The key elements include six high speed charging hubs on motorways capable of charging eight vehicles simultaneously; 16 high speed charging hubs capable of charging four vehicles simultaneously; additional high power chargers at 34 current 50 kW locations; upgrading over 50 22 kW chargers to 50 kW, and replacing up to 264 locations with 528 charge points at the pre-existing pilot grade of 22 kW to next generation high reliability models.
The wider EV network should be planned to allow for drivers NOT having a home charger.
I agree with everything you've said there @Old diesel but the question is who should plan. Councils and Local Authorities should be planning infra to ensure that their residents needs are met. They should be then contracting a competent company to build run and operate that infra. Councils shouldn't be selling charging services and charging service providers aren't responsible for planning civic infrastructure.
Hopefully we'll see some joined up thinking from the new project the Dublin councils have launched. Ideally they'll contract something out and we'll get one of the established continental operators move into the market and shake things up.
Rant or not your 100% on the ball
Just going through the thread
Some thoughts......
It *should* be possible in future to buy an EV without needing your own home charger.
Having to have your own home charger is a barrier to potential EV uptake.
For me it's about having very good availability in lots of locations of reliable chargers.
The exact charging solutions should vary according to likely user needs at a location or area.
Workplace carparks will suit 7 kw charging very well as cars parked there all day.
Ditto if going to a hospital in an EV future - slow chargers all over the carpark is more helpful then one 50 kw charger.
Aim of the game is to maximise convenient reliable traveling anywhere in the country by EV for every EV driver.
Using your local DC charging every 3 days for 30 mins (for example) as no home charger is NOT hogging the network.
Network is for all users in my opinion.
Re Castlebellingham - that's a key route between two citys (Dublin/Belfast).
So as part of a proper fit for purpose network going forward - you will have to have good charger availability.
Remember - anyone who uses the network is a customer of it.
Tesla as usual have it right - just roll up and supercharge and no one cares if you have home charging or whether you charge 4 times a year or 365 times a year. As it should be.
Just my little rant
I doubt it, looking at the foundations when I was there a few weeks back it looks like two cabinets worth, also doubt eCars would install in that location with already available options near enough by
Are there any ESB chargers going there too? The other sites seem to have 2 ecars chargers (eg enfield)
the builders have shown up this morning....
Sandyford SuC will suit you perfectly so
Not at the moment it wouldnt, most of our driving is dublin to meath, meath to wexford, or meath to athy/portlaoise, or to cork and back. Only the last one would be covered by superchargers. A dublin supercharger site would reeeeeeeally change that however! If we closed our sale+purchase in the morning I'd probably be on the phone to the owner of the gold S85 seven seater on donedeal.
To be honest we're using herself's Ioniq28 as our main car out of necessity until we move house and while the ioniq is a great car it's not a 200km range car so charging is needed. Luckily it charges super quickly.
Older S with free SuC would suit you better
I am on the fence with the 4.60. I hate paying over the odds for anything.
But, with the Ioniq 28 we use a fair bit of public charging. Excusing the odd easygo or ionity topup of course. Looking at the ecars app from 01.09.2021-31.12.2021, we used 300kWh of energy and paid €95 for it as PAYG. Would that have been better off as non payg? probably but not by much and it includes the christmas travel. So it's not worth the hassle.
If both cars were infrequent users of the network, you could probably survive using a combination of card & app from a single account.. How slim would the possibility of both arriving at a charger at the same time be??
There isn't much saving paying the 4.60 per month though. If you have at home charging you would probably be better off with payg.
I just looked up my charge history for 2021 & just under 200kWh cost less than €60
I did over 13k miles for the year
We tried in the past and failed, herself just ended up getting a separate account, same cost as another card anyhow
I don't think we ever tried to charge using both cards at the same time so could be right. I had the two cards assigned to a different member, the wife had her own email address to log in to the app, billing would also say which member started the charge. Maybe you just need to set it up correctly so that the cards are assigned to members?
Just to note that only one car at a time can use the sub though, apparently. So if you swipe your card, the second and third card will not work until your session finishes. Unless theyve changed that?
My understanding, having asked Ecar NI,is that its not that they 'Didn't bother' painting both bays,it is,or was Deliberate Policy,because 'We don't want to Upset diesel drivers'!
