ESB eCars pricing introduction

ELM327

System Upgrade

Dear EV Drivers,


To enable us to provide you with some enhanced functionality and a new app, we will be performing a system upgrade this coming Wednesday morning, October 2nd,

Black_Knight

ELM327 wrote: »

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Probably

spuddy

Any news on the actual costs? There was a piece on RTE in August about an announcement "in the next month".

zg3409

They are updating many of their chargers tomorrow, probably to enable pay features. They said they would give 3 weeks notice before introducing fees, presumably to get people to update their apps and set up payment information. There was talk of various costs, and pricing options. Talk is of price per kWh only with overstay fees after an hour or two. They might announce something if the updates on Wednesday are successful.

Gile_na_gile

Currently still showing sterling prices of 25p per kWH and £4 per month.

McGiver

Overstay after two hours? That's plain wrong. Should kick in at T=30min

Mickeroo

Gile_na_gile wrote: »

Currently still showing sterling prices of 25p per kWH and £4 per month.

McGiver wrote: »

Overstay after two hours? That's plain wrong. Should kick in at T=30min

Where are you guys seeing this info?

ELM327

zg3409 wrote: »

They are updating many of their chargers tomorrow, probably to enable pay features. They said they would give 3 weeks notice before introducing fees, presumably to get people to update their apps and set up payment information. There was talk of various costs, and pricing options. Talk is of price per kWh only with overstay fees after an hour or two. They might announce something if the updates on Wednesday are successful.

This is the worst possible option.
Overstay should be 45 mins.
Charge per minute + per kWh

liamog

The only people who think 20 mins is a reasonable time to use a charger are Gen 1.5 Leaf owners.
With current crop of bigger battery cars and eCars slow rapid chargers (50kW), it's got to the point where I expect a car to be charging for around an hour.

ELM327

The only people that will be using these will be leaf owners
The vast majority of bigger battery cars will use Ionity and Tesla(where applicable) and easygo at a push
I don't want to queue behind someone for 1 hour if I need to then charge for 1 hour after

Black_Knight

IMO, overstay should only kick in once the car has finished charging but is still connected. Tough to gauge though, as some cars have an automatic cable release when full, and once full the e cars card isn't needed to stop the session.

unkel

liamog wrote: »

With current crop of bigger battery cars and eCars slow rapid chargers (50kW), it's got to the point where I expect a car to be charging for around an hour.

I agree the natural fast charging time for a lot of owners of newish EVs is around an hour because either their car is slow or the slow ESB charger limit of just 50kW

Charging this long is unnecessary though to reach their destination or the next fast charger on their route. Thus they are unnecessarily holding up the charger for the next user. They should be disincentivised to use more than they need. I agree with ELM327 here, fairly hefty overstay charges should begin at about 30-45 minutes.

zg3409

Mickeroo wrote: »

Gile_na_gile wrote: »

Currently still showing sterling prices of 25p per kWH and £4 per month.

McGiver wrote: »

Overstay after two hours? That's plain wrong. Should kick in at T=30min

Where are you guys seeing this info?

The sterling prices are from ESB mainland UK chargers, the prices of which will have zero bearing on ROI and NI pricing.

My reference to kWh energy charges comes from this document here:

https://www.irishevowners.ie/esb-ecars-meeting-23-8-2019-full-report/

Quoted here:

The fees will be based on Energy used rather than on how much time you spend at a fast charger
 There will not be a connection charge.
 An over-stay fee will be implemented at fast charge points

Fees are anticipated to go into effect three weeks after pricing has been announced, and users will be encouraged to register in advance.

The "after an hour or two" was based on speaking to those at the meeting, the penalties are not intended to be immediately harsh, although I personally would like them to be harsh and on fast chargers I would like some time based fee to encourage people to give up at 80% as charging is slower from 80 to 100%.

In terms of fees, they say cheaper than diesel or petrol, but also that 99% of charging will happen at home. As for actual prices, no-one knows, probably not esb.

zg3409

Black_Knight wrote: »

IMO, overstay should only kick in once the car has finished charging but is still connected. Tough to gauge though, as some cars have an automatic cable release when full, and once full the e cars card isn't needed to stop the session.

