ESB eCars

The new Athlone eCars place is directly in front of a Hotel so I suppose if the timing was right you could go for the likes of a carvery, it is directly behind a Centra so you could go for a deli choice, it's also right beside a McD's.
Personally I would prefer the hot food at the Galway Plaza

McGiver

Over the past 18-24 months, there has been significant progress:

18 standard chargers have been upgraded to fast (up to 50kW) chargers

6 high power charging hubs have been deployed

These upgrades have led to increased reliability and strength of the ESB public EV charging network

Ecars newsletter. I call their bluff. This is not significant progress by any measure.

And there are no hubs, zero. Two FCPs is not a hub.

This is a hub:
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24 FCPs added (of which 18 were upgrades not additions per se) in the last 2 years is just poor. That's just 10-12 per year. With this pace no way the network will be anywhere near even remotely able to support those 1M EVs by 2030. That means the whole 2030 gov goal is a lie and bullshíte, and the gov is basically laughing at us what idiots the EV people are.

There's just 120 odd FCPs in the whole country.

This newsletter is like throwing a red rag to a bull...:mad:

McGiver wrote: »

Ecars newsletter. I call their bluff. This is not significant progress by any measure.

And there are no hubs, zero. Two FCPs is not a hub.

This is a hub:

24 FCPs added (of which 18 were upgrades not additions per se) in the last 2 years is just poor. That's just 10-12 per year. With this pace no way the network will be anywhere near even remotely able to support those 1M EVs by 2030. That means the whole 2030 gov goal is a lie and bullshíte, and the gov is basically laughing at us what idiots the EV people are.

There's just 120 odd FCPs in the whole country.

This newsletter is like throwing a red rag to a bull...:mad:

Pretty abysmal alright. They keep promising all these changes and new sites and extra units, but very little materialises. The AC-DC upgrades were mostly pointless, though a few were kinda needed in Mayo and Clare. Though those places also could of done with additional units, not replacements.

Id like to see ESB adding 2nd units to their existing FCP sites. That to me would be progress. New sites would be great in some of the sparse areas (South West, North West/Midlands) but accountability where there are units would be very much welcome.

MJohnston

That Fastned Hub seems like an awful layout to be honest. Great capacity, but when you have that much space, why not go for the petrol pump layout?

McGiver

MJohnston wrote:

That Fastned Hub seems like an awful layout to be honest. Great capacity, but when you have that much space, why not go for the petrol pump layout?

I agree but beggars are not choosers. We'd happily accept such hub here somewhere on the M4.

McGiver

Black_Knight wrote:

Id like to see ESB adding 2nd units to their existing FCP sites. That to me would be progress. New sites would be great in some of the sparse areas (South West, North West/Midlands) but accountability where there are units would be very much welcome.

Exactly. If they added 1 or 2 extra units to the existing motorway sites then we call it progress.

The whole west (north, south, central) is a blackhole but there isn't much population density there so they're somewhat excused. However along the Wild Atlantic Way, quite a touristy place, there aren't even SCPs there to talk of...

Just to compare the pace and 120 CCS with Czechia, which has about the same number of EVs, a bit longer motorway network and roughly the same area as Ireland and now has 440 CCS units. They're adding ~ 100 per year or so. Most of that is being added by the two largest electricity providers (basically like ESB and SSE here). So it can be done, even without Fastned.

Look at the dynamic:

ESB added 7 in the last 4 months. Sadly, that's pretty good going from them!

Black_Knight wrote: »

ESB added 7 in the last 4 months. Sadly, that's pretty good going from them!

They’ll all be getting their performance related bonus then.....

It'll certainly be interesting to see usage when things open up... eventually.

Frankly I'd be happy enough if I saw more evidence of prep work going on for more chargers. For example at somewhere like Portlaois they've one HCP and one FCP, what happens when they want to add more?

If someone at ESB was planning ahead properly they'd be cabled up for an 8 car hub. Even if there's only 2 chargers there now it'd be easy to add more later as the demand increases

the_amazing_raisin wrote: »

Frankly I'd be happy enough if I saw more evidence of prep work going on for more chargers. For example at somewhere like Portlaois they've one HCP and one FCP, what happens when they want to add more?

