Random EV thoughts.....

liamog · 05-07-2021 12:05PM

Do you mean the locations where they install a 44kW DC charger as a replacement for a 2x22kW AC?

If so it makes sense to install a CCS+CHAdeMO charger as there would be no benefit to installing a dual CCS, and the extra cost of the CHAdeMO connector is minimal.
I do think they should be installing dual CCS on the 150kW HPC units when they are deployed alongside a 50kW CCS+CHAdeMO+FastAC unit.

ELM327 · 05-07-2021 12:06PM

slave1 wrote: »

My point being we are doing fresh installs of CHAdeMO chargers.
In a twisted view of things CHAdeMO EVs can actually have easier access to chargers given most/new EV's are CCS as the minute e.g. triple head

Its like a supercharger network for leafs!

finbarrk · 05-07-2021 12:21PM

I was in Killarney at the weekend. The town was busy. I checked the only public charging station that showed up on the plugshare app and both spaces were in use on Saturday evening. I don't have an EV, but was thinking of getting one. After seeing the charging place I mightn't bother.

MJohnston · 05-07-2021 12:25PM

finbarrk wrote: »

I was in Killarney at the weekend. The town was busy. I checked the only public charging station that showed up on the plugshare app and both spaces were in use on Saturday evening. I don't have an EV, but was thinking of getting one. After seeing the charging place I mightn't bother.

Thanks for the info!

slave1 · 05-07-2021 12:28PM

finbarrk wrote: »

I was in Killarney at the weekend. The town was busy. I checked the only public charging station that showed up on the plugshare app and both spaces were in use on Saturday evening. I don't have an EV, but was thinking of getting one. After seeing the charging place I mightn't bother.

Have a good read of various threads here, but in general...

Public charging is poor but better than it was 12months ago, should be better in 12 months time and so on and so on
EV's now have greater range so public charging is required less
Charge speeds are higher so charging time is less
Second hand market hugely improved from 12months ago as early adopters move to newer EVs
Grants are generous at the moment
EV kick ass in terms of performance and teck stuff

ELM327 · 05-07-2021 12:34PM

You just charge at home though?
Dont buy an EV if you dont have home charging

ELM327 · 05-07-2021 12:34PM

slave1 wrote: »

Have a good read of various threads here, but in general...
Public charging is poor but better than it was 12months ago, should be better in 12 months time and so on and so on

EV's now have greater range so public charging is required less

Charge speeds are higher so charging time is less

Second hand market hugely improved from 12months ago as early adopters move to newer EVs

Grants are generous at the moment

EV kick ass in terms of performance and teck stuff

Grants are only there for the cheap EVs though

AndyBoBandy · 05-07-2021 12:37PM

finbarrk wrote: »

I was in Killarney at the weekend. The town was busy. I checked the only public charging station that showed up on the plugshare app and both spaces were in use on Saturday evening. I don't have an EV, but was thinking of getting one. After seeing the charging place I mightn't bother.

How far do you live from Killarney? Chances are you live within range of the place so wouldn't need to use those public chargers. And if you live further, there's a good chance you'd have passed more than a few fast chargers on the route, so a quick 10-15 minute stop on the way there or home would have sufficed....

Public charging is expensive (yet still a lot cheaper than ICE costs), so the idea is to do as little public charging as possible, but when you do have to public charge, you don't mind paying the premium (above your own home electricity) for the few times a year where you actually need to public charge...

McGiver · 05-07-2021 12:37PM

irishgrover wrote: »

1. First time I've had to Queue at a charger for a couple of years (most of my trips are Gal <>Dub which is very well served)
2. The 150 unit might be under supplying?
3. Way too many people on the road don't know how to use chargers.

This is what will happen from now on as the EV uptake increases and more so...

It shows few issues though:

CCS unification in the EU market needed ASAP. Japanese-Chinese Chademo plug should be squeezed out of the EU market by the legislators, on the EU level. Similarly like we don't allow the sale of electronic devices with a Japanese AC plug. The small issue is - what to do with legacy cars in the EU with a Chademo plug (Nissan Leaf, Mistsubishi...).
Along with CCS only EU wide, we also need credit card payment for all chargers and clear UX/UI on the chargers, both physically as well as on screen. The charging process must be very simple for every Joe and Mary to use. It's NOT now - millions of apps, fobs etc etc.

cannco253 · 05-07-2021 12:40PM

MJohnston wrote: »

Well Chademo vs CCS is a failure of the industry really, but thankfully something we won't have to endure for much longer.

