ESB eCars pricing introduction

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

markpb

unkel wrote: »

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

Relying on granny charging (and being at a fixed location long enough to granny charge to a decent level) doesn’t seem like a great idea. It’ll work until it doesn’t and then you’re in trouble. Someone said a few posts ago that a 300km EV is more appropriate and I’d tend to agree.

unkel

markpb wrote: »

Relying on granny charging (and being at a fixed location long enough to granny charge to a decent level) doesn’t seem like a great idea. It’ll work until it doesn’t and then you’re in trouble.

Granny cable charging should work no problem, but I agree with you that it isn't great to have to rely on it. If only we had a decent and reliable fast charging network like in some other EU countries then you really would only need a car with a range of 150km.

DrPhilG

zg3409 wrote: »

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

Pricing is only coming in for ROI. Northern Ireland will remain free for now.

unkel

DrPhilG wrote: »

Northern Ireland will remain free for now.

Some people will argue that Northern Ireland hasn't been free for 800 years :pac:

charlieIRL

markpb wrote: »

Relying on granny charging (and being at a fixed location long enough to granny charge to a decent level) doesn’t seem like a great idea. It’ll work until it doesn’t and then you’re in trouble. Someone said a few posts ago that a 300km EV is more appropriate and I’d tend to agree.

Relying on a granny charger (or public charging) is really not a great idea as I found out today! Long post..........

I charged my car to 100% friday night and only had a few short spins yesterday. Knew i had good bit of driving to do today but thought I would be fine, ohh no, I under estimated the distances i had to travel!!

So far today - dropped oldest to gaelic training and home - under 10k
Dropped youndes to county training - 15k, decided to pop into town to top up via fast chage, charger was in use so had to use the ESB one, back out for her then home (40kms) and then had a 120kms round trip to Tullamore and back - no problem i said as i pass by 2 rapid charge points on the way.
NONE of the CCS or Ionity chargers are working in the Moate / Athlone Plaza, only the Chademo.
Not to worry, I always have the fast DC in Kilbeggan, just as i pulled in a Kia Soul pulled in and started charging - got talking to owner and he said he would be there at least an hour. i had 30kms left at this stage. Dropped the youngest to soccer trials and am now sitting in work charging at 7.2kw with my battery at 16kms hoping to get enough in to collect her and back to athlone and get a decent charge in overnight. I've 155kms done so far today and 38kms yesterday. Stressed out a bit and i only have it 3 days!!

BTW the owners of the Leaf which was rapid charging in Athlone was on their way back to Cork from Leitrim - a round trip they done this weekend. Impressive.

Black_Knight

charlieIRL wrote: »

NONE of the CCS or Ionity chargers are working in the Moate / Athlone Plaza, only the Chademo. .

Really? Seems ludicrous! Station is live yet none of them work!?

unkel

charlieIRL wrote: »

I've 155kms done so far today and 38kms yesterday.

That a newer model eGolf? I'd have thought it could do 193km mostly on a still sunny warmish day like today no problem without charging if there's not much 120km/h driving going on. Bit disappointing. I thought the eGolf was more efficient than that. Ioniq (with pretty much the same WLTP range) could have done that no bother and I'd say the Leaf 40 too and the previous model i3 94Ah and also current Zoe 40

adunis

Charle IRL,you won't be doing that again,if you know you're going to be tooi-ng and fro-ing,start with 100%

adunis

From Dublin, it’s a 260km round trip to my parents in Cavan and almost 300km one-way to my in-laws in Mayo.

So you need to stop briefly once each way en route/return ,your hardly gonna travel that far and not stay the night I don't think they're gonna begrudge you the couple of quids electricty.

charlieIRL

Black_Knight wrote: »

Really? Seems ludicrous! Station is live yet none of them work!?

EDIT - turns out it was the charger!