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.
One of the few good things to come out of the forecourt operators lockout of eCars. eCars can now focus on putting chargers in partnership with shopping centres and leave the interurban routes to the existing forecourt operator.
I would of much preferred these units to go near the Krispy Kreme instead of PC World, better options that way for snackage whilst charging.
In the interest of my good health it's probably best to locate the charger as far away from Krisy Kreme and Boojum as possible 😂
Also it's probably good the chargers aren't in the best parking spaces, much less likely to be hogged
I absolutely agree that Ecars should be going for supermarkets and shopping centres. I think a lot of people are going to prefer charging there instead of some smelly forecourt or a run down motorway services
My main concern as I said is traffic, I'm not sure I'd be happy sitting in 15 mins of traffic after 2-3 hours motorway driving to get a charge
It's just the duality of use cases, I used to live in the area, there are many houses without private driveways it's great to see chargers in a location where you can get a decent charge whilst doing something else. eCars will make far more money from those customers who use the charger once a week than from the customers who want to charge 3 times a year as they pass through Dublin on their way to somewhere else.
I'm sure the N3/M3 service stations will cover the charging for people passing through allowing the D15 haters to breeze past without having to worry themselves about an adventure into the less prosperous sides of the city.
One stunning piece of information I learned recently directly from eCars is that if a customer presses the emergency stop button, simply pulling it out again will not reactivate the charge point. They need to send out an engineer to reset it. This explains the massive amount of the cars charger is not working along various routes.
Lots of folk hit it trying to remove a car that’s been there too long (in their view, rightly it wrongly) or because their can’t won’t start/stop charging and they think “resetting” the charger will sort it.
in any case there needs to be more education for the wider population, especially with the substantial increase in EVs on the roads, on both how to charge and the etiquette. We’ve a long way to go!
It's not "will" it's "may"
Pulling out the switch again often fixes the issue. There's a small amount of times it doesnt.
I;'ve had to use the emergency stop a few times over the course of the years, and it never required an engineer to visit.
I wonder what this will mean, if anything, for the existing Blanchardstown "hub"?
I had an experience once where the charger sh!t the bed about 2 mins into a charging session
Charger locked up completely, wouldn't charge and wouldn't end the session. Plug was locked into the Chademo port and the release switch wouldn't work
Had no choice but to hit the E-Stop to release the cable and reset the charger
When the charger reset it was still borked, don't think it was the E-Stop that did it but it probably needed an engineer to fix it
The pattern to date seems to be to remove the existing chargers
It'd be nice if they swapped out the 150kW unit for 3 more 50kW CCS+Chademo units for a total of 4, and made the 4 (hopefully) 200kW units into CCS only
They haven't removed the 50kW triple head in Obama Plaza. Is that planned?
They did in Mayfield, dunno what the plan for Obama plaza is
Pretty silly IMO, are they really so short of 50kW units they need to move them elsewhere and those units are better suited to slower charging cars like Gen1 Leafs
Looks like the 3/4 car "hub" in Donegal town has really started at pace. I think the grey thing is a new substation. Just up the road from the 2 charger laghy "hub" supemacs on site and parking is not normally an issue. Chargers seem.to.be far from normal parking so won't be ICEd as much.
Badly needed. There isn't anything faster than 50kW within 80kms as the nearest 150kW is Lunneys Service Station in Carrick on Shannon!
There'll be Ionity hubs in Derry and Sligo soon from the looks of it so that's something for the longer trips
It would be pretty nice if one didn't have to travel to another county (or country) to find a HPC
This is great news, there is a 38kV substation across the road from here so hopefully power is not too big of a problem and we can get 200kW chargers
Impressive cable length in the new charger in Westport…..
Ground markings in the coming days, where have I heard that before? 😏
Give it a year and it will be wrecked. Besides these cables being heavy where some folk will struggle, theres a good few peeps out there just bone lazy and wont bother hanging them up. Seeing it happen with the Applegreen ones already.
That's a tight car-park too though. The ESB charger had the standard car-park spacing rather than the wider EV spots, but just looking at Plugshare now I notice that EasyGo have a charger right alongside the ESB one, but EasyGo have the wider spors and green paint! That's really taking it to ESB!
Didn’t realise how bad Monaghan was for a charge.
3 cars charging at ecars and 4 in the Q. No other fast chargers within 50km
Shame that the 4 AC EasyGO ones in castle Leslie were all ICE’d so couldn’t get an overnight charge
I would have asked at reception for the owners to move. I stayed there a couple of years ago and the staff couldn't have been more helpful.
It must be the bank holiday weekend. Not normally a problem getting a charge there. But it is a main route from Dublin to North Donegal, and there's not much else around.
There's one rapid due to go in to the Old Courthouse carpark in the town, with the Faster project. No idea of any other developments in the area
Ecars Bolton Street, Waterford have removed Chademo, nearest is now easygo in Tramore. Their promise of support until 2024 seems to be out the window, and they wonder why nobody likes them
Had my first view today of "charger hogging". Arrived at a nearby railhead to take the train to work and the Ariya required a charge so I said I'll plug it in and the 9 or so hours I'll be gone would be enough to charge the car fully.
Another car in the other spot which I didn't take a huge amount of notice of. When on the train I looked at the app and noticed that the other car, while plugged in, was not charging as the plug was showing as available. Returned this evening to find that other car still parked up and plugged in. What an inconsiderate asshole having the nerve to leave it there all day without drawing a charge.
I often have to have overnights away and would never dream of leaving the car in a charging bay for excess hours.
Rant over.
I like them….
If the car was plugged in without starting a charge, the cable wouldn't be locked into the charger. That's not a risk I'd be prepared to take for the sake of a bit of free parking. And remember, kids, it's not big or clever to unplug people engaging in this mean-spirited behaviour...
Touch to pay by credit seems to be an option on the not yet live site east of Waterford. Considering they put these on UK esb chargers years ago it's about time.
This site has chademo for the haters.
Wow, tap to pay, up to 200kW and what looks like 4 spaces to charge in
What's the catch? Betcha it doesn't work in the rain or something 😂
Surely the cable would be locked in place at the car end as long as the car is locked?
A particularly vindictive car owner could unplug the EV hogging the charger and throw their cable on the ground
I would not advocate such behaviour of course, while it's annoying there are legitimate reasons why someone might inadvertently be plugged in and not charging.
They might have swiped the card and run for their train for example and the authorisation could have failed
Interesting observation, Ecars doesn't seem to enforce any geo fencing on their app. Just tried starting some random charger on the other side of the country and it seemed to work (except no car plugged in)
I know a few networks won't allow you to start a charger more than a certain distance from your location
So if someone did have to leave their car on AC and run for a bus or train, they could start the charger afterwards
