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.
Surely if in constant use it's a success?
All things being equal, yes. But all things arent equal. Say if you have a phev on the DC pulling 6kW from the fastAC, a chademo leaf on the HPC pulling 35kW and a Taycan limited to 40kW on the other side of the HPC, along with a Tesla queuing, is that a success? No because you're supplying 80kW when you could be supplying 200 - that's over half of your profit gone.
Better utilization of scarce resources allows more profit for the charging company. Some (tesla, Ionity) have solved for this with redundancy of units to exceed normal demand, others have tried to do it with time of use pricing but I think ultimately the best would be a per minute pricing rather than per kWh.
An efficient system is one which has the right amount of use and the right amount of slack. If your goal is to maximise revenue per location then a busy site is success. If your goal is to facilitate the transition to an EV fleet then a site needs to be busy but not so busy that customers cannot access the system in a reasonable time.
Stop Making Sense🤐
Gotta agree with the per minute prices, at least for the DC chargers. Ensures that people only plug in for as long as they need, regardless of how fast they can charge
Or another method would be to make the kilowatts free but charge for parking. Good way to discourage people parking but not plugging in
Or there's my favourite solution, more chargers 😁
True to a point, but if you have 3 cars charging and 5 cars pass by and end up going to EasyGo chargers then that's an opportunity cost, you lost out on that potential revenue
ESB don't car IMO because they control most of the chargers in the country, so even if customers move on there's a good chance it's to a different ESB charger
Also I'm fairly sure Ecars is just a way of getting revenue for ESB via government grants
So the app still isn't fixed I guess.
Opened the app to see the nearest unit to me is available, tapped into it and it's been in use for 15 minutes.
Opened the map to see a "hub" is available to me (filtered by CCS). Tap into it and both units are in use.
Thought this was all a 3rd party out of the box app/software which ecars pump their data into?
I tried a 150kW charger in the Amber station in Fermoy today.
Car was at a low SoC and battery was above 20C so should have got 125kW. Only got 88kW! 😖
I think the reason is that the 50kW charger next to it is sharing the capacity and there was a car pulling 50kW from it which left me with “just” 88kW.
A HPC advertised as such should not be sharing like that, imo. It would probably be worse again if someone was charging at the other side of the 150kW charger as it is a Delta dual charger.
If I make an effort to go to a 150kW charger and I’m paying more for it I expect to get the rate I’m paying for.
Are all these new 150kW eCars sites the same?
i.e. You only get 150kW if no one else is at the site.
Ionity ftw, if that’s the case. I have always got 100kW+ from Ionity even with other cars charging at the same time.
I plugged into a 120kW Gridserve charger at IKEA Belfast the other day and only managed 45kWh in an hour in an ID4.
Plugged in at 4%.
I see Laghy south Donegal now has 2 X 50kW. Back a few years ago this was listed as a future hub, which I assumed would be higher than 50kW. 50kW is ten year old technology. Even 100kW load sharing would be an improvement. Many motorists will be stopping for say 30 minutes, meaning only max/typical 4 cars an hour at this "hub" site. Each of those cars can only get max 25kWh in 30 minutes so some drivers may stop for longer.
It's a great improvement but still far from future proofing. 3 years ago it may have been ok, but now it will not meet existing demand let alone future demand. The site may also be busier with drivers skipping other single charger sites before and after.
We really need Lidl Donegal town to swap their AC charger for DC, or the supermacs across the road which have 2 X EV marked spaces as part of planning permission to actually install a charger as they are required by law.
It does worry me as a 2 car household (one EV) if we can go 2 X EV based on no realistic growth of charging network planned that will make charging while away on holidays realistic. 2 X kids on tow mean even 30 minute stops are a hard sell, particularly when daily diesel use is near zero, so fuel savings are negligible.
I used a site in Wales that had 2 Osprey chargers with a similar configuration (same model of charger). They used the two units to serve 2 charging spaces instead of pretending it was for 4. If that picture contained 4 of those chargers for the 4 spaces we'd all be much happier.
At least cable length is improving to aid Tetris parking due to charge port location
Good to see at least a 2nd 50kW gone in, but yes I was also expecting this to be a 150kW site. It was one of the first ones mentioned by ESB 2 years ago when they were doing their new rollout!!
I think it was intended to be 50+150 like Kells Park Ri, but local supply restricted
Are those chargers 1 chademo and 1 CCS?
Seems a bit pointless having 2 chademo sockets and 2 CCS when the majority of EV's use CCS.
Every eCars multi unit site with the exception of Mayfield has a 50/50 split between CHAdeMO/CCS, despite CCS cars outselling CHAdeMO cars by a factor of about 9:1 over the last 2 years or so....
someone will be along shortly though to say there are a lot of old Leaf's out there blah blah blah....