The consequence of this questionable policy is that I've been pointing out to Ice drivers For Nine Years ,that they are in an EV bay,
The reply on occasions being,'They're nothing to tell me that here mate'
And They are Right.
You can add extra members to the subscrition, they will charge a one-off €10 for each card/member they add
Question about the ecars €4.60 monthly subscription, is there a limit on how many different cars can use it? Say for example myself and my parents are under one roof at the moment and will soon have 2 EVs and a plugin hybrid. Do we need 3 separate subscriptions or will 1 do the trick?
Had noticed last year some spaces were repainted but not with any green paint. Just a poxy stencil that looks like "e/cat"
They didn't even bother painting the ground at the 2 new "fast" chargers on Sir John Rogerson's Quay. Nor did they bother putting up any signage.
That's why there were 3 diesel jeeps parked in front of them a couple of weeks ago when I pulled up to them.
Wish ecar had some more green paint left over.They only painted one bay at many bays in N.I.
Only been waiting 9 years though.
I was on the committee of that IEVOA organization a few years ago and am still quite active on the facebook group.
The reason I left the committee quite frankly is exactly what you state. Bumbling incompetence, a group of old men (at that time, it's changed members now) unable to grasp the concept that not everyone wants to stand around for an hour or more at an AC charger on a journey. And an unwillingness to acknowledge, adapt or change.
And yes Ecars are incompetent. Common sense missing...amateurs and I guess they don't give a damn like every semi-state or state enterprise. Taxpayer pays so who gives a fúck about results, performance or Return on investment...
eCars current plans show much focus on ROI that the network any person on boards wishes they would build. If we had a taxpayer funded network it might actually serve our needs instead of the network we have, which is clearly a build minimum until enough customers to support a proper scale infrastructure.
IEOVOA are quite useless in terms lobyying. I'd even say lackeys from what I've seen.
They once asked ESB what happened to their ecars Twitter account, rather than my question about charge site unit layout. Priority questions
The EV drivers they meet regularly are part of a certain club though aren’t they?
I watched one of their videos once when the eCars guy came on and they may as well have pulled the guys pants down and serviced him such was the easy ride he was given…..
so according to the EV drivers they regularly meet, all is very well in eCars world. Remember a lot of these guys were EV adopters from the beginning, so would have more of a sense of community amongst themselves, and queuing up for an hour to get on a charger would be an opportunity for ‘like minded people to chat all things EV’s’, whereas in reality that world is long gone, and people simply want to charge, or have no more fears of not being able to charge….
hopefully the recent survey we all participated in might open their eyes a little more to what’s actually happen out there..
A fatal error, but how do eCars keep on making such utterly stupid decisions?
They meet regularly with EV drivers. Is that purely lip service given that they're so earth shatteringly stupid with everything they do?
I wonder will the leaf owner ever notice that they are paying 20% extra for nothing on those chargers.
This is a fatal error and preposterous move by Ecars - all new 50 kW chargers have 1x Chademo, 1x CCS and AC Type 2 socket in that order. The AC is a huge problem if they do this at all "hubs".
The 50 kW FCP is to the right of the 150 kW HPC at the "hubs" but there are only 3 parking bays. So far all I've seen have this layout....
If someone plugs into the AC socket on the FCP in bay 3 as that's most natural then basically renders the 50 kW Chademo and CCS blocked if at the same time someone also parks in bay 2 to plug into the 150 kW CCS or Chademo. Usual case at bay 2 is rear right charging port car going after the 150 kW CCS.
Galway "hub" today...
Situation 1
Bay 1 - empty
Bay 2 - KIA ev6 reversed charging at HPC CCS
Bay 3 - Electric/phev van charging on the AC
I can't go and charge with my CCS car despite 2 CCS connectors - 1 is blocked by likely long term AC user...
Situation 2
Bay 1 - Leaf charging on 150 kW Chademo - but can take only 50 kW max
Bay 2 - empty
I can go and charge my 50 kW CCS car in bay 2 but that means that HPC is occupied by 2x50 kW capable cars so has min 50 kW (33%) power wasted...
TLDR - the AC connector on the FCPs is BS really if it doesn't have a dedicated parking place.
2 charger "hubs" must have 4 parking bays end of.
Or.....simply build more charging stations rather than coming up with solutions to handle the lack of such.