That will bring us down to "what speed is this charger?" and ultimately eCars are absolutely failing at explaining that clearly and simply to most people who aren't EV nerds.

eCars have a part in this, but owners must also know what their car can/can't do.
Lots of drivers I've met at chargers have no clue about the charging curve on their car, they arrive at eCars and complain they don't get 150kW/50kW or whatever it says on the tin, have no idea about how SoC effects the charge or even how much the car can take in. Whether this is poor communication from the dealer, lack of interest in reading the manual from the owner, or both it's not good for anyone.

Once the summer is over and more people have experienced longer trips in their cars and the public infrastructure limitations I'm sure this will improve.

slave1 · 05-07-2021 12:41PM

ELM327 wrote: »

Grants are only there for the cheap EVs though

VRT grant remains for NI imports (some good cars have come up there recently, I nearly got one before an Irish Kona came up well priced) and home charge points.
I've never looked at the new EV grant as I don't buy new cars nor entertain any sort of loans/PCP etc

ELM327 · 05-07-2021 12:41PM

McGiver wrote: »

This is what will happen from now on as the EV uptake increase and more so...

It shows few issues though:
CCS unification in the EU market needed ASAP. Japanese-Chinese Chademo plug should be squeezed out of the EU market by the legislators, on the EU level. Similarly like we don't allow the sale of electronic devices with a Japanese AC plug. The small issue is - what to do with legacy cars in the EU with a Chademo plug (Nissan Leaf, Mistsubishi...).

Along with CCS only EU wide, we also need credit card payment for all chargers and clear UX/UI on the chargers, both physically as well as on screen. The charging process must be very simple for every Joe and Mary to use. It's now - millions of apps, fobs etc etc.

The chademo is Japanese, the chinese have an (ironically) copied version called GB/T. Not supported outside of china and about as useful as type3c AC charging

Agree on the rest though, I think once someone invents a reasonable CCS plug to Chademo socket adapter we will see 100% phaseout of chademo like any other deprecated standard.

ELM327 · 05-07-2021 12:42PM

slave1 wrote: »

VRT grant remains for NI imports (some good cars have come up there recently, I nearly got one before an Irish Kona came up well priced) and home charge points.
I've never looked at the new EV grant as I don't buy new cars nor entertain any sort of loans/PCP etc

Again, only on the cheap ones. Anything over 50k and you pay full VRT of 7%. No 5k grant anymore.

AndyBoBandy · 05-07-2021 12:42PM

McGiver wrote: »

The small issue is - what to do with legacy cars in the EU with a Chademo plug (Nissan Leaf, Mistsubishi...).

For a start legislate for all new ones to be CCS, and once that's done, you maintain the existing network of CHAdeMO units up to a point, say for another 10 years... but install no new ones. CCS only from that point onwards.

Then in a few (10) years when the usage of CHAdeMO drops off a cliff, you can remove/upgrade most of them to CCS...

slave1 · 05-07-2021 12:43PM

cannco253 wrote: »

eCars have a part in this, but owners must also know what their car can/can't do.
Lots of drivers I've met at chargers have no clue about the charging curve on their car, they arrive at eCars and complain they don't get 150kW/50kW or whatever it says on the tin, have no idea about how SoC effects the charge or even how much the car can take in. Whether this is poor communication from the dealer, lack of interest in reading the manual from the owner, or both it's not good for anyone.

Once the summer is over and more people have experienced longer trips in their cars and the public infrastructure limitations I'm sure this will improve.

I'm 5 years into EV ownership and from the few travels I've made this past month or so there is serious more charger usage, perhaps that's just on my routes but there always seem to be a car queuing these days

ELM327 · 05-07-2021 12:48PM

Thats the problem with buying a car that is not supported by either Tesla and or Ionity networks. Or traveling outside the coverage of the respective network, you're left with crappy ecars SPOF, which are predominantly slow (50kw) chargers

MJohnston · 05-07-2021 12:58PM

cannco253 wrote: »

eCars have a part in this, but owners must also know what their car can/can't do.

Maybe right now they should know what their car can do, but long-term there's no reason that anyone should have to know in future.

This isn't like petrol and diesel where there are fundamental mechanical problems with getting it wrong. Instead every problem you describe is something that can be dealt with via user experience refinement and software.

Nobody should have to understand SoC — they should just be able to see accurate "time to X%" estimates on their car or the charging point.

