ESB eCars

As a former member of the committee of that IEVOA group and current paid member I don't feel that they do enough questioning of ecars for the lets be honest woeful charger rollout especially given that public money is concerned. I feel that the committee is let down by a lack of coordination and some legacy members not resigning their roles years after their interest and commitment has clearly waned. They got some new committee members and do some interesting events but as an advocacy lobby group they are, were, and will be as bad as ecars anna is at replying.

Silent Running wrote: »

If the IEVOA came out strong and criticised government and ESB for the poor performance we might get somewhere. But their view seems to be that everything's grand.

They has a rep from the ESB on one of their videos a while ago, saying that they've drawn down €1M of the €10m available to them. I was waiting for someone to ask him why it was only €1M when so much work could be done. But then I realised that... everything's grand. :rolleyes:

I'd sign this...absolutely agree.
IEVOA are not lobbying enough for critical legislation - cut red tape for charge installation, mandating charger installation for certain entities/settings, legislating subsidies/perks a la Norway etc.

What's worse, they totally fail holding Ecars into account, e.g. by scrutinising the plans vs the results (bang for the buck and if taxpayers money is well invested), and also by bringing international comparisons into play showing how poorly Ireland compares & performs vs other European countries (just as I did in my 10 minutes of reasearch and write up).

the_amazing_raisin wrote: »

I guess that if IEVOA starts asking difficult questions then the ESB will stop talking to them and might talk to a diffeent EV owners group, which would make IEVOA as irrelevant to the ESB as it is to EV owners

There's no other official, orgnised, registred EV lobby group AFAIK.

MJohnston wrote: »

Just purely out of curiosity, here's those figures weighted by population density (units are CCS connectors per person per square km, I suppose):

Ireland 1.18 to 1.53
Belgium 0.26 to 0.52
Croatia 1.03 to 5.48
Czechia 0.79 to 3.74
Finland 3.24 to 16.19*
Slovakia 0.44 to 1.75
Sweden 8.24 to 26.22*

*gave the pop. density of these a conservative adjustment on the basis that significant swathes of their countries aren't inhabited.

Per sq km is irrelevant, you would have to calculate also population density, traffic flows etc etc, that's for a disertation paper...if you ask me.

Even per sq, you can see they multiplied their CCS connectors in last 2.5 years. However you look at it, they all did multiples of what they add, we added 20%. The 20% is a failure and a missed opportunity - they all had Covid but they built chargers like crazy.

The only countries that didn't grow multiples were Portugal and Denmark btw.

the_amazing_raisin

McGiver wrote: »

There's no other official, orgnised, registred EV lobby group AFAIK.

Just use this forum sure

McGiver wrote: »

There's no other official, orgnised, registred EV lobby group AFAIK.

Yes this is part of the problem.

the_amazing_raisin wrote: »

Just use this forum sure

We should set up a boards EV group as a registered lobby group.

Couldnt do any worse of a job than the only 1 competitor!

MightyMunster

Main issue for me is most DC chargers are single units. Just not suitable for planning longer trips. There's a reason Tesla, Ionity, Fastnet etc put in multiple units. Ecars should be doing what they've done at J14 all on major routes

Black_Knight

Black_Knight wrote: »

May Update
CCS/CHAdeMO split
My stats say, over the last 2 weeks:
CHAdeMO has been occupied 38.6% of the time. (9.20 weeks of use)
CCS the other 61.4% of the time (14.65 weeks of use)

Unit counts
133 Fast charge units installed (Up 2)
531 Slow charge AC units installed (down 2 - all are AC-DC replacements, some were 2 single socket AC units being replaced with DC)

272 of the newer 22kW AC units are now in place.
127 of the old units yet to be replaced, and 15 of those single socket AC units to be replaced too.