The charger can tell the car is still connected, even if cable lock is open, same for chademo which unlocks when full. Typically the car decides on CCS with an option to keep it locked when full. If the space is blocked this can cause problems particular for cars with the charge port on the side as often they can only use one of the 2 spots provided.

A per minute charge immediately when full would be great to concentrate the mind to return to vehicle on fast chargers.

I still don't see any point about price per kWh on rapids. On AC chargers yes but when you're queueing at a rapid you don't really want somebody to stay plugged in for an extra hour to get that last 20 percent in their battery when they should just vacate the charger and drive towards their destination and the next charger where they could then top up the same 20 percent in a fraction of time.

slave1

..so this is another speculation spin, why not just wait until we see the real pricing structure

unkel

Well the ESB did ask us for our opinion on the charging structure, I sure hope we are getting what I voted for

jusmeig

Can't wait for charges.
Them parasites who farm the eCars point in Sallin's train station with their revolving leafs will be devastated (you know who you are)

zg3409

jusmeig wrote: »

Can't wait for charges.
Them parasites who farm the eCars point in Sallin's train station with their revolving leafs will be devastated (you know who you are)

Fees are only coming in for fast chargers initially, then slow chargers probably 9 months later. Paying for parking is an issue for owners of parking space like Irish rail. This a slightly separate to fees to fill up car with power.

babybuilder

Lol. Introduce charging on a crap network. When we haven't reached a critical mass or number of EVs. Anyone any idea on the extra charging points that are going to be installed apart from the ionity ones?

Gile_na_gile

Search for it. There is a thread on it, plus https://www.irishevowners.ie/ieova-meeting-with-esb-ecars-23-aug-2019/

Gile_na_gile

Mickeroo wrote: »

Where are you guys seeing this info?

On the updated ESB app on Google Play. It now asks you to sign up as if charging were already in place.

zg3409

Gile_na_gile wrote: »

Mickeroo wrote: »

Where are you guys seeing this info?

On the updated ESB app on Google Play. It now asks you to sign up as if charging were already in place.

This app you refer to is for UK mainland chargers. The roi and ni app disappeared a while ago from play store.

Mickeroo

Gile_na_gile wrote: »

On the updated ESB app on Google Play. It now asks you to sign up as if charging were already in place.

Didn't realise they had a new app out. What's it called? I can't see any on the play store at the mo.

Silent Running

Why aren't the ESB, along with other providers, being forced to make all their chargers accept contactless payment. All this bolloxogy about apps and fobs should be done away with. Even the UK has made this a requirement for new chargers.

It should be a Europe wide requirement. Just pull up to any charger, swipe your credit/debit card or phone and charge away. No apps, accounts or RFID needed.

liamog

I can imagine ESB aren't because their is a weird pressure from some Irish EV drivers for rapid charger use to billed on peoples domestic electricity bill.

There's only really one EV pressure group, and not many people take part.
I've noticed that all the new eCars eFacec Triple Head chargers have a blanked out space for a card terminal.

babybuilder

Gile_na_gile wrote: »

Search for it. There is a thread on it, plus https://www.irishevowners.ie/ieova-meeting-with-esb-ecars-23-aug-2019/

Pay for charging yes. Additional charge points?

McGiver

ELM327 wrote: »

The only people that will be using these will be leaf owners
The vast majority of bigger battery cars will use Ionity and Tesla(where applicable) and easygo at a push
I don't want to queue behind someone for 1 hour if I need to then charge for 1 hour after

Sorry but no. It's about efficient scarce resource allocation. You can't have user charging at 10kWh to get 80 to 95 SOC if some other user would be charging 40kWh to get from 20 to 70.

30-40 mins and off you go. Konas can go and move on to next charger if they need more. Or go to Ionity.

ELM327

McGiver wrote: »

Sorry but no. It's about efficient scarce resource allocation. You can't have user charging at 10kWh to get 80 to 95 SOC if some other user would be charging 40kWh to get from 20 to 70.

30-40 mins and off you go. Konas can go and move on to next charger if they need more. Or go to Ionity.

You seem to be agreeing with my point? Why the No?

liamog

McGiver wrote: »

Sorry but no. It's about efficient scarce resource allocation. You can't have user charging at 10kWh to get 80 to 95 SOC if some other user would be charging 40kWh to get from 20 to 70.

30-40 mins and off you go. Konas can go and move on to next charger if they need more. Or go to Ionity.

