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.
Exactly as mentioned already, Ioniq 5 and magnets, just use it for little notes or car park tickets. Does look like embedded bullets now that I think of it.
Second time ever public charging, could not get over how heavy the charger cable is, it was an monster snake beast that you almost have to wrestle on to the car. Was very happy with the speed anyway as there was a 50kw down the road that wouldn't go over 36kw at all, despite pre conditioning and all.
I was thinking they were some sort of tailgating avoidance system. Get to close to the car in front and the "bullets" shoot out at you 😵
Have you (or anyone) used the magnets as intended? I'm struggling to decide if they're the greatest idea I've ever seen on a car or the worst idea 😁
You wouldn't even need a lock on the machine. A simple sensor like they have on petrol pumps would do the trick nicely
Hopefully removing the chademo plug from the HPCs and replacing with a second CCS one.
/mic drop
They should remove the AC while they’re at it……..
I was in Ballacolla yesterday and saw a few cars queuing up to use the ESB chargers… and there was a RAV4 Hybrid plugged into the AC, and while they weren’t doing anything wrong, it meant there were only 2 spaces available to use the 3 available DC connectors…..
I’d have been furious myself if I’d arrived to that situation needing a charge, but I just walked past that sh1tshow while my car was pulling 130kW from the Supercharger just a few meters away!!!
Yup, agree 100%, there should be no AC at the HPCs at all, and a 43kW AC tethered option only at the 50kW chargers. It should be configured like fastned do, so it only allows you to charge on 3 phase.
Removing the AC just screws over people that use this as an enroute charger and can take the full 22 kW from it.
Restrict the usage, either by configuration or pricing, would achieve a much better outcome for everyone.
22kW is not an enroute charger.
Have to agree with @ELM327 here. 22kWAC is a fine service for destinations and something that Zoe's are particularly well equipped to take advantage of. However in my experience of the 22kW AC sockets at DC chargers, they are more likely to be used by a CCS capable car or a newly registered PHEV. Zoe drivers seem to take advantage of the much higher number of available AC sockets elsewhere.
This charger at this location is an enroute charger.
I usually avoid these chargers like the plague. They're too much hassle most of the time.
But this location and a few other motorway stops are worth trying just for the convivence/facilities/safety.
And I see other Zoe drivers do the same.
No, no it isnt. 22kW is an SCP and these are for charging at your destination.
Enroute chargers (ie FCP or HCP) have a deadline of 45minutes after which a penalty applies. The deadline for this 22kW? 10 hours. It's not enroute.
If there is and someone wants to use it then AC on HPC should cost more than DC. eCars loosing revenue there potentially. Higher charge for AC they will push them to move elsewhere or use DC.
The use case for AC in these case is someone has already plenty of charge or time on their hands.
You're making the same mistakes as Ecars did. In thinking that just because it 22kW that the rules for other 22kW's should apply.
Lets look at the facts.
It's a charger at a motorway service station.
There's nothing else around it that would qualify as a destination.
There just one AC outlet, on a charger where the two other plugs are for fast charging.
The previous version of the charger included AC purely to service the Zoe.
The manufacturers of the charger are marketing it as "maximum of charge with minimum time spent".
And lastly having people charge slowly and quickly at the same time is a recipe for conflict and inefficiency.
It's an enroute for Zoes, nothing else would make any sense at this location.
Can anyone explain why the only suggestions are ''get rid'' or '' higher fee'', surely a better solution would be more AC and DC or separate AC and DC.
A separate AC pedestal should indeed be added completely separate and away from the DC chargers…. Then if someone wants to plug in their PHEV, or wants to spend 2 hours in Supermacs or is in an early gen Zoe (as all new ones since the last year or 2 are CCS) they can knock themselves out on the AC22, leaving the DC chargers for ‘fast’ charging only.
I see 2 completely separate business models that are problematic when they overlap.
One is a charging network that is utilised by people who need to turn up at a charger and use it. This is either due to being on a journey and needing a top up or they need to access a district charging hub. I think of this as a person who is actively charging their car and they would like some level of amenity to pass their time whilst waiting the 30-40 mins.
The 2nd model is enhancing parking spaces with charging capabilities, the user is going to the location to spend a period of time and can take advantage of the of the extra functionality to charge their. The person is actively doing something else and the car charging is entirely passive.
The problem arises from eCars trying to serve the two use cases in one physical space. There is an instant conflict between the two. The closest analogy I can think of is a hotel with a restaurant. You wouldn't set up the hotel in such a manner that the dining tables and beds occupy the same area. You'd soon find that you couldn't serve anymore meals because their were too many people having a sleep. Imagine turning up for dinner and being told you have to wait up to 12 hours for the table to become available.
If you're on a 12 month contract with an electric utility provider, generally, can you adjust the plan to make the nighly charge bill lesser or would that invalidate the contract?
