Fastned looking for locations Ireland and UK

the_amazing_raisin · 11-01-2021 2:37pm #1

So I see the Dutch charging network are hunting for locations to setup in the UK and Ireland

https://fastnedcharging.com/en/find-great-locations

As much as having a 350kW charger in my driveway would be nice, I'm fairly sure suggesting my house won't work. But I guess if anyone here happens to know anyone with a well placed business who could benefit from a few HPCs then it might be worth mentioning to them

I suppose we could always get gangs of EV drivers in a particular town to petition some local businesses to sign up. Having a few extra customers turning up to buy some coffee and donuts every day can be pretty compelling to business owners

zg3409 · 11-01-2021 5:18pm

Building on our European network of sites, we continue to seek additional location opportunities in the UK and Republic of Ireland to develop our network and capitalise on the rapidly growing trend for EV adoption.

From:
https://fastnedcharging.com/en/find-great-locations

Fastned are a charging network similar to Ionity or ESB ecars but tend to have large forecourts capable of charging many cars.

BigAl81 · 11-01-2021 10:01pm

This would be great!!

I was going to recommend a few locations, but it's not for the general public it seems, more for land owners to suggest their plots.

What would you reckon the best case would be for plugging your car into a Fastned station in Ireland? 2023??

the_amazing_raisin · 12-01-2021 9:53am

BigAl81 wrote: »

This would be great!!

I was going to recommend a few locations, but it's not for the general public it seems, more for land owners to suggest their plots.

What would you reckon the best case would be for plugging your car into a Fastned station in Ireland? 2023??

Yeah unfortunately we can't suggest other people's land, that would make it simpler

If they can find a local partner, the same way Ionity has partnered with Circle K, then it should be fairly quick.

Maybe bang an email off to Applegreen and Aldi, if we got fast chargers in all their locations then between them we'd basically have the whole country covered

liamog · 12-01-2021 10:33am

I'd love for a Fastned station to go in at M3 Service Station on the N3 near Clonee. It would probably be an ideal situation being on an interurban and the outskirts of a city. The only problem, I've not seen any moves by Maxol to be proactive with EV charging.

AndyBoBandy · 12-01-2021 10:52am

I think a great location for a fast hub would be at the Circle K Clonshaugh... Currently there's only an eCars unit there with 1 CCS, 1 CHAdeMO & 1 Type 2. (and if memory serves me, hasn't this been 'reserved' quite a few times in the last number of months??)

Prime location at the M1/M50 interchange, and very close to Dublin airport (for the taxi's). Perfect for folk coming down the M1 from the North to get a top up before entering Dublin City, while their batteries are still warm for higher charge rates, or for folk coming around the M50 going to the airport etc....

Site looks suitable enough with plenty of green fields surrounding it, next to 2 large hotels with plenty of refreshment options in the garage & hotels (Supermacs/Papa Johns, and then the mid level stuff in the hotels).

https://www.google.ie/maps/@53.4120682,-6.2168824,649m/data=!3m1!1e3

AndyBoBandy · 12-01-2021 10:55am

liamog wrote: »

I'd love for a Fastned station to go in at M3 Service Station on the N3 near Clonee. It would probably be an ideal situation being on an interurban and the outskirts of a city. The only problem, I've not seen any moves by Maxol to be proactive with EV charging.

That services is relatively new isn't it? I've been there a few times over the last few months for coffee when going to collect junior BoBandy from his Saturday school out that way, and can't believe there are no chargers of any description there.

As a location for a hub, it couldn't really be better placed in my opinion!! Just outside the M50 so inbound traffic get fast top ups into warm batteries to fulfil all their needs while in Dublin, and outbound traffic get top up's to ensure they can get to their destination (chargers) without any range anxiety.

Krusty_Clown · 12-01-2021 10:59am

The Park Carrickmines - Just off the M50, shops/toilets/restaurant/retail, poor charging infrastructure, nearby ESB substations and surrounded by fields. Unfortunately I don't own any of them. :rolleyes:

the_amazing_raisin · 12-01-2021 11:02am

liamog wrote: »

I'd love for a Fastned station to go in at M3 Service Station on the N3 near Clonee. It would probably be an ideal situation being on an interurban and the outskirts of a city. The only problem, I've not seen any moves by Maxol to be proactive with EV charging.

