AC fill as next time you visit charger may be busy, blocked or broken. It's best to charge whole you sleep, not wait

slave1

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118498289#Comment_118498289

Heat.

Slow AC charging generates very little heat and can happen when batteries are cold.

DC charging generates a lot of heat due to higher Amps and batteries do not like DC charging when cold.

My EV will kick in the cooling fans at 40degrees which is the temp the batteries reach after long drive and a long'ish DC charge.

eltoastero

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118496487#Comment_118496487

I'll happily use an app and pay over the odds to use the SC network. Having used them before in a rental Tesla it's night and day compared to the non-SC options. It's the reliability that I value (and what I'm willing to pay for) - knowing there are 8 stalls each side of the motorway on the M1 that are more than likely working is what everyone would benefit from.

slave1

They will be packed out in Ireland, I'm an EV driver many years and was away last weekend and Birdhill had an S and 3 charging when I arrived, Tralee had a 3 leaving just as I pulled in (we would have been load sharing if both charging) and there was two S's and a 3 charging at Birdhill while I was charging on return leg. In previous years these SuC were largely deserted

loopymum

Any idea of pricing on the superchargers yet?

wassie

No as there is no confirmation as to when it will even be opened up.

Keep your eye on there Tesla SuC thread here for updates.

mfceiling

What cars are ideally set up to use the chargers? The cable in the superchargers are short and are perfectly made for the charging port on Tesla's.

I know I'd be pîssed off if I needed a charge and some car was sitting sideways across 2 spaces because the cable wasn't positioned right for them to reverse in and charge like Tesla's can.

Black_Knight

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118501556#Comment_118501556

Front charging Kona, eniro. Original ioniq.

VW, Ev6 and ioniq 5 are all on the wrong side. Audi likely need to drive in on the wrong side too.

Not sure what else is popular in Ireland

slave1

Cable won't reach Kona as port on front left

ELM327

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118498652#Comment_118498652

They have said they will only be opening V3 sites, not V2. This is hardware related so wont change, I suspect.

There's currently only one V3 site in ireland and that's Cork. There are 3 waiting to come on line (waiting on Anna to get her finger out in esb), in Galway, Dublin, and Enfield. These are V3.

I suspect if the trial is completed they will come up with an arrangement to have some chargers (perhaps 30%) of sites open to all, and the remainder for Tesla only. Similar to destination chargers with the white and red sign.

AndyBoBandy

It would probably make sense to only open sites with 10+ stalls... which there are a lot of in Europe... That's how they've trialled it anyway..

So if that's the case it might not even happen in Ireland.

The whole 30% thing would just become a mess, with non Tesla's trying to use Tesla only stalls, and blocking them for x amount of minutes until they realise it won't work...

I bet Anna has all her eggs in the Tesla basket meaning she can continue to not bother with Castlebellingham..