Nobody should have to understand kW units and what they mean — instead we should have smart charge point mapping systems in cars that tell you how quickly you can get to X% of charge from the charge points near you or along your route.

Nobody should have to know the rules of various charge point models to understand whether they can plug in yet — it should be clearer than day on the charge point hardware.

The technology to do all of these things is freely available, but so much about electric cars is still stuck in the ICE mindset, and we're still in the enthusiast-only period of adoption, so they haven't been done.

cannco253 · 05-07-2021 12:59PM

slave1 wrote: »

I'm 5 years into EV ownership and from the few travels I've made this past month or so there is serious more charger usage, perhaps that's just on my routes but there always seem to be a car queuing these days

Yep I'm seeing that myself.

Our local Dunnes has a bank of 6 chargers and is full today and cars waiting to get in, first time I've seen it.

Summertime I guess

McGiver · 05-07-2021 01:07PM

slave1 wrote: »

Have a good read of various threads here, but in general...
Public charging is poor but better than it was 12months ago, should be better in 12 months time and so on and so on

No, it isn't - at ALL or by ANY measure.

EV numbers increased significantly.
The growth of the number of CCS connectors in the network (bar Ionity) since 2019 is very small. From roughly 85 CCS in January 2019 to 110 CCS today. That's completely inadequate. Most countries on the continent have had 100's of % growth of CCS connectors in the last 2.5 years.

CCS:EV ratio has descreased significantly. That is NOT an improvement, that's a worsening of the situation.

slave1 wrote: »

EV's now have greater range so public charging is required less

This is questionable. Even the longer range cars have to stop somewhere sometime eventually. Evident in my recent travels - Ionity and Circle K charger all full and qued, largely by longer range cars.

slave1 wrote: »

Charge speeds are higher so charging time is less

Applies only for Ionity. Battery sizes increased as well, but eCars charging speed didn't increase accordingly. We're still looking at 30+ minute stop at an FCP/UFCP.

slave1 wrote: »

[*]Second hand market hugely improved from 12months ago as early adopters move to newer EVs

OK, but that pushes the relatively lower range cars to the circulation - exacerbating all the issues...

slave1 wrote: »

Grants are generous at the moment

No, they aren't. They suck compared to Norway or even France. And instead of increasing subsidies the Gov has started decreasing them at a stage of only 1-2% adoption - totally wrong.

McGiver · 05-07-2021 01:10PM

ELM327 wrote: »

The chademo is Japanese, the chinese have an (ironically) copied version called GB/T. Not supported outside of china and about as useful as type3c AC charging

Agree on the rest though, I think once someone invents a reasonable CCS plug to Chademo socket adapter we will see 100% phaseout of chademo like any other deprecated standard.

Chinese have merged with the Chademo. It was on the cards all along. There can't be so many standards. It's Chademo (Asia) vs CCS (EU/NA) now.

https://www.chademo.com/chademo-3-0-released/

On 24 April 2020, CHAdeMO Association has released the latest CHAdeMO protocol (CHAdeMO 3.0) to its Regular members, specifying the requirements for designing the next-generation CHAdeMO chargers (“technical paper”), using the brand-new, identical plug with China’s GB/T protocol, allowing for maximum current of 600A.

EDIT:
https://electrek.co/2020/04/28/chademo-and-china-release-new-ev-quick-charging-standard-in-a-bid-to-leapfrog-the-industry/

Called "ChaoJi"

MJohnston · 05-07-2021 01:56PM

McGiver wrote: »

It's Chademo (Asia) vs CCS (EU/NA) now.

There's no "vs" really — cars for each market will be built with the charging connectors that are dominating in that market. Japan will remain a Chademo country, Europe will remain a CCS continent.

We're lucky enough not to live anywhere where there will be frustrating overlaps between the two.

ELM327 · 05-07-2021 02:04PM

MJohnston wrote: »

There's no "vs" really — cars for each market will be built with the charging connectors that are dominating in that market. Japan will remain a Chademo country, Europe will remain a CCS continent.

We're lucky enough not to live anywhere where there will be frustrating overlaps between the two.