AC updates to the new Evolve Smart T unit - Seems I might be missing a couple of these (blanch didn't pop up for me). My best guess is some AC units are being reused in new locations, when their original site gets a DC upgrade (Blanch unit was originally in Skibbereen afaik)
Town Hall Car Park, Off Barrow Track, Carlow Town, Carlow
Quinsborough Road, Bray, Wicklow
Bachelor's Walk, Wicklow, Wicklow
Hollybank Road, Drumcondra, Dublin 9
Mill Road, Blanchardstown, Dublin

AC units upgraded to DC - 31 of the 50 delivered Bit of a vague number, this is 31 of those units installed, but they're being installed at the "hubs" too.
Norton House Car Park, Cork Road, Skibbereen, Co. Cork
Off Haggard Street, Trim, Meath

New FCP
None

June Update
CCS/CHAdeMO split
My stats say, over the last 2 weeks:
CHAdeMO has been occupied 37.7% of the time. (11.58 weeks of use)
CCS the other 62.3% of the time (19.10 weeks of use)

Unit counts
3 Ultra fast chargers (Up 3)
135 Fast charge units installed (Up 2)
527 Slow charge AC units installed (down 4 - all are AC-DC replacements, some were 2 single socket AC units being replaced with DC)

272 of the newer 22kW AC units are now in place.
124 of the old units yet to be replaced, and 15 of those single socket AC units to be replaced too.

AC updates to the new Evolve Smart T unit
Newry & Mourne Museum (Bagenal's Castle), Abbey Way (A28), Newry, Down
Strand Road, Londonderry, Derry/Londonderry
Carlisle Road, Derry City, United Kingdom
Victoria Market Car Park, Off Queens Quay Roundabout, Londonderry, Derry/Londonderry

AC units upgraded to DC - 34 of the 50 delivered Bit of a vague number, this is 34 of those units installed, but they're being installed at the "hubs" too.
Park Pointe Shopping Centre, Glenageary Road Upper, Dun Laoghaire, Dublin
Justice Walsh Car Park, Off Bank Lane, Letterkenny, Donegal
Off Lower Main Street, Dungloe, Donegal
Laffins Lane Car Park, Via Lower Main Street or Castle Park, Arklow, Wicklow

New FCP
Mayfield X3 ultra fast chargers

UID0 wrote: »

CCS Connectors per person per square km isn't an appropriate measurement though. It doesn't take into account that countries in mainland Europe have a much higher level of traffic flowing through them than we have here. Czechia has to cater for traffic flowing from Germany to Austria if they are travelling through Czechia. This gives a greater incentive for commercial operators to set up charging facilities.

Yes, Czechia and Slovakia are transit countries but...The main transit CZ motorway (D1) doesn't have the most CCS chargers. Most of the recent growth of CCS connectors (from 100 to 500) has been elsewhere.

About 400 (75%) CCS in CZ are installed/run by the three large electricity providers (CEZ, EON and PRE), so situation very similar to ESB here, just that in Ireland only ESB are installing chargers while Energia, SSE or others not. Private operators are only a recent addition, their share is maybe 20%, and this includes 20 CCS by Lidl :cool: Lidl in CZ install the classical triple Efacec heads unlike TESCO/Lidl here...

UID0 wrote: »

The two countries on your list that would be closest to Ireland in terms of usage profile would be Finland & Sweden, and you've adjusted their figures to account for uninhabited areas.

Finland and Sweden are much larger than Ireland, massive countries, completely incomparable. Yes, their population density is similar, but that's about it. In Finland, most of the chargers are concentrated in the south, very little in the north. Sweden seems to liter the whole place with chargers including the Artctic, not sure how they do that...but again most of the chargers are on motorways near/between population centres as in Finland.

In the end, what counts is the Charger:EV ratio, and that's been declining in Ireland for last several years.
eCars lack any clear plan or vision, and if they have any vision, it doesn't add up to the the Gov plans and policies (1m EVs by 2030 etc) - there's no strategy, I'd blame the gov more than eCars. eCars execute what they've been tasked with, Gov should set the strategy and bring in policies in line with it.