It does sound like you are agreeing with Elm327 here, theres a few of us here that believe charging should be per min to encourage people to move when the charging rate starts to drop.

If a Kona needs an extra 50kW to complete its journey, there's not really much difference between it charging for 60 mins at one eCars 50kW point, versus charging for 30 mins at two 50kW points.

September1

liamog wrote: »

It does sound like you are agreeing with Elm327 here, theres a few of us here that believe charging should be per min to encourage people to move when the charging rate starts to drop.

If a Kona needs an extra 50kW to complete its journey, there's not really much difference between it charging for 60 mins at one eCars 50kW point, versus charging for 30 mins at two 50kW points.

It takes time to leave motorway, arrive at charger, plug the car or so - this effectively doubles this time. Meanwhile if they charge 60 mins at one location they can have a meal or do some shopping. There is no need to make live of EV travelers miserable.

ELM327

September1 wrote: »

It takes time to leave motorway, arrive at charger, plug the car or so - this effectively doubles this time. Meanwhile if they charge 60 mins at one location they can have a meal or do some shopping. There is no need to make live of EV travelers miserable.

That's all very well and good, but what about the guy waiting for 1 hour?

Sabre Man

ELM327 wrote: »

That's all very well and good, but what about the guy waiting for 1 hour?

Could be solved by adding more chargers. One fast charger at each location isn't sufficient when one considers potential issues with chargers not working.

unkel

Sabre Man wrote: »

Could be solved by adding more chargers. One fast charger at each location isn't sufficient when one considers potential issues with chargers not working.

Maybe we should relieve the ESB from this job altogether. They haven't done a very good job and the tax payer shouldn't really pay for this. The tax payer never paid for the installation of petrol stations either did they? Or exploit the sale of fuel at petrol stations? Let's leave it to the private sector. They will do a good job and we will pay the going rate so they can make a profit. Everybody happy.

zg3409

unkel wrote: »

Let's leave it to the private sector. They will do a good job and we will pay the going rate so they can make a profit. Everybody happy.

OK, say I own a petrol station on motorway services. One fast charger costs 60,000 but we need at least two, so 120,000. They only last 6 years (maybe 10) and cost 3,000 a year in maintenance . That's 26,000 per year, or 1300 per week. If we assume 10 euro is average going rate for a charge, then I need 130 cars a week, or 18 cars a day. If each car takes 30 minutes, that's 9 hours or 4.5 hours with 2 chargers constantly in use. It seems to me to be unviable unless you factor in free site rental, subsidy with food, and ramping up the prices monopoly style. I can only see high fees being viable at high traffic locations with no competition, and what about areas less viable but busy.

The esb network, with its faults, has the making to be a massive kick for general nationwide basic network. If motorway hubs happen, which seems to be happening, and long range 400+km EVs become the norm then public charging will only be a real need at the hubs, with overnight charging elsewhere. I can't see commercial operators rolling out anything anywhere close to esb in the next 4 years.

McGiver

liamog wrote: »

McGiver wrote: »

Sorry but no. It's about efficient scarce resource allocation. You can't have user charging at 10kWh to get 80 to 95 SOC if some other user would be charging 40kWh to get from 20 to 70.

30-40 mins and off you go. Konas can go and move on to next charger if they need more. Or go to Ionity.

It does sound like you are agreeing with Elm327 here, theres a few of us here that believe charging should be per min to encourage people to move when the charging rate starts to drop.

If a Kona needs an extra 50kW to complete its journey, there's not really much difference between it charging for 60 mins at one eCars 50kW point, versus charging for 30 mins at two 50kW points.

Sorry folks, I do agree with Elm. Wrong quote!

Edit: Was supposed to disagree with liamog

McGiver

Sabre Man wrote: »

ELM327 wrote: »

That's all very well and good, but what about the guy waiting for 1 hour?

Could be solved by adding more chargers. One fast charger at each location isn't sufficient when one considers potential issues with chargers not working.

That's always the case but is only a hypothetical question.

But the actual practical question on the ground is completely different - "How do you effectively allocate the existing chargers?".

