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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,

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McGiver

MJohnston wrote:

I'm fine personally with paying the overstay, but it is somewhat unfair that we're forced into that because ESB can't keep their chargers functional, or have their apps actually reflect reality.

It's not that. It's lack chargers. The sites are probably sufficient given the markets share but 1 charger per site is a big issue. If they put 2 more chargers at each spot it would help a lot.

MJohnston

McGiver wrote: »

It's not that. It's lack chargers. The sites are probably sufficient given the markets share but 1 charger per site is a big issue. If they put 2 more chargers at each spot it would help a lot.

It's that *and* reliability

Black_Knight

MJohnston wrote: »

It's that *and* reliability

Yeah. Failover of zero is a pretty bad failover. I'd take multiple chargers over reliability. People can break chargers, as opposed to them having a fault, so making them more fault tolerant doesn't fix the stupid people problem.

ei9go

liamog wrote: »

Did anybody see the detail of the person who got the overstay charge on Facebook?

They were plugged into the FastAC for 46 mins and received 4.9kWh, that means they must have had 6.6kW capable car.
€6.42 for 4.9kWh is an expensive way to charge a car, (though I'd of preferred they paid more, 20c/min would cost them €9.20)

They were driving a Zoe so should get 15 kWh in that time. you can only assume that they were somewhere above 90% when they plugged in or they have a fault in their Zoe

Bixler3

ei9go wrote: »

They were driving a Zoe so should get 15 kWh in that time. you can only assume that they were somewhere above 90% when they plugged in or they have a fault in their Zoe

In cold weather the charge rate on my Zoe can drop significantly from the expected 22Kw to less than 10.

liamog

ei9go wrote: »

They were driving a Zoe so should get 15 kWh in that time. you can only assume that they were somewhere above 90% when they plugged in or they have a fault in their Zoe

Seen their edit. They were 'topping up' a Zoe and didn't need the range. This is exactly the kind of behaviour why I prefer a per minute fee

MJohnston

Question for yis:

Fast-forward 10 years. Hypothetically, we're sitting in a land with a much broader network of fast chargers, much higher EV usage across the population, and massively increased total numbers of chargers in each spot.

At that point, are we going to rue the day we opened to the door to utility companies adding on extra charges like overstay fees, etc?

fricatus

ELM327 wrote: »

Interesting point re FCP charging costs... I went out to lunch with the folks from work today. We went to blanch through the SC.. and lo and behold no one charging.

Same for Navan, I havent seen anyone at it since payment came in! It's great!

Isn’t it just? Shows how much freeloading was going on. All those people who’d say “ooh, I need it for about 25 minutes more”, I suspect very few really did. It wasn’t so much “so I can get to <faraway destination>” as “because that’s when me dinner will be on the table”.

fricatus

MJohnston wrote: »

Question for yis:

Fast-forward 10 years. Hypothetically, we're sitting in a land with a much broader network of fast chargers, much higher EV usage across the population, and massively increased total numbers of chargers in each spot.

At that point, are we going to rue the day we opened to the door to utility companies adding on extra charges like overstay fees, etc?

I doubt it very much. To me it’s a fair price to pay for increased availability. The purpose of a fast charger is to dump a load of electrons into the battery as quickly as possible, which in effect means charging to no more than 85%, so that you can get going again. If people want to charge to 100% for whatever reason, they should move to an AC charger for the last 15%, and a number of these should be provided wherever there is a fast charger.

Availability and speed are key. People want to find an unoccupied charger, plug straight in, have a coffee, maybe a quick bite to eat, loo stop, then get back on their way with a fairly full battery. I can charge at home very cheaply, so when I do go out of range, fees for fast charging are no big deal.

ELM327

To put the pricing in context, I'm currently at an event at the slieve russell hotel in Cavan and we have a 500km+ round trip all told.
I'm paying a 30c per kWh fee and a 30c connection charge, for 22kW destination charger. But I pay it as it means no FCP stop needed.

People will pay for convenience, if this pricing scheme allows all the stuff we've been promised (fcp hubs, 150kW multiples etc) then I'm all for it. We'll look back fondly in 3 years at the days for SPOF charging. Like we look back now at 50kW fast charging as it transforms into mild fast.

