Random EV thoughts.....

ELM327

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121767197#Comment_121767197

Cheers, will give them a try.

EDIT: Yup just booked in there, gone up to 20 a corner but better than not fitting them. Am on nearly 50k on the original tires!

the_amazing_raisin

Spotted an interesting planning applications for the Abbey court hotel in Nenagh

https://www.eplanning.ie/TipperaryCC/AppFileRefDetails/2460078/0

Solar panels, two small wind turbines (seems like some vertical axis design), a battery container and two DC chargers from the looks of it

Someone definitely went all in on renewables

Nice enough location for the M7, good place to stop for lunch on the way from Dublin and enjoy a more leisurely charging session

zg3409

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121767597#Comment_121767597

They already have a 50kW ESB charger

https://www.plugshare.com/location/35203

JohnC.

Maxol announce 2 hubs in Newbridge and Ballycoolin. 12 points between them. They’re looking at another 20 potential sites. Also lament how long it takes to get a site online.

https://www.rte.ie/news/business/2024/0215/1432340-maxol-announces-its-first-ultra-rapid-ev-hubs/

AndyBoBandy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121769661#Comment_121769661

Maxol announced the Ballycoolin hub about 3 years ago……

the_amazing_raisin

There was a definite jab at ESBN in that article, basically blaming them for how long it takes to get a hub online

While I agree in general, now that Maxol know how long it can take they should be focusing heavily on getting their infrastructure sorted ahead if installing more chargers

liamog

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121769901#Comment_121769901

They got their planning permission in Feb '23 and articles indicates opening by May '24. 15 months to go from permission to live doesn't sound too bad.

They were granted permission for similar at the Mulhuddart services last month.

CoBo55

Isn't there a European directive in the pipeline that there has to be a charging station every 25km or something like that? All has to be up and running very soon.

slave1

worthless, Ireland is offside on EU directives across the board

ColemanY2K

https://www.tritiumcharging.com/what-the-new-eu-regulations-mean-for-ev-charging/

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121770381#Comment_121770381

60km and only applies to the TEN-T network. it will have pretty limited impact here.

innrain

Maxol in Sandyford just applied for some extensions which also include 2EV spaces hub with canopy. No docs yet Ref: D24A/0075

Interesting in seeing these local small service stations getting on board and installing EV chargers. This one and Circle K Kilternan used to be my local petrol stations before switching to electric. I used to burn over 2000l of petrol in a year. The area is crowded with EVs. Would this be reflected in their turnover at the level that made them do something?

the_amazing_raisin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121770732#Comment_121770732

Presumably most of those EVs in South Dublin have home charging same as most EV drivers at the moment.

Although with a lot of apartments in that general area there's probably decent demand for public chargers

innrain

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121770899#Comment_121770899

I'm thinking more on the lines they've seen a demand decrease pushing them to do something

the_amazing_raisin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121769912#Comment_121769912

It's worth remembering that both those locations are in industrial parks with easy access to power, the same might not be true for many of their other locations

Grid upgrades may require planning permission by themselves, and I don't know of any publicly available way to see what's in ESBN's pipeline

This is why I was saying now that Maxol are aware of this they should be able to factor that in for future sites

the_amazing_raisin

Slightly random thought, there were some articles a few months ago about essential businesses in towns being forced to take cash payments instead of being card only

I think petrol stations were on the list but obviously EV chargers weren't. The networks are struggling with the idea of debit cards so I imagine if anyone mentioned cash it would cause some heads to explode

Still... should EV charging hubs be forced to accept cash payments in some way?

IMO, yes they should in certain circumstances. Cash is still legal tender after all, and even though I avoid using cash myself I can understand that it's a choice to be cash free, not a requirement

I think charging hubs in petrol stations should definitely be required to take cash, and where there's a hub in a town there could also be call for it accepting cash

I don't think chargers should have coin or note machines in them, for the simple reason that some clown will try to smash it open and probably break the charger in the process

I've seen two systems for accepting cash which could work. One is a separate coin and note machine which is vandal proofed and can activate the chargers

Another is a voucher system where you can buy a voucher from a shop and scan a barcode on the charger to get a fixed amount of credit (or load a charging card)

I think for chargers in petrol stations, the shop staff should be able to accept payments for the chargers and activate them. It would save on the issues where authentication fails and you're ringing some hotline to try and remote start the charger, usually with mixed results

Honestly, I don't think it'll affect current EV drivers much, mostly because you don't have any alternative to card or app payments. But if EVs are going to take over then they need to cater for everyone, and until debit cards are a requirement of society then cash will still be around

cannco253

How far into the future before we might see something like this here? Why CHAdeMO only?

https://octopus.energy/power-pack/

What cars are compatible?

Your vehicle must be CHAdeMO compatible and capable of discharging.

Power pack is currently compatible with:

Nissan Leaf

Nissan e-NV200

Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV

And we're working hard on more integrations!

the_amazing_raisin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121786581#Comment_121786581

So Chademo was V2G capable from the start but CCS only got finalised for V2G fairly recently (end of 2023 I think)

Wallbox have had the Quasar available for Chademo cars for a couple of years now but there's a Quasar 2 coming which will be CCS only

zg3409

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121783671#Comment_121783671

New CCS chargers in UK need to have touch to pay by credit card. Talks of forcing businesses to take cash was going to only be in limited cases, with many businesses deciding for themselves.