Black_Knight wrote: »

June Update
CCS/CHAdeMO split
My stats say, over the last 2 weeks:
CCS the other 62.3% of the time (19.10 weeks of use)

Cool stats! And thanks for the UFC - ultra fast chargers, that's the correct term. :cool:

How do you coun the "62% of the time"? Some sort of peak/working hours only or % of time spent between 00:00 to 23:59 of every single day i.e. % of full 24 hours?

liamog

McGiver wrote: »

eCars lack any clear plan or vision, and if they have any vision, it doesn't add up to the the Gov plans and policies (1m EVs by 2030 etc) - there's no strategy, I'd blame the gov more than eCars. eCars execute what they've been tasked with, Gov should set the strategy and bring in policies in line with it.

I place the failings firmly in the hands of the government. Charger provision should of been handled in a centralised manner by TII. A state wide planned network with operators paid to operate charging stations with a minimum capacity. Instead we end up with reliance on a subsidised commercial operator to come up with a plan.

eCars have a clear plan, but it's based on providing infrastructure with minimal losses, it's not tied to the government goal of 1 million electrified cars by 2030.

MJohnston

McGiver wrote: »

Per sq km is irrelevant, you would have to calculate also population density, traffic flows etc etc, that's for a disertation paper...if you ask me.

Buddy, if per sqkm is irrelevant, the absolute number of CCS connectors in each country is...I'm not sure what's lesser than irrelevant, but that :P

AndyBoBandy

McGiver wrote: »

How do you coun the "62% of the time"?

I think he's saying that 62% of all DC use is on CCS, while the other 38% is on CHAdeMO,

Yet the vast vast majority of ESB DC sites are still configured for a 50/50 split between CCS & CHAdeMO (with J14 being the obvious exception).

If they configured the 150kW units as twin CCS, I'd be happy and call it decent progress (all 150kW units are beside a 50kW triple head with CHAdeMO, so by doing the 150kW machine as twin CCS, you're not 'doing anyone out of' a CHAdeMO plug.

The current AC-DC upgrades are fine, but once done, there should be no ore CHAdeMO plugs being installed (unless it's in a J14/Mayfield type of hyper hub setup, but even then, should be no more than 2 (one of which would be on a 50kW unit)).

liamog wrote: »

I place the failings firmly in the hands of the government. Charger provision should of been handled in a centralised manner by TII. A state wide planned network with operators paid to operate charging stations with a minimum capacity. Instead we end up with reliance on a subsidised commercial operator to come up with a plan.

eCars have a clear plan, but it's based on providing infrastructure with minimal losses, it's not tied to the government goal of 1 million electrified cars by 2030.

Yes, I Agree. Should've been tendered out, I suppose it wasn't properly tendered. Like the Swiss gov did - a recent tender for 50 hubs - criteria were several chargers per hub, battery storage on-site, other specs like ability to use any debit/credit card, costs were capped at a certain value, ETA was requested.

State involvement is not the issue per se, it's been done quite successfully in several countries in Europe, it's just the way how the state is involved and how it's done. You can't leave it to the market at this stage, that's impossible - EasyGo can't make profit as of yet and if you leave it to the market, they will just operate Dublin and the main routes and leave the rest unattended.
You can open it up to the market only once you have minimal skeleton network covering all population centres and main routes in place.

But saying all that doesn't mean we shouldn't critisise eCars. Else the Gov will be just hiding behind eCars claiming "it's not us who screwed it up, it was ecars [pointing at them]!". It's actually a very smart deflecting & neglecting strategy - offload it to a semi-state and get rid of any responsibility.

AndyBoBandy wrote: »

If they configured the 150kW units as twin CCS, I'd be happy and call it decent progress (all 150kW units are beside a 50kW triple head with CHAdeMO, so by doing the 150kW machine as twin CCS, you're not 'doing anyone out of' a CHAdeMO plug.

