Plugshare

CMOTDibbler

When looking up charge points for the main routes with long gaps thread, I noticed something odd with the Plugshare filters. If I filtered for 50kW and higher chargers, a lot of 50kW and higher chargers disappeared from the map. Specifically in Roscommon Town, the Circle K (Casey's) which has 2 x 150kW, 2 x 120kW, 2 x 50kW and an unspecified number of 22kW. There's also the Boggan's lane car park which has 1 x 50kW and 1 x 22kW.

If I changed the filter to 0kW and higher, these all appeared. I was concerned that I might have some other filter in place that was causing this, so I reset them (no change) and then used a private window, also no change.

Also if you zoom out the map to just show Ireland and filter out everything below 50kW, you only get 296 charging stations, so it seems this issue is not confined to a particular locality like Roscommon Town.

I'm guessing that the presence of a <50kW charger at a location is the trigger for the filter. A sort of lowest common denominator. This seems a bit daft, the fastest charger present should be the trigger for the filter, not the lowest.

zg3409

Maybe report the issue. Plugshare is a USA based company and for EU some things do not work right such as CCS Tesla chargers open to any car, they don't have an option for that. They used to have a bug for phone numbers with +3... but they fixed it.

https://help.plugshare.com/hc/en-us/articles/6003242664467-Customer-Support

CMOTDibbler

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122378448#Comment_122378448

Done. I've checked this on the web and on the app (android) and it's the same issue on both.

Pretty disastrous bug. Somebody looking for a fast charger would drive right by one if the conditions are met. And I suspect those conditions are met pretty regularly since there are many locations with AC and DC chargers present.

CivilEx

Is it possible to change the location / charger power level within Plugshare? I can't remember seeing it under "edit"

CMOTDibbler

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122380040#Comment_122380040

You can change the connection type and provider for each station or add another station. But it doesn't seem possible to change the power level for them except in the narrative.

But this doesn't affect the issue I reported. The charge points are correctly set up in the app, it's the filters that are removing them if there's a low power charger (usually AC) at the same locations.

I checked a location in the UK with the same kind of parameters - AC mixed with DC chargers at the same location and the DC ones aren't filtered out when you choose a power level of 50kW as a minimum in your filter.

crl84

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122380076#Comment_122380076

That does affect the issue you've reported, and is the exact reason that they don't show up in the filters.

Somewhere like Maxol Newbridge (with 150kw/200kw chargers) doesn't have any speed listed for the chargers in Plugshare:

https://www.plugshare.com/location/472044

Plugshare knows there's CCS chargers there, but doesn't know a speed. So when you filter anything with 1kw or more, Plugshare gets rid of Maxol Newbridge because it doesn't have a speed for the chargers. It can't include it for 1kw+ as it doesn't know how many kw it is, so effectively gets recorded as zero. That's why it appears when the filter is moved down to 0kw.

There's plenty of charging locations on Plugshare with no speed associated with them, so get filtered out when you go above 1kw.

Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be a way to edit the speed of a charger, so they stay without speed and thus fall outside the speed filter limits.

It has nothing to do with 50kw or a bug in the filtering.

Edit: Circle K (Caseys) in Roscommon has no speed associated with the chargers:

https://www.plugshare.com/location/198619

So they get recorded as CCS chargers with speed essentially as 0kw.

CMOTDibbler

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122380449#Comment_122380449

Nail on the head, thanks. But it's still a bug since we can't add the necessary detail and they haven't bothered their asses putting it in which is resulting in erroneous filtering.

Can't see why we're not allowed edit it either. You can add and remove charge points, so this seems trivial in comparison.

crl84

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122380666#Comment_122380666

Yep, you can edit all manner of things, including numbers and types of chargers, but can't edit the speed of the chargers, which greatly impacts usefulness....

CMOTDibbler

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122380903#Comment_122380903

You'd wonder how much of a problem this is globally. But if they don't care, fair enough there are other apps like ChargeFinder and ABRP that at least seem more accurate in that respect.

zg3409

When setting up a new charger I don't see an option for charging speed. The only sites with speed in Ireland seem to be set up with "partner" providers such as ESB ecars and they have done sort of admin access to their own plugshare sites.

If you "check in" you can leave a comment on what speed you got in the real world.

I have personally created hundreds of plugshare new sites in Ireland using just my phone and I can't even set any speed.

I do know plugshare as a company offers users a free service but attempts to make money through in app adverts but also they have a closed API for remotely querying the status and giving live details. They also partner with charging providers giving them the only rights to edit their sites.

So as said the issue seems to be related to creation of new sites and the inability to set the charging speed for average users helping set up new sites.

CMOTDibbler

Got a reply from PlugShare support. As others have noted, they confirm that the absence of charge speed info at a location causes the filter to not work correctly. Interestingly they say that the filter is set for the lowest speed charger at a location (which is what I originally thought the problem was), so that's not very helpful.

All we can do is report the correct charge speed and wait for them to add it.

Thank you for contacting PlugShare Support.


We understand you are having an issue using the power filter to find locations you know have a certain power output. We know how frustrating this can be and apologize for the inconvenience this has caused you.


Please note our power filter works off the labeling we have given a site. This will go off the lowest number to find the location. However, as you may have found out, not all locations have this power output to it.

If a location does not have a number as shown above boxed in red, this will default to zero (0). Our editorial team are always going through locations to make sure they have the correct information, but know some is missing.

Unfortunately, we do not allow users to add the power output themselves as major tampering has occurred in the past
messing up our data. You may use the "Report" feature to give correct data where our team will review and add if correct.

If you have any other questions, please let us know and we'll be happy to assist you. We hope this clarifies things and that you have a great day!


Regards,
PlugShare Support Team

VikingG

Thanks for this as I always filter for 50kw

CMOTDibbler

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122390375#Comment_122390375

I think ChargeFinder is better in this respect, though I haven't tested it fully. It certainly filtered better for the charge points in Roscommon anyway.