Charging companies wanted to have vendor lock in with their own RFID cards. Payment fees for cards can be relatively high for small transaction amounts.

I believe all businesses should be forced to take cash, many people cannot get credit cards for various reasons such as bad credit rating, illiterate or not having bank account etc. For elderly this whole app only is very difficult.

Pricing should also be displayed at chargers like petrol stations. Especially overstay fees and per minute fees, along with pay parking prices.

MightyMunster

Cards are a big enough step backwards let alone cash which would double the time it takes to charge with having to queue up to pay etc ..

Best case would be an option for your charging fees to be automatically added to your domestic electricity bill removing the need for another account. All automated on a plug and charge basis.

the_amazing_raisin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121796349#Comment_121796349

What happens if you live in your car? No domestic bill

I don't believe it'll add any significant time to charging, often the biggest time sink after charging is waiting for the authorisation to go through. In general credit card readers seem to have better network connectivity than whatever junk the charging providers are using

Cash would probably be a time adder, but for example if there was a cash payment terminal near the chargers then it wouldn't be too bad. Also no network latency because the terminal doesn't need to go and check someone's account balance

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121795114#Comment_121795114

I agree that some businesses should be forced to take cash, or debit cards should be made truly non discriminatory (which seems unlikely)

I also understand why a lot of businesses don't want to take cash, particularly the risk of theft

There is a middle ground which can be found somewhere, for example in supermarkets not every till needs to accept cash but there could be a rule that at least one cash till needs to be in operation

For EV charging, I think the middle ground is to have a cash terminal nearby or a preloaded card or voucher system that can be bought in a shop nearby (or just pay in the shop for chargers in petrol stations)

slave1

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121787931#Comment_121787931

Correct, CHAdeMO is bi-directional, Leafs were used in Japan to provide power during their nuclear crisis a while back

ELM327

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121796625#Comment_121796625

Indeed , to the point that if you look in the boot of a gen 1 toyota mirai, you'll find an outward only chademo socket!

ELM327

Speaking of Mirai actually, if we had even a minimal H2 network here I'd buy this for the lols.

https://carfromjapan.com/cheap-used-toyota-mirai-2016-for-sale-656d425f348a057319b64585

innrain

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121796693#Comment_121796693

You can always make you own. You just need a big battery, this guy and you can get a half pound of H2 per hour. That'll get you 20 miles I'd say :D

ELM327

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121798029#Comment_121798029

"This equipment utmost output pressure is 0.4MPa" Hmm. I think more equipment would be needed. When i checked it (and I'm a nerd, I checked these things last time I looked into importing a mirai) it would cost ~250k to have a home generator for hydrogen with sufficient pressure to feed a car tank. With Hydrogen you need 350 or 700 bar pressure, the 350 would half fill the tank and the 700 would fully fill. I'm not 100% how the liquid changes location but I have an inkling that if I connected the car to that generator, it would backfeed the genny with hydrogen from the car.

I'm not a fan of hydrogen for propulsion btw, I just think the novelty of owning a hydrogen car in Ireland is worth the 7-9k if we had a couple of stations.

innrain

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121798087#Comment_121798087

You said it is for the giggles. Max pressure 4bar. above that all the safety requirements kick in.

munchkin_utd

slight tangent, today Germany has made a snap decision to freeze paying any exiting grants or processing any new grant tenders for Hydrogen research due to corruption/ nepotism/ favours for friends within the Hydrogen and fuel cell branch and generally dubious reporting on previous research presented. Theres a few cases found but its reckoned its the tip of the iceberg.

The research funds frozen are about 330million Euro, but thats for both creation and usage of hydrogen for cars and industry. So its not massive but still not insignificant.

Heres the story on the main public service broadcasters website (in german)

https://www.tagesschau.de/inland/innenpolitik/wasserstoff-wissing-100.html

Thats not great news for anyone hoping for miracles any time soon on the hydrogen car front.

the_amazing_raisin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121798715#Comment_121798715

They've also stopped funding for electric truck and bus purchase programs due to a funding shortfall and oversubscription to the grant

https://www.electrive.com/2024/02/19/germany-no-longer-subsidises-electric-trucks-and-buses/

It looks like the programme funded something like 8,300 trucks of H2, PHEV and BEV types. Also something like 5,000 buses since 2021

Good progress but this is Germany, they've a lot of trucks to replace

Likely it'll slow adoption of electric trucks, where a company could afford 50 electric trucks with grants they'll now buy 30 without the grants

munchkin_utd

>They've also stopped funding for electric truck and bus purchase programs due to a funding shortfall and oversubscription to the grant

em, theres a stop on all new Ev grants not just for buses but also for cars but thats another problem altogether as thats down to the pot being oversubscribed and they thought they could reallocate unused covid funds to all manner of environmental projects but the constitutional court ruled that that was out of order (covid emergency != climate change emergency) and essentially they needed to use the 2024 pot of EV cash to backpay the promised grants for 2023.

Ironically the minute they stopped the car ev grants manufacturers stepped in to promise that anyone with an order would get a reduction from them, and within a week or 2 there was across the board reductions anyhow that left cars cheaper than when there was grants a few weeks earlier.

mfceiling

Ok.