Indeed. Australia is even worse. They have type 1 and type 2 CCS.:eek:

McGiver wrote: »

Chinese have merged with the Chademo. It was on the cards all along. There can't be so many standards. It's Chademo (Asia) vs CCS (EU/NA) now.

https://www.chademo.com/chademo-3-0-released/

EDIT:
https://electrek.co/2020/04/28/chademo-and-china-release-new-ev-quick-charging-standard-in-a-bid-to-leapfrog-the-industry/

Called "ChaoJi"

Thanks, I wasnt aware of that. As far as I knew, Tesla were still shipping cars in China with native GBT charging.

liamog · 05-07-2021 02:22PM

Has there been any updates on the ChaoJi connector that will replace the CHAdeMO and GB/T connectors in Japan and China?

slave1 · 05-07-2021 03:04PM

The cables really are crazy for new entrants, I echo comments about new EV owners being let out into the wild by dealers.
I've seen it all, trying to use eCars cards on all other chargers, trying to put CHAdeMO into Type 2 ports and the most frequent is hooking up a second DC connection on the various 50kW chargers which if fraught with issues.
Another one is hooking up to the AC charge points beside the DC chargers (when DC occupied) and owners bewildered they are not getting 50kWh speeds.
If you are queuing for a DC charger there is absolutely no point in hooking up a ~7kW (or 11 even) AC cable, not worth the effort or wear/tear on connectors

the_amazing_raisin · 05-07-2021 03:15PM

slave1 wrote: »

The cables really are crazy for new entrants, I echo comments about new EV owners being let out into the wild by dealers.
I've seen it all, trying to use eCars cards on all other chargers, trying to put CHAdeMO into Type 2 ports and the most frequent is hooking up a second DC connection on the various 50kW chargers which if fraught with issues.
Another one is hooking up to the AC charge points beside the DC chargers (when DC occupied) and owners bewildered they are not getting 50kWh speeds.
If you are queuing for a DC charger there is absolutely no point in hooking up a ~7kW (or 11 even) AC cable, not worth the effort or wear/tear on connectors

Yeah I'd generally agree, I think a lot of it boils down to dealers not being knowledgeable about EVs themselves

I really think that the salespeople should walk the customer through the process of using an AC and DC charger on the pickup day. When my mum was picking up her ID.3 I went with her and made sure she plugged and unplugged from the garages CCS charger so she knew how it worked and could see the car charging

Maybe the RSA or someone can run an ad campaign to raise awareness

Otherwise you'll end up with folks like this clown

Black_Knight · 05-07-2021 04:06PM

Wish me luck. Wife is taking the ID.4 on a trip around Munster tomorrow with no time to stop and charge. 321km according to Google. I'm confident it'll be doable in 1 full charge, but ABRP says it's a bit tighter than I imagined, arriving home with only 10% battery. 10% is still 40km, so not as bad as 10% in my old Ioniq, but the final stint of the route is from Limerick to Cork... no mans land.

McGiver · 05-07-2021 04:12PM

liamog wrote: »

Has there been any updates on the ChaoJi connector that will replace the CHAdeMO and GB/T connectors in Japan and China?

I can't find anything online (but I don't search in Chinese)...
Chademo 3.0 is a future standard, but I presume that's what will be happening in 2021 and onwards very soon, at least in the Asian market.

the_amazing_raisin · 05-07-2021 04:33PM

Black_Knight wrote: »

Wish me luck. Wife is taking the ID.4 on a trip around Munster tomorrow with no time to stop and charge. 321km according to Google. I'm confident it'll be doable in 1 full charge, but ABRP says it's a bit tighter than I imagined, arriving home with only 10% battery. 10% is still 40km, so not as bad as 10% in my old Ioniq, but the final stint of the route is from Limerick to Cork... no mans land.

Haha, surely we should be wishing her luck, or is it your head on the block if she runs out of juice

Can't imagine 321km is much of a challenge, I'd be confident to get well over 400km at motorway speeds in summer

Black_Knight · 05-07-2021 04:42PM

the_amazing_raisin wrote: »

Haha, surely we should be wishing her luck, or is it your head on the block if she runs out of juice

Can't imagine 321km is much of a challenge, I'd be confident to get well over 400km at motorway speeds in summer

I've told her to grab her lunch at a charger if she's in doubt. Birdhill is conveniently placed and all.

irishgrover · 05-07-2021 06:14PM

the_amazing_raisin wrote: »

Haha, surely we should be wishing her luck, or is it your head on the block if she runs out of juice

Can't imagine 321km is much of a challenge, I'd be confident to get well over 400km at motorway speeds in summer

don't know what size the batt is on the ID
However I know that motorway speed (and possibly a bit more :-) ) is the difference between 455 and 350 range on my range in a 64kW soul

Random EV thoughts.....

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