ESB eCars

slave1

That's a joke, to present to the country a slow charger at 2kW and advertise it as a public charge point, shame.
Embarrassing for 10 years ago but for 2020 and the future that's just a total joke except it's just not funny.

They should have installed fast chargers next to the current 22 charger and left the 22 chargers there, to downgrade from 22 to 2 :rolleyes:

ELM327

liamog wrote: »

No, as per the first thread in the eCars post, about 50 of the dual AC's are due to be upgraded to increase the geographic coverage of the DC charge network. So far they've installed them in locations which were a reasonable distance from the nearest rapid charger. The pattern appears to be, for towns with multiple AC chargers and no dc charge, one of the AC chargers is upgraded to this.

They should just remove the AC altogether, its a rapid charger now.
2-6kW AC is useless.

ELM327

slave1 wrote: »

That's a joke, to present to the country a slow charger at 2kW and advertise it as a public charge point, shame.
Embarrassing for 10 years ago but for 2020 and the future that's just a total joke except it's just not funny.

They should have installed fast chargers next to the current 22 charger and left the 22 chargers there, to downgrade from 22 to 2 :rolleyes:

They would have to be 1kW each side if there were two AC points and the fast charger on the same feed.

liamog

ELM327 wrote: »

They should just remove the AC altogether, its a rapid charger now.
2-6kW AC is useless.

I mostly agree, apart from that one time I was caught out when Castlebellingham failed, and then so did Lusk. Ended up spending a bit of time on the AC charger and drove round to Lusk Northbound.

AndyBoBandy

ELM327 wrote: »

They should just remove the AC altogether, its a rapid charger now.
2-6kW AC is useless.

Would be more suited for PHEV's wouldn't it? As they don't have particularly fast onboard chargers?

I was in Skerries at the weekend, and a BMW 330e was charging for 30 minutes when I arrived, and had only drawn 1.5kWh from it in that time. I left after 48 minutes, having taken 8.8kWh

liamog

slave1 wrote: »

That's a joke, to present to the country a slow charger at 2kW and advertise it as a public charge point, shame.
Embarrassing for 10 years ago but for 2020 and the future that's just a total joke except it's just not funny.

They should have installed fast chargers next to the current 22 charger and left the 22 chargers there, to downgrade from 22 to 2 :rolleyes:

As discussed many, many times on this thread. These Circontrol units are a relatively simple equipment upgrade that uses the exact same network supply as the former AC unit. eCars can replace the equipment without requiring an upgrade to the local supply.

More people benefit from these upgrades, than the relatively small numbers of Zoe drivers who lose a fast charger. I'm excluding Tesla drivers because they can just purchase a CHAdeMO adapter or a CCS upgrade if it really affects them that deeply.

slave1

Fair enough I understand that point.
My point is I hope eCars do not include a 2kW in their figures as a Public Charge point, that is a joke.

ELM327

liamog wrote: »

I mostly agree, apart from that one time I was caught out when Castlebellingham failed, and then so did Lusk. Ended up spending a bit of time on the AC charger and drove round to Lusk Northbound.

You'd get 2kW from a granny cable though.
Plenty of outlets at Castlebellingham!

liamog

ELM327 wrote: »

You'd get 2kW from a granny cable though.
Plenty of outlets at Castlebellingham!

It's an edge case, at the time I was glad I could just stick the AC in. That does remind me, I must go down to the charger in Dublin Port and see what I draw on the AC. I wonder if the fact your Tesla was a 3 phase complicated things.

unkel

liamog wrote: »

If only there was a nearby CHAdeMO charger the user could use, maybe mere centimetres away ...

How many cars can "fast" charge at these at the same time using CCS or CHAdeMO? Just the one at 43kW I presume?

liamog

In other news, the eCars Test Lab is showing a new charger with 120kW CCS/CHAdeMO 1 AC22 and 1 AC43.
It's a Delta Fast Charger which allows sharing across the DC connectors.

https://myaccount.esbecars.com/findCharger?53.3574770,-6.2340890,14z,DELTA-UFC-01%20Test,1787st

Irishjg

liamog wrote: »

In other news, the eCars Test Lab is showing a new charger with 120kW CCS/CHAdeMO 1 AC22 and 1 AC43.
It's a Delta Fast Charger which allows sharing across the DC connectors.

https://myaccount.esbecars.com/findCharger?53.3574770,-6.2340890,14z,DELTA-UFC-01%20Test,1787st

Excuse my ignorance, is that unit available to the public ? The standard charging costs are listed on it.

liamog

Irishjg wrote: »

Excuse my ignorance, is that unit available to the public ? The standard charging costs are listed on it.

