Applegreen own brand chargers

listermint

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121488914#Comment_121488914

Depends on the type of deployment though. I'm sure they don't enjoy being out for an hour.

markpb

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121488926#Comment_121488926

I’m not blaming AppleGreen (or eCars) for this, it’s clearly a deficiency in the back-office software.

listermint

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121489741#Comment_121489741

Back office software? You have chargers in the field which require both FW updates,Modem FW and then OS updates for application operation. All reliant on hardware.

As an example most phones take 15 to 20 minutes over 4G to download a large update then further 10 minutes for processing and the application updates.

With these things you probably have to bake in test time prior and after. An hour is reasonable. You aren't switching staging to production environments here you are doing wide OTA updates.

markpb

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121489760#Comment_121489760

I work in a company with more remote devices than eCars and AppleGreen put together. They all have firmware and configuration that updates OTA, they all connect to software in the back-office that needs updating and servers that need patching. We’ve never taken an hour of an outage or anything close to it.

listermint

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121489825#Comment_121489825

As do I.

What I don't do is present my companies capabilities on to a charging station network with unknown hardware and a hosted site that may be cloud or on premise.

1 hour seems legit based on a high level view of the architectural physical dependencies. It's not long.

This type of scenario should be outside normal business trend hours. But i wouldn't be stressing about an hour tbh. And 1 hour is probably advisory btw it's probably 30 minutes total till its up .

It's called a buffer any production sw company gives buffer.

As I said HW isn't switching dev environments that takes minutes worth of redirection.

CivilEx

Applegreen in Galway seem to have dropped prices - it's now €0.68/kWh via the app. I think it was €0.73/kWh the last time I used them.

vinniem

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121502225#Comment_121502225

Yeah all AG units dropped to €0.68 on app a few weeks ago, Ecars have dropped also.

AndyBoBandy

The AG price drop was if you are signed up with them and using their app.

I think the contactless rate is still €0.73

Ubbquittious

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121502300#Comment_121502300

Saucy out. You'd want to be badly stuck to use one

denismc

I noticed the new AG chargers near Portlaoise seem to be pretty quiet this weekend while there are queues at ESB Portlaoise and J14.

A lot of people obviously not aware of there existence.

event

Quick question folks

Recently purchase a PHEV. Was in the Applegreen on the M1 at Castlebellingham last night and I just went to look at the charging stations. Loads of Tesla ones and one other one. The other one seems to have CCS and CHAdeMO connections, no type 1 or type 2.

Would this be standard? Naively I just assumed that it would have all chargers, what with it being on the M1.

I dont need to use it, was just lookin at it to be nosey

10-10-20

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121698819#Comment_121698819

PHEV's are typically for home and destination charging and only have the capacity to take on small amounts of power at much lower charge speeds than EV's, hence their use of low-speed AC type-2 connectors. So for that reason only high speed DC connectors are typically available (except with very few eCars sites) at motorway stops. That's all.

ELM327

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121698819#Comment_121698819

phevs dont use DC fast charging (with a couple of small exceptions like the new landrover)

AndyBoBandy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121553723#Comment_121553723

or people not willing to pay the extra few cent per kWh for the Applegreen chargers!! Which is fair enough if you are using them every day, but anyone doing trips away, it's madness queuing to save a few euro...

Ever since that site went live in Paulstown on the M9, my trips to Waterford have become completely stress free as I'm no longer needing to rely on eCars in Kilcullen or in Waterford city anymore... (I know theres a new eCars site open at Slieverue, but thats slightly out of the way, and I just don't need it as a little stop in Paulstown going either direction is fine...)

I've yet to use the CircleK in Carlow, as Paulstown suits better being closer to Waterford, and I swear I will never stop in Kilcullen again for as long as I live... Still has an utterly sh1t layout.

event

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121698881#Comment_121698881

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121698889#Comment_121698889

Ah ok, so pure EV cars would have different charging connectors.

Makes sense, thanks folks.

ELM327

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121698934#Comment_121698934

Utterly sh1t layout as well as a poor track record of reliability, and a very dirty service station in general.