If someone at ESB was planning ahead properly they'd be cabled up for an 8 car hub. Even if there's only 2 chargers there now it'd be easy to add more later as the demand increases

Who's to say they're not!?

Black_Knight wrote: »

Who's to say they're not!?

I'll take a wild stab in the dark, and say they're not......

Black_Knight wrote: »

Who's to say they're not!?

There would probably be more pedastals for chargers if they did, like those 'coming soon' chargers at the M1 service stations

innrain

It's bashing day for ecars but I think it is of their own making with the newsletter which basically lists what? Like a petrol station saying "we've change the petrol pump with a brand new one and now it really works"
They are milking this 20M (50/50 split with gubberment) since April 2019.
And it is Govs fault. I mean 10M for 5 years or 2M per years stands to nothing. Don't want to compare it to other expenditure from public money but a cinema on the west coast comes to mind.
Some articles about how other govs in EU supports the expansion of charging infrastructure
https://www.fleeteurope.com/en/new-energies/europe/features/overview-incentives-ev-charging-europe?t%5B0%5D=EVBox&curl=1
Reading the list of support that DE has in place is astounding. I'm not surprised Ionity has 100 stations there. They even have subsidies for grid connection up to 50k! They subsidies DC chargers at around 30k!
When it comes to Ireland it just mumbles and counts the same investment twice but there is nothing to incentivize the workplaces/commercial operators.
Give 30K for each DC charger to petrol station/car park operators/ shops etc and thinks will look different.

innrain wrote: »

Some articles about how other govs in EU supports the expansion of charging infrastructure
https://www.fleeteurope.com/en/new-energies/europe/features/overview-incentives-ev-charging-europe?t%5B0%5D=EVBox&curl=1
Reading the list of support that DE has in place is astounding. I'm not surprised Ionity has 100 stations there. They even have subsidies for grid connection up to 50k!

Whereas here, I wouldn't be at all surprised if ESB eCars are paying phenomenal sums of money to ESB Networks to do their grid connections/upgrades for them...

Keep in in the family eh??

:rolleyes:

AndyBoBandy wrote: »

Whereas here, I wouldn't be at all surprised if ESB eCars are paying phenomenal sums of money to ESB Networks to do their grid connections/upgrades for them...

Keep in in the family eh?? :rolleyes:

No doubt they never have issues with ESB Networks taking forever to install proper grid connections, unlike any of the competing charging networks

cannco253

Does anyone have any details of the charging hub planned for Oranmore, first I heard of it was in the newsletter.

Mullingar, Co Westmeath,
Oranmore, Co Galway,
Lahey, Co Donegal
and Junction 14, Mayfield, off the M7

I guess Oranmore is nice when doing a Galway-Cork run, but still nothing between Cork and Limerick.

N4 will have Mullingar and Carrick-on-shannon hubs, so not bad there.

Cork/Kerry/M8 seems a bit of an obvious gap from Ecars in terms of hubs.

Q1 Sales figures are in;

2,269 CCS cars
445 CHAdeMO (Nissan Leaf's)

or to show it as a percentage;

16.76% of passenger EV's sold in Q1 are CHAdeMO, the other 83.24% were CCS

All ESB FCP sites are currently (and being rolled out at) 50% CHAdeMO to 50% CCS

Seriously, it's madness anyone not buying a Leaf now, they pretty much have their own private charging network, like Tesla... but just a lot more extensive...

Will be really interesting to see what configuration J14/Mayfield is in terms of plug split, but I'm guessing 4 CHAdeMO & 4 CCS..

AndyBoBandy wrote: »

Q1 Sales figures are in;

2,269 CCS cars
445 CHAdeMO (Nissan Leaf's)

or to show it as a percentage;

16.76% of passenger EV's sold in Q1 are CHAdeMO, the other 83.24% were CCS

All ESB FCP sites are currently (and being rolled out at) 50% CHAdeMO to 50% CCS

Seriously, it's madness anyone not buying a Leaf now, they pretty much have their own private charging network, like Tesla... but just a lot more extensive...

Will be really interesting to see what configuration J14/Mayfield is in terms of plug split, but I'm guessing 4 CHAdeMO & 4 CCS..

Over the last 2 weeks, CCS was in full use at sites 55% of the time. ie. If DC sites were in use for 100 hours of the last 2 weeks, 55 of those hours were spent charging CCS, 45 of those hours spent charging CHAdeMO, so the usage split is still close enough. Newer cars also tend to have much more range, and thus much less reliability on the network.