Black_Knight

ELM327 wrote: »

To put the pricing in context, I'm currently at an event at the slieve russell hotel in Cavan and we have a 500km+ round trip all told.
I'm paying a 30c per kWh fee and a 30c connection charge, for 22kW destination charger. But I pay it as it means no FCP stop needed.

People will pay for convenience, if this pricing scheme allows all the stuff we've been promised (fcp hubs, 150kW multiples etc) then I'm all for it. We'll look back fondly in 3 years at the days for SPOF charging. Like we look back now at 50kW fast charging as it transforms into mild fast.

Curious. Would a man pay more for a destination charger than a FCP if it meant no need to fast charge on your journey home? (Technically I guess you are doing this given ESB offer 29c/kWh)

ELM327

Black_Knight wrote: »

Curious. Would a man pay more for a destination charger than a FCP if it meant no need to fast charge on your journey home? (Technically I guess you are doing this given ESB offer 29c/kWh)

That's exactly what I am doing.
Added about 50kWh at 1c per kWh premium +30c. Less than €1 more than esb but worth every penny when it means no stop!
Especially when the required stop is a piddly 50kW max anyway!

[Deleted User]

I used the Gorey Chademo on Thursday night. I was full sure Id timed the charge.
According to my account I stayed for 45mins and 19 secs....I was hit by the overtime penalty charge

29/11/2019Start 29/11/2019 01:14
Duration 00:45:19
Energy 24.03 kWh

McGiver

ELM327 wrote:

That's exactly what I am doing. Added about 50kWh at 1c per kWh premium +30c. Less than â‚¬1 more than esb but worth every penny when it means no stop! Especially when the required stop is a piddly 50kW max anyway!

With 11/22 kW AC capable cars it absolutely makes sense. All cars should be 11 or better 22 capable. We need to more AC chargers in cities / towns. Many more...not just DCs on the road.

kennethsmyth

TheTorment wrote: »

I used the Gorey Chademo on Thursday night. I was full sure Id timed the charge.
According to my account I stayed for 45mins and 19 secs....I was hit by the overtime penalty charge

29/11/2019Start 29/11/2019 01:14
Duration 00:45:19
Energy 24.03 kWh

Yep well that just means there’s zero leeway. It was over 45 mins

DrPhilG

Still waiting for a sensible answer from ecars as to why they feel they can justify charging me €10 to add my existing charge card to my account.

"To cover the administrative costs" of a 15 second type & click process doesn't cut it IMO.

unkel

DrPhilG wrote: »

Still waiting for a sensible answer from ecars as to why they feel they can justify charging me €10 to add my existing charge card to my account.

What? There must be some sort of mistake, it doesn't cost anything to add your existing card. I certainly didn't pay anything. Unless you have multiple cards or something?

DrPhilG

unkel wrote: »

What? There must be some sort of mistake, it doesn't cost anything to add your existing card. I certainly didn't pay anything. Unless you have multiple cards or something?

I have 2 cards. As far as I know everyone who registered with ecars over the years (before the new charging regime) got 2 cards sent out.

When I registered for the new system I registered the number from one of the cards and all was fine. Now I wanted to add the other pre-existing card onto the same account but ecars want to charge €10 for that.

It's no big deal, just means I'll have to leave the one card in the car rather than have one in my pocket and one in my wife's purse all the time.

But I'm still going to harass ecars to justify charging a €10 penalty.

fricatus

DrPhilG wrote: »

I have 2 cards. As far as I know everyone who registered with ecars over the years (before the new charging regime) got 2 cards sent out.

Can't speak for anyone else, but I registered in March 2018 and only got one card.

ELM327

McGiver wrote: »

With 11/22 kW AC capable cars it absolutely makes sense. All cars should be 11 or better 22 capable. We need to more AC chargers in cities / towns. Many more...not just DCs on the road.

Agreed.
Mine is 11kW but 22kW would have been so much better (whoever ordered mine obviously didn't tick that box!)

The problem that some 11kW cars have is that they are 16a only, meaning when plugged to a 32a single phase 7kW unit they can only take 16a 3.3kW on one phase. I know the initial 11kW i3 suffered with this.

11kW should be more common, considering a lot of homes in Europe have three phase 16a as standard.

Black_Knight

TheTorment wrote: »

I used the Gorey Chademo on Thursday night. I was full sure Id timed the charge.
According to my account I stayed for 45mins and 19 secs....I was hit by the overtime penalty charge

29/11/2019Start 29/11/2019 01:14
Duration 00:45:19
Energy 24.03 kWh

2am ended. Sure there'd be mad demand for charging that time of night.