I don't think it is, I believe it's in their compound at East Wall.
They tested the Circontrol 44kW unit's at that location before moving it out to Dublin Port for Public use. I would guess that we'll see this unit move after some testing time.

ELM327

liamog wrote: »

It's an edge case, at the time I was glad I could just stick the AC in. That does remind me, I must go down to the charger in Dublin Port and see what I draw on the AC. I wonder if the fact your Tesla was a 3 phase complicated things.

Dublin port is 22kW

The others that are labelled 2-6kW are limited by amps and deliver 6kW across 3 phases. It's 2kW single phase. You#d get 2kW. I see a leaf driver on plugshare confirmed that too

Irishjg

liamog wrote: »

I don't think it is, I believe it's in their compound at East Wall.
They tested the Circontrol 44kW unit's at that location before moving it out to Dublin Port for Public use. I would guess that we'll see this unit move after some testing time.

Cheers Liam.

liamog

This model of charger does open up some questions, it's physically capable of charging 4 cars at once.

From the report in the first post, there was plans to install 6 motorway hubs capable of charging 8 cars and 16 hubs capable of charging 4 cars.
I think we'll all be disappointed if they achieve this by installing 6 sites with 2 delta units and 16 sites with 1 unit delta unit.

I don't really class a single charger with 1 CHAdeMO, 1 CCS, 1 AC43 and 1AC22 as a hub.

ELM327

liamog wrote: »

This model of charger does open up some questions, it's physically capable of charging 4 cars at once.

From the report in the first post, there was plans to install 6 motorway hubs capable of charging 8 cars and 16 hubs capable of charging 4 cars.
I think we'll all be disappointed if they achieve this by installing 6 sites with 2 delta units and 16 sites with 1 unit delta unit.

I don't really class a single charger with 1 CHAdeMO, 1 CCS, 1 AC43 and 1AC22 as a hub.

I really, really hope that isnt the angle they are going with.

Black_Knight

ELM327 wrote: »

I really, really hope that isnt the angle they are going with.

The words capable and up to will certainly be used.

ESB Ecars have just installed their first high powered charge point capable of charging speeds of up to 120kW/h and charging multiple cars at a time.

The reality will be 2 cars can charge at a time, with load balancing.

liamog

It would be annoying all right, even worse when you realise the hub reportedly capable of charging 4 cars at once, can only charge 1 CCS car at a time.

unkel

liamog wrote: »

In other news, the eCars Test Lab is showing a new charger with 120kW CCS/CHAdeMO 1 AC22 and 1 AC43.
It's a Delta Fast Charger which allows sharing across the DC connectors.

If that means it can deliver 120kW CCS + 43KW CHAdeMO + 22kW AC + 43kW AC all at the same time to 4 different cars, that's a massive improvement over the existing fast chargers. Not a 175kW / 350kW hub by any means, but essentially doubling the usefulness compared with a triple head EFACEC

Can anyone confirm?

Can anyone also answer my last questions about these current "upgrades" that are already implemented?

unkel wrote: »

How many cars can "fast" charge at these at the same time using CCS or CHAdeMO? Just the one at 43kW I presume?

liamog

unkel wrote: »

If that means it can deliver 120kW CCS + 43KW CHAdeMO + 22kW AC + 43kW AC all at the same time to 4 different cars, that's a massive improvement over the existing fast chargers. Not a 175kW / 350kW hub by any means, but essentially doubling the usefulness compared with a triple head EFACEC

Can anyone confirm?

Can anyone also answer my last questions about these current "upgrades" that are already implemented?

In terms of effective improvement for a CCS user, all it does is improve the available charging speed and remove the potential wait due to a CHAdeMO car charging. I'm all in favour of the new model, but as I say I'll be disappointed if the "charging hub" results in me having exactly the same number of chargers (1) to use mid journey. It remains to be seen what they'll do.