The only reply to it is 30 min sessions. In that way you maintain the highest possible average output which must be as close to the max rated 50 kW or whatever it is on the respective charger.
Because most cars reduce charging speed with SOC and more or less after 30 minutes therefore this is the target time eCars should be aiming at and design the fees around.

unkel

zg3409 wrote: »

It seems to me to be unviable unless you factor in free site rental, subsidy with food

Absolutely. A €2.50 coffee costs no more than €0.25 to provide and pretty much any EV driver charging will buy something very high margin like that. Or lunch for the whole family. You get the idea. And then there are the manufacturers putting in superb quality extremely high speed chargers (minimum of 4 stalls per site) and we still pay very low charge rates (Ionity / Tesla superchargers - these manufacturers just want us to buy their cars, which is fair enough)

I don't know what the arrangements are, but my gut tells me that the above are unlikely to get any serious kickbacks from the site owners (petrol station / service station owners). Probably just a free long term lease of land

The tax payer pays nothing for that setup with excellent charging services. I don't see any reason why the tax payer should pay a cent for the ESB to setup chargers really. Let them stick to their core competence: maintaining and seriously upgrading the network and providing adequate supply at all times. That's a big challenge in its own right.

If a canvasser comes to my door, that is what I am going to tell them

2tiredkjl

unkel wrote: »

Maybe we should relieve the ESB from this job altogether. They haven't done a very good job and the tax payer shouldn't really pay for this. The tax payer never paid for the installation of petrol stations either did they? Or exploit the sale of fuel at petrol stations? Let's leave it to the private sector. They will do a good job and we will pay the going rate so they can make a profit. Everybody happy.

Parody?

liamog

McGiver wrote: »

Sorry folks, I do agree with Elm. Wrong quote!

Edit: Was supposed to disagree with liamog

Which bit, I'm also arguing that people should not be allowed to underutilise chargers. The only real difference between my position and an overcharge fee is that I want to charge all charging at a per-minute rate.

I don't care whether you are charging at 10kW in the first 10 mins of a session or after 45 mins, it's still a massive waste of the potential of the charger.

unkel

2tiredkjl wrote: »

Parody?

Eh, no. What makes you think that? I'm dead serious. Public charging should be provided by commercial companies making a profit and we, EV owners, obviously need to pay up for the service provided to us

Our tax money should not go towards inefficient, ridiculously slow "fast chargers" provided by state monopolies. State run socialism is dead and gone. The ESB should really be forced to abandon their chargers unless they are willing to fund them from their own budget. Which is not unsubstantial. The average ESB worker costs over €100k per year. That in itself says it all.

Zenith74

unkel wrote: »

Eh, no. What makes you think that? I'm dead serious. Public charging should be provided by commercial companies making a profit and we, EV owners, obviously need to pay up for the service provided to us

Our tax money should not go towards inefficient, ridiculously slow "fast chargers" provided by state monopolies. State run socialism is dead and gone. The ESB should really be forced to abandon their chargers unless they are willing to fund them from their own budget. Which is not unsubstantial. The average ESB worker costs over €100k per year. That in itself says it all.

There’s been nothing stopping private companies putting in chargers to-date. So all we have to do to see what a private-sector-only charging network would look like is to imagine Ireland without the eCars network. So we’d have had no fast chargers until about 12 months ago (fun times for 2010-2018 Leaf/Zoe owners!), no CHAdeMO until the couple of EasyGO chargers went in this year, virtually no on-street charging and no sign of it either because no private businesses are even talking about one of these networks.

Think the ESB take an unreasonable amount of slack considering they were not given funding to expand the network after the early roll out. Hardly their fault IMO.

adunis

How often do I do a long journey ie 100km plus one way ?,almost never and I know I'm not in the minority here,yet still do CA.36km a year,I'll happily pay ionity/esb whomever for the service at a nominal rate for 30mins.and happily be penalised heavily thereafter fast charger obvs.
Slow chargers when billed perhaps 2/3 hrs.
There is absolutely no need for 300km plus range on this little island more modest batteries in more cars rather than big batteries with compromised fast charge rates and more chargers is the way forward.

McGiver

adunis wrote: »

How often do I do a long journey ie 100km plus one way ?,almost never and I know I'm not in the minority here,yet still do CA.36km a year,I'll happily pay ionity/esb whomever for the service at a nominal rate for 30mins.and happily be penalised heavily thereafter fast charger obvs.
Slow chargers when billed perhaps 2/3 hrs.
There is absolutely no need for 300km plus range on this little island more modest batteries in more cars rather than big batteries with compromised fast charge rates and more chargers is the way forward.