I like the j5 m9 stop, it's perfectly placed for me to extend range on my L24 if needed. Too close to the house to be worth using in our other EVs usually but I'm in there quite a bit with the leaf.

dsandson

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121698819#Comment_121698819

The M1 sites have separate 22kW Type 2-only chargers located near the fuel forecourt. 1 at each site. as they're so slow for most cars versus the time people spend there its unlikely they'll install many more.

crl84

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121698819#Comment_121698819

ESB 50KW CCS units usually have a Type 2 connection as well I think. I don't think any of the major companies have Type 2 on their higher speed CCS units though.

There used to be ESB ecars there at the M1 site with chargers that had both CCS and Type 2 connections, but they were removed last summer (presume contract ran out and Applegreen wanted to put their own in).

That site is a bit bizarre as despite being an online services and prime for Dublin-Belfast charging, there's only one non-Tesla charger there. There's space marked out for a second, but they haven't put the charger in (same as lots of other Applegreen sites). As a result, lots of people (me included) would rather not take the chance as it's a single point of failure, and charge at the 6 Ionity chargers at Circle K further south, or the Circle K just off the M1 on the way into Dundalk, which has a 150KW dual CCS charger, and a separate 50KW CCS charger (which has a Type 2 connection too). There's also an Applegreen a few minutes away from that with the same single 150KW charger setup as Castlebellingham.

Also strange that Tesla haven't opened up that site for non-Tesla vehicles, as it seems fairly empty every time I've gone in there, never seen more than two Teslas charging, and far more likely for there to be cars waiting to use the 2-bay single Applegreen charger.

event

I have never seen a single car in the Tesla chargers, agreed its a bit strange

mfceiling

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121700876#Comment_121700876

I've charged there where there's been 5 other cars charging. It can be busy at times.

wassie

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121700876#Comment_121700876

I would be there 3-4 times a week and there are always at least 1 or 2 others there. Since last summer its become much busier, especially in evening peak hour, but Ive never had to wait.

MJohnston

I wish these were better at load balancing.

I’m at Ballymount charging at close to 150kW from 30% and a Tesla rocks up with literally 95% charge (you can see on the charge point display) and plugs into the same machine. He’s only drawing 20kW but I get load balanced down to 75 or so.

Of course being a Tesla owner he then proceeds to leave it plugged in for 10 minutes at 100% 🙄 I was tempted to hit the Stop button for him.

10-10-20

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121896616#Comment_121896616

Load balancing doesn't need to be 50/50. Do provide that as feedback to Applegreen, it might land on the desk of somebody who makes decisions.

ELM327

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121896616#Comment_121896616

Agreed. The better the load balancing the more expensive - usually - the hardware is. Kempower supply a unit that load balances in units of 20kW. Tesla also work like this, even better, as they control the software and hardware the integration of stuff like that is so much better. To take your example if it were on a supercharger and the other user plugged in second, he'd get a max of 70kW, but your speed would only be reduced by what he's taking. So if he's drawing 20kW then you have 130kW available to you. Or 230kW on a V3

Flinty997

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121896616#Comment_121896616

Obviously needs a non stop run to somewhere.

wassie

Might not have access to home charging. If I didnt I would definitely charge to 100%

the_amazing_raisin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121896833#Comment_121896833

Or he had a non stop dose of the runs and had to remain in the jacks until finished

dsandson

In GB Applegreen have started to install a different brand of charger, PowerElectronics. It seems to be a similar system to the Kempower but its not clear how granular the power distribution can be.

https://www.speakev.com/threads/charging-hub-locations.162812/post-3547501

innrain

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121897242#Comment_121897242

It seems to be at 30 kW increments. I like the term "High power density"

https://power-electronics.com/en/mobility/nbi-360

The ones used by AG Ireland are ABBs and about as old as it gets from the tech point of view

zg3409

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121700174#Comment_121700174

For phev this is next to air southbound. In terms of cost and time it's not worth using it. I don't think it's working anyway.