They could make the 150kW units as twin CCS and then take the CCS away from the 50kW triple, that way CCS speed would increase and CHAdeMO still looked after but restricted to a charger more aligned to the car's charging speed capability

MJohnston wrote: »

Buddy, if per sqkm is irrelevant, the absolute number of CCS connectors in each country is...I'm not sure what's lesser than irrelevant, but that :P

The only objective stat to be looking if you want to compare countries at is Charger:EV ratio. Another one could be Chargers per km of motorway.

AndyBoBandy

slave1 wrote: »

They could make the 150kW units as twin CCS and then take the CCS away from the 50kW triple, that way CCS speed would increase and CHAdeMO still looked after but restricted to a charger more aligned to the car's charging speed capability

I'd still leave the CCS plug on the 50kW unit. You'd be fairly pissed if you rocked up and 2 cars were plugged in on CCS on the 150, and the 50kW was sitting idle because it only had a CHAdeMO/AC on it!!

3 CCS is always better than 2, and with CCS cars outnumbering CHAdeMO by a factor of around 6:1 (and growing daily), it would be madness to remove any of them...

Six of one, half a dozen of the other.
Thankfully me and you are a bit looking from the outside with decent range and Tesla SuC, this time next year the Tesla's will be well served and taking pressure off eCars

MJohnston

McGiver wrote: »

The only objective stat to be looking if you want to compare countries at is Charger:EV ratio. Another one could be Chargers per km of motorway.

Each has flaws tbf, and as others have pointed out, you have to have some way of acknowledging the different geographical contexts of all the countries that are being compared.

I think Finland and Sweden (and maybe Norway) will probably always top any of those leaderboards, mind you, as they're all geographically isolated AND have an absolute tonne of charging points.

Of course it helps those countries to have had mostly left-wing, environmentally minded governments!

cannco253

Is it cheaper for Tesla drivers to use eCars 150kW then the Tesla superchargers?

cannco253 wrote: »

Is it cheaper for Tesla drivers to use eCars 150kW then the Tesla superchargers?

No. Tesla is cheaper, significantly so.

cannco253

So the only reason a Tesla driver would use an eCars 150kW is for convenience if no supercharger on your route.

I'm wondering if eCars could use that as some form of excuse for the extremely slow infrastructure rollout. If you take all the Teslas out of the entire BEV population in Ireland how would that change the overall stats?

cannco253 wrote: »

So the only reason a Tesla driver would use an eCars 150kW is for convenience if no supercharger on your route.

I'm wondering if eCars could use that as some form of excuse for the extremely slow infrastructure rollout. If you take all the Teslas out of the entire BEV population in Ireland how would that change the overall stats?

Newer models (like the 3) will charge faster on the eCars 150 units as existing Tesla SuC max at 120 (apart from new ones in Cork) so there's that too.
Last time I saw a stat there are 2.5k Tesla's in Ireland so not a great part of the population

slave1 wrote: »

Newer models (like the 3) will charge faster on the eCars 150 units as existing Tesla SuC max at 120 (apart from new ones in Cork) so there's that too.
Last time I saw a stat there are 2.5k Tesla's in Ireland so not a great part of the population

No they won't.
lower amperage on the charger combined with low voltage (especially on t he SR+) of the model 3 means that the ecars chargers won't give any more, and will likely give less, than the 145kW max that v2 SuC deliver.

liamog

cannco253 wrote: »

I'm wondering if eCars could use that as some form of excuse for the extremely slow infrastructure rollout. If you take all the Teslas out of the entire BEV population in Ireland how would that change the overall stats?

Tesla's BEV market share in Ireland isn't enough to significantly distort the market, it was 7.84% in 2019 and 19.44% in 2020. So far this year it's 13.64%.
They account for a significant part of the BEV market, but not to the degree that it makes the standard CCS network unviable.