I also think the magic range is about 300kms in case of Ireland. Build dozens of charging hubs at key routes and that's it.

Government should stay away from this completely, they should focus on policy and legislation to promote and speed up the transition. Instead, they both the infrastructure, botch the legislation and ultimately don't help the cause. Would be much better if they focused on the regulatory framework and let the market sort out the infrastructure.

un5byh7sqpd2x0

adunis wrote: »

How often do I do a long journey ie 100km plus one way ?,almost never and I know I'm not in the minority here,yet still do CA.36km a year,I'll happily pay ionity/esb whomever for the service at a nominal rate for 30mins.and happily be penalised heavily thereafter fast charger obvs.
Slow chargers when billed perhaps 2/3 hrs.
There is absolutely no need for 300km plus range on this little island more modest batteries in more cars rather than big batteries with compromised fast charge rates and more chargers is the way forward.

I presume you live in Dublin if you think a 60 mile journey is a long one.

adunis

You presume wrong ,I live in very rural Cork if I travel to for instance Dublin I'll stop for 25 mins each way ,pee strech my legs and be gone in 25 mins. Exactly what I'd be doing in an Ice car.
I really struggle to think why in the normal run of events one couldn't find/do everything they wanted within a 120 mile round trip.
Like I mentioned earlier I do a.35k in every year with BOTH EVS one does c.200km the the other c.300 I routinely charge almost daily and have NEVER had an issue with range or long journeys,just as a further aside I spent years as a truck driver trust me I know what long is.

September1

ELM327 wrote: »

That's all very well and good, but what about the guy waiting for 1 hour?

He has to wait 1 hour but probability of that happening is now 50+% lower as charger is now less occupied, this savings made by Kona driver are passed to other drivers as they cannot charge during his plugging&parking&session starting time. Overall chargers might be getting better utilization.

McGiver

Josephine Large Nozzle wrote: »

adunis wrote: »

How often do I do a long journey ie 100km plus one way ?,almost never and I know I'm not in the minority here,yet still do CA.36km a year,I'll happily pay ionity/esb whomever for the service at a nominal rate for 30mins.and happily be penalised heavily thereafter fast charger obvs.
Slow chargers when billed perhaps 2/3 hrs.
There is absolutely no need for 300km plus range on this little island more modest batteries in more cars rather than big batteries with compromised fast charge rates and more chargers is the way forward.

I presume you live in Dublin if you think a 60 mile journey is a long one.

Think the average commute in Ireland was something like 30km (roundtrip)... correct me if I'm wrong.

So yes 200km roundtrip is huge and would be limited only to very specific cases & scenarios.

dloob

Zenith74 wrote: »

There’s been nothing stopping private companies putting in chargers to-date. So all we have to do to see what a private-sector-only charging network would look like is to imagine Ireland without the eCars network. So we’d have had no fast chargers until about 12 months ago (fun times for 2010-2018 Leaf/Zoe owners!), no CHAdeMO until the couple of EasyGO chargers went in this year, virtually no on-street charging and no sign of it either because no private businesses are even talking about one of these networks.

Think the ESB take an unreasonable amount of slack considering they were not given funding to expand the network after the early roll out. Hardly their fault IMO.

Nothing stopping them other than a state funded competitor providing the same product for free. Not exactly an attractive market to enter.

markpb

McGiver wrote: »

So yes 200km roundtrip is huge and would be limited only to very specific cases & scenarios.

From Dublin, it’s a 260km round trip to my parents in Cavan and almost 300km one-way to my in-laws in Mayo. I’d imagine quite a few people are doing similar trips (or longer) as me on a semi-frequent basis. We do stop on the Mayo trip but definitely not the Cavan one.

unkel

markpb wrote: »

From Dublin, it’s a 260km round trip to my parents in Cavan and almost 300km one-way to my in-laws in Mayo. I’d imagine quite a few people are doing similar trips (or longer) as me on a semi-frequent basis. We do stop on the Mayo trip but definitely not the Cavan one.

So you need a range of 150km then presuming you granny charge at your destination and you stop to charge on your Mayo trip. Every EV for sale today has a range of more than that on motorways even in winter