Random EV thoughts.....

Why do you say that? It's a bit OTT that 50% of the chargers are reserved for disabled parking but it seems fair that there should be bays dedicated to disabled guests who have EVs

There should be 8 AC chargers to begin with...

I agree that the fact that it can be used for disabled parking without charging is a major oversight, and something that should be fixed. The bay should be for disabled charging only, not parking

However I think the idea of dedicated disabled charging bays is a good one. For someone with mobility problems a car is much more of a necessity than for the rest of us, so access to charging is important as well

With ICE cars it's difficult enough, forecourt attendants are gone now so disabled people either need to bring a helper or put up with the added hassle and do it themselves

At least forecourts have space to get a wheelchair out though, most AC chargers are just shoved into a normal bay

DC chargers are a bit better, but looking at the spaces around them I suspect many of them wouldn't meet the standard for disabled parking

So I think there's an opportunity to fix that problem and I think it's good to see some attempts to do so, however poorly thought out they might be

As I said though, it's OTT to make 1 of only 2 chargers a disabled parking space. The fact that chargers are scarce is the root of the problem, there should be more like 8 chargers

On that blue badge piece and not having an EV parking there. Recently I was in my local LIDL(very busy Saturday afternoon) and saw 2 people arguing over the charge bays. The car park was jammers and a lad parked his EV in the EV charging bay but was NOT charging. He came out to an angry EV owner and they proceeded to argue about why he was parked there and not charging. He said "The paint on the ground says e cars only, not EV charging only" and his car is an EV whether or not he is charging or not. Frankly I don't see too much fault in that argument but then again he shouldn't have blocked the space.

I'd say common sense isn't very common and people can be very selfish.

A guy in my local Tesco who drives a Prius PHEV used to park in one of the charging spots every day for about 3 months, and never plugged in, despite the carpark always only ever being about 30% full….

I posted a pic on an Irish EV Facebook page and within a day or 2 he stopped parking there and hasn’t done since!!

The introduction of charging has resulted in a miraculous improvement to the access to the Lidl charges near me. Previously one was occupied almost exclusively by a Model 3 while a BMW phev spent an inordinate amount of time on another. The introduction of charging must have coincided with a move of residence.

This guy works in Tesco so his car is parked there all day!!!! And he parked in one of the charging stops for the whole day!!! And I never saw it plugged in!!

Seeing as this is the random chat thread, I see that theres now, in total, 67,000 electric cars INCLUDING plugin hybrids in Ireland. I actually thought there was way more than that

The target is 1million target within the next 7 years, If my sums are right, thats a 1400% increase in EVs and potentially a 1400% increase in demand on chargers.

Thats a mindblowing increase in such a short space of time, and if theres fights over charging spaces now when there are relatively speaking very few EVs , this could escalate quickly

thats kindof the issue too though.

If its such a crazy figure, then the ESB and everyone else can sit back and say it'll never happen, so the charging and grid infrastructure dont get massively upgraded. And with a cr@p infrastructure, the attractiveness of EVs is limited, or at least tainted.

BUT then imagine if through regulation of ICEs/ grants for Evs/ love of infinate instantaneous torque - EVs suddenly do become popular and every year the guts of 150,000 Evs get registered in Ireland - there'd be carnage.

One thing that got me thinking of the chicken and egg question was the unbelieveable announcement in Germany a couple of weeks ago (who also have the greens in) that maybe it might actually be sensible to build the charging network BEFORE the anticipated gigantic imminent surge in EV purchases !!

The Greens have already walked back on that target, it's down to 935,000 or so

They're pushing public transport and cycling, which are both great except they aren't going to install proper infrastructure, so people will just stick to cars anyway

Business as usual in other words 🙄

In 2021 there were 142,000 new cars sold in all of Ireland. Assuming annual sales of 150,000 per year between now and 2030, that would require 78% of all cars sold between now and 2030 to be EV/hybrid. I think in 2022 it's 21% for the first 7 months, so might hit 22% for the full year. The charging network won't be a problem, there are so many places where chargers can be provided that fit in with people's daily activities, supermarket car parks, leisure centres. These would only be required by people living in apartments since everyone with a house would have their own charger. Private companies have shown a readiness to deploy new charging sites where they see a business opportunity, eg. Applegreen. I don't see any problems with our grid being able to handle the future demand, Eirgrid are very competent.

The biggest problem I can see is that as Ireland urbanises and those urban dwellers are increasingly becoming apartment dwellers rather than living in a detached house, these people are disincentivised to purchase an EV due to the lack of charging at their car space. I think new apartment blocks should have all parking spaces cabled up so that a charger can installed where required. How this would be metered is a separate (solvable) issue. Building management companies and fire departments however will be reluctant to encourage EVs in their underground car parks dues to the difficulty of access and extinguishing. So that's another issue that will need to be addressed.

They've increased spending on active travel 5 fold in 3 years. Bit harsh to say they're doing nothing.

@slave1 are they applegreen units?

Well I'd argue their approach is misguided. They're right to install cycle lanes, but it's all shared infrastructure with cars which is just a nightmare for everyone, literally the worst of both worlds

If you look at places where cycling is common, they tend to have clear divisions between roads optimised for cars and ones for bikes and pedestrians. It's a much better experience for both

I appreciate that sometimes there isn't much choice, but there also seems to be a shocking disconnect between what they signal as intentions and what actually gets built

On top of that, the level of maintenance for cycling infrastructure is far worse. Leaf and snow clearing tends to block up cycleways rather than clear them

And I get there's a limit on what any government can realistically achieve in one election cycle, but the government parties have signalled what they intend to achieve by 2030 and I don't think they're anywhere near on track for that