More CCS cars sold in 2022 alone than Leaf's sold/imported in the last 10 years..
There's a lot of Leafs out there 😉
Kinda wish they'd gone for the Delta untis they've been installing recently, you can put CCS on one side and CCS and Chademo on the other.
So you can charge 4 cars, up to 2 of which can be Chademo
200kW per charger would also have been nice as well 😏
Most of the ecars sites I've been to have the same number of chademo and CCS plugs but can only charge on one of those plugs at a time, so calling it a 50/50 split is inaccurate. The last time I was at J14 they had 1 dedicated chademo, 5 dedicated CCS and 2 which has CCS and chademo.
When I got to J14 the last time an ID3 had just pulled in to the dual charger so he was taking a space a chademo could pull from despite there being 2 free "CCS only" spots. When I asked him if he'd move (he wasn't plugged in yet at that stage) he basically gave me the finger and said "first come first serve"
Lovely carry on from fellow EV drivers
Those delta units can charge 2 cars at a time maximum regardless of whether the cars take CCS or Chademo
Oh I know, but they can double up the cables on one side, so you've the option of CCS or Chademo
So instead of 2 cars at a time, you can charge 4. And you can don't sacrifice CCS connectors to support Chademo
Those chargers in Laghy can only charge one DC car at a time, so putting on 2 X CCS cables would make no difference. They can charge 2 cars at once if one is using the 22kW AC connection, and there is a need for 2 spaces per charger as some cars and only charge in left space, others can only reach in right space. It also means if some car is abandoned in one spot there is a chance of connecting in other spot. It's far better than 3 spaces between 2 similar chargers like on other sites where if a car parks in middle spot they can prevent the other charger from being used by some cars depending on charge port location. Really they should be oriented like petrol pumps with room for 2 cars on each side. This would also allow EVs with trailers to fill up and the odd EV bus, van, truck and ambulance of which there is the odd one knocking about.
My favourite thing is the ESB and council coming together to put in a charger with 2 sockets but only painting 1 space green. This allows vans, cars etc to park there and block one of the sides. The long cable is mine. I'm parked 2 spaces away.
I've seen similar except it's one van parked across both green spaces
I've always been tempted to wrap the cable around the van to try and trap them in place, but the gobsh*tes would probably drive away anyway and damage my car 😬
Nothing where here though as spaces not correctly marked as EV only
Nothin g wrong there
Most of the ecars sites I've been to have the same number of chademo and CCS plugs but can only charge on one of those plugs at a time, so calling it a 50/50 split is inaccurate.
Thats why I said multi-unit sites, and I'm specifically aiming at the sites where they have a 150kW + 50kW unit. These are sites that can charge 3 cars at once just as long as one of them is a Leaf. I've been in Kilcullen before, with 2 CCS cars charging, and another 2 CCS cars waiting to charge, with 1 empty bay waiting for a Leaf to arrive...... in 2022 that's not right. Another CCS plug on the 150kW unit means it will see much more usage compared to it's current configuration.
I maintain, that every eCars site with multiple units (with the exception of Mayfield) is split 50/50 between CCS/CHAdeMO, and in 2022 where CCS cars outsell CHAdeMO by around 9:1 it's just idiotic....
Like the charger below. One side is CCS only the other one is CCS or CHAdeMO. Fastned is using them in this config.
I know the CCS vs CHAdeMO argument has been done to death etc... but seeing as how eCars will just not change their ways anytime soon, I think the best we can hope for is the way they've set up the Tuam 4 car 'hub' There are 4 spaces, and each space has a CCS or CHAdeMO plug available to it, so 4 CCS cars can all charge simultaneously, or 4 Leaf's can charge simultaneously..... (unlikely, but eCars logic means support CHAdeMO at all costs).
I think it's completely wasteful having 4 CHAdeMO plugs there, as 2 would probably suffice, but eCars are all about spending that hard earned money, so 4x CCS & 4x CHAdeMO it is...
I think outside of Mayfield, it's their best set up site as it's 4 spaces, and 4 CCS cars can charge simultaneously there.
If every eCars 'hub' was configured that way, you'd go as far as to say the network was sufficient, but as we are, the majority of their 'hub's can charge no more than 2 CCS cars simultaneously (down to 1 if a Leaf arrives and plugs into the (cheaper) 50kW unit at a 150kW + 50kW site).
Yes I'd settle for that too as at least all 4 plugs are available to CCS.
Looking at the photos of the one in Kilcullen I see a 50kW unit that can charge either a chademo or CCS or AC43 and a HPC that can charge a Chademo or a CCS
So that site can charge 2 cars at the same time regardless of socket, meaning your comment is completely inaccurate