The M3 seems pretty badly served with fast chargers, it could definitely do with a couple of charging hubs

Maxol certainly seem fairly uninterested in fast chargers, only seen 1 station with an ESB charger and it was beside the bins

AndyBoBandy · 12-01-2021 11:05am

Would it be a case that that there's not such an appetite for such hubs in Ireland because of the belief & expectation that battery tech improvements and increased range will render large hubs in Ireland redundant in the not too distant future?

Yes we need hubs for the current fleet, and the new fleet for the next 10-20 years.... but beyond that, if cars are averaging ranges of 500-1,000km, will these hubs really be still needed (so from a business point of view, putting in a large expensive hub that could be redundant in 20-30 years might not make much financial sense, especially if the return on investment is slow, and in jeopardy in the future...)

slave1 · 12-01-2021 11:17am

Great on paper but I feel UK will be their predominant area of attention, maybe one in/around Dublin is about it

the_amazing_raisin · 12-01-2021 11:24am

AndyBoBandy wrote: »

Would it be a case that that there's not such an appetite for such hubs in Ireland because of the belief & expectation that battery tech improvements and increased range will render large hubs in Ireland redundant in the not too distant future?

Yes we need hubs for the current fleet, and the new fleet for the next 10-20 years.... but beyond that, if cars are averaging ranges of 500-1,000km, will these hubs really be still needed (so from a business point of view, putting in a large expensive hub that could be redundant in 20-30 years might not make much financial sense, especially if the return on investment is slow, and in jeopardy in the future...)

I see your point but I'm not sure it'll happen quite as quickly as 10 years. There will be cheaper EVs coming out in the next few years, but they're likely to compromise on battery capacity to meet their price targets and probably have around 250km of range. So they'll still need fast charging for long journeys

I really feel that EVs with 600-800km ranges are always going to be a rarity. It's a bit like smartphones, you might remember a few years back there was a bit of a battery race going on with smartphones to try and get 2 or 3 days charge, but then they figured out they only need to last 1 day reliably and everyone was used to charging every day anyway.

I think EVs will do the same, once they have a range figure that almost everyone will be happy with (probably 400km or so) then they'll focus on making car cheaper rather than longer range. The truly long range EVs will be confined to the luxury car segment most likely

Then there's all the vans and trucks which need to go electric. They're definitely going to need at least 1 fast charge per day

Probably the big 30 charger hub like Gridsrerve in the UK wouldn't work in many places here, but it'd be nice to see more hubs with 4 or more chargers, so you can fairly confident that when you arrive there'll be at least 1 charger working and available

slave1 · 12-01-2021 12:34pm

cruisey1987 wrote: »

...I really feel that EVs with 600-800km ranges are always going to be a rarity...

Agreed, they're simply a paradox, longer range = bigger battery, bigger battery = heavier, heavier = shorter range.
There has to be a mathematical formulae where the increase in battery weight has too small an increase in range and economically unsound.
Tesla still have not gone past the 100kWh model all these years later, has to be a reason for that

[Deleted User] · 12-01-2021 1:27pm

Great, another company to register with, another app, another access card, it's a joke, when I go to a petrol station I pay with Euro's simple, don't have to register with different companies, it's a joke.

the_amazing_raisin · 12-01-2021 1:38pm

Deleted User wrote: »

Great, another company to register with, another app, another access card, it's a joke, when I go to a petrol station I pay with Euro's simple, don't have to register with different companies, it's a joke.

Yeah I agree, I'd be happy enough to pay more even if it meant I could pay cash, like a cash price and members price

You'd wonder what was so wrong with just using a credit card to pay for charging, it works everywhere else

[Deleted User] · 12-01-2021 1:41pm

cruisey1987 wrote: »

Yeah I agree, I'd be happy enough to pay more even if it meant I could pay cash, like a cash price and members price

You'd wonder what was so wrong with just using a credit card to pay for charging, it works everywhere else

Probably afraid of credit card scamming or whatever they call it. But the option to pay at the till in the shop should be there but I suppose it would add to the complexity but they know if you buy Petrol exactly what you put into the car so it's not at all impossible to do the same for chargers except that most of the chargers if not all of them are not owned by the Petrol stations.

Really though, should be one payment system it's 2021 ffs.

AndyBoBandy · 12-01-2021 2:29pm

cruisey1987 wrote: »

You'd wonder what was so wrong with just using a credit card to pay for charging, it works everywhere else

Paying with credit cards means (like with petrol/diesel), you can use them with any provider, so can shop around for the best price. This is good for the consumer as it keeps prices competitive across vendors.

