the north!

mc2022B2TF

yeah look the reg does stand out but i stayed near bushmills a couple of years ago and all was ok - having said that, it was certainly a bit off-putting.

slave1

been throughout NI and all parts of Belfast over the last 5/6 years, never an issue with "reg"

the_amazing_raisin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119615944#Comment_119615944

Nonsense, I'm sure the centre of Liverpool was far safer 😜

Tbh I think the reg thing is a bit overplayed. I've parked around Belfast a few time in generally unionist areas and had no trouble.

I think if you park in the somewhat rougher areas then you're in trouble anyway. Having a southern reg probably makes you more of a target in unionist areas but that's not to say you'd be safe in republican areas

DrPhilG

The legislation was sorted a long time ago, at least a year and closer to 2 I think.

Ecars have been hounded to implement charging for charging but have refused as they were playing politics and looking for yet more funding.

I long for the day that EasyGo and other providers come in and wipe the floor with the useless shytes.

Red Silurian

As was mentioned previously, charges will help to increase availability. Even if they just introduced an overstay charge after 45 mins on the fast chargers like we have here would make a huge difference. Was hoping to go north this year for a pre-christmas shopping trip but less tempted with the state of the charging

cromelex

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119613610#Comment_119613610

Thanks again for this tip.

We ended up heading north yesterday, stopped at the Ikea Belfast charger (no queue at all) and topped up the EV6 to 100% while we grabbed a coffee at Ikea.

That 100% was ideal we went all the way up to the giant's causeway and did a good bit of the coastal route until it went dark.

Heating on and all that and managed to get back to the Ionity City North with 5% battery left! (but comfortably, I only slowed down a bit to 90 on the last bit of the M1).

the_amazing_raisin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119720740#Comment_119720740

Glad it worked out, I might be doing a similar trip later this year and it's good to know the IKEA charger is a decent bet

homer911

The last time I was up there, as you enter the Titanic u/ground car park there is an electric charger on the wall on the left, It wasnt clearly marked at the time but it was usable and free

DrPhilG

There is also a free 11kW chargers just around the corner from the Titanic Centre, although you do have to pay for charging.

Download the "yourparkingspace" app in advance to save time.

RoadRunner

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119722037#Comment_119722037

I used the same charger. The spots were blocked with traffic cones. So had my passenger hop out and move one out of the way. It got me back home again, but was a very slow charger, ~3kw per hour. But I arrived with like 48% in the car so it was just a tiny topup was all that was required to get me back home.

cromelex

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119721119#Comment_119721119

Just a note, the Ikea charger says 120kW on the display for CCS, but I only managed to get 41kW, which was still fine. On Google maps it shows up as 50kW so I think it might be limited.

MJohnston

There's going to be a 4 charge point/6 car 200kW hub at the Maxol in Holywood, less than a km away from IKEA Belfast:

https://www.irishnews.com/business/2022/06/17/news/maxol-start-work-on-ni-s-first-dedicated-ev-hub-in-2m-holywood-scheme-2746910/

the_amazing_raisin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119726134#Comment_119726134

Yeah that seems to be common on those older Gridserve chargers, saw the same situation in Holyhead

My guess is they limited the grid installation and are just upgrading the grid connection on chargers that have high turnover

zg3409

New Lidl 50kW charger in Omagh plus this

the_amazing_raisin

How do they know it's an Ionity site in Belfast? I'm guessing it said something on the planning documents

EDIT: Just founda the planning docs, big Ionity logo on them. Looks like we're getting a proper HPC hub in NI 😁

the_amazing_raisin

Planning link for Ionity Belfast site

https://epicpublic.planningni.gov.uk/publicaccess/applicationDetails.do?keyVal=RIAZ4USV30000&activeTab=summary

zg3409

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119740537#Comment_119740537

The Facebook group has contacts in various suppliers and talks with government. Often these plans are kept secret before planning and often kept quiet until planning is received as competitors often object to planning such as local petrol stations or competing charging providers hoping to delay or stop the planning.

liamog

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119742732#Comment_119742732

Planning objections are public, have we actually seen that happen?

zg3409

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119744662#Comment_119744662

In Donegal town one supermarket objected to another new supermarket. In another case one petrol station got positive letters from fictional people to help the application. All's fair in love war and business. Any charging provider or petrol provider would be looking at the state of the network and any planned sites next to each other. It's bad business to install chargers next to competitors.

liamog

Oh, I understand that it could happen but didn't think we'd actually seen examples of it.

the_amazing_raisin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119744905#Comment_119744905

Interestingly in other countries there's many examples of multiple vendors setting up at a single site to share the grid costs.

Tesla seems to do this with other networks quite often

cromelex

There is now a Maxol EV charging station just past the Ikea Belfast.

1x200kW + 2x150kW (each split into two, so supporting 75kW for two cars or 150kW for a single on each of them) + an additional 50kW shared between Chademo and CCS.

Good set up. Used twice today, the second time this evening the 200kW and one of the 150kW were offline, which was a bit weird as all the other stalls were empty. I still managed 128kW out of it.

In the morning they were all working fine, the 200kW, two 150kW and the 50kW Chademo all working at the same time.

Not cheap (58 pence on the 150kW) but with so many stalls side by side one of them is bound to work for a quick charge.

It is just somewhat ironic that it's within 1km of the other existing reliable charger in the Ikea.