Average of 32kW/hr though. Must of gone past the 80% ramp down threshold.

ELM327

Black_Knight wrote: »

2am ended. Sure there'd be mad demand for charging that time of night.

Average of 32kW/hr though. Must of gone past the 80% ramp down threshold.

Depending on the model. An L24 would be below 32kW as an average going to 80% especially at this time of year.

But it's good to see, the rules are the rules and it's auto applied.
Just disconnect on time and no overstay fee. I am in favour of this.

I do think in future (when they have more than 1 charger per site) that the overstay fee should not apply if there is less than 50% occupancy. Tesla do this now.

[Deleted User]

I got charged € 5.30 for 18.28 Kwh when I used the charger in Galway Saturday.

zg3409

DrPhilG wrote: »

Still waiting for a sensible answer from ecars as to why they feel they can justify charging me €10 to add my existing charge card to my account.

"To cover the administrative costs" of a 15 second type & click process doesn't cut it IMO.

I suspect it is to prevent those two EV households from only having one account and long term saving the 60 euro annual membership fee which I think applies to each member account and not to each card.

Saving 60 euro per year adds up to more than 10 euro quickly, but I will be switching from the 29c to the 33c account after 11 months and paying no annual membership. You would need to be doing taxi rates of public charging for the 4c per kWh to add up to 60 euro

E.g. 1500kWh per year on public or 8,250km at my typical inefficient driving.

They are probably also factoring the same cost as posting out an extra card, as opposed to you having the card from earlier. They will make very little money from many card holders who rarely use public chargers.

charlieIRL

Deleted User wrote: »

I got charged € 5.30 for 18.28 Kwh when I used the charger in Galway Saturday.

that works out correct at 0.29c a kW.

I was in Athlone saturday night and needed to charge when i got home but decided to try out the DC charger in case i need it on the road.
In 24 minutes I got 16.160kWh charge at a cost of €4.68. Charge speed was 41.78kW which i was happy enough with, my car is limited to 40kW as far as i know.

[Deleted User]

charlieIRL wrote: »

that works out correct at 0.29c a kW.

I was in Athlone saturday night and needed to charge when i got home but decided to try out the DC charger in case i need it on the road.
In 24 minutes I got 16.160kWh charge at a cost of €4.68. Charge speed was 41.78kW which i was happy enough with, my car is limited to 40kW as far as i know.

I just want to be able to use them when I need them.

Athlone is handy now, at least for CCS cars. But the problem remains in Galway , there are not enough DC chargers or AC points but I suppose the same could be said for most of the country.

charlieIRL

Deleted User wrote: »

Athlone is handy now, at least for CCS cars. But the problem remains in Galway , there are not enough DC chargers or AC points but I suppose the same could be said for most of the country.

It is now with the DC in town and the 4 ionity just a few minutes out the motorway.
With the paid charging all of a sudden the chargers are available to use!! I drove through town one evening and every single charger was being used, now its only the 22's you see occupied!

liamog

zg3409 wrote: »

I suspect it is to prevent those two EV households from only having one account and long term saving the 60 euro annual membership fee which I think applies to each member account and not to each card.

You are probably correct here, it wouldn't be too bad if they were at least honest about it.

The worst part is they have a unique key on email address and phone number when signing up. Whilst trying to register the two cards I've made four accounts. Only one of them works, my email, my phone. When I tried to set up my other email with my phone it failed (phone number already exists), I then tried my other email with my wife's phone and it also failed (email already exist). Lastly I tried my other email and my wifes phone (email and phone number already exist).

zg3409

liamog wrote: »

You are probably correct here, it wouldn't be too bad if they were at least honest about it.

The worst part is they have a unique key on email address and phone number when signing up. Whilst trying to register the two cards I've made four accounts. Only one of them works, my email, my phone. When I tried to set up my other email with my phone it failed (phone number already exists), I then tried my other email with my wife's phone and it also failed (email already exist). Lastly I tried my other email and my wifes phone (email and phone number already exist).

If your using gmail you can use this

Any website that has your email on file will think that email1@gmail.com is different from email1+me@gmail.com but gmail ignores the part after the +

So use email1+ecars@gmail.com and you will still get the emails, and you can see when Ecars sells your data to spammers.

ELM327

That's a great tip!