The subscription/account/app/fob model means you are tied in with these vendors, through either a subscription, pre-pay or bank/debit account.. so in most cases you are almost committed to them, and as such, they don't need to be as competitive as perhaps they should..

If this Fastend crowd came in and did hubs properly, say 10-12 8+ car hubs around the country, and competed with ESB, they'd clean up and kill off eCars notions of hubs forever.

liamog · 12-01-2021 3:05pm

AndyBoBandy wrote: »

If this Fastend crowd came in and did hubs properly, say 10-12 8+ car hubs around the country, and competed with ESB, they'd clean up and kill off eCars notions of hubs forever.

Slightly different business model though, Fastned will only build a hub where it makes commercial sense, eCars have to install chargers where they are needed for coverage reasons. In an ideal world we'd have the NTA running open tenders to operate sites, but apparently we can only manage that for toll roads like the M3.

the_amazing_raisin · 12-01-2021 3:40pm

liamog wrote: »

Slightly different business model though, Fastned will only build a hub where it makes commercial sense, eCars have to install chargers where they are needed for coverage reasons. In an ideal world we'd have the NTA running open tenders to operate sites, but apparently we can only manage that for toll roads like the M3.

I'd be quite happy if the commercial hubs were along motorways only, it'd mean there's decent charging for the majority of long journeys

Force the ESB and local councils to identify places where charging is needed but isn't commercially viable and use public money to build chargers there, rather than 1x 50kW charger per motorway services

[Deleted User] · 12-01-2021 3:42pm

What I don't like at the ESB chargers is having to pay extra for a 150 Kw charger when a 50 Kw is in use when I have absolutely no benefit from the extra power capability.

liamog · 12-01-2021 3:49pm

cruisey1987 wrote: »

I'd be quite happy if the commercial hubs were along motorways only, it'd mean there's decent charging for the majority of long journeys

Fastned believe commercially viable locations also include non motorway hubs, I agree.

the_amazing_raisin · 12-01-2021 4:11pm

So on the off chance we actually wanted to do something about this (we being a well organised and representative group of EV drivers

) what could we do?

I'm guessing there aren't any CEOs of nationwide companies hanging around here who would be willing to have a load of fast chargers installed on their sites (speak now if you are) so we're a bit stuck

The only thing I can think of would be for anyone interested to contact any local business group, council reps or any big retail parks in their area and send on the link with a message to the effect of "put in chargers and I will hang around your business and spend my money on things you sell"

liamog · 12-01-2021 4:31pm

I emailed the contact address for the Plaza Group, it will probably be ignored, but I figured it's worth a shot.

the_amazing_raisin · 12-01-2021 4:41pm

liamog wrote: »

I emailed the contact address for the Plaza Group, it will probably be ignored, but I figured it's worth a shot.

Yeah it's probably a plan with a 99% chance of failure, but all we can do is try

the_amazing_raisin · 12-01-2021 5:29pm

Right, I've emailed the Fingal chamber of commerce, some local councillors, DAA, Maxol, Applegreen and Aldi

Most likely we won't see a single Fastned charger (or any charger) installed as a result of any of this, but hey, I tried

liamog · 12-01-2021 5:30pm

cruisey1987 wrote: »

Right, I've emailed the Fingal chamber of commerce, some local councillors, DAA, Maxol, Applegreen and Aldi

Most likely we won't see a single Fastned charger (or any charger) installed as a result of any of this, but hey, I tried

Have you considered winning the lotto, and buying a plot of land next to a motorway?

the_amazing_raisin · 12-01-2021 5:32pm

liamog wrote: »

Have you considered winning the lotto, and buying a plot of land next to a motorway?

The missus played the lotto yesterday, didn't win unfortunately

If she does win next time I'll suggest that

liamog · 12-01-2021 5:38pm

Make sure you pick a field with a pylon and a good gap between junctions!

dsandson · 27-11-2023 12:13pm

2 new Fastned sites announced in Northern Ireland, both just going through planning. Located at Antrim Junction 1 shopping centre, and Banbridge. The latter is on the main Belfast - Dublin route, and will be a big help.

Antrim planning shows 6x double sided Alpitronics 400kW, although press release shows 300kW. All with pull through bays & signature canopy.

https://evani.uk/fastned-unveils-plans-for-first-2-ultra-rapid-hubs-in-northern-ireland/

https://planningregister.planningsystemni.gov.uk/application/679477

liamog · 27-11-2023 12:55pm

Always figured The Boulevard was a great spot for a charging hub

Fastned looking for locations Ireland and UK

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