I don't think the DC chargers used to upgrade the 2x22AC can charge two DC cars at once, I can't see anything in the spec sheet.

unkel

liamog wrote: »

I don't think the DC chargers used to upgrade the 2x22AC can charge two DC cars at once, I can't see anything in the spec sheet.

That means it can effectively only charge one car at a time (and the other at granny cable 2kW speed). Before the upgrade it could charge 2 cars (albeit only at 7kW / 11kW / 22kW depending on the car)

This would have been an ok improvement back in 2017, but can you see now why I don't see this as an upgrade at all? A lot of them will be occupied by at least one car a lot of the time while the number of EVs in this country keeps growing exponentially.

liamog

unkel wrote: »

That means it can effectively only charge one car at a time (and the other at granny cable 2kW speed). Before the upgrade it could charge 2 cars (albeit only at 7kW / 11kW / 22kW depending on the car)

For the average EV sold in 2020, it's gone from charging two cars at 7.2/11kW to one car at 44kW. That's a huge improvement. Would you have ever called into Cavan on the way through for a quick charge up? Maybe if you had a Zoe, but for everyone else they were just a destination charger. Now they are at least a charger you'd consider on your way to somewhere else.

unkel

And if you did call into Cavan and there was already one car, a single car, at that charge point, then you couldn't charge and your diversion would have been for nothing. It's 2020. A provincial town where only 1 EV can charge, seriously? This stuff should be presented to foreign media, they would have a field day ridiculing us

If there really is no money for the 175kW / 350kW hubs (where has it all gone ), then could the ESB please concentrate on those single chargers that can serve 4 vehicles at the same time? Not downgrading dual destination chargers into single half slow half fast chargers?

mp3guy

unkel wrote: »

And if you did call into Cavan and there was already one car, a single car, at that charge point, then you couldn't charge and your diversion would have been for nothing. It's 2020. A provincial town where only 1 EV can charge, seriously? This stuff should be presented to foreign media, they would have a field day ridiculing us

If there really is no money for the 175kW / 350kW hubs (where has it all gone ), then could the ESB please concentrate on those single chargers that can serve 4 vehicles at the same time? Not downgrading dual destination chargers into single half slow half fast chargers?

Have you ever reached out to the ESB?

liamog

In my experience, since charging fee's have been introduce the chargers are more likely to be available than not.
Is it ideal? of course not, but I'd rather have that one dc charger in Cavan, than zero dc chargers in the same location.

The old number trotted out in the RCN report was around €80,000 for a charger, with 50% of the cost being the network works to enable the installation.
This component of the indicated plan is about installing 50 dc chargers in places that had previously had none, they could of installed 25 if they had done a supply network upgrade but that would of been less effective.

Fault eCars for not being ambitious, but at least they are delivering on a plan.
Maybe if we get a FF/FG/Green government then we'll see some funding for a proper network upgrade with two DC units in each of the locations. Though I sometimes worry that militant cyclists have captured the greens, and they'll naively cancel all cars!

DrPhilG

mp3guy wrote: »

Have you ever reached out to the ESB?

"Anna" won't take his call...

unkel

liamog wrote: »

This component of the indicated plan is about installing 50 dc chargers in places that had previously had none, they could of installed 25 if they had done a supply network upgrade but that would of been less effective.

I'd say that's about the crux of it.

Very short term thinking though. There seems to be no vision there at all. We need a plan that will cater for a million EVs in 15-20 years time. We need to work towards that. Not some butch job that will do for now, but will be completely useless and obsolete in a few years time. Maybe the ESB know something we don't know and they reckon their days of providing charge points are numbered?

MJohnston

unkel wrote: »

I'd say that's about the crux of it.

Very short term thinking though. There seems to be no vision there at all. We need a plan that will cater for a million EVs in 15-20 years time. We need to work towards that. Not some butch job that will do for now, but will be completely useless and obsolete in a few years time. Maybe the ESB know something we don't know and they reckon their days of providing charge points are numbered?

We won’t ever get to a point that can serve a million EVs with ESB alone.

unkel

That's a long time away. About 10 superhubs (where 8 cars can charge at 175kW at the same time) within a year would have been a nice start. Pretty much within the budget that the ESB have already been given for this iirc. At the most strategic locations in Ireland with plenty of scope and space to upgrade these to 20, 50, and eventually perhaps 200 or so stalls each.