It's 66% CCS over the last week, but all those new ID.4 drivers are possibly bumping things up

Pandemic/lockdown season doesn't help show the true nature of the network, but it's the only metric I have.

AndyBoBandy wrote: »

Q1 Sales figures are in;

2,269 CCS cars
445 CHAdeMO (Nissan Leaf's)

or to show it as a percentage;

16.76% of passenger EV's sold in Q1 are CHAdeMO, the other 83.24% were CCS

All ESB FCP sites are currently (and being rolled out at) 50% CHAdeMO to 50% CCS

Seriously, it's madness anyone not buying a Leaf now, they pretty much have their own private charging network, like Tesla... but just a lot more extensive...

Will be really interesting to see what configuration J14/Mayfield is in terms of plug split, but I'm guessing 4 CHAdeMO & 4 CCS..

But it's not about Q1 2021 sales, it's about what are on the roads in total right now.
Rapids split 50/50 is fine but the High Power should be CCS only

Black_Knight wrote: »

Pandemic/lockdown season doesn't help show the true nature of the network, but it's the only metric I have.

Yeah, numbers will be almost pointless until we get countrywide travel again....

So will be interesting to see the spit as the year progresses.. My 55 weeks of EV ownership have all been under some form of lockdown or restriction, and a lot of new cars have been sold since then.... Folks will be itching to get driving around the country when they can again... thats when we'll truly understand how inadequate the network is...

slave1 wrote: »

But it's not about Q1 2021 sales, it's about what are on the roads in total right now.
Rapids split 50/50 is fine but the High Power should be CCS only

It came up before that there were/are 6,000 Leaf's in total on the road in Ireland (probably around 6,400 now), CCS cars will be shifting at a rate of about 8,000-10,000+ per year nowadays, so they definitely need to be doing the HPC's as CCS only, or planning to change them very soon..... but they're not... The proof will be how J14 is configured, but I'm guessing 4 CCS/4 CHAdeMO..

AndyBoBandy wrote: »

Yeah, numbers will be almost pointless until we get countrywide travel again....

So will be interesting to see the spit as the year progresses.. My 55 weeks of EV ownership have all been under some form of lockdown or restriction, and a lot of new cars have been sold since then.... Folks will be itching to get driving around the country when they can again... thats when we'll truly understand how inadequate the network is...

My guess is that it's going to be total carnage at fast chargers when lockdown ends. Hopefully I'll have my ID.4 by then and I'm itching to do a few long distance drives

With a bit of luck the heightened demand will encourage other players to come into the market (I'm still hoping to see Fastned in Ireland) and eCars will either pull the thumb out or fold under the pressure

ELM327

I think it actually makes a great argument to buy a leaf62.
You have a private leaf owner only network, and you're the only car that can charge at the 70kW chademo "HPC"

ELM327 wrote: »

I think it actually makes a great argument to buy a leaf62.
You have a private leaf owner only network, and you're the only car that can charge at the 70kW chademo "HPC"

Right up to the moment it rapidgates and your charging speed is cut in half

ELM327

For the 40, yes, but the 62 you get at least one good session at 70kW. That's enough for 450-500 km (full battery plus 1 fast charge to 80%).
I think the 62 the battery is big enough to make rapidgate a once or twice a year thing.

ELM327 wrote: »

I think it actually makes a great argument to buy a leaf62.
You have a private leaf owner only network, and you're the only car that can charge at the 70kW chademo "HPC"

I get your point but that's a bad reason to be buying a Leaf (and I'm a Leaf owner)

innrain

the_amazing_raisin wrote: »

My guess is that it's going to be total carnage at fast chargers when lockdown ends. Hopefully I'll have my ID.4 by then and I'm itching to do a few long distance drives

With a bit of luck the heightened demand will encourage other players to come into the market (I'm still hoping to see Fastned in Ireland) and eCars will either pull the thumb out or fold under the pressure

On April 2019 when the "expansion" was announced there were around 4.6k EVs. Since then the fleet increased with 8.8k. Around 5.2k new EVs (40% of the EVs on the road) sold since the lockdown started. When these 5k cars hit the road is going to be as you said... what is the word for cars stampede?