Probably other threads better suited to this, but here's the answer as best I know it
The official position is that changing plan during the contract period will result in a €50 break contract fee.
In reality if you're switching plans with the same provider they'll waive the fee if you ring them and explain the situation
Changing suppliers during contract will trigger the break contract fee
However it's always worth remembering that if the savings are more than €50 it's worth changing regardless
In general I agree but I think the main obstacle would be providing a grid connection big enough for the complete set of chargers
For example if you augmented Ecars fake hubs with an additional 2x22kW pillar, you'd need to increase the grid connection by another 44kW, bringing it to 244kW (150+50+44)
I imagine this would increase the cost for a minimal gain. The AC chargers make less money than the DC ones, so why bother with the AC pillars at all?
Ecars have already said they don't want to install any more AC chargers since there's no money in it
Some of the big Gridserve sites have AC chargers as well but considering they have megawatt sized grid connections, a couple of AC chargers is a drop in the ocean
The only way to make money on AC seems to be to deploy it at scale in a single location, like a multistorey carpark
For example the AC chargers in Pavilions Swords always seem to have 3-4 cars charging there. 2 hours free parking is enough time to get a decent enough charge, especially if you can take 11kW or more. I wouldn't be surprised if that was the only profitable AC site
Meanwhile the chargers in Stephens Green shopping centre were empty last weekend. Might be that people who were paying €4.20 per hour for parking weren't interested in giving Q park any more money (certainly I was one of them 😜)
If I was in dire need of a charge, the Pavillions would be the last spot I'd go. Nearly always blocked by a non-charging EV driver just looking for a nice spot by the entrance. I know the cable run would be longer, but they should have put them in less premium real estate, perhaps over other side of each floor (overlooking the old Superquinn site).
As for the 2x22kW pillars, given the rarity of 22kW OBCs, you could half that to 2x11kW pillars and still benefit 90% of vehicles.
I'd be wary on those EB charging units. They have installed them in Q park car parks in Dublin. I used the one in Christchurch before Christmas. Plugshare said the charging was free but the parking wasn't.
Firstly they took something like €60 as a "hold" on my card. Turns out the charging wasn't free and it was 65cents a KW on a 22kw "slow" charger.
Lets continue to look at the facts. There's a 10 hour timeframe for the AC charger, vs a 45 minute for the DC. Now, in reality, if both should be there they should be separate units in distinct locations. The 10 hour AC slow charger being in use shouldnt have any impact on the DC. But in reality, it does, as one DC space is blocked by the AC destination/slow charger user.
Your analogy was probably tested a couple of millennia ago and found unsuitable, but the answer was not to get rid of the restaurant or the hotel or charge 5000 shekels per hour.
There is a need for both AC and DC, even in places that some might not see a need for, but going back up, a rav4 was willing to charge and had no other option, damned when they charge, damned when they don't.
I just don't understand why people need to remove one type of user or make it expensive for everyone including themselves.
New to this forum, and hopefully someone could help with a query I have.
EasyGo seems to consolidate the chargers from ESB and IONITY, and is showing the same rates as those from native accounts of ESB and IONITY. Would it be the most convenient to sign up to EasyGo, to have a single payment gateway while benefiting the coverage of all 3 vendors? Any hidden tricks or issues with EasyGo that I missed?
Thanks.
The answer was to physically separate the beds and the dining tables. Which is exactly what people are calling for in the case of mixing the AC charge sockets with DC charging infrastructure.
We want it removed so we can get access to the infrastructure and use it as intended, would you believe a petrol station and dc charging space should mix. Would you be happy sitting at a petrol station waiting up to 45 minutes for the EV to finish it's charge so you can spend 5 minutes adding petrol?
Easygo charge more than ecars on the ecars chargers, charge more than Ionity on the ionity chargers, and their customer service is non existent.
Many thanks for the feedback. I didn't spot that EasyGo has "+VAT" when showing their rates for ESB or IONITY chargers.
It's a pity that an universal app/gateway does exist to cover all charging networks in a cost effective way. And customers end up with having to set up multiple accounts and hold onto various cards/fobs/apps to ensure they can access different charger vendors when needed.
I have to disagree with you there, there's usually at least one or two chargers free out of the 10 available
They do get blocked, and I agree they should be further from the door to discourage that
The big difference however is that a blocked charger only reduces the available chargers by 10%. For most other AC sites that would be 50% unavailability. I know which odds I'd prefer
My point still stands that for ESB it's probably their most profitable AC site. Did a quick check today and there's 6 chargers currently in use. Vast majority were started around lunchtime, so probably people only staying for the 2 hours, but that's still decent utilisation
I'd nearly go one step further and increase it to an AC43 site in that case.
If you provide an equal number of parking spaces as you have charge plugs the AC/DC argument becomes a non-issue. Of course the spaces v chargers issue is one of ecars biggest problems
