ESB should really freevend when connection lost

samih

Just tried to charge in Carrick on Shannon but the charger wasn't able to authenticate me. It seemed to be operational otherwise and the ecars tried to reset it remotely without a luck.

Wondering why the chargers can't freevend here? It's quite inconvenient to have to pay for service like this but then not to get any leeway when the provider fails. In my opinion it would not be too much to ask to help the paying customer.

PS. It's great to actually be able to drive around Ireland without local hogging on the rapids. Charging for charging ftw (mostly).

ELM327

Cheapskates in ESB probably

FishOnABike

Considering that a non functioning charger could leave a motorist stranded if they didn't have enough charge remaining to reach the next nearest charger (assuming that would be working and available when they get there), is there not a strong case to regulate for free charging in these circumstances.

The ongoing loss of revenue might also have the useful side effect of encouraging the suppliers to resolve the problem as quickly as possible.

Dardania

There could be an unintended side effect - people could try disconnecting the comms I order to get free charging...

unkel

Dardania wrote: »

There could be an unintended side effect - people could try disconnecting the comms I order to get free charging...

Commit a serious crime (criminal damage) to save a tenner, really? In a location that is most likely covered by CCTV?

Mickeroo

They don't even need to make it free, just implement a store and forward system on their payments for when the units lose connectivity.

Silent Running

unkel wrote: »

Commit a serious crime (criminal damage) to save a tenner, really? In a location that is most likely covered by CCTV?

As far as I know, they're run on the GSM network, so could probably be blocked without any damage, using a signal blocker. Not condoning this BTW, just it's technically possible.

The chargers in the UK set themselves to freevend when they can't 'phone home'. The ESB won't allow this, even on chargers that are still free to use.

ELM327

unkel wrote: »

Commit a serious crime (criminal damage) to save a tenner, really? In a location that is most likely covered by CCTV?

Wifi blockers, signal jammer etc
Very common, happens in UK now with EH networks

unkel

Silent Running wrote: »

The chargers in the UK set themselves to freevend when they can't 'phone home'.

Is there any evidence people in the UK use wifi blockers to get free EV charging?

Silent Running

unkel wrote: »

Is there any evidence people in the UK use wifi blockers to get free EV charging?

It would be a very difficult one to prove. The culprit could just be availing of a faulty charger like anyone else. Even though he caused the "fault".

Criminals being devious, if it works, they'll be doing it.

daheff

i'm guessing ESB get calls from users about non working chargers. this is free info for them to know the status of their network.

their monitoring probably cant tell if chargers are really working or not, so if they freevend when out of contact, you could find that people are still using those units for free for a considerable time until esb realise they aren't on the network properly.

while its not a huge cost to ESB, there is a cost in this situation.....and it can get bigger quite quickly if people figure this out and how to 'encourage' the units to go offline & freevend.


but in reality as charging has coming why should the provider be expected to give away their product?

Soarer

ELM327 wrote: »

Cheapskates in ESB probably

Yeah, 'cause they didn't put a penny into setting up, running, and offering the whole service for free up to this point.

ELM327

Soarer wrote: »

Yeah, 'cause they didn't put a penny into setting up, running, and offering the whole service for free up to this point.

Most of the funds came from the EU and the customers of ESB paying towards it.
ESB paid very little, except for operational costs of the call centre.


In return they have been handed the assets for free.

KCross

ELM327 wrote: »

ESB paid very little, except for operational costs of the call centre.

€2m/year I think. Not exactly "very little" for a network of aging 50kW chargers, alot of which are having to be swapped out with new ones.

ELM327

KCross wrote: »

€2m/year I think. Not exactly "very little" for a network of aging 50kW chargers, alot of which are having to be swapped out with new ones.

Even if you accept the 2m/yr figure - a presumption that no internal staff were moved here and that all call centre staff were hired in - from 2011 that's 18m. Lets say 16m as there wasnt much happening in 2011 and the last quarter of 2019 had fees.


16m for 80 free fast chargers and ~1100 slow chargers.
Let's say the slow chargers cost is negligible that's about 190k per fast charger.

Not awful.

KCross

ELM327 wrote: »

Even if you accept the 2m/yr figure - a presumption that no internal staff were moved here and that all call centre staff were hired in - from 2011 that's 18m. Lets say 16m as there wasnt much happening in 2011 and the last quarter of 2019 had fees.


16m for 80 free fast chargers and ~1100 slow chargers.
Let's say the slow chargers cost is negligible that's about 190k per fast charger.

Not awful.

I dont know if its good or bad tbh. I'd be leaning more towards bad value since they are aging 50kW chargers with known reliability issues (which is why they are replacing some of them).

Im just saying, they didnt get handed a world class network of HPC for nothing. They've got an aging 50kW network in alot of bad locations and it has cost them a significant sum (millions).

markpb

daheff wrote: »

i'm guessing ESB get calls from users about non working chargers. this is free info for them to know the status of their network.

I don't know anything about the equipment ESB installed/manage but I'd be shocked if they didn't have any kind of heartbeat functionality to detect unresponsive units. It's pretty much universal for any kind of remotely maintained equipment.

ED E

Do chargers in the UK fail so often? The crazy low MTBF here seems to be the real issue.

KCross

markpb wrote: »

I don't know anything about the equipment ESB installed/manage but I'd be shocked if they didn't have any kind of heartbeat functionality to detect unresponsive units.

They do.
They show up as "Out of contact".

daheff

KCross wrote: »

They do.
They show up as "Out of contact".

As per the op (and personal experience), esb can try remotely operating equipment without success. Might not show up as out of contact if they are trying?

Wouldn't think the system is 100%